Snow for the New Year

Well, we finally got snow. Not much, but we'll take it. Since we missed the white Christmas, we'll at least get a white new year!

The Remodel Begins

We've been wanting to repaint the upstairs bedrooms for quite some time now. However, until recently we didn't feel the motivation to undertake tearing down the wallpaper - nor were we aware how many layers previous owners had installed.

First we went at the cracks in the wallpaper at the seams and ran a putty knife under it. Much of the ceiling wallpaper came down fairly easily. By the way, we counted at least four layers of wallpaper - possible five or six - it is really hard to tell. How many can you count in the picture below?



Then we went at the walls. If you're planning on removing wallpaper, we highly recommend the Piranha Scoring Tool. After you score the wallpaper, use a spray bottle filled with water and then you can start scraping it down with a putty knife. We do NOT, however, recommend the Piranha Wallpaper Remover Concentrate. We found it to be no more effective than plain water.

Anyway, we will continue to work on this from day to day and give you updates as time goes by.

Analeigh Ballerina

Among Analeigh's gifts was a tutu, Fancy Nancy shoes, and necklace beads. As we watched Christmas specials on PBS (the only station we get), a video came on for an abbreviated version of the Nutcracker ballet. Specifically, it was a production called Prima Princessa Presents the Nutcracker. Geared towards young girls around Analeigh's age, she fell in love with the show. It also helped that she recognized the music from multiple viewings of Fantasia. Here is a video of her dancing along as she is taught various ballet moves.



In case you are curious, Prima Princessa also has other DVDs, including one for Swan Lake.

Merry Christmas!

David and Analeigh are still young enough to sleep in on Christmas morning - which is rather nice - though they'll probably break that habit in the near future. Per tradition, we made a video of them entering the living room to see their presents:



David enjoyed his gifts of building blocks, airplanes, a skid steer, Toy Story 3, and many other great things.





Analeigh loved playing with her new beads, tutu, and other such dress-up items (including Fancy Nancy shoes!).





Liz appreciated Santa getting her a number of scrapbooking items, including three font cartridges for her Slice die cut machine.



Ben, newly anointed scoutmaster, decided to get a cold-weather sleeping bag to assist him in the upcoming January campout. It should keep him warm down to -25° F and is quite roomy - even the kids fit in!



Ben also made sure Santa brought the Star Wars ABC book. Now he can indoctrinate our children!

The Good Samaritan

When we lived in Great Bend, we used to go to the Carlton residence on Christmas Eve to share a talent, which represented our gift to the baby Jesus.

We no longer live in Great Bend and Sister Carlton told us she was going to be out of town this year anyway. Nevertheless, Ben decided to keep the tradition alive by sharing yet another video. This year the theme of the video was a bit more serious - but we'll get to that in a moment. First, let's review Ben's history of talent sharing.

First, in 2007, there was The Story of Ammon. The video logged 1,000 views on YouTube the first year. Now, three years later, it has somehow managed to maintain it's popularity by averaging 1,000 views per year. Thus, it has now eclipsed 3,000 views.

In 2008, was the infamous commercial for a CD that would teach you to memorize the order of The Sections in the Doctrine and Covenants. While not as popular, it has consistently averaged 300 views per year on YouTube and currently sits at 616 views.

Maintaining a consistent viewing average may not sound all that impressive to you, but it is. Most videos start decreasing in viewership over time. For example, on 14 December 2008, a 14-second video about watching grass grow, had 310 views over the course of two years. Now, two years later, it has 384 views (which means only 74 views in the past two years - a major drop in viewership).

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. In 2009, Ben showed off his photo editing skills, as seen in this post.

This year Ben went back to his video making talent. Ben was inspired by the LDS International Video Competition. He had his deacon's quorum meet on a Saturday (only two people showed) and shoot a film. Ben let the boys have complete artistic control. Thus, it will be entered in to the 13- to 17-year-old category. They decided on creating a modern version of the parable of The Good Samaritan, as found in Luke 10:25-37.

Interesting Tidbits about the video:

• If you watch carefully, you can see a cameo by Ben beginning at the 0:45 mark. The other adult supervising the production also has a cameo shortly thereafter.
• Since there were only two boys, the Good Samaritan is the same boy who robs the other person. Fortunately, a wardrobe change and some tinkering with the audio file makes it seem like two different actors.
• Continuity issue: Although the victim lands on the ground facing one way after being beaten, he ends up facing the other way for the remainder of the video.
• This is Ben's first video to be presented with captions. Ben was so proud of learning how to create captions for the video, using a text editor (specifically Notepad), he even added captioning to The Sections in the Doctrine and Covenants video. So call up your deaf friends and have them check out both videos!

Dreaming of a White Christmas?

Is there anyone who dreams of a brown Christmas (brown being the color of the dead/hibernating grass)? No, most people dream of a white Christmas (white being the color of snow - just in case you somehow have never heard the phrase - or the song).

Well, if you have looked at the White Christmas map yesterday, courtesy of The Weather Channel, it looked like we were in for a brown Christmas. Now the map has been updated and we're just inside of the area in the map that claims to have a 25-50% chance of a white Christmas.



If current reports are to be believed, we're due for a "light wintry mix" during the overnight hours. If the cold weather holds, we may actually have a smattering of light snow to look at on Christmas Day, instead of dead grass. We'll be keeping our fingers crossed!

Christmas Party Without The Party

David's pink eye persists, so he missed going to preschool today, just like he did on Monday. Sadly, this means he missed his class Christmas party. Liz took the gift for the gift exchange anyway and then returned later to pick up David's gift, so he could at least enjoy some of the experience of the party by opening his present at home.

