Wahoo!!!

Erica was able to pull herself up into her chair at the table yesterday. This was a skill she mastered earlier this year, but she has been unable to do it since all of her surgeries this summer. Hooray for progress!

'Tis the season for birthday cakes!

For birthday cakes?

Well, I suppose that's what you get for having a Christmas baby, eh? Our little baby is one and not so little now. He walks and gets into everything his grubby little hands can reach. True -- I just got him out of splashing in the toilet. He can open the doors about half the time. He's everywhere at once and is fun to watch. Zachary has the cutest dimples in the world and is cheerful and happy.

Here's the video of him digging into his birthday cake. (For those who get this by email, you'll have to go to my blog for the video to work.) His cake was a bugger to make -- I made an apple cake, which is very bumpy and difficult to make look nice. So I didn't try real hard. After all, he's 1, right?

Christmas was fun around the house. I first heard stirrings at 4:39am(ish), but Eldon said he was up at 3:27am. The kids went to bed really well, but about 9:30pm, as we were getting things ready, Jessica woke up and came out. I think she was a little too disoriented to figure everything out, but luckily we were quick on the draw and shuffled her back to her room. Eldon came out later to use the bathroom, but James stood guard and wouldn't let him peek. The kids loved what Santa brought them. And they were very excited about the Wii that we finally bought.

Zachary's favorite present was the apple in his stocking. He walked around all day with it, nibbling on it until it was almost gone. Any time he got fussy, we gave him the apple and he was content. It really kept him out of a lot of trouble!

These are a few of my favorite things....

The kids had half days this week, so on Wednesday, to beat the boredom, I decided to get a head start on the Christmas cookies by making a different kind of cookie every day. So we made:

• Cookie dough truffle balls
• Peanut butter cookies, which we haven't had in FOREVER because of Jessie's peanut allergy
• Sugar cookies (although I'm thinking the kids might have gotten more icing on them)
• Magic cookie bars (ok, I don't like them, but James LOVES them)
• Homemade Oreo cookies

Notice the cool tins I got from JoAnn's for 60% off! These containers are FULL of cookies and treats!

And I bought these stackable cooling racks. So very cool. James even thought they were cool.

Snow day!

Jess and Erica built a little snowman they named Zachary Ned Frosty. I think the sticks we found for his arms were awesome.

To be a superhero

Step 1: Find really shiny material on clearance right before Halloween.

Step 2: Find good superhero images online.

Step 3: Buy a cool new sewing machine.

Step 4: Follow these instructions.

Step 5: Become the coolest mom and aunt on the planet!

And we're off....

Videos

I have some videos that I've been meaning to post. If you get the blog via email, you probably have to go to the blog to view them. It may take a while to load, too.

This one is Erica singing "How Firm A Foundation". The primary kids learned it for the primary program, and Mom wanted a video of it. When it was sung during General Conference, I grabbed the camera.

Erica loves trying to get Zach to dance. Here's a video of the kids dancing.

This is Jessica's 4th birthday.

Jess loves to read books. James always said he wondered how well she could read if she read a book she'd never seen before. Well, here it is. She was reading Bedtime for Frances. I started actually listening to her and realized she wasn't making up words, she was actually reading it.

Washington D.C.

We went to my sister's house near Washington D.C. for Thanksgiving this year. We left on Monday and hit D.C. about 5:00. Nope, not good timing, but luckily we were able to hit the HOV lane after a bit and get there faster. While there we went to the temple, which is beautiful. Karen and I went to Occoquan, which has a historic district with quaint little shops. We toured a model townhouse, only $850,000 to any interested.

We had a great Thanksgiving dinner with everything you could want, including 6 pies. Yum! Friday we went into D.C. Note: Don't go to the National Mall on a holiday weekend. Parking was near impossible. We limited our trip to the Smithsonian museums, but we drove by some sites and took pictures. It was raining when we passed by the Capitol Building, so it's a bit blurry through the window.

The making of a 4-year old princess

We celebrated Jessica's birthday on Sunday. I decided Sunday is a great day for a birthday, because you can open presents in the afternoon and have time to play with them.

Jessica had a great time, but her favorite present was a box of dress-up clothes. James spotted them at Toys-R-Us in the pink aisle, and we knew they'd be perfect for her. Let the fashion show begin:

And of course, playing with the best present: the bubble wrap.

Jess wanted a rainbow cake for her birthday, with rainbow sprinkles and rainbow sprinkles on the inside. Sounds easy enough, eh?

Well, when I baked the cake, tested it with a toothpick, took it out of the oven. While it rested, the middle sank. I took it out of the pan and could tell it wasn't cooked in the middle. I had to leave right then to pick up the kids from a Primary activity, so I quickly cut it in half, put it into two pans, and stuck it the warm oven. What else could I do? Well, that did nothing for the cake, so I took my 4 children to the grocery store on a Saturday in the rain to pick up another rainbow sprinkle cake.

