You can bank on it!

The comic relief that my kids provide! Today I was driving my son to his school when we stopped at a red light. Out Natalie's window there was a crew busy working on constructing a bank. This is how the conversation went:

Natalie: "What's that?"

Mommy: "They're building a new bank."

William: "Is that a bank we can go to?"

Mommy: "No. We go to a different bank."

Natalie: "Different bank?"

William: "Yes, Natalie. We go to a Mormon Bank. That is a Catholic Bank."

National Champions!!!...of Choking!!!

Ugh!!! Two years in a row now I've watched the beginning of the National Championship Football Game and really felt Ohio State would run away with it. And two years in a row now I've been horribly dissappointed!

However, last year when they choked for the first time, I wasn't a resident of Florida, so the ribbing wasn't that bad. Of course there were the comments about how dominant the SEC is, blah, blah, blah...but no Louisiana resident really had much to say...

This year is completely different! We live in Louisiana, so there was alot riding on this game: our Ohio Pride! The kids at William's school were aloud to wear LSU stuff instead of their uniform tops, and William proudly wore his OSU football jersey. (This did result in some confusion...he couldn't understand why all his friends didn't want Ohio to win!)

Alas, we lost. The result: alot of harrassment! We woke up to LSU signs all over our front yard and a life-size Santa Clause dressed all in LSU gear. The text messages, emails, and phone calls won't stop. I think I will crawl into a cave today and wait till their drunken buzzes have worn off! But, wait till next year! Third time's a charm...am I right!?! GO BUCKEYES!!!

Christmas 2007

I have finally found some time to sit down and blog again! We have been so busy with Christmas, and then my family came down for a few days after Christmas...we have been swamped! But, we did have a great Christmas! It all started with William's Christmas Program for his school. Since it is a private school (meaning we pay his tuition) they are allowed to sing songs about Jesus. I heard some of the more interesting songs I've ever heard leading up to his program! My favorite was when they sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus in not only English, but also in French! I don't suppose I ever thought to sing "Happy birthday" on Christmas. How rude of me! (That's William, top row third from left)

This is William and his friend Izabella. Don't let the camera tricks fool you...William really is like a foot taller than her!

(**As I'm typing this, the kids are playing nicely in Natalie's room...or, of course, so I thought...until I just heard a giant crash. It seems William decided he wanted something from the top of Natalie's closet, and rather than asking me, he thought he could just pull himself up on the rod that holds all her clothes on their hangers. Well, that obviously wasn't meant to hold his weight and he just ripped the whole thing out of the wall. Just add that as one more thing for me to do today! But, on with the blog! If I don't do it now, it will never get done.**)

Moving on then! Ok, Christmas Eve we have the tradition that the kids are allowed to open one present. That present is the Christmas pajamas that Nonna and Papa get for them every year. However, when I saw the matching bathrobes that came with the jammies this year, I had to get them! So, this is the kids on Christmas Eve in their new jammies and bathrobes.

Christmas Morning! William did an awesome job of not waking up his parents! We told him could open his stocking, and he did just that...getting into the candy too, of course! When Natalie finally woke up, it was present time! The highlight of Natalie's morning was her new Princess Castle with "glittery walls that shimmer and sparkle." It came with all the princess, too. Her favorites are Ariel and Cinderella. As I sit and watch her play with her princesses, I am blown away that any daughter of mine would ever prefer princesses to, say, basketball or a new baseball mitt. Oh, well.

Ah, yes...the Buzz Lightyear costume! My son just loves to dress up, even if Halloween is months away. Santa found this in his size at the after-Halloween sale at the Disney store, paying about $7.99. Santa is such a bargain shopper! Anyway, he loves his new costume, and this was the first present he pulled out of the package to take a closer look.

So, we had a good Christmas. We tried to help the kids remember the true meaning of Christmas by giving to our friends and others as well as helping those less fortunate. It's been an interesting year and a half for us here in Louisiana and we hope to simply be able to teach our kids what is right. (And here's hoping we'll be writing a Christmas blog from a new city next year :). Merry Christmas!!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

There are several reasons why I love the Christmas Holiday season. I love the fact that it starts to get cold, and for some there's snow. I love decorating the Christmas Tree and putting up lights on the house. I love shopping for presents, and then I love to wrap them. Oh, and the number one reason why I love this time of year? I can use the phrase, "Remember: Santa is watching!"

