I hope Genius is Hereditary

Melissa left about 30 minutes ago to take Spencer to Cub Scouts and I have spent that time going through comments on the blog in an attempt to post some of my all time favorite comments from the past year.  After I got 24 of my favorite comments good and ready to post my cell phone rang.

Melissa was calling because she couldn't get the car started in the WalMart parking lot.  A fun little fact about our Saturn is that often times when the steering wheel gets locked the ignition locks as well and it takes some serious fidgeting to get the key to turn. I've gotten pretty good at it but there are a few occasions where it actually takes a few minutes to get the car going.  I gave Melissa my tried and true instructions and she hung up so she could have both hands free to work the ignition.

when the phone rang 2 minutes later I was expecting her to have succeeded in her endeavor.  She had indeed succeeded and the car was running nicely.  She told me that she decided to start everything from the beginning and upon removing the key noticed that she had in fact been trying to start the Saturn with the key for the Yukon.  I told her I was going to blog about it when I was on the phone with her, but I'm not sure she believed me.  Won't she be surprised?  I'm a little worried she may not like the title.  I guess we'll see.

Now as I already have the list I'm going to post my favorite comments from the last 6 months.  Some I liked because they were nice.  Others rang true to me in some way, but most were just funny and made me laugh.  I hope you enjoy.

Hopefully it will eventually turn out the same way for Spencer as it did for me.

You look a bit like a parolee.

In all fairness a yo-yo can be awfully scary some times

I needed that today

That's WAY less weird than shaving your legs. 

I just love watching you turn into dad

She's amazing, you know

I'm all about re-starts.

Have I told you lately that you have cute cute cute kids?

I love the rain background.

(this one made me smile because Melissa got made at me when I changed the background to what it is today)

you've made me cry and laugh all in one day

The Canadians are praying for you

supporting something coming out of BYU?

All you need to do now is follow it up with a dessert of butter marinated marshmallows!!

Thanks for the much needed smile you just put on my face. 

What's up with all your friends being named Becca?

 "This is Jacob. Jacob had a difficult time deciding on what to blog about but narrowed the decision to sports, finance, or medicine, all of which are good options for Jacob. After a long, drawn out, unnecessary, and make believe thought process Jacob has decided to blog about sports. No offense to finance or medicine but Jacob feels that sports gives Jacob Corry the best opportunity to affectively occupy his time."
Oh yeah Cleveland isn't over it yet!!!!!

(this may be my favorite comment of all time, thanks Doug)

 why is that mommy freaking out?

Seinna and Honda both make an 8 person minivan

If you want an SUV that's fine but the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna have options to seat eight.

I do have to fight for the mini van! I love our van! 

We drive a Pontiac Montana, which seats 8

(I had no idea minivans were so polarizing)

Blessings; I'll be praying for a safe pregnancy.

I was just concerned that your blog had been hijacked by a quilter

So there you have it folks.  Maybe I'll make this a yearly thing so you can all strive to be on the list, or maybe not.

Christmas Letter

It's that time of year again where we send out the family Christmas letter.  If you have received one in the mail in the past you will most likely get one again so you may not want to spoil it by reading it here.  If you haven't received one in the past and would like to now and in the future send Melissa an email at happyquiltingmelissa (at) gmail (dot) com.  At any rate here it is.

Dear Family and Friends,

                I find that the tone of the Christmas letter is set by the outcome of the Utah-BYU football game.  Those of you paying attention may have noticed that you didn’t receive a Christmas letter from us last year.  Coincidence? 

                It has been a wonderful year for us here in South Bend.  I occasionally like to refer to myself in the third person when writing the Christmas letter so don’t let that get to you.  Maybe I just miss Karl Malone.

                Jacob is currently halfway through his third year of a three year family practice residency.  It has been a long road and hard to believe that a real job awaits in Cedar in July, but the road certainly has had some wonderful adventures.  The call schedule has improved and the work hours have gone down which has given us more time to enjoy each other and explore.  It has been a joy to visit Palmyra, Kirtland, and Nauvoo among other locations over the past 18 months.

                Melissa continues to find more hours in the day to complete her many responsibilities and hobbies.  She has developed a love for quilting and spends any available time designing and putting together quilts.  She is a regular contributor to the Moda Bake Shop which apparently is a big deal in quilting circles.  Somehow she still finds time to cook, clean, teach, serve, chauffeur, you know, be a mother.

                Spencer turned 7 in January and has been preparing for his upcoming baptism throughout the year.  I can’t remember the last testimony meeting that Spencer didn’t open.  Most times this goes very well, but there was this one time when he gave a 2 minute sermon on Moses.  We had lesson on testimony the next day and he has since humbled his parents numerous times with his understanding.  Spencer is a faithful Ute fan.

