June, where did you go? (an update)

Blogging.  Yep.  Our home computer died (it's not dying, it died), so it's now an elaborate e-mail machine.  I'm not too sad about it yet.  I'm sure I'll eventually miss the continual computer access, but for now, it's kinda nice.  It just makes blogging inconvenient.

The Craziness of June

So, my Mom came in town and we did all kinds of things, and drove all kinds of places.  It was craziness.  Good craziness, but still, craziness.

We went to a family reunion in Middle-of-nowhere, Illinois (which is only different from Middle-of-nowhere, Ohio by it's location on a map.  Maybe there are a few more trees in Middle-of-nowhere, Illinois).  Drove 11 hours in one day for that one.  Super fun.

We visited my father's aunt in Middle-of-nowhere, Kentucky (which is VASTLY different from Middle-of-nowhere, Ohio and Illinois.  For instance, it's beautiful).  Only drove 7 hours for that one.

We went to Maysville, KY to visit with my mother's brother and his wife and daughter.  That was 3 hours, round trip.  The whole affair was very pleasant.  The kids went swimming and I caught the last moments of a World Cup soccer game.  Hurray for everyone!  (By the way, if you're looking for a great World Cup goal highlights program, try out "I Scored a Goal in the FIFA World Cup Final."  It was excellent.  Check out a slightly different version of it, here.)

We had Rob's co-worker, Supriya, over.  And her parents.  Her parents are here from India, and they brought me and my mother these BEAUTIFUL clothes.  Dresses and saris and tunics.  Ah, so awesome.  And now I know how to tie a sari.  I know, you're jealous.

We had over Chris and his parents.  Chris is leaving on his mission on Wednesday of this week, and the kids adore him.  When he left the night we had him over, Elijah said, "See you when I'm 8."  and Teancom followed that with, "See you when I'm 12!"  That'd be a long mission.

There was also a wedding thrown in there, etc., etc.  Like, I said, it was a crazy 2 weeks.  My mother and I agreed that it was too crazy, and we were both ready to get back to normal life.

Normal Life, July Style

Two Kids Gone
 

My mother and father now have Miciah and Elijah with them in California.  The kids have been gone for a day, and I already miss them.  I missed them the night before they left, actually, and I had to keep saying to myself, "They're going to have fun.  They're going to have fun.  This is good."  ...  I like my kids.

Yesterday morning, Tank woke up and said, "Mom, Grandma isn't sleeping in the living room."  I reminded him that Grandma and Miciah and Elijah were all gone.  He proceeded to talk my ear off all morning about a movie we watched a month ago.  Thumbletack [sic] was hitting on our window, apparently, and goblins are killed by tomato sauce, and bumblebees are honey goblins, etc., etc.  Apparently he was just waiting for Miciah to stop talking so he could fill up the silence.  :)  I like Miciah a lot, but she generally takes the lion's share of conversation time.

Then, this morning Tank walked into our room and said, "I can't find Elijah.  He wasn't sleeping in his bed."  ...  I hope we don't have to go through this every morning.  It was so sad to see him slump to the floor and hide his face.  Those boys really are best friends.

Work

In other Normal Life, July Style news, Rob no longer works for Dr. Jordan!!!  It's been a long 2 years.  ...  Friday was his last day of work, and my mom took the two of us out to dinner at Bravo! to eat the Portabella Mista.  Seriously, if you've never tried it, YOU NEED TO TRY IT.  Call ahead and request it (because it's not on the menu).  You'll love it.

Tomorrow Rob starts his 6 - 10 pm teaching stint, M - Th.  Who's excited?!

This Weekend

On Friday we head down to Mammoth Cave to do a lantern tour and then, the next day, a 6-hour spelunking tour.  Who's REALLY excited?!

And then, on Sunday, we'll watch the World Cup final!!!  Ahhh!  Too much excitement for one weekend!!!

Happy 4th of July!

Declare Your Independence!

Yesterday we celebrated our nation's birthday by declaring our independence from oppressive things like Air Conditioning.  Yep.  Our house's AC died.  (I can't even say, "Who's excited?" because no one is excited about this and, besides, I pretty well ran that line into the ground.)  I figure it's an opportunity to save money this summer.  No AC in July, August, and September will save us hundreds in electric costs, and that's nice.  But the eventual purchase of an AC unit will probably put the kabosh on our 10 year anniversary plans next summer.  At some point, something's gotta give, you know?  So, good bye Glacier National Park.  We'll just have to do something closer to home.  ...  Sometimes I hate being a fiscally responsible adult.

...and the rocket's red glare...

In other Happy 4th of July! news, we almost got arrested yesterday!  Okay, not really, but we did get the cops called on us.  We went up to Middletown, OH to hang out with our friends the Browns, and shoot off rockets in an open field.  Well, the open field was surrounded by suburban homes, and one of the rockets accidentally landed in someone's yard.  When we went to retrieve the rocket, the couple came out and, despite our apologies, got really upset.  They called the cops and told them that we were intentionally trying to shoot rockets onto their "estate."  (Their estate was on half an acre.  I also live on an estate, apparently.)  Two squad cars responded to the urgent complaint.

Fortunately, the cops were really nice.  They said things like, "All we've done today is respond to complaints about parties." and "Is it illegal to celebrate the 4th of July?"  Rob offered to shoot off the last rocket, which was already set up to go; you know, as a parting gesture to our friends at the estate; and one of the cops said, "That would be cool, but it's probably a bad idea."  Ah, too bad.

The Last Airbender

We did a first:  Rob and I took all 3 kids to see a movie.  Of course it was The Last Airbender.  I'm sure you're already aware that it's getting horrible reviews.  ...  I think those people are on crack.  I liked it a lot.  Not sure you would like it, though.  In fact, I'm not sure the movie will appeal to most people.  (The die-hards won't be happy that changes were made to the original storyline, because they wouldn't be happy with any change at all, and people not committed to the series probably will be sad that the storyline isn't better developed.)  But I'd like them to make movies 2 and 3, so I'd consider it a personal favor if you went and saw it, or if you buy it when it comes out, or something.  Heck, you might even like it.  Who knows?

So Close and Yet So Far (an update)

The fascination with Avatar continues:

Miciah drew these lines on Elijah. You probably can't tell completely, but there is an arrow on his forehead, and then an arrow on both hands and both feet. The lines on his legs go up past his knees. The lines on his arms go past his elbows. And the lines on his head go THROUGH HIS HAIR and down his neck. Pretty sweet.

She also drew lines on herself for Katara. Katara doesn't have any lines on her body in the show, but Miciah thought it would be more dramatic to draw the lines anyway. There are circles on her cheeks and then spirally lines on both arms and both legs. ... Needless to say, people were noticing and talking about those lines for a while. Miciah washed hers off before going in public, but Elijah left his on. Some people recognized who he was: Aang. Someone mentioned something about water bending to him. He just scowled at her (he's anti-stranger, remember).

