Another catch up time

As usual I have not posted much for a while and so there will be several new posts so check back often. One week last December. Liam was the Star of the Week. We visited his kindergarten class with Kirstin and Mairin.

It was his job to introduce all of us to his teacher and classmates. Then the kids had a chance to ask questions. They all seemed to center around Mairin.

After the school visit, we went to Kirstin's house for the annual Christmas cookie making/decorating project with the kids. We had to bake all the cookies before Logan and Liam got home from school so that they could get right into the decorating phase. Mairin was there to observe and get pointers for next year.

The boys got home from school and got right into decorating, and they did not take it easy on the frosting and sprinkles. The cans of frosting didn't last long. The shirts came off at the beginning to help with the cleanup afterwards.

Look at mine! aren't they great?

Even Kellan wanted to help.

In full swing.

The white frosting was applied to the gingerbread man or star wars character....

Then the red frosting was added. Now that looks store bought. Don't the ones in the store have this much frosting?

This one is perfect.

Just a bit more and I'm done.

This is one of Logan's finished cookies with sprinkles.

My best one is the triple layered one. Delicious.

This is Logan's finished plate of of goodies.

And this is Liam's finished cookies.

Kellan with his bunch. Now he is the youngest one in this Christmas cookie decorating project and it looks like his cookies are the most eatable.

Ta da! I'm still pretty clean. Now the question is, did they actually eat them afterwards. I know that the super-duper cookies were eaten becasue I ate them.

Digitizing project

What have I gotten myself into? But after it is finished, you all will be glad I did it. I have as one of my projects digitizing all of the photos I have ever taken over my lifetime. I have not taken "film" photos since switching to digital about 2005 or 2006. Everything after that is already digital. I bought a small photo scanner that copies photos to a memory card. I already have all of them organized by month and year and filed, which makes digitizing and renaming them much easier. However, after I got part way through (copied about 1250 photos), I realized that is only 10% of the photos I have filed since 1971 besides all the photos that I took prior to that and all my mission slides, and I have a long way to go. Part of this process is to color correct or brighten faded pictures with PhotoShop. I have done this to about 22 rolls so far and realize I have months of work ahead of me and I have learned that the photo scanner is a cheapo and does not copy photos very well (ie photos that appear to be okay are not okay after being scanned). That means that I have rescanned several of those on our big 3-in-1 office flatbed scanner - those turned out much better and I can correct them with better results. Using the flatbed scanner takes three to five times as long to copy. But I am determined to finish this project. You will all be glad I am doing this.
This is one example. Judy and I went camping in the Snow Range in Wyoming one day on Aug 1971. I had a bright orange pup tent (still have it) that I set up next to a mountain stream (very romantic, you know). I left my car ('68 Torino) in the small parking lot next to the highway, just hoping it would still be there in the morning (we couldn't see it from out camp site). Next morning I went up to the car to get breakfast and saw this sign. Camp take down and breakfast was very fast.

Is Blogging Outdated?

I am just wondering if blogs are going extinct because Facebook is easier and shorter, but you can't get all the content of a blog post in Facebook. Seems like more and more people are only posting once or twice per year or have abandoned their Blogs all together. My counter is not going up and there have not been many comments which tells me I am posting to myself. I guess I will need to copy my posts in a book for Family History. Just sounding off.

Last events in Arizona

Something about each of the kids: Charlie has the cutest smile and he was generally in good spirits. He loves Pink Hefah and JibJab. Erik had a very infectious laugh and would correct you if you sang the wrong words to a song (just making up words would frustrate him). He would also spend a lot of time in the bathroom. You will see why later. Ellie? What can I say? She is a very smart girl and is reading at a third grade level. She is so “motherly” to everyone and takes care of her brothers. She is so excited she has a new sister to take care of. One time I just laid down on the couch and she got two blankets and covered me and put a pillow under my head and said “that’s better”. Another time she corrected Erik for not wanting to say the prayer after daddy asked him to say it and Kyle reminded her that she was not Erik’s mother. She is so sweet. Amelia is such a good baby – eats and sleeps and doesn’t seem to mind being passed around to everyone in the house. She is very alert. And there is nothing sweeter that holding a new born baby, rocking her to sleep.
Ellie was so tired that she fell asleep holding Amelia. It was too darling to pass up. This was like 8:30 in the morning. I think that we are wearing her out. One thing we were extremely impressed with was FHE one evening. Ellie was in charge of the lesson. We asked her if she needed help and she said “no, I got it.” Her lesson was on Names and Feelings. She repeated the story about Spencer W Kimble when he had surgery and a nurse took the name of the Lord in vain. Her expressions were wonderful. “You wouldn’t want anyone to make fun of your name. On no you wouldn’t”. Then she went on to the second part of the lessons – feelings. We were very impressed with her lesson and her foresight and wish we had taped it.

We had Christmas presents for all and they got to open them before we went home. That was fun. There were several Trio sets that we got to put together.

Ellie really wanted a camera. She was so excited when she got one and was taking pictures of everyone and everything.

