Amy and Toby

Wordle

2012-01-17T14:47:00.001-08:00

Pinewood Derby, November 2011

2012-01-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

The Elder's Quorum decided to have their own pinewood derby with very limited rules! It was fun!

All of the spectators!!

Toby's car caught some air!!

In the end, Paul Thomas got 1st place and Toby got 2nd!

Halloween 2011

2012-01-17T12:19:00.000-08:00

Carving pumpkins

Kids in costume

Ready for trick-or-treating with friends!

Our house is ready for trick-or-treaters as well!

My friend, Belin, turning Thomas into a Zombie!

October 2011

2012-01-17T12:13:00.000-08:00

Here is October...

Grandma and Grandpa Christensen came to visit and we took them to the Johnson Space Center. It was the first time we had gone on the bus tour, it was alot of fun!

The kids were very interested in the shuttles!

Cool pic of the kids with a rocket of some sort.

This is the building where they store the Saturn Five.

Thomas standing behind an engine on Saturn Five.

Abby behind an engine. She was a little freaked out and wanted Daddy to hurry and take the picture because she was scared it was going to start and she would go up in flames!!

We have been trying to get some good pictures of the dogs, but they are not so cooperative. Above is Luke and below is Leia.

This picture should be horizontal... oh well.

Abby loves to play for us, she made a concert poster and puts it on the cabinet and we all sit in chairs behind her and listen to what she has learned lately!

While we were cleaning a cemetery for a Stake service project, Thomas dug up this turtle. We kept it for a few days and then set it free.

Thomas and Luke playing on the floor.

September 2011

2012-01-17T11:33:00.000-08:00

Here is a recap of September.

Toby made our birthday cake this year, it was a yummy, completely make from scratch, three layer cake!!

Yum!!!

Our Purple Sage bushes bloomed beautifully!!

There was LOTS of smoke in the sky from the wildfires!! This was the best picture we had, but there were days the smoke completely filled the air!!

August 2011

2012-01-17T07:05:00.000-08:00

Thomas started 5th grade!

Abby started 2nd grade!

Molly turned 4!!

We played outside with chalk and sprinklers and hula hoops and penny can!!!

eating pizza!

She had WAY too much fun!!!

Florida Trip

2012-01-17T06:46:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick recap of some things since I am so behind in blogging.

We went to Florida this summer (2011) to see some of my family. Here is a picture of everyone who was there.

Here is a pic of my parents with my kids.

The kids have never met their Aunt Carla, and this is the first time they have seen her headstone.

Carla's sblings who were there.

Molly swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thomas likes to go out really far.

Abby at the beach!

My sister in law, Mitzi, bought and cooked these cool blue crabs. Before.

After. Yum!

We got to go to a birthday party for my neice, Hope.

My sister, Paula, and her family. It was so good to see them again!

The kids with Paula's cat, Smokey.

Watching YouTube videos!

Playing Chopped at the Christensen house

2011-11-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

For the last couple of weeks we've been buying a Bountiful Basket every other weekend. Bountiful Baskets is a coop that buys a truckload of fresh produce every other weekend. The produce is supposed to be half fruit and half vegetables, and you buy it by the basket. It's really fresh and a good price, but each time you get a semi-random basket of produce. So, after we get the basket it's a bit like the Food Network show Chopped. We have a basket of ingredients that we have to use to make a meal.

A few weeks ago, our basket included, among other things, limes and sweet potatoes, so I made lime cookies, virgin mojitos and sweet potato fries.

Last week our basket contained some celery, onions and lemons. We decided to make split pea soup from scratch to use the celery and onions. Amy and I knew that a soup with a deep green color and a thick texture would be a big hit with our gastronomically adventurous daughters. (That's sarcasm in case you don't know Abby and Molly very well)

Here's how Abby choked down her poison and maggot flavored soup.

She closed her eyes, pinched her nose shut and waited for me to drop food in her mouth. She would then quickly force it down against her gag reflex and then grab a drink to wash the poison down.

After such a valiant effort she was rewarded with the rest of our Chopped menu, home made Lemon Meringue Pie. Amy made the crust from scratch, we used fresh squeezed lemon juice from our lemons to make the custard, and I made the meringue.

The meringue recipe made a lot more than I had expected.
We tried to spread the mass of meringue over the top of the pie. It ended up more of a rounded top, then the more traditional thin layer with pretty peaks.

Since it was so tall, the meringue didn't really scorch at the tips of the peaks and stay nice and white in the valleys. We got more of an even, overall light brown.

Next time I might need to use a blow torch to get the pretty dark brown peaks.

When we cut into the pie, you can see how tall the meringue is.

After Abby forced down her soup, she was excited for the pie. She took one bite of the lemon custard and declared that it was too sour. But she attacked the meringue and the crust with gusto.

Zeke, maybe you and Abby should share a pie next time we're together...

Halloween

2011-11-01T06:45:00.001-07:00

This year the kids got to double dip for Halloween. On Friday we had a "Trunk or Treat" at the church. Amy was in charge of portions of it and I was working. So the kids were unsupervised at a party with free candy. There's no way that could be abused...

After loading up on sugar Friday and Saturday night, we carved pumpkins on Sunday night. Each of the kids picked out their own design and drew it on the pumpkin. The parents then cut the tops off and the butchery began. They had so much fun gutting the pumpkins.
Once the pumpkins were gutted, we cut out the designs on the front. I baked the pumpkin seeds for a snack. Once they were done, Molly and Abby each took some seeds. I reminded Molly that she needed to only take one and to make sure she actually liked pumpkin seeds before she took a hand full. She scornfully informed me that she already knew she loved pumpkin seeds and that she would eat everything. She popped one in her mouth to prove her point, bit down, and then quickly spit it in the garbage and walked around "spitting" for several minutes to get the taste out of her mouth.

The kids posing with their pumpkins.

Amy found this great skeleton at the store, so the pumpkins and the skeleton met trick'r'treaters at the front door. We decorated the entry way with webs.
I handed out candy, while Amy took the kids around. All night long, I'd hear groups of kids talking loudly as they walked up the drive way. They were chatting and joking and laughing. I could follow their foot steps as the came up the drive, turned the corner and ......

SCREAMED.

There are so many kids who are deathly afraid of spiders...

Especially 3 foot long spiders.

Some kids wouldn't even go up to the door. They made their friends ring our doorbell, and then stood in the back of the pack until I opened the door. Then they would meekly stretch out their arms and holding the bag at arms length, look away from the door until I'd given them their candy.

We also put "bloody" foot prints in the front hallway. If anyone asked I told them that a zombie had almost gotten in the house.

While I was scaring trick'r'treaters with the spider, the kids were out getting loot with Amy and some friends.

Abby was a witch with a wart on her nose.

Initially Molly wanted to be a ballerina, then a skeleton ballerina, then a lollipop and finally a skeleton. But she wore her dress shoes, so she could be a pretty skeleton.

Our friend Belin offered to do Thomas' zombie makeup. So we took him over to their house, expecting some pretty standard makeup.

She started with the standard eye make up and bloody scratches on his face. Then she pulled out the wax and started building up cuts and wounds.
She designed an open wound for his chest.

At the end, he looked really gruesome.

All 3 of the kids as they were getting ready to leave.

Our 3 kids went around with Belin's 2 and a kid that she babysits. They were able to cover most of the neighborhood and really got a good sized stash of candy.

Fireworks!!

2011-09-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

Great-Grandma Christensen brought over some fireworks for us to enjoy on the 4th!

The kids each got some sparklers

I lit off some of the bigger stuff and almost everyone enjoyed it!

Watch Molly in each picture and you will see how she felt about the fireworks!

Here is the whole gang!

Molly signing "I love you" from inside Grandpa's truck.

Abby and Grandpa.

Chani's birthday!

2011-09-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

For Chani's birthday, someone decided that she wanted a Louisiana Purchase cake! Mitzi was happy to oblige!! So here it is! Complete with Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea!!

I think she really loved it, you can tell by the look on her face that this was the best birthday ever!!!

WE LOVE YOU AUNT CHANI!!!!

More Richfield Fun!

2011-09-03T16:28:00.000-07:00

One day Grandma turned on the sprinkler and gave the kids some of the wilting flowers from the rose garden. Grandpa had given them some scraps of wood and they made boats!

They had a ton of fun playing in the water that day, but being the horrible mother that I am, I forgot to apply sunscreen! OOPS! They were all pretty sore for the next few days!!

Here is Abby with her favorite Rose from the garden.

Molly fell asleep one night while "reading" this Spanish Berenstain Bears book!

We were in Richfield for the 4th of July and I was reminded how much I love small town parades!!

They did have an F-16 flyover during the parade!

And, of course, being in Utah, the Elders were in the parade!!

Here the kids are grabbing as much candy as possible.

Playing around at the parade

Getting messy with Fudge Pops!

We had lots of fun in Richfield and we always love visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Christensen!!

Building The Workshop!

2011-09-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

While we were in Utah, we helped Grandma and Granpa Christensen with their new workshop. When we got there this is kind of what the new workshop looked like.

We put up some drywall and puttied and taped and sanded---OH MY the SANDING!!!

Toby put the clear wall on the outside of the south wall

and he built these vent boxes for the paint room.

Chani and I put up most of the siding ourselves!!

The kids each wanted to have a part, so they got to help sand the drywall.

Here I am after a day of sanding!

Some pictures of the various injuries sustained over the week.

The girls got to play inside with Grandma most of the time. They came out to show us these Froot Loop necklaces they made.

Here we are painting- or maybe contemplating what needs to be painted next!

These last three pictures show what it looked like when we left!! Hooray for hard work!!

Driving to Utah

2011-09-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

We took a road trip from Katy to Richfield this summer and these are some things we did along the way:

We stopped and saw Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas

We had a very enjoyable visit with my Aunt Carol, Uncle Jim and cousin Jimmy (and don't forget Coco the dog!) in Longmont, CO

The kids were in love with Coco!

We all went on a walk to a cute little park and the kids had a great time getting out some of their "road trip energy"!!

Uncle Jim sitting on the porch with Coco and the kids.

After leaving Uncle Jim's house, we drove over the Rockies and saw lots of snow!!

The kids were trying hard to keep themselves entertained in the car!

Eisenhower tunnel between Colorado and Utah!

Toby taking pictures of the mountains just outside of Richfield, Utah.

All tuckered out!!

Things we did over the summer

2011-09-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

We went swimming alot!! Many times we were the only ones there.

Sometimes we went with friends!!

The kids had a lemonade stand!! They had fun and it was very successful!!

Molly fell and busted her lip :(

I got to go to Austin with my friends for the PTA summer seminar.

While in Austin, I had my first experience singing karaoke!! It was so much fun!!!