Just yesterday I was being hasseled by William because he didn't want to put his dirty clothes in the dirty clothes bin. Instead of making him do it, I simply said, "That's fine if you don't want to, but remember: Santa is watching," and then went back to what I was doing. It's glorious how well this works! With a second to contemplate what that meant, William rushed to put his dirty clothes where they belonged. He just wasn't willing to risk Santa seeing him be disobedient.

If only this worked year-round...but it doesn't. You just can't pull this in May! "Do your chores or in seven months you might not get all the presents you want!" Nope-it's really only good for that time between Thanksgiving all the way up to Christmas Eve. The rest of the year, I actually have to use real parenting skills. So, for that month, it's the greatest "threat" there is!

So remember: Do your chores, clean your room, eat your vegetables...cause Santa's watching!

Photo Shoot!

The Children's Place (My favorite store in the whole wide world!!) starts their Thanksgiving sale early on Wednesday, so I took the kids in to pick out rugby sweaters for the cousins for Christmas. Well, we walked out with a lot more sweaters than we planned on! Ok, so it was 80 degrees outside today, not exactly sweater weather, but we just couldn't pass these up with the matching accessories! We decided it was time for a PHOTO SHOOT!!

This is obviously William doing his best impression of Derek Zoolander's "blue steel" move.

Natalie is such a ham! I have no idea where she gets that from...

Oh, yeah...did I mention that the hats in the older girl section fit my head? Well, they do. So, I got in on the rugby action. Natalie was all over that!

A Fall Blog...

As we were outside tonight taking down the Halloween decorations, Tom commented to me that it was actually starting to feel like fall here in Houma, so I decided it was finally time to sit down and create my fall blog. Fall is my favorite season, or at least it was when I lived in a state that actually had the four seasons! Here in Houma we don't get a real fall. Sure, the leaves fall off some of the trees, but you don't get that glorious burst of color that you do up north. And there just isn't that crispness in the evenings that I love. I also find it rather strange to be raking leaves when it is in the mid nineties...oh, well! This picture of Binkey (Natalie) was taken on one of the first nights that we raked leaves back in mid-September. She really liked the idea behind leaf jumping, especially being buried in them!

I had to include this picture of William because I was blown away by how high he could actually jump! Knowing that Tom can't get too high off the ground, I think I finally get to claim these genes as mine. He is my son!

There are about 20 more pictures just like this on my camera, but I'll just include this last one. He just loved jumping in the leaves and posing for the camera!

Mid-October we went to the local pumpkin patch for our Family Home Evening activity. The kids loved walking through all the pumpkin clusters until they found the perfect pumpkin. Of course they wanted to rush home and start carving the pumpkins, but we just can't do that here! I swear when we lived in Ohio we could have carved pumpkins in September and they would have lasted till Halloween because of the cool weather. Can't do that here! We ended up carving them on the Sunday night before Halloween. They barely made it...

Here are the four jack-o-lanterns in all their glowing splendor! From left to right: Christa's, Natalie's, William's, and Tom's.

The Saturday before Halloween we attended a charity event held at the New Orleans Zoo called "Boo at the Zoo." It benefits the local children's hospital. We had to buy our tickets back in August because this is such a popular event here. They open the zoo in the evening with all sorts of Halloween activities. There was a non-scary haunted house, all sorts of little activity booths, big bounce houses, a trick-or-treating alley, and a haunted train ride. The kids (and adults) had such a blast! William and Natalie have completely fallen in love with Peter Pan, so naturally our costumes reflected that. William was, of course, Peter Pan. Tom was his Captain Hook. Natalie was Tinkerbell, and I was Wendy. It was the first time in the history of our marriage that Tom didn't dress as a World War II soldier. I was very excited! It was fun for all of us to be in costume together!

Just another of us all in costume together!

