Saturday, May 17, 2008

Photo Journal For a day


Hello, this is Dad (Degan). Today I thought I would do a photo journal of what I did all day. The day started off at some time in the middle of the night with Gabi puking all over her room. It was on the ladder, both beds, the floor, the rug, the clean clothes sitting out for the morning, the closet door, etc. Normally it would bug me to be up in the middle of the night cleaning that stuff up, but it wasn't so bad. Here is Gabi in the morning, resting on a chair in our bedroom.

As I left today, here was the rabbit in the front yard. It is always in the front or back of our house. Kind of cute. I wish it would eat more grass so I wouldn't have to mow.

We moved from Phoenix to Russia recently, where we stand in food lines to collect our food. Actually, this is a "coop" near our house where we pay about fifteen dollars and get a basket of produce. There didn't use to be lines, but it has gotten popular lately. In the second photo you can see the baskets--you select from two of them and then fill up your own. Today the special ingredients were mushrooms and sweet potatoes.

While unloading the car after I got home, I noticed the door to the van was open in the garage. We have to leave it open after trips so McKay can play in the car. We just close the garage door and let him play in the car/garage until he is ready to come in.

While unloading my car, somebody went into the house across the street and closed the garage door really fast. The people there will never say hi, and whenever we see them oustide they quickly close their garage and go inside. It is like something out of that movie the Burbs. I think they are burning bodies in their furnace or something.

I made french toast this morning. I asked Danielle to help me cut the strawberries for me to serve with the french toast and she resisted. I put on some classic Mexican tunes while I was cooking and eating. It brought in a good vibe for the day.

Ha ha! McKay pooped his pants and then he stuck his hands in it. There's Karma for you for not helping me cut the strawberries. I would have helped with the diaper but I was still cooking breakfast....except for the break to snap this shot.

McKay looked like this after changing his diaper. Guess he didn't want to get dressed. You probably can't tell, but he is wearing girls cowboy boots. He loves them because they are the only shoes he can put on by himself. He is pretty funny running around in these noisy, heavy boots all the time.

I felt bad that McKay didn't have any shoes he could put on himself, so I took him over to Target after breakfast and bought these sandals. Katie had a nuclear meltdown because she's always wanted this exact kind of sandal....even though she just got a couple new pairs of a different style this month.

While I was at Target, Danielle was heading out the door for training at her new job. Today was going to be a lot like summer camp training with lots of kids half her age being trained for their summer jobs at the same time. [She decided to take a part-time gig at a gym recently because she could get high pay and free summer classes for our kids. Well, during the interview process they lowered the pay and took away the free classes for our kids as part of a new policy. She decided to do the job anyway.] When I got back from Target, Gabi was asleep after having been up all night puking.

A few hours later she came downstairs and was miserable on the couch. Somehow she perked up nicely for a picture and then went back to being miserable again. She should be a dancer or ice skater or something with the ability to smile for the crowd like that.

McKay wasn't feeling well today and appeared to have a fever. You don't ever see him lay his head down (wouldn't it be nice if he did--he's a whirlwind usually). Today he laid his head down all over the house--poor guy.

Katie spent the whole day desecrating the house. This looks cute, I'm not sure what it is, but I can guarantee you she didn't put it away and did this about 20 times over today.

I made home made spaghetti sauce today with the fresh vegetable we got. I used to do this on my mission, so it has been a while. It made for a nice dinner. (By the way, did you notice I cooked for Danielle twice today! Man, do I walk on water or what?)

Here she is, back just in time for dinner with her name tag on.

Oh dang, she distracted me and I melted the top of the vegetable oil bottle on the smooth top range. Oh well, nothing a little piece of plastic bag under the lid can't solve.

Danielle made a smoothie and we drank them outside. Yummie! (1 point Danielle, 2 points Degan, not that anyone is counting). Although I didn't get a picture of it, I had just finished repairing our treadmill before drinking my smoothie. Over a year of having a coat hanger...I'm glad to have it working now. It is only May and already it was 96 degrees today, so I may want to use it soon if I can't get out by 8 a.m. or so for a jog on any given day.

"Hey McKay, let me get a picture of those sandals again." He said cheese because he thought it was a picture of him.

Katie kind of went psycho on us again about the sandals, so Danielle gave in and let Katie spend some gift money that she had on the sandals. Hers are the purple and pink ones. Gabi got pink and white ones (but she didn't have to pay for them out of her gift money because she didn't have sandals already like Katie did).

Alright, well, the kids are down, time to go kick it on the coach downstairs. Happy Saturday!! Oh, and go Lakers!!!! Next stop, the western conference finals and then the championship.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day. Gabi playing a Game Boy game right now and Katie is cleaning her room before she goes to bed.