The ONE time that it rained this summer, the kids went out and jumped on the trampoline in the rain! They had a blast!

Tamales!!

2011-09-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

This summer I taught myself how to make tamales!! They were so good!!!

Here is what they look like out of the corn husk! YUMMY!!!

Even 2/3 of the kids enjoyed them!! Hooray!!

Mother's Day 2011

2011-09-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

For Mother's Day this year the girls decided to wear their matching Easter dresses. They were so cute!

I had bought 4 blank canvases on sale at Hobby Lobby a few weeks earlier and asked the kids to each paint something for me for Mother's Day.

Here is Molly beginning to paint.

Abby was very excited and got into it quickly.

Thomas decided to turn his random dots into flowers.

Here is Molly's finished painting, I thought it was really pretty good!!

Toby also got in on the action!
It was a great Mother's Day, the kids made me breakfast in bed again and that is always a special treat! I love being a wife and Mother and I could not possibly ask for better kids or a better husband!!

Ballet Recital

2011-06-08T17:20:00.001-07:00

The girls had their ballet recital on May 23rd. It was really cute and they both did a "great" job!! After they came out of the holding room, we gave them both flowers and a necklace with a ballet slipper pendant.

They both got trophies for attendance, Molly had perfect attendance and Abby had near perfect attendance. They are very proud of their trophies!!

Key Lime Pie

2011-05-14T06:23:00.000-07:00

Last week HEB had a pretty good deal on key limes. I really like key lime pie, so this sounded like a great chance to try making some.

The first step was to get busy squeezing limes.

Once I started squeezing limes, I realized just how little juice each of these tiny limes has in it. The recipe called for 1/2 cup of lime juice, which took nearly 2 lbs of limes to make.

Adding sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks to the lime juice produced the filling for the pie. For this pie we left it its natural color, instead of dyeing it green.

After baking the pie, I added some whipped cream, and it was ready to eat.

This pie lasted almost 2 days before we finished eating it all.

Molly eats a Warhead

2011-04-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

Molly got a Warhead candy (VERY SOUR) in a candy bag from a birthday party. Tonight, she chose that as her dessert. Here's what happens...

Brain Dissection

2011-03-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

In Abby's gifted class they got to dissect a sheep's brain. She had alot of fun and her classmates did, too.

Here is Abby with her friend, Emma. They are in their regular class and gifted class together. In this picture they were holding the brain to see how much it weighed.

Here is the brain after they cut it in half. Kinda looks like a dead mouse.

Here are Abby and Emma poking the brain.

Molly's fan incident

2011-03-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

The other night Molly was playing in her room like she always does when she should be sleeping. Well, she has a fan on her floor that we use for white noise so that she sleeps better. This particular night she started screaming like she was really hurt! Toby went to check on her and she was holding her head and pointing at the fan. He brought her downstairs to me and went to look at the fan. while he was gone, she pulled herself together enough to tell me that the fan got her hair. A few minutes later Toby comes down with the fan and this is what we found wrapped around the base of the blades. I could not find any bald spot or even redness on her head, so we gave her some tylenol and when she was all calmed down she went back to bed. By the way, we moved the fan from the floor to on top of her dresser!!

New Hair 2011

2011-03-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I did the best I could putting the pictures side by side. Left is before and right is after.

I love it! Let me know what you think!

ABC song

2011-02-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

Today I watched my friend's kids Bella (4) and Jack (2). Molly and Bella were trying to figure out how the ABC song goes...
Molly: "a b c d e f g s o s o s o p."
Bella: "no, it's a b c d e f g l m n o p."
Molly: (annunciating very carefully) "i think it is a b c d e f g h i j k mento mento p!"
Bella: "wait, i figured it out, it is a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y and z!!"

I am glad one of them finally got it right, but I thought mento sounded like a pretty good letter!!

Abby turns 7

2011-02-13T16:55:00.000-08:00

For Abby's birthday we invited friends over and played and opened presents and had pizza and cake and ice cream. It was alot of fun, but that many 7 year old girls in my house at one time was quite loud!! Here is a picture of Thomas giving Abby his gift.
Here is Molly giving her gift to Abby. She picked some Barbie princess clothes and shoes (since they get lost so easily!).

Here are the gifts we got Abby. She has been asking for a pillow pet for a while now. You should have heard all the girls in the room in unison when she opened it "*gasp* a pillow pet!!!". I guess it was the most popular gift she got that day!!

Here is Abby with her friend Jessilynn.

Here is Abby with her friend Grace.

And Megan

And Emmaline.

And Isabelle.

And Sam. Her gift was a cute bank made out of a glass block and they put her name on the front in vinyl letters and a pretty princess crown on the back. Very pretty!!

Here is Abby's cake. I had so much to do that morning that I ended up buying her a cake from the pre-made Wal-Mart bakery case. It was pretty good and she loved that she got a store-bought cake!!

Happy 7th Birthday to my big girl!! We love you so much!!

"Winter" Parties at school

2011-02-13T16:43:00.000-08:00

At our school they have "winter" parties because "Christmas" does not include everyone. So I volunteered to help out with their winter parties and caught a few pictures. Here is Abby with her teacher Mrs. Keith. Abby says she wants to be just like Mrs. Keith when she grows up! Abby with some of her friends in her class this year. From left to right we have Paris, Emmaline, Jessilynn, Grace, Haven, Abby, and Camvy. In the front row is Andrew, Grace's little brother.

Here is Thomas with his teacher, Mrs. Bawden. She is very nice and we like her alot!

And here is Thomas with some of his friends from his class. From left to right we have Michael, Jalen, Roman, Anthony, Thomas, Kevin, and Dylan.

They get to come to school in their jammies and play games and eat junk. It is a really fun day!

Thomas turns 9

2011-02-13T16:30:00.000-08:00

Back in December we celebrated Thomas' ninth birthday by inviting a few of his friends to go bowling with us. They all had a great time and then we came back to our house for cake and presents. Here is a picture of Thomas with his friends Kevin, Roman, and Isaac.

Thomas looking pretty happy with his bowl.
The girls hugging in anticipation of their score!

Thomas' cake. I tried to make a 9 out of 9 candles. It kind of worked. At least it tasted yummy!

Happy Birthday to my big 9 year old boy!! We love you very much!!

I heard you

2011-01-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

For the last 3 years or so we've been working with Molly on being polite, saying "Please" and "Thank you". This morning it sort of payed off.

Molly's friends Jack and Bella were coming over in a while and Molly was still in her PJ's.

Toby: Molly you need to get dressed before Jack and Bella come over.
Molly: Jack's just a baby (He's not really)
Toby: Yep, but you still need to get dressed before they come over
Molly (in a bratty, sulky teenager voice): Daddy! I All READY HEARD! You!
Toby: Molly that's really rude. How should you talk to me?
Molly: Daddy, I already heard you, PLEASE?

Abby and Molly's Ballet Recital

2010-12-18T19:24:00.001-08:00

Last Tuesday, the girls had their ballet recital. Their classes don't have a lot of students, so there's not very many kids in the recital. It was still a lot of fun, and they did really well (at least I think so).

Molly sings Christmas Carols

2010-12-08T19:15:00.001-08:00

Molly has her own words for many of the classic Christmas Carols, but this one is my favorite:

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the Utah gay!"

She is so funny!!

Molly Part 3

2010-11-20T04:35:00.000-08:00

Last night we were headed to Thomas' Cub Scout Pack Meeting (Thomas got 2 arrow points and will get his Wolf badge when it comes in. Good Job Thomas!), and we were playing an alphabet game. In the game, we go around the car and we go through the alphabet, with each person naming an animal that starts with their letter.

When we got to Molly, her letter was "H". Now since she can't spell, we help her with her animal. For "H" I thought "Horse".

Since she loves horses, and since she rode a horse named "Abby" this summer in Flagstaff, I thought that, that would be a great clue. Here's what she said:

Toby: You rode one this summer.
Molly: Ummmm...
Toby: Remember, you rode the other Abby this summer.
Molly: Ummmm...
Toby: Remember, it was named Abby?
Toby: What is Abby?
Molly: Ummm...A sandwich!!

Molly Part 2

2010-11-14T16:08:00.000-08:00

As I was posting Molly's thoughts just a minute ago, she started calling for me. I hurried over to see what was so important. And I saw this...

Molly: Arf ! Arf! I'm a doggie
Toby: OK...
Amy: Get a camera!!
Molly: Yeah, Arf! Arf!

Molly's sayings

2010-11-14T16:03:00.000-08:00

Molly is at the age where she likes sharing her thoughts, and of course they're 3 year old thoughts. Tonight Molly said this:
Molly: Daddy !! DADDY !!!! DADDDDDYYYY!! (yelling)
Toby: Molly what, what????
Molly: Every time that we're going to Christmas, I'm goin' like it.
Toby: Ok,.. I'm glad you like Christmas

I'm not sure what going to Christmas means, but I'm glad she likes it

Busy, Busy

2010-11-03T07:02:00.001-07:00

Here are the two reasons I haven't posted lately....

They are not the only reason, but I find myself much busier than I was before we got them.

Dollhouse art work

2010-09-24T18:15:00.001-07:00

I wanted to post a couple pictures of the artwork that we made for the dollhouse. Everyone who wanted to, got to create a piece or two of art to hang in the rooms.

This first picture is of the exterior of the dollhouse. I finally finished the half-timbered trim on this wall as well.

In the attic, we hung this abstract by Amy.
This is the picture above the fireplace in the "den" on the 3rd Floor. It's a family picture from the Grand Canyon this summer. The day was cold and drizzly, but everyone had a good time.
This reproduction of a famous artwork is in the 3rd floor bedroom/family room.
Abby drew this picture of her and Barbie playing together for a 2nd floor bedroom.
This abstract is also Abby's work. It went in the yellow bedroom since it had yellow and red in it (as well as a bunch of other colors).
Molly contributed this art work (except the flower, that was done by Amy)
Here's the kitchen with a Barbie kitchen set added in.

This dollhouse was one of the largest projects and certainly the most time consuming that I've ever done. Overall it was a lot of fun to do, and I hope that she'll treasure it. The feedback I've gotten from friends and family (except for Santos L Halper) was so positive, thanks to everyone who commented!

The Dollhouse is Finished!!!

2010-09-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

Here it is, all done and set up in Abby's room. The girls are playing with it as I type this. They love it!!

Here is the kitchen, complete with a table and chairs and food on the table.

The living room, of course blue barbie is sitting around watching tv, maybe that is why she has such poor circulation.

Here is one of the bedroom, Dorothy is not in Kansas anymore!

Toto is lost in the other bedroom!

This is the family room with a rope ladder leading to the attic. Anyone recognize the painting on the wall?

And finally the den, or apparently this barbie thinks it is a ballroom.

