This is an old video, but Tank and I rediscovered it today and laughed all the way through it. Enjoy!

Fun Times with Rob Thacker

I just posted a bunch of videos on youtube. Videos of Rob, way too late at night, having fun with his many accents. None of the videos are longer than 3 minutes, and a few are only a couple seconds long (the shortest is 12 seconds long), so if you wanted to watch them all, it won't take you very long.

We got the Gay French Bear on video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nelBXuRMo54

Then a whole series:

The deep-voiced Southern Black Man asks for fried chicken:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihl1d7ocoYo

And is answered by the Indian man who works at Seven-11:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQJSqnxlkb4

Then he works on his Russian accent and hilariously tries to get the audience to say "Slurpee" in a Russian accent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKyVZfpa7nM

Rob, trying to sort through his Russian, Irish, and Scottish accents, and not being altogether successful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUAw17OLWi4

Indian man offers the Russian a Slurpee. Then Rob tries out his Irish, English, and Australian accents:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwGjst5BS9g

Rob's German Mad Scientist creating a Live Dead Chicken:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFHQcQdWlJI

And the night ends with all the accents playing together in one mishmash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhQmi2eJIzw


My favorites are the German Mad Scientist, the first 1:03 of the night's ending mishmash (seriously, hilarious. You MUST watch it), and Rob getting everyone to say Slurpee with a Russian accent.

I've always wanted to get these all on video. Sorry the quality isn't fantastic. During a lot of it, the video shakes a lot cause I'm laughing too hard to keep the camera still. You'll get the idea, though, and you hopefully will all understand why I intentionally keep Rob up late.

Gotta Love it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk4lg9hG0L4

This is Rob at his finest. ... Normally moments like this only happen after 11 pm, and only for me. Rob likes to make me laugh (and I like to laugh at the funny stuff he does, so our relationship works out great). I thought I'd stealthily capture this on video and let you all have a taste of what Rob is REALLY like.

Tamra

Happiness is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFeWq1JuDxs

(So I can't get this video to upload to my blog, sorry.)

Per Dad's Request

My dad said it would make him very happy if I would send out the picture of him and me dancing at my wedding reception. What a cute dad I have.

Here it is, from December 2000.

Happy Memories!

Oh, and for anyone interested, on YouTube I posted the video of Rob and M singing The Prayer at the rehearsal dinner. I only thought of recording it after they started the song, so I missed the first part of it. I had them sing it again the next day, but this is the better recording sound-wise, even though I missed the first of it. They really sing beautifully.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBHWiAfpE3A

Enjoy.

Tamra

Mother's Day and More Pictures

The Story of Mother's Day

On Mother's Day Rob got to stand up and tell a cute story about his own mother. The person who was supposed to speak for our church meeting didn't show, so last minute Rob came up with a very nice tribute to his mother. The day before she'd been down and played with the kids. When she comes they'll play Little Red Riding Hood. One of them will be Red and the other will be the Wolf in disguise as Grandma on the couch. Super cute.

He told about her playing with our kids and about how he has very fond memories of her story-telling when he was a kid. It was cute and simple and touching. It set the tone for lots of other people to get up and give heartfelt tributes to their own mothers and wives. It was simple and elegant. It was by far the best Mother's Day sermon I'd heard. People loved it. So Rob got mega-kudos for saving the meeting.

The guy who got up last (they had to cut people short), he talked about his mother. Afterwards, someone said they loved his words about his mother. He said, "I wish she were still alive. She's been gone 30 years and I still miss her." It was so cute.

I almost got up, but it seems to be taboo for women to talk on Mother's Day. If I were to talk, I'd say, "You're doing fine. Don't try to be Super Mom. Heaven knows I'M not. Cut yourself some slack." ...

