Wow, a ton has happened in the past few weeks, so I'll do my best to bring you all up to speed. I'll do the pictures posts after this one but put everything else on this one to just make it easier.

I'm not even sure when my last post was (since I can't currently see that screen) but I'm guessing somewhere around the middle of November. Well, we have been busy (I know...nothing new) and we've had a lot of fun/stress/etc.

First, the kiddos ended the first trimester and both aced everything. They got certificates for being role models and good examples by working hard to earn those grades. We are very proud of our kids. Not saying it was all self motivated work, but they reached the goal even if it did take some pushing from mom and dad. Great job Tyson and Anna! We are happy to have super smart kids!

My computer crashed. I know many people have had this experience before, but I never have, and I've been really humbled. I just thought that since I had just bought my wonderful laptop 5 months previous, there could be no possible way for anything bad to happen. I was wrong. I had two friends (really smart, really techie friends) look at the machine but they were not able to recover ANYTHING. I have all my pictures from 2010 and before on another hard drive, but all of 2011 was lost. I am SO, SO, SO glad I have put pictures on my blog! It means I still have my favorite pictures. Woo hoo! I did lose a bunch of really important SUPAF documents though and that is making me very sad. I have to re-do all of that. SO much work. I also lost every song I have ever written or arranged. I'm even more sad about that. I will be spending lots and lots of time re-writing it all :( On the plus side, I now have an online back-up to help prevent me from losing it all again. Another plus......I found the step up laptop on sale during black Friday and TOTALLY braved the crowds and stood in line to score one. An even bigger plus was when my 2nd friend put a new hard drive on the dead computer. Now I have two working laptops. So, in the end it's all bitter sweet.

Anna had her b-day (of which pictures and another post will be coming).

Mike and I have had lots of concerts in which some of the most amazing and talented students performed. We just really love our students and think they are fabulous.

Anna is in the Nutcracker which starts this week. She is a baby mouse (like last year) and a caroler. She will be amazingly adorable. Mike and I will be out of town to a music conference in Chicago during the first few days. Mike's mom will be taking over for us and then my family will step in at the end of the week. We are hoping it will be worth the stress of getting everything ready to go :/ I'm not convinced yet.

Oh, and we are ready for Christmas. Go us!

These are Brayden's answers for his blog post. So cute.

All about my Mom and Dad

How old is your mom? 5 Your Dad? 4
What is your mom's fav. color? Pink
What is your mom's fav. food? Don't know Your dad? cheese
How tall is your mom? Big Your dad? Big
How strong is your dad? He always does this! (arms out and flexed)
What do you like best about your dad? He's great
What is your mom's favorite TV show? This is hard
What is your mom's first name? Mom Your dad's? Bob

All about Brayden

Age: 3
Fav. color: Green
How tall? Big
Fav. TV show: Phinneas and Ferb
What does Brayden do at school? eats snacks and plays

These are Tyson's answers to questions for his post.

1. What is your happiest memory? "The first time I got Lego's"
2. Why do you like being a kid? "It's fun."
3. One word to describe you would be: "happy"
4. What advice would you give your parents? "do whatever you do"
5. If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why? "A dog to be cute"
6. What do you like to do for fun? "play"
7. Tell about a funny time in your life. "I don't know"
8. What is your favorite thing to do? Why? "Fun stuff. It's fun."
9. What is your favorite thing to do with your friends? "Play"
10. What do you love most about your sibling? "There (they're) funny"
11. What was the nicest thing you did for someone? "Clean up"
12. What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now? "On a mission"
13. What is your favorite thing to do in the summer? "Play video games"
14. What would be the ideal allowance? Tell me how you would use it. "1,000,000: a house and car"
15. What do you think makes a person good-looking? "face"
16. Name two things we should do as a family on the weekend. "be together, be happy"
17. What is the grossest thing you can think of? "smelly feet"

This is a list of questions Anna answered for a blog post. I copied her 1st grade writing.

1. What is your happiest memory? "Wen we went to Disneyland."
2. Why do you like being a kid? "Cus I get to be with my mom + dad."
3. One word to describe you would be: "happy"
4. What advice would you give your parents? "Work"
5. If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why? "Dog cus it is cuit"
6. What do you like to do for fun? "Mack (make) art"
7. Tell about a funny time in your life. "Wen I wus laen (layin') here and I farted"
8. What is your favorite thing to do? Why? "Mack (make) art"
9. What is your favorite thing to do with your friends? "play"
10. What do you love most about your sibling? "Funne"
11. What was the nicest thing you did for someone? "Mayk (make) bread"
12. What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now? "car license"
13. What is your favorite thing to do in the summer? "swimin"
14. What would be the ideal allowance? Tell me how you would use it. "10,000, dog"
15. What do you think makes a person good-looking? "the clos (clothes)"
16. Name two things we should do as a family on the weekend. "play, ?"
17. What is the grossest thing you can think of? "thro up"

So, silly thing. My arm has had that tingly feeling like it's asleep or like blood is not going to it for about 3 weeks. I went to my neuro (because he's basically my main doc) and he ordered some tests. I don't have them back yet, but I thought I'd just share the testing with you because it's CRAZY!

So, they have this machine that outs out electric impulses every 3 seconds or so. He taped the electrodes in certain places on my hand and then placed the metal dowel looking thing on my arm over a main nerve. Then he shocked me. He raised the output every between impulses so that it got stronger each time until it hurt and my arm was moving on it's own (weird). It measures the time it takes the electricity to get from on point to another. So me moved the electrodes all over my hand and arm then did the same on my good arm to compare.

After that torture was over, he took a needle and put it into different places in my hand and arm until he reached the nerve. He did both arms to compare. I don't know what that tested but it was rather unpleasant. I acted like it was nothing though. I just kept talking through it all. He would ask if I was really ok, and I used my normal response of "Hey, nothing is as bad as brain surgery" (which is very true.....childbirth included). So I pretend like I am rock solid when really I'm like a little whiny girl inside.

I have a friend who had something similar happen to him in the same place and he ended up with surgery. They cut him open at the elbow and buried the nerve in his muscle. I would love to avoid doing that. In fact, I may just deal with a numb arm rather than that!

I decided a long time ago this blogs purpose was to record our family story. I really like having the blog as a way to keep a journal about what we do, but I have become rather slack on recording what I actually think and feel.

I went to a RS meeting last night about family history and different ways to approach it. I like this way a lot because it doesn't take a lot of creativity on my part. I add pictures, the info that goes along with them, and I'm done. I have printed one blog book from this blog and last night I felt encouraged to finish printing the books from the last 4 years. I love the idea of having our family info sitting in our home for my kids to flip through. We want to get a copy for each of our kids as well. How wonderful that would be! They would have the sweet details of their childhood at their fingertips. It's more than just pictures....it's really a story.

The women in our ward have such great ideas about how to document everything and how to do it with little cost. One sister shared about how she took her Grandmothers journals and typed them all. She went further than that, however, and researched every single thing she wasn't familiar with and link the words to a picture or description of it so the reader would know what her Grandma was talking about. She put the interactive document on a CD for her family- a document with over 700 pages! You would have to be a lover of the written word to get through all of that. WOW! She amazed me!

I can't ever imagine that I will do something so grand, but I can do the small task of keeping track of myself, my husband, and my kids. If it's all I can do, then it's what all do. Maybe later on in life I will do more, but not now. It exhausts me to even think of it. The point is, as long as we are doing something, it will be worth a lot later on. I wish blogs had existed years ago. I would have kept a better record of my teenage life (even if all it talked about was dramatically STUPID events).

So, there you go. My thoughts on family records.