After a harrowing journey from our home in Cleveland (see previous post) we finally arrived in Rexburg where my family was all waiting for us. Once there, the fun and craziness was pretty much non-stop. Hang on and get ready for a lot of pictures and I'll walk you through what has happened in this last week. Oh- and by the way, this is not in any way chronological. Pretty much I just dumped a bunch of pictures on here and I'll tell the story of our week in the captions.

Story time with Haley! This was a daily (almost) ritual at our house. It is clear that Haley has been to a lot of story times with her son, Bennett, because she was awesome at marching around the room with toy instruments and feeding little puppets. It was great.

I also want to mention how fun it is being in a house with a lot of people. Crazy, but fun. This is what Christmas is to me. There is always something going on and usually many things going on at once. Kids are everywhere, people are cooking, laughing, talking, and just hanging out. People are always coming and going and the whole house is infused with this huge amount of positive energy that is just...well...Christmasy. I love it.

"Christmas Day" at our house was actually on Christmas Eve Eve because a lot of people were going to leave the next day (including us). Before opening presents we had all of the kids act out the Christmas story. That was interesting. I think Jackson has a future as a shepherd, but the rest was pretty much just total chaos- exactly as it should be. The present exchange was fun and Rachel's presents that she has been making went over very well. I was expressly forbidden to put a picture on here, but I think the best present was Ashland's green superhero-like spandex bodysuit that Griffin gave to her. Use your imagination. It was also a lot of fun because this is the first Christmas that I think Evelyn truly understood what was going on.

Laser Tag.
So here's a funny story: Haley stood right next to Grandpa the whole game encouraging him to go after the other team and acting surprised when Grandpa kept getting hit over and over and over again by some unknown shooter. The funny part- Haley was, in fact, the unknown shooter and Grandpa never realized they were on opposite teams! My grandpa is awesome!

I also have to say it- my team never lost. Even when Grandpa was on it!



Skiing. I love skiing. I don't get to go very often any more- maybe only 1-2 times per year. But we had a lot of fun at Kelly Canyon and it was a perfect day. Courtney and Ashland both shredded up the slopes on their snowboards under Griffin's careful tutelage, and Rachel, I think, wins the prize for the best wipe-out of the day (although I heard that Haley's face-plant was also pretty spectacular).

Quote of the day- "Rachel just makes her own path down the mountain."

I think everyone had a great time and it was fun being out with them.

I included this picture because one night my dad randomly called all of the kids together and then went into the garage and brought out this gigantic stuffed dog for them! I have no idea where they are going to keep this thing, and I know my mom was pretty excited about all the hair that fell off of it and got on the carpet, but I have to admit that it was the perfect surprise for the kids. After they realized that it was a toy and not a giant kid-eating monster (they scattered and ran for cover when they first saw it), Eva, Jack, Addy, and Bennett had countless hours of fun with this thing.

There's not really much of a story behind this one- just a bunch of kids in the tub and one very concerned Zoey.

Bowling. Every frame had a different requirement. Here we see Allison and Courtney as they bowl "between the legs." A lot of fun, a lot of laughs, and a lot of gutter-balls. Who could ask for a better afternoon on a snowy day in Rexburg?



Sledding. Evelyn loved this! We will definitely have to buy some sleds when we get home because I think Evelyn found her new favorite activity.We are still hearing about it. This is the one great perk of living on a hill without much traffic and a lot of ice. (Not such a perk, however, when you are driving a small car without much traction).

Well, I could post more pictures (we have hundreds), but I think that pretty much shows the fun we had with my family. What I can't show is the many, many hours of conversation and togetherness that really made this week so great. I have said it before, but I honestly believe that I have the greatest family on the planet and it is fun when we all get to be together in celebration of this wonderful Christmas Season.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Ok. I'll admit that I am not in the frame of mind to be sitting down at a computer right now and writing this blog. I've already tried begging, bribing, and bullying the other members of my family to write it for me, but they wouldn't give in. So I'm sorry, but you get me again today. And I am grumpy. Oh- and I don't have any pictures because we left our camera at home. So if you are like most people and you just scroll down to see the pictures then you might as well leave right now.

But really, aside from all of that, it has been a really fantastic week. On Tuesday and Wednesday I took my board exam for my dentistry license so it's awesome that I don't have to study for that any more. It was sort of getting to be a drag anyway and I was losing any motivation that I ever had. Also, on Thursday I got certified to do Invisalign ("invisible braces") for my patients once I graduate and I am pretty excited about that.

