Watkins Family Reunion

Tanner's Homecoming Family Celebration!

We sure had a great time in August welcoming TanMan home from Russia and catching up with family and friends. Here are some pictures . . .

At an arts and food fest in Akron . . .

Blowing bubbles while waiting in line for the twisty balloons.

A budding chalk artist . . . .

A real-live train ride! And a real-live Uncle Tanner! Carter is a happy boy. :)

Carter holding a large snake at the Cleveland Zoo. He informed me afterwards that it wasn't a real snake. Real snakes are slimey. I couldn't convince him it was real.

Emilyn, Allison, and Carter on our hike at the Butterfly Museum.

Up close and personal with large mammals . . .

Has anyone seen any zebras? Carter is crying because he wants to feed some. (We'll have to work on opportunity recognition) :)

Miscellaneous Pictures

C-man and big Daddy-O on their father-son camp out. Two handsome fellows if I do say so myself.
Carter's birthday party invite. (FYI - if you're looking for some good pirate words, changing your facebook language settings to Pirate English is a great resource!)
Sc'alli'wag and little Devin Blackbeard scoping out the land.
Captian C'arrrgggh'ter walkin' the plank.
Little Miss Sc'alli'wag

Looking at this picture makes me sad. Allison's kindergarten year is over! She's now a big 1st grader. This is her with a few of her friends at field day.
Gunny-sack races.
I made these cookie pops for Allison's last day of kindergarten. They took a lot longer than I anticiapted, but it was fun to learn a new skill. :)
Evan's 1st Birthday Cake (a cream-filled doughnut from King Soopers and a blueberry muffin).

Today

Allison is a sweet heart.  It was Anthony's birthday today and so Allison this morning spent awhile making a gift for him.  She made a coloring page and a card then wrapped it up.  It was really nice. 

While she is working II come downstairs and see Carter trying to stuff a big roll of red cellophane in the garbage.  I stop him and ask him why he's throwing it away.  "It's see-through mom," he says.  That made me laugh!  Of course - what use is wrapping paper if it is see-through!

We went shopping for a stick horse for allison to use at the talent show this week and we found one at Toys R Us.  Allison named it Oreo . . . Ok I actually mentioned that he looked like an Oreo and she thought that was a good name.  On the way home from the store she started talking to Oreo like Anthony and I talk to her.  "Silly Oreo - you had better behave or you are going to lose your privileges".  And her tone of voice wasn't too gentle.  It took me aback for a minute hearing my own words and tone through her . . . It made me realize that I need to practice using a gentle voice.  I want to fill our home and their life with sounds of love.

Evan had his 9 month doctors visit today.  He's doing well.  At the appointment there were these flyers for a baby-wise class  Dr. Bucknam is teaching with his wife at a church for "young marrieds".  I looked at it and thought about how much I'd love to go to that class (if only it wasn't at 10:45 sunday morning right during church).  But then it occurred to me . . . Wait - am I a young married?  Can I still be classified as that?  I'm not sure. I've been married almost 8 years.  I have 3 kids.  I'm 28, Anthony turned 34 today.  What if I'm not a 'young married' anymore?!  How sad!  How weird.

Sledding Christmas 2010

Scribbles

We had the missionaries over for dinner tonight.  I love having them in our home.  They bring such a nice spirit with them.  I made studded ham, twice-baked potatoes, veggies with dip, and clementines.  For dessert we had whoopie pies.  As we were waiting for the missionaries to arrive, Allison wanted to make a picture for them.  She was sitting down at the table working on her picture, when Carter asked for a pen too.  I assumed he wanted to make a picture too and so i gave him a pen and then went about last minute dinner prep.  

So the missionaries arrived and I had finished the prep work and we all sat down at the table.  Just as we're about to say the prayer we look down at the plates and they have all been decorated with bright blue pen.  On one is a smily face and on another is a figure 8 type thing, and another was full of scribbles.  Carter, i realized, had had other plans for the pen I gave him.  We had to pause dinner while i cleaned the plates.  

Pictures From The Week

(sorry these pictures are sideways . . . I forgot to rotate them before importing) :)

Allison gave a talk in primary this week, and we had a great time working on together. She was assigned the topic, 'The Scriptures are the Word of God'. So during the week we talked about Lehi's dream, and 'holding fast' to the iron rod. One day I asked her what it means to hold fast to something - and then I gave her a paper to write about it. She drew a picture of us shopping and wrote about how she 'holds fast' to the shopping cart when we go shopping so she doesn't get lost. What a wonderful analogy. Allison is just learning and growing and changing so much. One of the great treats of being a Mom is watching this process of rapid growth and learning. It's amazing.

I went to a friend's baby shower last week . . . and seeing her little baby (he was only 2 weeks old), and then seeing Evan and how he's not so little anymore, and then thinking of Allison and how she's really not so little anymore, and then talking to another friend at the shower - who's little girl I used to teach piano to - and how she's soon to be driving . . . I just was struck by how truly fast this process of raising children happens. These infants come into our lives . . . and then they grow and grow without stopping. How grateful I am to be a part of it - to be a part of this process. To enjoy their childhood with them. Tonight Allison came up with this elaborate game for our Family Home Evening Activity. She made a pretend person on my yoga mat out of a sweater, scarves, etc. Then we had to use our 5 senses do discover the things she hid amidst this 'person'. She is just full of so many ideas and excitement. I love it.

One of the above pictures was another evening project she embarked on a few weeks ago. It says, 'Don't come out yet' she put these signs all over my room and door and on the stairs . . . because she wanted to make me breakfast in the morning and wanted it to be a surprise. What a joy. :) And then there are moments like today - when it is freezing cold and we need milk and bread (and everything else for the week) - and so I embark on a Target trip with the 3 kids . . . which is not so joyful . . . but we made it through . . .

Anyway - I'm rambling - I better go to bed. :)

A very interesting post . . .

I haven't blogged in an extra long time . . . Anthony is sitting here on the bed doing work things and i'm here playing on the iPad and am curious if I can blog seamlessly using it. When I clicked in the text field to write something, the iPad wouldn't recognize it as a text field . . . And so i'm typing this in notepad and then we'll see if I can copy and paste it into blogspot. If you see this I guess you'll know I was successful.

Since THAT i'm sure was very interesting for you to know . . .

What else is new in our lives? Hmmm . . . I did laundry today. Yes I did. And not just a little laundry. I did a LOT of laundry. A mountain of laundry to be more exact. I've been dumping the loads of clothes i've washed the past two days in the front living room, waiting for a time when I could sort, fold, and carry laundry up and down the stairs to put away. That time came tonight when Anthony came home from work and could hold Evan. I demolished the mountain! clothes are now carefully folded in everyone's drawer or hung up nicely in the closet. I can enjoy a moment of laundry being 'done' until I wake up tomorrow morning and have to do another load.

Wow I am really on a role of interesting things to write about tonight. I think i'll go to bed (after i see if I can really post this) . . .