Back at it

School is in session! It's been a weird week. It's hard to come back from a break as long as the Christmas one and get back into the swing of things. I'm still trying to remind myself that I have a whole semester to accomplish the tasks before me. It's a struggle that I have at the beginning of each one. The teachers give you a syllabus of everything you will need to do, and it's hard to tell myself it'll be okay.

I'm taking New Testament for my institute course. Brother Harding is my teacher. He began his CES career in Lovel over 20 years ago. He still has all the energy he did back then. I think it will be a great course. I have 3 classes I am taking for my master's. I don't think they'll be difficult, but they will be a lot of work. One of them is research methods. I'm not so sure about that one. It isn't my favorite subject.

I also am a TA for a class this semester. It's a little different than the one from last semester. It's the same class, just a different format. There are over 100 students in the class. I taught for the first time on Thursday. I think it went okay. I went over my alotted time, but I think the students still understood what I was trying to say. I enjoyed it. Being critiqued by the professor isn't a fun thing. I always hate being told how to improve. Not good for the ego.

Happy Birthday, Bryan

Happy Birthday to my hot-stuff brother, Bryan.

Christmas Break - 2nd Half

The rest of Christmas break went by way too quickly. I was home for over 3 weeks, but it only felt like 1. I miss being able to see the nieces and nephews more often. I was going to go to Gillette to visit Bryan and his family, but I was sick too much of the time. So, I stayed home.

Christmas was fun. Nicole's family was there. Aunt Susan came from Oregon for Sariah's baptism. We had a full house.

Nicole's brother Kletey with Bekah and Whitney on Christmas morning.

It seemed there was a theme most of the week...trying to see who was the strongest of the boys. To test this, they had the girls get on their backs to see who could do the most push-ups. This is just one of the many photos. Whitney, Bekah, and Sariah on Kletey's back.

Bryan and his family came over the day after Christmas. This is a picture of Hannah and Whitney wrapped like babies in their blankets from Grandma H. They had ring suckers in their mouths that looked like binkies. Silly girls.

A day or two after Christmas Eli blessed his and Kristin's new baby, Ava. Here is a picture of her with my mom.

Picture of me with Eli's family.

Elle, BrookeLynn, Eli, Shawnee, Ava, Kristin

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is always a special occasion for our family. Especially since my oldest niece Sariah was born on Christmas Eve 8 years ago. For the past couple of years we have headed to Powell to eat breakfast at McDonald's. The kids get to play and we get to eat. I think we're going to have to do something different from now on because Sariah is getting too tall to play their.

Here is a picture of Sariah and I on her birthday.

This is Sariah getting her hair done by Aunt Nicole for her baptism. She actually looks pretty happy considering just a few minutes before that she was screaming at me because I was puting in her earrings. (She had her ears pierced not too long ago and are still tender. She doesn't "really" cry very often, so we knew it was real.)

This is of Sariah and her dad Erik before heading to the church for her baptism.

After the baptism we headed over the the church gym for our annual Mayes' Family Christmas Eve Dinner. We have grown so big over the years that we can no longer meet at just one home. This year it seemed small because it was the "off" year for family to come home. Also, Richard's family had their own Christmas Eve at their house. (We missed them and the little ones.) One tradition that we have on Christmas Eve is to read the Christmas story and have the little ones dress up for it. I don't think they pay much attention, but they have fun.

Whitney came up to us and stated, "Look, I am a cute little angel." Her grandpa Klete laughed at that one. (I really like the red-ringed mouth from the punch. Matches her dress to a T.)

Here are the majority of the little ones. My mom got to tell the story this year. The kids generally listen to her better that some of the others.

We also had a Fish Pond for the children under 12 years old. This has been a tradition in the family since my great-grandpa's generation. Since some of the families are getting pretty darn big, I decided I would cover it this year and get small gifts for the children. It makes Aunt Shawnee all the more popular. We usually put up a sheet so the "fish" can hide behind it. My mom and brother Mike got to help on the other side. My mom said that the children's faces when they got their "fish" was one of pure joy. I wish I could have seen them. I did get a lot of hugs afterwards, though.

Tragic but True

I drove back to Logan today. On the way I listened to the radio, which played news every hour. I heard some tragic stories.

1. A lady in Florida drowned her 5 year old grandson in their bath tub. The reason? So he wouldn't grow up with divorced parents.

2. A lady in the midwest (I want to say OH, but I could be wrong) recently went to McDonald's and order some chicken nuggets. When she found out they didn't have any, she became furious. She ended up punching a teller and punching through the glass at the drive thru.

3. A recent study (done in the UK, I think) found that most children didn't learn their first word until they were 3. According to the study, by this age children should know hundreds of words. Their suggestion to help the learning of words? Interact with your children, read to them, and talk with them. Wow, groundbreaking advice. (I think 3 is a little extreme. My nieces were holding full conversations at 2.)