Cute, but a little disconcerting

Tonight John and Gregory were building guns out of Duplos (the big Legos for little kids) when William picked one up, pointed it, and started making a "shooting" sound. It was kind of a "th" sound with his tongue sticking out. It was unbelievable. Among other things, he also knows how to point the remote at the tv, and talk into the telephone. What am I teaching this baby?!

Linda and Robin's trip to San Diego

My mom wanted me to post these for her. Looks like the "girls" had a good time!

Cute at Home - Stressful at Restaurants

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! It is that time of the year again. Always one of the nicer holidays. As we are getting closer to Christmas, what dates are people planning to be in San Diego? Trying to figure out my travel plans and curious what everyone else is thinking?

xo,

Naima

thesis

Hi. I'm sending the rest of my revised thesis to matt for approval. I've renamed ch 2 as "The Gothic's Black Heart: Radcliffe, Lewis and the Logic of Networks" Who wouldn't want to read that??

the biggest thanks to dad, without whom i couldn't have finished this!!!!!!

William R. and His Cake

Total Domination?

On the third game of backgammon, I took all my pieces off of the board before my wonderful sweet, dear, loving spouse took off any pieces. Is there a proper term for this? Any takers over the holiday?

happy first!

And happy first birthday to William!

I like William because:
He such a beautiful baby
He's very photogenic
He likes chocolate chip cookies
He's a mellow kid

And I can't wait to actually meet him at Christmas!!

Oh to be 29 forever!

Happy first 29th Don! Hard to believe you are in Denmark.

Don is great because:

He has a great sense of humor
He is very smart
He does a great dog barking impression
He is fun to talk to
He has 2 great boys
He married really really well
He has a healthy perspective on life
He can do great magic tricks
He has great fashion sense
He loves talking NBA Hoops
He loves the Y
He is a great walking-home-from-swimming buddy (you can commiserate on Chicken Casserole with him)
He is a great dancer
He is fun to be around

We miss you and your family Don! Hope you have a great year. We are so excited to see you all in December!

Halloween and the Wii!

Out little cowboys and of course, the dashing Obi Wan. Don got the costume from a rental place nearby but it came with a mediocre lightsaber. Joe came to the rescue and lent Don one of his amazing lightsabers that was a big hit at Don's office.

I got Will's costume a few weeks early so he would get used to it before Halloween came. I asked him several times to try it on and he always either refused or hated every minute of it. We tried to prep him by talking up Halloween and told him he'd have to wear his costume to get candy, and lo and behold, the day of our ward party, he was really excited to put on his costume and gave us no problem at all. We got him to say "Howdy, pardner" when he went to the doors to trick or treat. It was pretty cute. He keeps asking if we can go to another party. He loved to share his candy with everyone, too. He'd always come up to me with his pumkin and say "What do you want, Mom?" Even when he only had 2 pieces left. Burke is still at the clueless age a little bit and I don't think he even knew he was dressed up, though he looked adorable.

Last week I turned on the bath water and Burke was standing at the edge of the bathtub. He started to lean over to touch the water and fell right in the tub in his pj's! After a little shocked look, he got all happy and started splashing around in the tub, pj's and all.

Don, Joe, David and my brother Alex playing tennis on Joe's Nintendo Wii. We've had a ton of fun playing with this system the last couple of months, thanks to Joe. I hear he's planning on bringing it to Wenatchee for Christmas, so everyone get prepared for the fun!

Cookie Monster

C is for Cookie that's good enough for me! Wait! C is for chocolate chips cookies, and those are even better for me!

Halloween in Beaverton

We had a great Halloween. Nathan was an Army Ranger, Katie started the day as an Animal Doctor and later transitioned to an Animal Doctor's Assistant, Gregory was Spiderman, and William was Woodward the Teddy Bear. The kids came to my office and trick or treated in the cubes. We then went to the Trunk-R-Treat with our church group. Trunk-r-Treating is when people bring there cars to a spot and open the trunk (maybe even decorate it), and then kids go from car to car. We then trick or treated our way home. The best neighbor of the night gave each child two King Size candy bars.

