I must be the only bored person on the planet.

Seriously. I mean, all we ever hear about is how hectic December is. So many things to buy, so many parties to go to, etc. And so I braced myself. I did all my shopping early. And all the parties were early. And so, for the last week, I have had absolutly NOTHING to do. Nada. Kinda creepy . . .

We hosted the annual YW Christmas party last Wednesday, and that was awesome. We really feel blessed to have such a great house to host in- we fit everyone in, no problemo! I also have to count my blessings on such a fun calling. I remember that two years ago, the Christmas party was my first activity when I started working with the Beehives. And I didn't know a single girl! I just remember feeling bad, because all the leaders had brought their assigned food (they didn't want to assign me something on one week's notice), and were chatting with all the girls, and I just stood there wondering how I was going to get to know all these girls I had never met before. But now I just look around and see all these girls that I absolutly love to pieces. I worry for them in all of the trials I see them go through, but I am constantly amazed by their strength and vibrant spirit. I know everyone says this, but we really have a wonderful batch of young women in this ward!

Anyway, after the YW party, we have just been hangin'. Doing laundry. Wrapping a few presents. The thing is, my kids are still too young for this holiday. Neither of them have a clue what is going on, and if we had any "Scrooge" in us at all we wouldn't buy them a thing, because they would have no idea. As it was, they were with me when I bought their presents, and "helped" me when I wrapped the presents. (That girl is such an investigator! She drove me nuts, picking up the scissors or the tape the instant they were set down, taking presents I just wrapped to push them around the carpet and use them as chairs, etc. Of course the scrap wrapping paper I gave her to play with was b-o-r-i-n-g.)

And yesterday we had quite the blizzard. So I took the kids out to play in the snow! This is going to sound lame, but that was the first time I have ever done that. Tyler has always been so timid- as it was, he mostly just stomped around in the drifts yesterday, and wasn't sure he liked trying to make snowballs or anything. But he is getting more and more adventurous, and Kaitlyn I knew would enjoy anything she could attack, so out we went. Her neon gloves were a bit of a fashion statement, but Kaitlyn sat and ate some snow before getting up and trying to walk in it. Even though it came up past her waist. LOL. And Tyler seemed to think it was exciting, even if he had no idea why. Next up: we need to get a sled!

Christmas Card addresses

Okay everybody- I am working on getting my cards out this week. So if you want to get one in the mail, I need addresses! My email address is just my name (firstlast) at hotmail.com. If you got one last year, I am sending to that same address unless otherwise told. Except for Sara- I know you moved back to Germany, but um- where?

If any of you haven't gotten one before, and want to be added to the list, please don't hesitate! I always end up with extras, since my home teacher owns a print shop and prints them for me.

In the meantime, here is the cover, fresh off of photoshop!

Heading in to Christmas . . .

We aren't as busy as most people are in December, but we do have a few traditional events that help us head into the holiday. Our first one was last Friday- the annual Cloward party. It is one of those really good white elephant parties, where it is a contest on who can come with the funniest, most useless or interesting item. Things like a pumpkin, a pair of high-heeled constuction shoes, one bowling pin, a set of Donny Osmond VHS tapes that come back every year, or crazy boxer shorts. It helps that we have awesome, hilarious neighbors. And this year, Christopher worked very hard for his prize. He opened it, got really sad when it was stolen, and then was SO happy when he managed to steal it back and keep it.

Makes a wife so proud.

He hasn't decided firmly what he is going to do with the horns yet. Right now they are on our front door, attempting to impale anyone that comes to our house. But he mentioned that he wants to attach them to his truck. That would make sense for a beat up, rusty old truck. I guess the fact that he has a nice, 2008 Tacoma instead adds to the humor? In case you are wondering about what I won, my prize package included two rolls of toilet paper, a box of popcorn, and a DVD from the Mayo Clinic about some gastrointestinal disease (GERT?). Oddly enough, someone approached me afterward and asked if they could borrow the DVD because their husband actually has that disease. Um, all yours! Take it away!

And the next day was something I honestly look forward to all year. My grandpa and I have gone to Christmas Around the World for 7 years now. It is a show that the BYU folk dance team puts on every year, and we love it! My grandpa loves all song and dance shows, but this one is a really good one. Basically, the dance groups dress in local costume and perform traditional dances from countries around the world. Irish dancing, American clogging, you name it. They always manage to find something new to add for variety, since there are a lot of people who come every year (it has been going for 50 years in one form or another), but there are old favorites too (it's not over until the "red boots dance"!). This year they had the Men's Chorus come and sing, and who doesn't love BYU Men's Chorus? My favorite part was when some of the singers came down and "cut in" on the dancers, and then the displaced dancers brought choir director down to dance. And then they tossed her up in the air! It was so much fun. I truly look forward to my "date" with my grandpa every year. He is 95 this year, so I never know how much longer it will last.

