The Feast of Stephen

Ho Ho, and an additional Ho! Lucy woke up in the middle of the night before Christmas, and we didn't want her to disturb Samantha, who could have realized the Fat Man had already delivered. So, Lucy woke up Christmas morning on the couch, and was still in a bit of a slumbery stupor as Sam handed out the gifts.

This is the "I just got the Christmas Carol Barbie I asked for" look.

She wore this the rest of the day. Thank you, Grandma Thorne.

It's nice that our kids are still young enough that they don't reallize that Santa can't afford to give them everything Santa would like to give them. Lucy would have been perfectly content to just eat candy bracelets and play with her kiddie cell-phone we got at the dollar store.

Sam also likes the scarf mommy made her, but that smile is due the news that Samantha's mortal enemy, Gertrude Von Shrapnel had perished on Christmas Eve in a bizzare waffle accident.

A moment of toddler self-consciousness.

As Requested

See: http://theadventuresofrustandbrit.blogspot.com/

Here's a few precious pictures of my kids. I used the 6.7 googa-pixel option on my camera this time, just to change things up. A note to Evil Vanessa: If you even THINK about stealing these pictures, I'll hunt you down and stab you in the throat and do a cheer routine in the pool of blood surrounding your rotten corpse.

While I'm posting pictures of the things that bring me joy, I might as well take this opportunity to list the top 5 things that make me want to puke.

1) Weather. I hate the cold because I once lived in a tropical climate where I was also miserable and had to eat cockroaches and drink expensive milk. Wishing for warmth makes me hate. Wishing for cheap milk makes me sweat.

2) You and your mother

3) People who pretend to have sophisticated literary tastes by ranting about how they hate Stephanie Myer and her bland writing and then go on to publish post after post of Twilight worship. Though I will admit that Robert Pattinson is an absolute DREAMBOAT!

4) Pound Puppies. They might as well include plush euthanasia kits.

5) My house and my possessions. I just own too much stuff. SERIOUSLY! However, it's not as bad as that summer I spent huddled under an abandoned station wagon in a ditch next to that Arbies in DeMoine. I put on so much weight digging through that greasy dumpster.

Thank you and goodnight. A Christmas wrap-up (ha) to follow soon.

No Ma'am. Just look-a-likes.

We all look like things. I don't know why our daughters look like old, flamboyant musicians, but it could be worse.

I think we're actually going to send out a Christmas letter this year. We don't have very many home addresses. If you'd like one, please send your address to xarthog@hotmail.com.

You could also post it in the comments section, but that's quite a bit more public. Anyways, Merry Christmas if we don't get your address.

Yule Thusfar

The Holidays are fast approaching, and we find ourselves doing pretty much all the same things we usually do: eat junk food, mooch off our family, and prepare to disappoint our children.

Here we have Sam's angry face which she uses anytime she's forcing her sister to do something or whenever she's thinking hard. Note also the trail of snot. Behind her is our fake Christmas Tree which has no ornaments on the bottom half.
This is Becky's catfish face, which she uses during periods of stress and passion.
This is Lucy, adorned.



The yuletide DriSilque leper.
This is 33 weeks of human production. Other pregnant people look like crap heaps.


Gird thyself with the colander of righteousness.

If I had a Wagon, I would...

We took little week-long vay-kay to Colorado last week. We had to come back the day before Thanksgiving because Jon had to work Thanksgiving Day. Some people are too dumb to realize that they're not supposed to be sick on holidays. All the Tolman siblings and their offspring made it. We didn't take as many pictures as we could have, but nobody looked very good, so it wasn't much of a loss.

Emma and Clara Benefield gracefully entertained our girls in the back yard for much of the week.

Hyrum Benefield is a boy who excels at rescuing imaginary aardvarks and chinchillas.

Emma Benefield and Eva Terry offered a Grammy-worthy performance as fairy princesses who assist distressed airline pilots. (Yes, I know Grammies are a dime-a-dozen. Come on, they didn't even have their lines memorized.)

Annie Benefield really helped Lucy feel better about her hair and her ability to appear feminine in general.

The ladies can be seen here preparing food, minding the children, ironing plastic bead crafts, and generally functioning efficiently.

Here are the women's husbands at the same moment.

As you can see, all three of these children have very different reactions to marajuana.

Grandpa Tolman just found out that all three of these adorable little girls are compatible organ donors.

Ben's feet.

Grandma Bowen, who has always been a little bit off her rocker, has now slipped into a more forgetful, but more pleasant state of off-the-rockerness. This was the first time she'd ever met any of her great-grandchildren.

Girlies

Judging by the sudden drop in comments on our blog, I think we've alienated most of our friends by openly supporting the president elect. If it makes any of you feel better, he didn't win Missouri where we voted.

So here's some ultra-cute videos to prove that even people who voted Democrat can have really awesome children.

Well, maybe our affection for Mr. Obama has rubbed off on our older daughter a little bit.

Fairy

Samantha attended her pre-school Halloween party as a Barbie Fairy. All of the other children looked like mutated gargoyles in comparison, but I suppose that's not a bad thing on that particular holiday.

In this shot, Sam is eating some summer squash, while her latest ex-boyfriend, Cliff, tries to drown his sorrows in simple carbohydrates.

It's a good thing her left hand is blurred here.


Sam is very intelligent little lady, though she definitely has some social anxiety when unfamiliar people are around. Becky's the one who taught her how to slink away from the action without anybody noticing at all.

POLITICS!!!! WHAAAAA!!!

Becky is a much more thoughtful, studious and intelligent person than I am. I had already made up my mind about this year's presidential election, but Becky was feeling very conflicted.

