As far as they translate us correctly...

Have you ever noticed how kids take things we say and do and spit something back out at us that's a little off, or just funny?

Since our families live an hour or more away from us, I've taken to praying something like this "we're thankful for our families that are away from us..." Joseph translated it a litttle wrong and prayed "we're thankful our families are away from us..."

Today Caleb came back from kindergarten and indignantly told me about a little boy that said poopie. I said something about how he's a silly boy, and Caleb sighed and said "No, he just makes wrong choices sometimes."

Give me a few more days and I'll come up with much more.

Also, other news: Seth said Apple. Sort of anyway. Joseph has declared him a SuperBaby. We've been playing hide and seek a lot lately, and it's funny to watch him duck down and check under the beds all seriously. He knows exactly what to do. Hiding...we're still working on that.
Joseph's hair is growing back, which he is pleased with.
Caleb is planning his birthday party. It's at the end of May, but he's excited.
Felicity started a dance class as part of the afterschool 4H. She's having loads of fun and demonstrated a move for us during dinner the other night. Was she excited or was she putting off eating those vegetables for a little longer?

Root Beer Cookies

My camera and computer are having a tiff, so I can't post pictures on here from Christmas, so instead I'm going to post a recipe. My mom used to make these cookies, but I haven't had them for awhile. A few days ago I caught a whiff that smelled like them...and so I made a double batch today. The glaze makes this recipe, don't skip it, but don't be tempted to make it any stronger. And if you double the recipe, don't double the glaze, it makes plenty.

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 egg
1/4 cup buttermilk or water (if you don't have any buttermilk, take put 1/4 tbls of lemon juice concentrate, add enough milk to make a 1/4 cup and let sit for five minutes before adding it to the recipe)
1 tsp root beer extract (it's the same stuff you use to make home made root beer)
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Cream brown sugar, butter and egg until fluffy. Stir in buttermilk, root beer extract, flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until smooth; cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Drop by rounded spoonfuls about two inches apart onto greased cookie sheet (if you forget to grease it, just take them off before they cool too much) Bake at 400 for 6-8 minutes. Spoon glaze on hot cookies.

Root Beer Glaze:
2 cups powered sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 tbls. hot water
1 1/2 tbls. Root Beer Extract

Enjoy!

And I'll see if I can get the camera and computer to make up so I can post about Christmas. =)

Whoa! He's bald!

I have to blog about this today, just because I'll sleep better getting this off my chest. Have any of you ever had one of those days when your husband walks in the door you feel like crying with relief? Because of those sweet innocent little boys you have? Look at these two, so good. Joseph was trying to read a story to Seth. He wasn't exactly sitting still, but I thought it was adorable anyway. Oh, by the way, get a good look at Joseph's hair.

All innocence this morning.

Huh. Yeah, not so innocent now. This is the second time in about half an hour that Seth decided to throw flour all about. I cleaned up the first one, walked into another room to deal with another crisis and, pow, he was back at it. So I took a picture.

So you wanted to know what the other crisis was? I was getting out my clippers. To finish a haircut. That wasn't started by me. Even though it was my SEWING SCISSORS THAT STARTED IT (sorry, just my mom's past admonishing: Don't cut ANYTHING but fabric with your sewing scissors. Huh. Maybe Grandma needs to talk to her innocent little grandson.) Don't you like how he started right in the middle of his forehead. Front and center.

I showed him a mirror and told him (I wasn't even yelling at this point-- that was before-- but I was being good now) we were going to have to cut all his hair off. He didn't really like that idea, but it had to be done. I love the expression in this picture. Very expressive.

Such a stinker.

I had to chase him around to get a picture, he was a little embarrassed. Funny the same kid who streaked in our yard is embarrassed about an (almost) naked head.

The other kids reactions were great:

Felicity: Wow, that doesn't look very good.

Caleb: Whoa! He's bald!

Seth: (pointing) Wow! hee-hee! Wow!

The rest of the night whenever Seth saw Joseph, he would laugh and say Wow! I didn't think he was old enough to really notice, but he thought it was hilarious. He even kept trying to rub Joseph's head. I've had people tell me that if you shave a baby's head they will have thicker hair when it grows back in. Hmmmm, maybe it's too late at age three, but we'll see. What a stinker. At least Seth is entertained.

Party!

It's Christmas Party time! BYU had their family party last weekend. The kids love going to play games, make crafts, eat doughnuts and especially see Cosmo the Cougar!

Posing with their crafts. Felicity made a sparkly wand, Caleb decorated a chalkboard, and Joseph decorated a football ornament.

Caleb and Joseph posing with the cougar. We always skip seeing Santa here because the line is so long, but the boys love Cosmo even when we wait for ten minutes in line. Felicity refused to be in the picture this year, I think she thinks she is too big. Cosmo also signed the back of Joseph's football ornament, he was so excited.