After Rob sat down and people started coming up, he remembered that he'd forgotten to say something about me as the mother of his own children. :) I knew, as his wife, listening to his talk, that he'd get done, sit down, and think, "Oh, crap!" I almost tried to get his attention while he was speaking but thought that'd be tacky. Good thing I don't need to hear it from the pulpit to know he appreciates me. But it was also nice to hear him apologize for not saying something about me for from the pulpit for the next few days. It made me giggle.

Pictures:

The kids were so helpful the day that we planted all the things in our garden. They helped us rake all the grass from cutting the lawn. It was just so cute for me to see all 3 of them with different tools to help. Miciah with the broom. Elijah with the rake. Teancom with the snow shovel. ... Miciah actually has been very helpful in the yard lately and I'm impressed. She'll do it without us having to ask and that's nice, too.

Rob and Grandpa D chatting at the rehearsal dinner.

B & C D singing "Sunrise, Sunset" at the rehearsal dinner. It was super cute to see them sing together. They kept forgetting the words and doing silly things and it was cute, cute, cute. Rob also sang "Old Man River" with B and it was awesome. Forgot a ton of words. They were in 4 wrong keys until they found the right one. But it was awesome. A real treat to hear them sing, like always.

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!

Pictures

Here are some pictures, with an update to follow.

These 2 are obviously pictures of Elijah. One is just a close-up. The other is a picture of him with his "dancing shoes" on. He likes to watch the music video on The Little Mermaid DVD and sing and dance to it. I got some good videos of him singing "Kiss the Girl." Awesome. (The best video is too large to put on here, but I might put it on YouTube eventually.)

He had been watching the music video and dancing and playing "drums" (the drums were all the sour cream, butter, and cottage cheese containers from our fridge, and the drum sticks were all our spoons), when he took a break and came back wearing Miciah's sparkly pink shoes. He announced they were dancing shoes and it cracked me up.

These 2 pictures are of the track that Elijah made the other day.



It cracks me up how he makes tracks out of anything and everything. He'll make tracks out of my couch coushins, blocks, Nintendo games, movies, our dining room chairs. It's awesome. I spend most of the day cleaning up all the messes he makes, and as you can see from the picture, I was mid-cleaning the living room when he made this particular track.


I had to take a picture because I thought it was one of his more impressive tracks and it took him quite a while to build it. I initially was frustrated (just more to clean up), but I stopped, took a deep breath, looked at how much fun he was having, and instead of yelling at him I said, "Elijah, I like your track." To which he replied, "Thanks. I like it, too."

Tamra

A Long Series of Pictures, part 2

C made the grandkids all hats for Chrsitmas. They turned out really cute. We got Teancom to pose with his hat on.

One of Elijah's Santa gifts was a Spider-Man camping chair. He loves it. We actually left it up in Toledo because we were packing it up and Elijah wanted to play with it some more. He put it in a corner, we couldn't find it, and we left without it.

This is Elijah trying to sit in his Spider-Man chair at the table to eat breakfast.

Here's a random picture of Christmas morning. I'm pretty sure it's me helping Elijah get out his Spider-Man chair. But it shows a little of the morning chaos, people everywhere and running around crazy. Miciah pretty much did her own thing with the cousins. Elijah stayed near us and we helped him along the way. And Teancom just sat on my lalp and chilled. Also, the picture is included because Rob got me those pajamas for Christmas. A super-fuzzy robe came with the gift and I love it! I usually walk around the house in winter with a blanket around me. The robe is WAY easier.

And the last picture, sort of the culmination of the holidays, is of the 5 Thacker siblings. They spent like 10 minutes just laying there, taking pictures on cell phones. I got a bunch of pictures out of it, as well as a video of them just goofing around. ... Having all of the family together made it a very memorable Christmas.

We love you all!

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

Pictures I Wanted to Share

I send out a lot of pictures. Probably because when Collin gave me this camera, he told me I had to send out lots of pictures. I suppose if you ever get tired of them, you don't have to view them. :) Oh, and if anyone ever wants the full-sized version of photos I send out, just let me know. I have the ability to send out larger files, it's just inconvenient, so I usually send out smaller pictures. I figure they normally just get viewed and deleted anyway, not printed out for photo-quality stuff.

