Happy Birthday Tanner-manner!

My baby is two. Sniff. Sniff. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The nice thing for me about having kids around major holidays is I never feel the need to have a kid party. We're usually around lots of family. This time around we housed 16 people in our house for Thanksgiving weekend. (And not to forget Paul's parents who stayed in a motel.) Thought it was going to be crazy but it wasn't as stressful as I anticipated. Note to self: 4 cheese balls insufficient, next time have 6 or more. At least 2 pans of fudge and 2 chocolate pies. Buy 2 pumpkin pies from Sam's Club and the Sam's Club Rotisserie chicken was wayyy better that doing a turkey.

And now, onto the "party" which was mostly the opening of presents and that's about it.




Hey bud! After 2 years, I still love to squeeze your cheeks (on your face).



Opening a dump truck (thanks Grandpa Jerry!) When the postal lady delivered the package she said "Uhh, this one makes noise...".



Tanner's toy of choice lately have been Thomas choo-choo trains. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be drowning in choo-choos for the next 10 years.




I love Lana's reaction in this picture. She's actually saying "Hey, it's a choo-choo train!"



Hmm, I wonder who will get more playtime out of this toy?



Oh, and happy birthday Tanner! We bought a new car for you to ride in! Woo-woo! You can see additional pictures and details here. Sadly it won't be here until Wednesday.

Ever had one of those days...

...where your kid(s) cause a deep desire in you to build a sound-proof, padded room to lock yourself in?





Both above pictures courtesy of Tanner. The screen happens to be my screen porch which I hung by myself. I took it a little personally. You can't see all the holes because quite frankly it's hard to take a picture of a screen so you can see it, but there are about 10 places where he's poked a hole. Nice huh?

It's been a great opportunity to practice my counting.

A monumental owie

So Sunday night while Paul and I were in the garage moving stuff around so we might possibly fit a vehicle in there, Lana and Tanner decided to play tag on the driveway. Both had wrapped themselves up in blankets. This was the end result. (picture taken the day after with my new phone camera)



I'm not sure what distressed Lana more, me cleaning the wound (thankfully there was no rocks or anything large embedded in her face) or seeing herself in the mirror.



I kept the poor girl home Monday to watch for infection. Thankfully none. Then Tuesday she was adamant about not going to school because she didn't want anyone to see her owie.




So we spent the day making special beds on the floor of the family room and watching some favorite shows.

I finally had to force her out the door Wednesday and wrote a note to her teacher telling her what happened and hoping DHS wouldn't show up on my doorstep. But she made it through the day and everyone was so caring. Her teacher even sent back a note saying they'd make sure to be more sensitive to Lana about her owie (she is still a little self conscious of it).

I am amazed at how quickly her wound has healed. You can see considerable progress each day. Now we just keep our fingers crossed that she won't have much (or any) scarring.

Free child labor at its cutest

An after church conversation with Lana

Today, because of our ward Relief Society Visiting Teaching Conference, Paul taught Lana's Sunbeam class third hour. When we got home from church this is how our conversation went:

Me: Hey Lana, how was Sunbeams?
Lana: Fine. (standard answer for everything)
Me: Who was your teacher today?
Lana: Daddy!
Me: What did you learn in class?
Lana: (Shrugs her shoulders and does the I-don't-know hum.)
Me: Okay, what did daddy tell you?
Lana: To sit down and be reverent.
Me: (Dying of laughter) I turn to Paul and he says, Well, the lesson was called"I can be reverent".

Halloween

Oh Halloween, where are the days where you had a parade of costumes at school and then went door to door in your neighborhood to get candy and that was all? Now we have a Halloween season, there are so many things to do. The pumpkin patch (there are atleast 2 around here that I know of), Boo at the Zoo, Trunk or Treat and our Ward Festival, one of Lana's classmates had a dress up birthday party, people handing out candy everywhere, our neighborhood had a party at the playground (bbq, hayride and trick or treating) and a friend of ours had a party at her house (sorry we bailed Manda! They were little maniacs after all the candy they ate.). It's a little crazy what Halloween has turned into, but I love it. For me it just means the holiday season has been extended another month.

On to the costumes. Do you think Tanner enjoyed his costume? You be the judge.








I can just hear him now, "Mom, why on earth would you put this ridiculous/torture contraption on me?"



Lana on the other hand was excited to be a pink fairy. I never did get a picture with her complete outfit. She had a crown, necklace and a magic wand. You can't tell in the picture but I made her "Tinkerbell hair". She doesn't really like me to do her hair other than one pony tail with a clip on the side. So when I want to do something different I have to make up a story like "it's Tinkerbell hair" or "Princess hair" or something to that extent.



These kids have thoroughly enjoyed Halloween this year, we have so much stinkin candy.



And on a random note, this is a typical picture that you will find multiples of on my memory card. Atleast his hands are clean. My kids have the greatest facial expressions. I wish I could capture them all on camera.