This Santa picture is from our ward party. We didn't say anything to the kids about the Santa's identity, but on the way home Caleb said very matter-or-factly, "that wasn't the real Santa. that was our old Bishop." Can't fool that kid. Our "old" Bishop did a great job, and thanks Nikki for sending the pictures so fast to us.
I've been busy sewing and crafting and trying to hide presents from the kids. Joseph went with Farris to get a present for Caleb, and he proudly showed it to Caleb one day: "Look what we got for you Caleb!" Felicity came with me to a fabric store yesterday, I remeber going to stores with my mom and looking at all the buttons and fabric, now I get to share it with my daughter. Awww, nostalga. And then Felicity declared she was bored, and then I remembered being bored shopping with my mom, too. Luckily I had Nicki and Robert to play hide and seek with and generally drive my mom crazy. Which is what would have happened if Joseph and Caleb had come along.
Seth is walking more and more all the time. He also has a new favorite word: wow. At this time of year there is a lot to say wow about. He loved watching the snow fall right in front of his face. Whenever a snowflake came particualry close to his face he'd jump back, point, and yell "WOW!" It's amazing seeing everything through his eyes. But even though I am excited, I am restraining myself from tipping over the tree, which is more than Seth and Caleb can say. Right now our tree is crooked because we're tired of trying to keep it straight. Maybe Santa will straighten it for us on Christmas Eve.

Africa and other stories

I hardly know where to begin, it's been a couple crazy weeks...maybe I should start with a Joseph story, always a good place to start. I told this story to one person (Farris) and he wrote it in his journal, ha-ha, very funny, then I told my sister and she made me tell my whole family, and now I'm thinking that maybe I'll share it with everyone, just if you need a good laugh today. So I'm wiping Joseph's bum (this is where my sister says "All the best stories start this way..."). He says, "My bum is big, huh, mom!" He's all excited about it because he's three and likes to be a BIG KID. Then I turn around to get something. Yup, you can guess where this is leading. He gasps, "MOM! Your bum is big! Your bum is AFRICA BIG!" Yes, I wasn't as excited about that comment as he meant me to be and yes, we are stopping all geography lessons until he learns some tact.

So then we went to Thanksgiving at my parents house in Idaho. Loads of fun with crazy kids and some crazy adults, too =)

Here's my nephew Tanner catching up on World News (ok, just the comics) with Seth. Seth is apparently reading the classifieds, looking for a good deal. Despite all of us looking through the ads, we didn't do too much shopping on Black Friday. Tasha and I went to Joanne's at 6:00 a.m. and then headed home and then Mom, Nicki, Tasha, Rob, and Farris and I went back later to hit a couple more stores in the afternoon.

This is my brother Robert taking the kids around for horsey rides and getting squashed flat when five of them jump on at once. Don't worry, he's still breathing.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving my family always goes Christmas Tree Hunting up above Sun Valley in the Sawtooth Mountains. Joseph had fun because he got passed around by at least three of us the whole time he was out there. We found a cute little tree pretty quick, which was good because it was getting cold and we were getting hungry! Joseph discovered his favorite new condiment, Mustard. We had made ham or turkey sandwiches with mustard on them, and Joseph has now tried to put mustard on enchiladas and peanut butter sandwiches. I didn't let him. Can you imagine what his missionary companion would write home to his family in 18 years? I'm hoping he won't tell his companion he has a big bum, either.

On the Monday after Thanksgiving we traditionally put up and decorate our tree. This year we vetoed anything breakable, and that has been mostly successful. Seth has only broke one of the unbreakable ornaments. And he has not yet been able to tip the tree over, we'll see if that lasts.

These are the stockings I made for our variation of an advent calendar. I made 25 little stockings and then put scriptures in for each day. I'm thinking about putting treats in the occasional one, too, just to surprise the kids on some of the days. This year I hung them on branches from our tree, next year I might try a garland or even a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. If you want scriptures for each day of December leading to Christmas, try this web site: http://redhatmandan.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/lds-christmas-scripture-study/

It had a good mixture of BOM, Bible, and D&C scriptures. There is also a Christmas Storybook there that you can download that sounds great.

Family Pictures, 2009

We got our family pictures back! and I finally took the time to put them on here, AND they are great, (time for the plug!) Christy at Cheapshots! Photography is amazing and if you need pictures for you family she's good and you won't have to give her one of your children to pay for the pictures. Or their college fund. I have a link in my "fun sites to see" area right to her web site. And if you have to travel, we can accommodate you at Hotel Our House! Yup, that includes a 7:00 wake up call from our little alarm clocks on two (very loud) feet.

We went up a nearby canyon right when the fall colors were wonderful. Christy says that our kids have a lot of personality. We're still trying to decide if that's a nice way of saying that she feels sorry for their primary teachers. It can be kind of hard to reign them in when they are needed to sit still for pictures. And why do kids think they need to have a huge fake smile for pictures? It cracks me up some of the expressions they came up with. Caleb and Joseph smiled so big their cheeks cover their eyes. It's a good thing they have ginormous eyelashes, or we wouldn't see them at all. We were also visited by a small herd of deer that ran right past us when we were done. A perfect fall day, all we needed was pumpkin pie, but that's coming this week!

Christy very nicely also put Seth's model shoot pictures with our family pictures. Sticheroos, an online store for very cute kids clothes and accessories (yup, plug#2, see link down there by Christy's link) needed models for some of their products, and who better than Seth to model cute first birthday shirt and boxers? Sticheroos has some adorable stuff including those baptism towels, scripture bags, fluffy tutus, and lots of shirts that's can be personalized.

Cute smile for the camera. See, Christy knows how to get cute smiles...candy.

Awwww, our own little underwear model!

More Conversations with Felicity

Tonight on the radio we heard that Christmas song about how the guy give the girl his heart for Christmas and she gave it back the very next day, blah-blah-blah, can't remember the name. Anyway, Felicity was confused. I told her that the singer told this girl he loved her, but she didn't love him back. Felicity thought about it, sighed and said, "I know what that feels like."