These 2 photos are from late last night. Rob and I were playing parcheesi, a game we've come to love. I beat him mercilessly (really, it was a blow-out). Then he sat there for like 20 minutes trying to build an animal pyramid. The first photo is of him concentrating (check out those focused eyes!). The second photo is of the pyramid, the best it got. Too bad the video is much too large to send out. Cause it's pretty funny to watch how weird Rob gets after 11 p.m.

I can never get very good pictures of Elijah, hence I'm always trying. ... I finally figured out that he looks cheesy when he smiles for the camera because he doesn't naturally smile very much. So I've stopped asking him to smile for the camera and the pictures are turning out better--more natural.

These are my 3 latest attempts.

I was labelling my pictures and came across this one Rob took of Elijah. It reminds me very much of photos of Ruben when he was a little kid. At the very least, it shows off Elijah's T-ness (in looks, not in behavior)!

Tamra

We're Back from Vacation!

It was a long and great 3 weeks! And it's been a long and slow 2 weeks home. I have meant to send this e-mail off since I got back, but it hasn't happened (obviously). It seems like just now life is getting back to normal. So here's the update.

First off, I've added quite a few people to this e-mail list. Some of you asked to be put on, some of you did not. I decided to change policies. Before I added you if you asked. But I decided that some people want to hear it all, but just don't know I send them out. So I added anyone I thought might possibly be interested. So if you are NOT interested, e-mail me back with something like this: "Tamra, stop sending me crap!" No offense will be taken and I'll remove your name from the list. Easy as that. ... Or, if you don't want to read it but just don't want to hurt my feelings (not that you would, though), just delete the updates as they come.

And I've decided now to BCC you all, so as not to bore you with long e-mail address lists, and to protect your information.

Trip to Utah

OK, now on to the update. We left January 5th to go to Utah. It was funny flying into the SLC airport. It felt a little like coming home. I suppose because it's the first place Rob and I lived as a married couple. I decided on the spot that it is a place that I could again call home, though I'm not overly anxious about doing so. But if there were ever an opportunity in the future, ...

We stayed most of the week we were in Utah with Grandma Thacker. We got to see everyone we wanted to see and some people that we weren't sure we'd have the time to see. There were only 2 people that we didn't see that we would have liked to. So, sorry C's and RH (though not that we didn't try, R--Rob stopped by your office three times). We got to eat out at all the places we wanted to (Cafe Rio is heaven!--we ate there twice), and we even got a BYU chocolate shake (undeniably the best chocolate shake I've ever had (pay extra for the hard serve chocolate icecream instead of the soft serve vanilla--trust me), and I've had a lot of chocolate shakes).

Trip to CA

C then got to fly on the plane with us to California on Jan. 12th. It was really nice--three adults and three kids. Good ratio for flying. So that was a heavenly and relaxed trip. We got to in to H at about midnight (our flight was delayed), and we were ready to plop into bed the minute we got there. But instead we spent a little bit of time with J and the rest of the family that was there. J got off his mission to Alaska on Jan. 9th. Everyone should go on a mission! My brother is now the coolest guy in the world! Okay, maybe not THE coolest, but definitely a major improvement from before.

We had Christmas at the T's on Saturday and on Sunday J gave his homecoming talk. It was a very good talk, of course. My dad talked, too, and got to quote a lot of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. He doesn't quite have the same awesome voice as MLK, Jr. did, but it was a pretty good rendition just the same.

