The Nativity - Flake Style

Monday night for Family Home Evening we were invited over to Uncle Oliver's and Aunt Amber's house to act out the Nativity. I think we were invited because we brought two very important cast members, baby Jesus and the sheep. Please excuse that my pictures are all out of order.

Mary with her baby Jesus.

I'm not sure how baby Jesus came to be wearing the snow flake crown, but pretend it is his angelic halo like in Catholic paintings. He is playing with his gift of myrrh aka remote control. He was so happy in his little basket/manger with his gift.

Left to Right: McKay - Innkeeper and Angel, Ryan - Wiseman, Jared - Joseph, Oliver - Baby Jesus, Natalya - Mary, Leah - sheep, Joel - shepherd.

Our sweet sheep! We turned her jacket inside out. Unfortunately I forgot the hood which would have been a nice touch for her head. She was a good actress and baa'd on cue and was fairly good about only moving when Joel hit her with the broom.

We are so lucky to live so close to our kids' cousins. Leah loves them so much. We told her we were going to Aunt Amber's a little too soon and she begged and begged and even brought me her pajamas saying, "my jacket" so that we could go. We finally went over early. Every day she asks where everyone in their family is, and says she wants Ryan. When I say he's at his house she says, but he's mine!

Leah brings her little dolls to dinner time and puts them each in their own seat. These dolls are named Mommy and Daddy.

We are trying to get Oliver to take a bottle, probably a little too late as he is resisting it very much. The other day after trying I got on the computer and then looked over and there was Leah trying to give Oliver a bottle. I think he took it for her better than for me, but we still have not reached success where he actually sucks on the bottle. She just chews and then swallows/chokes on what comes out. Afterwards Leah took a sip off the bottle.

I know I nursed her too, but somehow it seems a little gross. Bedtime and Mommy is much more tired than Oliver. He is sleeping a tad better the last few days though so that is good news.

Happy Birthday Leah!

On Dec 1st Leah turned TWO!! Here are some pictures from her party - better late than never right?

Uncle Oliver, Aunt Amber, and their kids all came over. Leah was excited all day long for birthday cake and kept begging for it so I had to hide it. She didn't eat any cake at her party, but only ice cream. She LOVES ice cream.

Things we love about Leah:

*She is affectionate. She loves to give hugs and kisses. Nothing is better than a tight hug from Leah.

*She is very talkative. Every day she learns new words and phrases. She will continue repeating what she is saying until I acknowledge it and often until I repeat it. That can be kind of difficult on the days she is tired and slurs her words together and I have no idea what she is saying. She can tell when I'm faking it that I understand it and will keep repeating it. Her favorite phrase of the week is, "oh no, I fell down."

*She doesn't cry much. Usually the "oh no, I fell down" is followed by her getting up and running to her destination. Unfortunately coordination doesn't seem to be a strong point as she falls a lot, but at least she doesn't cry after each fall.

*She is very polite. She loves to say thank you and you're welcome.

*She loves to sing. Today when I put her down for a nap I heard her in there singing for quite some time, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. She doesn't really sing it in tune necessarily, but she sings it with joy and gusto. We are doing a Christmas advent calendar that always has a song for every day. She doesn't know any of the words to the Christmas songs, but today she stood there flipping through the pages and ordering me to sing, "'nother song." She somehow sings a long without singing any words.

*Her imagination is coming too life. She plays with her Fisher Price Little People for hours. One of the dolls kind of has some resemblance to Dora and it is her favorite.

*She loves Dora! Sometimes when she is just excited about other things she shouts out, Dora! It's similar to shouting Yea!

*She can count to 12 in English and to 10 in Spanish. Thank you Dora.

*She can say her ABC's. Thank you Barney toy.

*She is terrified of Levin in his hunting gear, (camouflage.)

*She is a joyful girl! She is usually good about bed time and Levin and I fight over who gets to get her out of bed in the morning or after a nap because we love the hugs.

*She loves nursery at church. After sacrament meeting she tears out of the chapel on her way there.

*She is generally a very pleasant and happy girl to be around. Not always - she is two after all and they call them the terrible twos for a reason. :)

*We love her so much! I always check on her in her bed before I go to sleep and sometimes it feels like my heart could burst I love her so much.

Happy Birthday Leah!!

Turkey Success

We actually got our 40 pound turkey in the oven and cooked to perfection AND it was all done in time too, in fact early enough we had to turn down the oven. Levin's brother Oliver smoked a turkey as well. Why would you need two huge turkeys? We were scared one would fail so we had to have back up.

Pictured is my sister-in-law Amber. I was out of the room and came running in to Leah hysterical. Everyone just wanted her in the picture, maybe to get a weight comparison - Leah is 31 pounds, turkey 38. Leah was hysterical however because she thought they wanted her to touch the turkey. Even after Amber put her down Leah looked up at Levin and gave him a good shouting. She was so hysterical you could not understand a word she said, but as her mommy I knew what was going on.