Dollhouse Part 5

2010-09-14T14:09:00.001-07:00

I finished putting the trim on one side of the dollhouse and added the windows. Here are 2 pictures of the outside of the dollhouse.

Here's the interior of the house. We put the larger windows on the bottom floor, at Barbie's eye height. The upper 2 floors only have smaller windows, also at Barbie's eye level.

Dollhouse Part 4

2010-09-09T08:04:00.000-07:00

Here are some more pictures of the dollhouse. We're slowly making progress..

Here are the shingles that Amy did on the roof. This side, with the chimney was pretty hard. The other side was a bit easier. Fortunately we didn't have to cut all the shingles ourselves. We bought them all pre-cut, and just had to lay them out and glue them down. We're going to leave the shingles their natural color and just cover them with a clear coat.

In the attic, the paper was too short. There was about 2 inches in the back that wasn't covered. So I built these (nonfunctional) boxes to cover the bare patch. The Molly had a lot of fun helping me paint these boxes.
We choose to go with a half-timbered (Fachwerk) look on the outside. We started painting the white parts. Once there's enough layers of white for it to look right, then I'll put the brown strips of wood over the unpainted parts. Molly wanted to help paint, and I was pleasantly suprised. She was able to paint inside the lines and smooth out her thick patchs of paint. Not bad for a 3 year old! Most of the rooms are carpeted in fabric. Here's one of the rooms with the fabric carpet, wood wainscotting and the papered walls. The ladder up from the lower level has been glued into place. The carpet has some sawdust on it, which I'll have to vacuum up later.

Another of the rooms with the wainscotting and edging around the doors in place. The girls really like the bird on this paper.

This will be the kitchen. The floor is vinyl, and also only goes back 12 inches. So the back 2 inches are just painted. I'm thinking about painting black spots on it, but I think that might be a little too much. Most likely I'll just cover it with a Barbie kitchen set.

Dollhouse Part 3

2010-09-01T16:38:00.001-07:00

I've been working on the dollhouse slowly, as work and life keep interrupting. A few days ago the girls wanted to help while I was painting some of the trim.

Here Molly and Abby work together to paint what will be a piece of wainscoting.
And here I am supervising.

A few days later I started assembling the whole dollhouse.
This view is from the back of the dollhouse. I put the staircases in the back to try to protect them from little hands. So I'll leave the back off until I'm just about done with the whole dollhouse.

The Chimney goes from the attic (the fireplace will be added on the 3rd floor) through the roof. Cutting a vertical hole through a 45deg roof was pretty challenging.

The 2nd floor staircase. The stairs will be at the back of the house and have the railing against the wall. Hopefully that means they will survive kids playing with the house.

The white and black room will be the kitchen, with a doorway into the 1st floor Living or Dining Room

Here are the second floor rooms

The first floor rooms

The first and second floor staircases.

Dollhouse Part 2

2010-08-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of days, I've got a little more done on the Dollhouse.
I got the interior of the roof painted, and covered the chimney with "brick". The Chimney will go through the hole cut in the top of the roof.

I also finished papering the back of the house. Here are the 2 side walls and the back wall standing up next to each other. For the attic, its been papered to look like bare wood. The footings for the roof are also visible on the top of the walls.

2010-08-26T08:54:00.000-07:00

Abby has been wanting a dollhouse for her Barbies for a little while. Last week she went to play at a friend's house, who had such a dollhouse. She was so excited and REALLY, REALLY wanted one of her own. I'd been looking for a project, and last year I had thought about doing a dollhouse, so when she told me about how much she wanted a dollhouse, I decided to start one.
The house was built on a scale, that Abby's Barbies would fit. This made it a pretty big house. Here's the rough cut dollhouse. It'll be 3 floors and an attic tall and have 2 rooms on each of the 3 floors. The attic will be for the babies to play in (according to Abby, which makes me wonder where that came from).

Here's a view of the attic with it's chimney and the trap door (for the babies to climb up)

I built 2 stair cases for the lower 2 floors. Each one is big enough for the Barbies to climb

After I finished the initial cutting, it was time to decorate the dollhouse. We laid out all the "wallpaper" to plan which color each room would be. Abby helped pick out all the colors.

This is one of the walls. Each wall has a window cut into the wood, but they're covered with paper right now. Once the house is assembled, I'll add wainscotting around the bottom of each floor, which will cover up all the labels and the bare wood.

This is the other wall in the middle of being covered with paper.

And finally the back wall. Five of the six rooms have been papered, and each dividing wall will meet the back wall at the intersection of the paper.

I'll post more pictures as the project continues.

Road Trip post #2

2010-08-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

Before we got to Sweetwater to stay for our first night, we started to drive through this windfarm. The kids really thought they were cool and it really made the drive less boring! Here is an oil pump with the windmills in the background.

If you look really close you can see just how many windmills there were on the horizon in this picture. They went on for miles and miles and miles!

Road Trip August 2010

2010-08-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

Back in the spring we planned a trip to Arizona to see Toby's sister, Mitzi. After we let the rest of the family know our plans, everyone else decided to join the party! We hadn't decided if we were going to fly or drive, but after looking at prices of tickets we decided to make it a road trip. We left our house the morning of July 31st and realized that we would be in Austin at about lunch time. We had heard of this restaurant on the lake called "The Oasis" so we called our friends that live in Austin and they agreed to meet us there for lunch. This first picture is the front of the restaurant and gift shop. They had some cool statues and flowers and stuff out there.

When you walk through to the back of the restaurant this is what you see. It is beautiful. There are about 5 stories and most of the tables have a wonderful lake view.

After lunch with the Pullmans we got back on the road and drove until we couldn't drive anymore. We stayed that night in Sweetwater, TX in the middle of a windfarm. Pictures of the windfarm to come. All in all it was a pleasant first day.

First Tongue

2010-08-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

The other day we were driving with the kids. Molly was being silly and stuck the tip of her tongue out just a little bit. She told me (Toby) that she was sticking out her first tongue.
Me: Molly, if that's your first tongue, where's your second tongue.
Molly opened her mouth and touched her tongue in the middle
Me: Is that your second tongue?
Molly: Yes
Me: How can that be both your first and second tongue?
Molly: Good!

We both started laughing so hard at her.

I guess we learned that if Molly doesn't like the question, she'll answer a question that she likes better.

Vacation Day Seven

2010-07-10T17:48:00.001-07:00

Friday was our last day in Washington DC. We started off by going to the Old Post Office building. It was built in the late 1800's and was an innovative and modern building when it was finished. It was used by the Post Office for about 15 years before they wanted a newer and better building. When they moved out the Old building was used by a variety of different agencies. The building was really interesting. The main entrance was only for government employees. But there was a side entrance which led to the food court and shopping center. The lower floors were used as a mall, while the upper floors were for government "work". On the way to the Old Post Office building we passed the EPA and IRS buildings. The EPA has a large, very nice building (with no visible green plants or "green" innovations). The IRS building looked like a fortress, which I guess it appropriate.

We went to the Old Post Office building because it has the second tallest tower in all of Washington DC, and no one knows about it, so it's easy to get in. Unlike the Washington monument, which runs out of tickets by 8:00am, we got to the Old Post Office building, waited 5 minutes and then got to ride up to the top.

Here are two pictures of the Washington skyline.
I was really surprised with the roof garden on a neighboring building. I think the building is an apartment complex or maybe a hotel. The garden seems to be for one of the restaurants in the building.
The bell tower in the Old Post Office building contains a number of bells. Here's a poor picture of some of the bells.
And on the floor below the bells is the pull cords to ring the bells.

Here's some information on the bells, and on the bell ringers.

The interior of the Post Office was really cool. We took an elevator to the 9th floor and then walked around to another elevator that took us to the top of the bell tower.

This is looking down into the food court in the center of the building.

After the Old Post Office, we went over to the Smithsonian. This time we visited the Natural History museum. The kids had been looking forward to seeing the museum, since they saw Night at the Museum 2.
Here's the whale in one of the halls. He shows up in the movie.
I just liked this fish skeleton. The head's about 2 ft long, and those are some nice fangs.
Here are the kids in front of the Elephant in another of the halls in the Natural History Museum. The Elephant also shows up in the movie.
Molly and I got chased by a dinosaur. After 7 days of visiting sights in the city, Molly what pretty tired of walking. She spent A LOT of time riding on my shoulders. Of course she didn't want to sit in a convenient place. She wanted to be carried and to lean out as far as she could, to try to through us off balance. But she didn't get to choose...

After a long of day of carrying her, and listening to her ask for " Uppies!!", I'd had enough. We found a handy alligator and...
There was actually a kids center in the museum. They had a bunch of animal skulls and this stuffed alligator head. All the kids had fun putting their hands in the alligator's mouth.

They also had dress up clothes from around the world, along with a variety of other interesting things.
Here's Abby in a Panamanian style dress. She really got a kick out of the outfit.
And here's Molly in a Japanese style dress.

After playing at the kids museum, we headed to the hall of gems and minerals.
Here is the Hope Diamond. It's in an armored box surrounded by tourists. The diamond was interesting for a few seconds, but I really liked the minerals and rocks.
This is a flow stone. It looks like an abstract sculpture sitting on the pedestal. If you squint just right you can see all kinds of shapes in the rock.

A really cool crystal. It looked like frozen fireworks.
The kids touching a giant amethyst.
And another explosion of crystals.

After visiting about 1/4 of the museum, we decided to head to the Air and Space Museum for a little longer. As we got ready to go, Thomas commented that he was ready to go since we'd seen the whole museum. He wasn't even close.
Looking over the balcony into the hall with the Elephant. Look how BIG he is.
We left the Natural History Museum and headed across the Mall. We walked past the Smithsonian Castle, but didn't even walk in the front doors.
While we were walking, I caught this picture of Thomas and Molly being sweet to each other. When I stopped to take this picture, another pedestrian stopped also and told me what a great picture that would be. We talked briefly about children and how fast they grow up before we went on our way. I was glad that the kids were being good instead of fighting.

We went to the Air and Space museum again.
In one hallway, they had about a dozen drones, which were new from the last time I was at the Museum. The drones looked like alien space ships.
And provided a nice contrast to the airplanes from the Golden Age of Flight.

In one of the side galleries, they had about a half dozen airplanes in different stages of restoration.

We finally found the Wright flyer in a side gallery. Since they first flew in North Carolina, Amy really wanted to see the plane.
Amy and the kids all posed in front of the original flyer.

After seeing the first airplanes and modern drones, we were done. The kids had endured dozens of historic sites and museums, and they were done. We headed back to our hotel for some swimming.

Thomas swims like a fish, and is confident in just about any water. Abby is not quite so good...

Here she is holding onto the side, with her Dora floaties. Now if she'd stop licking the plastic.

