A Scary Moment

As I mentioned in my last post, we spent one week in Hurricane at my in-law's during the holidays. They haven't had a baby around for quite a while so their house is not exactly baby-proof. Upon our arrival, I gathered the older kids and told them that everyone would have to be extra diligent in watching Mathison in order to keep him safe. Everyone did a great job throughout the week, but by the last night I think we'd all grown a little lax because we'd managed to avoid any major incidences. We were busy packing up, and I'd asked Grandma to watch Mathison. They were busy playing together when Krissia came upstairs and offered to take him. After a while, Krissia got distracted, Jefferson left the door to the basement open, and suddenly Mathison was taking a tumble down 16 cement stairs only covered by a thin layer of carpet. My heart nearly stopped when I heard Krissia scream and the thunk-thunk of my baby on the stairs. Luckily, Krissia caught sight of Mathison as he was just beginning to fall and her quick reflexes allowed her to vault over his rolling body and catch him before he hit the bottom. Mathison was screaming his head off, Del started yelling at the kids for not watching him closely, Jefferson and Grandma were both crying because they felt guilty about what happened, and I was crying from relief that Mathison wasn't seriously hurt. It was quite the circus. Luckily, Mathison escaped with only a few bruises; it scared and upset him more than anything. Isn't it great that kids are so tough and resilient!

Holiday Overview

Well, I'm writing this blog at my mother-in-law's house in Hurricane, Utah, on the last day of our holiday vacation. Again, I've been chastised by family members for letting too much time lapse in between postings (I won't mention any names!). My problem is I think I either have to: a) have earth-shattering news to post or b) have new pictures to accompany my blog. I guess that the entire point of have a blog is sharing life's "everyday" little matters - so I'll try harder to update more regularly:)

We've had a wonderful holiday season, beginning with a trip into SLC a couple of weeks ago to see the lights at Temple Square. If you're wondering where our Christmas card photo came from, it was courtesy of some passersby at Temple Square who snapped them for us! We also took in a movie and ate dinner together. Following that expedition, we had a wonderful ward Christmas party. The kids were out of school early on the 19th - four days before we traveled down to Washington County - so with everyone's help, we took the opportunity to unpack the remaining boxes in the storage room and garage. To quote the Incredibles, we are now "officially" moved in! On the 21st, we made a trip into Provo to finish up our Christmas shopping, then met with some friends (the Daren Gates Family) at Thanksgiving Point to watch the new "National Treasure" movie. The following day, the Jazz Bear was in Price so Jefferson got his autograph and some photos with him. We left for Hurricane on Sunday, the 23rd, after our Sacrament Meeting. I had my doubts about actually spending Christmas so far from home - especially considering the work of hauling everything there and back. However, it was a wonderful decision; we had so many family members come home from out-of-town and I appreciated that we had extra time to spend with everyone playing games and visiting with each other. Some of our days this week have been spent in Cedar City, cleaning up the mess left by the fire and preparing the house for repairs. Again, we feel fortunate that the damage wasn't worse. Our week ended today with the funeral of Pauline Wulffenstein, Del's maternal grandmother. She had been ill for several years, so it was quite a blessing when she passed away a few days before Christmas. Her posterity decided to celebrate her life last night by getting together to eat, share favorite memories, play games, and march to Grandma's favorite music. It was great way to say goodbye to a great lady. All-in-all, we've had a wonderful holiday season so far, but look forward to traveling home tomorrow and resuming our "normal" schedule:)

