Whitney's birthday

 

Although it isn't always the greatest day for a birthday, I think Whitney had a fun day. Jason came and took her to breakfast in the morning. She lounged around and got herself ready in the afternoon and then she decided that she didn't want to go out again, so she invited Kai to come over to our house and have dinner and we watched a movie and played games.
Her friends, Kim, Kai and Jeff made her the snowman cake right before Christmas. By the bottom of the snowman is a yellow starburst and it says "don't eat the yellow snow". I made the Panda cake for her birthday--just because Whitney likes cute, funny things and that seemed easy.
She got more clothes for beauty school and Alexa bought her a case of Jones soda.
She woke up this morning and went to work--she works all day today. It is back to business as usual.

Happy 17th Birthday Whitney!! We love you.

Happy 17th Birthday

Who can imagine that Whitney is 17? It seems like it wasn't long ago that I was begging Tracy to go home (to Orem from Roosevelt) on Christmas day in 1991. I had a Dr. appointment the next day and I wanted to shave my legs and make sure that I didn't miss it. I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with our first child and I wanted to make sure that I had everything ready.
Tracy promised me that we would leave early in the morning to come home, but as luck would have it, my water broke when I woke up in the morning and there would be no delivering in Orem for me.
In a way, it was nice. We had all of our family there from both sides. The Dr. didn't think it would be long because my progress in the beginning seemed to be going pretty quick, so everyone stuck around (my dad kept coming back and forth from work). But that too was not meant to be. 15 hours later, Whitney made her appearance into the world. 5 pounds 14 ounce bundle of joy.
Whitney had a little bit of a rough start. We found out when she was six months old that her back was out of place and was causing her pain. After a few adjustments by a chiropractor, she was on her way. She has been a ball of fire ever since.
She was the first grandchild on both sides of the family and she was adored by everyone. She was the center of attention and she loved it. She loved to spend time with her grandparents and go on all kinds of adventures. She was a chubby monkey and she kept us laughing.
As she has grown, we have really enjoyed her fun and upbeat personality--as evidenced by some of the photos on the slide-show. She and Landon have been especially close and they love to do crazy things. Even this past Summer, they donned funny kid helmets, crazy glasses, wings and Landon even had pink floaties. They went outside for everyone to see and they had a sort of scooter olympics. They decided not to stop there and they rode their scooters like that down to the grocery store and went in and shopped for a treat--I am sure they got all kinds of looks for that, but they had so much fun.
Whitney has been like a close friend to me. We have so much fun when we are out together. One time we went to Cabellas and bought pop guns. We came home, hid in the bushes and called the house and told them to come out with their hands up. When the family came to the door, we came out and started shooting--they all thought we were crazy, but we had a great time.
Whitney is all grown up now. Attending Cosmetology concurrent with high school--she is set to graduate a year from now. She is so talented. She is a wonderful dancer, a fabulous singer, a great photographer, a talented writer, a fun-loving sister and a caring daughter. I don't imagine that I will be able to keep her living under my roof for too much longer. In a way, I welcome those changes because I want to see what she grows up to do, but the time is coming way to fast for me. I cherish Whitney and I can't imagine where I would be without her. She is a beautiful girl and we love her dearly. Happy 17th birthday Whitney.

Christmas 2008

We started off the Christmas-eve festivities with a visit from Santa, an elf and a reindeer in training. They brought us some fun gifts such as... "Landon was hard to shop for, so we got him some gum, We also got him some boxer briefs to cover his bum!!"

Here is the cute little elf and reindeer posing for the camera.

Next we opened up our new pjs and then we read the Christmas story from the Bible and talked about the true meaning of Christmas. Then we watched It's a Wonderful Life and headed off the bed--hoping that Santa would find our house.

Here are the Ross children striking a pose in their new pajamas that we opened after our fun "Santa" left.

Whitney enjoyed showing her better side. They all know how to strike a pose.

Katie was the first to open her pajamas. She thought they might be the same as some that she already had. She was just trying to make sure.

Hayden got light up Iron Man pjs that he thought were so cool that he wore them all day on Christmas as well.

Alexa got some cute pj bottoms with hearts all over them.

Landon is excited for his basketball shorts/pajamas.

Whitney is modeling her pjs and trying to hide her cold sore.

Whitney and Landon being their normal selves.

