TACKY DAY

Today was Tacky Day for the twinnies. They have been talking about this day for a couple weeks, making their plans and ideas together for the big day. Both kids had a very specific look in their clever little minds when they woke up. We started on Alaina who specifically insisted on over 12 ponytails. Everything had to be perfect for her. Two different shoes were tried on and discarded. Finally the girl announced that her outfit was perfection.



And my sweet Austin. He insisted on dressing himself without ANY help. And when he was ready, he bounced out of his room and declared, "LOOK at ME! I am sooooo TACKY!!!!"


Uh. Yeah. You're right. That is an outfit he would normally wear. Wait. No. Look down. Notice it now? My Wild and Crazy boy had different colored socks on AND different colored sandals. Wow. He is really livin' on the edge. You can see how proud of himself he was, though.
I offered to put on his swimming trunks over his pants to spice up the oufit a little but he thought that would detract from his tacky feet.


A couple of days ago Alaina and Austin were conspiring, tête-à-tête, over cereal. Making mischief, I was sure. I crept over closer in order to hear the sneakiness going on. (I am also relatively sneaky and wasn't noticed.) Alaina was in full swing into her plans and had Austin completely captivated. "OK. You are my BEST friend so I really want to marry you when I grow up. But we can't. That's ILLEGAL! (her new big word was very impressive) And so, since we can't get married, we are going to live right next to each other. I will buy a house and you will buy a house and we will be so close. Then we will marry other people and every time I will walk out of my house, you will walk out of your house and we will be together. All the time!" Austin, with eyes shining in adoration, just smiled and nodded. He couldn't have gotten a word in if he had wanted to but, in all fairness, he looked pretty comfortable having Laina make all the big decisions for his life.

Here are another load of silly stories.

Austin usually thinks of all excuses not to work. For some unknown reason, last night he went into super-overdrive and cleaned his entire room without being asked. When I was putting him to bed he said, "I'm getting stronger and stronger. And I'm cleaning super fast. And I'm working super hard. I'm getting good cleaning muscles. I think I'm turning into a Super Boy! *sigh* Being a super hero is a LOT of work!"

Ethan started rubbing his shoulder and happily said, "I think I'm turning into a Dad now. My shoulder hurts and so does my hip and so I'm turning into a Dad." Poor Rob.

Laina, seeing the pictures of all of her cousins that Mom sent to us, she asked, "Have all of these people died and gone to heaven?" Guess I should really visit the family more.

Ethan bore his testimony a couple months ago. Right near the end of Sacrament meeting he just stood up and marched to the pulpit. I was taken by surprise by his decisions and then further surprised at his composure and lack of nerves when he started speaking. Like a pro that has spoken in front of large groups all his life he looked straight out to the people in front of him and in a calm, strong voice he said, "I love my mom and dad. I want to be thankful for this wonderful country and for the soldiers who fight to keep us safe. I'm glad for my family. And for God giving us good things. Bless my mom and dad to go things for us." That was all I remember but he was up there for a good 2-3 minutes. I was so proud of him I almost cried. I know Rob thinks I'm silly but I never really imagined seeing my hyper, bruiser of a boy do anything remotely like that. Sara told me that he might as well go into politics because he is good in front of people, he loves telling other people what to do and he is ALWAYS right. Oh yeah. And he's handsome. :)

During dinner Laina wanted to spit out some of her food. While making gagging sounds she said, "it's disgusting." With a big show of hurt feelings I cried, "What, are you saying? That mama's food is disgusting?" Without skipping a beat she as-a-matter-of-factlly replied. "Yup. Some."

We promised Ethan that when he turns 8 we will buy him the dog he has been asking for since he was 3. I heard him explaining his plans to the twins. "I'm six and almost 8, so I know we are going to get a dog soon. It is going to be a little dog.I know what we are going to name him. Sam. S. A. M. That's a little name for a little dog."

Me, "Austin, go put your slippers on." Austin, "Mama. I can't. I think they grewed out of me."

Austin wants to tell you what he's thinking exactly when he's thinking it. I don't like being constantly interrupted and so I make him 'hold that thought' until I'm ready to talk to him. The problem is, he usually forgets. This makes his eagerness to interrupt even more desperate since he hates forgetting what he was going to say. The other day in the car I told him to wait until a song I was listening to on the radio was over. When it was, he was beside himself with frustration and I got a barrage of comments to let me know why finishing my song was so horrendous. "When you turned the music on, I lost my mind!" "I don't want to forget-ed everything. I can't find my mind anywhere!" "I don't want to lost my mind all the time!" "I don't know anything that I was membering."
That boy always has strange ways of expressing himself. Last week he grabbed his forehead and muttered, "My brain hurts so bad! I just was to squeeze my head and let all of my plans come out so it doesn't hurt so bad." Apparently he had too many ideas to fit in his average sized head.

Out of the blue Alaina announced, "You know what? Joneses is MY people." Like she was Moses. Or a drug lord. Or the mafia. Yeah...probably more like the Mafia.

A couple weeks before Christmas I got this reprimand from Austin, "I hope Santa gets me the right stuff this year. Last year I wanted Lightning McQueen cars and he got me that marble thing. I didn't want that marble thing. I hope this year he does a better job." So, I decided to write the following letter to Santa and the kids wrote down their 3 top presents and then signed.

Dear Santa,

Ethan, Austin & Alaina have been very good little children this year. Here are some ideas of what they want. They understand that they might not get exactly what they ask for and they will be thankful for whatever you have to give to them.

Ethan: Remote control car.
wiggly pen

astin: stitch...not lelo
legos
airplane/transformer

alaina: rainbow
spy suit/ Dr. suit

So. A little overboard? Sometimes I can't help myself. But rest assured, Santa did do a better job this year. Everyone got one thing off the list. And let me tell you, last minute shopping at the mall ROCKS!


So, I just opened Sara's Christmas card and Austin tore it from my hands. And then, all in a rush he blurted out, "I LOVE this! Can we keep it? The kiddies are SO cute. You know, maybe when we're dead we could show this to Jesus. He'd like to see this. But Jesus is looking down and us and sees everything. So maybe he can see it now!" And then he held up the card, high above his head, to show Jesus.

Here is Christmas in pictures. I just don't seem to have time to do a good write up of the whole deal.

The Christmas story. The twinnies are Mary and Joseph. Ethan was the three wise men. Rob was a sheppard...tradition. I was the photographer. It's not in the original story but wouldn't it have been awesome if it was?

Lainy's hair went crazy with static from the blanket.

The hand-written notes let Santa know what to do with the cookies. Alaina's picture of Santa and Rudolph let everyone know who the intended recipients were. Ethan's picture was the one with the cookies saying, "Here is yor coceys. Merry Christmas." Just in case Santa needed directions. And Austin's picture had a picture of himself with Bolt and a snowman. It is titled, "Bolts Crismas." I'm not sure he got the concept of the note to Santa.

Christmas morning started at 5:40 for us...exactly 4 hours after Santa hit the sack.

Rob with his Geocache coins. Don't ask me why he told Santa to get them for him...he just did.
Opening presents.

I guess Santa did a better job this year after all. She, ahem, He got Austin a Stitch just as demanded.

And Santa somehow managed to get Princess an actual Rainbow. Also as directed.

After a fun filled morning we settled into Christmas dinner. I guess the excitement was too much because this was the first time in a long time that the kids didn't eat my food. So after 15 minutes of begging, Rob and I had a nice quiet Christmas dinner by ourselves while the kids got back to playing.

We missed all of you this season and hope your Christmas was filled with Joy!