Elijah will also do this windmill motion with his arm and say that's his air bending. Pretty cute.

That day, when they drew the lines, C came over to watch our kids. It must have been, hmm, 2 Thursdays ago. Anyways, she just casually said, "By the way, rubbing alcohol will take off pen." I replied with, "Why would I need to know that?" :) "Oh, you're telling me that so I can store it away until I need that information, like 6 months from now. I get it." We had a good time with that. ... I never did rub them down with alcohol, though. I just let it fade away.

Sadly, the Avatar series has ended. We watched the last 5 or 6 episodes on-line. It's awesome! I can't wait to own the last season on DVD. And then in summer 2010 the first live-action Avatar movie should come out.

I had to show off this picture of Teancom. A rare grumpy face.

Haircuts All Around

We cut the boys' hair, obviously. I didn't want to--it was so cute longer! But it was driving Rob crazy, and it really did need to be cut, I'm sure. It was over their ears. ... Elijah had asked me how long it would take to grow his hair long like mine. I was willing to see how long. Rob would DEFINITELY not have gone for that. :)

I also cut Miciah's hair. She was a little sad about that, saying she looked like a clown. She hadn't even seen her hair yet when she said that. So to help her feel better about it, I let her cut my hair. I told her I just wanted a slight trim, and she did a pretty good job. A few days later I touched up the kids' haircuts, and she insisted on also touching up my hair. She took off another inch or so. But it looks decent, and I get compliments on my haircut. ... The pictures from Mammoth show all of us with our haircuts. Rob got his haircut, too, but I didn't do it. We actually paid for that one.

Olympics

For 2 weeks all we did was watch TV and get on-line updates on the Games. I love the Olympics.

My favorite great moments were: the swimming 4x100 m mens' relay, Micheal Phelps winning by 1/100 of a second for his 7th gold, Nastia having an amazing night to win all-round gold, a man from Togos winning his nation's first Olympic medal in white water, watching May and Walsh win their 2nd straight Olympic gold, Jamaica's 'Lightning' Bolt running away with a new 100 and 200 m world record, an Australian man winning the last platform diving competition with an AMAZING dive to steal away China's 8 for 8 gold, and the American men winning indoor volleyball after what their coach has been through.

And my favorite low moments were: Lolo losing the 110 m hurdles because she biffed it on the 9th hurdle (she would have won by a ton, but instead came in 7th), BOTH 4x100 American relay teams dropping the baton and not qualifying for the finals, wondering if the whole Jamaican sprinting team is doping, watching Nastia come in 2nd in the uneven bars because of a tie-breaker rule, seeing one of the American water polo teams lose by 1 point in the last 30 seconds to the Netherlands even though the US had one last opportunity to score in the last 5 seconds and it hit the post, and following the controversy of the under-age Chinese gymnasts (they are SO underage. Whether or not that's the final "official ruling", they are and everyone knows it).

I would like to believe the Olympics isn't tainted. But I know, deep in my heart, that it is. And it has been for a long time. The fact that China came out so strong with just stupidness this Olympics makes me sad. I don't understand the win-at-all-costs mentality. But, I can hope for a time when people compete fairly and judges judge fairly and no one has sold their vote or score or soul to win.

C's Visit

C also watches soccer highlights for every soccer game in the world that's worth watching. So I enjoyed that a LOT. Rob asked if I was done watching them and I told him, "Look, when C leaves, how many soccer highlights am I likely to watch?" None. That's right. I watched like 100 over the week, and it filled my quota until C comes to visit again.

So not only did we watch the Olympics for the majority of C's visit, we watched good soccer highlights on top of that. Good times with my brother.

We had a lot of downtime, though. I planned that because in the past Miciah has monopolized all his time and forced him to do just about everything with her. And this visit, she almost didn't even notice he was around. I mean, she loved having him here, but it wasn't the same. She spent an entire day playing with her neighbor friends. She almost seemed annoyed at times when I suggested she do something with C. Weird.

We did go to Mammoth Cave, as I've already written about. We spent that night camping on a guy's farm land. It was fun. We were EXHAUSTED by the time we got home on Sunday around 3pm. So we laid low on Sunday evening and all day Monday to recover. C and I also took lots of naps--I don't know how Rob survived the Olympics without taking naps, honestly.

We went swimming one day at the W's house while C was here. They have a heated pool, which is good, cause it hasn't been that warm lately. The week C was here, it was 90 and 95 degrees some days, but the rest of August has been almost cold! That week was the only week all month I've had my AC on. Anyways, it was SO NICE swimming in a pool that was almost as warm as the air around us. If we ever own a pool some day, it will be in-ground and heated.

C and I got to play a soccer game together while he was here. My indoor soccer team. It was fun to have him play with me and get to show him off to my friends. :) They seemed to be a little skeptical at first about his ability to play (not because of him, but because that's what you do when someone says their brother is good), but by the end they were complimenting him almost every moment and asking if he'd be around for any more games. He and I played killer defense together, and that rocked. I also was happy to show off for him. Not that I show off, but I played a really good game that night. I had an assist on the first goal of the game which was on the first PLAY of the game. So our team was up by 1 in the first 20 seconds, and it was on my excellent assist. ... It's nice, actually, to play and feel like I play well. My style of play has changed, and C noted that I'm not as fast on the ball as I used to be. For sure. But I've never been that fast on the ball, really, and I've never been a good dribbler. I've only used my speed and kicked the ball in front of me. In indoor, and against men, it's almost impossible to do that. So I've transitioned my game and I'm now an excellent defender and passer, and I create plays and assists. I used to be the scorer, and I could see that as I play more I will eventually be scoring more, but I am just as happy, in fact happier, being the play-maker. ... One of the guys on my team was looking for people to play on another team he has, just for one game. He said to A, our team leader, "And ask that new girl (referring to me). She's got some skills." :) Soccer is my weekly ego boost and I quite enjoy it.

We also went to the Children's Museum with the kids. Elijah was horribly behaved, but Miciah was mature and understanding and willing to compromise. Not only was I shocked, I was amazed and proud of her. She is a really good kid, even when she drives me crazy.

School Starts on Tuesday

And lately, her driving me crazy seems to be a daily thing!! We're both ready for her to be in school. I kept thinking, "Just a week after C goes home. That's not so bad." Woah. It's been a LONG week. By the end of Monday and Tuesday I was ready to cry. Not only is Miciah fairly whiny and ready to get out of the house, the neighbor kids have been over to play near-non-stop. Which is totally fine, but there are 4 of them. So I'm having to figure out how to parent kids that aren't mine, which is a new thing. And it's amazing how quickly 7 kids can trash the house. :) I keep telling myself, "Just till Tuesday. School starts on Tuesday." So close, and yet so far.