I threw out the first one , and baked the second one. I still sank a bit in the middle because I tested it to early, but not too bad. When I took it out of the pan, however, it stuck horribly. I had put wax paper on the bottom, but the bottom corners still stuck. James suggested that I put the sunken middle and the torn edges together in the middle so the top would be flat. I did so, but got a somewhat lop-sided cake.

I made the icing and dyed all the colors. I learned that dark blue + dark red does not equal dark purple. It makes purply-gray. So I threw out that icing and used light blue and light red to get a light purple. I covered the cake, with barely enough icing to cover. There were some bare spots on the top, but no biggie -- just cover those parts with the rainbow!

I started making the rainbow, then remembered it was supposed to have sprinkles on it. The icing was dry and crusty, so I knew the sprinkles wouldn't fit. So I sprayed it with a bit of water, then shook the sprinkles on it. The colors from the sprinkles then ran in the wet icing. I finally finished up, put it on the cake platter, put the cover on -- oh wait, the clouds are just tall enough that they were going to get smooshed by the cover. My resourceful husband suggested that I put something around the cake platter (like crushed up aluminum foil) for the lid to sit on. It worked perfectly. And no one touched the cake and it didn't get dropped and she loved it! The end.

How to make a Han Solo Costume

Eldon wanted to be Han Solo for Halloween this year. Great! Easy costume. A few searches on Google, and away we go. First cut out a vest-like pattern out of newspaper. We went through several renditions of this before we got a good fit.

Second, find some black fabric in the remnant pile at JoAnn's. Like $2. Sweet. Cut out the pattern. Sew together.

Buy turtleneck at a consignment store. $2. Sweet.

Cut open the neck to give it a fly 70's collar. Sweet. Although -- funny story here. Eldon put it on, and I laughed for joy and how cool it looked because of the butterfly collar. Eldon through a tantrum and threatened to tear up the costume if I didn't cut off the collar. I found out later that he thought I was laughing at him because he looked goofy. I did end up sewing up the sides so it wasn't quite so fly.

Dye the shirt a dirty brown using tea (thanks, Tracy!). This picture so looks like marinating chicken breasts.

Take fuzzy picture of kid wearing awesome costume. We even parted his hair in the middle and feathered it back. Sweet!

Columbus Day Weekend

We had an interesting and fun weekend. We bottled 25 jars of applesauce on Saturday. I meant to take a picture of it, but I forgot. Oh well. I'm sure you know what applesauce looks like!

On Monday, we went to Kidcity. The kids had a lot of fun there. We went out to eat afterwards, then I went home with Zach and Jess for a much needed nap, and James took Eldon and Erica to Toys R Us to get something with the allowance I finally gave them. (I hadn't given them any since April. It's been a long summer...)

Anyway, some highlights (taken with our cruddy camera - sorry!):

Eldon and Jessica played in a pink UFO. When you talked into the microphone, the monitor lit up like lightning.

Zach enjoyed playing with some wooden apples. They were set at just the right height for him.

All the kids enjoyed the slide. It was steep, so they went down fast. There were two ladies sitting at the bottom taking pictures of their family, and my kids started posing and doing silly things on the way down to make them laugh. Zachary, however, was not fond of the slide, so he only went down once with Eldon.

James had a birthday, shout "Hooray!"

Monday was James birthday. He is now 35. Unfortunately, that means the crashing down of a life-long dream to retire by age 35. But we love him all the same. :) We had a great dinner of his world-famous ribs and lots of good presents. He couldn't decide on a birthday cake, so I made him one that he wanted to try - a hummingbird cake. But it calls for nuts. And the rest of us hate nuts. So I divided the recipe into 2 and made 2 cakes -- one with nuts and one without. It's a pretty good cake -- tastes kinda like banana bread, but more cake-y.

And this is what a handsome 35-yr old looks like. In bad lighting. With a bad camera. But handsome, nevertheless.

And this is what the world's cutest baby looks like on his dad's 35th birthday. With bad lighting. And a bad camera. But still the cutest, nevertheless.

Other happenings: We bottled pears finally. We got them for $.29/lb at Belltown Hill Orchards. Great deal! We bottled 35 jars with plenty of pears leftover for eating. Unfortunately, the froze in our refrigerator. But they still made a pretty good pie!

And here's my last picture: Zachary enjoying some Rice Krispies treats. A bit sticky, maybe?

