Whipple Family Blog

On Sunday two sad things happened. Our beloved prophet and president of the LDS church, Gordon B. Hinckley, passed away. The other sad thing that happened is that I turned 30. Both events gave me mixed feelings. Our prophet has been such a wonderful influence to so many people and such a great leader for so long. I can't imagine not hearing his sweet voice in General Conference. He will be greatly missed. On the other hand, I know that he is in a far better place and reunited with his wife and those he loves. We had a sweet family home evening last night where we talked to our girls about our dear prophet and each one of us had tears in our eyes remembering him. As far as my birthday goes, yes it is a sad event. I guess I didn't expect to be so emotional about turning 30. I remember laughing at Brian when he was so sad about his 30th birthday two years ago. Now I understand. Doesn't getting older mean more maturity and the older you get the wiser you get right? Well, I don...

Monday when my girls were home from school for the holiday, I was watching some news on tv. They had the presidential nominees up and were talking about a few of them. When Mitt Romney came up I said to my girls, "this guy is running for president girls, and he is Mormon like us". My girls were quite impressed and then Shaylee blurted out, "he is so handsome!" Teralyn and I laughed and laughed and then a minute later she said, "he is almost as handsome as Wyatt in my primary class!". Tera and I had another good laugh. Hmmm.... no wonder she has enjoyed primary so much lately. (: So, Brian and I have been trying a different form of discipline for the past week. We are hoping it will help with the kids' motivation to get their things done without us constantly nagging them. We found a few mason jars in our basement and I bought a whole bunch of stickers. They each got their own jar to decorate and put their name on. Then, we said that when they do their...

Three Fridays of every month our family has a babysitting swap with two other families in our ward. It works out great for everyone. The kids have a blast and look forward to it every time, and we really enjoy our date nights. So, Brian and I haven't been too creative in the past. Usually we end up just going out to eat or going to a movie. We always try to do something creative, but we also have a babe in tow, so we end up not doing the usual creative things (sky diving, bungee cord jumping, parachuting, etc. you know the like...). (: Anyway, last night we did something a little crazy for us and went bowling! We have tried this before but it was when I was about eight months pregnant and we went to the Columbia bowling alley. We were actually a little relieved when they said Friday nights were reserved for bowling leagues because it smelled of smoke and I felt a little out of place with my huge belly. So this time, we thought we would try the Laurel bowling alley, and we had a bl...

So the past few weeks while our car has been getting fixed, we have been using a PT Cruiser for our rental car. When we first got it, we kind of cringed (we have always made comments about how much we don't like their looks...), and when Brian first drove it to work and I asked him how he liked it, he wasn't too happy about it. Well, as the time went on so did our opinion of the little car. Although I never did figure out how to manually turn on the dome light, there were some really cool features, for example, it tells you how many miles until you are out of gas (which is a huge benefit for me!). I actually learned to really like riding it. For some reason it felt like I was driving a little sports car. Although it looks pretty big, it felt really small. So, right when we were really getting used to the little thing, we get a call from the auto body shop saying our car is fixed. You know, I should be really excited about this, our car is finally fixed and looks as good as ne...

Yesterday Nicole Jensen and I and our four kids, went to Pump it Up in Columbia. We went to an open play time and for just fourteen bucks (you don't have to pay for adults or babes), we were able to get all of us in! We had a great time. I have never been there before, so I didn't really know what to expect, but I was impressed. There was hardly anyone there and there were so many fun moon bounces for our kids to play on. We had a blast. For Christmas from my cute younger bro. and his wife, we got some really cool water bottles. We have already used them many times and we each got our own size and color. Even little Raegy got one. We put water in it for her and she sipped it and loved it! Yes, it was her first time using a cup or sippy so I had to get some pictures. Hope you enjoy. What older sibling doesn't LOVE to dress up the younger ones? Ashtyn and Teralyn were enjoying torturing Raegan with the sunglasses. She actually didn't mind it at first..

So, last night I finished a great book. It's called, The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. I loved it! Cami actually loaned it to me quite a while ago, and I just didn't get around to reading it until now. (I'm sorry Cami, I will finally return your book!) Anyway, I am so glad that she recommended it me. It was very light reading, but so much fun. Check it out if you get a chance. Yesterday Ashtyn refused to go to preschool. She told me when she woke up that she didn't want to go, and I just crossed my fingers that she would. When we got in, I tried to be excited, hoping it would rub off on her, but no go. She basically clung to my leg like it was the end of the world or something. her teachers tried their darndest to get her off my legs and into class, but she threatened a huge tantrum, so they gave up. After about fifteen minutes of this, I decided to not push it. I told her that we could go home, but when she got home, she needed to go take a nap on her bed. She said ...

Okay, a little catch up.... Ever since Bri got in-line skates for Christmas, my whole family has been obsessed with roller skating and ice skating. Except me that is, I am terrified of it. It has to do with breaking my arm once on ice, and once on roller skates. I know, I know, get over it right? Anyway, we actually went one time during Christmas break to practice our basketball skills at the church and Bri brought all the roller skates too, so we had a little practice in there (don't worry, we aren't quite good enough to scuff up the gym, it was mostly a little scuffle here and a little scuffle there. (: So, Brian gets this idea that my girls would love ice skating lessons. Shaylee immediately said yes, and Teralyn and Ashtyn immediately said no. Since we quit horse riding lessons for the winter (it was getting a little chilly), we decided to do it. After telling Teralyn that she didn't have to do it, and Brian threatening her that she did, :) she decided last minute that ...

Okay, so we had our second annual New Years Eve bash for our kids. It started two years ago (last year it fell on a Sunday so we didn't do it) when our kids asked us why we got to go to parties during the holidays and they didn't. We thought about it and said, "well, why don't we throw you a New Years Eve party and you can invite your friends over?". So, that year we had a total of eighteen kids in our house (while their parents went out) and we all had a blast. We had so much fun last time that we decided to do it again. Brian and I are not quite to the superhero status (although we are pretty close), nor do we have the house space that we would like, so we didn't invite ALL their friends like they wanted, but we did invite quite a few and we totalled nineteen kids in our house for three hours. Luckily, we had Dance Dance Revolution, so for the first hour Brian was able to do tournaments with the kids downstairs. I was just about ready to get the goody table ...