Christmas in California

As some of you know, we spent Christmas with David's family in California this year. We flew out Christmas Day, and got back on Monday. We were able to spend about 4 total day with David's entire family--all of his siblings and their families. All total, it was 9 adults and 4 kids, and it made for a few zany days! Our kids got to meet their cousin Davy for the first time, and they loved it. He's only 9 months, and I think they were expecting him to be able to run around with them, so they'll have to wait until next time for that.


Here's the entire crew, including Grandma Talcott:


Here are the cousins!




Here's Joy with the two big kids, taking a break after running on the San Clemente Beach Trail for a while:

And, our last night there, Joy taught little Laura how to play Nintendo! (Actually, you'll notice her controller is different from Joy's--her's isn't plugged in, but don't tell :)

We had a wonderful week and a great Christmas, and we're looking forward to the next visit!

"Occifer Philosophy"

Today we got out "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," which we have not read in a long time. Carver and Ellie loved looking for Goldbug, but Carver especially loved watching out for Dingo Dog. Dingo is a bad driver who is speeding through the pages and knocking over innocent parking meters. Officer Flossy is dutifully following after him (on a bicycle, no less), yelling "Stop!" and trying to write him a speeding ticket. For some reason Carver, who really doesn't have trouble pronouncing words if you say them slowly to him once or twice, was really struggling with Officer Flossy. No matter now many times I repeated it for him, it always came out "Occifer Philosophy." I can't help laughing every time I hear it! Only a philosopher's kid would think "philosophy" an easier word to say than "Flossy!"

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I love Christmastime! Not only do I get to decorate, bake, and enjoy the snow, but it's the season we celebrate the birth of the Savior! I love using Christmastime to remember the blessings that God has showered on us! Of course, this year we have the additional celebration of expecting a little one in the summer. And, today in particular, I can celebrate that God gave me a reprieve from the morning sickness I've been fighting!

Today we spent the day doing Christmas decorating and enjoying the few inches of snow we got early in the morning. David treated me this morning and got up with the kids to get them breakfast, letting me catch an extra hour of sleep. After that, I attended a Christmas Tea that the church was hosting and David and the kids got going on setting up the tree. When I got back, after some serious adventure driving in the snow and ice (I thought I remembered how to do it!), David took Carver sledding. As you can see, the amount of snow is just barely enough to make it down the hill, but Carver loved it anyway :)


The girls and I watched from the upstairs window.

When the guys came in, we had hot chocolate and snacks, and then got started decorating the tree. Laura quickly broke an ornament (fortunately, not one of the special ones) and was put on ornament probation. Hence the headband you see her chewing on.

After decorating, we went and visited some friends who have just had a baby. The kids were happy to come home and see our tree, all lit up and shiny!

David made us nachos for dinner, and then tucked the kids into bed. I don't think I'm too far behing them...

To Our Leiden Correspondents...

...you know who you are!

We wanted to let you know that you have got some legwork to do to keep up with us in the kid department! You'd better start hoping for sets of twins...

That's right, come mid-July, baby #4 will be on his (his, because Carver is prettymuch totally convinced that it's a boy) way.

So, now that you know, I'm waiting on pins and needles for some of your wonderful name suggestions...nothing Dutch, thank you.

Carver's Writing for the Day

Can you decipher it? Hannibal
Murdock
BA
Face (spelled two different ways)

Hey, if the A-Team encourages writing practice, I'm all for that :)

Snug as a Bug...

They aren't really rolled up in the rug, though that has happened a time or two. They've taken all the cushions off the couch and are using them as blankets as they sing each other to sleep. Pretty funny.

Eating with a Spoon!

Laura usually eats cereal dry, so that I don't have to feed it to her. This morning, I put soymilk on it, gave her a spoon, and let her go for it! She was pretty sticky by the end of breakfast, but she loved it.

Saturday Afternoon Hike

As you may have noticed, I have forgotten to blog this week. I've been working on a new project, which consumes all of my energy for the first week or so until I get tired of it. When it's finished, I'll show you, but not until then...

We went for a family hike this Saturday. It was great to be outside with the kids, and I love it when the weather turns cool. It was cold enough to warrant hats and gloves, but not so freezing that you couldn't enjoy the fall air. Perfect!

The hike was 1 1/2 miles, so David and I strapped two girls into backpacks (extra calorie burn!), but made Carver hoof it. He did great. He was tired at the end, but I think he was proud of the fact that he was able to make it the whole way.

Here we are, starting out. The long stairway goes down the hill, past a cave, and lets you out next to a small waterfall. Then the trail winds it way back up the hill.

Here's the semi-scary foot bridge across the stream. Don't worry, it's all screwed together, and then wrapped with wire mesh for good traction. I don't think it's going anywhere.

I have no idea what kind of a bush this is, but the bright green foliage was beautiful.


