The Twilight Years

If you're not a Twilight fan, you probably won't get it; if you're not LDS, you definitely won't get it, but I thought it was pretty funny . . . .

Twilight Years from Tom on Vimeo.

Fun with Daddy

I love this picture of Elaine and Mike. I had some fun with it . . . .

Liberty & Independence

The day after Thanksgiving, Nate and Hayden joined us, and we drove to Liberty and then Independence, in Missouri, to see some Church history sites.

Our first stop was Liberty Jail. Mariah didn't like the "scary noises" (horses running, etc.) during the informational recording, but I think the girls enjoyed themselves for the most part. They were well behaved, which was a relief to their mother.

We drove from Liberty to Independence, Missouri, where Joseph Smith dedicated 63 acres of land for a temple. The saints were driven from Independence before they were able to build that temple, but it will someday be built.

The girls' (and Hayden's) favorite place of the day was the U.N. Peace Fountain near the visitors' center.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we drove up to Kansas City, where Mike's cousin, Nate, is attending dental school. We stayed with him, his wife, Kate, and their little boy, Hayden, for a few days and had a great time.

The girls were amazing travelers! We drove up Wednesday and just visited and chilled that evening.

Thursday we had a pretty relaxed day. We played on the playground behind the condo for a couple hours in the morning, and then put the kids down for naps while we prepared dinner. Kate hosted Thanksgiving dinner at 3:30, so the couple hours right before were a bit busy. Dinner and the company were great! There were 8 adults and 6 kids. And LOTS of food!

After dinner, we went to a gymnasium around the corner from the Georges' place. Someone in their ward owns it and had offered to have everyone over to play. The kids loved jumping and running around.

I love Thanksgiving; and I love the fact that it's still all about family, friends, and the blessings God has given us. The world hasn't run away with it yet. I'm so thankful for Mike, my girls, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and all of our blessings, family, and friends.

Thanks, Nate and Kate, for a great Thanksgiving!

(A funny Mariah story: While I was packing our stuff to come home, I caught her several times trying to sneak in some of Hayden's toys. I thought I had seen and removed everything that wasn't ours. But, about 30 minutes after we got on the road, Mariah opened her purse and pulled out almost the entire magnetic alphabet from the Georges' fridge. The little sneak! We mailed them back yesterday.)

I like this . . . .

This is not my house; and I don't know if my neighbors own guns . . . . but I like it.

Haircuts

I gave both girls haircuts today. I've cut Laney's hair a few times before, but I'd say this was her first "real" haircut.

This was the best "before" shot I could come up with:

And here's after:

And Mariah after:

(And speaking of haircuts . . . . I've been so out of it lately, and my children so neglected, that Mariah cut her own bangs sometime in the last couple weeks without my knowing it. I commented to Mike about a week ago that Mariah had all these little wispy hairs on her forehead. It didn't dawn on my until just a couple days ago that there were quite a few, and they're all the same length and look way too uniform to just be newly growing-in hairs. I asked her about it, and she said she cut her hair in mom's bathroom with daddy's scissors, and she got a little scratch on her head. Lovely.)

Little Laney

The other day, I walked into the living room to find this:

Going Places

Mariah is always planning little excursions. She packs stuff into purses or bags and/or the stroller, and then she's off. I'm not sure where she was headed the other day, but she came to me looking like this:

A few minutes later, I looked out the window and saw this:



She was walking so purposefully, back and forth across the yard--definitely headed somewhere . . . .

Outings

I feel much better when we are out of the house. So, we bought a zoo pass, and I've been taking the girls once or twice a week.

A couple weeks ago, we went to the botanical gardens in downtown Oklahoma City and had a great time.

Halloween Festivities

I'm not really a fan of Halloween. I do like the fun costume part for kids; I don't like the something-for-nothing candy-candy-candy part; I really don't like the scary-evil-spooky part.

