Nutcracker vs. Santa

Here are a few pictures from a few weeks ago. We had a ward breakfast with Santa and then went straight over to Aaron's work for the annual children's Christmas party. At the work party they had a presentation of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie done by a professional theater group here in town. Then the kids got a gift bag, a visit with Santa, and then a chance to play games for prizes. Talmage's favorite part was the cotton candy they gave out at the door as we left. Talmage isn't so big on sweets but when it come to cotton candy he has no control.

Our family at the company party. In the background on the right side you can see the tall nutcracker.

Her is one of the nutcrackers (they could be toy soldiers but my kids claim they are nutcrackers) that were walking around on stilts taking pictures with people and making a lot of jokes. They were very tall, and pretty cool.

In this picture you can see I am only to his waist. Anya wanted nothing to do with them. She was too scared to stand near them for the picture, that is why I am holding her. Earlier she had sat on two different Santa's laps (one at the ward party and one at the work one). She chatted with each Santa at length and all by herself too. I guess it's a good thing Santa is not a tall man.

Anya and our ward Santa
She was so excited to tell me that Santa like Hello Kitty too!

Arkansas Trip Finale

I just realized that I had several more pictures from our Arkansas trip. But as Christmas approaches it seems silly to revisit Thanksgiving with much attention to detail. So I'll just post pictures and captions.
We crossed over into Missouri for a fun little day trip. We tasted the worst water we have ever tasted or smelled. Some how Mario got into this family picture. You may need to click on the picture to enlarge it-- he's pretty small.

The Arkansas sign was much, much bigger! We stopped here an bought some oranges at a roadside stand.
Anya found this cool leaf that she thought looked like a nose, so Aaron snatched it and put it on so Dustin could take a picture.

Anya then had to make due with a lesser nose. But she still thought she was funny.

Here is most of our yummy Thanksgiving meal. We are missing a few pies and some homemade ice cream in this picture.


These are the things were were thankful for that day. All those who could talk listed things they were grateful for.

San Antonio Temple in the Fall

The trees have started changing color and we are loving it. Anya is so excited about it being fall (just in time for Christmas). She is constantly picking up leaves.

We had some things to do up by the San Antonio Temple today so we brought our camera and I took a few pictures.

The temple from the front.
It was fun to have clouds today even if most of them have blown away now.

That is the side of the temple in the background and two lovely fall trees. It was about 55 degrees and we were cold so we had to hurry, hurry and take pictures.

The Other Backseat Driver

Talmage is usually my backseat driver, saying things like, "Watch out for ice on bridge", and "Watch out for deer". So the other day we were passing the park in our neighborhood and Anya saw this sign..

She yelled out "Watch out for teeter totters!"

Thanksgiving Trip part 2 : The Glass Chapel

In a nice wooded area up on a hill, near the Missouri/Arkansas boarder we visited the Glass Chapel. It is a small chapel built mostly out of glass. We enjoyed the architecture as well as the smooth, paved, winding trail through the woods around the chapel. I think the chapel is mostly used for weddings.

This is a picture of the ceiling area near the entrance of the chapel.

The kids standing near the front of the chapel. Good thing the velvet rope was there to keep Talmage from playing the grand piano and organ!

Aaron and I at the front.

The whole family standing in the middle.

This one is for Stephanie who complains that their are not enough pictures of certain members of the family when it comes time make the family calender.

Talmage's Tooth

Talmage lost his first tooth today. It has been wiggly for months but he refused to wiggle it. While visiting the Humphery's last week, Evalyn showed a great example of tooth wiggling. She lost it the day after we left. When Talmage heard that he started wiggling his like mad and we pulled it out today.

Thanksgiving Trip part 1

For Thanksgiving this year our family took a road trip up to visit Carley's family, who recently moved to Arkansas. Aaron, Carley, and I went to high school and college together. She married Dustin the same summer Aaron and I got married and we hung out as married students, in Rexburg, until Aaron and Dustin graduated and we all had to move away.

