Savannah is a RUNNER!

It's kind of funny how sometimes in life, the same themes keep recurring. I've been re-reading the book The Non-Runners Marathon Trainer. (I know technically I'm not a "non-runner" but it has so many great skills in there that I keep reading it.) In it, the idea of self-talk is introduced. Everything you say to yourself is instruction to the brain. Therefore, if you tell yourself you are lazy, your brain responds by being lazy and likewise if you tell yourself you are a strong, confident person you will be that person.

Last night the girls and I were able to go to a fireside. This woman had recently become a runner. She bought a magazine before going on a long plane ride that was about how to become a runner and for some reason she believed it. She started telling herself that she was a runner and even had her friends begin to call her "Laurel, the runner." (She is quite a character.) She is a little heavy, but she says that she actually has been running and has signed up for a half marathon in June. It all began with the thought, "I think I am a runner." (By the way... the theme for the young people this year is "I Believe.")

Anyway, this all comes together with Savannah. At the beginning of the year, her P.E. coach encouraged her to go talk to the track coaches based on her performance in class. And with that... she joined the track team. It has been so great for her. The coaches are really impressed with her performance and tell me she is by far the freshman with the most potential. The senior girls have really taken her under their wing and it is being such a great experience for her. On Friday, we had a meet at the Olympic Oval. She ran the 400m, 10 seconds faster than her coaches predicted. She still needs to shave off 11 seconds before the state track meet in four months so she can snag a spot on the relay team with 3 of the seniors, but we think she can do it. We're working on her mantra now because we know- Savannah is a RUNNER!

P.S. I have to admit it's a dream come true for me to have my daughter run with me in the mornings... even though she always beats me on the last sprint home.

The Visual Arts Institute

Emmaline has been taking art classes from a local studio for a while, but I wasn't very happy with their curriculum. I think the focus was keeping kids interested in art, but there wasn't a lot of structure. I was looking for something to give her a better foundation in the basics of drawing. I finally talked to the director of the Visual Arts Institute. He seemed to really understand what I was looking for and I really liked his credentials (he is a former professor at B.Y.U. and the U.) and was impressed with the other teachers at the Institute. He felt like it would be best for Emmaline to join a Figure Drawing class for kids in 7-12th grade. When she first heard about it, she was nervous. The thought of drawing nudes is a bit daunting to her. We've assured her that she won't have to do that until college.

When I picked her up after the first class, she was in tears. It was so hard and all of the other kids obviously had a lot more experience. When she came home, she decided to continue to work to be ready for the next class. First obstacle, finding a model. She began offering the boys money to sit for her to practice drawing them. The promise of a quarter was all Tucker needed to be game for a sitting. As she was getting everything ready (sharpening pencils, readying paper)- Tucker climbed up on the chair. Emmaline looked up and exclaimed, "Tucker! I'm not in college yet!!"

We haven't begun potty-training Tucker yet, but he randomly takes off his diaper to use the toilet. This just happened to be one of those times, but we didn't notice, since his shirt covered him and he was wearing a cape that Grandma made him, that he was nude from the waist down. A quick diaper change and he was ready to model.


Her progress during the second class was amazing. She was very encouraged so I think we've found the right place!!

Being Elmo

The Sundance Film Festival is in town and the Salt Lake Arts Academy had the opportunity to see the documentary "Being Elmo." When I went to pick Emmaline up at the theater, she asked if she could bring Tucker in to meet Elmo. I agreed, assuming that the guy was walking around, with the puppet, meeting people.

Well, you know Emmaline. I walk in to hear a lady telling her, "He's doing an interview, but I think he is going to come out this door. Don't get your hopes up, but maybe." So as soon as he came out of the door, Emmaline runs up to him and says, "Can we see Elmo?"And yep, we got to meet Elmo. The real, live puppeteer- with the puppet in hand! It was just us, those two, and a few reporters and photographers... a little private meet and greet. Gotta hand it to Emmaline- when you think rules don't apply to you, you can sometimes make amazing things happen.


