Happy. Day. You.

Rebecah loved her birthday, there is no doubt about it. What solidified this our minds was when she started singing Happy Birthday. She doesn't get all of the words in there so she sings..."Happy, Day, You!" It is cute to hear her sing it. So, Happy, Day, You to anyone that might be celebrating a birthday today.

Other highlights from the last few weeks...Joseph and I went bowling. I haven't been bowling since Joseph and I went with Joseph's siblings when Jonathan first got home from his mission...over 4 years ago. I was rather rusty but I ended up with a 67 and then an 81. Those actually aren't too bad compared to some other scores I have gotten. At least I improved my second game. Joseph bowled a 125 and a 115. It was fun to go bowling and sometime we'll take the kids but for this last weekend it was a date.

The kids and I also got around to decorating a gingerbread tree that was given to us before Christmas. We kept waiting for the perfect family opportunity but more important or fun family activities always interfered so the kids and I did it one afternoon when Joseph was working.



We went also went on a family hike recently to Mt. Nebo State Park. In Russellville it was sunny and in the mid 50s. On the top of Nebo, a mountain for Arkansas, it was much colder than we were prepared for. I don't mind hiking or walking but we were all cold and I was glad when we had to cut our hike short because Rebecah got into some water and we didn't want her feet to get too cold.

Subtle Brainwashing

I think Joseph is secretly brainwashing our children. Last night at dinner we were having leftover birthday cake and Kimball wanted some cherry pie filling on it. He had seen Joseph do it the day before. Then while Kimball was eating he announced: "Next year for Christmas I want a can of cherry pie filling!"

Then this morning I come out of my room after getting ready for the day and Rebecah had raided our "sweet" drawer. This is the drawer where I keep my chocolate chips for baking and it ends up being the catch all drawer for other candy when we have it around. Anyway, Rebecah didn't go for the open bag of M&Ms like a normal child of mine would have done...I caught her with black licorice ropes in each fist! I just had to chuckle and think...she's all Joseph. Joseph was very proud of her when I called and told him she was stealing his black licorice!

At least I don't have to worry about them raiding my chocolate stash...yet!

Rebecah turns 2!

Yesterday was Rebecah's birthday and she loved her special day. She wanted to be sung to multiple times a day. We had loose balloons around and she had so much fun playing with them. She would just run around in circles with balloons in each had.

For breakfast I made homemade buttermilk pancakes.

Breakfast!





We couldn't really decide what to get Rebecah for her birthday this year. We are having a harder time figuring out her interests than we did with Kimball. We do know she likes animals, but she got 3 stuffed animals over Christmas so we didn't think she needed any more right now.

Joseph had a church meeting, in the evening, in Little Rock so we opened presents and had an early dinner after Rebecah's nap. She had fun opening presents...she would take the paper off and immediately go to the next present without really seeing what the toy was. It was quite funny. She did have fun playing with her new things once everything was opened.

Pile of presents.



Opening...


Opening...


Opening...


3-in-1 stroller


Little People Coach


All done...the open presents.


We had a 3 layer chocolate cake with a ganache frosting for Rebecah's cake. It was quite good if I do say so myself. Nothing beats ganache!



Candles lit...Happy Birthday to you...

We Lost One...

Our first fish died yesterday. I checked on the fish after lunch and noticed one on his side at the bottom of the tank. As I watched it the other fish would come up to it and nudge it but it never moved. I called Joseph and he helped me be brave and I flushed our fish! It is just a fish that cost $.28, but it was still sad to me that one of our fish died after only 11 days...and that the worth of this little fish is only 28 cents.

We decided to go as a family to Wal-mart to buy another fish. On the way to Wal-mart we broke the news to Kimball that a fish had died. He took it rather well and was glad he could pick the next fish. He picked one that he calls a "Sammie". It is doing well and now Kimball's prayers include: "please don't let anymore fish die."

I hope we don't lose another one anytime soon.

