Lukia

People are always saying how much Julia favors Luke. Sure maybe when they were brandnew like in these two pictures taken on the same day four years apart. August 23! I'll let you guess who is who. Good Luck! (hint: we went to the botanical gardens this year)



"Are you crazy! I wish I had that much hair."



"Really, you know I'm a girl, right?"

picture of the week

Merry Christmas 2012




 
We had a sleep over on Christmas Eve Eve with the cousins. J.R. prepared a melty tenderloin. Julia received the new onesie pictured above- it's a Yoda thing, people like to give us StarWars stuff.  It snowed. Val came outside for our careless goodbyes. She cried like she was moving across the country and would never see us again. In the car Willy smiled ruefully, "She doesn't know we'll see her in few days." Poor Valerie-Surprise!


Lori came For Chirstmas Eve Dinner (a humble affair in honour of Christ :), and then she came back for Christmas breakfast (a tradition, and Willy Cooks too). The kids wore her gifts all night.

"Luke what was your favorite gift?" "Ummmm, I like the blue minja turtle." Willy and I were both expecting him to say the Hulk Lego. He's wanted in for soooo long AND he played with it all day (except for that half hour we made him peddle his bike).



 Thanks Jenny for the champaign flutes. I've decided that I will never go back to regular cups again.
And finally-we used all the candy in our house to decorate the gingerbread house.

Snow Angel vs Aliens

"Isabella, let's take a picture of you as a Snow Angel." And this is what she does. Angelic, Right.

Then she does this

Her elf costume was in the laundry -because she wore it for three days straight. This is what she put together for Church instead. I helped out with the bow.

"Where'd you get that ribbon mom?"
"I took it from the tree."
"What!" (she looked at me like I was The Supreme Rule Breaker)
"Yep, I cut a piece from the ribbon on our tree. It looks nice."
"You. Ruined. Our Tree."
"Well,  you put garbage in our tree. So there."

I Spy

I spy a favorite dog named Grace,

a candy cane with a reindeer face,

pipe cleaners blue, yellow, and red,

an angel hanging by a thread,
 three paper snowflakes,

and a piece of garbage for heavens sakes!

An Alternate title for this post is: My Daughter is a hoarder! or One Man's Trash

Here's the story:

Isabella and I are walking home from the bus. Isabella stops to pick something up off the ground. She stuffs it in her coat pocket.

I- Good news mom. I've got a new collection.

M- Oh? Ah, what are you collecting now?

I-Well (she drags the word out for a 20seconds, then says the following in one breath) Melina says it's trash. But it's not! It's not garbage. What I do is I find things on the ground and I put it in my collection. (She pauses then proclaims joyfully) It's a junk collection!

M- Things on the ground that should go in the garbage?

I- That's what Melina says. Don't tell dad.

M- Then you tell dad. What's in your pocket?

*The garbage on our christmas tree is actually a piece of recycle-able cardboard behind that button garland thing on the left

Luke didn't want me to take these pictures

but I did anyway.

Here's the story:

Last week I took Luke for a check up at the otolaryngologist (I love that word!). He hates doctors, btw. I had to reassure him at least a dozen times that no he wasn't going to get a needle. Anyhow, coming out of the doctors office we were messing around throwing fake punches (at least mine were fake) and giving fake kisses (mine were real) and just being altogether silly. It was fun. Then I grabbed him and tickled him. He laughed like a maniac, and between breaths he said "Hey, don't touch my boobs."

I stopped and looked at him, "Ah, Luke" I said, "you're a boy. You don't have boobs."

"Yes I do!", he insisted. "Boys do have boobs."

"I have action boobs" he said proudly. "Don't touch my action boobs."

And I nearly fell down laughing.

Isabella the Christmas Elf

Isabella went to a cowgirl birthday party on Saturday. She came home glowing.

"That was the best party ever!"
"Really? Even better than the KungFu party last weekend?"
"Yes, really. I loooooooove horses."
"Oh, because you said KungFu was the best party ever just a few days ago."
"Well I guess it's the second best... and, Mom,  it's TaiKwonDo not KungFu!"

She's been wearing her cowgirl bandana ever since. Here's a picture of the coordinating outfit she put together for church. I called her my Christmas elf, quietly so I wouldn't embarrass her.

Julia Dear

What do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do?

Let's go find the Einstein Monument

Snap Shot

I’m at the stove making enough muddy-buddies to fill one thousand treat bags for Christmas delivery this season. Julia is bouncing like a happy elf in her seat. Luke is shouting my name from the downstairs bathroom. He’s starting to sound mad. I’ve been ignoring him, because I know what he wants. Isabella has set the microwave timer for 60minutes. She’s counting by ones out-loud. She missed 145, I know because I’ve been counting silently with her. I missed 144 but she didn’t. When she reaches 500 she says, “Wow! Luke’s been going bathroom for 500 seconds!” That’s when I notice she’s pacing like a maniac. I look at the timer it reads 37:53. She’s been waiting to use the bathroom for over twenty minutes? That’s what this insanity is about? I imagined she was conducting a philosophical experiment, or making the best of her youth. When she gets to 607 I remind her there are two bathrooms in our home. Luke returns at 22:45. He assures me he’s washed his hands with soap.

What a Cute Baby!