Molly loves swimming, but isn't very confident in the water. She has floaties and a back-up flotation ring, to make sure that her face never touches the water (unless she's drinking the pool water).

The next morning, we headed out to the airport and left DC. By the time we got home I needed a vacation to recover from our vacation.

Vacation Day Six

2010-06-27T17:35:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we planned on visiting the area around the White House and then Ford's Theater (where Lincoln was shot). Since we hadn't contacted our Representative early enough to get on a tour of the White House, we'd just have to walk around the outside.

We went to the metro station near the White House and started walking. It was really easy to find, we just had to follow the protesters and tourists.

Here's a view of the North face of the White House.
And here are all the tourists standing in front of the White House fence.

And this is one of the counter-sniper positions on the White House roof.

To get to the south lawn, we had to walk a few blocks out of the way to get around the fence. On the way we stopped at the White House visitor's center.
This is the main hall of the visitor's center. The center had a bunch of displays of stuff (china, fabric, etc) from the White House. The kids got bored pretty quick.

Then, we found a kids center. It consisted of pictures to color and markers. Suddenly the kids were interested...
Here Molly and Abby color their pictures.

After coloring in the visitor's center for a while, we headed out again to go to the south lawn.
Here's a view of the south face of the White House. I was surprised by how small the building was.
Amy and the kids posed for a picture in front of the lawn. Unfortunately they were all looking into the sun, so they look a little squinty.
Then, they did a "silly" picture. Thomas was too mature to be silly, so he didn't want to be in the picture. Amy managed to be silly, while Molly and Abby understood "silly" to mean rub your eyes.

After the White House, we headed over to Ford's Theater.
The Park Service runs the theater as a tourist site during the day, and a working theater in the evening. During the day, there are presentations every 30 minutes. We had gotten tickets (from Ticketmaster!!) earlier, and it was a good thing we did. When we arrived, there was this long line in front. We thought they were people waiting for tickets, but it turned out to be ticket holders waiting for their presentation. We got in line and waited in the sun for our presentation to start. When they opened the doors, we finally got to go into the air conditioning.
We sat in the balcony for the presentation. A Park Ranger came out and gave a really interesting 15 minute talk on the events of the day of Lincoln's assassination. I thought it was interesting, but Thomas got pretty bored. I think it was because he was expecting explosions and people running and lasers and such. All he got was talking.

This is the box where Lincoln was shot. The flags and furniture are supposed to be accurate recreations and some originals from that day.
After the talk at Ford's Theater, we could have visited the room where Lincoln died. After he was shot, his staff moved him across the street to this boarding house, where several hours later he died. We didn't feel like waiting in line again, so we skipped this part of the tour and headed back to our hotel.

On the way home, Molly got to do one of her favorite activities. She got to ride and play on the metro train.
Here she is dancing around the pole in the train.

After we got back to our hotel, we headed back to the waterfront. The kids played on the sand and in the statue again.
Here's the hand reaching out of the sand
Molly sitting on the sand. She was filling her sandals with sand.
And here she is climbing out of the giant's mouth
Abby sitting on the giant's head.
Thomas played in the giant's mouth.

Vacation Day Five

2010-06-24T06:41:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday we spend most of the day driving. First we went to the National Zoo. Driving through DC's streets (even with a GPS) was terrible. Everything was under construction or didn't go where we thought it would. Eventually, after touring a number of roundabouts and dead ends, we got to the zoo. Like the rest of the Smithsonian, it's "free". That is, it's free to enter, but you'll pay like at Disneyland for everything else. $15 for a stroller (and I had to surrender my drivers license to get it), $2 for a map, etc...

One thing that really interested me was the "O line" at the zoo. The Orangutans have a compound and also a research center. But the two are across the zoo from each other. The "O line" is a line of cables about 40ft off the ground that run from the compound to the research center. In the morning if the Orangutans want to go from the compound to the center, they just start climbing the cables and go hand over hand across the zoo. The towers the support the cables have a resting place, but have a electrified fence below the platform. And I guess the cables are too high for the Orangutans to let go and drop to the pavement. So, they have the freedom to move around and swing over tourist heads, but can't run free.
Here's an owl that I liked, since it's perched on a cactus.
This is one of the pandas that the zoo "rents" from the Chinese, for about $1 Million a year.

After the zoo, we headed up to the Washington DC temple. We wanted to show the kids where we got married. We went to the visitor's center, and were about the only people in there. So, we got some Sisters to show us around and tell the kids about the Temple. The kids each got Future Missionary tags and a picture of Jesus. Then, we went and watched a short video in one of the video rooms. While we were watching, Molly said to me "Daddy, my hand's getting tired. Can you hold Jesus up so He can watch the movie?" She'd been holding her picture up so He could see the movie with her.
Here's a picture of us and the temple. I had my little (4" high) tripod, so this picture ended up looking a little off center and strange.
Here's a couple pictures of the temple and the fountains.

After the Temple, we headed over to Arlington National Cemetery to see Amy's grandfather's grave. We stopped off at the main building to have them look up which section and gravestone was his. Once again I was stuck by how the staff (that's supposed to handle looking up records) seemed put out that we asked them to do so. However, everyone else there was really great. Once we had a pass, we got to drive into the cemetery and visit the graves. It was an overcast and drizzly day, so it was perfect for visiting a cemetery.
After searching around, we found Amy's Grandfather's grave.
Here's his tombstone up close.

After we left the grave, we headed up to the tomb of the unknown soldier. We got there in time for the Changing of the Guard and a Wreath Laying Ceremony.
Here 3 of Guards escort a wreath out for the Ceremony
One of the soldiers marching in front of the tombs. By now, the rain had really picked up. It was just pouring down.

They guard the tomb 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in any weather. The guard marches back and forth with exactly 21 steps, turns, stands for 21 seconds, turns again and marches 21 steps back. According to the guide book, the mat that they march on, wears out in specific spots from the soldier stepping in the same place again and again.
As the guard marches past the line of tourists and the wreath. Even though there were about 20-30 tourists watching, you could nearly hear a pin drop. The Tomb of the Unknown soldier was the only place where everyone was quiet.
The Mausoleum with the Tomb of the Unknown soldier in front. The tomb is the smaller, marble box in front. The box is for the unknown soldier from WWI, the Unknowns from WWII, Korea and Vietnam are under marble slabs behind the tomb. This polished, white marble was super slippery in the rain.
Looking over a field of headstones near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Finally, here's a video of the Changing of the Guard that we took at the Tomb.

After Arlington, we quickly drove home, cleaned up and then drove back north of DC to visit one of Amy's friends from North Carolina. Bethany and Chris Call have lived near Washington for several years. So, we went and had dinner with them at crazy-busy Mexican restaurant that was about half way between their house and our hotel. We had a fun visit and it was good to catch up with them.

Vacation Day Four

2010-06-23T08:51:00.001-07:00

On Tuesday the first thing we did was take a DUKW (Duck) tour. The DUKW is a WWII era amphibious truck. So the tour started at Union Station in DC. We drove through the streets of the city looking at sights.
Here's the DUKW reflected in a building's mirror glass. It's long, slow and loud but was a really unique tour. If you look closely in the reflection you might see some of us in the picture. Toby and Abby are sitting at the front, while Thomas is on the other side and is not visible. Amy and Molly are toward the back and might also be visible.

After driving around DC (and annoying the drivers) we reached the marina. The driver now became our captain. He just engaged the propeller and we drove down into the water.
Boating through the marina
Here's Thomas behind our Captain.
Here's the pentagon from the river. The tour took us through the river and around Reagan International Airport. We got to watch planes take off over our heads and hope that none of the planes sucked a bird into the engine on takeoff.

After driving out of the water on the Pentagon side of the river, we headed back to Union Station. Here's a few of the statues on the front of the Station.

The interior of the Station was really interesting. The roof held a number of pounds of gold leaf.
As well as statues. In our guidebook it said that the architect modeled it after a Roman bath house, hence all the Roman statues!

After the tour, we headed down the Mall. It's about 2 miles long, but we started about half way down, at the Smithsonian.
Here's the family walking down the Mall toward the Washington Monument
At the base of the Monument, there's a plaza. Since we hadn't registered for tickets months in advance, we didn't get to go up in the Monument.
Abby had really, really, REALLY wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial, since they learned about it in school. So, we took a picture of her and the Memorial, to prove that she'd gone there (in case the kids got tired of walking). It's a little hard to see here, but it's behind her. Of course the kids made the walk to the Lincoln Memorial, it was just walking back where they got whiny.
On the DUWK tour, everyone got a duck call. Here's Abby trying out her call. The kids were only allowed to play with them outside (for obvious reasons...)
After the Washington Monument, we crossed the street and went to the new WWII memorial. It was a nice monument, though it didn't stand out. Thomas is really into WWII right now, so he really liked it. Throughout the memorial the major campaigns of the War are listed, which Thomas was able to tell me a little about each one.

Around the outside of the Memorial, there are 56 pillars which list each state or territory from the US that send troops to the War. We wanted to get a picture of each kid in front of their state.
Here's Thomas in front of Mississippi. But since the 51st state (Canada) doesn't have a pillar, Molly didn't have one to stand if front of. So, she decided to stand with Thomas (even though we tried to get her out of the picture)
Here's Abby in front her state. The purse that she's wearing is one that we bought her at Union Station. She was so excited to carry a purse.
Here we are walking down the tree-shaded path along the reflecting pool. Since it was in the high 80's and humid, it was nice to get into shade.
The kids walking along the Vietnam memorial. I hadn't realized how reflective the stone is.
The Washington Monument reflected in the Vietnam memorial
Finally, we made it to Abby's goal, the Lincoln Memorial.
The statue in the Memorial. It didn't come to life like in the movie (Night at the Museum 2). Hollywood has let us down again...
The Washington monument and the reflecting pool from the Lincoln memorial
The Korean war memorial. It was an odd combination of traditional statues with modern reflective stone and abstract pools. By this time we were all tired and the kids "couldn't walk aaaannnnny farther" so they weren't too interested in the memorial.
Here's one of the statues with the wall in the background.

After the Korean war memorial, we walked back about a mile to the metro station and headed back to the hotel.

Vacation Day Three

2010-06-20T04:49:00.000-07:00

On Monday we got started early visiting the sights of Washington DC. We had "tickets" to visit the Capitol in the morning. They warned us to be in line at least an hour before the tour in order to have time to go through security!! So, we had to get a pretty early start.

We started the day by doing something that would turn out to be a big hit, riding the DC metro. Molly picked the Metro as her favorite part of the whole vacation... Forget all the monuments, buildings and museums, the best part of the trip, for her, was riding the subway. Most of the riders on the metro (from our area) were African-American, so imagine the impact that our three Aryan kids made in the train cars. Molly always found someone to talk to and who would play with her, so I guess it makes sense that she had fun on the subway.

