Book Club

These ladies don't always read the books they're assigned, but they're good friends and good fun.
Allison Young, Vickie Lim, Christina Billings, Rachael Eckhauser, Tamara Davis, Karen Shmookler, Nicole Jeffreys, Jessica Garnreiter, Aimee, Sara Stern, Jocelyn Karney. Joelle and Emily were also at the party, but not in the photo.
TB charmed everyone by being charming, bartending, shuffling vehicles in our weird parking lot/driveway. What a dreamy husband!

Millcreek Canyon

We hiked Rattlesnake Gulch on Saturday with Dad. The weather was beautiful and it started snowing on us on our way down.

 Ikey and Jovie requested another hike on Monday, so we headed back up the road in the snow this time. They made a lot of snow angels and talked to every skier that went by.

 

 

Dickens Festival & Party

We went to the Dickens Festival at the State Fair Park on Friday morning because it was free. I would never advise paying for it because it's kind of like the most boring parts of the state fair, but with no animals, crafts/home arts/giant vegetables, or butter cow. That's coming from someone who LOVES the fair (mostly the animals, crafts/home arts/giant vegetables and butter cow). This festival is mostly sales booths with people selling marginal items while wearing funny hats. At any rate, we did the best activities available, which included: friendly banter with our neighbors in an astonishly long and slow ticket line, watching the singing elementary kids, eating kettle corn, riding a horse-drawn carriage, checking out some reindeer, and riding a train that goes inside and out.


First carriage ride ever.



One millionth train ride.

 

The kids loved it.

It was kind of like that.

That evening, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Faucheux's church Christmas party where we ate Who Pudding, Roast Beast and Who Hash and dressed like citizens of Whoville. It was a colorful affair.

The theater...

We spent the whole day decorating the tree and making and cleaning up messes. This is a funny video of Ikey doing "skat" to Holly Jolly Christmas while decorating: http://youtu.be/79aJvp9zVZE
This evening, we went to "White Christmas" at Evergreen Jr. High. We had the movie on during the day, so during the drive to the school, Ikey was singing "for dancing soon becomes romancing" and Jovie was wearing a green velvet dress and calling herself Rosemary Clooney. We got great seats right in the middle of the third row. It warmed up fast, and about halfway through the first act, Ikey said kind of loudly, "Can I take off my pants?" We climbed over a bunch of grandparents on our way out of the third row about an hour into the show and only about three-quarters of the way through the first act. On our way up the aisle. Ikey said genuinely loudly, "Is our play over?" It wasn't, we just moved to the back row which is where we should have started. So we left at intermission along with another mom who had two preschoolers.

 Ikey fell asleep about five minutes into the ride home. Jovie and I love to drive around and look at lights and listen to Chritmas songs, so we did it. She gets more and more animated the more tired she gets, so I was treated to a steady stream of thoughts from the back seat. I pulled over a couple of times to take notes on the crazy things she was saying. Here's a sampling:

You were swimming and we were riding in Grandpa's canoe. Then you got out of the water and we got out of the canoe. Do you remember that? (We did that in June. I don't know why she remembered that today!)

I'll dream about these lights tonight. I want to stay up all night - not go to sleep.

Jovie: I love these lights. Let's go in someone's house we don't know.
Me: We don't really do that Jove.
Jovie: How does Trick or Treating work? How's that?
Me: Good point.

(I pointed out two deer standing in the road.) Are those talking deer? I'm just pretending. I think Rudolph's in that pile of deer! I think Blitzen is in that pile. If I were you, I'd throw out some carrots and look for Rudolph.

This is a little stocking that Santa should fill with ordaments. (I believe she had her sock on her hand at this time. She usually takes off her socks and shoes during a ride, and often ends up with them on her hands.) I'm Rudolph. Jovie usually puts carrots in my stocking.

Kiddin' Around

Isaac's singing and dancing group, called Kiddin' Around, had their second show at Trolley Square. Grandma Rainey and Grandpa Joe & Grandma Pat came to this one, and he was in rare form. He told us, "I have a little stage fright." He didn't really have any, and probably could have used some because he was totally wacky. Here's a video of him wrestling the other little boy in the group and kissing (licking?) one of the girls: http://youtu.be/f9pw-MF6Gbo.

After the show, Grandma Rainey got us some Chinese food and we put up the Christmas tree. That's a weird tradition, but we're three years into it and it's perfect.

During Ikey's show, Jovie asked, "How old are these girls? When I'm 4, I'm going to do this dance too." She practicing using the tree's star as a microphone.

FOUR YEARS OLD!

Good Birthday Morning: http://youtu.be/EAtYxnEh3zY

 

Opening Birthday Present, Part 1: http://youtu.be/IXhhebAuS6w

 

 Opening Birthday Present, Part 2: http://youtu.be/XsAlUAR33EY

"I'm taking a one minute birthday nap." He didn't avoid a real nap this way. 

A couple of weeks ago, we opened a Wonka Bar and found a Golden Ticket:

 

Greetings to you, the lucky finder of this golden Ticket, from Mr. Willy Wonka. Present this ticket at the factory gates of the chocolate shoppe in Holladay for admittance to Isaac’s 4^th birthday extravaganza. In your wildest dreams, you cannot imagine the marvelous surprises that await you.

 On his birthday, our house turned into a Chocolate Factory.

 

Kids made gingerbread houses that were tiled with candy.

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Cake Cars sprinkled with snow...

  

A chocolate waterfall with lots of good things to dip in.

 

Lots of big candy bars and candy boxes.

 Willy Wonka would have loved it.

About Isaac

He has always been quick to say "Thank you." If you ask him to do something he doesn't want to do, he'll usually say, "No thank you" in a very polite tone.

He says, "It look likes..." instead of "It looks like..."

He says "I'ng a ..." intead of "I'm a..."

He says "Let my try it." instead of "Let me try it."

He is the first one to comfort me if I stub my toe or drop something or do something else clumsy.

He loves slap-stick comedy. You'd think he was a stunt man, because he's always "screeching" around corners and "wobbling" around turns and making sound effects for all of it.

He calls out things from his room like, "I need to go poop!" "I'm ready to wake up"

When he's done in the bathroom, he sings out, "It's bum-wiping time!" Then he covers his eyes, giggles, and waits for me to come in and says, "Can you see me? Can you see my eyes?"

He wants to drink warm milk and cuddle with his dad in to the morning, until they get tired of arguing about if Ikey can lay on TB's neck on the back of the couch and if he can hold TB's ear. That usually takes an hour.

Just before his birthday, he told us: When I get to be four, I'll probably still like to do characters. I'll probably still like trains.

He can be a dozen different characters during the day, and it's hard to keep up who's who. He assigns characters to Jovie and me and TB too.

His favorite food is still chocolate toast and oatmeal. He discovered that he likes chicken noodle soup and some other non-breakfast foods lately, but he'll still prefer pancakes and bacon to almost anything else.

He will read books all day long. He gets in a trance when he watches movies. TB arranged his pillows in a U-shape around his head and shoulders one night and called it a "safety pod", so we have to do that every night now.

I often forget to comb his hair before we go somewhere so it sticks out in little horns.

He is not stingy with hugs or kisses. Usually after he kisses me, he says, "Ok Ok. Now I promise to give you a real kiss. I promise!" He makes a big deal about that, laughing and laughing, then licks me.

He sings a lot. His favorite songs lately are "Baby You're a Firework" and "White Christmas".

We love the guy. We say all the time that he's gorgeous and smart and very sweet. And crazy.