Talia in The Nutcracker...just kidding!

Talia's ballet "recital" was really adorable. Her teacher, Miss Raegan, essentially just walked through the class she does with the girls every week. Talia is very enthusiastic, that's for sure. She tends to be a little too social...but gee, I wonder where she gets that from? And I have to always remind myself she is only 3!














Truman also got a chance to "freeze dance" with all the little girls. Check out the video, it is really funny! I apologize for the camera-work, I was trying to watch and tape at the same time!

Weekend fun

The kids had a blast this weekend visiting our friends the Davisons. Thomas and Truman are just 6 weeks apart in age, and there is only a 3-week difference between Claire and Talia. Needless to say, it was odd not being pregnant while Julie was expecting her 3rd arrival, Elise Marie, who came 6 weeks ago!
My goal was to make things a little easier on Julie, so I tried hard to take on older-kid-management, meal-assistance, and baby-Elise-holding duties. Even though Truman and Talia had a yucky cold, they did pretty well. Truman and Thomas spent most of the weekend in another world - they reenacted all sorts of Super Mario levels and had lots of "adventures." Claire and Talia also played quite well together, although much of the time Claire was chasing after the boys while Talia was in her own princess world. Talia was in love with, who else, herself! Julie has a large floor-length mirror in front of which Talia spent a lot of time preening and dancing while wearing Claire's dress-up clothes.
The kids decorated crowns for themselves and also snowman ornaments, which I am looking forward to hanging on my tree. Hopefully we can try to continue the ornament-making tradition for years to come!

Prepping for Christmas

So...I have a disease that my mom gave me called "must-buy-everything-the-kids-could-possibly-want-for-all-holidays-especially-Christmas." I fight it every year, and honestly keep it under control most of the time. This year is a royal struggle because I am determined to keep myself on budget. Sigh.

Honestly, a few weeks ago I had NO idea what to even get the kids. But now I have more ideas than I can handle. Should I get Truman a tool bench? A train set? A parking garage? The Magic Treehouse series? Blokus? A DS Lite (probably not)? Schoolhouse Rock? A Solar System mobile? Some sort of rocket ship? A Brickadoo kit?

And Talia...a hopscotch rug? A playhouse? A singing Sleeping Beauty (they have them at Sam's Club)? More dressup clothes and shoes? The Princess and the Pea game? MORE Princess paraphernalia?

Oh, if someone is up there in , help me win the lottery! On the other hand, my kids would be totally, totally spoiled so that may not be good idea.

Truman the Photographer

Lately Truman has been taking pictures. Many, many pictures. Most of the time I don't even know what he's been up to until I upload them to my camera! It is interesting to see things from his level...oh except for the fact that Talia and he are obsessed with taking pictures of butts! Yes, butts! It isn't safe to come to our house, ha! Well, I'm not going to post those photos here but here are a few of the sights of Truman's world:

Talia's Princess Shoe

This is one of many shots of Deal or No Deal. Truman was fascinated by the 9 million dollar cases.



A photo of our family at Truman's & Talia's birthday party in July of 2006.

Some sort of mallet - I have no idea where it came from!

A calendar. One of Truman's favorite things. Ranks right up there with calculators and maps.

Halloween

We had such a blast on Halloween...unfortunately Ted had to work (of course) but Talia and I visited Truman's school for a costume parade, and then afterwards we came home and handed out candy for awhile before trick-or-treating ourselves. The kids had much, much MUCH more stamina this year. We were out for over an hour, and as anyone in this area knows, the weather was so fantastic. No layers required!

Up until the week prior to Halloween, Truman insisted he wanted to be "Bee Mario." For those of you who don't know (which is probably 95%) Super Mario Galaxy has a special Bee Mushroom that turns Mario into a little bee. However, he changed his mind the week before and just went "regular" Mario. Last year Talia was Luigi to Truman's Mario, but this year she was Princess Peach. As we were trick or treating, it seemed that most dads knew exactly who they were, but the under-18-set weren't as with it!