For Ambrose's birthday I got him a fish tank with some guppies. Although he loves his guppies, I had no idea that I was opening up Pandora's Box. Before I knew it, both Gideon and Silas were clamoring for their own pets. At first Gideon thought that an Asian forest scorpion was a good idea. When I managed to talk him out of that, he settled on a hamster. After trying in vain to dissuade him from this foray into hamster ownership, I capitulated. Gideon became the proud new owner of  "Spud."

The very next morning as I was making breakfast, Gideon said, "Mom, I think the hamster may have gotten loose." Upon further questioning, it became clear that he did not "think it got loose"; he knew it. The hamster had escaped while he was trying to put it in a hamster ball. We sealed off the door to his room with a towel and managed to catch it, but this performance was repeated again later in the week. Then, on Friday night, Gideon didn't latch the top of his cage shut and the hamster escaped somewhere in our house. We spent hours looking for it Saturday and also set two catch-and-release mousetraps, but alas, the little bugger is still at large. Six days of hamster ownership. Three escapes. One tiny little pooping, peeing, chewing menace somewhere in my house. Pet success again! ✅

In other news, Silas and Ambrose started public school again on Tuesday. I tried to take a "first day of school" picture, but this was the best I got with Silas' limited patience for such things.

Start of School Pictures

Gideon's first day of second grade was August 13th.

Silas' first day of kindergarten was August 20th.

School t-shirts came this week.

First Day of First Grade

Gideon started school on Monday.  Here he is in his cute school uniform that just so happens to match what Peter often wears to work.

It has been a really weird week!  It's too long of a story to explain here, but on Friday I switched Gideon back to the same school where he had kindergarten.  I'm quite sad that he doesn't have to wear uniforms anymore.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of 2013

Since this blog also functions as my journal, I thought I should do a quick review of 2013.

THE GOOD

 

Ambrose was born on January 7th.

Just as Peter began looking for a new job last spring, he received an email from the director of engineering at Sylarus Technologies.  He applied for the job, interviewed, and got it.
In June, we moved from Las Vegas... 

 

...to St. George where we bought our first house.  We signed for the house on August 6th and moved in on August 10th.

Gideon started kindergarten.

 

THE BAD

In the middle of trying to buy our house, I did this to the van.
 

 Peter also traveled to Denver once and to British Columbia twice while we were in the home-buying process.  A couple of months later Peter went to England.

I don't know whether it's the move to a new place or it's the oldest child going to kindergarten or it's having a baby sucking on everything, but our family has been plagued with every disease St. George has to offer this fall and winter.

THE UGLY

On New Year's Eve, I decided to get my long awaited haircut.  I chopped off about twelve inches of hair and gave it to Locks of Love.  Here's the before picture.

There is no after picture because I got the worst haircut of my life--and that includes the time when I tried to cut my own hair and the time in the sixth grade when Riki cut my hair.  I wish now that I had taken an after picture because it's hard to describe exactly how horrible it was.  Plus, you would have all gotten a good laugh over it.  But anyway, no picture.  Peter had to give me a haircut an hour after I got home from the salon in order to prevent me from going to a different salon and getting a pixie cut.

So, despite a little bad and a lot of ugly, 2013 was a very good (and very busy) year.  Peter likes working at Sylarus and we're loving St. George!  We're thankful to have so many blessings.