Christmas Pics

Santa even makes time to visit all the playhouses of the world.

We made it to the Christmas lights at temple square during Thanksgiving hoping to avoid the December chill. It was still cold, but it was beautiful.

Oh, Deer!

So the boys have become rather fond of Bambi lately and Haven's been determined to make some Bambi-like antlers. I had these metallic colored pipe cleaners so we ended up with Rudolf instead.

Then I thought this would make a cute group photo, but I was wrong. 

Somehow Adalyn managed to remove her antlers the moment before

 the shutter opened almost every time I got them in position.

 One...CLICK!

 Two...CLICK!

 Three. Inspite of Haven's growing involvement...CLICK!

Not quite...CLICK!

Four....CLICK!

 Oooh. They're on but, someone is distracted.,,CLICK!

Is it the best we are going to get?

 Yes. CLICK!

I tried to distract Addie with food

 and the boys thought they should have some too...CLICK!

Then off go Hyrum's antlers...CLICK! And I gave up.  

Jeanine's Latest Tasties

Death by Chocolate Mousse (from Allrecipes.com)

Not just a cute title, it's actually 820 calories per serving.

This cake was incredibly moist and delicious. Unfortunately I don't have any decorating tips so the hole in my baggy had to do. But it was a fun cake to make and eat.

 Diana got a 98% on her calculus test which brought her grade up to a solid A 

and inspired this little celebration!

We've been eating a lot of giant salads lately without traditional salad dressing (thanks to Joel Fuhrman's book) so I am getting a bit creative to enjoy them more. This was heavy on tomato and cucumber, with orange slices, pineapple, green pepers, red onion, broccoli, topped with coconut flakes, almond slivers, pineapple juice and a squeeze of orange juice as well. It was quite delicious. I've had the same salad every day since.

Nathaniel's Shiner

Nathaniel got into an argument with a coworker on a raquetball court. The coworker wanted to hit a raquetball and Nathaniel disagreed with his face.

California Trip

So about a week after going to Lake Tahoe, we decided it would be a little crazy, but fun, to take everyone to California with Nathaniel on his business trip to San Francisco so we could see our grandparents and relatives on the weekends and Diana could experience that beautiful state of California and the wonders of San Francisco.

Diana's first introduction to the Pacific Ocean at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. Her "guy-friend" in the background seems a lot more experienced with these frigid waters. Just kidding, Diana! She wouldn't even call him a "guy-acquaintance" because he failed to introduce himself before he popped into our picture.

The boys have been here before, but it was actually Addie's first experience with any ocean. 

No photographs were taken of her though because I didn't want to drop her or the camera into the water and I had charge of both of them.

I got to celebrate my birthday with Grandpa Tom and Grandma Cathy the weekend before and with Aunt Daphne and uncle Gus the weekend after. Apparently your birthday week is a good time to visit relatives.

There is a picture of me this age on this same retro carpet at my Great Grandma Knight's house. 

I've become quite fond of it over the years.

I want to make a chubby angel fountain statue out of this (Don't worry, Nathaniel will be fully clothed.)

Henry Cowell Giant Redwood Forest up by my Grandparents house.

I was a little worried about staying in Oakland when it was the only room we could get, but it was a beautiful hotel right on the harbor. We are big fans of Homewood Suites. Free nice dinner every weeknight plus hot breakfast in the morning. With six people we got our money's worth on dining alone.

Haven's impression of a pirate (he thought some of the boats looked like pirate ships).

Rum-Pum

After our first 2 hour traffic jam getting onto the bay bridge, all the wonders of San Francisco had worn off for Diana. 

China Town. 

I got yellow fleece jackets for the boys so I could keep track of them.

 I should have got one for Diana. 

She got a spicier meal than she had anticipated and rushed off to find a drink and couldn't find our diner again for almost an hour. One Chinese diner looks just like the next in this place. 

Golden Gate

Our cousin turned Hyrum into a little piggy.

Bear Lake with the Gee Family

Labor Day Weekend

We were so fortunate to have a chance to get together with all of Gees siblings and parents except for Ta and Michael over the holiday weekend at a friend's cabin at Bear Lake. (Ta had a brand new baby in Mississippi so we let her out of this one). 

A sweet moment with Stephanie and Grant.

This was one of those moments when we were all afraid to look at each other.

I don't know why. 

We were just waiting for someone during our evening walk. 

I don't know who. 

But it also accentuates the advantages of packing a stroller on your vacation.

So nice.

And it was the maiden voyage of our new to us minivan. 

We bought from a payday loan type establishment after someone lost their title on their loan. After reviewing the terms of the loans they offered, we decided to finance it with our Wells Fargo Checking account (which will give you an idea of how ghetto inexpensive it was--nice rims right?.

Meet Diana (if you haven't already!)

Right before our trip to Tahoe, we were contacted about hosting a foreign exchange student and decided to give it a whirl--on the condition that this student spoke Russian because Jeanine thinks it's funny to leave Nathaniel out of the conversation now and then and was tired of doing it by herself to practice her Russian. So they sent us Diana from Moldova (which is between Ukraine and Romania), whose native languages are Russian and Romanian, but who also speaks fluent French, English, Spanish, and sometimes German. Now Jeanine and Nathaniel's whole family can practice their mission languages!