New Year's Weekend

We had a low key holiday weekend. On New Year's Eve we watched Cars 2 while we ate dinner and it was fun to have pizza, cheese ball and crackers and agua de horchata. (It was my second time making agua de horchata and it turned out much better this time. I added some coconut milk that I needed to use up and and it added a nice flavor although it probably made it less than authentic. Last time I made it Rebecah didn't like it she just cried for milk, but this time she begged for it!)

After we finished our movie we put the kids to bed at normal time and then Joseph and I went to bed at our normal time. We may be New Year's Eve duds, but when our kids still wake up at 6:00 a.m. there is no sense staying up until midnight just to be a zombie the next day.

On Sunday we only had 1 hour of church...long story, don't ask...we enjoyed spending the day as a family and for dinner we had leftover ham from Christmas and mashed potatoes since we I didn't make them for Christmas. The ham gravy was yummy!

We enjoyed Joseph's day off yesterday playing ping pong...hence the ping pong post.

Ping Pong Anyone?

For Christmas Joseph wanted a sheet of plywood that he could turn into a table top ping pong table. I had no idea what kind of plywood he would want for this project so I just gave him a note wrapped up telling him to buy his board.

This past weekend we went to Lowe's and bought a sheet of fiber board and some green paint. Joseph spent Saturday painting his table.

Today we enjoyed a lot of fun family time with the ping pong table. The fiber board was a great choice because the ball bounces really well on it. The board is almost but not quite regulation size but we don't really have room in our house for a true ping pong table. This piece of wood just leans up against the garage wall and when we want to play we will just take our kitchen table out to the garage and we'll be all set for a game.

Here are some pictures of our fun times. Everyone had to get in on the action.






Kimball with his Lego transformer that Joseph built for him.

Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas. We came back home from St. Louis so we could have Christmas at home. I love being able to have Christmas at home where we can have our children be the focus of our Christmas morning fun...we can also just get up when the kids wake up.

Christmas Eve we watched The Year Without Santa Claus and ate treats. Before bed we read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and the Christmas story out of the Bible.

Christmas morning we started opening presents about 6:30 when Rebecah woke up. We planned on only opening a few presents since church was at 10:00, but the present opening went so quickly we were able to open all of the presents before church.

For breakfast we ate orange rolls...alas, the children didn't care for them so Joseph and I enjoyed them and shared with the missionaries.

Rebecah's present from Santa was a kitchen. It was smaller than Santa thought, but she loves it...Kimball does too for that matter.



Rebecah's pony from Grandma and Grandpa.



Sitting with Mom to open a present.



Rebecah's "Fur Real" cat. She LOVES all animals and she carries this little cat around all of the time. Kimball likes the cat too and wanted to know why he didn't get one.



Opening "I Must Have Bobo!" She and Joseph both love the story so it was fitting that she was sitting with him when she opened it. We have read it multiple times already.



For some reason we didn't take any pictures of Kimball opening presents aside from his Santa present. He was always so fast to open things and then hand it off to Joseph to have him open the boxes.

Kimball with his Santa present. We are now pet owners of 4 goldfish. Kimball likes his fish but he wants to feed them all of the time and it's hard for him to understand that fish only need to eat once a day. (Santa really had to convince Mrs. Claus that fish were a good idea. We'll see how we do as pet owners...vacation time will be tricky.)



Kimball playing with his new race car track from Grandma and Grandpa.



You can see Joseph in the background working on one of Kimball's transformers...some of those are really hard to figure out at first.



Joseph's new fleece jacket.



My new Christmas dress from White Elegance.



We had my friend, Julia Huffine, over for Christmas dinner. She is a wonderful Grandma to the children and the kids enjoyed the little finger games she played with them. We ate ham, stuffing, green beans, cranberry salad, and pistachio salad for dinner and for dessert we had a sweet potato coconut pie with marshmallow meringue.

Annette and the children with Sister Huffine.



We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope all of you did as well.