That night we went up to Christopher's work party. I think I would have had a wonderful time if I wasn't trying to keep two toddlers on their best behavior for a sit-down dinner in the Joseph Smith Memorial building. At least I got to visit with everyone though. We really are good friends with most of his co-workers and their families. That is the best part of a small, close-knit company like that.

After all that fun though, it is time to do MY part to get ready for Christmas. The Christmas card was rather stressful this year, since I never see Chris in the daylight hours to take a good picture, and the one time we tried to arrange someone else to take the picture was when the kids were FRIED and didn't smile. Notice their happy faces above. So our card has a picture of each kid on the front instead of a group shot this year. They are the cute ones anyway. On to shopping!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving crept up on me a bit this year, but it was still enjoyable. We went over to my in-law's house as usual, but my favorite part was the "Turkey Bowl" that morning. Christopher still keeps in touch with quite a few friends from his old neighborhood, and they managed to round up a good sized group of friends and siblings for a football game. Normally this is just a guy thing to do while the girls make Thanksgiving dinner, but Chris wanted me to play, and I had a blast! In many ways, it is nice being the only girl because people don't expect too much from you. I even made a couple of catches! When I picked up the kick off, I started running and said "the best part is, being the only girl, no one is really sure if they want to tackle me or . . . oh shoot . . ." as my husband ran straight at me, grabbed me around the waist, and tackled me on the ground. Stinkin' flirt! I enjoyed watching Chris play- he had a great day, and actually caught a bunch of touchdown passes.

But my favorite thing about Thanksgiving, oddly enough, is that I can set up my Christmas decorations. I LOVE Christmas decorations. Heck, this year, I took down the pumpkins and leaves all over the house and set up holly and reindeer before I even went to bed on Thanksgiving itself. I have two favorites: the nativity set and the tree.

This nativity set is something that Christopher got while on his mission. Each piece was hand carved by a Philipino artist, and it was designed by another missionary in his area. The other Elder requested an angel without wings, and also asked that the manger be empty while Mary and Joseph hold their child. I love that. It seems to much more fitting to me to see the new little family huddled together, inspecting each other for the first time. When Chris saw the set, he went back and asked the artist to make him a set just like it. Right now it lives on my dining room table, which works out well because the angel hangs from the chandelier. I just love seeing the way the light from above shines on our little scene.

And my second favorite is the tree. When we first moved into this house, it was a big fixer-upper. We have painted nearly every surface, and intend to paint it all before we are done. But we loved the bones of the house. And our front room is part of what sold us. When you walk in, the front room and dining room are open, vaulted ceilings that go all the way to the balcony of the second floor. When I took out my decorations for Christmas that year though, I immediately noticed a problem. Coming from a small apartment, we owned a 3 foot, bitty Christmas tree. I just got the box out from the basement and looked back and forth from this tiny little tree to the 16 foot ceilings and laughed. So we stared shopping for a bigger tree. It started at 6 foot, and then we saw some 9 foot trees- hey, our ceiling can handle that! And suddenly, Christopher decided we should just do it. We spent almost all of our Christmas money on this 12 foot monster that year, but it was SOOO worth it. It was as though the house was designed to show off a 12 foot tree in the front windows. Setting it up is a chore, but oh, I do love my tree! Thanks heavens for "pre-lit", or I would lose my mind.

This year we had a new addition too. Christopher came home from Black Friday sales with a train to run around the tree. The only sad part is that it is not built to withstand Kaitlyn, so we can't actually set it up and leave it there. But Daddy and Tyler were ecstatic to set it up in our front room this morning and play with it. Tyler loves "choo choo trains"! He also liked pressing the buttons for the sound, and making it go forward and backward.

Kaitlyn, on the other hand, was absolutely furious. She wanted to grab this thing so badly, it was all either of us could do to hold her back. Daddy is fond of calling her a "monster", and usually I correct him, but she is quite insistent on inspecting everything we don't want her to touch. You can't see it, but Daddy is holding desperately onto her legs to hold her back for this shot.