Hanging Out to Dry

For fun we started a clothesline. It's an idea I've had since the start of summer, but only implemented 2 weeks ago. That's about par for ideas I have. :) But it's alright that I waited, cause we used the swingset as the pole instead of having to buy a new pole. We have 2 lines up, and it's fun to do. It's different and it makes me think about things I've never thought about before. Like the significance of "landry day." And why you had to iron so much (it makes EVERYTHING wrinkly!)--not that I intend to iron more, cause I'm lazy. And the phrase about dirty laundry out for everyone to see. Granted, I knew about all these things, but I sure think about them differently now.

We started the clothes line for fun, truly. It takes a little bit more time, but not a lot. Plus, my kids think it's fun to run through the clothes when they're hanging up. And it saves on energy and hence money, which will figure into a good story I'll tell in a minute.

Elijah

I was taking the boys somewhere in the van and Elijah yaked my ear off. He was trying to get me to guess something he was thinking off. I couldn't guess it. Now, normally if we're trying to get our kids to guess something and it's a word we know they know, we will give them the starting sound. You know, like, you want them to think of turtle, so you give them the t sound. This works marvelously for Miciah, and Elijah just looks at us like, "And that's supposed to be helpful?" So Elijah was trying to get me to guess his word, so he gave me the starting sounds for t, p, k, and t again. Then he said, "It's a hippo!" ... It occured to me in that moment that he has NO IDEA what we're giving him the starting sounds for. It cracked me up.

Teancom

Teancom's speech is getting clearer and clearer, which is wonderful. He now says everyone's name, including his own. Miciah is Mi-Tiah. Elijah is E-wi-dah. And Teancom is Tay-come.

Miciah

Miciah is having a hard time with life lately, it seems. While C was in town, we went to a friend's house for FHE. We were on our way over and she was mad at us for not letting her play with a friend instead of going to FHE. She declared, "You're the worst parents ever!" I just looked at Rob and said, "That's not the last time we'll hear that, I'm sure." She said she wanted to go live with the W's and we told her we'd ask them if they also had rules. JW was really good when we got there telling Miciah all about the rules they have, including some of the very same rules we have.

We've been making some financial decisions lately. For instance, we've decided to take down the fish tank (that will happen today or tomorrow) as well as give Cleo away to someone else. We told Miciah that we were going to give our fish back to the pet store and she started crying a lot. She said, through tears, "My life has never been as horrible as this!" We brought her into our room and sat on our bed with her. Rob then told her about the decision to get rid of Cleo. Miciah started bawling hysterically. Rob and I felt kind of bad, but it's a good decision and feels right, so we tried to be as strong as possible. I held Miciah for a good 15 minutes letting her cry and talking to her. I told her that I've been stressed and sad lately, too. I told her that there are decisions we've had to make that were hard decisions. I told her we were also getting rid of one of our cell phones, and that's partly why we were using a clothes line. She said, "Well, the clothes line is fine, but I don't want to get rid of the fish or Cleo or the cell phone." It was interesting watching her sadness and disappointment and seeing how much of it reflected how I've been feeling through these last few stressful months. Granted, I haven't bawled like a baby over the fish tank and my "best friend" Cleo, but I have cried. And it was a good moment.

Well, that's pretty much life here. There are probably stories I meant to tell that I've forgotten about by now, who knows. But that pretty much gets us up-to-date. Pray that we will survive till Tuesday, and that our house will be a happy one.

Tamra

It's Spring!

And I can tell it's Spring because I've cleaned every room in my house, top to bottom, in the last 2 days. It helps that Rob is out of town and I have nothing better to do with my down time. I've cleaned things that haven't been cleaned all winter. Wiped down walls, mopped the downstairs, dusted in corners. ... It feels about the same as the homestretch of pregnancy. When the baby's coming in 3 weeks and I suddenly feel the urge to clean everything in sight, whether it's dirty or not. And since I'm clearly not having a baby in 3 weeks, this current cleaning spree must be related to the warm Spring weather!! The sun is warmer and brighter. The kids are playing outside. Every window in my house is open. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Health and Fitness Challenge

Well, Rob and I finished our Health and Fitness Challenge last Sunday. It was a wonderful 12 weeks of pushing ourselves to do better with our bodies, and make better choices. The challenge included putting in $25 per person into a pot at the start. The pot will now be split 2 ways: 2/3 to the winning team and 1/3 to the winning individual. From the beginning, I was pretty sure Rob would win the individual category. I don't know why I thought that. First off, because he had weight to lose, and that gives you points. Second off, Rob is insanely dedicated. He put in a near-superhuman effort and it paid off. He lost 23 lbs. and over 11 inches in 3 months! That's incredible. I also assumed when we started that I would win nothing. I have no weight to lose, though I did lose 3 inches. But apparently having a near-superhuman partner forces you to put in at least a really good effort. I did really well, too, and it ended up that Rob and I won the top team. That was actually shocking to me, but what a nice payback! Rob and I are pretty happy with the results, including the lifestyle changes it's helped us make.

We've made up our own type of challenge, including other areas of our lives. We've cut back on the exercise and eased up on the stricter eating plans, and added scripture reading and prayer. There's no money involved this time, but it's suprised us both that simply writing down what we've been doing is helpful to us. So on to more adventures!

Rob in San Diego, Miciah at Miami

Rob is in San Diego for an Immunology Conference until Thursday morning at 1 am when he should plop back in bed here, exhausted. I went to this conference with him last year, but it's kind of fun to be here with the kids, all by myself. I probably think it's fun so far because I'm 1 kid short. Miciah went up to be with ML (soon to be Thacker) at Miami U for Kidfest. It's a little sibling weekend and since M has no little siblings, she asked Miciah to come as her stand in. Miciah was SO excited, and she's loved it. I go to pick her up soon.

Then it'll be all of us at home. :) Sometimes it's not too easy for me to be alone with the kids. But it's funny how easy it can be to step up when needed. Though I should probably hold my opinion on all this until Friday. I think the hardest days will be Thursday and Friday, when Rob is home but has to go in to school.

No real news to share, so we'll do more stories.

Teancom

Teancom is talking up a storm and it's really cute it's the learning to talk stage where they say things half right and half not. One of my favorite things he says is "bird". It sounds something like "burd." He also decided for fun yesterday that birds should be scary, so he'll say "bird" and then do a fake scream as he runs away.

Teancom is also obsessed with dogs, though he's scared to death of most of them. He doesn't like things that bark or move quickly or unexpectedly. However he loves dogs. How does that work?

We've just had to move Cleo's food and water bowls onto the freezer because Teancom made a daily game of dumping her food into her water or her food and water on the floor or any other wonderful combination.

