Another Update with Pictures

Since my updates have been short lately, I thought I'd include a few more fun things that I've left out for the last little while.

Miciah's birthday party

The day of Miciah's party was also the birthday of a friend of ours, CR, who was coming to the party with his kids. I told him on the Monday before that I was going to make him a cake and he said, "I want a Star Wars cake." He was just kidding, of course, but I thought, why not make him one? So I did. Here are the pictures of it. It was awesome! His daughter who is turning 6 in January says she wants the same cake for her birthday. Fun!

The party prompted another friend of ours, DS, to mention that it was his birthday the next Saturday and why didn't I make HIM a cake, too. I reminded him that I made him a cake 2 years ago for his b-day and wasn't that good enough? Apparently not. So I made some cookies for him and took them to his house. We're really good friends with the S's, so I gave him only 13 cookies and wrote a note that said, "I made 28 cookies but got hungry on the way so I ate a few. But at least it now matches your mental age." Waa haa haa. I like having friends I can joke with.

The Primary program

The Primary program for church was this last Sunday. They practiced for it for 3 weeks, and Miciah was pretty freaked out about having to say her part. They gave her an easy one: 5 things she's grateful for and why. I was about to go up to the person running the show (JS, our really good friend (wife of the DS listed above) and tell her it just wasn't working. But J then told Miciah that if she does her part, she gets cookies afterwards, but it's a secret, so don't tell anyone. Miciah was convinced. And she kept the secret. She's good at keeping secrets, actually. So Miciah sat up there the whole time and sang the songs. During one of the songs she looked over at us, gave us a thumbs up and winked. Lovely. She did her part great. She said: "I am grateful for church, the Bishop, Grandma and Grandpa, Heavenly Father and Jesus, and Mom and Dad. I am grateful for them because they make me happy." What a great little talk. The Bishop was so impressed he's thinking about asking her to be a youth speaker in church some time. We'll see if that happens.

Halloween

We invited our good friends, T & S T, over for Halloween night. They came, had dinner with us (we made dinner in a pumpkin, how cool is that?!), and watch "scary movies" with us. We made a list a year back or so of movies that aren't really freaky, but that freaked us out as kids. The list includes The Neverending Story (the part with the wolf!), The Labrynth (need I explain that one?), The Black Cauldron (the green mist), Return to Oz (all those heads!), and The Dark Crystal (the emperor dying and turning into ash). We ended up watching The Black Cauldron, which I don't ever remember seeing as a kid. Rob says it gave him nightmares when he was little. Anyways, the movie was freaky, and I think that as an adult. Yikes! Not sure that's ever going to be on our must-own list. Plus, they butchered the story. I spent a good 10 minutes afterwards explaining why they shouldn't not read the series because of this lame movie. I'm a huge Lloyd Alexander fan.

Miciah

Miciah is a treasure and an asset to our home. She helps clean up and holds down the fort when I'm taking naps. She asks before she gets into things she knows might be iffy. She is my answering service and actually gives me the message. And she's very independent and takes care of herself. The older she gets, the more I find to like about her. And her personality is great. She's now into a stage where she's joking around with us. The other day Rob was folding laundry and had just finished folding a lot of Elijah's underwear. She said, "Dad, there's underwear on your head." Rob put his hand up to check and she said, "Just kidding." It makes us smile.

Elijah

Elijah is a stinker these days! "Eida do it!" That's how he says his name. He's very talkative and likes to yell at me and tell me just what I'm doing that he doesn't like. :) He likes to object every time we want to change his clothes. He's specific about what he wants to wear, or eat, or watch on TV. I have some great pictures of him in the bathtub. He was in the tub, the water was let out, and he refused to get out. So I got the camera to capture the moment. He kind of looked at me like, "What are you doing?" Then he got out, but only after refusing to use any towel but the blue one. Looks like Teancom gets the yellow towel. Our cute little compliant Elijah is now 2. It doesn't work to spank him or yell at him, he usually thinks that's funny. I don't think he has any pain receptors, cause you spank him and he laughs. So we've given up on punishment, pretty much. Cause it doesn't work. But does anything when you're 2?
He's still just as sweet as can be, though, and it's fun to have such a sensitive, caring kid around.