And then all the relatives left, basically, except me and the kids and J. So I stayed up a lot of nights talking to my brother that I hadn't seen in 2 years and found out that he's really easy to talk to now, as well as quick to apologize. It was a pleasure to have that time with him and to find out that I really like him! Yea for missions! Everyone go on a mission (oh wait, I already said that)! :)

We spent a wonderful week down in B with B and his two oldest boys, X and R. Which ended up being really great because it broke up the time I spent in H and made me feel useful, too. It was nice to have a time when Miciah and X could play together without D. D and X are good friends, and D and Miciah are good friends, but the three of them haven't played together real well yet. It seems to get better as they get older, but it was nice to have a chance to see if Miciah and X could be friends. And they played really well and seemed to enjoy each other, so I'll chalk that up as a success.

The Trip Home and My Cold--Bad Combination

The last day I was in CA I got the cold D had had for a few weeks. I was not sympathetic when she had it. I thought she was playing it up to get attention. And maybe she was, but when I got it I wanted to die. Okay, a little overly dramatic, but not much. I couldn't sleep, I was achy, and I woke up on the day we were to travel home feeling like crap. I would have paid money to leave another day. So I was pretty cranky the whole trip, especially the second flight. I was really tired and took a short cat nap which helped (my Mom took care of the kids, thankfully, which is why they are still alive), but then we started landing and my ears went crazy. I know why kids cry when that happens to them cause I'm an adult and I was whimpering. Finally down on the ground my ears went back to normal, but I still have been hanging on to this cold. Today is one of the first days when I'm feeling really better. I feel pretty rested and my ears and sinuses aren't bugging me. I can't feel the fluid sloshing around in my ears, and that's nice.

We got to Baggage where Rob was waiting and the kids ran to him (all except Teancom, of course, but he was really excited, too). Elijah talked his ears off. It actually was a little annoying in the car cause Elijah was NON-STOP. It was cute, though, to see how excited he was to see his daddy again.

It is nice to be home. And it's been really nice to have my Mom here, cause it's eased the transition back to real life. I am still getting used to the fact that there are more things to do than I could possibly do here (in CA I did nothing most the time and absolutely loved the time off), but I'm feeling like I can do all the things that I have to do. And that's good since Mom leaves tomorrow to go back home.

Weather in CA and OH

That is, if the weather cooperates. We're supposed to be seeing a lot of snow in the next few days. It was funny, when we got into CA a woman came over the loud speaker and at the end of the announcement she added, "And stay warm out there cause it's super cold." Super cold is an exact quote. It was like 45 degrees or something. Cry me a river. Then we come home and it's really actually super cold! When we left Ohio at the beginning of Jan. it was like in the 60's. We got back and it was in the teens. Let me tell you, 8 degrees is COLD! Today it feels really warm and it's still only 32 degrees. Yikes. Last week we got an awesome snow storm. It seemed like just flurries, but it gave 4 - 6 inches all over the Cincy area, and caused a headache on the roads. It was the day of Miciah's doctor's appointment. It takes usually 20 minutes to get home and I got home in an hour and a half with Miciah crying the whole time: "I hate snow storms!" and "I'm so mad at this snow storm!" I told her to hate it, but don't bother getting mad, cause Mother Nature always wins. :) I don't think she got it.

Miciah's Rash

We took Miciah in to the doctor last week (as I mentioned) about the rash she has. It's myluscum contagiouso or whatever it is. We knew that's what it was, but they had told us to wait it out and we've been waiting since May of last year. That's quite a while. So we went in again and the doctor gave us a prescription to use topically for her. So at least we're doing something. He also gave us a referral to a dermatologist. Of course, they can't get her in until July. ... Hopefully the cream takes care of it, cause I'm really tired of her neck looking awful.

The Kids

Miciah gets more and more pleasant as she gets older. She rarely needs disciplined any more, and that's lovely. Especially as Elijah moves into Attitude stage. Since we've been home he's been a pain in the butt, though a cute one. It's still funny to me when he's angry cause he's just not a naturally angry person, so when he gets mad it just makes me want to laugh. I don't laugh in his presence so as not to encourage him, but once he's in his room for a time out I chuckle about it. He'll get upset and swing his arms in my direction or point his finger at me like he's casting a spell on me or he'll spit at me or stick his tongue out (he's oh so rebellious, eh?). My personal favorite is when he Care Bear Stares me. It cracks me up to have to say, "No Care Bear Staring Mommy!" :) The last few days have seemed to help with his attitude, as he's been easing back into normal life here.