                Jessica (Jessi) turned 5 over the summer and started Kindergarten.  She loves her teacher and we’ve been told the feeling is mutual.  She hasn’t grown out of her princess phase, but to our utter delight she has added a Barbie phase and should be very excited when Santa shows up this year.  Jessi is also becoming quite the clothing connoisseur and often tells me when my tie doesn’t match my shirt.  I really don’t know where she gets it because I’ve been married 10 years (on the 29^th) and Melissa has never noticed.  As the apple of her father’s eye Jessi remains a loyal Ute fan.

                Kristian (Nader) has fully embraced his role as man of the house while his older siblings are at school.  He is currently excited for his 4^th birthday that we will be celebrating the first weekend of December.  Much to his father’s chagrin, Nader, is not a diehard Ute.  He has fully embraced the Irish of Notre Dame and made sure I knew it that fateful Saturday earlier this month.  He did pull for the Utes last night so I’m not ready to disown him yet.

                Kamryn will be two in March.  She made it to the 18 month mark and things have been almost smooth sailing since that time.  As many of you may know, I love all my kids, but I don’t always like them much before that 18 month mark.  We’re hoping Kami starts to speak a little more in the coming months, but for now we’re just enjoying the mumbles and smiles.  Kamryn is still undecided as to her collegiate allegiance, but I have a hunch where she’ll fall.

                Sometime over the summer we were ecstatic to find that Melissa was again pregnant and began preparing for the arrival of our new addition in February.  As it turned out things didn’t quite go as we planned and Melissa miscarried in early fall.  This has turned out to be a growing experience for our family and we were blessed to feel the Savior’s love in our home in ways that we had not previously experienced (or maybe just hadn’t recognized). 

                As we look back on the year and see the blessings that have come to our family we are so grateful for a loving Savior and his sacrifice for us.  We look forward a wonderful Christmas season and wish you all the best as well.

Love,

Jacob, Melissa, Spencer, Jessica, Kristian, and Kamryn

P.S. For those of you who are worried about the brainwashing of my children I would remind you that I was among the Cougar faithful for the first 19 years of my life, so you needn’t give up hope on my children, just yet.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Jon Madden Would Be Proud

So Nader has a thing with the word boom.  I think this is mostly my fault.  The other day he had on two different socks so I asked him why his socks didn't match.  He promptly kicked up one foot then the other and said:

"See dad, Boom and Boom."

That was it, no explanation just boom and boom.

Tonight at dinner Kristian finished then walked up to his mother and dropped his pants, underwear and all and as he made a pelvic thrust, "BOOM".

Little did his mother know that I had removed his band-aid from his upper thigh and he didn't even cry so he wanted to show off his accomplishment.

If I had a video of this episode I wouldn't post it on the worldwide web but I would treasure it for years.

If you don't understand the title you need to go to the following link and if you can't fathom watching the whole thing, other than the fact that you would missing a hilarious part of life, you should go to the 1:45 minute mark and watch the 10 seconds that follow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBW7ysPcbT0

Spencerism

The other day we were reading about the afflictions of the sons of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon.  Spencer asked what afflictions were and we started into a discussion that ended with us agreeing that afflictions are hard things that happen to us.  Spencer expressed understanding then said the following.

"Dad, I have affliction time with Kristian."

Of note, the two prayer episodes in the previous post were brought on by Spencer's "afflictions".

Lessons Through Sports

You'll have to forgive me for the story I'm going to spin here, but Melissa's at a meeting and I have some time to write while the kids watch "Spirit" (not a fan of that movie).

Yesterday was a bad day for me.  You're probably thinking that I'm going to go off on flags that weren't thrown in the south endzone or how the luck of the Irish showed up on 6 plays through the entire game and resulted in 28 points or how the Utes won every statistical category in the game except for the mistake categories and the final score.  You'd be wrong if you were thinking that.  Sure that stuff boils my blood, but had I stayed home and watched the game on the TV I'm sure I would have been yelling at the TV pointing out all that stuff to no one in particular and when the game was over I would have moved on just like last week.  I wasn't at home.  I was sitting in the stands surrounded by ND blue and gold.  I didn't spend too much time yelling because I didn't want to embarrass myself.  Unfortunately the gentleman sitting (standing) next to Melissa did not share my restraint.

Never in my life have I been so offended at a sporting event.  The vulgarity, obscenity and bigotry portrayed past (but because of) us towards the visiting Utah fans was amazing and I was steamed.  There wasn't another bad fan sitting anywhere near us and actually everyone else was quite pleasant so I'm certainly not disappointed in the general atmosphere at the game, but this particular fan ruined my day.