We found a way to enjoy the fun part and skip out on most of the yucky part. The girls dressed up as Cinderella and a very cute ladybug. The night before Halloween we went to our ward Trunk-or-Treat. Even feeling sick, I managed to make a soup and some rolls for the dinner (motivated by the fact that our family would have a vegetarian/healthy option to eat).

Before dinner, the kids got to do little carnival activities and then go trunk-or-treating in the parking lot (a much-safer-and-less-hassle option than neighborhood trick-or-treating).

Halloween morning, Mariah got to choose 5 things from her trunk-or-treating loot. She was quite pleased. She ate them all immediately.

Halloween night, we skipped the dressing up and trick-or-treating and went instead to a little party with some of Mike's classmates and their families. We had pizza for dinner, and then the girls played with the other few children there while the adults played "What Were You Thinking." We had a great time, hardly tainted at all by Halloween-ness.

(Sorry again about the random and out-of-focus pictures. The girls just refuse to pose.)

Turner Falls

Mike had a one-day fall break in the middle of October. We joined some of his classmates and their wives and went camping. We loved it!

Turner Falls is about an hour and a half south of us; it's beautiful. Huge falls with a fabulous swimming hole and river. It was a tad cold for swimming, but we'll go back next summer.

The girls had a great time. Mariah especially like "The Castle," which is just that--a castle built into the side of a hill by some guy in the early 1900's. He actually lived there.

We also went on a somewhat treacherous hike to some cool rock/river formations. The girls were very brave in the packs.

Perhaps my favorite part of the trip was that I didn't feel sick almost the whole time (as long as I had food in my mouth). The moment we walked in the door at home, I started gagging again. Aah, pregnancy . . . .

(Sorry about the randomness of some of the pictures. My children will not pose for pictures.)

Leaves from Home

A few weeks ago, Mariah got a "parcel" in the mail from Grandma Shaunna. It contained a cute letter and a bag of colorful fall leaves, collected from BYU campus and Grandma's garden. Mariah loved her leaves; she spent a lot of time deciding what shape each leaf was. (The leaves and thoughtful letter made me a little teary and homesick.)

My Excuse

Our blog has been seriously neglected lately; I hope to redeem myself soon. But I do have (I think) a pretty good excuse. I've been feeling lousy, lousy, lousy! I've been going to bed at 8pm, and sleeping in until 8am; I've been taking a nap during the girls' nap; last night was the first night in weeks that I fixed dinner; I can't enter the kitchen without gagging (or worse); I've read the entire Harry Potter series and several other novels; etc., etc., etc. If you haven't guessed (or didn't already know), I'm pregnant! Little #3 George is due at the end of May. (Somehow I forgot just enough how awful these first few months are to do it again.) We're very excited, and if I didn't have such an amazing husband, I don't know how we'd be surviving. He gets up early with the girls, gets them breakfast, puts in a full day at school, comes home and cleans the kitchen and house, makes dinner, and gets the girls ready for bed before hitting the books again until late late late.

Yesterday and today (so far) I've felt significantly better; I'm hoping I'm on the upswing, and it's not just a fluke. I'll keep you posted.

I Pledge . . . .

This is a video made in response to the celebrities' "I Pledge" video, in which celebrities pledge allegiance to one man, Barack Obama. Frightening. (You can view the celebrities' video here.)

Smart Man

My Baby

Laney's growing up so fast. I put her hair in pigtails today. It lasted all of 2 minutes; just long enough to snap some pictures. She wasn't thrilled, but she sure was cute.

Princesses in the Park

A few weeks ago, my sister sent us a hand-me-down princess dress (already loved to pieces, literally). Mariah was ecstatic, to put it mildly. She has worn nothing else since. She's worn it multiple times to stores, the park, and the library. (I did tell her she could not wear her princess dress to church. I also insisted on another outfit for a bbq at Mike's school.) It makes laundry really easy . . . .

Our park has a great "archeological dig site."

