Wrong tax website

So I clicked on my own link to get to the free tax help website to schedule an appointment and OOPS! I put the wrong one down. It's UtahTaxHelp.org. Not com. Sorry if anyone actually tried to go use the services and thought I had stuffing in my head, but now it will work!

Brilliant Boy

Elijah is 11 months old and absolutely fascinated with putting things into other things. I find crayons in the recycle bin, his glowbug in the dirty laundry, and cookies in the toy box. I have a lot of bins around to organize the stuff of life, and most of the toys are separated by toy type. The other day Elijah and I had put away the crayons in the crayon bin, and had moved on to putting away a building set kinda like huge Legos but not really. He picked up each piece, looked at it, and put it in the bin. Over and over and over. He picked up a crayon we had missed, looked at it, and put his hand over the building set bin. Then he froze. Utter confusion passed over his little face, then he looked all around, almost panicking, for the crayon bin. I slid it off the shelf and into his line of sight. A wave of relief flooded his expression and, shreiking happily, he put the crayon into the crayon bin with a satisfied "AAAAA!" Then it was back to the building set. I was so proud of my little guy! He is already a sorter, an organizer, an arranger. A genius! I LOVE MY BOY!

Free Tax Preparation

I just found out about this program called VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance). This is from their website: "VITA is a program implemented through the statewide EarnIt.KeepIt.SaveIt. Coalition made up of local community partners. The coalition works to recruit volunteers that proved free tax preparation services to low-to-moderate income households... If your household income is under $49,000 a year, you may be eligible for free tax preparation from IRS-trained community volunteers." WOW! How awesome is that?! I don't think I'm divulging too much when I say that our family comes in below the 49/year mark and we will be participating in these services. I'll let you know how it goes! Go to UtahTaxHelp.com.

Congratulations Kelsey and Spencer!

Kelsey and Spencer are getting married! Hooray! I first met Spencer at Kelsey's birthday party about a year and a half ago. Kelsey had told me about him prior to the bash and told me he would be the one with a mustache but to not let him know I knew anything about him. He was indeed sporting a big fat hairy one but I just pretended that he looked normal and then I pretended that I didn't know all about him already. ANYWAY, Spencer has been a part of our lives since then and has attended major Moore family events such as Miriam's birthday party and Elijah's hospital stays, along with babysitting for us on our anniversary and other sundry nights. He and Kelsey hosted Thanksgiving dinner for us as well as my parents, Spencer's brother, and Spencer's mom. Brent likes that he is a fellow proud hair-shaver. I like that he will do all the research on major purchases and tell me about them. We ended up buying the virtually same tv on black Friday. Miriam likes that he has a Mexican league soccer team. The Pumas, if you were interested. Elijah just like him. Any time that Kelsey is going to come over, Miriam always asks "Is Spencer coming too?" I always have to text ahead of time because if he's not, I have to prepare her for that. We're so excited that he's going to be a permanent part of our family. CONGRATULATIONS TO KELSEY AND SPENCER! If you'd like, you can read Kelsey's post about the engagement on her blog.

New Year New Look

So on New Years Day we decided to go sledding. We borrowed some sleds from the neighbors and headed out to Union Park. The park is just down the street has only one very small hill. It's not a huge magnet for sledders, but was exactly perfect for us. We had a fantastically amazing time. Miriam was a sledder extraordinaire. She loved coasting down the icy hillside. Really, it was only about 50 feet and even I liked it. And I don't like activities in the cold outsideness. Miriam decided to go by herself, and she did amazingly well. But on her second solo flight, somebody (okay it was me) put her sled on a direct collision course with a tree. The sled hit the tree. Miriam flew off the sled. Miriam's face hit the tree. Oh the guilt. She was scraped up, her nose was crooked, and there was tons of instant swelling, so we headed for the car and took her to the local docinthebox. When we arrived, we had nothing but shuddering sobs. After we got settled down, Miriam was much more animated about this adventure. And when the doctor told her that because she was such an awesome patient she could have tokens to the toy machine, she was absolutely energized! Amazing what a ten-cent toy can do for a girl. She had an x-ray, and still likes showing people how she had to hold her head. All of her bones are perfectly intact and her septum is straight. No more guilt! Anyway, here's a track of the first few days...


Day one: This is when we got home from the doctors. She's still in a lot of pain, but is an absolute trooper.











Day two. This might have been the worst of the swelling days. Remember on Willow when everybody was getting turned into pigs? She was sporting the half-way between human and pig look. Very cute.










Day three. Still kind of swollen. A lot more bruising. I don't think the flipping off is intentional. Then again, maybe she realized it was me who aimed her sled for the tree...







Day four: This was probably the worst bruising. It was this day that she looked in the mirror and said "I'm a monster from PBS kids dot org!" She didn't seem too sad about it, but I was a little sad to hear that that was her opinion of her own reflection.

Day 7: Today: The swelling has mostly gone down and the bruise is more green than anything. Even the black streak under her eye is more lavender than purple. And yes, I know she has the same hairstyle and pajamas on as she did on day 2. But I have proof that she has changed clothes since then!

We did it!

We did it! We did it! We did it! We did it! Yeah, lo hicimos! We did it! Imagine, if you would like, Miriam, Elijah, Brent and I along with even JoAnn and Zeke doing the Dora Victory Dance. Why? BECAUSE OUR BASEMENT IS DONE! AND IT IS BEAUTIFUL! Okay, so we really didn't DO a lot, just watched all the workers come in and out and out and in. And we painted. And that's a bigger job than it sounded like when we initially said "oh yeah, we can paint..." BUT IT'S DONE! We finished one big play/tv/office room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. There are 8 doors (do you know how long those take to paint?), two colors of wall, white ceilings, a granite shower, and a warm happy feeling. We still have an unfinished bedroom, along with the washroom/storage room that will probably always be unfinished. We gained three closets (some of my favorite things), a place for guests, and virtually twice the house we had before. They finished everything the Monday before Christmas and we started moving in. We have already hosted our first houseguests-who-get-a-real-place. Brent's grandma died and Steve and family stayed with us while they were in town from California for the services. While he was here, he helped us get our internet set up a lot better than we had it. Phew. Somebody has to take care of us. Anyway, here is a before and after shot. The before shot was taken from the bottom of the stairs, which is about ten or so feet in front of where I took the after shot. I also would like to show you the wall behind where I was standing, but Ikea was out of the bins that we wanted, so everything on my flashy new shelves is in reusable grocery bags. So I'll wait on that, but you get the picture that this is AWESOME.


Needless to say, we absolutely LOVE IT!