Gingerbread Houses

We have a tradition of making gingerbread houses. The kids basically get to eat ungodly amounts of candy and pretty much get covered in frosting. Then I put the houses on display which tortures them as they look at the candy and frosting everyday.

My mom and Bill's houses always come out so nicely.

At one point Brad decorated the roof of this house, ate all the toppings off, and then redecorated it.

And here you can see the effects of the sugar setting in.

Huntington Gardens

A few days ago we went to Huntington Gardens, 217 acres of botanical gardens. Above Bill is showing us a sensitive plant that closes up when it is touched. The kids thought that was really cool. Below is a picture taken in the Chinese garden.

Brad and Lila had a blast crawling around the gardens.

Ken and Bill in the bamboo forest.

Sky found a snail in the children's garden.

Lila preferred the leaves.

Unfortunately it was actually pretty cold while my mom and Bill were here. Below you can see ice in our bird bath! That's about as cold as it gets here!

Sweet Times With Grandma B and Uncle Bill

Ken is at the SBL conference in Atlanta right now so Grandma B and Uncle Bill are here helping me "hold down the fort" while he is gone.


Brad and Uncle Bill are really enjoying Tonka.com. You build your own truck and then drive it in different environments.

Lila is up to 6 teeth now (3 on the top and 3 on the bottom) and Sky is now missing both top teeth and both bottom teeth.

Here Lila is saying "cheese" for the camera. Sky is reading to her but she doesn't stay in one place for very long these days.

A New View

Last Monday our neighbor's tree was cut down. This was our view from our backyard before they started working.

The town takes care of these trees on our street. Here's what it looked like a couple hours into the project.

It's hard to see in the picture above but there was a digger that scooped up logs and placed them in this bin on the side of our house. The best part of the day was that we had 4 boys over that day and they really enjoyed watching all the action.

This is what our neighbor's yard looked like at the end of the day. The town will now plant a new baby tree to replace the one they took down.

What's Burning?

Day 1:
In the dining room-
What is that smell?
It smells like plastic or rubber.
Maybe it's the new table cloth?
Day 2:
Seriously, the smell in here is awful.
Maybe the outlet is shorting out. Let's unplug the computers...
Day 3:
The smell is still here and it really smells like burning rubber!
As Ken is lying on the floor wrestling with the kids, what's that blob in the ceiling fan light?
Hmmmmmm, it's a melting rubber dinosaur egg that Brad "lost" 3 days ago.

New Lila Pictures

At a recnt MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) meeting, I won a free photo shoot with a local photographer. Here are some of the pictures that were taken. The photographer had all kinds of outfits, hair accessories, etc. Lila was pretty crabby through the photo shoot since it was during her nap time but we still managed to get some pretty cute pictures!

Some Random Pictures

Tonight Ken and I went on the Talbot Wives date night. It was great. We drove a boat around the Newport Harbor and then had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was a great night. We saw these cool sea lions sleeping on the back of a boat in the harbor.

This is the type of boat we were on with 3 other couples.

Here's our sweet Lila sitting on a rocking chair that belonged to one of my ancestors. She's very flexible as you can see.

Peanut in the wagon.

Couch time with daddy.

Our crazy kids. Sky did Lila's hair with a ton of clips. Later when Lila was crying we saw that Sky had also put hair clips on her ears as earrings. Poor Lila. But she loves when Sky decorates her.