Annika updates

Annika has become so talkative lately and talks about things that she has really been thinking about. Yesterday as we were on our family walk she says, "Mom I want a journal so I can write about lots of things every day."
"OK, sounds good."
"First I will write, 'My mom and dad are really sweet.'"

Ahhh. Isn't that better than a paycheck?

She also recently taught herself how to snap and how to whistle. How many 4 year olds do you know who can do that?

Walking to school with worms

Up until towards the end of 5th grade, I walked to school, in Hudson Iowa. We lived in the "new addition," which was on the other side of Highway 63 from the school. We would cut through our neighbors' yard behind us, stopping to say hi to their German shepherd. Then we would walk down the street past the house where a teenager adopted from Korea lived, past the Allred's (some people in our ward who I used to babysit, when I was younger than 10, until one of the boys climbed up the metal shelving in the basement and spilled a 5 gallon jar of honey all over the braided rug, knocking over the whole shelving unit and shattering the jar into a million pieces). That was probably the first time I was fired for doing a bad job, but as a nine year old I learned a few good life lessons, that have really impacted my life. 1) Nine year olds are old enough to babysit 4 younger children. 2) The top shelf of a rickety metal shelving unit is not a good place for a 5 gallon jar of honey. 3) Shelving units should be secured to the wall when small children live in the same house. But the really great thing about he Allreds is that they were really wacky and a lot of fun and we played a really awesome card game called scoop like solitaire where each person has their own deck but you can discard your cards on anyone else's stacks in the middle.
Back to walking to school. When we got to the corner where the Brekhousen's (where we went for Brownies) lived we turned left. Sometimes Carrie and Andrew Jones would join us, and then we would pick up Elicia and Heather King. There was this house across from the King's where some mysterious teenagers lived who were always getting their trees TP'ed. One thing that really sticks out is the smell of the worms on the road after a good rain. We would talk about night crawlers and how they have to come out because the ground is too full of water and how if you chop them in half they keep living, and we trying not to step on them. I remember rounding this one corner where lightening hit a tree one night and half of it was strewn across the road and the people were trying to clean it up. When we got to the end of that street we would walk through this chain-link fenced path up to where the happy professional crossing guard would help us cross Highway 63. She always wore orange and had an orange whistle and orange whistle earrings to match. I remember when I was in third grade I weighed 63 pounds and I thought I was so clever when I figured out that, "I weigh 63" sounds like "Highway 63."

Halloween 2009

After 3 years of elementary school Halloween parades, I finally figured out that it is fun to have the younger kids dress up to watch the parade too. Here are some shots of Dallin and Annika as we were waiting for the parade to start. We came pretty early to get a good parking spot. (see I am getting wiser)

Adriana, the cutest witch in the first grade. This is the first time one of my kids actually wanted to be someone Halloweenish.
Ariel wanted to be a baby this year. I can't really understand her choice, and I didn't really like the pajamas we bought for her costume, but another girl in her class also wanted to be a baby and got the same pajamas, so at least she was in good company. She has been planning this for almost a year now, right around election time last year she said she wanted to either be Barack Obama or a baby. I guess this costume was a little easier that Barack Obama would have been.


Dallin fell asleep right before we left for trick or treating. By the time we got back he was just waking up, so I took him out to a few houses, just the two of us. He looks a little startled in this picture because he had just woken up, and wasn't sure what awaiting him in his first trick or treating adventure. We went to some houses that were totally spooky. At one there were eyeballs peering out of the bushes, and spiders in the windows, and he had second thoughts about it saying it was too, "Pooky," but the promise of candy helped him overcome his fears.

Barbie birthday cake and a picture Nikolay took.

This year for Annika's birthday I made a Barbie cake. She was having a princess party and this cake seemed more possible than a castle. Except for the icing running, I pretty much like how it turned out and the girls couldn't get over how fun it was to be eating her dress.
We went on a walk a few weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon to a park we had never been to before. I had messed up the settings on the camera and couldn't get them back to normal, so I surrendered the camera to Nikolay who took this great shot.

Kids say funny things

Annika thinks family home evening is called "heavenly meeting."

At lunch yesterday Annika told Dallin that GIRLled cheese sandwiches are not for boys.

Dallin saw Annika eating a pink starburst and said he wanted a pink caramel too.