But she is a sweetheart and we have really enjoyed having her has part of our family. She makes for a great first teenage daughter experiment as well. We hope to do less ruining of our firstborn by doing our best with someone else's first. She has been patient of our parenting tactics. She gets enough teasing about boys by Nathaniel to realize there is no point arguing how much she doesn't like so-and-so or even so-and-so. And Nathaniel  is well accustomed to and even enjoys the glare that results from misplacing the word "boy" for "guy" when preceding the word "friend."


Here are a few of those "guy-friends" and other friends she met at the open house we threw when she arrived to let her meet some of the local yocals.

We had a great turn out and we appreciate all the friends and neighbors that came to that and tried some of our Eastern European Cuisine.

Catching up the Long Neglected Blog

Believe it or not, we did not all die on the way home from Lake Tahoe, but our blog did. We have had things to post, but with a lot of new things going on, we haven't taken the time to do so. Since this is basically the only form of family history we keep outside of our Christmas Newsletters, we feel compelled to do a quick catch up. So the following posts are a bit outdated, but here's what happened:

Lake Tahoe Trip

Nathaniel bought this hat on our trip to Mexico and has insisted on wearing it for every vacation since. The grass completes the outfit.

Addie loved the sand a little too much. She would shovel it in her mouth every time I looked away.

Some of our Favorite Home Videos

These are some of our favorite videos from this year in case you missed them.


This is a lullaby video montage of our 3 children as babies in order (Haven, Hyrum, Adalyn).





This was some more recent footage we put together for mother's day.

Pest Control + Natural Selection = THIS MONSTROSITY

Ever since Nathaniel decided we would save money by doing our own pest control, I have become a bit of a pesticide junky. I've lived in the desert for 5 years now and still can't stomach the summertime cockroach thing, nor the black widows that come to feast on them, and I take it very personally when they intrude on my home so I keep a constant barrier of pesticide between us. I definitely encounter less cockroaches now, but the ones I do encounter seem to be getting bigger.

Finally, Goliath appeared on my wall in broad daylight and I realized my pesticide may be contributing to a stronger, mutant bug being the only one resilient enough to survive and reproduce. This is him. It is difficult to show the scale, but he is approximately 3 inches long.

So I gave him a good direct dowsing with pesticide, and then called the boys out to see him. "Is he dead?" Haven asked.

"No, but he's dying," I said victoriously, "I just sprayed him with poison."

"Oh, is he sad?" Hyrum asked.

"Maybe," I conceded. I supposed if he could feel sad he would be feeling it about now.

"He sad because mommy said, 'no'," Hyrum continued.

"Maybe he wants his mommy," Haven added.

By now I'm actually starting to feel sorry for the Philistine so I took the boys inside while we awaited the death sentence to be carried out. Even Nathaniel thought it was cruel of me since it wasn't yet inside the house and he thinks it would have eaten the other cockroaches had I spared its life.

But all my sympathy was vanquished last week when I was brutally attacked by another one the moment I stepped on my porch after a long trip in Utah. It turns out they can fly! Or maybe that is just the most recent improvement of the species since my last barrage of pest control. And it landed in my hair! They may not feel sadness but it is clear they know all about vengeance.

Clay People Populating my Diningroom

One of Haven's new summertime activities (summertime means indoor for us)

is making little people out of modelling clay.

The red one is me. It's apparent I haven't trimmed off all the baby fat.

So this afternoon, while the little ones napped, Haven and I brought one to life. This is Toby:

The boys are ecstatic about this. They watch it over and over and each time he gets up to the camera at the end they scream out and laugh.

A Few Funny Clips

Nathaniel doesn't think it would have hit him, but it looks like like a pretty lucky miss to me.




Hyrum got caught in the sprinklers one morning for the second time. When that happens he is too scared to run out of them, he just stands there and cries until I rescue him. Later the same night I happened to be filming him playing in the same spot, and he appears to re-live that traumatic experience. It's a little sad, but funny.



And this is just a cute one of Adalyn doing her first trick. She started waving her hand like Miss America one day (she was mostly admiring her own hand) so I taught her to do it whenever I say "hi".

Our Trip to Lake Havasu

 Nathaniel had work to do near Lake Havasu City and Phoenix, AZ last week so we made a family trip of it. Our hotel was overlooking the lake, as most of them do, and we had a great time.

We arrived during a beautiful evening thunderstorm. Not a good day for swimming.

But the water was perfect the next day. The kids loved it.

Even Adalyn surprised us with how much she loved swimming in the lake. It was her first swim outside the bathtub, and she hates taking baths. We're hopeful that this positive experience will influence her attitude on bath time as well.

Downtown Phoenix didn't have quite the same views. But Dad and Lisa came up from Tucson for a day and took us all to see Cars II, which was really great. The boys were ecstatic--Grandparents and Cars!