Drumroll Please!!

Once upon a time Patrick was asleep in bed on a November Friday morning. He was looking forward to the weekend and the fact that he only had to work til noon that day. At about 5:00 a.m. Spencer woke up screaming, no doubt still upset by McCain's loss. Patrick, being the man, shouted at Kiana "Woman! I'm the man and you will get up and make that child stop screaming!". Kiana, though, did not move a muscle; so Patrick repeated the edict. At this point Patrick realized his vocal chords had been paralyzed with fear and that he really hadn't said anything. So after a game of "opossum" Kiana realized that Patrick had probably suffered a stroke and so she got up with Spencer. Patrick, still celebrating his latest victory, slowly drifted back to sleep.
PATRICK!?! What? WHERE ARE YOU!?! I'm on tour with George Strait, no wait I'm still in bed.
Kiana then burst into the room and exclaimed "I think I'm pregnant!". And that's the story of how Patrick ruined a perfectly good mattress.

Sorry that was so long but when you make an announcement like that you want to build up some suspense. Kiana is about 12.5 weeks along and is due July 22nd. At first we both thought it was going to be a girl but now Patrick has started to have a feeling that it might be a boy, which has led him to decide to watch "Rudy" and "Hoosiers" tomorrow.

Today is Spencer's 1st birthday. One year ago all 4lbs 8oz. of him came into the world and he hasn't stopped wiggling since. We sure love him and are sure he'll make a great older brother.

Let's not loose sight...

I just read a great article that I wanted to share: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3815656.

Nobody has ever presented a good argument why Utah doesn't deserve it.

Happy New Year!

It has been an eventful couple of weeks. My grades were finally posted and it turns out they gave me a master's degree. I didn't want to mention it before because grading in the master's program is so subjective that there was always the chance that I would get a string of professors having a bad day and I would have to repeat the semester. But now that they've been posted and only one professor appears to have been randomly handing out grades I can say that I've graduated. When a professor starts out the semester by saying that we have 3 assignments worth 15%, a final worth 10%, and the remaining 75% is class participation. You just know that it's going to come down to throwing papers down the stairs and giving grades based on how far they fly.

Well anyway, Christmas was fun. We had a couple of family parties on the 22nd and the 23rd, but we were lucky enough to have some minor sicknesses that relieved us of those responsibilities. I say lucky enough because it was a lot of fun to spend some time at home just the three of us. Spencer figured out how to open presents so hopefully that skill will benefit him in the future.

New Year's was uneventful. We didn't do much in the way of partying. We looked at it and realized that Spencer was going to wake up at 6:30 a.m. no matter what time we went to bed so we spent time as a family and relaxed.

The highlight of the week, though, was the Sugar Bowl. It was probably the biggest game in Utah history. #4 ranked Alabama is known for being big, fast, and athletic; and most people believed that the Utes couldn't hang with them. In the first quarter Utah jumped out on them and scored 21 points in the first quarter, this was remarkable since Alabama's opponents had only scored 27 points in the first quarter all season. Utah continued to pour it on and wound up winning 31-17. The biggest scam is that Utah is the only undefeated team in the country and just trounced the #4 team and they don't get a shot at the national title.

Holiday Season

Spencer absolutely loves Christmas lights. Every time we turn the tree on he starts hyper-ventilating. And that's not the only thing he loves, he apparently loves getting in trouble for going Paul Bunyan on the tree. Whenever he gets an "UHH-UHH" for touching the tree he starts giggling. I wonder what he must think about us; during the summer we're destroying weeds in the yard, cutting the lawn, and burning wood while camping; come December, though, he takes a nap and all of a sudden there's a tree in the house and mom and dad are acting like green-peace.

Last week we went to our ward party and heard the West Jordan HS Madrigals perform, Spencer loved the music (he only yelled "LOSERS!" twice during the performance). He was waving his arms to the music and screeching at the end of each song. I have to admit, though, that this years version of the madrigals was not quite as impressive as years past. I was never in choir but I have always felt that WJHS's madrigals were some of the best in the state, but this year they need a little work.

Christmas is truly a wonderful time of year. Its been fun so far to watch Spencer's reaction to the magic. He isn't old enough to really enjoy the presents so the feelings of happiness, family togetherness, music, and lights have a greater effect on him. We hope everybody is having a Merry Christmas!

Get a grip!

As Kiana and I have watched Spencer growing up we have noticed we are starting to get a lot more sentimental and worried about missing out on his childhood. We happened to be watching the CMA awards last week and Kiana was telling me about all the songs that make her cry ("You're gonna miss this" by Trace Adkins really gets her). I agree the kid is growing up way to fast.
On Saturday we finally realized that we needed to get a grip. We were riding in the car and a song came on that Kiana mentioned made her almost tear up. I looked down at the console and noticed the artists name. That's when I asked her one question that shook her out of her sentimentality: "Do you realize you're crying about a song sung by a guy named Bucky?"

Getting Caught Up

Well I just got back from LA for a training so I didn't get any pictures posted of our Halloween adventure. Spencer came to work on Friday for trick-or-treating, it appears that animals were the hot costume this year. And so Spencer was a little confused by all of the skunks, horses, lizards, and bumble bees walking around. He was a monkey so he looked just as ridiculous. That night we took cookies to people in the neighborhood. When parents take a kid trick-or-treating that is too little to eat candy they're not fooling anybody. Everybody knows it and it can sometimes look a little pathetic. That is what led us to the reverse trick or treating, we figured Spencer could get the experience of dressing up and knocking on doors and we wouldn't get the embarrassment.

Preparing For Trick or Treating

Today I was thinking of last Halloween when Kiana and I just hung around the house and enjoyed not being out trick or treating. Fast-forward a year and Spencer is here. And though he is still too young to actually grasp the concept of putting on a costume and begging for razorblade-laced tootsie rolls, we feel responsible to take him out anyway. We'll be doing it much more condensed this year with more of a visit-our-friends approach to the evening's festivities.
Last night we carved pumpkins and found out that Spencer does NOT like slimy things. We'll see how he does with tomorrow night and we'll post some pictures of him in his costume.