And finally, we have success! Kaitlyn took quite a few steps today. She has to be distracted enough to not really notice she is doing it, but she did just great. Look out, everybody!

Twilight and BYU football

Friday night was a lot of fun! A friend of mine is really gung-ho about the Twilight series (I like them, but don't love them), and her sister-in-law gave her 4 tickets to see the movie that they couldn't use. And so she invited me and another friend in the ward to go with her and her sister-in-law. It was so much fun to have a girl's night out! I honestly didn't expect to enjoy it that much, but it was really nice to get away from the kids for a few hours and know that Christopher was watching them, so I didn't have to worry about them with a teenage babysitter or anything. We had some adventures, of course- we went to the wrong theater, and missed the first 10 mintues of the show driving to the correct one, and then ran on empty until we could find a gas station, and find a restaurant that wasn't over-crowded to eat at, etc. But it was really nice to just hang out, and not have to be in "mother" or "wife" mode for a while.

Oh, and I did like the movie, by the way. It was WAY sappy. I mean, there are action flicks, and dramas, and romantic comedies- this was pure romance, start to finish. I thought it did justice to the book though, because the book is pure romance, start to finish. The only thing I didn't like about it was Edward. I thought that the entire cast was perfect, except I thought Edward was rather unattractive and his lips were way too red and strange. Oh well.

And then tonight we had a big BYU football party for the rivalry game. I made up invitations and gave them to some friends in the ward a couple of weeks ago, and Christopher posted one at his work and invited all of them. The funny part was that we had a great turnout- but only one person who came tonight actually got an invitation. Three of Christopher's siblings came, a few guys from work, some random friends, and two of my awesome beehives that I mentioned it to. But only one person who I delivered an invite to. I guess if I want people to come, I should NOT give them an physical invitation? LOL. It didn't matter, if anyone else had shown up we would have been out of seats. As it was, I think I counted 26 people here, which is a lot to fit in one room watching the same screen. And yet, we fit them all perfectly. I love our basement! Chris worked hard this morning building the platform extention so we had two couches in our "stadium seating" second tier. Such a good handy man!

And then the game sucked.

But I have to be an optimist, so here is why this night was still ok:
1. Anyone breaking that high into the BCS polls is good for everyone in the conference in the long run. I just keep repeating that to myself, LONG RUN.
2. Our team did well tonight. You know, the team MINUS the quarterback, who threw 5 interceptions and fumbled for a 6th turnover. I honestly think it would have been a tight game if not for that. Who knows, we might have even won it.
3. We had a fun party anyway! We had tons of great food, and everyone enjoyed coming over even if they were in rather foul spirits towards the end.
4. Speaking of food, our "best kept secret" here in PG came through again. Two years ago we discovered that Smith's, the local grocery store that no one else goes to because Macey's is cheaper and 3 blocks away, makes 3 foot party subs for $20. When you cut that into 2-3" slices that feeds a lot of people for the money! But every time we have ordered it on the day of, they don't have the 3' bread. So they give us 3, 18" subs for the same price. Sooo awesome!

Bits of things

There have been little things that haven't fit into other posts, so I figured I should make one random post about what each of us are up to.

Kaitlyn-
*This girl cracks us up lately! Chris likes to call her a "monster", mainly because she is very fond of communicating by growling at us. There are happy "attack" growls, and "I am not happy with what you just did" growls, and "I just conquered this mountain" growls. I have to laugh sometimes when I put her in dainty, feminine dresses and she starts attacking everything in sight.
*She has learned her first sign- "all done!" I remember when Tyler was this age, and I kept telling Christopher's family all about the wonders of teaching babies sign language. Many of my neices and nephews learned sign language starting at about 10 months, and it did wonders for the "terrible twos" because they could communicate even before they could make their mouths work. And then Tyler learned nothing, no matter how hard we tried. I felt kinda silly about talking it up so much. But Kaitlyn picked it up right away! Every time she eats, she munches on stuff for a while, then starts to fling it around, and then turns to me and signs "all done." She also likes to sign "all done" halfway through getting her diaper changed. As in, "hey, can we be done with this yet? I think I would rather be naked here."
*She is sooooo close to walking. She can walk holding onto one of our hands now, and is pretty good at standing. But when she takes steps, she usually just topples over. Sooo close . . .