Leah loves the animals, but freaks out if you ask her to touch one. She's also a vegetarian. People don't believe me when I say that. They think I just mean she won't eat beef, but the girl will not even eat chicken nuggets.

Anyway, that was just a small moment in our spectacular Thanksgiving meal which Leah and everyone else enjoyed.

Turkey Harvest

This post is not for the faint of heart or weak in stomach. If you are an animal love you may want to skip this post. You've been warned.

The proud farmer and his friends Jeff and Chris.

The aftermath.
I had an awesome video of them catching a turkey, but it is too big for our slow internet connection so I can't upload it. So sad.

Joe, the one with the most experience, and Jared my nephew who is so strong and brave to hold down that turkey.

The huge pot where you dip the turkeys in hot water so they are easier to pluck. Also, in this picture, our beloved friends from Lagos, Jeff and Kelsey. We were so happy and so lucky that a business trip brought them through Washington DC of all places so they came and spent a day with us. Luckily for them, it was on turkey harvest weekend. They were actually excited which I guess shows we are meant to be friends.

Bagged up and ready to go. The turkeys weighed in at the following:

Males - 40, 38, 36

Females - 28, 26, 19

We are cooking the 38 pounder for Thanksgiving. Wish us luck because it is going to be an undertaking! We are brining today and cooking tomorrow and let's hope we can get this bad boy cooked all the way through. He is too big for the oven bags, we will have to squeeze his fat little body into our roasting pan too and I think he barely fits in the oven. It will be a Thanksgiving to remember - let's hope for good reasons. We do have a meat thermomether so I don't think we'll give anyone food poisoning we just might not be able to eat until 10 pm.

Pics

Family Picture

My very talented sister-in-law took our family picture last Sunday. Around the corner from our house is a park and behind the baseball diamonds and the playground are some horse trails. That's where we are.

Pill Popper

Leah used to be a little angel when it came to letting me brush her teeth. Now . . . I have to wrestle her to the bathroom floor. Because we have well water with no flouride I recently started giving her some flouride pills. She LOVES them!! She will not go to bed without taking her "medicine." One night around Halloween, when I felt it especially important to make sure she brushed her teeth after all the candy, I heard myself say, "Leah hold still! Do you want to take your flouride? Hold still and let me brush your teeth or you won't get to take your flouride."
Who bribes their children with flouride pills? And the logic is kind of dumb that if she won't let me get the candy off her teeth she can't take flouride which will strengthen her teeth. Oh well, luckily, she isn't old enough to see the holes in my logic.

What's This?

According to Leah this is Daddy's make-up. I tell her it's deoderant, but she insists it is Daddy's make-up.

Garage Sales

I confess I like garage sales - especially for toys. Here are some of our latest finds. We have a My Little Pony castle for Leah - the girl told me they paid over $100 and we got it for $5 plus a bunch of ponies.

The exersaucer is a little bit big for Oliver . . and I'll be on the lookout for a better one since this one uh . . . doesn't really seem to have the "saucer" part and one of the main toys is missing. I sent Levin to look at this since I'd seen it from the road when I didn't have time to stop on the way to Oliver's. It was only $5 so he got it.

In the background of the picture of Oliver you can see another toy we got in the spring. I have scored good clothes for Oliver, some dresses for Leah and an awesome pair of shoes for her. Unfortunately, we lost one of Leah's shoes so that awesome deal didn't last long. The best money saver that we actually needed, (we didn't really NEED the pony castle) was a really good, sturdy, warm, winter coat for Oliver next winter when we're in Moscow. I paid only $1.

Yea for garage sales! I'm just sad we seem to be busy too many Saturdays and I didn't get to go often enough. Oh yeah, did I mention I got Leah a tiny bike? I figure we can't get stuff like that in Moscow when she'll be old enough to ride it. Or maybe I just can't pass up a good deal.

Trunk or Treat Pt. 2

You can see our little Oliver in the back row, being held by one of the older girls. He's the tiger. :)

Trunk or Treat

We had a little drama about what we would do for Halloween. I'll spare the details. In the end we took Leah and Oliver to their cousins' elementary school party on Friday night, then I took Leah to the library story time/trick or treat and Saturday night we had an impromptu ward trunk or treat. It was small, but fun. We didn't have a single trick or treater on Sunday so we had way too much candy for ourselves!

Halloween Excitement

I have always known people who said Halloween was their favorite holiday and I confess I always thought they were weird for saying that. But this year something has come over me and I'm so excited for Halloween! We took these pictures before it was even October and we have had Oliver's costume since the first of September I think.