After standing in line for a little while we went through security and got into the Capitol about 40 minutes early. We joined up an earlier tour. I went to the desk and asked for the 9:40 tour (it was 9:45 at that time) and got tickets. We got in line for the 9:40 tour (at nearly 9:50) as they opened the door to start the tour.

Once again I admired the efficiency of the government.

After going under the Rotunda, we climbed up the stairs into the main Rotunda. At the top of the dome is a massive painting, the " Apotheosis of Washington" done in 1865 by Constantino Brumidi. The painting is a little strange...

Here's Washington being taken up into Heaven and becoming a god! Strange symbolism, but a pretty nice painting. Though I liked the paintings around the rotunda better.
These paintings illustrate 400 years of American history in a long band of images. The paintings are done in such a way that they look like carved statues, with depth. The illusion of depth is really well done and pretty convincing. I think this panel shows some American Indians about to get a raw deal...

Here are 2 panoramics that I stitched together. The top one is the exterior of the Capitol, while the bottom is about 120 degrees of the interior of the dome. The adults had a good time on the tour and I think the kids did as well, even if they were "soooooo bored!!!"
Here's Amy and the kids having fun in front of the capitol. Molly is laughing so hard she's about to fall over.
And here you can see most of the kids (Thomas was "soooooo booooorrrrreeeeedddd" and was standing over under a tree) and some random guy who wandered into the picture.
A nice picture of the Capitol and flag against the clouds. The weather kept threatening rain all day, but never really rained. It kept the day cooler and prevented sun burns (unlike the rest of the week)
And here's the Capitol's other side. This view is from the Mall looking toward the Capitol Building. When you turn around here's what you see...
The Washington monument, part of the Mall and the Smithsonian castle off to the left. Of course the picture also contains a tour bus. There were a lot of tourists (including us) around, and the real tourist season hadn't started yet.

Our next stop was the United States Botanic Garden. The Gardens were really incredible. Most of the plants were in greenhouses and so bloomed year round. Each section of greenhouse had a different "theme" or environment. We had to keep after the kids to be sure that Molly didn't pick some flower.

There was an entire section devoted to Orchids which was really neat. Here's a few flowers from that section (I think)

The desert section featured a number of blooming desert flowers, but was mostly cacti. Here's one that was much cooler than any cactus that I ever saw in Ridgecrest.

Amy and the kids in the jungle section. In the jungle there was an elevated platform so you could see plants that would grow up at the top of the canopy and a lower pathway to look at ground flowering plants.
One of the plants in the jungle section.

The Gardens also had a children's area. It featured hardy plants that could survive kids' "attention" and "help" all day long. There were 2 fountains in the center along with watering cans. Molly had a great time filling up the watering can and then going over to the plants and proceeding to tip the can sideways and spill water out the top all over her clothes. I went over to help her tip the can forwards so the water would pour out the spout. When I tried to help, she got mad and informed me that she "wanted to pour it all over herself". So, that was the end of watering plants for Molly.
Here's Thomas sticking his hand in one of the fountains at the Children's Garden.

After the Gardens, it was time for lunch. We went over to the new Smithsonian American Indian Museum. We went straight to the food court in the museum. It was really, really interesting. It looked like a typical food court with about 8 different "restaurants". But each restaurant represented a different native region. So, you could eat at the Northeast Woodlands, the Mesoamerican, Pacific Northwest, Great Plains, Southwest etc. Each place sold different dishes that were similar to what the natives of the regions would have had. So, the Northeast had dishes with Venison and Maple Syrup, the Pacific Northwest had salmon and trout, Great Plains had Bison Burgers, etc. It was a little pricey, but we really enjoyed it and the food was much better than normal food court stuff.

We only had time to eat and then left the museum. This theme repeated itself every time we went to a Smithsonian building. We walked into about 1/3 of the total Smithsonian buildings and managed to see only part of each one that we visited.

While heading out of the museum, we saw part of an exhibit that featured artwork which was created with traditional methods and modern materials. One of the most interesting was this...

A woven blanket made out of NBA jerseys. I wish we'd had time to see the rest of the exhibit.

After our brief tour of part of 1 floor in American Indian museum, we headed over to the Air and Space museum. We watched "When we left Earth" with the kids a while ago, so we hoped that they'd be interested in the space capsules and such, that they'd seen in the documentary. It was toward the end of the day, so they weren't as interested as I had hoped. But their father was sure interested.
This is one of the new vehicles in the Flight gallery. This is Spaceship One, the hybrid plane/rocket that flew to the edge of space a few years ago to win the Ansari X Prize and perhaps open up space to (eventually) everyone. The company that put the spaceship together is based near where I grew up, and for much of early life I dreamed of working for them (until my life took a different route). So it was really interesting to see another of their airplanes in the Smithsonian.

At the Air and Space Museum there was also a kids section. They had the shell of a Cessna (or maybe a Piper-I can't remember) with working flaps, rudder etc. Each of the kids got to sit in the plane and pretend to fly it.

Also, in the kids area there was a small theater where a Smithsonian employee gave short talks on Aerospace related topics that were geared toward the kids. She took a lot of volunteers
Here's Abby getting ready to stretch out a rope that will show how far the Moon is from the Earth. The talk was about how far away the Moon is and where other objects are in relation to the Moon and Earth.

Once Molly saw that Abby got to go down and participate, she stood up on the rails and raised her hand urgently. After a minute, the presenter noticed Molly and asked if she had a question. Molly told her that she wanted to do something. After we translated for the presenter, she had Molly come down and put some goggles that distorted everything. This was show that your body could adapt to different conditions (weightlessness, etc).

Initially Molly was supposed to have trouble and then improve. However, Molly being Molly did fine at first and then got worse. She asked Molly "how many of me do you see?" The correct answer was supposed to be 2, but Molly remembered that there was only 1 person and so answered that there was 1 person. Then she threw a ball to Molly, which she caught pretty easily (she was supposed to miss). Then after a minute, when she should have adapted to the goggles, she rolled another ball to Molly. Who then promptly missed the ball and spent half a minute chasing the phantom ball.
Here she is putting the goggles on Molly's face.

Here are the kids getting run over by an American Airlines plane.

After the Smithsonian, we bought ice cream from a sidewalk vendor for the kids. By that time the sun had come out and it was hot and windy, a perfect environment for kids to eat ice cream while walking...
Here's Abby after trying to eat a chocolate ice cream bar...

Vacation Day Two

2010-06-15T17:15:00.001-07:00

On our second day, we went to Mount Vernon in VA. When we walked in we saw this statue of George and Martha Washington with two of their grandchildren. The girl's name was Nellie and she happened to be 6 years old in this depiction. Abby was so excited that she was the same age as Nellie that she had to have her picture taken with her!

Here is the house on Mount Vernon where George Washington and his family lived.

Thomas in front of the house
Abby in front of the house

Molly in front of the house

Molly playing in the backyard

After we finished at Mount Vernon, we went back and walked around by the piers again. There were these huge mosaics on the walls by the steps so we took pictures for Mitzi!

The girls running around on a map of the area.

Vacation Day One

2010-06-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

We got to our hotel at about 4:30 on Saturday afternoon. We were staying at a place right on a harbor on the Potomac River. Since it wasn't dinnertime yet, we went exploring. We found this statue called "The Awakening" right by the water. The kids had a blast climbing on it and playing in the sand.

After dinner, we walked down one of the piers and I learned that I am much more like my Mom than I ever knew. There was no railing on the sides and I was totally paranoid that one of the kids was going to fall off the side and into the water. I kept picturing how one of us (Toby) would have to jump in to save them and it freaked me out!!

Anyway, here is a view from the pier. Our place was not this building, but the one right behind it.

Here is Molly all worn out from the long day of travel.

Garden Update

2010-05-20T15:13:00.001-07:00

As promised, I took some pictures of our garden on Saturday, one week after we planted it. Here is what it looks like now.

This is a bean plant This one is yellow squash

and then lettuce

and finally carrots. Sorry the picture is so blurry, but the carrots are so small I had to get really close.

I am excited that everything has sprouted and can't wait to see if we produce any produce! haha!

Molly "sharing"

2010-05-16T13:42:00.000-07:00

Today in church, Molly was drawing a picture. After she finished, she walked over to Thomas and held the picture out. Here's how the conversation went.
Molly: Thomas, as i dis is fo yo...
Thomas: What Molly?
Molly: Thomas, ask me if this (the picture) is for you?
Thomas: Molly, is this picture for me??
Molly : NO!!! It's for Abby!!!!

Then, she turned away and took the picture to Abby, leaving Thomas speechless.

I got a new sink!!!

2010-05-13T15:49:00.001-07:00

It all started last week when I noticed that a little rubber o-ring had come loose on the base of the faucet in the kitchen. It started to leak everytime I turned on the water, so I showed Toby and he took the faucet off to see what he could do. It was Sunday afternoon and he said "I am going to the store to get a new o-ring. I think this qualifies as an 'ox in the mire' situation." To which I reply "okay" but then the wheels start to turn in my head. We have talked about replacing the faucet ever since we moved in anyway. Hmmm. So I stop him and say, "maybe we should just wait until tomorrow and go to Lowe's and look for a whole new faucet." He agrees and for some reason the wheels are still turning in my head! So I go one step further and say "While we are at it, we could just replace the whole sink. This one is really shallow and I don't like it anyway". So we decided to go the next day and look at sinks and faucets just to get an idea of price. Toby had worked through the night on Sunday night so I went to Lowe's with Molly on Monday to look. I found some sinks I liked for about $230 and a faucet for about $90. When I came home and told Toby what I had found, we went back together to buy them. When we went back I noticed that there were two that were "package deals". They had the sink and faucet and drain kits all in one box. I really liked one of them and it was only $299. YAY! Sold! So we came home and started taking the old sink out and putting the new one in. When we came to the step where we needed to open the box and install the sink we noticed that there was a sink in the box but nothing else. Uh-oh. There was a 1-800 number to call if anything was wrong, so I called it and they said that we would just have to return it to the store. Molly was napping by now, so Toby took it back and got the last one they had on the shelf. Success!!!

Here is the old sink after Toby had taken the faucet off to check it.
Here is the hole after we took the old sink out.

Here is Toby working hard under the sink to disconnect all of the pipes and the garbage disposer. (we have a couch in the breakfast area because we got a new couch and haven't found anyone to take the old one)

My new sink and faucet! The old one was 6 in. deep and this one is 9 in. on the left and 7 in. on the right. And the end of the faucet comes out as the sprayer hose! I LOVE it!!

Of course, along the way, Toby injured himself several times. Here are two of the worst.

He did a great job and everything looks and works awesome!! It is great to have such a handy hubby!!