When we got home I was a mess.  Last week I was frustrated with the Utes and the result of the game.  Yesterday was different I was down, depressed and angry.  I let that man get to me without knowing it.  When we got home I noticed my camera wasn't in my pocket.  After checking the car and calling some friends to see if they happened to pick up our camera I was convinced that it fell out of my pocket at the game and this fan had to have picked it up and put it in his pocket because "that's the kind of guy he is".

Some time ago Spencer was having a really hard time calming down before Family Home Evening so I asked him to say the prayer.  He refused and we spent the next 10 minutes talking about how the most important time to pray is when you don't want to.  In the end he said the prayer and told me he felt better afterward.  Fast forward to Friday night.  Spencer was very frustrated at having to stop his movie and go to bed.  As we knelt for family prayer I asked him if he would "like" to say the prayer.  He looked at me after 20 or so seconds and said "I don't want to, but I know I should because I don't want to".  He chose to say the prayer Friday night.

As I prepared to go to church this morning my thoughts were taken back to the talk given by President Uchtdorf during the Priesthood session of General Conference this fall in which he said the following:

"Perhaps there is no better laboratory to observe the sin of pride than the world of sports. I have always loved participating in and attending sporting events. But I confess there are times when the lack of civility in sports is embarrassing. How is it that normally kind and compassionate human beings can be so intolerant and filled with hatred toward an opposing team and its fans?

I have watched sports fans vilify and demonize their rivals. They look for any flaw and magnify it. They justify their hatred with broad generalizations and apply them to everyone associated with the other team. When ill fortune afflicts their rival, they rejoice."

I listened to this talk on the way to church this morning and initially I felt vindicated by the words.  That man sitting next to us was the person President Uchtdorf was talking about, and yet, this talk was given during Priesthood session not in the general session.  This wasn't a talk for the world, this was a talk to the  Priesthood holders of the church.  This talk was given to me.  Then I remembered Spencer's words "I don't want to but I know I should because I don't want to".

I listened to the words as though they were directed to me and I found new meaning.  I realized that I'm the man he was talking about as well.  Did I not hate that fan for his words and actions?  Did I not falsely accuse him of stealing my property (I found the camera this morning on the front lawn, it had fallen out of my pocket on the way into the house last night)?  Was not I the one that was so prideful to take offense at his comments.  He didn't ruin my day I poisoned it myself.

Yesterday was a rough day for me because of me, but today was a good day for me in spite of me, and I have sports to thank for that (and a very humble son who amazes his father each and every day).

The Blacksheep

I've successfully indoctrinated the older two but Nader is Irish through and through, and he's rooting against the Utes today.





I'm secretly hoping that Nader's love of all things Irish will keep me from getting scowled at when we go run errands today before the game.

10 hours later, game over, dad mourning and what do I get from my second son? "Dad who was right and who was wrong?". Taunted by a 3 year old.  Does it get better than this?

Some Technical Difficulties

So if you have surfed back through some posts you might have noticed that any picture I have posted from before November are now gone.  Ya, I had to change my email address (as you probably already know if you read this blog) and apparently deleting my old email broke all of the links to the pictures posted under that email login.  Ya, I was pretty upset over this (It happened on my quilting blog and the MBS as well.)  I have spent quite a bit of time this weekend putting all of the pictures back on my quilting blog and redoing my MBS tutorials and am now here.  (Ya, I suppose that might be messed up to do my quilting blog before my family blog but come on, we all know about my quilting addiction ).  So my plan is to slowly try and locate all of my old pictures and relink them again.  It is gonna take time, but it is what it is.

So we're moving forward!!

Costumes and the Camera

So what do the two have in common?  Apparently they can't be in the same room at the same time.  We did not take a single picture of the kids in their Halloween costumes.  I know, we are horrible parents.  And seriously, it is not for a lack of them being in their costumes.  We had a Halloween playgroup, a Ward Trick or Trunk, and Trick or Treating.  We just always forgot the camera.


I did remember to take some pictures during our annual pumpkin carving.  Do I get points for that??

Spencer and Jessi weren't to sure about sticking their hands in the "guts" but they eventually tired.

Kristian on the other hand just started to cry at the thought of sticking his hands in the "guts".

Don't they just look adorable.  Spencer went for a slightly scarier approach but the rest of them still like smiles :)

So to sum up Halloween  -  the kids had a blast, we have way to much candy in the house, and I am so excited for Thanksgiving :)

Oh - And just for kicks - this is what my big toes look like right now.  I had my ingrown toenails cut out yesterday.  (Thanks again Clint)