Our Family

Our Family

Monday, January 26, 2009

The Many Hairstyles of Avri

This post is mostly for my own documentation. Avri LOVES to be beautiful, and getting her hair done is one of the things that makes her feel beautiful. However, she will only try something new if it has a name. Hence, some of the strange names that these hairstyles have. But here are some of the do's that we have tried recently.

Venting Mom

There is a generalization that men are babies when they get sick. That has never been more true of anyone than Talmage. Talmage started getting sick on Thursday. He doesn't really have a fever, only occasionally warm, but he has a terrible cough and he gets tired really easy. And mostly he WHINES and CRIES all day LONG!! Ahhhhhh! I just want to scream sometimes. Last night he didn't hardly sleep at ALL!! At least, I didn't. Maybe he can sleep while he's crying, but I doubt it. I finally put him in bed with Kendall and I so that he would stop crying but I got kicked in the back and the ribs and Kendall took a blow to the nose. By 5:00 am I was ready to throw him out in the snow! So we put him back in his bed and he cried and cried some more. He wasn't even coughing or hot, just crying. When Avri gets sick she just snuggles on your lap and says sweet things like "Thank you Mom for taking care of me." and "I love you Mom, you're nice." Not Talmage! Please let's hope that this doesn't last any longer, or else...

This has been the look on his face for about 3 days straight now.

Now I'll put some better pictures. Maybe it will help me like him more today. I still LOVE him, but I don't have to LIKE him today.It drives Kendall crazy when on the rare occasion we find Talmage doing something "girly" like talking on the phone sitting in the princess chair.
Okay, I'm not quite as mad now. Thanks for letting me vent. :)

Saturday, January 24, 2009

A Blast from the Past

Our latest ward activity was a 50's Sock Hop. We didn't get nearly the turnout that we have for some of the other activities, but it was seriously a BLAST! I know a lot of people who came that weren't planning to dance, and ended up having a great time! Of all the kids, I think Sadie enjoyed it the most. She danced and sang all night long. Even though she never got an afternoon nap she was happier than the other two until about 9:00! My big job for the activity was making this sign. My dad cut it out for me and I painted it and we strung Christmas lights around it. I thought it turned out pretty good.
My other time-consuming project-of-the-week was finishing the poodle skirts that I started in October! They turned out pretty cute. You can see in the above picture Sadie just wanted to play with the poodle. Here's the rest of us in costume.
We had some swing dance instruction and this cute petite little thing came and stole my partner! It gave me a good opportunity to take some pics.

Random bits of info

I'm a total slacker at this blog lately. I don't have any great excuses, just life in general. I keep telling myself that things will slow down...after Christmas is over...after Kendall's birthday...after the Sock Hop... but I don't think it really ever will slow down. So I need to get over it and keep trying to catch up with life. Here are some random pictures from lately.Mercedes continues to be cute.Talmage has been a ridiculous klutz!! This is a terrible picture of a very black ear. The picture really doesn't do it justice. Then a couple of days later he fell off a chair and hit his head on one of our stationary bikes and got a huge goose-egg that is now a gross bruise. Then a couple of days later he got his finger snapped in a mouse trap at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Ouch! It's time to get out the helmet and pads and wrap him in them.Avri is starting a tumbling class on Wednesday that she is SO excited about. We went and bought the leotard and shoes and she has been "practicing" everything she can think of.
What a funny girl. Does Mercedes look like a trouble maker or what?
No Mom, I'm innocent.
She is VERY good at Patty Cake now. She claps and she even does "roll it and pat it" and somewhat of a throwing it in the oven before she claps again. It's the cutest stinkin' thing ever!
Well, that's it for random pictures for the day.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Happy Birthday Kendall!

Yesterday was Kendall's birthday, so here's a shout out to tell him I hope he had a fabulous 26th birthday!! I can't believe that we're now closer to 30 than 20! He doesn't like cake, so I made him a delicious apple coffee cake for breakfast and that was when we sang to him.
Instead of going out for dinner we went out to a breakfast buffet (his favorite!) on Saturday morning. I made him bacon and guacamole cheeseburgers and we did presents Sunday night. We gave him a very cool backpacking camping hammock, a wheelbarrow, and this hat (modeled by Sadie).