Elijah

Elijah is now a very capable train track builder. Well, he's always been pretty capable, but it seems like his skills have vastly improved lately. I'll include some pictures about his latest non-train track track. You know, the kind made out of the stuff from my living room. The last one was pretty impressive and included the dining room chairs that he made into a "bridge." Nice.

Today Elijah and I built a train track. He decided we should both be Thomas trains while we played. He was the big Daddy Thomas train and I was the kid Thomas train. I got to call him Daddy and he got to call me Sweety. 'Cept he can't say Sweety very well, so I was Fweety. And that's dang cute.

I realized, as we were playing, that I call him Sweety a lot. All my kids. "Are you hurt, Sweety?" Because he was saying just that to the Fweety train. "Are you okay, Fweety?" and "Fweety, I'll be right there!" It was comforting to know that it was a positive word and not something like, "Loser" or "Idiot." Not that I call my kids those things. I don't. But it was just nice in an unexpected, reassuring sense. One of those, "Oh, I'm doing things alright. That's nice" moments. Everyone can use a few of those.

Elijah has taken to saying, "That's it, Mom!" He'll get upset at me for telling him the way things are. You know, something like, "No, Elijah, you can't watch a movie right now." He'll scowl at me, stomp his feet, and say, "That's it, Mom! I'm taking a nap!" I respond how any mother would to such a threat: "Okay, Elijah." Then he'll stomp off to his room and slam the door. He'll spend a few minutes in his room, then come out and move on with his life. It's pretty funny. Alternate threats are, "I'm going to bed!" or "I'm never watching a movie again!" or "I'm throwing my toys away!" Empty threats, but it makes for an exciting day.

On Friday night Rob took Elijah to the store to buy a treat just because. Miciah wasn't around, so it was a fun daddy-son thing to do. On the way to the store, they passed McDonald's and Elijah asked if he could go. My kids typically call McDonald's "Old McDonald's" or something like that, but this time Elijah decided to call it "Chicken Noodles." That makes me laugh for some reason. On Saturday morning I had decided I would take the boys to McDonalds for lunch as a special treat. I asked Elijah if he would like to go. He said, "Yeah! Hey! I was just thinking about that last night in Daddy's car!" Then, "I'll go eat chicken noodle. No! They don't have chicken noodle." And then he laughed. It cracked me up.

Elijah is also very into pretend these days. He's still obsessed with Spider-Man, but thankfully he's moved on to include just about any superhero. He'll be Spider-Man or Super Man or the Avatar. Sometimes all of those at the same time. We had to buy Elijah new pants because he's grown, and while we were there we "had" to buy him a Spider-Man T-shirt. He doesn't actually have a Spider-Man T-shirt, just pajamas. He also saw Spider-Man swim trunks, so he got those, too. So all he wore for the first 2 days was those trunks, that shirt, and a hat we bought him. We were sitting down to dinner (where he has learned he can't wear his hat, and we've had no fights about this) and he was excited about something and telling me to call him Spider-Man and let me tell you this and what about all that. I turned to him in the middle of all his talking and said, "Spider-Man, would you like some green beans?" He stopped talking and got this big grin on his face. Then he giggled a little and said, "Thanks, Mom," like me calling him Spider-Man just made his year.

Elijah is still rambuncious, but as sensitive as ever. He's hard to discipline when he needs to be, so it's good that he only needs it about once a month. After disciplining Miciah, I never thought I'd think it was hard to discipline a child who was sensitive (why would that be bad? I would have paid MONEY for that with Miciah!). Turns out it's every bit as hard, just in different ways. Thankfully, Elijah isn't as full-time as Miciah was, but that's about the only difference.

Now that it's warmer, Elijah thinks he should be visiting all our neighbors. It doesn't help that R & C are 2 doors down, so he thinks he should be able to walk to any house on the street any time he wants. :) He has spent some time with R these days, which both of them have missed, I think. Elijah will walk down there and, once they open the door, he'll walk into the house like he owns it. The other day he walked down and R played with him for almost 2 hours. R said, "I fed him balogney because "it's his favorite." Then I fed him crackers because "it's his favorite." Then we played a hunting game." He also mentioned to Elijah about his pajamas. Funny enough, I never even notice when Elijah's in pajamas these days, he's in them so often. Someone will say, "That's cool Elijah's in his pajamas," and I'll typically respond with something like, "He is? Oh, right." Anyways, on that day R said, "Nice pajamas, Elijah," and Elijah said, "Yeah, they're AWESOME! But they're a little itchy," and proceeded to scratch his bum. And while that's funny, not sure how I feel about that.

Miciah

I don't usually have stories about Miciah, cause she doesn't say or do cute things any more. The things she does are now more sophisticated compared to the little 'uns. The other night her and Rob had a cute moment where he decided to tell her some real jokes. Usually the jokes we tell are lame stupid kid jokes. But this time Rob adapted some adult jokes a little and told them to her. She was laughing her head off and it was the cutest thing ever. She relayed one joke to me, or at least the jist of it, and said, "And I got it, Mom. I really did get it." :) She's been asking Rob to tell her more jokes ever since.

She's reading like a madwoman these days. It's awesome to send her off to reading time before bed and have her come and report what she read. She'll tell us her favorite parts. Rob suggested she take a pencil with her so she could mark any words she didn't know or couldn't sound out herself. So she'll come the next day and ask about a word or two. It's a fun stage to be in.

She's also spelling creatively. I wrote down some examples, because they were cute:

She loves doing chalk drawings on the front porch. On some morning, I walked out the door and looked over at what she'd drawn and this was written: "I hope you like my pikshrs. I like my pikshrs. Do you? Miciah"
For those of you who can't sound out phonetically, pikshrs is pictures.

She wrote herself this note to herself apparently to remind herself that she was going to the Children's Museum for a field trip. (I helped her with spelling part of children's and museum.):
"I am going to the childrin's museum today. from Miciah to Miciah." (then in a box:) "I rile am going to it."
Rile is really.

When I was cleaning the toy room downstairs I found these paper "pillows". They were pieces of paper folded over and stapled on the edges, with paper inside them to make them like pillows. They had things drawn on them from a stencil and then things written beside it. Like so:

A picture of a cat. "This livs in Egipt."

A picture of an owl. "I like ols becus thay go hoot hoot."

A picture of a butterfly. "This livs in r stat. I like butrflis."
(This one I wondered about for a while. It says This lives in our state.

And lastly, she drew a picture of a character from Avatar. Honestly, I don't know how to spell his name. Haru, maybe? Anyways, she drew the picture that I've attached to this e-mail (if you know the show, you'll recognize the character), and then on the back she wrote in a big heart:
"I love you To Hroow From Ktra."
Ktra is Katara, another character from the show.

