Halloween 2010

Trace didn't get a costume, Mom was too busy helping plan the neighborhood party for 200 people.

Trace has amazing charming abilities.

Cole, as scary knight/ninja guy.

Here are some cupcake samples I made for the cupcake walk. I provided all the goodies to do these, but everyone just threw the candy on and ate it. I could have spent a lot less money on plain old sprinkles!

Jack as Ron Weasley, our neighbors are Harry and Hermione.

You can't tell but I'm wearing a side pony and two polo shirts. I'm Deb from Napolean Dynamite.

Random Pics

After school is such a nice time. I love walking from school to home, seeing all the kids interact, and chatting with the Moms. I Have to grab the adult conversations whenever I can!

Book Fair at the U

This was way back in the fall. The boys didn't want to go, but it ended up being a blast. Lots of free games and free children's books.

Story time with Ronald.

Climbing trees and the main event, which I didn't get a picture of, was playing on the playground equipment, including wiggle/plasma cars that the boys loved. That took up about an hour and a half.

Random storybook character.

Anakin, young and old and his accompanying Imperial troopers. This was a major highlight.

What are these things called Vandegraf Static Generators?

The coolest thing of all was not part of the fair, but a permanent water feature on campus. It was hot and all the kids were climbing all over this and standing in the waterfall.

Hallelujah!

Talmage has gained 6 pounds since New Years Day! He's over 50 pounds now and we're so thrilled! On Jan. 1st I weighed him and my heart sank because he was 44 pounds again. He'd lost four pounds over the holidays, when the rest of the family was packing it on! I'm pretty sure he weighed the same in 1st grade when he was 6 inches shorter. That makes for a very thin Tal. He looked so thin my family all started praying for him, unbeknownst to us. I felt like Clint and I had been trying and trying for years: ice cream at night, shakes he'd maybe eat once, protein bars he wouldn't even try, not to mention the arguing. He wouldn't eat any thing with nuts, few sweets, nothing touching, few meats, etc.
But it finally dawned on me that maybe I wasn't trying as hard as I thought I was. We'd have a battle with him over a meal, then forget about it for a few days. And during those days he was likely eating 500 calories or less, because food is just not a priority to him. I decided I needed to make sure that I was regularly putting food in front of him: three meals and two snacks. I googled his caloric needs which was only 1274. Then I made some worksheets with calorie charts for a week and printed out 52 for all of 2011, dated them, put them in a binder and started counting every calorie. The first improvement was that it improved my and Clint's attitude. It was all objective now much less emotional. Instead of panicking "Ah! You have eaten almost nothing for breakfast," I could see on the chart that he usually ate a small breakfast and more the rest of the day. The $20 bribe may have helped too, although that's been out there for a long time. We're just so glad that Tal is on the way up.