Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Tom the Thankful Turkey

Every year for Family Home Evening we make a Thankful Turkey. It's nice to remember all of the many blessings which we enjoy. Here are the results for this year:
Jesus and the Church
The Scriptures
My Family
House
Sky and clouds
Health
Indoor Plumbing
Forced Air Heat
Daddy's Job
Music
Grass and Plants
Pets
America and books
Clothes
Cars
Food especially cookies
Lights
Water
The Priesthood
Leah
Horses
TV
Our Body
The American Flag
We all have sooooo much. Happy Thanksgiving.

Monday, November 17, 2008

10 Things I Love About Talmage

1. Your love of marshmallows and sticky popcorn- you must be my child.
2. Your busy little nature and creative mind.
3. How great you are getting at reading and writing - I love all of the notes you leave me.
4. Your amazing singing voice.
5. How caring, careful and loving you are with Leah.
6. That you love to help make cookies.
7. Hearing you play the piano.
8. Your love of plants and dirt and worms.
9. The cars and rocks and treasures that I find in your pockets.
10. Hugs and kisses from you.

10 Things I Love About Abi

1. Your nearly ever present jack-o' lantern smile and the cheerful personality that goes along with it.
2. How graceful you are when you dance.
3. How you love to be my helper "chef" in the kitchen.
4. Your empathetic nature especially for your brother and sister.
5. How you save and savor your candy so that you have Halloween candy until Easter.
6. Your love of reading and of learning new things.
7. You are a chatty little girl and such good company.
8. How you can plan and plan and plan fun activities for our family.
9. Hearing you play the piano - I'm proud of you for working so hard.
10. Hugs and Kisses from my big girl.

Pics of Abi's new room. Just perfect for our ballerina princess.


Now I just hope that you can keep it this clean.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Little Lulu

Once again I am neglecting my housework to post. Our home is in a bit of an upheaval as we move everyone around. We FINALLY finished Abi's room in the basement on Saturday and so moved Abi 's bed into her new room that night. Last night Kris set up Leah's crib in her new room, Abi's old room, and so she moved from her cradle in our room to her new room. Today we are moving Abi's toys and odds and ends to her room and the rest Leah's stuff into her room. Abi also gave her toy organizer to Tal so that moved to his closet and Leah inherited Tal's toy box. So we are doing the shuffle. Below is a picture of Abi's new room. My handsome husband worked sooooo hard. He dug the hole for the egress window, (we had A-Core cut it out), put the new window and well in place, scraped off the old terrible texture, re-drywalled the exterior wall, taped and textured the whole room, cased and trimmed the window, primed and painted the room and trim, and hung the blinds. I put up the ballet slippers border:) Great job Honey. Abi is quite thrilled with her new room. Once we get it cleaned up, I'll post some more pics.
Little Leah or Lulu as we call her turned 5 months last week. Time is flying by soooo fast. This is a pic of her in her Halloween kitty outfit from Nana Meek. Her 4 month Dr's appt was a little late but she is growing and growing. She is 25 1/2 inches and 11 lb 15 oz. She is 75% for height and 5% for weight. Long and skinny, who would have guessed in this family (Mom not included). She is such a delightful baby now. Her two teeth are in well and she loves to eat rice cereal and little bites of bread at lunch off mom's sandwich.

She loves to play games like patty cake, and peek a boo, and play with her toys, especially her zebra rattle and linking rings. But her favorite game is pulling up to a stand on the couch. She just grins because she is so big.
She loves us to sing songs to her and is getting better about riding in the car. She will be content for 10-15 minutes now as long as she's not tired. Leah is sleeping better at night as well. There have even been a few nights recently that she slept until 5:00 am before waking to nurse. She ends up in bed with us about 5:00 in the morning, she wants to be carried around to be in the middle of what everyone is doing, and she thinks that she is the cutest ever and we should all pay attention to her all the time. Lulu sure is spoiled but I think that means well loved.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Trick or Treat

I am stealing a few minutes of "Me Time" to post on my blog - while nursing a baby. We had a really fun Halloween this year. I was so glad to be able to enjoy it this year and join in the fun rather than being pukey and miserable like a year ago. Kris wanted to do a family theme for our costumes this year. Originally we were playing on the ambulance chasing lawyer but Abi and Tal revolted and so we were left with Mommy and Leah being the "Wambulance" (Leah is the light and siren), Kris - the ambulance chaser, Abi - a rock star, and Tal - Ironman. We celebrated at several parties. We went to the kids' Halloween carnival, had a blast at Kris's Civitan Halloween Hootenanny which they put on for the disabled in the community, and then had a Trunk or Treat and carnival at our ward building on Halloween. All were so much fun.


Abi had a lot of fun putting her costume together. She especially loved getting to spray her hair pink. Tal was so in love with his Ironman costume that he wore it nearly every day since we bought it, until I had to put an end to it for the sake of the costume.

Here we are at our Trunk or Treat. Leah does have a little reflector sewn onto her hat for our light. Fortunately she doesn't wail like a siren much anymore.


Kris totally rocked it with this Dracula pumpkin for Abi. I carved an Ironman for Tal but it is not nearly as cool and we didn't get a good pic of it.