It was great to get the families together for an extended visit.

My family left Monday morning and drove north through Texas for six hours and then headed through Oklahoma and then on up into northwest Arkansas. We arived at their house Monday evening. The kids did a great job in the car. Our family had only seen the first hour of the drive before. The remaining 10 hours were all new territory for us. Oklahoma had very bumpy roads and was our least favorite part of the drive. We really like the hills, rivers, and trees in north west Arkansas. I bet it is beautiful when all the trees have leaves.

While visiting we went to a great Native American Museum. Talmage was afraid of this stuffed bear and we had to turn him around and back him up so that we could take this picture. After it was done he ran to the other side of the room to be as fare away from it as possible. Anya loved the bear and kept petting it and trying to shake its hand. We had to keep reminding her that we aren't supposed to touch things in museums.



Outside the museum they had this teepee. The kids enjoyed going in it as well as sifting though the mulch to find an arrowhead to take home.

It was a bit chilly (in the 50's) and windy for our family this day so we had to break out the coats. Talmage and Evalyn stuck together when ever possible. They say they think they might get married when they grow up.


The next day it was warmer and we went up to Belle Vista so see the Glass Chapel. We also found this lake up on the hill.

Talmage and Evalyn again.

Anya and Lucy climbing the rocks. They had fun together but were not stuck to each other like Talmage and Evalyn.

Our family squinting into the sun in front of the lake. It was good to see blue water again.

I'll post pictures of the Glass Chapel in the next post.

Beauty and the Beast

Here is a video of Talmage playing Beauty and the Beast. When I showed him the video, he laughed at his head keeping the beat. It looked like he was trying to be his own metronome. He is doing a great job learning the piano but every once in a while he reminds me he still want to learn the violin. He also wants to learn how to play the organ and thinks it would be the coolest thing to play the organ in either the Tabernacle or the Conference center when he's "grown a foot or two."

Halloween

During the day we rode bikes and Aaron even took Anya's training wheels off, at her request, so she could start learning to ride on two wheels. She is wearing my helmet because her hair was too big for hers, as you will see in the next picture.


In the morning I put her hair up in rags so that she could have curly princess hair in the evening. She looked like Medusa most of the day.



Here is her curly hair after I took the rags out. She had a lot of comments on her hair. A few people asked if it was a wig.



Talmage asked for a mustache and Aaron went all out. He loved it.


Here are the kids pumpkins. They drew a picture with Aaron's help, on a piece of paper and then he transferred it onto the pumpkins. They were very pleased with their handiwork.



One of the kids took this picture of Aaron and I in our festive orange shirts.

Wonderful Weather

We are having amazing weather right now. This summer's heat made me forget how nice it usually is here. We have been riding bikes, playing at the park, and today we spent the afternoon cheering for Aaron at a work softball game. They lost but Aaron pitched a shutout last inning against some tough hitters.

My arthritis seems to finally be under control and I'm loving playing outside with the kids and having energy all day long.

Well Visit

The kids just had their annual check up with the doctor. They are both healthy and passed their hearing and vision tests. They thought the doctor was crazy for asking them to pee in a cup and Talmage was enthralled with the little through door from the restroom to the lab, were you place the specimens. He kept wanting to check to see if they picked up his cup yet.

Anya is average for her age (40 inches tall and 36lbs). Talmage kept to his usual 30 percentile for height (he's almost 45 inches tall). Yeah he's just 5 inches taller than Anya-- she could end up taller than him. But what he lacks in height he made up in weight. He was 51 lbs, a good portion of that is muscle and their is no denying he has his father's build.

The kids both received immunizations. Talmage got one and didn't even say ow. He has no problems with shots and has set a great example for Anya. She received four shots, one at a time, and didn't complain about any of them. The kids were excited to get band aids. It was a very happy visit to the doctors today-- probably our best to date!

