Offering a toast....

Cindy, domestic goddess that she is, prepared a tasty breakfast of french bread french toast this morning.

Reactions among the kids varied.

Cameron ate one bite and then ran into the bathroom. His face wan, he emerged a minute later, faintly asking, 'Does the toast have egg on it?' Receiving an answer in the affirmative, he then went on, 'I choked on the hard brown stuff [that would be the browned egg mixture] and threw up.'

Note: Cameron has a hair-trigger gag reflex--anything that he even thinks (and I stress thinks) will stick in his throat is rebuffed. As such, he hasn't eaten a nut since he choked and threw up at age 1.5. Nor will he deign to eat eggs--scrambled or fried--if there are any browned sections.

When Makenna came down, Cindy fixed her a plate with 2 big pieces of french toast, Makenna smiled, began walking to the microwave to warm it up, then stopped, turned around, smiled again, and announced to Cindy, 'I love this [french toast] even more than you!'

Allyson ate 2 bites and called it a day.

Erin and I showed our appreciation by eating it down with gusto. (Did we dare do anything else?!)

UPDATE: Later this morning as I was sitting in the frontroom Makenna came over to snuggle. As she settled into my lap, she said, 'I told Mommy that I love french toast more than her!.......And I love YOU more than I love french toast!'

Should I be flattered?!

Christmas day 2007

Lucky for us our kids don't wake up too early. Cameron and Erin were up first at 7:30. By the time we went downstairs it was 8:00 (they had to wake Makenna up---and I made them wait for me to take a shower!) This is the first year we have let them open a present on Christmas eve. Of course they all got new p.j.'s.


Allyson loved the entire day. She is a good gift opener. Probably because she has 3 older siblings to follow. Her favorite gift was this baby doll and stroller to push it in. She promptly found the little silky ribbon tied underneath its chin.

Cameron has become our little Buckeye. Since Christmas he has only taken these clothes off to sleep (that is 3 days worth of wearing.) I am washing them tonight while he sleeps. The football is from Aunt Kim and Uncle Ryan and tops his list of favorite Christmas gifts. Some other favorites of his are, MP3 player, eyeclops, Harry Potter scene it game, and rubiks cube.

One of the hightlights for Makenna was having "Cousin Josh" come. She loves him. He came home from his mission in October and she still says in her evening prayers, "We thank thee that Josh came home from his mission." She got several Polly Pocket toys, a Barbie head that has all kinds of hair clips and even a braid that grows "magically", and even her own little MP3 player.

Erin also got another MP3 player as she lost hers last year. She loves music and carried it with her all over the place so it is worth it for her to have another one. She also got an American Idol Karaoke Revolution game for the Playstation. This is Erin and her friend Kirsten doing what they did for most of the day today......singing with the game. It is a fun game---unless you are me (see previous post). She also got a manicure set, High School Musical 2 movie, cd, I love Troy heart pillow and Troy necklace (shown here). Tonight she told me that she is never going to take her necklace off. We will see if she changes her mind when her neck turns green.

We had Louis' sister Denna, and her family (Quinn, Josh, Caleb, Ben, and Jordan) along with Louis and Denna's nephew, Carlton and his family (Liz and Hunter). We feel very fortunate that for being so far away from "family" we have this much family close by. Our numbers are growing and we love it. We had a very relaxing day that involved eating, singing Karaoke, visiting the new house, and hanging out. All in all I think it was a perfect day.

I'll Huff and I'll puff and I'll not be able to blow that house down!

This is the latest photo of our new home. This was taken on December 26th. It is so much fun to see everything we picked out coming together with the design. It is so different looking at a design on paper or a little square board with brick. What a relief to see it in reality and still love it!

Not even in a bucket!

