COLLEGE: SVU dunt dunt

All of you Law & Order fans will get that joke. But in this case, the SVU doesn't stand for Special Victims Unit. It stands for Southern Virginia University. It's been decided...Jake is going all the way to an East Coast school for college. It reminds me of that movie 10 Things I Hate About You when she gets her acceptance letter and the dad whines "but that's an East Coast schooool" and she says "thus the appeal!" I'm actually quite excited for him. It's a small, beautiful school in Buena Vista, Virginia. You can check it out here http://www.svu.edu/ if you're interested. We hadn't even heard of it before, but they called us and said Jake could be eligible for a scholarship. He was kind of dragging his feet about the whole college thing, taking his time applying anywhere. So when he didn't apply, they emailed and said they'd waive the application fee. Then when he still didn't get around to it, they called him up and did the app over the phone. I guess they really wanted him! He was also accepted to U of U and U of Arizona, but I'm glad he's going with SVU. It's a private LDS university with about 800 students. That's going to be a great, personal education! They're giving him a scholarship for about 1/2 tuition and room & board, so it makes it more bearable than any other out of state school. We're still trying to figure out how to pay the rest. Looks like it's really time for him to get a job, so if you know of anything... We're really going to miss him, but are SOOO excited for such an amazing opportunity.

Jake is EIGHTEEN !!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jake. What a trend setter...he wore rubber bands on his wrist before it was trendy! He also loved Sponge Bob before he was a common household name. He'd watch it at his grandparents (because we didn't have cable) and tell me all about it. I had to make him a toy out of an actual sponge and pipe cleaner!

I cannot believe my baby burrito is 18 years old! (I can't believe I'm old enough to have an 18 year old!) It seems like time has flown by way too fast. I didn't really think I'd be one to get all emotional about my kids turning 18, but I must admit I got a little teary today when I thought about how little time we really have left with him. He is a joy mostly. This is a big milestone and makes me wonder & hope I've taught him well. I hope I can continue to teach him. He's been applying for scholarships and therefore got a letter of recommendation from a teacher at school. It was such a lovely letter...makes me so proud that others can see all the things I love about Jake. He's always been an independent child with a mind of his own. It was so funny when he was little and we would take him to the park to play, he would be engaging all the parents in conversations. And, I'm gonna brag a little bit here, he gave lectures in nursery about "momentum"! He loved Bill Nye the Science Guy. His mind is a sponge. He's the one to call when you need to phone a friend on Millionaire. Well enough of that. As you remember from the last post, the birthday theme was turning out to be FIRE! So, to totally counteract all of that we took Jake to see a show on the Strip. We went to Le Reve at the Winn... it's a really cool Cirque du Solei show with a water theme. We all loved it! I'd never seen a Cirque show before. I know, pathetic for a native Las Vegan! It was everything I though it would be: awesome, beautiful, strange, creepy, amazing! Here are a couple of pictures from before & after the show (oh how I wished we could take pictures of the show itself!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKEMAN!

The theme for this year's birthdays is FIRE!

At least that's what Jake pointed out when he noticed a trend for the weekend of Aidan & Jonah's birthdays! Aidan turned 15 on January 28th this year. Since your friends are way cooler than your family when your fifteen, he spent his birthday evening with them...booohooo! Anyway, on Saturday morning we lit his candles and were singing "Happy Birthday" while he goofed off and made his usual silly faces for the picture I was trying to take. Suddenly he smelled something funny. He burnt his hair! He rushed upstairs to put out the flames (just kidding), but luckily he was due for a haircut anyway, so we had to rush right over and get the "burnt" bits trimmed off! Needless to say, I didn't get my picture, but here's his cake...

Continuing with the theme. I was making Jonah a giant cookie for his 13th birthday on January 30. I'd made one last year too, but didn't remember that it doesn't take the whole batch of dough. So I put the entire batch of chocolate chip cookie dough on my pizza stone (with no rim) and patted it into a lovely circle and placed it in the oven. I checked on it midway through and saw that it was running off the edges and dripping all over the bottom of the oven! "Yuck! What a mess I'm going to have to clean up" I thought, but left it in since it wasn't done. A bit later I checked again and the drips were FLAMING in the oven. Aidan got a little freaked and went looking for the fire extinguisher. But I wanted to try to save it, so I just closed the door and turned off the oven and let the flames burn out. Had to open all the window so the smoke alarm wouldn't go off. I did actually save a nice circle from the middle. Funniest part...Jonah slept through the whole thing! An exciting start to the new year! Happy Birthday to my Aidy Boy & my Donut!

PS Jake is scared!

Hello Blogging World!

I am trying to come out of my blogging coma. There have been stirrings lately. When I left you last, Jeff was still unemployed. I got a job soon after my last post, hence the blogging coma. I felt overwhelmed trying to work part time, run my house AND blog! I finally feel like maybe I've got a handle on it, but if you come to my house, just don't look too closely in the nooks and crannies...those don't get as much attention as they used to! I hope my children don't feel the same. I've worked my way up the stair stepper (that's exercise humor because I am now a circuit coach at Curves!) to the perfect work schedule. I'm working M-Thurs 9am - 1pm. AND Jeff got a job too. He's coming up on his one year anniversary in March. Way too much has happened to try and catch up last year, so since it's only 2 months into the new year, I'll start fresh with this year's stuff. I hope I remember how to do this...