Teancom went to the doctor this last week, too. He is 17 lbs. and I don't know how long, but he's following the same growth lines, so they like to see that. We started him on solids a little over a week ago, and he loves it. He's had rice cereal mixed with apple juice (cause I can't stand giving my kids straight rice cereal--eww!), which Elijah calls applesauce (he ate about half of Teancom's bowl the other night and loved it). And he's had carrots and bananas. Now if he sees a spoon coming his direction he'll open his mouth like a little bird. He's a good eater. I also decided that yesterday was my last day of breastfeeding, so we're done with that. Teancom is taking formula just fine, and I'm enjoying saying I'm done! On vacation Teancom had gone back to not sleeping as well through the night. We were all in the same room, so if I let him cry he'd wake up Elijah and Elijah would then point out to me that Teancom was crying. Not helpful. Teancom also got a cold, so it was hard all the way around. But he's back to sleeping through the night in long stretches. We haven't moved him into a crib or into the room with his siblings yet, but the crib's all set up to do it when he's ready.

Teancom is a little behind developmentally, but we are not yet concerned. He's a happy healthy baby, but he isn't particularly interested in moving. He rarely rolls over and no one's seen him roll from his back to his tummy yet. He can't sit up on his own and he doesn't move toys from one hand to the other like they say he should be able to. At this point, I'm not bugged that he doesn't move much. It's nice to not have to worry about what he's getting into or whatnot. He's just a content little kid. He's still relatively quiet, though this last month he has started jabbering quite a bit. And I can leave him in his swing for over an hour and he'll be happy sucking away on his fingers, and occasionally I'll even "forget" about him until he makes a sound. I have no complaints. :)

Rob and The Committee

Rob today is giving a presentation to his dissertation committee about the changes he's making in his project. His project is working, but not the way he thought it would, so he tweaked it a little and gave it a new direction. It'll be nice that he'll be able to keep all his data and not move on entirely. It's also nice that he now knows his direction, cause it was stressing him out not to know. If you want to know more about it, you'll have to ask him cause I don't know much about it.

Rob, The Kids, The Snow, and the Laundry Basket

Rob also ate up playing in the snow with his kids. We don't have a sled, so Rob jerryrigged our laundry basket with some rope and pulled the kids around like he was a sled dog! Very cool. I'll attach a few photos. Miciah even let Rob bury her in the snow. She thought that was great! Crazy kid.

Fixing Up the Craft Room

And I am just me being the same old mother of 3. No new projects or anything. ... We are in process of re-doing our craft room downstairs. We moved the desk and the computer upstairs so it's no longer an office/craft/whatever room, it's just a craft/whatever room, and that makes it much more useable. This week we'll put quite a bit of work into it and a little bit of money (better than a lot of money and a little work, in my opinion), and fix it up a little. We weren't going to, but the old wordshop stuff was really getting on my nerves. I had this fabulous idea of newspapering the walls, but no one liked that idea. So I convinced Rob to do what I would rather see happen: put up dry wall and then we'll paint it one of these days. I'm still excited about the newspaper idea, though, so I'm going to incorporate that somehow. Maybe I'll cover the awful countertops with it. That could work.

That's life here. I'm sure I've missed a lot of stories and stuff along the way, sorry about that. I guess that's what happens when you wait so long to do another update. :)

Funny Stories

Oh, a funny story for you. I had Miciah and Jake in the backseat of the van. Jake is the little boy we carpool with to pre-school. I was listening to Phantom of the Opera and they both liked the songs. Jake pipes up with, "I think the Phantom of the Opera has some special powers." "Like what?" I asked. "I don't remember." Miciah said, "Maybe he has evil powers." Jake then said, "Yeah. I think lazers come out of his eyes." Who knew? :)

And Elijah declared to us last week that he was a girl and not a boy. So we got a wonderfully cute video of him shouting at us, "No! I GUIRL!" Cute. Later, when questioned on whether he was a boy or a girl, he said, "No, I princess." :) We'll have to work on that.