She miraculously found herself with a couple hours in which the girls were entertaining themselves so she did some research on the two candidates. These two links display the voting records of McCain and Obama during their time in the Senate.

http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=53270

http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=9490

Becky went through and made a list of the issues she cared about and how the two voted. That's how she made up her mind.

I went by imagining them both in a He-Man outfit and deciding which one gave me the fewest creeps, and when they both gave me the creeps, I chose based on which one hasn't cheated on their wife with a beer magnate.

I couldn't get the lists to go side-by-side. Sorry.

MCCAIN
Against same-sex marriage
No to increased aid to Katrina
No to study on what went wrong with Katrina
Yes to economic stimulus package
Against the ethics bill
No –increase Pell Grants
N0-500 million to help vets deal with PTSD
Yes-embryonic cell research
Abortion-believes it should be up to the state, not Federal
Education-pretty much voted No to increase spending
English-supports it as the national language
Troops-thinks we need more in Iraq
No to Unintended pregnancy amendment.
No-to funding for Special Ed.
No-to increase $$ for child health care

OBAMA
Against same-sex marriage
Yes on to increase Aid to Katrina
Yes on amendment to study what went wrong with Katrina
No vote on stimulus package
For the ethics bill
Yes-Increase Pell grants
Yes-500 million to help vets deal with PTSD
Yes-embryonic cell research
Pro-Choice-but with a huge emphasis on education and prevention
Education-reform NCLB
English-supports it as the unifying language
Troops-says he will start pulling out immediately
Yes-Unintended pregnancy amendment.
(funding for awareness, covering contraceptives…)
Yes-to funding for Special Ed
Yes-to increase $$ for child health care

So there it is. If you're one of the rare undecideds, feel free to go look at the site yourself.

Random Things

Her hair is long enough to hold a ponytail now. She might as well be flirting with punks at the mall.




25 weeks and she's svelte like a Volkswagen New Beetle.









Lucy is to cuteness as Becky is to ultimate hotness.


It's like a small child is emerging right out from the center of the Care Bear's trachea.





Daddy and Sam "marched" in the Independence Halloween Parade. I was not Robin Hood, nor was I an elf. I was Peter Pan, which is less gay than both of those other things and Sam was Tinkerbell. I say "marched" because we were supposed to keep up with the Centerpoint Medical Center car and we weren't allowed to throw the candy. We had to hand it to the onlookers. So Dad would pause to help shy Samantha hand out some candy and then I'd have to sprint pulling Sam in her little wagon to catch up with the car. Sweaty Pan.



I had my first overnight camp out with the scouts this last weekend. Here are some quotes to describe the experience:


"Colten! Do NOT put burning sticks over other people's heads!"


"Herman! Stop balancing barefoot on the wall around the fire pit!"


"Jared! Take the rotten fish back to the pond where you got it!"

"You're really going to spend the camp out playing video games? Really?"

So yeah. A great group of brilliant young men.

Old People and Walking Sticks and Farts

Grumpa and Grandma Tolman came over for conference weekend. I think they came because they wanted a valid excuse for not paying any attention to conference.

This is how Grumpa and Sam spent most of the Sunday afternoon session. The doll is not named Fredrickson San Marcos.


Gramma Deanna spent much of the weekend showing Samantha pictures of invasive surgical procedures.






After the old people pushed Sam on the swing, Daddy had to show them how it's done.

We came home the other day to find an unintelligent walking stick standing on the side of our white house. I don't claim to be better at being a walking stick than a walking stick, but I'm pretty sure that their camouflage is more effective when they're around other sticks. Anyway, it was pretty cool, and once we relocated him to the bushes, he really did blend in quite well.

Thank You Thriftway Dumpster!

See: http://shakespearshuffle.blogspot.com/2008/09/thank-you-childrens-orchard-i-must-say.html

I have to say. We're pretty lucky. There's this great place right across the street called Thriftway. It's a grocery store and they sell food. We were starting to get a little bit worried about our girls since winter is coming and people who aren't dressed properly in the winter tend to die.
Well, we ran across the street in the middle of the night to Thriftway's dumpster, like we do every Friday night, and started rummaging. One minute it wasn't there and the next minute it was: a completely unused, crisp, PAPER bag that was just Sam's size! If it doesn't rain or snow too much this winter, I think she'll be able to use it for another year. And it was F-R-E-E free! That's 100% less than for money!





While we were there, we found a new "blanket" for Lucy, so now her chattering teeth won't keep us up at night.

Family ties

This is Becky's brother. We guess Lucy's tendencies run in the family.

Some Pictures of Our Blessed Babe

See: http://aguilaramor.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-08-29T10%3A31%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

Here's a few adorable pictures of our sweet, beautiful, simply-perfect-in-every way Lucy.

Our little angel sure does like to bite. When she draws blood, I'm not sure if it's because she likes the sound of our screams, or the taste. Either way, she's only really gone after us, so we know that she's expressing her yet unspoken love.

Our little dear also delights in weilding sharp objects. We've tried taking them away, but I just can't stand it when she cries. God's children are meant to be happy. Her squeals of joy are worth every trip to the ER.

And she's such a quick learner! Mommy got her a set of ninja throwing stars for her 14 month birthday and my has she developed some skills. All four of those were on target and one of them managed to punture Daddy's lung! Who could ask for a better daughter? Well, I guess everyone else could.

I thougt all these pictures came out well in B&W. It's like she's hurting people back in the fifties!

If only daddy really had been coated in plastic. It would have kept him from requiring a transfusion.

SO much cuter than smurfette. ROFLMAO!!!!

This one is cool because all you other parents can print it out and then let your less attractive children color it.