Tyler-
*I go though cycles with him, where sometimes I want to pull my hair out because he doesn't seem to be understanding anything, and sometimes I can't believe all he has learned. I think it is good to document the successes for when I need the pick-me-up. And he has been doing so well lately! Our biggest problem since the beginning has been that he didn't request things. I have never met a kid with this problem. But even when he knew the word for water, he wouldn't tell me water when he was thirsty. He would just wait until I thought of it and then down three cups of water in a row. But he has been requesting left and right lately! He figured out that if he wants something, he just tacks on a "please" to something, and we hop right up to help him. So now he comes up to me and says "sandwich please". Hooray! And he even has learned to eat the sandwich still together, instead of pulling it apart and making a huge mess. Hallelujah.
*Tyler loves playing with his baby sister. The funniest part is that he is a HUGE cuddler- he comes to me all the time and just says "hugs!" And so he is really intent on hugging his sister- the non cuddler. You can pick that girl up out of a dead sleep, or when she is screaming because she fell down, and it doesn't matter. She is still going to push you away if you try and hug her. But Tyler doesn't understand what her frantic noises mean, and he thinks she is playing a game by trying to yank away. So he hugs her anyway. Priceless.
*He loves the songs that he has learned at his preschool. He knows almost all the words to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", and adores "Wheels on the Bus", and is constantly wandering around the house singing those to himself.

Christopher-
*He is loving his new gym membership. He is only gained 10 pounds since we got married, but he is determined to get back down as skinny as possible. His last marathon time was a 3:50, and in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon he needs a 3:12. For those of you not familiar with marathons, that is dang fast. 8.2 miles per hour to be exact. It's not impossible, and he got really close once, so I know he can do it. I kinda miss him for all the time he spends at the gym lately, but I think it is awesome that he is so dedicated to it.

Sarah-
*Has yet to use the new gym membership. I know, sad, huh? But I hate calling ahead and making sure there is room in the playroom for the kids, and the truth is I am just not motivated here. Kaitlyn is still a very picky eater, and so she nurses a LOT to make up for it. Which is good for me, because I eat whatever I want and still lose or maintain my weight. My problem here is that the summer after I had Tyler, I worked out EVERY SINGLE DAY of the week. I busted my rear end off, running for 45 minutes at a time, swimming laps, you name it. I never lost a single pound. Yeah, I know, muscles is more dense than fat, I got more tone, yadda yadda. But that still stunk! And now I am losing weight sitting on my couch with a baby in my lap. I know I need to go back to the gym and get in shape again, but I just can't figure out why!
*I am trying to figure out a new quandry. Every year I enjoy making our Christmas cards on photoshop, so I always need to get our picture taken ourselves so that we have rights to the file to put on the cards. And I just spent a lot of money on the new camera, so we are set there. But if I am in the pictures . . . who is taking the picture? We tried setting a timer one year, but babies aren't going to smile pretty for the blinking light. Yet, it would be silly to pay to have our picture taken, because that's what we bought the nice camera for. I might need to trick a neighbor into helping me or something.

Saddle shoes

Ever since I had my little girl, people have been asking if I have made her any shoes yet. The funny thing is that I kinda stopped making the shoes for a while. I had a problem where the last 3-4 shoes I made were not only the most intricate, as my creativity and skills grew, but also were worn the least. People were excited to get them as gifts, but when I casually asked about them later, it turns out that they didn't fit and were never worn. That's not their fault, and I don't hold that against them. But you can see why I stopped sewing if I spent hours and hours making them and they only spent 5 minutes on a baby's foot.

Anyway, no more shoes as gifts, but I can make them for my own babies since I can measure them against the actual foot and make sure they fit. I started this pair weeks ago, and then lost one of the main pieces after I cut it out. Yesterday I finally gave up on finding the old one and cut a new piece, and today I finished it. Hooray!

Oh, and if you haven't heard about my obsession of making baby shoes out of recycled leather, please see the link in the sidebar.

Chip off the old block

My husband has always been known for his suprising eating abilities. He loves a local sandwich place that does a "24 inch challenge", where you get a free shirt if you can eat 2 foot longs in a half an hour. He made it in 11 minutes once. The other favorite is when Wingers does all you can eat wings every year. Last year, he organized practically his whole company to come out to dinner for a contest. Technically he tied with another guy at 45 wings, but Christopher also ate his fries and the Asphalt Pie. (You should have seen the look on the waitress's face when she brought the pie after about 35 wings or so. I went to have a bite, assuming it was to share, and Christopher told me to "get your own if you want one! This one is mine." The waitress just looked back and forth at the pregnant woman who just got denied ice cream to the guy that is still eating after 35 wings. . .)