Our first Houston Garden

2010-05-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

In our backyard we have these rock areas, which I personally hate, but we were trying to decide where to plant a garden and had a great idea!! We moved about half of the rocks in this area to the side and pulled up the weed barrier and dug up the rock hard clay ground. We mixed the clay with about 8 bags of potting soil and 6 bags of manure to try to make some better growing conditions. Toby also got a weeper hose and attached it to a timer, so it automatically waters the garden every morning at 6 am for about 20 minutes!! Here is what it looks like.

Here is Thomas being silly and the garden after we planted the seeds on Saturday. We planted carrots, lettuce, yellow squash, and green beans.Abby and Molly helping with the planting!So I am going to try to take pictures every Saturday and show you our progress. We were so excited when the first sprouts came up that we took some pictures this morning, so here is a preview!That big plant at the bottom of this picture is a bean plant that Abby grew at school and we transplanted into the garden. She is really excited to see what it becomes!

My Mother's Day "Experience"

2010-05-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

First of all, Toby had worked all night until 6 am, so I did not expect him to be up at all this morning. I just had to make that disclaimer so that you don't wonder where he was during the whole morning (he was asleep!).
So I was awakened by my alarm clock at 7 am just like every other Sunday morning. I came out to the living room to see if any kids were up yet and I could hear someone playing up in the toyroom. So I called up the steps to see who was up. Abby answered and I told her to come down and have breakfast so we could get ready for church. When she got to the bottom of the steps, she stopped and said "oh, I just remembered what today is!" I said "What?" and she replied is a soft whisper (like I wasn't supposed to know) "Mother's Day". She then asked if she could make my breakfast and even told me what she wanted to make. I told her to go get Thomas and they could make it while I was in the shower. (It was just yogurt with granola, pretty easy) But I had made sure to tell them that they should have breakfast for themselves first and then make mine. I came out about 15 or 20 minutes later and found that they had made my breakfast first and not had anything for themselves yet. I knew that this meant that my granola would be soggy, but I ate it anyway to show them how much I appreciated their efforts. After eating as much soft granola and yogurt as I could, I got up to take my bowl in the kitchen and stepped in something crunchy on the floor. Hmmm, "Thomas what is all over the floor?" His reply "Oh, sorry, we tried to make breakfast for Daddy too, but the first bowl of Grape Nuts that we poured got spilled." Okay, "the first bowl". Hmmm. "Where is the second bowl?" "Oh, we put milk on it and it is on the counter." I realized that they were just trying to be as helpful as possible and I really love them for that. "Thanks, you guys, so much. You did a great job on breakfast."
It turned out to be more work for me, but they really tried to be nice, so I just smiled and cleaned up the scattered cereal on the floor and the bowl of mush that used to be Grape Nuts and milk. At least this year there were no fire hazards like paper towels in the toaster oven!

I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH! THANK YOU FOR A WONDERFUL MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Family Campout

2010-05-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

On April 16-17 we went on a family camp-out with the ward. It was held in the Stephan F Austin state park, which was a really nice place. It so doesn't look like the tangled scrub trees and weedy grass that we see around Houston. But, it's only about 20 minutes from the house. It was fun, except for Molly being sick. She tossed and turned and whined all night long. Then, when Amy gave her some medicine, she got so worked up about how much she hated the medicine that she threw up.
Here's a picture of Molly from before I wanted to lock her in the van for some peace and quiet...

Thomas looks like he's not having so much fun...But he actually had a great time.

The Pullmans brought their new puppy, Daisy, to the campout. At first the kids were a little unsure of what to make of this little bundle of energy.

Then, Molly fell in love with Daisy.

And here she is explaining her policy on sharing the dog with Thomas. It looks like the policy is, "Let me play with Daisy or I hit you with a stick!!"
Abby had a great time as well. Here she is at the central camp fire.
And here's Thomas. He's actually checking to see if I'm watching him. You see, it's been over 20 minutes since he last threw something in the fire, and he's starting to get the shakes...
Here I am roasting marshmallows for the kids. This was an attempt to reduce the number of burned black or flaming marshmallows that happened when the kids did it.
And this is what the fire looks like with out a flash.

Brenham Ice Cream Festival

2010-04-26T14:46:00.001-07:00

On Saturday (April 24) we went to Brenham, TX for the Blue Bell Ice Cream festival. For those of you you who don't know what Blue Bell is, originally it was a Texas only brand of ice cream. Now it's expanded a bit, but you still can't get it everywhere (especially not in Utah!). We like it and think it's one of the best ice creams around. Some of the locals think it is the BEST ICE CREAM EVER!!!!!

The Blue Bell factory is in Brenham, so every year they have this one day festival to celebrate their ice cream. About 4000 people show up each year for the festival, so in small town Texas, it's a pretty big deal. They set up booths and shows around the court house square. The best part is that for $6 you get a wristband that you can show to get all you can eat ice cream all day long at booths set up around the court house square.

Here's Toby enjoying the first of his six scoops of ice cream that day. At the festival the kids learned that they actually don't like it when they can eat as much ice cream as they can.

This is Thomas, Abby and Molly enjoying the first of their ice cream. Molly only ate 2 scoops. Thomas and Abby both ate between 5-6 scoops, before they started to feel sick. So, they ate a deep fried Snickers bar to help wash the taste of ice cream out of their mouths. Suprisingly, we only had tummy aches on the way home, no one got really sick.

Molly loved this grate. The holes looked as though they were big enough to swallow her feet. So she slowly walked the "tight rope" over the gaping hole in the ground.

There was a "train" for the kids to ride. It took them on a loop around a couple of streets in downtown. We piled all three kids in, and they had fun.

Here is the train being pulled by the City of Brenham, Parks Department John Deere lawn mower. There was some poor volunteer who got to drive cars full of kids around all afternoon in the blazing sun on a lawn mower.

Here are some of the booths along the court house square. We bought the kids wooden frogs at one of the stands. These hand made frogs have ridges on their backs and a wooden stick that you rub over the ridges. If you do it right, the frogs start to croak!

This is the art deco entrance to the county court house. Every Texas county has a court house, and most of them were built around the turn of the century (the 1900's, not the 2000's). So many of them are this great art deco style. Notice that the Christmas lights are still up on the Court House. You might be a redneck if...

There were over 20 classic cars that had been brought out for the Ice Cream festival. The cars were all on display all morning and into the afternoon. I couldn't believe how much time and effort these guys had put into their toys.

There was a stick horse race for the kids. When we saw it Abby and Molly wanted to race. Thomas was too "cool" for any of that nonsense. Here we see Abby in third place as they round the first curve.

And here comes Molly bringing up the rear. After the race Molly was a bit sad to have to put her faithful steed away, but she was finally willing to just wave goodbye and leave.

Jump Jump

2010-04-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

On April 15th, we had the Pullmans and the Watsons over for dinner. Between the three families we have 8 kids. Here are some pictures of most of those kids jumping on the trampoline together!! They thought it was awesome to have that many kids on at the same time!!

I think Liam was the only one who never went out to jump, he was happy inside playing with Thomas' Nerf Shotgun!!

Easter 2010

2010-04-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

Easter morning the kids awoke to the baskets that the Easter Bunny had hidden in their rooms the night before while they were sleeping. They were all very excited!!!

After church we were invited by the Pullman family to come over for Easter dinner and an Easter Egg Hunt. We always have a great time with them, but sharing Easter with them was especially fun. We played a game called "Ticket to Ride" which was really fun and Thomas has been begging ever since to buy one for ourselves. Here are a few pictures of the Easter Egg Hunt.
Thomas, being the oldest kid, was the last to get to come down the stairs, so he was pumped up and focused on finding eggs!!

Here are all 5 kids together after the eggs were all found. Thomas, Molly, Abby, Zoey, and Liam. Later in the evening Molly got into Zoey's finger nail polish that she got from the Easter Bunny. She painted her face and nails and legs and toes!!!

A new pet

2010-04-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Today, before Conference, I was working outside in the backyard. Over on the patio table I noticed a small lizard looking at me. At first I was going to just get the kids to come see the lizard, but then I realized that it would take forever and would involve lots of screaming and yelling. So, after chasing the lizard around the yard for a few minutes I caught him.

The kids were so excited to see the lizard and immediately asked "Can we keep him???!!!!" As Amy didn't mind, we cleaned out the old fish tank (from our Canadian fish, eh) and made it into a terrarium.

Thomas proposed that Molly get to name the new pet. Right now the two suggested names are "Pet" and "Lizard", so I think someone else is going to name him.

We think its a Carolina Anole which, despite the name, seems to be native to the wetter parts of Texas (which Houston is).

Molly and Abby sing "Santa Claus is coming to town"

2010-03-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

Molly and Abby sang "Santa Claus is coming to town" "together" the other day. Why the "quotes" around together, you might ask... well watch the video and see how well they do "together".

Spring Break Roadtrip

2010-03-25T18:54:00.001-07:00

A little while ago I decided that since Toby had to work over spring break, I would take the kids on a road trip and visit my parents in NC. I admit that it seems a little crazy, but the kids are really great travellers and are usually very well behaved in the car (especially with a portable DVD player and some Nintendo DS's)

So on the first day (Saturday, March 13th) we drove from Katy, TX to Laurel, MS where Thomas was born. It should have been about an 8 hour drive, but due to road construction ended up taking about 10 1/2 hours. We had dinner with our good friends and old neighbors, the Kiparizoska's, and then spent the night with some friends from church, the Johnson's. It was great to see old friends and catch up a little. On Sunday morning we went to church in our old branch and it was exactly like it used to be, well almost. They had a pianist for Sacrament meeting instead of a CD player. Then right after church we hit the road again and headed for Frankiln, TN. This leg of the trip only took about 6 1/2 hours. We arrived at Kevin and Lisa Allan's home (they used to live in the Statesville Ward where I grew up) in time to have dinner and chat with them for awhile before it was time to get some sleep. The next morning we drove only 1 1/2 hours to Clarksville, TN where my friend, Amy, lives now. She just moved back to the States after living in Europe for at least 8 or 9 years. It was a really great day of just hanging out with an old friend and reconnecting. Our kids really hit it off, too! I apologize that I was having so much fun that I never got my camera out of it's case!!! We spent Monday night at Amy's and after eating breakfast in the morning, we got back on the road. This time we were finally headed to my parent's house in NC. Since my brother-in-law, Zeke and his new wife, Juliana, live so close to TN, they came down to Knoxville and met us for lunch at a park! It was really fun to get to know Juliana a little better and to finally meet her and her kids. They are really cute! Here are a few pictures courtesy of Zeke:
this is the only picture of all 7 kids together, click on it and see if you can spot them all!!