So Erin got an American Idol Karaoke game for the Playstation for Christmas. She begged me yesterday to sing for it. Everybody else had done it and she wanted to hear me sing. I know I don't have the ability to carry a tune so singing is not usually something I try to stand out in a crowd for. I sang a song titled "You and Me". Erin thought it would be a good song. So I do my best as the words scroll across the bottom of the screen and when it is all done here come the judges to tell me what they thought.
Randy: "I'm sorry. That just didn't do it for me. Dog, you were way off tune the whole song."
Woman: "The pitch was way off. I'm sorry it just wasn't any good."
Simon: "That was the worst I have ever heard. You were off tune. It was so bad I can't believe you actually wanted to sing."
Get the idea? Even an animated video game doesn't want to hear me sing! I don't think Jill Pierce will be recuiting me for the ward choir anytime soon!

Leech removal

Allyson was sticking to me like a tick on an ol' yaller dog this evening. She is definitely a daddy's girl right now.

I was here at the computer looking for something, when she came over and commandeered the mouse and the keyboard, asking to be shown pictures of dogs and cats on the Internet.

After about 5 minutes I tried to take back the mouse, and she would have nothing to do with it.

Then Cindy came to the rescue.

'Allyson,' she crooned, 'Do you want a bath?'

Allyson began replying with her stock answer, 'No,' but cut her reply off in mid-letter and instead hopped off my lap and ran into her, gushing, 'Bath! Bath! Baaatttth!'

I was thereby able to use the computer without interruption to do these two posts.

Thank goodness for warm baths on cold nights!

For some reason this timeless quote came to mind on this Christmas Eve.....

Last week I was perusing a walk down memory lane reading thru a Calvin and Hobbes collection, and I came upon a section of comic strips where in the days before Christmas Santa is pondering and Calvin is worrying if his behavior throughout the year will put the kibosh on his presents.

In the Christmas day strip, Calvin gets up and finds that he has a huge pile of presents waiting.

Filled with a child's joy of Christmas, he gaily cries out,

"Ha ha! Acquittal on all charges! Complete exoneration! Ha ha ha!"

Even if these words are not quoted verbatim, I am at least sure that the elation in our home will be along the same vein....

Erin's Christmas story

A few nights ago, Erin was at a friend's birthday party and wrote the following sweet, touching, albeit disturbing story of (at least tangentially) Christmas spirit and mayhem. According to Erin, she and a boy made up the story, acting it out as they thought it up, and then Erin later put it into words.

Erin will now proceed to type in the story. We recommend that you get your tissues ahead of time, as it ranks right up there with Ralphie's theme about a Red Rider BB gun, but much more sophisticated.

There was an out-of-the-ordinary couple, their names were Harold and Jessica.They had 2 babies and named one Germany and the other one, well, let's just say they put the other one up for adoption, because they were soon to have more of what Jessica called "its."
Harold had cheated on Jessica with a reindeer for 2 months and had 37 mutated pups, soon to be 57. jessica was furious and demanded marriage counciling. It still did not work out--Jessica had caught them 7 times in the past week. [Sad huh?] They got a divorce, but Jessica still loved Harold.

And Harold still loved the reindeer.

The End
[ p.s.][If you liked the story please mail a dollar! It's just buisness!]

Erin

Our daughter is definitely growing up, [sniffle] and we are very, very worried!
PS: (And yes, the party was chaperoned, so any 'acting out' was purely platonic.)

Fertile windmills of the mind

Kenner slept in today, and she was still in bed at 10AM after a trip to Sam's Club.

Erin informed us that Kenner had awakened but still in bed, as she had come up with a plan to make Christmas come sooner.

Yep, she figured if she spent all day in bed it would make bedtime tonight come quicker, and ergo, Santa, the reindeer, presents, etc., etc., etc.



We gently explained to her that she'd do much better to get up and not be bored out of her gourd all day.

Of course, as Cindy later belatedly related, 'Maybe we could've gotten all the kids to buy into her theory and then we could've enjoyed a nice, relaxing day!

A mind like a steel trap

I came back from shopping this morning with a half-gallon of egg nog.

Allyson, who has only experienced this fat-filled ambrosia once about a month ago, obviously recognized it for what it was and began grunting and pulling at me.

Just to make sure, I leaned her over the array of purchased items and asked, 'What do you want?'

She reached over and patted (dare I say, caressed?) the half-gallon container.

Superfluous though it may be to recount, she sucked down an entire sippy-cup of the stuff. (Though I did thin it down with milk--I'd hate be responsible for her bouncing off the walls and ceilings this AM.)