Teancom

Teancom is getting smiley and is starting to laugh. It's fun.

Rob

Rob's mentor guy at school told him he has enough data to publish a paper. Rob is excited, this is a good step.

Me and Rob

Rob and I are going out on a date tonight, with Teancom. We haven't been out for a long time. It'll be fun. And someone else is paying for dinner. How much better does it get?

Okay, that's all the random bits I had stored up. Until next time.

Tamra and family

Family Update

Not much going on here. Miciah has started back at pre-school, and this makes us all happy. We have lots of friends there to carpool with this year and this makes all the parents happy, cause it's about a 20 minute drive to her pre-school.

Elijah

Elijah is still doing pretty good with potty training. He's hit the terrible twos full throttle now, so that's a little frustrating. Mostly he's just sweet Elijah, but he'll ask Why incessantly (which is actually pretty cute, I think), and insists on throwing full out tantrums whenever we go out in public. Let me tell you, it is hard to pick up a 30 lb. 2-year-old with one arm. I have decided when I go to pick up Ciah from pre-school I will take the stroller and strap Elijah down so he can't get out. Then at least he can't get down on the floor and refuse to move. Sheesh. And every time I am brave enough to go to the store, I remind myself to not be brave again any time soon. But I'm still laughing on the inside, so that's the important thing. And if I wasn't exhausted by noon everyday, would life be worth it? :)

Rob's project is still back and forth. He'll be able to tell in the next month or so if he'll need to switch projects. It's so day-to-day what the prognosis is. So I don't worry about it too much. If it does get switched, I'll make him get on here and tell you all what the new project is.

Home Projects

We have been doing a lot of projects since I now have energy to handle it. We tore up the carpet in the dining room to get the hardwood underneath. It won't ever look nice, cause there's lots of nails and screws they put in it probably to stop creaks. And there's a big spot that used to be a part of the heating stuff that isn't even stained, but it is hardwood. We'll be staining it soon so we can live with it. Long-term, we'll be putting down that laminate floor that looks like hardwood but isn't. But that won't be for a while.

We also stained the deck a see-through red color to protect the wood and weather-proof it. It's a nice deck and I think it'll be even nicer now. Even though Miciah helped so it's not very even in its color. But it's cute that she loved helping so much. She felt really special to be able to help and that's worth the imperfections. And it's not like Rob and I didn't add any imperfections anyway.

Because of projects our house is trashed. We're working today to get it all put back together.

Zelda

And the major accomplishment of my life is beating Zelda for the first time. I am now getting my butt kicked on Quest 2. But it's fun to play with Rob. And now you can go on-line and get any kind of cheat sheet and help that you want. And that's fun, too.

I am going up to M's this weekend with Teancom for an all-girls (and infants) weekend with C, C, M, and A. I'm looking forward to a little bit of a break, if not more sleep. Teancom is doing better about sleeping, but not much. He's getting a consistent 4 hour stretch instead of 3 hours. It's amazing how long 4 hours seems. :) From J's last e-mail, it looks like J and Tank are about the same size. Tank weighed in at 12 something just days before J was weighed at the same. Getting older is good for all of us. Teancom is getting a little of a pattern with his day, which is nice. I'm starting to catch on to the patterns, and that's also helpful. Teancom is still delightful and I can't imagine life without him now. He has this raspy little cry but he's not sick. It's just how he cries. So I'm wondering if he's not going to have a hoarse sounding little voice when he's older. Like Macy Grey or something. I guess we'll see.

That's all for updates around here. Everyone's relatively healthy with a little cough and congestion going around. It's starting to get colder and that's lovely. It's nice to not need any AC or heater. Good for our worn out energy bill. :) Take care all!

Tamra and family