The passing of Gwock

We've had to say goodbye to a dear friend in the last few months. Here is the obituary that was printed in the Daily Herald.

Gwock A. Mole passed away some time in this April. Born in California and raised in the kitchen window sill. He spent his days bringing joy to all those around him. His dreams were to grow five feet tall and then move to St. George where he planned on continuing to grow as he studied avacado production.  Eventually he hoped to provide the Loveridge family with avacado's for guacamole, turkey bacon sandwiches, and salads.  He was preceeded in death by his nine beautiful leaves, and survived by the thousands of flies that may have played a roll in his death. 
A viewing will be held at the garbage can in front of our house. in lieu of flowers, Matt has asked that mourners buy some chips and salsa and enjoy them with your family.

Rest in peace old friend.

Can you hear me now?

Communication is kind of fascinating to me. There are so many different ways that people can communicate with each other these days. It’s also amazing how early in childhood it starts. I’ll try to keep this short (but that might be impossible).

First off there’s Kade. He’s really turned into quite the talker. Like any other kid his age he just repeats everything he hears. I guess that’s why everybody has funny stories about kids at that age repeating funny little things, like racial slurs and swear words. Kade hasn’t said anything too embarrassing, he prefers to express himself through song. He has a beautiful little song he sings which is a mash-up of “all the single ladies” and “the sun will come out tomorrow”. Normally I would say that these two songs go together about as well as diarrhea and a trampoline, but Kade has managed to blend them seamlessly together.

When it comes to communicating Lindsay and Kalli take it to new heights. My first example of the brain trust is when I walked into the bathroom and found Kalli crammed under the bathroom sink screaming something into the cutout for the drainpipe. Just as I’m about to ask what on earth she’s doing I hear Lindsay’s muffled response come back through hole. Apparently they felt that this way they could share secrets back and forth between the two bathrooms. I guess it would be secret as long as no one else was in the house at the time to hear the muffled screaming. I would make fun of them but I seem to remember a couple of other kids who made a pair of peep holes that looked into the back of Mom & Dad's closet in the old Orem house. Want to know what a suit coat looks like in the dark?

They don’t use the bathroom to communicate anymore, because for Christmas they got some sweet texting devices ($10 at Wal-Mart). Kalli doesn’t read very well yet, so this is usually how it goes down. They sit down a foot away from each other and Lindsay starts to type out her message (it’s usually “Kalli what are you doing?”) then Lindsay tells Kalli that she sent her a message and takes Kalli’s texter to read to her what she just sent. Then Kalli gives her answer to Lindsay who then responds and sends the message back to herself. I could only bear to watch this whole process once. Come to think of it I would probably rather have them yelling at each other through the bathroom walls.

Round is a shape

The holidays are getting close, and every year I tell myself that I’m going to restrain from eating too much. I’ve told myself this for the last 10 years. I’ve also consistently gained weight each year. So this year I’m taking more of a pro active stance. I’m planning on doing the P90X thing starting in January, so until that time I’m going to try to drop some weight so I don’t have a heart attack when I start it.
Since I really want to take it serious this time I thought it would be “fun” to take the before photo’s to compare with the end photo’s. “Fun” probably wasn’t the right word to use, “emotionally debilitating” is probably more accurate. I wanted the pictures to be as accurate as possible so I was trying to let my stomach out without sucking in at all. It was harder than I thought. It goes against everything I’ve ever taught my body. Just like a rollie pollie curls up when you poke it, my stomach automatically sucks in when my shirt comes off, I think it’s some kind of survival instinct. Eventually I coaxed my stomach out of hiding, and all I can say is that the results were magnificently horrifying. I looked like I was in my third trimester, and had better get busy picking a name.
When I looked at the picture that’s all the motivation I needed to scare me straight. So I won’t be posting any before pictures, but here is a close second.

(here's a nice profile view that's pretty close)
As a side note after I was done I deleted the picture, smashed the camera with a rock, lit it on fire and threw it into Utah Lake. . . . . that will teach it not to take any more scary pictures.

Veteran-arian-egetarians

I love that my kids are old enough to communicate with each other in full sentences. One of my favorite things to do is eavesdrop on my girls in the back seat as we drive somewhere. They always have the most interesting conversations. The other night we were driving home from a Memorial Day party, and I heard the girls in the back seat discussing holidays and birthdays, and how cool it is to have a birthday on a holiday. Lindsay proudly told Kalli that her birthday was on Veterans Day. Kalli asked Lindsay what Veterans Day was. So Lindsay told her it was the day that we remember all the Veterinarians that have died for us. Kalli seemed impressed with Lindsay’s knowledge of the subject. On a slightly unrelated (but somewhat related note) Lindsay was telling us that there were some kids in her class that were really rude because they eat meat in front of a girl whose mom is a veterinarian. Me and Jackie thought that maybe she had mistaken a veterinarian with a vegetarian but she clarified that she thought the kids were being rude because the girls mom takes care of animals and all these kids are eating animals in front of her. The whole thing seemed very funny at the time. And apparently Lindsay has a fixation with veteranarians.

Why does Tigger Stink?

I agree with my wife in the sense that I don’t really like the idea of using a blog as a self brag forum, but I do like both of my sisters approach of using it to keep track of funny, cute, special things my kids do or say. So, although it won’t be very often I did want to keep track of some of these moments for myself.

I think that kids are hilarious. Occasionally they are trying to be funny and succeed, but for the most part I think they are funniest when they are not trying. Today my second child, Kalli, started telling me a joke while I was home for lunch. She said “Dad, why does Tigger smell bad?” Having heard this joke before, I tried to act like this was new material. Then she said” because he eats poo!” Personally I think that her punch line was far better than the original, and showed a lot more creativity. After I stopped laughing and told her the correct version of the joke (to avoid her telling anyone else about Tigger eating poo.) She decided to give me a disclaimer that it’s not good to eat poo, because it’s unhealthy. I have no doubt that with her new found knowledge, she will go far as a dental hygienist. She really is a sweetheart, and I think that joke made the second half of work a little more bearable.