"See ya, Mom."

I hear this often from my Mariah. She's always off to great places. The other day she got her stroller loaded and said, "Mom, see ya. We're going to Florida." And she was off, with Elaine close behind. (I didn't know she knew about Florida. Laur, I hope you're ready for some surprise visitors.)

The Exploration Place

We went to Marian's again a couple weeks ago. We had planned on going to the zoo one day, but then it was rainy, so we went to the Exploration Place instead. We loved it!

The building itself is really neat. It sits in the middle of a river, kind of, and all of the outside walls are glass. It was really fun to be inside in a huge thunder storm.

There are different rooms with different sciencey things, like flight simulators, a wind wall, a tornado machine, bug collections, water and sand toys, building things, and on and on. There's also an amazing play room!

We all went in one car. Five kids in carseats!

Hmm. I wonder how my kids came away with colds?!

Mariah's favorite thing was the giant bubble.

Laney found this little log cradle and climbed right in.

There was a little "stream" with rubber ducks, shells, and frogs. It had little pour spouts and different things to do with water.

Mariah loves to build.

In the boat . . . .

Rub-a-Dub-Dub and Other Fun Things

I loved doing this as a kid. I tried it on my girls for the first time a few days ago. They thought it was great!


We gave Mariah a mirror to see herself. I was a little nervous that she'd have a come-apart because she's very particular about being beautiful ALL the time. But she laughed and laughed. She asks now to "be a clown" when she's in the bath.

Elaine requested all these headbands. They lasted 30 seconds (maybe).

My cool girls.

We've been sick for the past week or so (Well, Mike and the girls mostly; I had a mild case for a day). Poor Mariah has watched more Disney Playhouse in the last week than her whole little life put together. (She doesn't seem to mind).

A few days ago, I was tired of being cooped up, so despite the rain and runny noses, I and the girls went to the park. We tried out a park we'd never been to. It was great! And only a 5 minute drive! (We have zero parks within walking distance). There was a great playground (2 actually), a little lake, lots of ducks and geese, and some trails through forested areas.

After we played on the playground for a while, explored the dock, and chased the ducks, I asked the girls if they wanted to go for a little hike in the forest. Mariah immediately leaned forward, put her hands in front of her in claws, and said in a very drawn-out, spooky whisper, "It's the Black Forest!" Thank you Little Einsteins.

Just as we entered the forest, a large predatory bird (an owl maybe?) silently swooped down in front of us and glided along the trail for a while before disappearing around a bend. Maybe a little bit spooky.

We had walked for maybe 50 yards along the trail (I carrying Elaine, and Mariah walking along jabbering non-stop), when I spotted very large, very fresh-looking k-9 tracks in the mud. Hmm. I quickly decided I, alone with the girls, did not want to meet up with whatever made those tracks. I don't remember exactly what I told Mariah--something about big paw prints and a possibly dangerous animal. We turned around and high-tailed it out of there. Mariah did not seem concerned in the least and loved talking about (in the same drawn-out, suspense filled whisper, with her hands stretched into claws) the "dangerous animal paw prints." Thank you Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She told the story again (in the same voice with the same hands) to Mike at dinner that night.

I liked the park so much that we went back the next day with the stroller. There are miles of trail. I probably walked 3 miles or so before I finally decided we better get home and make dinner.

Another funny thing happened (only to me) in the forest. I just finished the last book of the Twilight series, and I was thinking to myself that this forest would be a perfect place for vampires and wolves. (I know. Nice thoughts to have while walking alone in a forest with 2 girls in a stroller. Although, the forest is really just a strip, maybe 50 yards wide, with houses on the east, and the park on the west, so it's not like I was really removed from civilization.) Anyway, I had just had some happy thoughts about vampires when I rounded a corner, and there on the ground (I'm not lying) was a set of fake vampire teeth. Very funny.

Finding Hope on 9/11

This is the story of a 9/11 survivor and his search for peace.