Random Recent Photos

Where's Moxie's head?

I don't know.

Looking at the mirror.

Making faces in the mirror.

Driving a train on the carpet train track.

Driving some more.

Look, Dorian finally figured out how Tristan does a headstand on the couch!

Noah's Ark Pictures

We built the ark to scale, but our animals and people are not to scale.

We built separate pens for different types of animals.

There's Noah with his (parrot) dove.

Boys a Growin'

Dorian can say just about everything now, and he's getting better at saying the things he could already say before. He can say water, milk, juice and wice cake (rice cake). He calls Tristan "Tistan boy". He calls the rabbit Bun-bun, and calls his droppings "rabbit poop". He can count down 3-2-1 at the beginning of a race and can say "mark, set, go!" He can count to 12 and especially likes to count stairs out in service.

We built Noah's ark out of Legos a few weeks ago. It took us 3 hours to build it to 1/3 lego bump scale. We filled it with animals and people that were not to scale, they should've all been tinier. We took pictures and the ark lasted about 2 weeks before Tristan couldn't live without the parts anymore.

Tristan is reading at mid-first grade level. He read The Nose Book to me yesterday and The Ear Book the day before, both by Al Perkins.

Sweet Sleepers

They look so alike when they sleep. I couldn't resist snapping the picture when I saw they were cuddling and  holding hands.

A Cup of Coffee and Two Grandsons

Grandpa got what he wanted.

And so did the boys.

 

Tristan decided, out of the blue, to try dressing up like Mario.

Eric and Thomas (the tank engine) shared a doughnut.

Da Pe Daddy, Da Queue Mommy

Dorian is talking. If you speak his language you can even communicate with him. He calls water "Wah", he also calls any other drink "Wah". He calls Thomas the Tank Engine "Cain-key". He calls Percy, "Per" and James, "Yaim", Henry, "Henyee". He calls Tristan "Tin". To say good-night he says, "Nigh-nigh".  He calls vitamins, "Mih", cookies are "Coo", rice cakes are "Kay". To say That, he says "Da".

He says Mommy, Daddy, Hot, Happy, Hi and Bye-bye correctly. He knows his numbers 1-10 and all of the letters in the Alphabet. The other night he was in Eric's office pointing at the letters on the keyboard, and he said, "Da Queue, Mommy. Da Eee, Daddy. Da Ah, Daddy. Da Tee, Da Why..." etc. After each one, we'd say, "You're right, that is Q, that is E, that is R, that is T, yes that is Y..." etc. After he went through the letters and numbers a few times, we were getting bored, so we stopped responding. Then, he got adamant. "Daddy. Daddy! Daddy!" And when Eric looked up, Dorian went on, "Da Peee Daddy!"

He can't say the S sound yet. So it is very cute when he tells us what he sees. "I hsee two. I hsee one." And it's very cute when you ask him who he loves. He says, "I wuv Daddy". And yesterday he kept saying Bumblebee over and over. A friend of ours has a dog named Bogie, and Dorian gets excited and says Bogie, Bogie when he sees him. And he loves to hide and then come out and say "Boo!"

Dorian is getting quite tall too. Strangers are often surprised that he recently turned two, especially the Burmese and Mexican people we've been meeting lately.

Tristan's school pictures came back. We were quite surprised at the funny face Tristan made, but Tristan loves his school pictures, so we're not doing retakes. We also got his progress report and found out that he's excelling far beyond expectations. For example, at this point in Kindergarten, they're expected to recognize 16 letters in a minute (upper and lower in random order). Tristan recognized 48 in a minute. They were also tested in other areas, and he did just as well there.

That last paragraph reminds me of a funny story. I was talking with a nurse who asked if I was still nursing Dorian. I said that I was and she asked if I'd nursed Tristan as long. I told her that I'd nursed Tristan until he was 2 years, 7 months. She looked at Tristan and said, "Wow, you're going to be smart". Tristan looked at her squarely and said, "I'm already smart". (It cracked me up, but I could tell the nurse was caught off guard).

Sorry no pictures. We've been taking them with our phones instead of our cameras lately. It's harder (for me) to get the phone pictures onto my laptop, so another time, another time.

Face Plant

On September 19th, Dorian was happily playing outside when he had an unfortunate trip and fall incident. It left him looking like he'd tried to scrape his nose clean off. It has been almost a month, and it's all healed up finally,  but you can still see where it was. Here are two pictures. One from the day it happened and the other more recently. It was all scabbed up for 2 weeks. Dorian has inherited inability to stop picking at face spots from his father and grandmother, so it took a while for it to heal up. He kept picking his scabs and they'd bleed all over again. Really yucky.

The day the nose was almost removed.

Two cute boys in baseball suits.

In other news, Dorian is talking now. He can count 1-10 and says his ABC's, but has trouble with a couple. His favorite letters are O, P, Q and Y. He says those a lot. He calls Thomas the Tank Engine "Cankey" it sounds like Cranky without the "r". We're not sure if he's trying to say tank engine or what, but every time he sees Thomas he cries out Cankey! Cankey! He calls Shows "Woahs". He'll point at the TV and say Woah! Woah! He calls Tristan "Tin-tin". In the morning when he wakes up he says, "Hi Mom, Hi Tin-tin" and anytime we come home from being gone, he says "Daddy Boo!" when we pull in the driveway. Then when we get inside he looks for Daddy and when he finds him, he says Boo! and Daddy acts surprised. It's fun for the baby.