Fall Festival

This year, our ward did a Fall Festival and Trunk or Treat a week before Halloween. Each auxiliary was in charge of a booth. There was a fishing booth, a cupcake walk, a donut from a string eating contest. . . The Primary did a photo booth. We set up a background and took pictures with a digital camera and then e-mailed the pictures to everyone. This allowed whole families to have their picture taken together if they wanted. We also did individual shots and groups-- like half the deacons quorum. Here's the picture of our family. Talmage is a pirate, Anya is Princess Liana from the Barbie Diamond Castle movie (the movie scared my kids but Anya loved the dress), Aaron is a beach guys (he was just hot and wanted to wear his swim suit),and I'm not exactly sure what I am. I could have been a witch if I would have put my hat on, but I was too busy taking pictures. Aaron claimed I was a vivablix but only people that have read the Fablehaven series would have gotten that.

The weather forecast for Halloween is sunny and 80 degrees. A little warm but better than wearing a snow suit over your costume. If anyone wants to come down and Trick or Treat in the nice weather you are welcome to stay with us.

Anya's Birthday

Anya is so happy to be four! I let her wear her Halloween princess costume for her birthday. She thought that was so exciting.



For her birthday we gave her a nice doll with extra clothes and shoes. She was so excited because she showed me this doll was her favorite over a month ago. She says she likes her because they look the same. She named her Mary and she has pretty well taken over Elmo's place as favorite toy and companion.

Anya lost no time in pulling off Mary's shoes and trying a new pair on her.


Anya's Sunbeam teacher brought her a huge balloon and skittles for her birthday. They were both a big hit. She is also wearing a bead necklace she made, with Aaron's help, out of a kit she got from HoneyGram and Papa.

Is it Winter?

Last night the kids and I took the garbage and recycling out to the curb around sunset. It was around 87 degrees out and humid, the kind of weather that makes you instantly feel sweaty and sticky. The kids thought it felt great and wanted to ride bikes and play. I was checking how our plant were doing after finally getting some rain when Talmage came up to me and asked "Is it Winter?". The poor child is going to grow up so confused about seasons. He saw that some of our plants that do better in the winter were making a come back after temperatures finally dipped below 100 everyday. So he assumed it must be winter. I try to explain season's down here to the kids but they all blend together. Spring is hot, summer is deathly hot, fall is humid and hot, and winter is warm. Now I'm exaggerating a bit but in truth we have flowers of one kind or another year round so it is hard to distinguish one season from the next.

Tokyo Temple

You may need to click on the picture to see it better.

The kids were excited about this picture of the Tokyo Temple built out of blocks on the front of this months edition of The Friend. It turns out Aaron was just as excited because he "helped" the kids build it out of blocks. I love that he enjoys playing with the kids and their toys so much.

O My Father

Talmage has been obsessed with the hymn O My Father for the past month or two. He requests it every night for his bed time song. He knows what hymn number it is. He chooses to sing it at family night. He sings it while he plays. He tries to play it on one of those annoying plastic flutes. Some day it will change to a new song and I'll be glad a recorded this video of him singing it. I am impressed that he knows all the words-- I still get the verses jumbled.



Anya was trying to get attention, hence the puppy in front of the camera. So we gave her the chance to be on camera. Talmage told suggested she sing "Daddy's Home Coming." Also Anya is into doing her own hair these days. She loves stretchy headbands.

Talmage's 6th Birthday

Talmage was so incredibly excited to turn six. I think his favorite birthday present was six 1 dollar bills from Grandma Dazey. He thought he was rich having that many dollars. He wanted to go to the store and by a toy and Doritos (because his mean mom doesn't buy them because she has braces and can't eat them). When we got to the store he found a package of three mini click pens (yes like office supplies). He loves all things miniature (he gets it from HoneyGram) and he loves pens and small note books. These pens cost five dollars though, so he had to put the Doritos back. He was totally fine with that and very, very happy about the pens. He carries a pen around nearly every where. In the next picture you can see it clipped to the top of his shirt. He either has it there, in a shirt pocket, or clipped to his shorts pocket. The boy would love the idea of a pocket protector-- but I'm not telling him about it.