And yesterday, we had Tyler's favorite for breakfast - banana pancakes. Just pancakes with mashed banana in them, nothing fancy. Christopher and I each had 4, and felt quite satisfied. Tyler kept asking for "MURE!" until he had gone through 6 and a half. Oh, and he had 3 glasses of water or milk. Holy cow!

And as for Kaitlyn, I technically should have waited until Christmas to take this picture. But things like this are just too much fun to wait that long. You see, this is my Christmas dress. In fact, I took my first steps in that dress on Christmas morning. Kaitlyn wore it to church today, and I was hoping it would prove lucky for her since she can currently stand fairly well but hasn't taken many steps lately. No such luck, but with how much I love before and after shots, I had to make a comparison picture! I honestly don't think she looks much like I did as a baby. Who knows. I wish Kaitlyn had that much hair though. Sorry, the old picture is rather fuzzy, but I had to zoom in.

Hooray for my mommy for keeping my Christmas dress and blessing dress! It has been really fun to see my little girl wear each of them.

An update on Tyler

You might think we haven't been doing much with Tyler's speech development lately, because I haven't mentioned anything on here. But after the responses I got last time, I figured I better have everything straight before I make another blog post. I have spent hours researching everything and talking to specialists, and in the last two weeks Tyler has spent hours and hours being tested by two different groups to measure where he stands. For the last three months, Tyler has had 3 classes a week (each with a different purpose), along with a behavioral therapist and a speech therapist coming to the house once a month each. Let me talk about where things stand right now, and then I can address what we are going to do about it and why.

So far, we have been working with Kids on the Move, a local group that helps kids with any and all disabilities or delays, but only up until age 3. Once kids turn 3, they are turned over to the school district. Since his birthday is coming up, we went down and had him take all of their qualifying tests. We did the same thing when we started at KOTM, and the cut-off is the same for both groups- 7%. That would mean that only 7% of kids test at or below the level he is at, with 93% of kids testing higher. When we started in May, he tested at 5%. And last week, he ended up at 9%. That is wonderful improvement! Since he was tested against kids his age in each case, that means that he has been learning faster to catch up to them.

But-
It means he didn't qualify for the free district preschool. He qualified for their speech therapy, and that means he will have appointments with their speech therapist starting in January. The real bummer is that we can't re-test him for 6 months, and then even if he does qualify when we re-test in May, school will be out for the summer and he wouldn't start until next August. At first I was really upset about that, but the truth is that there are other preschools out there. They aren't free, but many people argue that you get what you pay for. And in a lot of ways, even if we weaseled him into this public school, he would be one of the top students (by the numbers). He would be in there with students who have down syndrome, severe autism, severe ADHD, you name it. Tyler is a big imitator, and so I would worry a bit about him being around kids that have more ticks and bad habits than he does. But if we find a good preschool, then he would be imitating the good habits of kids above him instead, and that might be a very good thing. The KOTM people I talked to all had the same reaction that I did, and in the same order- they were upset he didn't make it in, then they tried to figure out a way to get him in (I tried every shortcut I could think of), and then started to talk to me about the other options and finished with "you know, actually, I think that would be a better fit for him after all. Maybe it was actually a good thing he tested out of it."



Now, with the testing for diagnosing what is wrong, I have been doing a lot of homework there. With each possible name that specialists have mentioned, I have been researching things out quite a bit. And with each of them, there are three common threads that are influencing me here.

1. They are all not diagnosed until this age or later. That means not only am I NOT behind, but they are GLAD I haven't tried to do this before now because they would have missed certain cues that don't appear after x,y and z have developed and possibly given me the wrong label. In many ways, they want me to continue to wait for a few more things to develop before I take him in.

2. The reason they keep throwing out different ideas is that none of them perfectly fit Tyler. On each list, there are things that make me say "OH yeah, that is totally him," and things that make me say "What? He never does that". I have had specialists start to lead me one direction and then hear one detail and literally jerk their heads up in surprise. "Really? He can do that?" Yup. Which takes me off that list, in some cases.

3. For all the different ideas, and after talking to all the specialists, this one was a big key for me. There is NOTHING that they would have me do differently if he was labeled. Not at this stage, and not for a few years. Not for ANY of the different labels that almost fit Tyler. He needs speech therapy and behavioral therapy, and he has been getting both, and I will make sure he continues to get both even once he turns 3. The speech therapist looked me in the eye and said that she would not have changed a single thing she has done with Tyler even if she knew he was any of the labels we discussed.