Update: Later on Cindy got a small glass container out of the frig. It was clearly full of something chocolate.

I was holding Allyson at the time (big surprise there!?) and she immediate leaned towards it and assumed the position--one finger crooked in anticipation of scooping up some chocolate stuff--and also began making small sucking noises to mimic what she was definitely planning to do.

I gave her a spoon instead.

Introducing "The Look"

For reasons unfathomable to mere mortals, Erin has developed a new look.

Her modus operandi is to sidle up to you and then just stand there with what can only be called a 'vapid, disturbingly mechanical frozen grin'.....



...on her face. She will often stand there for minutes on end with nary a change of expression in her continuing efforts to creep you out. Moreover, she is able to maintain it under most circumstances, including threats to life and liberty.

Last night we had the missionaries over, and as she was sitting next to me on the couch during a serious conversation she turned and did 'the grin.' For whatever reason I broke out into uncontrollable chortles, and Cindy ended up sitting between us, muttering some gibberish about child behavioral problems.

Mmmm....gingerbread.....

Cindy was just barely able to find time to keep up this somewhat annual tradition.



The kids were all excited at first, but then Erin and then Cameron soon lost interest.

It had something to do with their stomachs hurting from all the candy they had eaten!

Here is the final result--a house even the wicked old Hansel-and-Gretel-eating witch would've been proud of!

We got elfed! And elfed! And elfin' elfed!

Fleshing out the details of a post from a month ago....

It all started with an email from Cindy's sister that linked to a site where you could upload pictures your family and get them pasted on dancing elvish folk.
It was rather cute.

And as you might've expected, it soon snowballed into a hailstorm of emails on the Bowcut side of the family, as everyone in the family vied for the title of Grand Elfer (motto 'I'm the elfiest elf of elf who ever elfed an elf').

Here are the kids....




And here we are....



See the November posting for a link to the animation....

But you've been warned! Please upload responsibly

You know, maybe Darwin wasn't all wrong....

Allyson has a new trick!

A new bad habit....?

Allyson has learned another word in the past 2 weeks.

BARBIE! BARBIE!

She has become infatuated with the 5-odd Barbie animated movies we have and she incessantly asks to watch them.

Her favorite ploy is to come up, grab your finger, and then vigorous pull and tug you into the front room. She coyly stops by the video cabinet, looks up with her big blue eyes shining in admiration, and then sweetly rattles off, 'BARBIE! BARBIE! BARBIE! BARBIE!BARBIE! BARBIE!BARBIE! BARBIE!BARBIE! BARBIE!'

If you say yes, she exudes love, then assumes the position.
This is her position today.



If you say, 'No Barbie,' she begins hitting things, yelling, and doing other toddler antics. (Since she is doing this well before age 2, does this mean she is precocious?)

The Great Unveiling

After 10 hours of intense high-precision manufacturing over 3 days, Cameron and his cousin Josh 'I'll be Engineering Aircraft Someday' Coburn completed Cameron's Pinewood Derby racer.



It was crafted with a scroll saw, dremel bits, a router, a blowtorch to melt the lead in place (according to Cameron, the lead even began burning with a greenish-blue flame), and finished off with some SuperGlue to hold the nail axles securely in place.
Like any good Cub Scout, Cameron also picked up the handy skill of safely using a drill and a metal file to grind scalpel-sharp nail tips. (Not that they were used in the car at all--it was just an extracurricular learning activity.)

(Also, Cameron is so sweaty not because of all his efforts, but rather from playing tennis using their Wii.)

Requiem

Cindy got on a 'throw away all the junk that has been accumulated over the years' kick tonight.

Included in the ever-growing garbage pile is Cindy's pressed plant collection from 1982 (she got a perfect score of 300 for it), every girl's camp memorabilia she had kept for at least as long.

Nor was I left out--out went an FBI t-shirt that my brother Wezzo gave me 13-odd years ago, but which in the past year has been used by Erin as a pajama top, a paint shirt, and the mainstay of that pile of clothes she routinely constructs in an empty corner of her room. As Cindy commented, 'It ain't worth the water to wash it.'