I have to apologize again, we had agreed to meet in Knoxville around 11:30 or 12:00. That way we would have about 2 hours to play and chat. I totally spaced and didn't realize that Knoxville is in the Eastern Time Zone and Clarksville is in Central!! I felt horrible! I was very late and Zeke and Juliana were very understanding and forgiving of my stupidity!! We only got to be together for about an hour, but I am so glad that they were willing to take the kids out of school and drive so far to see me!! Thanks again!!!

By the way, this whole trip was a surprise to my parents, they had no idea that I was coming!! While I was at the park in Knoxville, my Dad calls my cell phone and asks me what I am doing. I just said "We are at the park" and he said "Around the corner from the house?" And I said ".....yep!" It was around the corner from a house, just not my house!!!

So we said goodbye to our family and headed for NC. We arrived in Kernersville at about 7:30 pm. So with the time change and the hour break for lunch, we travelled for about 10 hours that day. We had arranged for my brother, Jay, and his wife to take my parents out for dinner that night. We walked into the restaurant and my Mom said "What in the world?!?!" And my Dad just grinned from ear to ear!! It was a great moment! I was so happy that I actually surprised them! Anyway we ate dinner and went back to Jay's to spend the night. The next day we all went to the Bishop's Storehouse where my parents are the managers. I finally got to see what they do and help out a little. It was really fun. My other brother, Joe, even drove up there to help us. It was a great day! Jay's wife, Mitzi, made a wonderful lunch for us and then we drove about an hour back to my parent's house where we spent Wednesday night and Thursday and Friday. The kids had fun playing with their cousins Robbie, Mariztella and Marrianna. On Friday I got to work out at the Y with Joe and have lunch with my good friend, Susan, and see her new baby boy! What a cutie he was!! Friday night Jay and his family drove down to the parent's house to have dinner and play games on our last night at home.

Saturday morning we left at around 8 am and drove and drove and drove until we reached Laurel, MS again. We stayed with the Johnsons again and had a great time with them. That day was about 10 1/2 hours of driving. Sunday morning we left the Johnsons and drove straight home! It took about 9 hours this time, it would have been 8, but road construction again!!!

It was a fast visit and a very long trip, but it was very fun to see old friends and lots of family!!! It is sure good to be home and back into a regular routine!!!

Shhh!

2010-03-01T13:15:00.000-08:00

Molly and I were at the grocery store today and she asked me what something was. Instead of telling her in a normal voice, I whispered it to her. She looked at me like I was crazy and said "You can talk louder, Mommy, you don't need to talk so quiet. Nobody is sleeping!" I thought it was pretty cute!

Thomas' first cub scout badge!!

2010-02-27T16:39:00.000-08:00

Thomas had earned his Bobcat Badge back in December, but the Pack meeting for January was the Pinewood Derby, so he had to wait until the February Pack meeting to get his badge. February was the Blue and Gold Banquet so it was pretty special that he got his badge then. What they have you do is the father turns the boy upside down and then the mother pins the badge on right side up, so that when the boy is turned back over the badge will be upside down. (I hope that makes sense to you!) And then after the boy has done a "good turn" he is allowed to turn it over and sew it on the right way. It was a pretty fun experience. Thomas was complaining that I was taking too long and his face started to turn red, but that was all part of the whole experience, right?!?!

After his badge was pinned on, Molly ran over to see what was going on. Abby stayed at the table eating her cake!!

Congratulations, Thomas! We are so proud of you!!!

Molly's sock

2010-02-26T15:03:00.001-08:00

Today Molly was walking around with one of Abby's socks on her foot. Just one sock, not both. So, I asked her if she was being Michael Jackson (you know just one sock, kind of like one glove). She thought I was being silly and told me "No, daddy, I have two socks". Since she's learning to count, I just thought she was saying the wrong number. So I told her that she only had one on, to which she again insisted that she had two.

To show her what one looked like, I laid her down and grabbed her foot. Holding it where she could see I told her, "See, just one sock". To which she responded, by pulling off the ONE sock to reveal another sock.

So I guess she knew what she was talking about...Two socks, but on only one foot.

Follow the Pumpkin

2010-02-23T18:14:00.000-08:00

Molly loves to sing herself to sleep. She'll lay in bed for (sometimes) over an hour just talking and singing. We have a baby monitor set up, so we can hear everything that happens in her room, so every night we get an impromptu concert.

She really likes nursery and the Church songs that she learns there. Though sometimes she gets a little confused about the words that go with each song. Last night she was singing a version of Book of Mormon Stories.

The audio quality is not great (since it's a recording over the baby monitor), but here's her Book of Mormon Stories

Now, tonight she started singing "Follow the Prophet" but she's a little unsure of the words. She starts off with "Follow the Pumpkin", and when we heard this, we fell off the couch laughing.

For most of the song, she's loudly shouting "Follow the Pumpkin", but toward the end of the song, she starts singing "Follow the Prophet". Then right at the end, she says "Hi, ummm, I wanna sing Follow the Prophet". Again the audio is not the best. Just use your imagination.

Abby's Princess Party

2010-01-23T18:20:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, the 16th, we had Abby's 6th birthday party! It was a princess themed party, so we asked all the girls to come dressed as their favorite princess. Here is a picture of Abby and Molly ready for the party to begin. The kids were watching "Little Einsteins" while they waited for the guests to arrive.

Still waiting.

Here they are each making a bracelet to take home. There were colored beads and letter beads, so each girl made her name on her bracelet.

After making bracelets and finding the Princess Treasure box (sorry no pictures of that) we had pizza for lunch. Thomas was a huge help with passing out napkins and handing each girl their pizza.

After pizza we decorated cupcakes. Thomas joined the girls for this event. He had fun sitting between two cute 6 year old girls!!

Here is the birthday girl eating her cupcake.

Molly also had fun as she got to be one of the big girls for the day!

Here is a shot of the whole group, there were 5 guests plus Molly and Abby, so seven little princesses in our house!

After cupcakes, we all gathered around as Abby opened her gifts. She got some good stuff and her friends were very generous.

Still opening presents.

Her friend Samantha gave her a gift card to Target and it looked like a license plate, so she decided to wear it on her "booty". What a funny girl!!

Bowling for Abby's birthday

2010-01-23T17:51:00.000-08:00

For Abby's birthday we offered to either take her out to dinner at a restaurant of her choice or she could pick going bowling. She wanted bowling.

We went to a local bowling alley on MLK day in the afternoon. It was really empty.
Here's Abby celebrating after getting the bowling ball all the way down to the end of the alley.

Molly got this lucky shot. Maybe she has a future as a professional bowler, but only if Amy helps her.

Thomas did well, though once he picked up the ball it was a race to get it to the lane before he dropped it. He got really good a bouncing it off the bumpers to get it to hit the pins.

Everyone had a lot of fun.

Shake that Booty!

2010-01-23T17:43:00.000-08:00

Christmas (Yes I know it's January! Shut up!)

2010-01-17T14:47:00.001-08:00

Here's some pictures from Christmas, that I've been meaning to post since December.

Here's Abby showing off some of her loot.

Thomas got Tom Saywer from Grandma & Grandpa Hahn (sorry for the mistake!), they got it for him when they went through Hannibal, MO (Mark Twain's hometown) a couple of years ago. Though I think Harry Potter has been capturing his attention.

Molly got a lot of "Oody-Buzz" swag. Here she is with her Toy Story chair and Non-Toy Story robot dog. While she likes the dog that barks and moves, 'Eppie (her stuffed Leopard) is still her favorite.

Molly and Woody or "Oody"

Abby made her own wrapping paper for our present at school. The wrapping paper was almost as much fun as the actual present.

Molly got a shopping cart which she loved. She used it to push all her swag around the house. I wonder if this means she'll grow up to enjoy shopping or if she'll end up pushing a shopping cart of cans around....

Uncle Zeke (I'm just hoping that this was a Zeke alone project and not Juliana's idea!) sent us his traditional Christmas crimes against nature.

Thomas wasn't so sure of his monkey with a dwarf head.

Though Abby seems to like her bear-monkey

I'm really happy with my...what ever this thing is.

This is the one and only time that Molly hugged her baby-alligator. She named this creature "kinda-ucky" and it took almost 2 weeks before she'd allow this thing into her room. I've even threatened to put "kinda-ucky" in her bed if she gives me trouble at bed time. So far the threat has been enough!

Family picture time!!

2009-12-20T15:13:00.001-08:00

After many, many trial runs, we finally got a good family picture for this year! We decided to have our annual photo shoot on Thomas' baptism day because everyone looked nice and we were not rushing to church! A big thank you to Grandpa Christensen for being patient enough to take all of the pictures and to Grandma Christensen for helping the kids stay focused!After we finally got a good picture we told the kids we could do a crazy one, so I thought I would share that one, too!

And since all of the Grandparents were here at our house for the first time since Thomas' baby blessing, we took a photo of all of us together! This time we only took a few, but we still decided to do a silly one again!

Here it is! Enjoy!! We really had a great day and are so grateful that all 4 of Thomas' Grandparents could travel so far to be here with us on his special day!

Thomas' Baptism

2009-12-20T14:57:00.001-08:00

Thomas' baptism went great on Saturday. The program was great and he was successfully baptized on the first try, but just barely! When he went under the water his foot floated to the top but it went back down before his head came back out of the water. Here is a picture of Toby and Thomas before the baptism.And here is a picture of our whole family before the baptism. The girls were very excited to see their big brother get baptized!!

Abby's Eye

2009-12-20T14:51:00.001-08:00

The other day, we got a call from the school nurse at the kid's school. She told us that Abby was in a hurry in the computer lab and was rushing around and bonked heads with another kid. She told us that Abby had "received" a small scratch above her eye from when her glasses hit her face. We really liked the use of the word received, like it was a gift or something...

When Abby got home we got to see her small scratch above her eye...

Abby is doing fine, but between her eye and Molly's hula-hoop injury I keep expecting to hear from Child Protective Services.

Thomas' Birthday

2009-12-05T13:46:00.000-08:00

Thomas' birthday party was today and earlier this week I made the mistake of letting him pass out his own invitaitons at school. I have no way of knowing who he gave them to or if he was even brave enough to hand them out at all. Anyway Isaac, the only boy in his Primary class, was the only one to come. But Thomas had a great time with him anyway. The first thing we did was make chocolate covered pretzels in Christmas shaped molds. They all had fun doing the project and since Isaac wast he only friend he got to take enough home for his whole family!Here is a picture of all the kids eating their cake and ice cream.Here is Molly's face after enjoying her cake! Thomas had fun opening presents, this one is a Nerf gun from Molly, so she ran over to give him a hug!

Here is the Transformer that Thomas got from his Grandma and Grandpa Christensen. It is so cool, it turns from a robot into a toaster.

Star Wars TIE fighter Lego set from Mom and Dad.