That’s all anyone says to me when I’m toting Julia around. Not that I’m complaining. On the contrary I’m in complete agreement. “I know, right!” is my favorite way to responsd. Here’s the story:

Julia and I were late for Relief Society (a class for the sisterhood usually during the third hour of church). The only seats available were right in the center front. And that’s where we sat. Or I sat and Julia stood on my lap looking over my shoulder. The ladies behind and to my left went a little crazy cooing at her. They were making such a ruckus I had to turn Julia around. But that only made it worse. Now she was facing forward smiling her brightest smile at the teacher, who forgot her lesson to proclaim, “That is the cutest baby ever.” I could hear all the ladies to my right shift forward to get a look at my shining daughter. I could hear their assenting whispers for the few seconds everyone was watching Julia gurgle. We left soon afterwards to charm passersby in the hallway.

Willy chuckled when I told him on the drive home. He said, “That’s why Denise Lloyd came up to me and said…”

In case you were wondering where her good looks come from.

I know you're supposed to leave people wanting more but I've really got a lot of pictures to post.

Julia can roll. Just onto her belly, not back again yet. Everyone cheered except Willy and me. We have just entered that really long phase of childhood when you can't trust your child out of your sight and you have to keep the floors really really clean. Goan!

Jealousy thy name is pizza. Seriously have you ever seen a pizza so round? I decided to use my oven one last time before the power goes out. We had a bit of a party over here. A little Wizard of Oz, some pizza, and a hurricane. Marvellous!

And here are my kids oblivious to the raging storm outside. Right here Luke is asking when he can have chips. The rule is we can eat our 'hurricane' treats after the power goes out and when we've run out of our other food. But really I don't think it will come to that.

somewhere in this funky design is a hidden message.

Is Halloween Cancelled?

 Would it be rude to knock on doors asking for candy? I don't know, but I have huge bags of candy I'd like to unload on trick-or-treaters if they come. Please come.

Luckily we made it to the ward party.

Willy is an albino Fijian. Julia is a guppy.

Isabella is a vampire bat.

 You may have noticed Luke is not Spiderman. He's Ironman. Before that he was Superman. I think he'd really like to be everything-man.

OBX 2012

Willy took some wonderful pictures at the beach. That's why he isn't in any of them. It's a shame really since he's so fantastically handsome. Swoon.

 

The off season is really the time to be at the beach. We met up with old friends. The Andrews and The James families and I believe it was even more fun this time. Hopefully we've got the beginings of a tradition. Friends/Lighthouses/Bonfires/GlowSticks/MonsterTrucks



Just the Ladies!



What Willy Forgot Vol.1

Sometime last year Will & I had a staring contest of sorts. Whoever blinked first picked up the blog. I'm not sure if I won even though he blinked.

In April we went to California. Will mentioned the beach and Disney Land. Here's some fun stuff we also did:

San Francisco

I really enjoyed visiting Jon and Cami and their five children. They're not in this picture.

 The Fish Hatchery

You probably can't tell from this picture but the whole place was like a scene from Hitchcocks "The Birds". A little eerie, but still really thrilling to see such a variety of birds. Also not in this picture.

Muir Woods

I don't think Star Wars was filmed here, but we told the kids that anyway. It's all part of the Redwoods, right? I should include a picture of the trees. But you could probably google them for a better image.

Ubiquitous Colour on the Little Brother Post

This summer Isabella started saying stuff like "ah maaaan, why do I have to do everything around here." Patently untrue! But until this summer she never had to do anything.

 One of her new duties included playing with Luke. All the time. I don't imagine it was too onerous, since he's up for anything. Which reminds me Isabella also started saying stuff like, "There is no fighting in this Game" and "Girls don't like to fight all the time" and "I won't play with you if we have to fight again."

Luke, of course, agreed to all of Isabella's terms and still managed to introduce some conflict requiring him to beat up on her. He's a wily animal.

Here's a picture of them with their spy gear for some game where they could transmorph into animals to defeat the environmentally unfriendly badguy. I'll post a list of his dastardly deeds as soon as I fact check my journal.

Isabella suggested she draw a spy watch on my skin so I could have fun too. I declined the honour and made them some gear out of that sticky foam paper stuff. Which was more fun to make than to use- a polite way of saying of no use to them at all.

I wish I had taken a picture of the adult size dragon she drew for Luke- so they could go on a quest and rescue the princess. It was pretty cool. She did a wonderful job keeping him entertained for eight weeks. Totally worth listening to statements like, "This is the most boring summer ever." and "I thought you said we would start having fun by now, but it's still not fun and school's almost started."   Clearly her coolness in mitigated by her vitriol*.

*please note that I when I attempted to manage expectations for the summer I said things like, "It's going to be a boring summer" and "We're not going to do anything fun for at least six weeks."

Double Take

Two weeks ago we hiked the Stony Man trail in the Shenandoah with the Brodegard Family and my Parents. Very beautiful, Very thrilling, Very Cold. More about it later. What I'm interested in are these two pictures. One of them was taken six years ago somewhere along Skyline drive and the other was taken on our recent hike. One is of Isabella the other is of Julia. Can you guess which one? And what's more spooky is that blue sweater. It's the exact same! Now I need to hunt out (or stage) a twin picture of Luke.

Spider-man on the way to school

Can you guess who Luke wants to be for Halloween? No? Just take a guess, who knows you might be right.

Did you know that Spider-man is bigger than his mom and dad. And when Luke is in Grade One, he's going to be bigger than his mom AND his dad because he'll be older. Next year in fact. I don't have the heart to remind Luke that next year he'll be in Kindergarten not Grade One.