So what am I going to do now? I am going to research preschools and find one that works on language development and all the other things that Tyler needs help with. If at any point I find a use for a label- a group I think he needs that he can't get into without the label, a treatment that would change - I will have that label stamped. But my husband and I both feel strongly about not stamping this label across his forehead, but something more like stamping it on a little piece of paper we slide to the people who need it. If he fit a label perfectly, I would probably feel differently about that. But when we are trying to cram a unique person into a list that doesn't quite describe him, I only see it as a tool to use to get what we need to get for him. For now, he can get everything he needs without it. So we are going to wait until that changes.

So while I know this goes against most of the comments I got from my family, that is the decision that we have prayed about for our family. And I really think it is the best way to go for us.

Halloween and the flu

What a weekend. I had a longer post written, and then realized I was rambling. So here is the shorter version. (My husband tells me my stories go too long . . . so I am trying to improve!)

In order, here is my Halloween:

*Got sick. Felt like not moving from couch all day.

*Got kids to nap so I could sleep. Overslept.

*Put everyone in costume, and told my friend I would meet her at a Trunk or Treat I saw in the newspaper. I thought that would be good practice for Trick or Treating that night, but not as much walking for me.

*Got stuck in traffic. Ended up so late that I missed my friend.

*Spent close to an hour in line at the Trunk or Treat. The kids were very patient though.

*Rushed home, and collapsed on couch while Christopher took Tyler out to do one street before he had to leave.

*Christopher headed off to his boss's house, since he wasn't sure if they still needed his help or not. His boss LOVES Halloween and creates a show in his front yard every year. The picture is in the local paper here.

*I headed out and did one street with the kids. I wanted to stay on the couch, but what good is creating your own costumes if you don't get to show them off? So I went to the neighbors that know us the best, and the ones that know Tyler laughed about how perfect his costume idea was.

*Then I noticed I wasn't the only one in the group sick of walking at that point. I had forgotten to empty Tyler's candy bin before we left, and he didn't like dragging this up the hill! I got a grocery sack to carry it in, and then a nice neighbor offered to drive us the rest of the way. It was really sweet.

*Since Tyler stole M&Ms on his first Halloween, I thought it would be a funny tradition to give Kaitlyn some as her first candy this time around. It was a hit. I like this tradition because the colored blotches everywhere are just adorable.

Saturday:

*Felt like I wanted to curl in a ball and die. So when Kaitlyn was ready for her first nap of the day, and Tyler was ready for breakfast, I had the worst parenting moment I think I have ever had. I put Kaitlyn down, got some dry cereal and a sippy cup of juice on the coffee table for Tyler, and then went to sleep. Not even a cat nap nearby Tyler: I went up into my bed and crashed. It occured to me later that most people set out a bowl of food for their dogs, not their toddlers, but at least I felt ready to cope with my day when I woke up.

*Spent the entire day on the couch or wishing I was on the couch. Of course, Tyler dumped flour on our front room's carpet, we ran out of bread and baby food, and when I gave up and made Kaitlyn applesauce because she was starving, she decided that she was not, under any circumstances, going to eat applesauce that day. Good thing she likes frozen waffle, or she would have starved.

*Oh, and Daddy was at Moab all day. He was the one who invited some co-workers to go down with him weeks in advance, so he couldn't ditch out and help me. I missed him. Lots.

The weirdest part is that I felt better on Sunday. And even better today. It felt like the flu, with migranes, aches everywhere, and feverish chills. But I still haven't started coughing or sneezing (knock on wood).

Bad pictures of funny things

** Kaitlyn has figured out her little push-kart. I don't know what you call them exactly, so you will have to check out the video. The first couple of times, she let it run away from her and never moved her feet. But we just waited a couple of days, and then this video was taken within the first 5 tries. I think Daddy has been right all along, this girl just might be walking by Thanksgiving!



**Also, Kaitlyn loves to clap. She is very proud of this new talent, and I need to get a video of this one too. I have been working on showing her some sign language, and each time she studies my movements very carefully, with furrowed eyebrows. And then her face will light up, and she will start clapping. Like "huh, what is she doing . . . that's weird . . . OH I know! I can do THIS with my hands! Yeah for me!" Just adorable. (Okay, I'm slightly biased.)