On Friday we got to the airport early and made our way to check-in and security. Only then did we realize that Rachel had left her driver's license in the car and our neighbor who drove us didn't have a phone. This was to be the beginning of a very long day. To summarize, we ended up begging our way through security and then dealing with three very wiggly, noisy, and hellishly cranky little children on three separate flights and a four hour drive before we arrived in Rexburg, Idaho. Seriously, it was the hardest day of travel I think we have ever had. We just kept reminding ourselves that at the end of the day we would be at our destination and that we would never see these people again who were casting hateful glances our way.

But now we are here. It has been an awesome couple of days so far and we are looking forward to a great time. Anyway, I'm going to sign out now because we are playing family games and I'd rather be a part of that than writing this blog. Like I said before- not in the mood.

Sorry.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Addy is making motor boat and turkey sounds right now and turning in circles until she falls over. Jolly would be a good word to describe her. Sometimes I don't know if she thinks very much- she is sort of an airhead. But she is a jolly airhead. That is our sweet cuddly Adalie.

Jackson, on the other hand, more than makes up for the difference with his over-analytical way of viewing the world. He is focused and he is intelligent. He reminds me of Oliver mouse in that Night-before-Christmas cartoon special (those who know what I am talking about can relate). Oh- and he never laughs. He chuckles. And it sounds like a chicken. Seriously.

Neither Addy nor Jackson have necks. They look like snowmen. Also, they have started playing together which is a lot of fun to watch. Two snowmen bumping and rolling around the room making poultry noises. We love our kids.

Evelyn also plays with them and they all get along pretty well. Sometimes it backfires though. Today Evelyn was showing them how to play "London Bridges." When she "took the key to lock them up," she grabbed Jackson and put him in a Chuck Norris style headlock and started swinging him around the room. We weren't too worried though since Jackson just made chicken noises through the whole thing. I think that means he was chuckling. I couldn't see his face though, and he just as well could have been struggling desperately for a breath of fresh air. In either case he survived and is now busy trying to steamroll Adalie (still making motor boat noises) with a baby stroller.

Never a dull moment at the Hazard house.

Well, this has been a fun week, but not too eventful since I am studying so much. This is crunch time and a lot of finals are taking place and I take the Board Exam in a week-and-a-half to get my dentist license.

But as fun as that is we were still able to get out a few times and do some stuff together. On Friday night Rachel and I drove out to Cuyahoga Falls and walked around the town looking at lights and watching the ice-skaters. Yesterday we all went to the Mall downtown in Cleveland where there was a gingerbread house display. It was good and gave us inspiration for our own gingerbread house that we will be making in January.

Also, Rachel has been busy at work sewing Christmas presents. The final results are looking good, and I think that Rachel is having a lot of fun making them. She is my hero when it comes to presents, and I apologize to everyone in advance, but all the stuff I am giving away is coming straight from the store. No creativity here.

Also, because of that pure lack of creative talent, I have no pictures this week. Sorry!

I don't really know how to begin this week. It was so full of activities that writing about it might take a while. So hold on and, if you want, just skip to the end where you can see it all in pictures.

So, this morning Evelyn got up really early and asked me for "purple yogurt." I patiently informed her that we did not have purple yogurt, but she was adamant that the vanilla yogurt in the fridge was purple. After I put some in a bowl to show her that it was, in fact, white she looked at me as if I was stupid, and then said in a very matter-of-fact voice, "Daddy- make it purple. Red and blue make purple."

Apparently Mama has been teaching the colors with food coloring.

Monday was a day of dates. In the afternoon during Jack and Addy's naps Rachel took Evelyn on a date to the science museum. Evelyn has recently been a bit obsessed with space and astronauts, so it was really fun for her to go the the space exhibits and have some one-on-one with Mama. If you remember, I took Evelyn on a date about a month ago where we watched a movie. Rachel and I decided to make this a tradition- each month we will try to take each of our children out on dates- or "guys-night-out" as the case may be. This month it was Rachel's turn.

Later in the day we got a babysitter and Rachel and I went to the Broadway production of Billy Elliot the Musical. The night out was great and the show was amazing. I love going to shows- especially musicals- and this one did not disappoint.