And here are some pictures of Sadie because she is so stinkin' cute that I just can't get enough of her right now. Here she is on her very own newly finished rocking horse. It is adorable! The picture just doesn't capture how cute it really is. Thanks Dad!!
She doesn't like to keep her socks on...
And she loves to help with the laundry. But how can you get too mad with a face this cute?

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Making Milestones

Mercedes has been out of control these past few days in her development!! I keep thinking "She's a little behind the others, but that's okay" but I think that she has decided to catch up in a few days time. On Saturday she officially started crawling! Up until Saturday she would get up on her knees but she would only go backwards, so she was constantly under a chair or stuck in a corner or under the piano. But now she is totally crawling and getting faster every minute. I'm a total sucker for a sleeping baby, so here she is zonked out in her crib that doesn't have any sheets because I was doing laundry. Notice: her hair is barely long enough to put into pigtails. They look so funny that they are adorable. Mom can't wait until it's a little longer and we can start to make them look nice. (Except I don't know where I'll find time to do 2 little girls hair plus my own.)Avri wanted to hold Sadie the other day so I put them on the couch. When I came back into the room this is what I found. It was so tender I had to get a picture!
My Dad is making one of these adorable little rocking horses for each of his grandkids to have. This one just happens to be Talmage's (hers is still in process) but she is so funny on it. She is always rocking, so I tried putting her on the horse and she just went to town!!
You can see how much fun she is having!
After she started crawling on Saturday, she also started waving "hi." At church on Sunday she waved hi to just about every person in the hall! She has the parade princess wave down to an art!
I can't get this picture to move, so it's out of place. This is before the crawling.
On Monday she learned how to clap her hands. She was taking a bath and was so excited about it that she started clapping, and now she rewards herself for everything by clapping. Later on Monday (yesterday) she decided to start signing, much to Mommy's pleasure. She signed "all done" to me when I finished feeding her and I almost fell off my chair! Today she started signing "more" and was so pleased with my reaction that she signs more and then claps for herself. I totally die laughing. Not only is she signing, but she is also trying to talk. She says "ha" while waving hi, "ba" for bye, she says "ya" when I ask her questions, and she actually says "all done." Go ahead, don't believe me, but I have many witnesses to this fact.
She is still super duper snugly. They are good buds! I can't help it. I'm totally in love with these two.

A Very Late Christmas Post

Can you even call yourself a blogger if it takes you two weeks to publish a post about Christmas?
We had a wonderful Christmas!! On Christmas Eve we opened a present that Santa mailed to us. It was the Muppet Christmas Carol, so we watched that and ate goodies. Notice Talmage drooling over the goodies and Mercedes sleeping with my Dad.
These are the Christmas Eve slippers that we opened. I think that they were actually a huge hit with the kids, and I rarely take mine off.And here they are in action... Doesn't Mercedes look like she is getting entirely too big?
Santa brought the kids a fabulous little wagon. Each child gets a seatbelt and a drink holder, and if we ever decide that we are insane enough to have more kids we can even add more cars! They thought it was very cool to ride in. Now we just need warm weather!
Avri got an Alice dress complete with shoes and headband from Grandma and Grandpa.
And Talmage got some big boy undies that he didn't really know what to do with. It took him about a week to decide that they were okay to actually wear (on his bum, not his head).
Kendall and I decided that we got a house and a new baby and a new van for Christmas this year, but I guess we bent the rules a little because I got these curtains.
Other related things, the kids got to ride the train at the mall (compliments of Grandma).
All in all, we had a fantastic Christmas!! Kendall got a few days off for Christmas and a couple for New Year's and we just had a great time giving gifts and spending time together. The kids are almost back to normal after all the spoiling. New Year's Eve was my Dad's birthday so they came over for dinner and carrot cake and a few games. We didn't have any mishaps and we feel very fortunate this year to have such a wonderful family and great friends. We feel blessed to have the gospel in our lives and to have a knowledge and testimony that God lives and that Christ was born, and died, to save us all. We hope you had a great holiday season as well. We love you all!