On Halloween night, I stayed home and handed out candy to all the local trick-or-treaters and Tom took the kids around a few blocks. He was such a good sport, he even dressed up again! One interesting thing here in Houma; on Halloween, kids only go to houses where people sit outside in their driveways. Last year, I didn't know this. I had purchased all this candy and the kids and I waited to hand it all out in our living room. No one rang our doorbell, even though all the outside lights were on. I just couldn't figure it out! The next day, stuck with loads of candy, I asked my neighbor what I did wrong. She pointed out that I needed to be outside. Lesson learned!

Such a beautiful little fairy! What a fun "Fall!"

I've Been Tagged by Mel!!!

This is one of those silly "fill in all these random question" thingys that my friend Melanie tagged me to do...begrudgingly I'm doing it! And since I've just not had the time to do a good blog in a while, I thought I'd fill in some space with this. Most people who read this don't have a blog, so they can't be tagged. So, I guess the only ones to be "tagged" is you, Sarah Davies and you, Anna O'Brien! Good night, and good luck!

1. Best thing you cooked last week:

Well, maybe not the "best" thing, really, but the coolest thing I cooked last week was something called "mummy dogs." It's very Halloweenie. You take a Rhodes bread roll and thaw it out. Then you roll it till it's really long and stretched out, like two feet or so. Then you wrap it around a hot dog so it looks like a mummy, saving a small piece to put on his head as a cap. Cook in the oven and then add mustard dots for eyes. I pretty much became the coolest mom ever when I put those on the table for dinner!

2. If money and time were no object, where would you go and with whom?

I think this is such a weird question because it's so unrealistic so I've never given it much thought, really. Right now in my life, it would be a really long, drawn out Disney World Vacation where we could come and go as we please. This is just such an ideal thing with kids and it really is a fun place. So, I guess that's my answer for now. Ask again in 30 years!

3. When was the last time you cried?

(Really Kristin? "High School Musical 2?")

I haven't really laughed till I cried in a long time, so I guess that option is out. Oh, who knows? I should really keep better records of these things.

4. 5 things you were doing this month 10 years ago:

Like I really remember that well, but if I were a Junior in High School, that would put me...

1.) Playing in a fall basketball league in Valley View.
2.) Junior Homecoming attendant (woot woot!)
3.) Going to Berkshire's Homecoming dance with Adam Gonczy, and loving every minute of it :(.
4.) Going to West Geauga's Homecoming dance with Sam McClellan... (no comment)
5.) Writing the world's greatest paper on a book I had never read for Honor's English, and getting an "A+, great insight!"

5. 5 things on your to do list today:

We'll make this Monday's to-do list...

1.) Remember to take Michael to school in the morning with William!
2.) Grocery shopping with Binks.
3.) Laundry, laundry, laundry
4.) Pay bills
5.) Carve pumpkins for FHE

(Yep...pretty much your average, ordinary to-do list!)


6. 6 favorite snacks:

1.) Edamame
2.) Cereal, any kind.
3.) Pretzals
4.) Caramel Italian Cream Soda
5.) Anything chocolate...and I do mean anything....

7. 5 bad habits:

1.) This is definitely my worst...I can never seem to put cd's back in their right cases after I use them, so I can never find them when I want to listen to them again!
2.) (Number one should count as two since I seem to do that with dvds, too...)
3.) Sometimes I'm really bad at returning phone calls...
4.) I let Natalie color on the tile floor, even though I know she shouldn't, because I know Mr. Clean Magic eraser will get it out.
5.) I need to put so many pictures into photo albums!

8. 5 favorite foods:

1.) Lasagna, just the way I make it.
2.) Pizza!!
3.) Chicken Parmesan at Olive Garden
4.) Minestrone Soup
5.) Anything my mom makes, cause it always just tastes so good!

9. 5 places I've been:

1.) New York City
2.) Disney World
3.) Niagra Falls
4.) All over Germany
5.) Provo, Utah :) (there were other cool places, but Provo is the coolest ever.)

10. 6 favorite memories:

1.) Traveling across the country with Kirk on our way to BYU for my Freshman Year.
2.) Going to Germany and really being on my own for the first time.
3.) Tom proposing at the top of the mountain at sunset.
4.) When I found out I was pregnant for the first time.
5.) Freshman year road trip to California...
6.) Anything from Ohio.

Ok...there's all the answers to the greatest questions ever asked for your reading pleasure!