Tamra and family

Indeed, it is time for an update. It's been a month.

Well, life is life here. It's busy and unrelenting, and that's how it should be. I had a realization a few days ago. After weeks of being unable to keep the house clean, the dishes done, dinner made, or the laundry done, it dawned on me that this was not a deficiency in me. I have 3 kids and one of them is 3-months-old. I have had this verified by several other mothers of 3 + kids and this makes me feel better. I still would like to be more on top of things, and this is a noble goal. But I have stopped apologizing to Rob when he comes home and the house is dirty. This is a nice freedom I have given myself (and that Rob has allowed me to have without complaining).

I have mastered the store with 2 kids (Elijah and Teancom), but have yet again to brave the store with 3 kids. Still going to the store for longer than 5 minutes is a gamble and I'm learning to have a good sense of humor about it, even when it's happening. And that's been a nice thing. Most of my days are chaos until noon and then it's better after that. I don't know why noon is the breaking point, but it is. I still take naps most days for a good part of the afternoon. This offsets at least a little bit the fact that Teancom still doesn't go to bed before midnight most nights and isn't consistent about his 5 - 6 hours of sleep. Some nights it's 5 and some it's 2 or 3. Naps are good. :)

Rob is still enjoying his research. I still understand very little about what he does.

Miciah's 5th Birthday

Miciah had her birthday parties. That was fun and chaos! We had 20 kids over, with their parents, so our house was overflowing with people. Feeding all the kids cake and icecream was overwhelming, but only lasted like 20 minutes, and the rest of the party was a break from kids. They were all downstairs and the adults were all upstairs. It was great. Miciah got lots of great toys and was spoiled rotten, of course. Elijah was also in heaven because all Miciah's friends brought their little sisters or brothers, most of whom are Elijah's age. He thought it was his birthday party, too. We let him open one gift during a small party with R & C and he was happy. Still, if you say, "Elijah, was it Miciah's birthday party?" he will reply, "MY birthday party!" It's cute. We got it on video.




Elijah

Elijah is talking up a storm and showing off his 2-year-old attitude. It's incredible. He's cute and lovable and a little sassy. I'll say something like, "Elijah, eat that." He'll reply with, "YOU eat it." Very nice. He is back to spitting and hitting and scowling. Well, he's always scowled. But he's delightful, even when he's talking back. Potty training is still potty training, and I wish I could say it's going so smoothly it's the easiest thing I've ever done. Yeah, right. Miciah was much easier. But it's going well enough, I suppose. We don't worry too much about when it doesn't, and Elijah gets M&M's when he does it right, and that's really good motivation for him.

Teancom

Teancom is growing like a weed and it's great. He's starting to get pretty smiley and happy when he's awake and is going to sleep better, fighting it less. He's sleeping longer (sometimes) and getting bigger and what else could we ask for? He's also making eye contact better. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have great eye sight. He has just now started to make eye contact and still doesn't like people to be too close to him, or else he avoids their face. He will turn away from them. Someone today suggested that maybe he's near-sighted or whatever. I guess we'll have to see as he gets older. Certainly he's not developmentally behind, but it's something we're keeping an eye on.

Almost Halloween

And that's life here. Next order of business is making Miciah's costume for this Friday's celebration at the church building. They want the kids to dress as scripture characters, and Miciah said she wanted to be the Nile River. What kind of kid WANTS to be the NILE? Whatever. So she's going as the Nile. I bet she'll be the only one there who is a body of water. :) It'll be cute.

Take care everyone. Have a great Halloween! We'll send pictures when we get them.

Tamra and family