Bad Luck

Other than celebrating Del's birthday, last weekend wasn't the best one for us. Due to two big storms, Price got about 6-8 inches of snow, which, according to the old-timers, is a little unusual for this area (we loved it - it was a "regular" snow amount in Cedar City). Anyway, the kids all wanted to go out and play in it on Saturday, and Krissia was invited by a group of friends to go sledding. I wasn't crazy about the idea - especially after I saw the size of the hill - but Krissia assured me she would be fine. Well, one hour later she called me in tears - the sled had rolled and she had hurt her knee. Once we got her home, she could hardly hobble around and cried every time she tried to straighten it, although it wasn't that swollen. We decided to hold off on taking her in to the doctor, and tried intensive icing, regular ibuprofen, and a wrap. It seems to be slowly getting better on its own; she has a swim meet today - we'll see how it goes. Hopefully, the injury won't hurt her chances of competing at state. Then, on Sunday, Del had to run home for a minute between church meetings and noticed that he had several messages on his cell phone. To his surprise - and horror - we learned that our house in Cedar City had caught on fire that morning. When we were finally able to get a hold of Kellen Jones (he's been managing the property for us), we learned that the damage wasn't as bad as we'd initially feared, and that all of the renters were fine. It appears that there was faulty wiring in the ceiling above the bar which caught the insulation on fire. Luckily, the renters hadn't yet left for church when the fire started, so they were able to quickly notify the fire department. As a result of their prompt response, the damage is isolated to the kitchen, and the roof itself seems to be okay. We feel so lucky - things could have been much worse.

Update!

After a great start, I realized that I'd become a little lax in keeping our blog updated. My excuse was that our regular computer is getting fixed, and I wanted to add some new pix with my entries, but Del reminded me that I don't always have to have a new photo everytime I blog:) Here's a quick update on what everyone has been up to:



DEL just celebrated a birthday (we won't say which one) and said he had a nice day, although our schedule was so crazy last weekend, we ended up celebrating it a day late. He was quite busy throwing a float together so that CEU would have an entry in Helper's Christmas Light Parade; the float looked great and took 2nd place overall. Del just learned that in addition to serving in the Stake Young Men's Presidency, he will start teaching the gospel doctrine class in our ward after the first of the year. He's very excited as this is one of his favorite callings!



KIM is just trying to stay sane while keeping up with everybody! She's decided that whoever coined the term "stay at home mom" didn't have teenagers - she's a "stay in the car" mom. Kim was recently called as a counselor in the Primary presidency and is enjoying working with the children. In her spare(?) time she is trying to catch up on her scrapbooking, enjoys an occasional trip to Provo for shopping, and tries to stay in touch with friends and family.



BRONSON is quite busy with school. Besides taking several honors and AP classes, he competes on the debate team and has been quite successful in this arena. Bronson is currently taking Driver's Ed and hopes to get his license near the first of the year. He is also in the middle of completing his Eagle Scout project, which is collecting Rx glasses and preparing them to be sent to 3rd world countries. Bronson is working with a local optometrist who volunteers with a national organization to distribute the glasses; he said that Bronson is welcome to accompany them (all expenses paid) to Mexico next February when they deliver the glasses. Of course, Bronson said yes:) Bronson also went on a date last weekend, his first since moving to Price. Neither one of them could drive, so they met at the movie theater. We later learned that Bronson didn't offer to pay for her ticket or refreshments, so hopefully she'll still want to go out with him again sometime!



KRISSIA is busy, busy, busy. Whether it is hanging out with friends, attending school activities, or competing on the swim team, she is always on the go. Since setting a new school record in the 100 backstroke a month ago, she has broken it again twice; I think the school is going to wait until the end of swim season before buying a new plaque! Because she is so nice, cute, and such a good swimmer, half of the boys on Carbon's swim team think they're in love with her:) Krissia was recently inducted as a member of the National Honors Society; we are so proud of her desire to be an excellent student!



JEFFERSON has made friends with all of the kids in the neighborhood and especially enjoys hanging out with the two girls near his age that live on our street. His teacher reports that he's doing well in school, although sometimes he tends to talk too much:) He's rehearsing his lines for the play he was cast in ("Shadowlands", to be produced by CEU) and looks forward to trying out for the community's production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" next month.



MATHISON continues to be our resident vacuum cleaner, finding all sorts of non-food treasures that have escaped his mother's eye. His new favorite room is the bathroom, where he loves to flush the toilet and unroll all the toilet paper off the roll before shredding it. He still isn't walking yet, which I am grateful for as he seems to get into enough mischief by just crawling around! Mathison loves the Christmas decorations; I think our tree was fully decorated for about 12 hrs before I finally gave in and took the ornaments of the bottom third! Needless to say, we have no presents under the tree, either.