Miciah does more artwork than I can keep on top of or reasonably save. It's fun to have her be doing so much.

Oh, I thought this was cute. She always does a calendar at school. For March, they put on the calendar a list of things to look for as signs of Spring. She misplaced the calendar for a while, and I found it when I was cleaning yesterday. Miciah called from M's because she was feeling a little homesick. Her voice sounded so pathetic as she told me she missed me. I knew she was having a good time, of course, so I wasn't too concerned. To try to get her mind off the topic, and to try to cheer her up, I told her I'd found her March calendar. She replied in the same pathetic I miss you voice, "Mom?" And I thought she hadn't even heard what I'd said. "Mom? Can you put a check mark next to "buds on trees" and "flowers"? Because I've seen those." :)

Now I am off to pick up Miciah and bring her home!! Yea!

Enjoy the pictures. There'll be a series of them.


Teancom in Miciah's fuzzy winter hat. Since Elijah got his hat, Teancom's been wearing hats non-stop, too. Funny.


Here's Elijah blowing out the candles on his cake:

We buzzed the boys heads. They look pretty cute. Rob now calls Teancom his bald little monkey.

After we buzzed the boys' heads, Elijah chased Teancom around saying, "He looks funny! He looks funny!" We reminded Elijah that he had the same haircut. But Elijah said he didn't. Elijah had an Aang haircut, and Teancom looked like Conner (their cousin who does indeed have the same haircut). After a day or two, though, Elijah decided that Elijah looked like Aang and Teancom was "Aang baby." :)

The other day Elijah played hard with his best friend, Andrew. We came home and I had to make dinner. Elijah was sitting on the kitchen floor being whiny, but I wasn't really paying attention. Suddenly, I realized he wasn't being whiny any more. I looked down and there was Elijah, fast asleep, in his coat, face down, on the kitchen floor. I got out the camera and not only took pictures, but took a video, too, because the situation was so funny to me that I was in full dinner prep, stepping around a sleeping little boy.

Tamra and family

Oh, if anyone needs any baby guppies, we now have 9 of them. Rob says we need a big fish to eat all the babies. :) If only the babies weren't so dang cute!

The Weather and Stuff

The view from our front porch Saturday morning.

But we'll start at a few weeks back.

Jump Rope for Heart

Miciah did Jump Rope for Heart and loved it. She ended up raising a little over $250, which I thought was fairly impressive. Thank you to everyone who donated. It was a good experience for her.

Teancom

Teancom is now getting into things and trying to figure out how things work. Not in a destructive way, in a pleasant, isn't that cute, kind of way. For example, he found our stash of random CD-ROMs sitting on the desk. He found a CD-ROM in the pile that wasn't in a case and took it over to the DVD player. He knows how to open it (I wasn't aware of that), and he knows that that's how you make DVDs work. So he spent, I dunno, 10 minutes trying to put that CD-ROM in the player. He'd put it in, but it wouldn't be in the well right. So when he'd shut it, it would push the CD-ROM out. He'd quickly open the DVD player and try it again. It was cute and I couldn't even be mad about the CD-ROM. One, I'd left it out, and two, it wasn't one we cared a ton about. So I let him figure out his world. (I'm sure the more destructive side of Teancom is coming, so I'm giving myself the "just you wait" lecture so I can tell myself "I told you so" in a year. Just in case any of you felt like giving me the lecture, too bad, I beat you to it. :) )

Teancom has also figured out that the more vocal he is, the more things he can get and do. He has figured out how to say words for almost everything in his life, and it is wonderful. He actually is pretty easy to understand, which surprises me, since he didn't talk for so long and we were a little worried about that. He loves now to ask for Baby Einstein and he'll watch them over and over if I let him, which I don't unless he's sick because they make me sick. Teancom is also exceptionally good for his age at following directions. He's better at following directions than Elijah is (not that that is much of a feat because Elijah refuses to follow directions). What amazes me about this isn't that he knows what I'm saying. It's that he's patient enough to do it. He'll really want to watch a movie, for instance. He'll hand it to me and I'll say, "Go take it to Miciah downstairs and ask her to turn it on for you down there." He'll take the movie, go all the way downstairs (which requires, mind you, crawling down the stairs with the movie in hand), and ask her to turn the movie on. And Miciah's really good, she knows what he's asking, and she'll turn it on for him. I'm happy Teancom is such an easy kid, and I'm MORE than happy to let Miciah be his mom, too.

Of course that backfires when Miciah tries to be too much his mom. Fine lines.

Teancom was sick over the weekend. He's better today, thankfully. It's good to have my happy little boy back. And it's nice: last night I slept all night and didn't realize that was odd until I woke up at 8 am and was wondering what was wrong. :)

Elijah

Elijah is on drugs. He's bouncing off the walls and I can't wait until it's consistently warm outside and I can send him out there for hours. He's bugging Miciah a lot and I have to send him to bed early some nights because he can't calm down (B will say, "Hey, I didn't rile him up!" I know. I just say, "Yeah, you don't have to. He's just been like that."). Seriously, after 7 pm he's crazy. Not that he's sedate other times. He's a normal boy. But at night, sheesh. Maybe I'll just move his bedtime way earlier.

Avatar

My Mom decided to buy the first 2 Avatar seasons for us. Awesome! I told Elijah that Grandma bought us Avatar and he went out right then to check the mail. I told him it wouldn't come for a few days. Not that he understands time. The next morning, Rob and I had taken a shower and we're getting dressed and heard the door open. We were trying to figure out who was at our house at 8 am. Elijah was in the living room, but he doesn't go outside usually. So Rob went out there and asked if Elijah had gone outside. No, he said. Then he came up to me and asked me to put on his shoes so he could check the mail. I told him the mail hadn't come yet but he was unconvinced. He checked the mail that morning as well as the morning after. Then, Saturday night the kids were in the bathroom for too long (always a bad sign). Elijah came out with a blue arrow on his forehead. Rob took it off for church, but we told him if he was good he could have one after church was over. So on it went again Sunday afternoon. It's pretty funny. Elijah then put on his Spider-Man pajamas and said, "Mom, can these be Aang pajamas?" Sure. So he's Aang with his blue arrow. He also informed us he wanted to shave his head and draw the arrow all the way down his head. I told him I'd have to think about that one.

How proud we are.

After the arrow was drawn and Elijah was officially then Aang, he tripped and bonked his head. Miciah said, "Accidents happen even if you're the Avatar." So wise.

The movies came yesterday and Elijah screamed to the mailman, "That's my Aang package!!"