A Day at the Park

I've been trying to take Tristan and Dorian to the park before Tristan goes to school at least once or twice a week. Here are some cute pictures from this week.

First Tristan pushed Dorian on the swing.

Then Dorian pushed Tristan on the swing.

Cutie smile.

"Mom, take a picture of me too!" (actual quote)

He had just run to me across the entire green field.

Belly swinging.

We call this the Lion of Sodor. I was too late to catch them both on the lion.

They were following me back to the van like ducklings in a line, so I tried to take a picture.

First School Lunch

Every other Friday Tristan goes to school for a longer day. He has to be there at 9am! On these special Fridays, Tristan gets to have lunch at the school with his class. Today was the first school lunch. It consisted of tomato soup, grilled cheese, various fruits, vegetables, crackers, and milk or water. Tristan ate all of his food excepting the tomato soup. There were three moms that came to assist the teacher with organizing the children during lunch. They helped with putting straws in juice pouches, opening milk cartons, and reminding children to eat and not just screw around.

Now, there was a situation involving milk. Tristan was the last kid in line. He wanted to have chocolate milk like all the other kids. However, his mom reminded him that cow milk makes his stomach hurt. He was sad. Fortunately his classmate, Darius, was not drinking milk, so they enjoyed water instead.

Mimi tried to score a 3-point shot with her juice box into the garbage can. It bounced away and hit a 3rd grader in the back.

Of the 19-20 children in the class, seven brought their own lunch, while the rest ate the school's fare. The principle came in to inquire about their first school lunch. It was casual Friday so he had jeans and a shirt and looked like a big kid.

Dorian stayed home with me during this affair. I was trying to work, but mostly I was crawling around on the floor playing with him until she got home.

Written by Eric.

First Day of School

Tristan had his first day of school yesterday. He cried a little when it was time to say Goodbye to the parents. I looked back and saw him composing himself after I left the room. Then I cried all the way down the hall to the exit. Dorian was a brat, so I'm glad she wasn't letting us stay the whole day. :)

His teacher is super nice and very smart. When we came to pick Tristan up after school he was talking a mile a minute about how great school was! He made a friend named Nolan. They got to draw and tell the whole class about their drawing. They had recess and snack time. They learned the rules of the playground. And they learned a song.

This picture was taken when we were picking him up after school.

Cute Bun-Bun and an Update

Eric and the bunny are so snuggly together.

In other news... Tristan is starting school! His first day of Kindergarten is this Thursday! He is going to go to Marvista Elementary. I start regular pioneering the same day. My schedule is going out while Tristan is at school for half-day Kindergarten and then 5 hours on the weekend, which I already do most weekends. It's always up for revision though, if it doesn't seem to work out. We've been really busy getting ready for school and working on lots of projects. Our new Kingdom Hall is about finished up now too. We should be moving into it next week! Lot's of changes around here for us.

T & D Dish Washing Service

They unloaded the top rack too, but Dorian had to stand on something to reach everything. This is now their daily chore... so far they enjoy it!

More Wedding Photos!

Thanks to Mindy and Jabari's camera and Brenda and Jay's sharing, we now have more pictures from Thomas and Randee's wedding... even pictures of Randee! Woo-hoo!

Thomas, Randee and the musician lady

Tristan and Thomas

Jabari and Thomas

Dorian on the stairs.

Thomas and Chris

Brenda, Mindy and Tristan (Thomas, Randee and Landry in the background)

Mindy and Jabari

Jabari, Brenda, Jay, Nick and Chris

Waiting and watching

Randee and her Dad walking down the aisle.

Thomas and Randee.

Re: Happy Re:Union

Another happy reunion of family members near and far occurred this month for the union of Uncle Thomas and now Aunt Randee in marriage. We got to see old friends and new friends over breakfast and over late night wine (and whine - our little cans were very sleepy by the time the wedding was over). Here are a few pictures we have. Hopefully, we'll get access to some of the professional photos soon, and I can share a few then too.

I took 3 pictures here, in one Thomas was looking up and no one else was, in the other two Thomas was looking down. So, I took the best photo of everyone else and photoshopped Thomas looking up into it. It's not bad, you can hardly tell. :)

Mmmmm, good breakfast.

Here's everybody outside. Sharon took the picture.

Grandma and Dorian on the swing.

Grandpa and Tristan playing roll the ball.

Our nice friend Sharon with PolkaDot the bun-bun.

At the Rose Garden, Cousin Nick was doing the Samson in chains knocking down the pillars on the Philistines.

At the zoo, Cousin Chris and Tristan tried on turtle shells.

One-Two-Three-Whee almost had Tristan upside down! His smile was HUGE too.

I wonder what that blur could be that Chris and Dorian are smiling at so broadly.

Oh, yes, and there was a wedding! How could we forget? Dorian thought they'd hire him as a wedding singer, but since his song was "No, no, no" (his favorite word), he didn't make it through the auditions. Better luck next time bud.

The wedding was simple, beautiful, elegant... none of which can be told with these pictures taken on a phone, but that's all we've got at the moment. You'll have to stay tuned.

Dorian and Mama Tiff at the beginning of the reception.

The room decor with a blurry father-of-the-groom in the center. The back of the bride's sister, the profile of the bride's mother and the back of the bride standing behind them are off in the lower left of the picture. I think that's the only picture of the bride we got... the only one I could find. :S

And here is the very handsome, very happy Groom. Uncle Thomas.