I can't believe that we already had to cut Jackson's hair. He is almost 9 months old now!!! It blows me away to think of how fast time flies. At times I wish school would go a little faster but if that happened then my kids would grow up faster and that would be a tradgedy. I hate to see these little kids grow up. Anyways...boo hoo...you probably don't want to hear me get all fatherly and reflective. So back to the haircut. I actually missed it b/c I had to go to a scout training at the stake center. The folloing is the only evidence we have that the haircut actually happened.
I actually had to crop the picture b/c Amy was in her PJs and would probably kill me if I post a picture of her in her jammies. Anyways, Jackson looks very handsome in his new haircut.
In other news, I passed all of my written boards. I found out about that this week. Amy got called to the nursery. Madison passed off all of her piano songs this week and Preston is learning to write the letters in his name. Here are a couple of other pictures of the kids for you.
This is Preston "fixing" our door frame. One of the panels fell off. He thoughtfully took it upon himself to fix it.
This is Madison crawling out from under our bed. She is our little cave rat when we need a food item from under the bed. We keep food storage under there.
PS--I hope you all like the addition of music to the blog. I tried to pick music that wasn't too annoying. Tell me if you like it or not.
This last weekend I paticipated in the annual Polar Bear Plunge. Yes, it was cold...just if you were wondering. I joined Team Ngata of which half were members from our ward. Haloti Ngata plays for the Baltimore Ravens and he is in our ward. He plunged 24 times in the previous 24 hours so he didn't actually plunge with us but we all raised money for his team. We raised over $8000 for the special olympics. It was pretty awesome. We even had another ex-Baltimore Raven come down and support us. Ed Mulitalo came down from Detroit to plunge with us. He used to be in our ward but he got traded to the Detroit Lions last year. It was pretty dang awesome. After the plunge Ed and Haloti took the ward members from the plunge team out to eat. It was a pretty sweet Saturday morning. 
This week Preston accomplished his goal of learning to make pancakes. He set a goal in Joy School to learn how to make pancakes. We thought it was kind of funny that of all things to have as a goal he chose making pancakes. He does love to eat them though, so maybe it isn't that big of a stretch.
I got Amy a new set of scriptures and a new coat. She got me a man jewelry box. Now I know that sounds a little gay but it is actually pretty cool. It takes a while to explain it but trust me, any guy out there would like it. The kids also got new coats and church outfits.
The next day we went and saw the Macy's window displays and stopped in a few toy stores. The kids had a good time but it was really windy and super cold not to mention crowded. We walked around until abot 1:00 and then we headed back to the car. We are really glad that we went but we probably won't go again. It didn't seem as Christmasy as we were expecting. You always see in the movies how Christmasy NY is but in real life it is crowded, cold, noisy, and everyone is just out to make a buck. Take this Santa for example. We took a picture of the kids with him. We didn't notice the fat wad of cash in his left hand. After the picture he asked us for a "tip." He wanted $2 per kid. I gave him $1 per kid and we headed for home. 