Tucker was unfortunately VERY shy. I guess I don't let him watch enough Sesame Street to understand just how exciting it was!

The other adorable little girls is Emmaline's friend, Chloe, that we were giving a ride to school. Forget about the rest of Sundance. We've met the important stars!

Game Face

Our family LOVES to play games. Just recently, Tucker has begun to understand his colors and match numbers well enough to play UNO. It's a pretty serious endeavor for him.

Love the lips.

He is so proud of the fact that he knows how to play, he tries to engage someone in a game almost every day. As soon as the other kids get home from school (his very favorite time of day) he starts to ask if they would like to play. I wonder how long it will take him to be able to play Hive. Hmmm.... "wet's" see.

Fort Worth Museum

Adding validity to the "everything's bigger and better in Texas"- the Fort Worth Museum was fantastic! You could get lost in that place for days and still not see it all.

Hard to tell who's more intersted in putting together this circuit board.

Savannah spent a lot of time with Miles. (Thanks for the pic, Leslie. Somehow I didn't get one of her).

Oliver LOVED this water activity. It was pretty freezing outside, so he had the whole place pretty much to himself.
Of course Emmaline came up with an awesome craft. As she wore it around, everyone stopped to ask her where she made it. Needless to say, it didn't look much like the example- give her some paper and glue and she'll amaze you.

Parker and Oliver loved this exhibit where you could try your hand at being a foreman for a natural gas dig.

It was so fun! Thanks to the Horn family for coming with us and making it a great day.

Random pre-Christmas

One night, as I was taking Savannah to soccer, I saw a sign for a "Live Nativity." I'm not sure I had ever been to a live nativity, so I decided to take Emmaline and the boys. It was VERY popular and the line was long, but it was so worth it! They had every animal from donkeys to camels and served hot chocolate to take the sting off the cold night. We'll definitely visit that as a whole family next year.


Although the big rock in the tire kind of threw a wrench in our travel plans, it did give us an excuse to visit Grand Junction and the house that Grandma grew up in. Wish we could have seen the inside, but the owners were pulling out of their driveway as we drove up.


Back in November, Tucker and I paid a visit to Cabela's while we were trying to find a birthday present for John Simmons. There was a Christmas tree set up with all kinds of kids toys around it. Tucker quickly picked up a toy gun and exclaimed, "This is what Santa's gonna bring me." If you've heard Tucker, you can imagine the volume and vigor with which this was delivered. I didn't think much about it until about a week before Christmas. We were in WalMart and he was walking around, looking at the toy guns. He would pick up one and say, "Hmmm.... wet's (let's) see. Nope. That's not the one Santa's bringing." I realized we were in trouble because he had not forgotten! Luckily they've got a Cabela's in Texas.

One last random story of Tucker. Every year we use an advent calendar that I got years ago from Restoration Hardware. The doors are fairly large and can hold tiny gifts as well as candy. The kids are funny about that calendar- they love to open the previous days' door, making sure nothing has been left inside. That's why I didn't worry one Saturday morning when I could hear the little doors being opened and closed for some time. Later that day, I saw the tiniest smidgen of a candy wrapper sticking out of one of the days that we hadn't opened yet. I opened it to find only wrappers inside. That little monkey had opened all of the doors, eaten the candy, and stuffed the wrappers back so that we couldn't tell. A couple of days had treats that he didn't like, so he either ate only one, or ate part of one and stashed it back in place. Next year we'll have to be much more careful!

Gingerbread Houses

(Sorry for all the late Christmas posts. I might actually get my Christmas cards out this week. Stay tuned... I've got more current stuff coming!)
It just wouldn't be a Huntzinger Christmas without gingerbread houses. This year I decided to take the easy way out and use a kit from Costco. The fondant included in the kit seemed like a fun thing to try.

Tucker was so excited about it, he could hardly do any decorating. Yummm- fondant.

I don't think Oliver was very excited about this activity.

Luckily he and Savannah worked it out.

As usual, Emmaline stuck with it the longest, paying special attention to the roof.

