Happy Birthday to my Boys!

December brings Richard and Joshua's birthday. Richard's birthday ended up being nothing special (funny how that happens as you get older) but we did go to Disneyland for a couple hours. Richard and Nathan went on three or four rides while Josh and I waited in line for "It's a Small World" for half an hour and then got stuck on the ride for another half hour. I guess I'm glad it was me and not Richard. He then spent his Disney gift card on buying the boys bubble guns and candy and me a charm braclet. What a nice guy.

Josh had a prolonged birthday this year because of our trip. We ended up being on the trip when his birthday came arround so both his pre-school and church primary class celebrated early. At church, his class gave him a little party. His teacher took some pictures but I'll have to remeber to have her e-mail them to me.

They also celebrated his birthday at preschool where he got this nifty crown. He ended up wearing it most of the day, in one way or the other.

The Saturday before he went on our trip, Joshua opened his presents...

and enjoyed his cake. He actually pulled a "1st birthday" and put his hand in the small cake but I didn't bother getting a picture or eating it.

Richard's mom and step-dad came with us on the trip and Grandma decided that he should have a cake on his birthday. That's what grandmas are for though, right?

This time he chose cheesecake. Yuum.

All in all he had a good birthday.

The Big One-Oh

This time of year always has a lot for us to do because we have Thanksgiving, our anniversary, two birthdays, and Christmas all in about one month. This year, Richard and I had our tenth wedding anniversary and it happened to land on Thanksgiving itself. I don't remember if anyone wished us "happy anniversary" besides ourselves (I think my mom did) but that was OK because we really hadn't planned on doing much to celebrate. We had a whole bunch of family in town and things to do. Also we were kinda of counting the trip we just came back from (I'll blog later about it) as part of our celebration. We did get each other cards (which we bought the night before while doing some last minute Thanksgiving shopping at Ralph's) and Richard bought me a sewing machine carrying case from Joanne's black Friday sale the next day. We also plan to get a new mattress soon. 10 years is a good long mattress life right?
Here are some family photos that we took that weekend.

Holiday Rush

So much to do. SO much we have done. I'll bring it all to you, before the month is through.
I will be blogging a lot in the next few days just to show you what we've been up to. But for right now, here is a pictorial reminder to enjoy your holidays.



And we did actually finish decorating the gingerbread house before we starting eating it.

Sh, sh, snake

We have a rather large ball python that we inherited from a family in our ward (congregation). Randy and Richard were cleaning out his tank today (yeah) and I had the task of watching the snake. The poor think was rather cold and I told Nathan and Joshua this. They decided that Sal (the snake) needed a blanket so they grabbed a bunch of tissues and covered him up. Josh then wanted to make him a bed so he pulled out the piano bench and laid three tissues down on it. I then put Sal on top and Nathan and Josh covered him with more tissues. Josh wanted to add a pillow but I convinced him that Sal didn't need one. Since Sal was all tucked in, he needed a lullaby. "Hickory Dickory Dock" was first followed by "Ba, Ba Black Sheep," both favorites of Josh's. Nathan decided that the song needed a re-write and started singing "Sh, sh, sh snake. Have you any skin?" I love my kids.

Here is a picture of Nathan and Sal when Nathan was about a year old.

Tax dollars at work

Last night the dogs were going crazy barking at something in the back yard. Richard and Randy went outside to investigate and they found a stranded possum. The boys tried to scare the thing away but we unable to do anything. The dogs eventually calmed down and we all went to bed. This morning brought a surprise; a dead one on the backyard lawn. One of the dogs must have eventually caught the possum as it was lying dead, wet and slightly bloody right outside our bedroom window. By the way, our windows are pretty good at blocking out sound apparently. Either that or possums don't make much noise when they die. Richard had already left for work and while I'm sure that I could have taken care of it, I didn't really want to. I figured that if I really had to, I could just keep the boys out of the backyard today until Richard got home. Then I thought about it. We have Animal Control in our area and one of their jobs might be to pick up dead animals from your backyard. I figured it was worth a call. A quick Internet search for the number and I was calling SEAACA (Southeast Area Animal Control Authority). After a little explanation and laugh with the operator (I said "dead possum" at the same time someone put a box on her desk and I think her brain mixed the two momentarily. She wasn't too excited about a dead possum on her desk until her brain straightened out the two signals) she took my information and said she would send someone right over. I was getting prepared to wait at home for the morning when about 10 minutes after the call, an animal control officer showed up at the front door. I put the dogs in the garage, the officer put his gloves on, took care of the possum and was gone with-in five minutes. It's a good day for me!

Now We're Recycling!

There are several reasons that my husband thinks that I'm crazy. One of them is that for a while now I would save the recyclables from our household and then take them down to my sister's house about once a week. Although we only live a few miles away, we are in different cities. Her city has a recycling service while mine doesn't. Until now.

A few months ago, we saw a notice in the city newsletter about how the city would be starting a recycling program. And at the end of last month, we received our new recycling bin and that was when the fun started.

I have really loved having recycling. I don't have to haul it down to my sister's house (which I did try to match up with times I was going down there anyway), didn't have to find somewhere to store it until I could haul it, and I didn't have to feel guilty when my husband got tired of it and threw it away in our regular trash.

Now if you are wondering why I am so crazy, just watch "WALL-E" or reread the beginning of Genesis. Both of those sum up my reasons.

Halloween 2009

So here is a quick run down on all of the Halloween fun that we had in October this year. First we got the decorations out. Here is Joshua's favorite, Frankie. Last year he was scared of him. This year Frankie was his best friend.

In the middle of the month, we tried out the Disney Trick or Treat Night. It happens throughout the month of October over in Disney's California Adventor. The park is closed to everyone except special ticket holders. Candy is handed out all over the park along with special areas for dancing, taking pictures with Disney characters, and games. And almost everyone dresses up. EVERYONE. I felt out of place because I didn't dress up.

Nathan decided that night to dress up as a solider, even though he had a different costume. Josh was Luke Skywalker(Star Wars: A New Hope) but it's hard to tell because I wouldn't let him bring his light saber.

At the beginning of the week we started working in the pumpkins. The kids helped dig out the pumpkins and chose the designs. I did the rest.

Here is the finished product. Nathan chose the cat and Josh's is Diego.

On Halloween, we had our church Halloween party in the afternoon. Here is Randy in his costume, a teenage vampire a la Vladimir Todd.

Here our Luke Skywalker with a Leah that he met at the party.

And Nathan, in his costume that we spent too much money on, found another Snake Eyes in one of the older boys from the ward.

We had an early dinner, games, a spook alley, and trunk-o-treat. One of the games was a donut eating contest.

Nathan decided to help out Joshua a little.

Later that night I took the kids Trick-or-Treating around our neighborhood. We went around our block with our next door neighbors and then one more by ourselves. We ended the night tired and with too much sugar but we sure had fun.