Tuesday I can't remember what we did besides going shopping. Sort of boring, but also a nice day of relaxation.

On Wednesday we packed the kids into the car in the morning and drove to Columbus where we went to the COSI museum. We had been there once before and decided it was worth a second trip. It was even better this time around because Addy and Jack are actually old enough to interact and have fun. I love having young kids!

Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving day. We celebrated by inviting two other families (also students) over to our house for a shared Thanksgiving dinner and game night. The food was great- the company better. We feel so blessed to feel so at home here in Cleveland and for our extended family-away-from-family that we have developed. It is crazy that we only have about six months left here and it is sort of sad to think of leaving. Anyway- I'll address that in a different post.

Friday was the day that we abandoned all sense of reason in the pursuit of merchandise. Yes, I was at Wal-mart at 2:45 in the morning standing in line so that, at 5:00, I could buy a laptop. Fortunately I was able to get one, and Rachel now has a computer with a working "P." Later in the day we went to the mall and made our wish-lists for Christmas but didn't buy anything except for a couple of tacos. They weren't even on sale.

On Saturday we again loaded the kids up into the car and drove to Toledo to yet another museum. I should mention here that these two hour car trips are becoming somewhat of an ordeal since the heater has gone out on the passenger side of the van and instead blows out freezing cold air-conditioned air. This means that either the passenger (usually me) is really, Really, REALLY cold or that the entire car must adapt to "room temperature" which is dropping pretty low the farther we get into winter. Fortunately, the $3 part that I need to fix it is on its way and we soon won't have these issues any more.

Anyway, that was totally beside the point. The point is that we went to the Imagination Station in Toledo and that it was well worth the drive because the discovery museum is awesome. Everyone had a fun time and we could hardly get Evelyn to leave at the end of the day.

Like I said, it has been a fantastic, busy week.

This is Evelyn the "princess astronaut" at the Imagination Station

The kids table during Thanksgiving.

Addy at COSI. She loved splashing in the water and getting everything wet. Oh the joy!

Jackson at COSI. He just wanted to figure out how things work. He could be an engineer someday.


Before

After. It was a sad, yet long-overdue day.

Evelyn on her date with Mama. Here, she is landing a spaceship. She was very focused.

More pictures of Evelyn on her date with Mama.

Ok- these last three pictures were actually taken months ago, but they were just barely "discovered." I thought they were to cute to leave unpublished.

I've been demoted. I am no longer Prince Eric.

My name is now "Logan." I'm not Daddy. I'm not even Papa. Just plain Logan (Well- sometimes I am prince Logan). She probably picked up on this in nursery where all of her friends call me Logan. She knows I want to be Daddy or Papa and she makes a very deliberate effort to avoid calling me by these titles. She thinks it is funny. And she gets away with it, because...

...She is cute.

And she knows it.

Well, our cute little know-it-all also had her very first dance performance this week. She has been in dance class for a while now and was finally able to show us some of her moves. Here is a video- She is the one on the far left in yellow. Frankly, I think she stole the show. Then again, I am her Daddy (whether or not she wants to acknowledge that fact is her decision).




Also, Evelyn has made several discoveries around the house lately. Here are a few of them:

Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty) lives on our back steps. Apparently she is very moody, because sometimes she is nice enough to play with, and sometimes we must avoid that area at all costs (this can get tiring).

Belle and The Beast are now officially a part of our upstairs neighbor's family. She will reference these characters frequently when talking about the Tippetts. She even prays for them at night.

There are droves of monsters living in the trees. They are all different colors. The ones in our front yard are purple, but others can be orange, pink, blue, yellow, green, or gold. They are nice monsters, and they eat acorns and squirrels. They frequently come out of the trees to play but must take short naps every 3-5 minutes.

Needless to say, Evelyn has a very active imagination.

Here she is before the performance.

I am so excited to have Logan home. I didn’t realize the extent of how much I missed him until I saw him at the airport last night. My handsome, sweet, loving husband is home! Hooray!

My week was pretty crazy. The beginning of the week was an adventure thanks to daylight savings time. Was this insane tradition started by farmers who wanted an extra hour of daylight to work in the morning? I think we need to overthrow this tradition and start a new tradition of having an extra hour of light when we can actually use it… after work. Ok. That was my two cents (I actually don’t really know the reason for daylight savings, but that makes sense and I am too lazy to look it up). Anyway- daylight savings wreaks havoc on sweet little children’s sleep schedules. Enough said.