Here is the video of the Happy Birthday song. Happy 8th Birthday, Thomas!!!

Snow in Houston

2009-12-04T12:32:00.001-08:00

Today we got snow in Houston. This event happens about once every four years, and this is the earliest snow on record. Here's the front of the house. It's not cold enough for the snow to stick to the road and cement, but they still closed schools early. In Canada this would have been a nice Spring day, people would have been outside in shorts and tee shirts.

We saw one jolly old man who was out enjoying the snow...

Thomas, Abby and Molly loved jumping on the trampoline with snow on it. Molly wasn't so sure about all the snow...I guess her American half was dominate today.

Trying to make "snow angels" on the trampoline.

Amy got into a snow ball fight with the kids, I think she lost.

And here she is paying the kids back.

Molly's Face

2009-12-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

The other day we went to Texas Roadhouse Restaurant as part of another fund raiser for the kids' school (I guess they don't have enough smart screens...). While we were there, they had a hulu hoop contest for all the kids. Every kid who participated would "win". Molly wanted to go watch Thomas and Abby, so we let all three of them go. Suddenly we hear a screaming child running through the restaurant...

Molly is running toward us being followed by a couple of servers who are trying to help her calm down. She got too close to one of the kids who was hula hooping and got smacked in the eye!
Here's her face 2 days after getting hit, you can see a little cut on her right eyelid (left in the picture).

These 2 pictures are from the same day. Her eye is swollen, it almost looks like she was in a fist fight!

Yes!!!

2009-11-23T12:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a short video showcasing Molly's newest trick. We're not sure where she learned it from, but she does it whenever something is going her way.

The New House, Part 2

2009-11-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

Here's a few pictures of the upstairs in our new house.

Here's Abby looking up from the entryway toward the "window" in the toy room wall. Abby's such a little lady...

This is the toy room looking toward the "window" that the last picture was taken from. The day bed is great for when people come to visit. The toys are always keep cleaned up and nicely put away : )

This is the outside wall in the toy room. The window has a lovely view over our neighbor's roof. But since his house is only 1 story, and there's no other houses in that direction for about a half mile, it's still pretty nice.

Halloween Pumpkins

2009-11-01T14:16:00.001-08:00

For the Halloween party at Thomas and Abby's school, they were allowed to paint one pumpkin per family. Since the pumpkins were going to sit in the library for about a week, you would only paint, not cut the pumpkins and they were supposed to look like a character from a book. (Some people choose a character from a movie that was based on a book)

They wanted to paint the pumpkin to look like the characters from the Magic Treehouse series of books. Since we could only submit one pumpkin, and there's 2 characters, we painted a face on each side of the pumpkin.

This is the Annie side of the pumpkin

And here's Jack.

On Saturday we carved pumpkins for Halloween. Thomas really got into carving the pumpkin, but I was worried about what else he'd cut. He bent the blade on this little carver he was so in to it.

Molly really surprised us. She really liked "gutting" the pumpkin. Here she is, up to her elbow performing brain surgery on her patient.

She also used a scoop to clean out the insides. But she found it to be less satifysing then just reaching in and yanking.

Here's the happy Jack O'Lanterns that we set out. They are (l to r) Abby's, Thomas', Molly's

And here they are with candles.

"Mump...Mump"

2009-10-28T06:19:00.001-07:00

When we moved to Texas, we bought a trampoline for the kids to play on. At first it was too hot and humid for them to use it, but as the weather cooled they spent more time jumping on it. At first Molly was scared of the trampoline, since the big kids would bounce her too high. But once school started, she learned that "mumping" on the trampoline was a lot of fun. At first she only used her "Power leg" to jump, so she couldn't get very high. But she loved "mumping" with us. Eventually she learned how to jump on her own. She will go out and run around the trampoline and jump for quite a while. She's really learned well and get a lot of air for such a little kid.

Here's her little footprints in the dew that settled on the trampoline one morning.

Houston Zoo

2009-10-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we went to the Houston Zoo to celebrate Toby's birthday. The zoo was really nice, and since it was cloudy and October, temperatures were only in the high-70's, very nice for Houston.

Next to the zoo there was a park and a lake. You could rent paddle boats and cruise around the lake. There was also a large fountain in the center, and so the kids were posed in front of it. In this picutre, Abby is showing off what she learned at school this year.

Since we went to the zoo for Toby's birthday, we spent a lot of time at the kiddy zoo in the petting zoo. Ah, the fun of parent's birthdays. At the petting zoo, they just had goats. There was a big bucket of brushes that the kids could us to "pet" the goats. Of course each goat was surrounded by several kids wildly brushing any part of the goat that they could reach, and each clump of kids was surrounded by several parents wildly taking pictures.

Here, Thomas, Abby and Molly all brush a goat. Molly was unclear which direction she should brush the hair, but the goats are pretty patient.

Molly also found a favorite goat. She would brush the goat until she (the goat) got bored and wandered off. Molly didn't want "her" goat to get away, so she'd rest her arm on the goat's back and they'd walk around the yard until the goat chose to stop. Then Molly would start brushing again.

On this goat, Molly discovered a tail. Everytime she brushed or grabbed the tail, the goat would swish it back and forth. Molly thought it was the funniest thing ever. She could have done it for hours...but then a "mean" zoo worker (who's job was sweeping up poop) told her to stop grabbing their tails.

After the petting zoo, there was a prairie dog exhibit in the kid's zoo. Thomas and Abby and Molly climbed through a tunnel to pop up in the middle of the prairie dog habitat. Molly's a bit too short to see in this picture. I don't think she was as excited by the exhibit as the other two.

Years ago, we took Thomas to the Houston zoo. Since we called him our little monkey, when we saw this statue, we had to take a picture of him. Now, years later, we've got all three of our little monkeys in front of the statue

In getting ready for Halloween, the staff was hanging pumpkins in the trees. All three kids were told to stand under the pumpkins and make scary faces. This is what we got.

Pictures of the new house

2009-09-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a few pictures part of our new house in Houston. We've finally settled in and have nearly all the boxes unpacked. Here's the living room. The door on the wall leads into our bedroom. The other three bedrooms are all upstairs, which is one of the best layouts we've ever seen. The only time it's a problem is when one of the kids is sick and we have to go up and down the stairs all night long taking care of them. That's why we put the day bed upstairs, then one of us (usually Amy) can sleep on it when that happens.

This is othe entry way into the house. The cut out section up near the ceiling leads to the upstairs toy room. The kids like the idea of being able to climb up on something and look out on to the first floor. They can just hide up there and see who's at the front door. At first we were worried that toys or sisters would "try to fly". But so far nothing like that has happened.

Another view of the entry way. This is under the toy room and right by the stairs. The tiles are great fun when the kids come home and their shoes are wet.

This our formal dining room. We put the table that Randy and Mitzi made for us (Amy) in this room. Everyone who sees it is really impressed, and a few have asked if Mitzi still does the stone work and how much it would cost...

This is our breakfast area. The table here is an IKEA special. It's solid pine and weighs about 5 lbs. The hamsters are in the back corner hidden by the table. We usually forget about them, until someone notices that their water bottles are empty. But so far they they've survived the kids "love" and they've survived the parents "neglect", so they're pretty tough creatures.

Here's our kitchen. It's smaller than what we had in OKC, but we really like it. We also have gas appliances for the first time in our lives, but we like them so far.

Eventually we'll post more pictures of the house, maybe after the "kids" clean up...

Amy's new haircut

2009-09-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

This week Amy decided to get her hair cut. She's been tired of it being so long and hot, and she wanted to donate it to Locks of Love. Here's her hair before and after

Picnic

2009-09-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, we went to a local park for a picnic and to play on the playground. There was a large "spiderweb" in the park, which the kids loved playing on.

Molly needed a lot of help to get up to the seat. But she sure loved the view. Abby climbed like a monkey, and her and Thomas raced each other to the top. After they played on the "spiderweb", they went over to the slides. Thomas and Abby chased each other up and down the slides. They slid down sitting, backward, sprawled out and on their stomachs. As you can see, the slide is made up of about a hundred little rollers, so they didn't like it so much on their stomachs. After they played for a while, we got ready to eat our picnic. But then the Texas weather got us. The clouds opened up and started pouring. We raced back to the van, and started driving east toward home. About 1/2 mile from the park, we out raced the storm and broke out into clear weather. We hurried home (about 3 miles east) and set up our picnic on the trampoline. We ate and hoped that we'd outrun the storm. We were nearly right...but the storm moved a bit faster than we'd thought.

Abby's new glasses

2009-09-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

After Thomas had to get glasses, we noticed that Abby seemed to have trouble reading things far away. At first it was hard to tell, since we couldn't tell if she just couldn't see it or if she was just being silly Abby. But we finally figured out that she couldn't see. So we took her to the eye doctor and her vision was about as bad as Thomas' vision.

She picked out the pinkest glasses at the store... Next time we'll go to a place with a better selection of kid's glasses.

Molly's Birthday

2009-08-30T16:11:00.000-07:00

Today (Aug 30) we celebrated Molly's birthday, one day early. She's only had one birthday before, but was really into the concept. She's been hugging her presents for the last week and just couldn't wait to open them. She's learned how to tear the wrapping paper off her packages ... on second thought, maybe that wasn't such a good thing to teach her...

She got a puppy from her Grandparents Hahn and the big BRIGHT pink ball from Great-Grandma (actually in the form of cash) so Great Grandma doesn't know what she bought for Molly yet. She got this outfit from the Grandparents Christensen. This will work out great for living in Houston.

Back to school 2009

2009-08-27T14:50:00.001-07:00

Well another year, another school! Oh, I guess that's not normal unless you are in our family!! Anyway, Thomas is in third grade this year and Abby is in Kindergarten. They were very excited on the first day. And especially so because they get to ride the bus this year!!Here they are waiting for the bus, they got kinda bored because the bus was late. They started watching the bugs nearby. But the bus finally made it and they were off to school!After school Molly and I walked to the bus stop to meet Thomas and Abby. Once again the bus was late and we got tired of waiting... ( first day, I guess the driver needs to get used to his route!)
But again, the bus finally made it and the kids were home safe to tell tales of the first day!!

I made these cupcakes for the first After School Snack, they are supposed to be Ming-Ming from the show Wonder Pets!

Abby quote of the day, or week, or year!

2009-08-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

We all went down to the school yesterday to register Thomas and Abby for the year at a new school! While Toby and I waited in line after line, the kids had crayons and paper and were sitting at another table drawing pictures. Abby came over after a little while and said with a totally straight face "Daddy what is that thing on Uranus?". We just busted up laughing and couldn't stop! Apparently she was drawing a picture of the solar system and wanted to know if Uranus had rings or moons or any "extras". That is our Abby always making us laugh!!