Miciah

Miciah is still doing crafts faster than I can catalog them. The other day she made a "tent" out of a piece of cardboard and paper. She had the tent flaps and everything. It was pretty cool. Did I take a picture? No. Probably should have. I did take a picture, though, of the pet rock we made as a family. Miciah wanted to make a beetle. You'll notice from the pictures that the beetle has a tail. Why a tail? Who knows. She wanted it to have a tail. The legs are made out of straws, as you'll see, which wasn't a very stable design. But oh well, it was cute. Miciah loved the shiny blue paint (she painted it). The rock is now on display at her school along with all the other pet rocks. I guess the entire Kindergarten made them.

Rob

Rob is still plugging away at his dissertation. It's going well enough, I guess, since he doesn't come home stressed out of his mind. I was expecting stress levels through the roof right now, but it hasn't been bad. I think the switch over to being in the Bishopric has helped ease some of it, since it's a change that he can focus some of his energy on. Plus, he's decided not to push it and try to actually graduate in time to walk in June. The June 13th graduation would have meant he'd have to be done with all his stuff by mid-May or so. This way, he gets an extra month, and that's helped him relax a little.

Health and Fitness Challenge

Rob and I both have been doing a health and fitness challenge that J put together. It's been AWESOME!! We're just under 3 weeks away from being done with it (it started at the beginning of January). We've been exercising every day (Rob has done a full hour for 6 days a week for 9 weeks now--I sometimes wimp out at half an hour or 45 minutes) and we've made a huge effort to eat better. I have successfully killed my sugar addiction, and that feels really nice. Plus, me being ACTIVELY supportive of Rob in his weight loss efforts has gone a long way for both of us. I, of course, am not trying to lose weight, so I've always had crap around to eat which isn't good for either of us. We've both really liked cutting out most all of the crap. We won't be psycho about it, and I still like sugar, but not being ruled by sugar is a good thing. Rob has lost almost 20 lbs. in the last 2 months, and he's looking and feeling great. He feels better about his body than he has in years and it really shows in his confidence level. I'm proud of him and I think he's looking hot! As for me, like I said, I haven't lost weight (which is good), but I can now see muscles in my body. It's nice to think I look "right". I've always been pretty athletic, so seeing a scrawny body without muscle definition is foreign to me. I feel better in my mood, I'm happier, and I'm healthier. Yea for all of those things!!!

So all of you should join us again in August when we do the challenge again for 3 months. We're looking forward to a break, but it'll be good to do the challenge again because I'm sure we'll be slackers again by then.

And now for the Weather Report.

Last week started with almost 70 degree weather! It was awesome. We went on a hike with our kids. It was muddy and a little rainy, but it was beautiful. And it was fun to get out of the house. The kids spent that lunch outside on the deck, and spent quite a few hours playing outside. Yea for almost spring!!!!!

So, check out Miciah and Elijah in these pictures. I took out the camera to capture them doing their first lunch on the deck of the season. And while I was taking pictures they decided to smell each other's feet. Weird, but kinda cute.

Then, it was raining for days. We had probably an inch of standing water in our yard on Wednesday. Mom in Toledo was talking about all the snow they were getting and I told her that here it wasn't even below 50 degrees, probably. On Thursday we were hearing about a snow storm coming in and I thought, "Yeah, right." We watched the news on Thurs. night to learn about it. They were talking about this huge storm coming in and they weren't predicting snow, they were telling us snow was coming. No prediction involved. The only question was how MUCH snow.

On Friday morning Miciah's school called to say school was letting out 2 hours early, which meant Miciah didn't even go to school. It hadn't even started snowing yet when they made that decision. But the whole CITY made that call. Schools, universities, businesses, everything shut down by 2 pm or earlier. It started snowing at 8 am. By noon we had a few inches. It was this powdery lovely snow, not the heavy wet stuff we normally get. It was a weird storm. And it didn't stop. We got a few hours of a break here and there, but it didn't stop snowing until Saturday at around 3:30 pm. We even had "blizzard conditions" for a few hours, but it was all while we were sleeping Friday night. They were talking about snow thunderstorms. How cool is that?

Anyways, I woke up Sat. morning and was pretty shocked by how much snow we had. We had a level 3 snow emergency. Our road was covered with snow. By noon they were reporting 10 inches of snow and another few inches fell by the time it stopped. A good foot of snow. Sweet! Rob spent an hour digging us out. He then went to the church to dig the church out for another hour. On Sunday Rob helped our elderly neighbor do his driveway (he said, "I couldn't in good conscience just watch him do it all by himself!") for 20 minutes (his son came to help, too). I was hoping they'd cancel church on Sunday, but no such luck. :) Only about 75 people showed up, though, so they only one hour of church. The bishop is from Buffalo, NY, and they have 3 or 4 snow storms this bad or worse every year there. He was thinking, "What's the big deal?" :) We were the only ward in our stake that held a meeting.

So the fun parts of the weather story.

1 - We were supposed to drive up on Friday night to see M's play (2 hours North). I'm sad we missed it, but we decided we didn't want to drive up in the middle of the storm. (Especially since we'd done that 2 weeks before and it wasn't any fun--it took us 3 hours to make the 2-hour trip.) We had a babysitter lined up down here for the boys so we could make that trip and they told us if we still wanted to go out, we could, and they would watch the kids overnight. But we didn't even want to do that. So we stayed home and enjoyed the night home. I was thinking we'd made the right call and then we woke up Sat. morning and I KNEW we'd made the right call. We wouldn't have been able to get our kids until Saturday night! Craziness! And if we'd been up at C's, we probably wouldn't have left until Sunday to go home. That would have been crazy!

We tried to go out again on Sat. night, but I bet you can guess whether that happened or not. Rob was also supposed to go out with the missionaries. Didn't happen, either. So we have a raincheck date night for this Saturday night and if it snows, I'm going to cry. :)

2- It was perfect snow for a snowman! A lot of the snow here has ice in it or on it or just isn't right for a snowman. But this time it was great. So Rob stayed home a little later Monday morning to make a snowman with Miciah. I took lots of pictures. It was pretty cute. Rob is a good man and a good daddy.


Hope you're all doing well. We love you all!

Tamra and the Gang

More pictures are coming.

P.S. I have figured it out! I figured out why Elijah needs to pray for the Green Goblin at every prayer. One day it just came to me. Rob said, "Elijah, why do you always pray for the Green Goblin and not for Spider-Man?" I said, "Well, why would he pray for Spider-Man? He IS Spider-Man." And that's when it came to me. Who pretends to be the Green Goblin? Rob does. This whole time he'd been saying he was grateful to play the Green Goblin with daddy (or that he's grateful for daddy who is the Green Goblin).

Makes it a little easier to say we're grateful for the Green Goblin.

Finally an Update

It's been a month since my last update. That seems like a long time to me, especially since we had Christmas and New Years in there! So here's our family update.