Mathison turns one!

Mathison is one year old today - I can't believe how fast that happened! Since he's so little and doesn't know any differently, we've decided to wait and have his birthday party later this week when we're down for Thanksgiving so we can celebrate this event with family. Here's a spotlight on Mathison:

MY STATS:

Height: 28.5 inches (25%)
Weight: 18 lb 10 oz (5%)
Head: HUGE! (90%)
Teeth: 2

MY TRICKS:

waving bye-bye, blowing kisses, sniffing my nose, giving five, "tossing it in the oven" (patty cake), raising my hand if you ask me who's cute, playing peek-a-boo. I'm not walking yet, but it shouldn't be too much longer as I can stand a few seconds on my own!

THINGS I LIKE:

Taking walks, splashing in the bath, dancing and "singing" to music, looking at books and turning the pages, playing with my brothers and sister, cats, any food that is on someone else's plate

THINGS I DON'T LIKE:

sleeping, rice, having my face or bottom wiped, vaccums, having non-food items taken out of my mouth


HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATHISON - WE LOVE YOU!!!

Super Swimmer Sets School Record

As most of you know, Krissia has been performing extremely well in her swimming competitions, especially since moving to Price. She has improved her PR's in several events, posting times fast enough to place her in finals at State. This past weekend, she brought her performance up another notch by setting a new school record as a freshman in the 100 yd backstroke with a time of 1:08.33. Krissia was pretty excited, but said that she doesn't expect it to hold very long - she plans on breaking it as many times as she can in the next 3 years before she graduates!

Idols and Apostles

Actually, the "idol" has to do with a singing contest - not a statue. CEU decided to have their first "American Idol" contest on campus and I was asked to be a judge (hmmm, wonder how that happened!). Open auditions were held last Monday night, and the finalists competed during lunchtime the remaining days of the week, with one finalist being eliminated by popular vote each day. The judges critiqued these lunchtime performances; it was pretty fun - even when I was booed by the entire baseball team for "dissing" one of their players who was a finalist. During that week, Del had to fly to San Fransisco for a student activities conference that he was presenting sessions for. Another CEU advisor and two student body officers were with him, as they were attending workshops at the conference. There had been terrible fog in the city all week, delaying flights, and last night was no exception. As their 6:30 departure time passed and 8:30 was approaching, the tired CEU crew started complaining among themselves until one of the girls thought she recognized a lady sitting near the gate next to them. This girl had recently attended a fireside giving by Kristin Oaks - Dallin H. Oaks' wife - and thought that the lady looked just like her. Del encouraged the student to introduce herself, but the student wasn't certain if it was Sister Oaks or not, and the woman seemed deep in conversation with another lady seated next to her. Any doubts about this woman's identity vanished when Elder Dallin H. Oaks came walking around the corner, with the newest apostle - Elder Cook - in tow! Del, the students, and the other advisor hurried over to introduce themselves; after all, it's not everyday that you meet an apostle in person - let alone, two of them. The apostles and their wives were returning to Salt Lake City from a trip to Asia, and their flight was announced 2 minutes before Del's flight was finally called to board. As a result, Del and the students bumped into the church leaders again near the baggage claim, and Elder Oaks even gave Del a "high five" when he passed him in the hall!

Visitors

Recently, the town of Price has received an influx of visitors from the southern part of the state. The reason? Why, the Beatty Family of course! We've been lucky to have several familiar faces come to visit - The Rick Beatty Family, Mom & Dad Gubler (they stayed for a grand total of 15 min - you know how Dad is), Bronson's friend David Solomon, Eva Beatty, and Mom & Dad Beatty. If your family is looking for a fun, action-filled vacation, then .......book it in Provo and swing by to visit us on the way home. Just kidding! There are a surprising amount of fun activities here, especially if you enjoy the outdoors. We hope to have more visitors soon!