David got a Spiderman puzzle, which he waited to put together until his daddy got home to help him with it. David thought it was a lot of fun.

It is kind of hard to tell from the picture, but his pink eye really is getting better. David had been getting confused and was calling it "black eye." However, he has been reassured that no one punched him, so he can't have black eye - only pink eye.

Say It Isn't So!

Sunday morning was a morning like any other (aside form it being a day of worship). We got up, got dressed, and headed off to church. At some point during sacrament meeting or Primary, David began to develop pink eye. Yes, pink eye!

It is kind of hard to say how long the incubation period of this illness is, but we have to assume he picked it up at preschool on Friday. We apologize to anyone that might have picked it up from David on Sunday - we really didn't know he had it until it was too late.

Anyway, when we got home we researched the disease online, then proceeded to call our own parents to see how they treated it when they used to have children in the home. Ben was appalled to learn that he once had pink eye too as a child - he truly believed he had been exempt from that experience his whole life (what a lousy way to have one's dreams shattered).

So, since Sunday, we've been washing our hands like crazy and we also sanitized all the toys and hid them in the closet to await the day when David is cured (see picture below).

On Monday, we were lucky to be able to get our doctor's office to call in a prescription for us so we could avoid the office visit payment on our insurance. Since then we've been having a wonderful time holding David down to make him accept the eye drops we have to give him. He does seem to be getting better, but his eyes are still a little pink and a little puffy, as you can see below.

The OTHER Santa Train

These past three weeks we've been going to Lowe's for their Build and Grow workshops. They've been doing a train. The first week we built a caboose. Then we built the passenger train. Today we built the engine.

David has been so excited, counting down the days until he and his daddy could go to the "man store" and build the train engine. Now we can hardly get him to come to the table to eat - he loves his train that much!

Beauty and the Beast

Back in October, we bought Beauty and the Beast on Blu-ray Combo Pack. No, we do not have a blu-ray player, but the combo pack includes a DVD copy. Thus, we can watch the movie now and have a high definition copy for years from now when we actually have money to buy a blu-ray player.

But, you may ask, why would we spend extra money buying a combo pack when all we need is the DVD and the DVD version is cheaper? Because of Disney Movie Rewards. They usually have a $10 off coupon for combo packs, making it cheaper than buying the DVD version alone. So, if you're interested in buying Bambi when it comes out in next spring, the website should have a coupon for you to print off and take to the store of your choosing. By the way, registration is free.

Anyway, it seems we have digressed from the initial topic of Beauty and the Beast. Analeigh loves the movie and insisted on hauling the slip cover all around the house - even taking it to bed with her. Eventually the slip cover was "misplaced" (in other words it hidden in a cupboard - out of sight, out of mind). Recently it was rediscovered and Analeigh once again had her slip cover to snuggle with as she fell asleep tonight.

Gingerbread Houses

For tonight's family home evening, we had a lot of fun making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.

David enjoyed being able to work with the frosting/cement. Analeigh apparently thought the cement was stronger than it actually was, because she kept causing her house to cave in.



And here is Ben's and Liz's houses, respectively:

Santa Train

We recently learned that Abilene, Kansas (home of President Eisenhower) hosts a Santa Train every year. Given David's love of trains, we bought four tickets and drove to Abilene for a good time.

Once on the train, David was more than happy to sit with Santa Claus. Analeigh, on the other hand, would have nothing to do with Jolly Old St. Nicholas. Instead she chose to bury her head in her father's coat.



Later, Santa and his helpers handed out a bags of coloring pages, crayons, and stickers; bags of candy; and some books to each of the children.



David kept a smile on his face from beginning to end. He loved being on a real train and hearing the whistle blow at intersections.

We Have a Mouse

We have a little mouse. The mouse's name is Analeigh. She is a clever mouse - she knows that if she drags a chair into the kitchen, she can stand on it and get in to the fruit bowl and bite out small chunks of apples without anyone noticing. There is, in fact, only one flaw in her plan - we do notice.

Shredding Carrots

We often make homemade pizza on Fridays. The processed involves shredding out own cheese. Analeigh found a carrot and decided that, since it was orange like the cheddar cheese, it must need to be shredded too.



In case you were wondering, we did NOT put the carrots on the pizza!

Look What I Found

In anticipation of repainting most of the wall surfaces of our home, we have been procuring old newspapers from our local library when they are getting thrown out. Analeigh recent found the collection and had a great time!

David the Parade Master

Tonight was Ellsworth's Christmas Parade (we're not really sure why they decided to hold it at night). The parade consists of a couple of firetrucks carrying Santa and about five floats. But in between the firetrucks and floats was the Teddy Bear march of David's preschool. The idea was that they would carry a teddy bear to donate at the end of the parade when they reached a local church (we, being the awesome parents that we are, forgot to bring David's bear when we left the house!).

His teacher, Mrs. Haase, made it clear to the kids that they had to follow the yellow line on the road. David (the one in the orange coat), as you can see from the pictures, was quite obedient to this. He was so focused on the yellow line that he hardly looked up the entire time.



In fact, it wasn't until Liz followed him along the parade route, calling to him repeatedly, that we could get him to look up for a picture.



In the end, the preschool won first prize in the parade. So maybe they'll have a really fun Christmas party before the end of the year.

Who Loves Pretty Shoes?

If anyone loves pretty shoes, then they will appreciate Analeigh's dedication to getting the most out of her footwear. Most people put their shoes in their closet at the end of the day. Not Analeigh! Even over the top of her footed pajamas, Analeigh insists on wearing her pretty Sunday shoes while she is asleep in her bed.