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the finished product. Maybe because the next morning Tucker and Oliver broke it trying to get just a "little taste." At least it didn't go to waste.

Our Favorite Christmas Ornaments

Although I always say I hate to put up the Christmas tree (it is so much work!!), I do love the sentimental part of looking at each ornament and remembering the story behind them. As I shed a tear putting the tree away (my kids are so big now and I have so many ornaments of when they were little), I remembered that before Christmas I took a picture of everyone with their favorite ornament. Everyone except Tucker, that is- he didn't quite understand what we were doing.

Oliver's favorite is one he made in school last year.

Emmaline's favorite is Ryan brought back for us from the Ukraine.

Savannah's favorite is an owl brought to us last year with our "12 Days of Christmas."

My favorite is this little elf that was always on our Christmas tree growing up.

Tyler's favorite is also one from his childhood.

Goodbye old friends. Until next year.

Quote of the day

As we were on our long car ride back from Texas, Emmaline started asking Tyler and I questions about how we met and our courtship. After we talked about it for a while, she said:

"Mama, I'm glad you decided to marry Dad because I'm pretty sure he and I come as a package deal."

Love that and I think she's right! =)

Top 10 of 2010

As usual, we listed the top 10 events for our family during Family Home Evening on Monday. I was a little surprised. I didn't realize how much we had going on, but the kids were listing things as quickly as I could write and we had to weed out a few. Here they are in all their glory, in no particular order...

1. Oliver learned to read.
2. Savannah started High School.
3. Mama left for two weeks to help Dad in the Philippines.
4. Oliver lost his first tooth one night and second tooth the next night.
5. Tucker learned to talk (and sing =)
6. Dad spent a lot of time at home.
7. Mama did her first triathlon.
8. We had reunions in Fallon and Brewster and went to Texas, California and Mexico.
9. Emmaline got her ears pierced.
10. Savannah's team won their first tournament and Emmaline's team placed first in their Futsal league.

It was a great year. Can't wait to see what this year brings!

The bad and the ugly

There was so much about Christmas that was good (and I'll blog about that later), but first let's get through the bad and the ugly.
We started our trip to Texas out a little late- but we weren't worried. We had kind of planned on taking it in three easy days so we could stop and have a little visit with Shelby. But we had only just gotten into Spanish Fork Canyon when...


we hit a HUGE rock in the road. We weren't the only ones- an eighteen wheeler and 3 other cars hit it as well. We waited a couple of hours for AAA, but when they didn't show up, the firefighters there to clean up the mess from the gas spill from the eighteen wheeler offered to help... and we were on our way. We could only go about 50 mph with the doughnut spare and we were so late, we only made it to Green River. (We were shooting for Grand Junction, the next biggest town to get a new tire). We got a fairly good start the next morning, in spite of spending a couple of hours on the tire, but were stone walled again when the road we were traveling on was closed for avalanche control- for FOUR HOURS!! I have never felt so blessed that I have such amazing kids as I was when we spent those four hours in a very small convenient store. So again, we didn't get far and didn't make it to visit Shelby. :-( The next morning we had an amazing travel day with no incident... but I said I'd save the good for later.
On the way back, our first day was great until we took the exit for our motel in Albuquerque. The car shuddered a bit at the red light and stopped. That's right- it just stopped! A couple seconds later I turned it back on and it acted completely normal- no warning lights, nothing. We took it into a shop and they couldn't find anything wrong- so we were off again. The next day of travel was without incident but I began getting sick about halfway through the day. I don't even know how to describe this last week of my life. I guess I've never had the flu. I had no idea. My fever was so high most days, I couldn't even think straight. Starting last Friday, I kept feeling a little better and I would try to get up and get some things done and find myself flat on my back again. I'm so sorry for my kids because the last week they had off from school has been anything but fun.
Oh, and for the icing on the cake. The bishop called. Since I didn't know when I'd be well enough for a formal interview, he decided he'd better just go ahead and give me my new calling over the phone. Teaching gospel doctrine. Happy New Year!