This was the first time, but not the last time we've had Leah dress up in hers. She's put on a show for both grandpa and grandma when they came. I don't have a video of it, but the cutest thing to me is to be behind Leah when she runs. It has a stuffed "bum" and it shakes back and forth as she run and it just makes my cheeks hurt I'm smiling so big.

Unfortunately Halloween is on a Sunday so we won't take the kids trick or treating that day. I do have Leah signed up for the library fun on Saturday morning. I guess we can live without all the candy a.k.a. the loot.

Sears Pictures

A few weeks ago we took the kids to get their portraits done at Sears. Is it illegal for me to post these since they're professional? I hope not.

Another Flake Visit

This last weekend we went up to New York to visit Levin's brother Taylor and his family. While there we went to the PepsiCo sculpture garden. Taylor works for Pepsi. We also went to an apple orchard 3 minutes away from their house.

My sister-in-law Shelley gave Oliver this adorable little outfit and how appropriate that he is finally the right size to wear it the week we were at their house. Sadly I don't have brown socks for him.

It was a costly trip. We lost Leah's monkey and one of her shoes there and I almost thought we lost our camera. I may or may not have given Levin a lecture thinking he'd lost it . . oops! I did apologize.

Pony Update

I forgot to mention that Levin sold the pony - and for $100 more than they paid for her. Go team!

They're Finally Paying Out!

After 18 weeks of being chicken owners - we finally got our first egg! It is a little smaller than my Grade A Large store-bought egg (see picture) and we can't eat the eggs for a couple of weeks, but hey, we're finally seeing the fruits of Levin's labors (and a little bit of mine - I had to try and help him catch one last week which was not easy considering I refuse to touch them.)

Pony 4 Sale

I have mentioned our pony, but no pictures. Here she is. She was a huge hit at the family reunion, but now she is for sale on Craigslist.

She is the only animal on our farm that is not for food purposes. Although Levin had eaten horse in Kazakstan and claims it's not so bad . . . I think it's illegal isn't it?

I rode the pony one time - her first morning as a Flake pony. Did I ever tell you I don't like riding something that has a mind of its own? I was scared I would break her back, but Levin and Oliver assured me it would be okay, and it was. I noticed no other adults rode her however. I think they just thought it'd be funny to see me on her.

If you've always dreamed of owning a pony - now is your chance!

It Was A Horse Race

As I mentioned in my last post we took a few road trips end of August - end of September. The first was to upstate New York to visit Levin's sister. She took us to a horse race! It just so happens they do horse races every year that same week we happened to be visiting. None of us had ever been, "to the track" before. To spice it up a little we bet $1 on several horses. If you're new to gambling like we were, let me explain. You can bet on a horse to win, a horse to show (come in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd doesn't matter which one), or a horse to place (you choose the specific 1st, 2nd, 3rd.) Or you can choose who you think the top three winners will be. I told Levin to place a bet on #4 to show for myself. Well, he came in FIRST! I only won 89 cents. They had also chosen #4 to win and Levin's nephew had that ticket. He won $8! If only we'd bet $100! :) It is the same nephew that met with doom at the family reunion rodeo the week before so maybe he needed a boon. Not to teach a bad lesson that gambling is awesome his parents made him buy donuts for all the other kids with his "earnings."

PS. Note how much better Layne's eye looks less than a week after Milky Way slammed him into the fence.

PBR - Professional Bull Riders

Last weekend we loaded up the kids for our third road trip in I think 6 weeks and went to Charlottesville, VA for a rodeo! It actually wasn't a full rodeo, just bull riders. I didn't realize until we got there this was serious stuff, not just some local rodeo. Last year's world champion was there! There were also some pretty famous bulls there. We had a few Australians (an Australian won) and some Brazilians too. When we first got there it was so loud and they were doing pyrotechnics (is that right?) and I was a little scared for my children, but they did awesome! We had a fantastic time. We met Levin's sister's husband and his two children down there (up there for them) and also Oliver (Levin's brother we live very close to) and his family. We had such a fantastic time!

Mine and Levin's forget to bring inside the camera streak continues so these are pictures Justin gratefully shared with us.

What an awesome family! :) Aren't we cute?! I know we are because a lady a row up and over kept holding her camera over her head so she could take pictures of us. Ha ha. Isn't that funny? There were a few kids around Leah's age, but Oliver was the only baby in the arena.

Sunday morning we woke up early and before church went to tour UVA campus. It is a beautiful campus and we saw Edgar Allen Poe's dorm room. If I look tired it's because I was.

Here is my baby boy! You couldn't see him so well in the other photos because I had him all covered up in a blanket. Rebecca, this is the blanket you sent us with Dani. We use it all the time! It is the perfect size and thickness.

Here is Leah. The morning before we drove down to the rodeo we had some pictures taken of her at Sears and she turned into a little modeling queen and was more than happy to model for Uncle Justin. If Sears ever gets us our pictures I'll scan and post.