Landon showing his shirts that he got from Grandma and Grandpa McQuivey.

Don't they look so excited that it is Christmas morning? Katie picking her nose!! Hayden was obviously the first one up--this was around 7:30 a.m.

Here is the picture of the Christmas loot--we scored!! Between the kids getting a gift for a sibling that they drew a name for, a gift from each set of Grandparents, a gift from mom and dad, a gift from some secret Santa and a gift from the real Santa--we were set. Each child got to take a turn being the first to open a gift.

Don't the teenagers look thrilled?? They look like they didn't get much, but their gifts were just more expensive and more compact. Everyone got plenty and we had a good year.

Katie was so excited that Landon gave her a cute little dog. We had a wonderful day. We enjoyed opening the gifts and then we headed in for our traditional breakfast casserole and then we just played games, watched a couple of movies and just enjoyed each other's company. We have been so blessed. We felt a lot less stress about the holidays this year and we were happy to be together.

Katie's Winter Art Show

The teacher asks the kids a daily question and has them choose their answer. The question today was "during the past year, do you think that you have been naughty or nice?" Katie chose nice--she is probably right. One of the high-strung boys in her class put his name in the middle and the teacher just told him thanks for being honest.

Katie's teacher is so much fun. She held a Winter Art show today to showcase some of what the kids have done in their pre-school. The teacher is passionate about art, so they did all sorts of art mediums and then named the pieces. In the above picture Katie is trying to smile with cream puffs in her mouth.

Below, Katie did several pictures. This one in the middle is titled "Tracy".

This picture is called "Max" She loves the Max series of books that she is reading and she calls a lot of things Max now days.

The one on the left is titled "Sam" and the one on the right is her "self portrait" (a little messed up don't you think??)

This is Cubism and this is the one that she titled "Tracy"

Here are the self portraits.

More art

Every day they pick a number and count to that number--they have gotten up to 40. They recite the alphabet and the sound that each letter makes and they go over site words that they have already learned. Here they are doing the daily routine.

College

Hayden was talking to me today about if he could have sleepovers when he is in college. I told him that he probably wouldn't live with me when he goes to college. He looked at me and said "who is going to check my papers?" I said "You will give them directly to your teachers, that won't be my problem any more" He said "Oh, Darn, I am going to miss you." Then he told me that he wants to just live here for the rest of his life--I am sure that that will change.

Whitney Christmas Dance 2008

Here is Whitney ready for the Christmas Dance. She went with Kai Talker. They doubled with her friend Kim who went with Whitney's ex-boyfriend Cory!! The girls actually have the same dress--Whitney's is the one from our cruise. Kim just bought hers this year. It did dump a lot of snow today, so Whitney paired it with a Jacket and I think it looks cute. They had a fun time.

Once again, Landon does weird things...

Landon was having this horrible pain in his chest--right in the middle under his ribs. After a couple of days and the coaches calling him a wimp and telling him to work through it, I decided to take him in and make sure that it wasn't something serious.
Well now, we know Landon and we know that he can't just break a bone and get it over with, he has to do weird things like pull the muscle or break the bone in the growth plate or bruise the bone. Anyway, the Dr. said that due to some coughing fit (his asthma has been acting up with him playing sports and we just got more meds for that) he sprained his sternum (sp??). The Dr. said that it is like any other joint or muscle, you need to rest it to get it better. But you can't bandage that up and tell him to not breathe, so he is out of basketball for a couple of weeks and he is on light duty exercise only. He just goes and dribbles and shoots around a little--that still puts quite a strain on him and he is in pain for a while after--even eating hurts.
Luckily he has only a couple more games until Christmas break and hopefully then he can rest a little more and try to recover.

More Thanksgiving

Thanks for the pictures Dana.

Office/Warehouse

I know that you have all been praying for us and we really appreciate the help. We have felt uplifted and strengthened. Our main focus now is this building. I hate to see it go, but we don't have any choice in the matter at this point. It is almost finished and it is looking wonderful. We are asking that anyone who is able and would like to participate, fast this coming Sunday, for the building to sell. We are going to try to get to the temple this week as well and we will hope for the best--this is not the best economy, but you never know. Miracles still happen.

Family pictures

Tracy wasn't feeling too well for some reason, but he was trying to stay in the front room and he is still a kid magnet. My camera batteries died shortly after these pictures, so I couldn't get any more.