Well it is the Stake Tournament

When we were first married in our first ward in Twin Falls, we went to dinner at a friend's house.

Over the course of dinner, church basketball came up. She was very anti-church basketball, so much so that he did not get to play. He was there at every game, wearing jeans, but was not allowed to play at all.

I remember thinking she was a little extreme. That I would never tell my husband what to do. That he is a grown man and can take care of himself, even if a basketball game gets a little crazy. I mean, what is the worst that can happen?

A couple of weeks ago, I had to fight my protectice urges as I watched a 6'10", 300 lb(ish) man play against Jared at a church basketball game. Jared's a pretty big guy, but this guy was MEAN. There were no refs and they were supposed to call their own fouls. Guess who didn't call any fouls on himself and just threw elbows and shoulders and hands like crazy? Yeah, I was a little bit irritated.

But everyone survived, so I moved on.

Until we went to the first game of the Stake Tournament and I saw we were playing his team again. Things got a little testy, and I could tell Jared was pretty frustrated, but OTHER GUY from our team was getting the brunt of the bullying. After taking a nasty charge, OTHER GUY went down to the other end of the court and tried to make a lay-up. BIG GUY blocked him and hit him pretty hard.

OTHER GUY from our team was done. He swung and punched BIG GUY in the jaw. Craziness ensued. Everyone from both teams were trying to get them apart. BIG GUY kept trying to charge at OTHER GUY, and it took several guys to slow him down and stop him before BIG GUY got to OTHER GUY. In all fairness, OTHER GUY may have egged it on. A lot. Several guys were hit by the swinging arms of the BIG guy, including Jared.

Do you ever wonder how you would react in a difficult situation? Jared and I have had this conversation several times. He wasn't sure if he would be the guy who would step up. What I learned last night? He would take a bullet, or step in front of a charging bull.

EVERY time the bull charges.(In this case, 5-6 times)

And I did not enjoy watching it. At all. Will he be banned from church basketball? No, but I just might understand my friend's opinion a little more.

PS- Yes, I think it was a little heroic. He's a good guy, what can I say? ; )

Happiness

After enjoying a whole week of having Jared home and a fun weekend with both sides of the family, I was bracing myself for a rough Monday. It is like the kids have to decompress or something, we are all usually coming off of sugar highs, and there is always plenty of laundry and cleaning to do. Oh, and Jared has class on Monday nights, so the day always seems long to me.

Maddie woke up first, and she cried when Jared left for work. So she and I just cuddled and talked for 45 minutes before the others woke up. She is a talker, so smart and funny. I love it when she pinches her thumb and index finger together and says, "I love you to the moon and back."

Maddie and Briggs took afternoon naps at the same time, so Emma and I got to have some good cuddle time, too. Over an hour of just the two of us. She would just randomly turn and give me a kiss, then lay her head back on my shoulder. She has the most tender heart and loves to help me.

Then I let the girls watch a movie after dinner so Briggs and I got about an hour of tickling, giggling and blowing raspberries. He already knows how to tease me! After I kiss him he tries to kiss me. So sweet and slobbery. But I love it.

It is days like today that I just love being a mom! I'm always grateful to be a mom, but we all need days like these every once in a while to give us an extra boost. I truly love them each SO much and can't imagine what my life would be like without them.

Oh, and if that wasn't heaven enough, Jared got home from class early, like an hour and a half early.

It was just a good, simple day and I don't want to forget it.

House Projects: #2 Balusters finished!

We came up with this clever little idea to paint the baluster. Jared got an 8 foot 2 x 4 and drilled holes in it for us to place each baluster in. Basically a painting rack!
Got them done! And we are very happy! It definitely makes the staircase less obvious in the room. We really wanted to buy metal balusters but for just the new balusters it would have cost over $500. We ended this project with about $50 in paint/wood glue, etc costs.

House Projects: #3- Ceiling Fans

I forgot to take a "before" picture of our ceiling fans, but this picture comes pretty close... we have one in the living room and one over the dining room table.
We used some Rustoleum primer and paint and these were the results. I am pretty excited about how they turned out!! Oh, and we turned the fan blades over because they were black on the other side.

House Projects: #2- Balusters

Woke up this morning feeling ambitious. We, or least I, really dislike this staircase. It's in a kind of awkward spot in our house. But I think the thing that really bothers us the most are those WHITE balusters. So we spent a couple of hours sanding them down and then removed them. And we are currently in a construction zone... trying to keep our children safe and all that good stuff. Hoping to be showing you the AMAZING finished result really soon!!

House Projects: #1- Kitchen Knobs

We have been doing a lease-to-own on our house, and we officially bought it in January. We were so excited to get to work doing all of our projects and updates that we have planned. Hopefully I'll be showing you lots of pictures of the things we've done and plan to do. But the first thing we did was git rid of the awful gold and white kitchen cupboard knobs. This made a HUGE difference!

Ninja Night Skiing

We have a small ski area about 15 minutes from us, and we were able to go night skiing a couple of times last month. Oh so cold but fun! I took this picture of us on my cell phone as we were headed up on the lift. I couldn't help but notice the similarities between us and ninjas. But we were warm!!

Mitt & Briggs

When I found out that Mitt Romney was coming to Idaho Falls, I decided I needed to go hear from him in person. I left the girls with my sister-in-law(Thanks, Mandee!) and took Briggs with me.

We left early, got there early and still hiked in to Skyline High School! After trudging through mud, snow and everything in between, I neared the school and was stopped by someone headed back to their car because they wouldn't let her take her purse in. She was worried about my diaper bag. I was not excited to go back to my car with Briggs and carseat in tow, so I went to the school office and asked them if they would hold my bag.

Not only did they hold my bag, they led me through the back hallways, past secret service, black curtains, etc. and up the stairs so I had a better view and somewhere to sit. I was very grateful. I had to get a picture of Briggs with Romney in the background.

My mom and her friend were meeting me there but the gym I was in filled up and they sent everyone else to the other gym.

The entire experience was interesting and I was so glad I could go. Briggs and I went down to the gym floor to meet Mitt after his speech was over. Sorry the pictures are so fuzzy.

Ballerinas

We were given a bag of hand-me-down toys and dress-ups just when I wasn't sure we would make it through the winter without something new to play with. Emma and Maddie particularly LOVE the ballet shoes and dresses. They spent a whole morning dancing around in these. Thanks, Paige, for sharing your things with us!

Politics

I'm not sure how many people know this about me, but I majored in Pre-Law. And I LOVE it. I find government and law and politics fascinating. So when Idaho held their Republican Caucus so early this year, I had to be there.

We are living in Bannock County and they held their Caucus in the ballroom at ISU. Really? There were over 2,000 people! They opened up extra rooms, and there were NO chairs in the whole building available! I took this picture from where I was standing in the biggest room. Doesn't do it justice, but I thought it was impressive to see how many people came.

They gave each of us a small stack of ballots. Each ballot had all the candidates listed on it. The plan was to have everyone vote and if there wasn't a 50% majority, then they drop the least voted-for candidate and go again until there was a clear winner.

Before voting, each candidate had a representative speak for them.

A group of high school kids canvassed the room picking up ballots. They they and the Social Studies department from Century High School counted the votes. It was actually pretty efficient and went fairly fast.

Romney won in our county by an overwhelming amount. I think he got somewhere around 1800 votes of the 2050 or so.

Plankster

Looked over to see Emma planking tonight. Cracked us up!