We have all been taking turns being sick this week. I was able to stay relatively healthy, but this morning I woke up feeling pretty yucky. Hopefully it will pass soon.

This week Jackson and Adalie learned all about playing with dolls. Both of them caught on really quickly to the idea of ‘hugging’ the baby. I watched Jackson walk around the room and take turns giving hugs to each stuffed animal or doll. He giggled and danced around the whole time.

This week was full of cleaning and organizing. I decided to streamline my cleaning process and have a list of things I clean weekly, monthly, and as needed. The reason I did this was because my recent cleaning style was to clean and make my house look beautiful once a day. This is great except for the fact that I didn’t always get around to the deep cleaning, and when the dirt snuck up on me I would become overwhelmed. I decided to clean a little bit extra while Logan was gone and I kind of got carried away. If I didn’t know any better I would think I was nesting! I actually had a good time doing it, and I am very proud of my results.

I enjoyed reading Logan’s blog this week (see below) because it gives you a glimpse into his daily life and how much he really enjoys dentistry. I get to see his enthusiasm every day, and it is good that the four people who read our blog can see a little bit of his excitement as well. Logan’s optimism and happiness are two of the things I love about him! I think he could be happy in numerous careers, but I think Dentistry fits him the best!

Here are a few pictures from our week.

Adalie and Jackson are both very excited about hugging stuffed animals and dolls. The giggles that accompany the hugs are priceless!

I love these flowers! This is our new bathroom (the toilet is under the shelf). I am not proud of myself for how unbelievably long it took me to get these up!

The picture below was taken a while ago when we bought Adalie and Jackson their new car seats. There are moments when I look at my kids and think, 'Wow, I have a lot of really young kids.' Whenever I look in the backseat and see them sitting side by side I have that thought.
This is not the most flattering picture, but you get the idea.

I have just finished what was, hands-down, the single most educational week of my career as a dental student. For those who didn’t read Rachel’s post earlier this week (a wonderful post, by the way), I was in Utah all week receiving training to place dental implants. And it was awesome! I’ll spare you the excruciating details here on the blog, but just know that I could talk for hours about how cool dentistry is. Don’t test me- I really could. For now I’ll just provide you with a short list about why dentistry is the coolest job ever:

-You get to use critical thinking and problem solving skills on a daily basis
-No two days are exactly the same
-There will always be something more to learn
-You develop extraordinary hand skills and are routinely working with a system which is calibrated in tenths, or even hundredths, of millimeters.
-You work closely with people, forming unique relationships with them, and always helping them
-Sometimes you dramatically change people’s lives for the better- this is intoxicating
-You can be your own boss and work according to your own philosophies and ideals
-You can be a business owner. This “business side” of dentistry can be taken to any level you want
-You are generally able to make a good living for your family, on a single income, and still have time to be with them

Am I a dental nerd? Absolutely.
Is it an obsession? You’ll have to ask Rachel. She, unlike you, has to endure my ramblings. I could go on and on…But I won’t. Instead, I’ll tell you why else this was a wonderful week for me.

After class every day I was able to drive down and see family who I usually don’t get a chance to be with. Out of all the time I was here, there was only one day that I actually got to bed by midnight. This was cool, because it meant that the rest of the time I was hanging out with some of the coolest people in the world. I spent time with Rachel’s whole family, talking long hours into the night with Wendy and Brandon. I got to help Donny inflate two 16 foot rafts and hang out with him and Alyssa long into the night. And I got to play Scrabble with Grandma Hill (I actually won- this is a momentous occasion) and talk with her long into the night.

The only problem is this: Out of all the time I was here, there was only one day that I slept past 3:30. You see, I have this natural ability/disability in which I will wake up between the hours of 5:30 and 6:30 every morning despite my bed time. Seriously, I could go to bet at 4:00 and wake up at 6:00. It is ridiculous, made even more so by the fact that I was already three hours behind my body’s natural schedule due to time zone changes and daylight savings. So I am pretty tired and excited to be home.

When I got home I found that Rachel is amazing and our house was cleaner than it has been in a really long time. She organized every cupboard, every shelf, and even scrubbed the walls. Wow! I love my wife.

I have no pictures of this week. Rachel might get on a little later and post some- I don’t know. Check back and maybe you’ll be surprised.