Talmage is so happy to have his cool pen.

Talmage and Anya with their cheesy smiles.

Talmage blowing out his candles. His cake had little Mario and Luigi figures on it. (Anya calls Luigi, "a weegee" it cracks me up, I love her funny words she also thinks apartments are called rupartments)
Talmage also loved his Lego sets. He got one from us and one from HoneyGram and Papa.

Something

It's been a while since I posted something. So here are two random pictures to get me going. I've been putting off uploading pictures from my camera. I finally did it today, so more should be coming in the near future.

Anya and Aaron were all worn out after helping clean the church building last Saturday. Anya is getting so long! Aaron is actually trying to rest and Anya's just faking it, you can see it in her little grin.


Talmage and Anya have been into building with blocks lately. They built this with Aaron one day when I was out. The point was to build a tower using every wooden block, but one. Then they threw that block at the tower to knock it down. Lately they've been building ziggurats because they learned about them in history.

Indian Song

Here Talmage is playing "Indian Song". He learned this one a few weeks ago but like to go back and play it from time to time.



Today when I was working with Talmage on math he was reviewing odd numbers. I asked him what's after five, he said seven, then I asked what was next, he said nine and then couldn't remember what came next so he said, "And so forth."

Magic Man

This is one of Talmage's piano songs for this week. It keeps getting stuck in my head. He really likes playing piano and learning new songs every week.

Anya's Vocabulary

Anya is still 3 years old, but uses such big words, sometimes correctly, sometimes not. Yesterday she ran up to me and told me she was "lava proof" when I looked surprised she said "I'll prove it!" She then acted like she was holding her breath and pretended to swim through the play room which I'm assuming was filled with lava in her mind. Just now she came to tell me that she "stabilized the book". I'm pretty sure she meant to say she had stapled the book. (The kids are creating books out of paper right now. Anya's is about The Creation and Talmage's is about outer space).

A few weeks ago Anya notified me that she was catching "intruders", then she asked what intruders were. I tried to explain it in a non threatening manner so she wouldn't be afraid of bad guys getting in our house at night or something. I asked her what kind of intruders she was catching and she told me "spiders".

The kids have been on a science kick and Anya felt so sad the other day because Talmage had created a science experiment with out her-- she came crying to me that she wanted to do a "speramint too". It's a good thing she drew my attention to Talmage's experiment because it was "discovering" if things were waterproof or not. That could have gone bad, luckily it didn't get out of hand.

Anya also told me that clearing dishes from the table was "harder than pie for Talmage, but it is easy as pie for me".

I sure like her words and phrases, they keep me smiling. I wish I could remember and share them all.

5K

Today for our Stake Pioneer Festival, Aaron started out the day by running in the 5k race. It started at 7AM and it was hot. I was sweating just sitting with the kids waiting for him so we could clap as he finished. He did a good job. He ran it in the 23 minute range. The guy who won first place did it in a little over 17 1/2 minutes! Right after the race I had to set up our Primary's nail pounding booth, so Aaron got to work hauling cinder blocks and 4x4's. He's amazing. Now, near the end of the day it's all catching up to him and he looks like me trying to get up and down the stairs. Unfortunately for him I mostly just laugh and tell him where he can find my cane if he wants it-- he doesn't.

Gross Teeth

Talmage's piano lessons started again, after a summer break. His teacher had assigned him some extra song because she knows he's a fast learner and likes to move on to new songs. Talmage learned all she asked him to and then learned another three on his own. I didn't even know about one of them until he came home with it passed off in his book. Because he practiced so much over the break he got enough stickers to get a WOW bag. (They get a sticker each day they practice and when they accumulate 30 stickers they get a WOW bag that contains treats and junk toys. He loves it.) This time his WOW bag contained these gross teeth. He thinks they are so cool. Anya wanted to try them so he washed them off and let her put them in.