It seems like December was a long month in some ways, and just not long enough in other ways (like prep time for Christmas--can you ever have enough prep time?). At the start of December we decided on 2 things. The first was that we were going to go up early to Rob's parents' house and surprise them and B and G who were going to be there by themselves for a few days. We thought it'd be a lot of fun. The second thing we decided was to make a board game for C. Between fastforwarding our Christmas prep time and spending 50 hours making that board game, the week before Christmas was STRESSFUL!!!!!! We got little sleep and spent every available minute getting things done so we could leave Sunday to go to P.

Long story short, the board game turned out pretty cool. We're proud of it, anyways. We have yet to make a second game board (for us, of course), but we'll get to it. We won't try to pull it off the week before Christmas, though.

And going up to P on Sunday actually ended up working really really well. We had told V over Thanksgiving that we would be coming up early, but had let it be a surprise to everyone else. I actually was telling at least 1 lie to everyone involved with the Thacker Christmas. For an entire month. Anyways, when we arrived on Sunday, V was just as surprised as everyone else to see us. He'd forgotten. :) So it was fun to pull off a complete surprise.

Our surprise showing prompted Rob's sisters and their families to join us earlier than they had planned, too. They came up Christmas Eve late in the night and surprised Rob's parents. That was fun, too. We got both surprises on video.

Christmas morning was HUGE. None of us had huge Christmases, but when you combine them all, there were a TON of presents under this huge tree. The tree was cut out of their backyard and was something like 15 feet tall. We took pictures of it with the presents underneath. But I'll have to download the pics off Rob's laptop, so the pictures will have to come a little later. I'm behind, what can I say.

My favorite gift was the one we got from B. Everyone should e-mail him and ask him what it was. My second favorite gift was a freezer from my Mom. I really like having a freezer downstairs. Yea for freezer space! After that it was probably the Transformers special edition movie (the special features of how they did the special effects. Simply awesome), and two coloring books from J. Not for my kids, for Rob and me (he gave the kids their own). One is Color Your Own Abstract Art Masterpieces. The other is Color Your Own Van Gogh Paintings. They give you the outlines and let you color it yourself. How cool is that?!!

Santa and Rapunzel

So that was Christmas. A cute story about Christmas. Miciah only asked Santa for 2 things: The Barbie as the Island Princess movie, and the cereal, too. That's it. Easy enough. She asked us for the REST of the Barbie movies. :) We got her some, including the Rapunzel movie that she'd lost (we have the cover, but not the disc inside) months ago. When we were wrapping the gifts, Rob decided to wrap the Rapunzel movie as a Santa gift and he wrote a little note on it from Santa saying, "This is to replace the one you lost." We left the rest of the Barbie movies we bought at home to open when we got back. So on Christmas Eve in Toledo, at bedtime, Miciah said to Rob, "Daddy, I thought of something else I wanted to ask Santa for." Rob explained that it was pretty late to ask Santa for anything, but what was it. She said, "I want to ask him for a new Rapunzel movie to replace the one I lost." Rob repeated that it would be pretty hard to do at this point. She said, "Maybe Santa could put a chimney in a store and go buy one!" So you could imagine how magical it was when Miciah got the Rapunzel movie from Santa on Christmas morning. And I don't care if you like/believe in Santa or not, that IS pretty magical.

A funny end note to the story: When Miciah told her cousin, A, about getting the Rapunzel movie, and she showed it to her, A said, "We have that at our house." :) Turns out that the missing movie has been safely recovered at the S house. We told them that they could keep it. We'd even give them the cover for it. Merry Christmas to all.

7th Anniversary

Our anniversary was on the 21st. Rob and I celebrated 7 years together. It's been an interesting 7 years, with so many changes for both of us (3 kids, college, grad school, etc.). This last year has been one of the hardest of our marriage, but all I can say is that if that's the hardest it gets, we're safe. Let us pray the fates will not start a competition to see which year can be worse. :) I was exhausted for our anniversary date, so we cancelled other plans and Rob made me a cute dinner at home. Our 3 kids were being watched overnight by 2 families (it pays to have friends). You'd think we'd use the time to stay up late together doing something romantic. What did we do? First, after dinner I took a nap (no joke). Then we watched a chick flick while we finished wrapping Christmas gifts on the living room floor. Before all that, Rob had cleaned the house for me. And that's what the culmination of 7 years of marriage looks like--skip the romance, give me something practical: a nap, a clean house, and finishing the presents.

Rob did give me something really really cute. Before the dinner he sent me on a treasure hunt. I was tired and hungry and half annoyed that he wouldn't let me eat yet, but it was cute. At a few steps I discovered something he had set out for the night: my wedding dress (he wore his tux and I wore my dress for our dinner), our traditional sparkling cider and cheesecake. Then, the last clue lead to the big flower pot that was sitting out in our garage for the winter. I was pretty annoyed at this point, actually, that he'd made me go outside (insanely tired and hungry Tamra is not a docile creature). And then he buried the treasure. Except I'd missed that it was "treasure" I was digging for. I thought I was digging for another clue. He'd printed out the clues on a strip of paper about 1/2 inch in height and folded in fourths. I thought I was outside, digging in the flower pot with a shovel, in the middle of winter, to find another clue!! I was mad (I mean, seriously, can you visualize what I thought was happening?). Rob told me to read the clue again, it said I was digging for treasure!

The treasure turned out to be a blue topaz necklace (December's birthstone) with matching earrings. I actually really really like the color. It's a color that I wear all the time as an accent color. I have shirts that are that color. And the birthstone for December (when our marriage was born)--that's just cute. So it was a lovely night.

New Years Eve

New Years Eve was crazy. We have hosted the world's smallest New Years Eve party for a few years running. I think this was our last year for a while. I think I'm a little burned out. Though we may transition it to a New Years Day party. We spent New Years Day with the T's at our house playing the Wii. Convinced us that someday we would like to own one. We put it on our wish list. Miciah asked if we could get one next Christmas. I told her maybe. Then she said, "I'll sell some of my toys to get one." :) Even if she was willing to do that, I have doubts that she owns a saleable $300 in toys.

This last Friday the youth group at church did their non-NYE party. In the past they've done a New Years Eve party, but it got to be a hassle, and the new bishop thinks NYE is a family holiday (go figure), so they switched it to the Friday after NYE. Genius! It was a lot of fun. We played ping-pong, volleyball, and pin guard (a game the Scouts play a lot--kind of a dodgeball type of game), and ate pizza and chips and other goodies. It was fabulous fun. Again, another date night with the kids being watched overnight by friends. Yea for friends!! We watched their kids later on Saturday night, so it worked out well.

