Quack

Warm enough weather for a walk. Woot woot! But also, January, what the heck are you doing?

Mr and Mrs Mallard were getting a little aggressive. Dorothy had to stand in the stroller to keep them from biting the bread out of her hands before she could throw it.

Ruby. Happy!...

...and occasionally terrified.

Norah and me.

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I'm posting!

Hi Friends! Here's what we've been up to.

-Dallin is done with course work. Done. As in, he doesn't have to take any more classes. Weeeeeeird. And they trust him to teach college kids? He is auditing some classes, but no finals, no papers, nada. That being said, now is exam time. (Cue the scary music.) This is going to be a crazy few months.

An example, but first some background. For the last year, since the twins were born, we have had a sacred tradition in which he takes care of everything at home for a few hours on Saturdays and I go out by myself. I run errands, go grocery shopping, go to thrift stores, or sometimes sit somewhere quiet and eat lunch. But with the onset of exam study, my Saturday tradition is gone. *Barely-stifled-sob* I will survive, but it will be a busy few months.

-Dallin and I are in a contest: who can go without sugar the longest. Winner gets $20 to spend guilt free on whatever we want. It's been a week. Dallin is fine. I am not fine. I like sugar. This sucks, but I want $20. Clearly we have a problem here.

Also, poor timing. See above point.

-We burnt Dorothy's toast. Observe.

This, my friends, is the closest we have ever come to setting off the fire alarm. Which, I may add, is no small thing. It goes off in our whole building, forcing all our sweet neighbors out into the snow, and the fire department has to come to turn it off. I live in constant fear of setting it off. Whew! Narrow escape. Dorothy asked for another piece of toast.

-Dorothy took this set of pictures. Dallin is getting the babies ready to go out.

Done! And yes, I regularly keep my babies in their pajamas all day long. I do. It's just easier and their feet stay warmer because they can't pull off any socks. Judge me if you want to.

Aw. Seesters. That's Ruby in the stroller.

Tubby! Norah L, Ruby R.

Me. Because I live here too and I like this picture.

Dorothy

Dorothy made an art museum out of her blocks where cars would come to look at art. Interesting.

Some pictures this week and a Dorothy rewind

Norah, Dorothy, Ruby.

Norah

Dorothy enjoying the spoils.

Ruby. You know, just chillin' in the sink.

Annnnnd humor me for a bit. I was looking back through iPhoto. The babies look more like tiny Dorothy than I thought.

Summer 2008, 19 months old

Summer 2008 again. 20 months old

Same. 19 months old.

And little tiny. 10 months.

Observe. Definitely similar, though they do have they're own look.

Christmas!

Wahoo!

For Christmas, we made our way to Minnesota to impose upon the hospitality of Dallin's brother Seth, SIL Tiffany and their family. It was fantastic.

We still had to decorate our place a little bit before we went.

See the little pieces of paper dangling by strings? Those are christmas lights made by Dorothy. She was very sad that we don't have Christmas lights outside our apartment, so she made some.

And then... Minnesota! Cousins! Good food! Fun!

The drive went really well, better than expected. Mapquest says it's a nine hour drive, but it ended up being closer to seven hours. Woot woot!

The kidlets acted out the Nativity story on Christmas Eve. Dorothy, being the only girl in the bunch of age, got to be Mary. Here, she is really upset at the shepherd for sitting in the manger.

Cookies for Santa, with a note from my nephew.

A close up of the cookie. That, my friends, is the NBA logo. Dallin made it. Can you tell what he was excited about this Christmas?

Dorothy got to open all of our presents as well as hers. Dallin and I got a piece of grown up art. Isn't it pretty? Doesn't Dorothy look thrilled?

Best action shot of the trip. Look closely.

Ruby in the car. This was a hotly fought over toy.

Presents.



Opening the coolest present-- a set of Tegu blocks. They're magnetic wooden blocks so you can do all sorts of gravity defying structures. I might play with them more than Dorothy.

Some other highlights-

Church on Christmas morning: It's funny, because I think that had I been a kid and my parents had told me that we would be going to church before opening presents, I would have thrown an all out, rolling on the ground fit. But, much to their credit, the kids were fine with it. It was a really beautiful start to the day. Church was one hour, and entirely musical. We listened to and sang Christmas songs. Lovely.

Mall of America: We decided to do an anthropological study by going to the Mall of America on December 23. Also, we needed to take our computer in to the Apple store for some repairs. So, while we were sitting back and laughing at the crazed shoppers in the Bastion of Consumerism that is the mall, we felt very much like hypocrites because, well, we were there too. Our computer came out all shiny and new.

"The Hunger Games": I read the entire trilogy in four days. Thankfully, Seth and Tiffany are both avid readers, so they seemed to understand my hysteria. I've waited until now to read them because the premise is a little disturbing, and I'm in a funny place emotionally while I'm pregnant or have little babies. But I felt ready at the time, and I wanted to see what the pop culture phenomenon was all about before the movie came out. I could write a whole post on what I thought of it.

NBA: Dallin and Seth went to a game-- Minnesota vs. Oklahoma City Thunder.

It was a FANTASTIC trip. We're already talking about doing it again next year. Right, S&T?

The day after we got back, all of our kids cam down with a stomach bug. Sad. But it's the only time that the babies are this cuddly, so a lot of this happened. Aw.