Enjoying the sights at Camp Kern!

So, Cindy here, this is actually the first time I have done anything on this blog before. Louis will be pleased I am actually doing something. I just couldn't let the moment pass.
Today is Erin's 11th birthday. It is 2:30 in the afternoon and I just picked her up from school. She has been at Camp Kern, a YMCA camp, for 2 1/2 days with all the
5th graders. Before we are even in the van she begins to tell me about "Tim. He is so HOT. He was one of our counselors. The minute I saw his abs I nearly fainted!" After the shock and laughter from me subsided I collected my wits and found out that she actually did not "see" his abs. He just had a tight t-shirt on. As I have told Erin many times before...she and I were cut from completely different molds. I think I am going to have my hands full with this one.

Talk about intestinal fortitude!

Cameron has been home sick these two day with what the doc thinks is strep throat.

As such, he has had a fever and a sore throat.

Anyway, when I got home from work tonight, he was in the bathroom doing what I assume was just a normal, non-squishy, number 2.

I base this deduction upon the following clue: Cindy told me that when he had gone into the bathroom he had declared (somewhat proudly) that he had been holding it in for 3 hours!

I thus reasoned that even someone as stubborn as Cameron can't hold in a case of 'The Diabolical Dib-Dabs' for 3 hours!

Ain't NO WAY!

As you might expect....

When Cindy tried to put Allyson down on Santa's lap at the ward Christmas party, Allyson was fine until a fine line was crossed--that line being exactly 12 inches from Santa's knee.

As she saw herself being lowered towards this strange red-suited, hairy man, she finally figured out what was being done to her and jerked her body back in one huge spasm and let out a huge scream!

It was one of those "I wish I had had the video camera" moments!

As such, we can proudly report that our kids are 4-for-4 in this category.

The wonder of all that is Christmas

Cindy was putting up some pine garland on the stair railing, with Allyson closely eyeing her every move.

As Cindy next began weaving some lights along the garland, Allyson watched intently, repeating in her usual throaty whisper:

'Wow!'

'Wow!'

WOW!'

The First Gift of Christmas

When I got Allyson out of her crib this afternoon and took her downstairs, she puttered around for a minute or two, then bee-lined it to Cindy, and it was at that time she finally uttered the magic words "Mama" and put up her hands to be picked up.

The next words to be heard were from Cindy, and they sounded like a good blog entry title. Whaddya think? (And this takes a lot of pressure off of me too--there's no way I can top this, so why even try!)

Of course, Allyson was still groggy from her nap and was thus somewhat disoriented, so I'm not sure if this really counts......but I am more than willing to count it, as the price is definitely right!


UPDATE: Cindy is now telling me about Wednesday (when the kids were out of school due to the horrific snowstorm that dumped all of 4 inches) when Cameron got Allyson up in the morning. Cindy was taking a shower at the time, and she soon heard little hands knocking at the door and the melodious sounds of 'Mama! Mommy!' coming through the door.

What a difference a week makes!

They got the roof on before the big snow that's supposed to hit tonight (up to a whopping 3~4 inches!!!!)

I even gave the snow-blower a test-run!

Charleston Falls Night Hike

I guess it has been a yearly event for a long time, but this was the first time we had heard of it. From 6~9PM tonight you could walk the 1/2-mile to the falls and see the falls (a trickle at this time of the year) with some faint colored backlights.

The first highlight was when we met this jolly old fellow on the trail...



As you might guess, it was about 32 degrees out....

Then Cindy took a picture with the falls as a stunning backdrop....



However, as you can (or can't) see, our simple digital camera doesn't have a long exposure setting, so everything behind us showed up black.

On the trail to the falls, Allyson was content to be carried, but on the way back she ran most of the way, chortling as she played footsie with Makenna.

But the real highlight for Allyson was the dog she got to pet.
She just loves dogs, and we are more than happy to let her interact with them--just a long as they don't live at our address and/or leave landmines in our yard!



(This photo somehow reminded me of the old B-movie, 'Devil Dog: The Hound from He__.')