Obligatory Doorstep Portrait

Trunk-r-Treating
William at the Park

Angel Face

Paisley Court Trick-r-Treaters (L-R: Aaron Xanthos, Anthony Xanthos, Nathan, Katie, Greg, Christopher (aka Bub) Xanthos

Happy Halloween and a Movie Recommendation

Hi everyone! We had trick or treaters at our house! It brings back extremely fond memories of dressing up as a kid. I just wanted to give you all a movie recommendation. A few people from the branch went to the dollar theater last night and saw Ratatouille. It was so adorable and I loved it! I thought it as good as I've seen Pixar (and that's saying something--although I don't know that it beats Toy Story, and this could be because I think the Paris setting is fun).

Anna

David Homecoming Video

Sorry it is so jerky. But hey it is a video.

Dad took the photos.

we want pictures, yes we do

I guess I shouldn't speak for the entire fam, but I would love to see some pics of David. It's been a blast to be able to talk to him anytime, but I want to see him. Also some of the neice and nephews. Also of anyone else. xoxoxoxo

at our house after the state fair

Hi! This is at our house after we got home from the state fair. This is a pic of my roommates Catherine and Kathryn and the two guys that hang at our house a lot--Nic and Tony. And then me. (L-R Nic, Catherine, Tony, Kathryn, Me)

And here's a picture of most of the group that went. It was fun times!

Happy Birthday JBB!

Happy Birthday John!

33 years old. 1/3 of a century. Scary that I'm only 3 years behind.

Thanks for:
Keeping in touch so well with our family
Having William so close to when we had Burke
Great business advice
A great listening ear
Introducing me to swimming for an "easy" letter
Introducing me to BYU student govt
Being so encouraging
Blazing the trail for children to come
Marrying so well
and for giving me millions of "chances" which have unfortunately expired

Don

My New Place

Hi all! I just wanted to post some pics of my cute new bedspread, and the great pictures that mom and dad framed for me.

Here's my bed:


I bought the London pics on Portobello Road. This is of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament:

This is the Brian Kershisnik sketch I got after Wales study abroad (I love it!):

And here's Picadilly Circus in London. These photos don't do justice to how fun it is to have these framed.

And here's me with my hair back to its normal color, and wearing my new glasses.

Love you all!

Anna

Trip to Bay Area

William loved the toys at Lynn and Gene's. He especially loved this little saxophone which he'd march around with and hum into.

William and Peter Covert. They got along great as long as William didn't have to share Pete's toys with Pete.

1219 Carmel Terrace. A lot smaller than I remember for some reason. Still looks great.

William and Dad at Heritage Oaks Park. Anyone remember the balance beam there?

We had a great trip to the Bay Area to attend Geoff Sonn's wedding. We saw cousins, stayed at Lynn and Gene's, we ate at Tadich Grill, Ghiradelli Square and Frankie Johnny and Luigi's, we stopped by the old home, Oak Elementary, Heritage Oaks Park and even drove by the infamous church where John, Rob and I each got strike six for riding our bikes across the lawn on the way to school one morning. That was probably the quickest and most anxiety filled day of school ever (including finals at BYU). I think we figured that if strike 3 was a spanking then a nuclear warhead was waiting at home when we returned. As I recall, nothing big happend although Rob and John may remember differently. We had a blast. The wedding was amazing. Geoff and his wife looked terrific. We hung out with Brandon Badgley and his wife Lisa and just had a memorable weekend all around.

Jeremy's movie

So Jeremy's film is officially now being distributed by Documentary Educational Resources. Very exciting. They just put it up on their website.

http://www.der.org/films/dollars-and-dreams.html

Check out the link. Thought I would share, very proud of him :)