**Today, Tyler's playgroup at Kids On the Move wore their costumes and "Trick or Treated" for their snack. We have been trying to practice, so he knows what to do, but I don't think he has gotten the idea yet. Once chocolate is involved it might clear things up a bit. Sorry I don't have pictures of that! But I do have pictures of this:




Tyler got these glasses from his neighborhood playgroup on Wednesday. It cracked me up everytime I put them on Kaitlyn especially, but she had absolutly no intention of letting those things remain on her head. You can't see them in the picture, but I have one hand trying to hold down both of hers with all my might while aiming and taking a picture though the viewfinder. Hence, the bad picture.


**While I am on the subject of bad pictures I still find hilarious, I was taking pictures of my kids the other day. Some of them were rather cute, actually. I was in a tilted mood, as you can see.





And then Kaitlyn came up and grabbed my camera strap. You try taking an infocus picture of a toddler yanking your strap!



I will always wish I had gotten the chance to crank up the shutter speed on that last one, because that awful, out of focus blur makes me laugh every time. This is the "HA! You can't have it back now, Mom!" look if I ever saw it. She is our little investigator in the house, that's for sure. She was absolutly sobbing when we were carving pumpkins on the kitchen counter the other night and she couldn't see what was going on. That girl cracks us up!

Halloween Block Party

Every year, our little ward area has a Halloween Block Party. I love it! Especially because it is a better time to see everyone's costume and chat than trick or treating time.

First we all gathered for the costume contest. You will notice that Kaitlyn is holding my lens cap, because otherwise she would have yanked her "stem" off her head already. And Tyler's friend Hailey is Horton, in case you can't see the little flower stuck in the trunk.

Once Daddy got there, Tyler apparently had things to tell him. But mostly he just stood around and stared at everything.

And then we paraded across. Tyler won the award for "Most Original". He didn't think this was very interesting at all.

Then we took a hayride over to the face painting station my Beehives were running. I had her paint his hand, so he could admire it. He was mildly impressed.

After that, we walked over to the food station for some chili. And finally, we found something that impressed Tyler that night! Root beer. Daddy was late because he was dropping off the homemade root beer we brought, and in a rare use of actual words, Tyler kept coming up and saying "more" and handing me his cup.

Once we got home, it was time to inspect the stash. His prize from the contest was a Halloweeny cup filled with candy. He liked it. Kaitlyn wanted to grab it ALL. So he flattened himself down on it so she couldn't get it. Ha!

Dump truck done!

As promised, here is Tyler's dump truck. He really loves wearing this around!

It has tail lights, that are reflectors for a trailer.

It also has head lights, which is an under cabinet light thingy. I was rather dissapointed when I brought it home and it was an inch or two too long, but as you can see I made a "bumper" so it worked.

Such a cute little guy!

Macro lens

Well, I finished my projects! I will post pictures of Tyler's shirt and dump truck later, once I have had time to take good pictures. For now I wanted to show off my "play time" today with my new camera. A co-worker of Christopher's loaned us two of his lenses to try out, along with some books. I was especially intested in the macro lens, since it was one of the few terms I knew. Close up shots! I tried it out, and WOAH. Next time I do this with my kids, they are having a really good bath first, because it shows every single speck of dirt and detail. But it is SO COOL!

Better not get too attached though, because it was a Macro 100mm lens like this one. $500. Ouch.

Anyway, here are some shots I took this morning in my front yard. At first I only though of doing plants, which is funny considering I only have like 3 flowers in my entire yard. So here is a pumpkin stem. I didn't even notice the fleck in the spider web behind it until afterward.

And a yellow rose by our fence suddenly looked really awesome!

So then I started to turn it on the kids. I started with Kaitlyn.

I took some of Tyler, but his hair was out of whack, he had a milk mustauche, and let's face it, baby cheeks are cuter.

And then I remembered how much I love baby toes and fingers.

Such a cool toy! I am going to be sad to give this loaner back, that is for sure. Wow!

New toys!

Today we each got a new toy. Well, at least, they both arrived today. When Christopher drove the bike back from Vegas, the radiator sprung a leak. That sounds like really bad luck, but it was actually exceptionally good luck that he drove it so many miles that week. If it hadn't happened right then during the long trip, it would have happened a month or two down the road. As it was, he got it in to the dealer 3 days before the warranty expired. Free fix! So he just got the bike back today, with a brand new radiator, and is a very happy man.