I love hiking, so I'm trying to get the kids as excited about it as possible. We'll have to see if it's warm enough this year to do our traditional Thanksgiving week hike at McCormick's Creek State Park.

All that hiking wore sweet little Laura out!

A Sweet E-mail

Check out this e-mail Carver got this morning from his friend, Samuel:

Hi Carver I am happy that you are my best friend. And I don't want too be mean and want too be nice. I am happy that you came to my house.
And I wish that I could come to your house every day.
Love you
Samuel

I was cracking up and going "Oh, how sweet!" all at the same time. Here's Carver response this afternoon:

Hi Samuel, I'll be more nicer to you. I hope I can see you everyday. Thank you for letting me come over for a long time. I would like to play with you everyday. Have fun with Cynthia and Mary Ella. I love you, too. carver

Kids crack me up.

Halloween, For Real!

We don't do Halloween every year. It's not out of any particular religious conviction (sorry, Mom!), but more out of annoyance at the rudeness of the trick-or-treaters that we have skipped it in the past. This year, David decided that he wanted to give Carver the fun of picking a costume and going around the neighborhood. I'm so glad he did--we ended up having a blast! We were planning to go with just our family, but two friends called that afternoon and asked if they could join us, since they both live a little too far out in the country to have a good neighborhood for it. Since our neighborhood is such a typical subdivision, it was perfect!

Here are Ellie and Josiah (c'mon--how cute is that?? a lion and a tiger?--I don't think we could've planned it better!), checking out Laura's antenna on her ladybug costume.


Here's everybody! L to R: Carver (Batman), Ellie, Jonathan, Nathan (Goliath--what a great idea!), Josiah, Samuel (the Hulk), and Mary Ella. In front: Bayly, Laura.


The 3 ladybugs (also unplanned):

Dad, trying to pose our kids for a picture (no, the actual picture didn't turn out):

Ellie and Mary Ella eating some of the spoils while the big boys finish trick-or-treating:

It was so fun! I'm really glad that friends came over--next year I'm going to plan it that way.

Halloween Practice

Today we got out the costumes to make sure they fit:)

Reading

Making Grandma Earn Her Keep...

Grandma Talcott came to visit us this week. She somehow knew to come right when we would need her the most. All 3 of the kids have been sick this week, and she has been helping wipe noses, comfort kids, and even stay home from church and Bible study when they were too sick to go. It has been a huge help! She leaves tomorrow, so I decided to send her home nice and exhausted, ready for a vacation from vacation: today we made and canned 34 quarts of applesauce. Here are the very first fruits of our labor:

Here's Carver, turning the crank (look familiar? Thanks for the loan, Heather!)

Here's Grandma, filling jars:

Oh, and we decided to throw a little pumpkin canning in at the end, just for fun! The pumpkin I had picked was so huge and unwieldy that I ended up cutting it with a saw from the garage. The kids helped scoop out the seeds:

And, just because there are no pictures of Laura yet, here she is!

An exhausting but successful day! We will be eating yummy homemade applesauce all winter!

Cinnamon Rolls

Last Tuesday was a drizzly, dreary fall day. I love those kinds of days. It means I can stay inside, read books to the kids, make cookies or treats, and wear cozy fall sweaters. So our treat this dreary day was cinnamon rolls. Carver and Ellie did a great job helping, and an even better job eating!

Applesauce!

With all the apples from out apple-picking trip, we made applesauce. I went over to a friend's house for the day, and we made about 45 quarts of applesauce. Heather had a hand-strainer that we used to make the applesauce. It would've been much more work, but between our 3 older boys, we very rarely had to turn the crank! Here is Carver, taking his turn, while his friend Nathan helps (in all fairness, Heather's two boys did the majority of the hard work!):



While we had two bushels from an orchard, we did have about 1 1/2 bushels that Heather had gotten from a friend's house, and they were organic to the core (ha ha...)! We cut out a ton of bad spots and worm holes, but they sure are interesting looking:


Here's Carver, stirring cinnamon into the big vat of applesauce (Heather's two oldest, Jonathan and Nathan, in the background):


And here are the kids, playing a game together. From left to right: Nathan (5), Josiah (3--adopted from Ethiopia), Ellie, Carver.


And little Laura found something to climb on!


You'll notice that often the girls don't have pants on. Wierd, I know. Usually, I just get to some point in the afternoon, and I'm tired of putting pants back on after diaper changes and potty trips, usually sometime around 3 PM. So that's one way of telling what time of day the pictures are taken :)

The applesauce stats:
2 orchard bushels--1 1/2 Jonathan, 1/2 bushel Cortland
1 1/2 home-grown bushels--random assortment of varieties

We bagged 47 quart-size Ziploc bags for freezing at the end of the day.
Time spent? Who knows, between cooking, cleaning, diaper changing, feeding kids, monitoring fights, and generally trying to keep 7 kids out of the kitchen...somewhere around all day.
Verdict: Totally worth it!