Our Furnace, A Saga

Saturday we got a furnace technician to come look at our furnace that we'd been thinking was going to burn down our house. For the last few months it was been exploding. That's the best way to describe it. Like it had an overabundance of gas and then it would do a very loud, chest-rumbling bang, and then the fire alarm would go off for a few seconds. Miciah was downstairs to see it once (she's the only one that's seen it at the time it does it) and she described to Rob that the flame came out about a foot and a half. Scary. Anyways, the guy came and checked it out. He cleaned the starters (is that what they're called?) off. Said usually the problem is from one of them being dirty and them not lighting evenly, so the gas keeps turning on. Then he turned down our gas pressure which he said was way too high (who knows these things?). Before he came, every time the furnace came on, whether it exploded or not, it would do this click, click, click sound. Many times. And since Saturday, I haven't even noticed my heater coming on. Yea for non-burned down houses!!

This is a long update. Clearly I haven't written for a while.

Avatar

Our family has been enjoying watching Season 2 of Avatar. C loaned us all the movies (in exchange for a Transformers borrow), and we've been watching those for the last week. It's a fun show. Miciah now talks to her friends about bending, and Elijah likes to pretend he's Aang, the Avatar. He'll come up to me and say, "Mom, I'm the Avatar. 'WHERE'S APA?'" That's a direct quote from chapter 11.

The Kids

Miciah and Elijah are cute as siblings. They alternate between loving each other dearly and bugging each other deeply. :) A fun story from a few days ago. Miciah was sitting on the couch and Elijah was standing in front of the couch. Miciah did something that Elijah didn't like. Suddenly, and with distress in her voice, Miciah said, "Elijah's trying to break down the house by breaking the couch!!" Rob and I stared at her in disbelief, without expression. She said matter-of-factly, "Really. He IS." SO funny. Then Elijah continued hitting the couch arm. Hard. Rob said, "Doesn't that hurt you?" Elijah said, "Not hurt my hand. Hurt the couch." :) Okay. He did explain to us that while he was trying to break the couch to hurt Miciah, Rob and I were not the object of his frustration and he wasn't trying to hurt us.

Elijah is a funny kid. While he can get really mad and somewhat aggressive, he rarely hurts others. He'll get mad and hit something else. He'll get mad and web you with his Spider-Man powers. But he usually doesn't hurt people.

Which reminds me of Christmas week's funniest story. Rob and I were playing racquetball, so the other adults were watching our kids. Elijah was standing in front of the TV so no one else could see. C asked him to move and for a little while he ignored her. She asked again and he turned around, like in slow-motion, glaring at her. He then, in the same slow-motion, brought out his web and webbed her. After they got done laughing, C picked Elijah up (because he still wouldn't move) and put him on the couch. He kept watching the show, but the whole time he kept his arm out towards C, webbing her, and he'd turn periodically to glare at her. :) That's just funny.

Teancom

Teancom is doing great. He is now walking near-exclusively, though he's still not incredibly stable on his feet. He has JUMPED in his verbal skills. Where before I couldn't think of 3 words he could say, he now says, "ma ma", "da da", "uh huh", "uh uh", "no", "here you go" (not that clear, of course), "please" (we can get him to say it occasionally), "thank you" (he says it often), "bye bye", "night night", "Cleo" (ee-oh), "Elijah", and "Leah" (his friend). So far Miciah doesn't have a name, that I can gather. He knows who Miciah is, but I've never heard him say her name. It's fun to have him so verbal, and it's very helpful! Yea for talking.

We took Teancom to nursery on Sunday for some transition time. He goes in officially the last Sunday of this month. He did great. I told Rob this and he said, "You're surprised?" No. He's just a good kid. He did get pushed over by one kid (there's a little boy who appears to have something out for Teancom. He's been picking on him for half a year or so), but no big deal. It got to clean up time. I thought he might be upset about putting his toys away. Nope. I asked him to put his car in a bin. He did it right away. He had a book. I asked him to give it to the leader. And he STOOD IN LINE behind 4 other kids with the book held up to give her. That blows me away. He's such a weird kid. He's quiet. He likes books. We can read him a full book. Not like a one-word-a-page book. A full easy reader book (like a Dr. Suess). Just so mellow. It occured to me while I was at nursery, that parents who only have kids like Teancom probably think that kids like Miciah and Elijah are monsters/broken and that parents of kids like Miciah and Elijah are awful parents!! It makes me grateful to have Teancom after the first two. It's not only a nice breather, but it's good perspective.

If you've read to this point, thank you for devoting the last hour of your life to reading my update. Your special reward is being mailed to you and you'll receive it in 1 - 6 weeks.

I'll try to get on top of sending out some of our cute pictures from the last few weeks!

We love you all and hope you all had memorable, lovely holidays!

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom

Winter Wonderland

The Storm

No more pictures of the ice and snow, but let me tell you the cool things that I didn't take pictures of. My Mom saw some ice crystals growing out of the ice and thought that was one of the coolest things she'd ever seen. By the time I got home to take the picture, the sun had melted it. Bummer. As the sun melted the snow and ice, the snow melted faster than the ice (of course). On my deck, there was about 2 inches of snow, then a layer of ice on top. In the sun the snow underneath melted and left a little tunnel of ice with no snow underneath. That's wicked awesome!

And the sun came out and made the trees amazingly gorgeous. You'd drive through forests or down tree-lined streets and it would take your breath away. I couldn't believe how gorgeous it was. I've talked to several people and they've all said that they've never seen a winter storm so beautiful. I feel blessed to be in the middle of it. The ice is just SO COOL!

Okay, now I will stop talking about the storm.

Mom Made it Home

Mom T finally was able to get home to CA yesterday. We enjoyed the extra few days with her. And I was happy for her to be able to see the beautiful storm. It's been a long time since she's been snowed in! :)

Elijah is still a stinker. He and Miciah have been getting on each other's nerves since we've been homebound for most of the week. Miciah was able to go back to pre-school on Thursday, which was a MUCH needed break for her. It used to be cute when Elijah would get hyper. It is no longer cute. It's just a good thing Rob is home between 6 at night and bedtime, else my kids may not be alive.

Avatar

Rob introduced our family to Avatar, which is a kids' cartoon series that runs on Nickelodeon. Our friends got the 1st Season on DVD and now Miciah is addicted to it. She made some drawings of Avatar and the Fire Benders and Earth Benders and Water Benders (the premise is there are 4 kinds of races, each that can manipulate one of the elements. Those who can are called Benders). And Elijah one day said, "No watch Abble-tar". Cute. I recommend the series if you have like 10 hours to waste.

Tonight we're supposed to go to a youth dance. I don't know if it will still happen, lots of things have been cancelled for today, too, since it's snowing again. It's snowed about another 3 inches so far today and the roads aren't great. This storm just keeps the surprises coming! :)

Enjoy yourselves and stay warm (yes, I know this won't be hard for you, Dad, in CA where it's 75 degrees outside).

Tamra and family