Lucas Turns 7

Lucas had his 7th birthday on Sunday. He was so excited that morning and church was extra hard to get through. He just wanted to come home and open his presents. We got home from church at noon and had his special birthday dinner. He chose ham, rolls, and rice (with soy sauce). Then we sang happy birthday to him and he got to open up all his presents.
Here he is with everything he got. He played all Sunday afternoon with his new army toys and can't wait to wear the BYU stocking hat to the game on Saturday. He is such a great kid and we are so happy to have him in our home! Happy birthday Lucas!

The Fox

One advantage of a field behind our home is the fox that comes to visit during snow storms. I don't know why it's always during a storm or right after but that's when he comes.
We love to watch him hunt for food. Last time he got into a stare down with a cat. It was pretty funny because I think the cat was winning! There was no fight though. The cat and the fox went there separate ways. I'm happy that he came back so early this year. Next year at this time there will probably be construction on the Mountain View Corridor behind our home and not the fox we love to watch.

Happy Halloween

Lucas and Ty had lots of fun this year for Halloween. Ty was a lion (a costume I had from when Lucas was little), and Lucas was a GI Joe ninja.
Lucas went trick or treating with some friends and came back with a full load of candy. He even came in at one point to dump his pumpkin and then he headed back out for more.
Ty did go to a few houses but spent most the night looking out of the window and waiting for kids to come to the door. He does know what chocolate is and was so excited to see some in his pumpkin.

Bryan carved our pumpkins from the garden. My favorite is the one that has fire eyes and a fire mouth. He does a great job every year!

Troublemaker

Each baby is so unique and different. Of course I know that. With Lucas we had no need to put baby locks on anything. It's not that he didn't get into things, but he didn't get into things much. The most we did was get outlet covers so he wouldn't electrocute himself. So, here comes Ty and I think, 'I don't need to get child locks, just outlet covers.' Ty is like a tornado. He goes from one thing to the next. One of his favorite things is to get into my pots and pans and play with them on the little table. He puts as many as he can on the table. Invariably they start to fall off, making lots of noise. Then he starts to throw them off the table to make even more noise. (This is usually when they get put up on the counter where he can't get them.) My cupboard starts to look bare as he continues to get more and more out through out the day.

We have now put the little table in the family room so that there is not so much noise from pans falling or being thrown on the floor.

This morning I went to visit an elderly lady in our ward boundaries. She is not a member but is a sweet lady who we help when we can. Ty found her stool and proceeded to drag it around her kitchen. There was nothing he could get into, right? I look over to find him pouring a cup of coffee down his front and all over her floor! There is never a dull moment at our home when he is awake.

Family Pictures

Today I was going to post the wonderful family pictures we did in the canyon by the river. BUT, Lucas got the flu Friday and so there are none. It really is a bummer because we've been planning to go for months AND Stephanie was here to help us. So we'll have to go by ourselves, use a tripod and hope that Ty smiles at the camera, or even looks at the camera. Of course it's supposed to snow tomorrow and this weekend might be too cold, too late for pictures. We'll see how it goes. Lucas is doing fine now. Both him and Ty had whatever it was--threw up for a day and then woke up the next morning feeling fine. I'm crossing my fingers I don't get it. We've had flu shots but it obviously doesn't protect you from everything.

Flag Football

This year we decided to let Lucas play flag football. He is having so much fun. He loves playing baseball but I think his real love is football. He wants to be a wide receiver one day and is always going in the backyard to practice catching the ball. During one game he caught the ball in the end zone and Bryan was able to get some great pictures of it.

Then he was given the ball on a reverse and ran it 90 yards for a touchdown.

Last night he came to me in tears after the game because he didn't get a touchdown, in fact, he didn't get the ball all night. He was so sad and said in the car, 'I used to think someday I could be a great wide receiver but now I know I can't." I had a talk with him about how lots of players have bad games and all we want him to do it have fun and try his best. I hope I got that through to him so that he won't be so hard on himself. What a funny kid!

Sneaky Mechanics

We had to take in the Accord for it's yearly safety and emissions testing. A few miles from our home was a new Tunex and we had a coupon to get the safety inspection done for free. So we took it in. First of all, they were slow. We had it in by 1 and Bryan called at 4. The guy told us we didn't pass the safety and that we had a leak in the power steering rack. The part alone would be $300, but he had to look up labor. I called back at 5--he was still looking up labor. Finally, he calls back, we're expecting a bill of $700. He tells us it will be over $1,200 to fix.

SHOCK!

I keep telling myself, it's okay, at least we don't have to put it on a credit card. We tell Tunex that we'll come get the car. We call a couple of other places to get quotes.

Matson Auto and Marine calls us back and gives us a total below $1,000. An improvement. But then he asks Bryan, "Does it leak?" Bryan replies, "No, not at all. We have a slow oil leak but nothing else." The guy at Matson (in Riverton by Albertsons) then tells Bryan you should only fail the safety if it's REALLY leaking. So we take the car in that night so he can check it in the morning.

The next morning I get a call from Matson saying, "There is no leak, just a little grease and that's not even leaking." He proceeds to tell me that there is an oil leak and a few other things wrong but it's probably not worth fixing because the car has over 180,000 miles on it. So our car passes the safety inspection.

Bryan goes to get the car and is told that we should report Tunex because this isn't a little mistake. It isn't a mistake at all. According to him the inspector at Tunex was dishonest and couldn't possibly have done this by accident. Matson doesn't charge us anything for checking. Bryan presents him with some doughnuts and our thanks. Bryan also mentions that we will be using him from now on for our auto repairs.

The moral of the story--don't go to the Tunex in Herriman off of 134,000 and Bangerter, and question mechanics if you're suspicious. I don't know that we were suspicious but we didn't want to pay $1,200. The funny thing--if Tunex had told us it was under $1,000 we probably would have just had them fix it and not called anyone else. That's where greed gets you!