Can't get too much of Amelia.

Ellie's school had a Kindergarten Christmas concert. We just let Charlie run until it started to get the wiggles out.

Anna and Bob had just arrived so she joined us also.

I look pretty cool in sunglasses. Don't I? Like a movie star.

Singing her heart out. It was so cute. Ellie was the only one swaying with the music.

Can you see my tonsils? They are coming out next week. They are making me sick all the time.

Kjersten helped with Charlie. BFFs.

After the program was over.

Last day in Glendale before the long drive home. We gathered all the kids for a group photo.

For one hour, Erik was behind a closed bathroom door singing his heart out - Feliz Navidad that he got from a JibJab movie. Below is what he was doing behind that door.

Ellie's school concert.

More Arizona activities

Our second Sunday there the boys wanted to wear their Chinese suits. We did not argue and they looked so cute in them. Ellie looks elegant as usual.
They also wore them on Sunday number three.

If anyone is wondering, I have a blue silk dragon jacket to match theirs except I didn't bring it to Arizona.

We promised Erik that we would take him hiking in the desert one day. We drove a couple blocks outside of town, next door to the church building, and did some hiking in a nature park; there are several miles of trails in this park, but we could only handle about a mile.

The only critter we saw was this chipmunk, begging for food. We were looking for lizards and rattlesnakes. Erik did spot one in the rocks under some scrub brush. I did see some movement but it was too dark to get any kind of photo (Sorry Logan and Liam). We did see one rabbit and some pigeons. So much for the wild life.

Judy and Erik by a Saguaro Cactus. This one is a mature one, probably close to 200 years old and weighing several tons (full of water). Even though it was only in the mid 60s, it felt closer to 80.

This was a very refreshing after-the-hike treat. That hit the spot.

Ellie wanted a sewing kit and a machine for her birthday. We sent a kit loaded with all the handwork stuff she would need. Ellie wanted to learn how to sew. Judy brought both her sewing machines to accomplish that want. Ellie is working on a baby blanket for her new sister Amelia and pillow cases for her brothers.

She operated the machine herself, with Judy guiding the material. With Ellie, it was full speed or nothing; and occasionally she would be looking all around the room with the machine going full blast. Good thing Judy was there to help. She was so excited to do this. She closed up the blanket with hand stitching.

See the results. She is also going to be a marketer because she said that she could put pictures of her work on the blog and people would want to buy them. Just can't get enough of Amelia.

Once a month Tiffany does some service with some other ladies. And in conjunction with Ellie's birthday, sock monkeys were made, but ran out of time to finish due to a baby being born. So afterwards, Judy helped get button eyes on them and rearranged a couple of tails. They were then donated to a children's charity. This is Ellie posing with the end results. Ellie received gifts for her birthday but donated them to this charity.

One cool evening Kyle, the kids and me went to the Phoenix Zoo to see the Zoo Lights. Kyle got free passes from a Thunderbird club he belongs to. The kids were all wrapped up in blankets besides hearing coats underneath.

There were 3.5 million lights and moving lights; lighted animals running and jumping or swinging through the trees. This is a giant tree at the entry gate, all lite up in blue lights.

Flamingos

Lets keep moving. It's getting cold out here.

We also got to experience a total lunar eclipse. This is about 6:00AM and we wrapped the kids in warm stuff to watch it. But an eclipse from start to finish takes hours. It became total just at sunrise. The moon is half way to total, just above Ellie's head.

This is maybe a once in a life time event to see a total lunar eclipse so Kyle decided to join us with Charlie. We all watched it until it became total, at which time it disappeared.

This particular eclipse was to produce a blood red moon. You can see the top half of the moon had a red color. If we were one time zone west, it would have been spectacular.

This is about ten minutes to totality. But the sun is also rising and bleaching the moon.

Totality and sunrise. It disappeared. This was fun to watch. and we didn't have to drive anywhere. We jut stepped out of the front door and looked up.

It was Super-Duper cookie making day. Both Ellie and Erik wanted to help. Judy and my jobs were to make the cookie dough balls and their job was to roll the rounded cookie balls in powdered sugar. This was getting messy.My, look at all that sugar on my hands. It must taste good. They would occasionally lick their fingers and then we made them wash their hands. I would not allow them to leave this project without eating some of that delicious raw chocolate cookie dough. So they each got a couple of bites each, despite the look I got from Tiffany. I have to say, this is some of the best cookie dough in the world. Sorry Tiffany. It's kind of like the old Life commercials: "Hey, lets get Mikie".

We took the kids to a couple of movies. Their favorite one was The Muppet movie. After that. Charlie kept singing the Mana mana song and he tried to enunciate it very clearly. One of the other things they liked to watch were all the JibJab videos I created with them in it.

Ellie was so proud of her work that she needed to show it off. This was a great project.

We got the kids a Fisher Price Nativity set and gave it to them right away. They played with it every day and, yes, sometimes there there were fights over who gets to play with it. Charlie loved to push the button to make it sing and hummed along with it.