Zachary's growing

Mr. Zachary is growing by leaps and bounds. Or rather, his teeth are growing by leaps and bounds. 4 of his top teeth came in within the past two weeks. I tried to get a picture of them, but it's hard to get picture of the top teeth. But doesn't he look so handsome in his new Sunday suit? I just pulled out all the 12 month clothes for him and found it. I love finding old clothes my kids have worn and remembering when they were little.

He's crawling like crazy now, too. At Karen's house last week, he figured out how to crawl up one step from the living room to dining room. He'll crawl over pillows and over my legs.

We've been having some electrical problems at our house. First, it started with the kitchen light switch. Our kitchen light has two switches, and one of the switches, (which I'm sure is 60 years old, just like the house), broke. So we got a new switch. But it didn't quite work right. Only if one switch was in one position, would the new switch work. And you had to click it down for on and up for off. Whatever.

Then a few days ago, I was working on the computer and I heard a buzzing noise, and then my computer switched off. Power failure. But then I noticed some lights in our house were still on. So I went downstairs to check the circuit breaker. But the circuit wasn't broken. When I came upstairs, I noticed that some of the lights on that circuit were working, just not the plugs on one wall, our kitchen light, and the dining room light. After a few days of investigating the wiring, James brought down some insulation in the attic. It was slightly charred. Apparently, this is why you should obey the light fixture when it says to only use 60 watt bulbs. The insulation had been going through a slow burn. We're feel very lucky that this was the worst that had happened. James took down the light fixture, and the insulation around the wires was charred. It rained ashes on our floor as James took out the old wires.

Well, the reason we had 100-watt bulbs instead of 60-watt bulbs is because the lighting in our kitchen is so horribly dim. So, since we had to replace the light, we got a new, large, bright, florescent light fixture. Ta da!

Did you know it's hard to take a decent picture of a light fixture? But it's so bright and cheerful in my kitchen now! And that's saying a lot. There were more burnt spots over Erica's light fixture, and James guesses there is also one over Eldon's light fixture and another light in our kitchen. So they'll be getting new lights too. Right now they have florescent bulbs, so we're not too worried about it. But Eldon broke his light a few years ago, so he's needed a new one for a while. We got him a ceiling fan for his room since he doesn't have a window A/C. And, so conveniently, his room fan broke that day.

Oh, and by the way, the kitchen light switch still doesn't work properly. But that's another problem for another day.

Labor Day Weekend

We went to Virginia for Labor Day weekend to visit with my sister Karen and her family and to see my niece, Kimi, get baptized. The drive is about 8 hours from here, and the kids were *wonderful*. Even Zachary only fussed a little bit, and that was mostly when he was tired, and then he went to sleep. What a good baby I have!

While we were there, Karen made me an awesome ice cream cake. Unfortunately, my camera's battery died, so I didn't get a picture of it. Joe took one on his cell phone, but can't figure out how to get it to me. But we got a picture of Zachary eating it.

We also were able to go to the Washington D.C. temple and perform some sealings for our family and the Yarrington family.

On Sunday, Kimi was baptized. It was a wonderful experience.

Since it was fast Sunday that day, Kimi chose "Fast Sunday Pancakes" for her dinner. They're huge pancakes -- only two fit on the griddle. The one in the picture here is an extra-large one that Joe asked for.

Eldon spent the days following Joshua around and using his bow and arrows. He *loved* it! He had the greatest time shooting the arrows off the deck into the backyard. We had so much fun on our trip. I'm so glad that my sister lives closer!

And he's off!

Zachary started crawling this week. We had a feeling he'd be crawling before the month was over, and we were right. He's so curious about everything. This is one of his first attempts. He will crawl farther now, always for the littlest speck of something. But he won't really crawl to anyone. If he has your attention, he'll just fuss until you come get him.

Growing Up

The kids are growing up (well, duh). This week Zachary has learned to sit up from laying down and is right on the verge of crawling. He'll get on all fours and rock back and forth. He has this look in his eyes of getting ready to set out on an adventure. But his body won't quite cooperate yet. And the other day Eldon said that he stood up in his crib. But right as I walked in the room, he fell down. Hard. With many wails and tears. I haven't seen him try it since, but I'm sure he will soon. Zach's third tooth just came in, too, first one on the top. He's so adorable; he has the cutest smile I've ever seen, complete with cute dimples. His hair is coming in blond, and I just love him to death!

Erica lost her 5th tooth this week. And 3 are wiggly. Poor girl's going to need dentures soon. Out of all 5 that she's lost, we've only found 2 of them (and one of those I pulled because I was afraid of her swallowing it, it was so loose.) She's written a lot of letters to the tooth fairy. She has one tooth coming in the bottom, which is about as big as the three she lost down there. I'm interested to see what the dentist has to say on Friday about all these lost teeth!