And I finally took the plunge and got my camera. There is a long story to how I got it, involving a local camera store ripping me off on a floor model that my wonderfully protective pit bull of a husband took back for me, but the one we ordered online shortly afterward arrived today. I still have a lot to learn about how to use all the features, but I am looking forward to it! We ended up getting the Canon EOS Rebel XSi, for those who are curious. There was a big rebate on the 75-200mm lens, so we got that in addition to the kit lens. It will take me a while to learn how to use that much, so that ought to do it for now! Oh, minus the camera bag I need to get now.

The bike shot above was the first thing we took pictures of. They don't look too different from my point and shoot, but the one of Tyler on the bike looks better than usual and Kaitlyn's portrait was awesome. Next time I should put a clean shirt on her when we shoot that kind of detail!

I know, the windsheild is in focus instead of Tyler. I kinda like it that way.

Holy craft projects, Batman!

I haven't posted in a while because I have been really busy with a bunch of projects. It has begun to spiral out of control, actually. But it is so much FUN! I can't let myself get hooked too often, because the housework (which I don't enjoy) suffers when I get going on a fun craft (which I do enjoy). The wake up call came on that last weekend, actually. I had spent three days straight on costumes, so the dining table was covered in the projects, and the house was a mess. We went to a kid's B-day party at a park, but it was flippin' freezing outside! The fierce cold in the wind had people retreating to cars to warm up while we waited for others to arrive. So since the host lived 15 min away, and our house was less than 3 min away, we had everyone come to our place. I don't regret that, since I didn't want to be in the cold one more minute with my babe, but I also never want to have company over with 3 days of dishes on the counter again. (We managed to stash all the craft junk upstairs in the 5 min before 30-40 people migrated from the park to our house.) Lesson learned.

So here, in order, are my projects.

**I felt rather left out that I didn't get to make Tyler's costume this year, so when I saw some fairy wings cheap in Wal-mart, I decided to make myself a tutu to match the wings. How hard could that be, right? My mistake was that first I tried to make the tutu with the tied method, and then didn't like it and made another one the same way I made Kaitlyn's. If any of you need help making a tutu, I think I have this down pat, but I will spare you the details for now. Then I made the shawl thingy, because I didn't like all the black on top. But the tutu stuck to the cotton skirt I was going to wear underneath, so I had to take another silky skirt I didn't like anymore and cut it to be a short skirt and keep me modest under the tutu. Whew.

**And then there is Tyler's costume. I found that fire truck online, but decided to check local stores and see if I could save the shipping cost. That's when I found my wings. No luck on the fire truck, so I went back to get it onine. Every single store was sold out of it, and the ebay auctions jumped from $20 shipped to $40 plus shipping. ACK! So, back to square one, I decided that he will be a dump truck. I made this out of diaper boxes, black felt to line the inside, wheels taken from a crappy looking truck at the thrift store, and a fabric belt of Christopher's that he was going to throw away. Tyler adored it, and wanted to wear it every time he saw it. I thought the boxes would be awkward for him, but he doesn't care about that.

I also got him some construction shoes, a hard hat, and a flannel shirt to wear.


And then I decided that it looked too much like a yellow box with wheels, and started to make modifications. I ended up taking the entire thing apart. I was stumped on how to make it a more dump truck like shape- I wanted those indentations on the side, but clay was too heavy. And then on "My Name is Earl" they were making fun of a girl he dated who did paper mache. Jackpot! I have now put on one layer, with a couple yet to go, and then I can paint it and reattach the wheels and strap. My husband thinks I am crazy for putting in so much effort. But seriously, when was the last time you got to paper mache something? Hee! Watch for headlights and tail lights in the final pics.

**But I'm not done with this list yet! Hooo, no. Christopher works at a company called DigiCert. They have official shirts for everyone with their logo on them, and have been giving them to family and friends because they are great advertising. But hubby decided one of his had a strangly large neck opening, and he didn't want to wear it anymore, so he donated it to me to make a shirt for Tyler (since they don't have toddler shirts yet.) I used an unattractive shirt to take apart and use as a pattern, and the pieces are cut out, but I haven't gotten further than that yet. But there was a logo on the sleeve, and I thought, "it's a shame that I won't be using that!"

And then I noticed that my daughter is the same size as the sleeve.

Yes, that's right, my daughter is wearing a men's shirt sleeve as a tube top. I used ribbon for the straps and the trim at the bottom, and then buttons for decoration. I wanted them to be functional on the back, but my machine gave me hissy fits for a couple of hours trying to make button holes. (It literally ate the fabric! Chewed up little bits of it! Grrr.) Velcro time.

**Next: Tyler's DigiCert shirt will hopefully come together soon . . . assuming I ever finish his dump truck.