McBlog – Page 2 – Love mortality; you're only here once.

Happy Independence Day!

Post author By Joy
Post date July 4, 2013

I haven’t blogged in forever. So here’s a surprise post out of nowhere! For the 4th of July yesterday, we went swimming in the morning at a peaceful pool in the Provo Riverbottoms area where my old roommate Chandice & family were staying. Gorgeous and relaxing… Until the end, when Charlotte had a major meltdown because her floaties weren’t turned the exact way that she wanted them…

Then we relaxed at home in the afternoon (made all the kids nap in their rooms for a little bit. The older two NEVER nap, but that was the only way we were going to let them stay up late for fireworks). We didn’t have family in town so we joined up with the family of our neighbors across the street (Preston & Shawnee). A fun little Utah gathering with tons of good food and fireworks.

All our kids enjoyed the show, including Caroline! Pace and I are so cheap sometimes… I was glad the others in the bunch had bought a bunch fireworks since I’d only spent $6 on some sparklers, Snakes, and Pop-Its.

We were the first ones to leave at about 9:30pm. We got to watch beautiful fireworks lighting the sky all the way home as we drove down I-15 (Caroline would shout, “Irework!”). The kids were quite exhausted last night and today, and Charlotte had another meltdown for an hour until finally falling asleep at 11:15!! Their usual bedtime is 8pm and I think it’s really hard for our kids to adjust to anything else! But it was so fun and we were glad to be in great company as usual.

Pace and Chase raced around on these little contraptions. So funny.

Caroline

“Baby” Caroline

Post author By Joy
Post date July 2, 2013

I don’t know how to capture her sweetness. Maybe I need to take more videos (but whenever she notices that I’m taking a video, she stops whatever she’s doing to come & see). These photos are already a few months old, but better late than never.

Checking out the McGowans’ baby girl (their 3rd child).

Caroline has been the easiest one to get down for naps and bedtime. She is an easygoing girl for the most part and really loves her family. She is great at being reverent and folding her arms for prayers. She doesn’t mind when other people besides her own parents hold her. She’s now almost 22 months old, but my favorite words when she was around 18 months old (about the time of these photos) were:

“uh-oh”= binky

“Coco!” = going to Cohen’s (neighbor’s) house

“MmHMM!” = emphatic yes

“I do! I do! I do!”

“La-la”= Charlotte

“Zase” = Chase

“Eeeeeeeeew guh-koh! = ew gross

“Dop.” = stop

“DAD! Watch.” = (when she’s doing a trick)

“Doo.” = I want to nurse.

“Cuuuuuute!” = Cute (in a high-pitched voice) when she sees the little rabbit on her onesie

“Gary! Gary!” = Scary! (shakes her head & holds her hands clasped at her chest)

“I do it.” = (said emphatically)

“Run.” = she really likes to run

“Ba-kah” = Grandpa or Grandma

“I sah-ee” = I’m sorry

“Come.” = (big gesture with her arm)

(Mouth in “O” shape for a long time)

Family Fun

Monkey See Monkey Do Game

Post author By McAdmin
Post date June 20, 2013

Here’s a fun game to play at the park on Fathers day. Do something silly and catch the disc. Then the next person has to do the same thing. And make sure Jessica is there to take a bazillion photos so that 4 of them are worth sharing. Good times. Happy Fathers Day!

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Family Fun

I love Joy

Post author By McAdmin
Post date June 7, 2013

Joy is so great.

Deals

Crucial Conversations Virtual

Post author By McAdmin
Post date May 29, 2013

I’m helping develop a new product at work. A virtual training offering of our best selling product. If you have some time to help us, you can experience Crucial Conversations training for free. Comment or email me ASAP. You need to be available at your computer (with internet) for 2 hours at a time between June 10-14.

Get Unstuck with Best Practice Skills for High-Stakes Interactions.

Crucial Conversations is a two-day course that teaches skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topics—at all levels of your organization. By learning how to speak and be heard (and encouraging others to do the same), you’ll begin to surface the best ideas, make the highest-quality decisions, and then act on your decisions with unity and commitment.

“As you may know, we’re continuing development on a Crucial Conversations virtual classroom and now we are happy to offer our second virtual alpha course to VitalSmarts’ friends and families who are new to Crucial Conversations. The alpha will be in a 1 week and a half, June 10-14 and we need 12-16 participants to join us.
Details:
Date/Time: June 10-14
Five sessions, 2 hours each
One session per day
Exact day times are not set yet
Participants must attend all 5 sessions
Participants must be new to Crucial Conversations (never attended the training) and should not be VS clients
Participants can participate/attend the training from any location as long as they have a computer with the internet and a phone.
This alpha training is offered at no cost to participants
Availability is first come first serve (16 people is the ceiling)
If you have friends or family that would like to participate in this Crucial Conversations virtual training please contact me as soon as possible. All participants will be emailed login/registration information as well as materials for the training next week.”

Personal

His Dream

Post author By McAdmin
Post date May 28, 2013

Uncle Tyler brought his longboards over on M Day and Chase was so excited that he got to ride it down the street about 15 times. He fell and crashed one time and immediately looked up to see if we had seen him as you could tell he was expecting someone to say “Ok, told you so. Time to stop.” But we didn’t, we just laughed that we caught his expression in the photo. Thanks Tyler and no he isn’t allowed to get a skateboard.

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Charlotte

Car show

Post author By McAdmin
Post date May 20, 2013

I took the girl and the neighbor on their first date to the car show. They compared tastes of car paint, both enjoy flames, and the went on a motorcycle ride (imaginary while they sat on it) and said hi to Doc from the movie Cars. They both loved the green car with green flames and bugs on it.

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Caroline

Tired + Messy = Kind of Funny

Post author By Joy
Post date May 2, 2013

Chase McVideos

Lets Do The Shadow Dance

Post author By McAdmin
Post date May 1, 2013

Chase

Bunches of Buddies

Post author By Joy
Post date April 2, 2013

We have a lot of boys in our neighborhood and it’s awesome (not for Charlotte, though). Chase is such a social, outdoorsy, adventurous boy, so I’m glad he has a few partners in crime to choose from, just steps away from our house! Sometimes it drives me crazy (like yesterday & today, since it’s spring break), because we’ll often have five extra kids (in addition to our own three) playing at our house and it gets a lot messier and crazier, especially when I give them all snacks and such. But I have to let go & remind myself that it’s worth it to be a fun, safe place for the kids to hang out.