Tolmanitude

Tertiary

2012-01-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

Our youngest child turned three today. She's not sure if she likes puppies or horses more, but she enjoys both with mint jelly.

The other day, Nora came up to me and said, "Dearest Father, do you think that our lives aquire more meaning through our relationships, our personal accomplishments, or through the ritualism of worship?"
I said, "Eh? Oh, the last one I guess."

This horse galloped into our lives Christmas morning. We are very grateful that, as a three-year-old, she is thusfar unaware that her best gifts come from the thrift store. Yesterday, she was riding her steed and she put her hand over her brow and shouted, "Land HO!" Seriously.

We haven't blogged much lately. Sorry about that, but this is getting tantalizingly close to done. We'll have our lives back soon.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T08:21:00.000-08:00

We don't go a-wassailing, so let's all get together for a good, hardy, noggling! It's the most wonderful time of the year, according to the retail sector, and everyone is all yuley with joy.

Once again, we decided that the world doesn't want hard copies of Christmas greetings from the Tolmans enough to warrant paying postage to send them. As is oft said in our home, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."

It's been an adventurous year for the Tolman Five. Jon altered his career pathway and is now teaching nursing at Colorado Technical University. There should be another shift in employment by next year's end, seeing as the Kansas City Campus for CTU is no longer admitting students and the nursing program will be kaput at the end of 2012. This had very little to do with Jon's addition to the faculty.

Becky has acquired some new skills as a homemaker, including several that literally make homes. She's a more than capable drywall-mudder, tile-grouter, and project manager. The current and ongoing project is the finishing of the attic, which included re-routing the heating and A/C ducts, relocation of a load-bearing wall, and construction of stairs. Though Jon and friend Kyle Cromar have been doing more of the brute labor, it's Becky's soft, yet firm looks of direction that have kept the workers on task.

Samantha has been excelling at everything. She has gained numerous compliments from her coaches and teachers in gymnastics, piano, hog-wrestling, bread-flipping, and competitive water-boarding. She is the child that will one day do something that requires as much ambition but more morality than holding elected office.

Lucy does not care about excelling at everything. Even though she's the best and smartest of any of her peers, she would rather pretend that she's disciplining her class of ponies than practice doing something more measurable. Her arson case is currently in the jury-selection phase.

Nora is cute, in the way that a murderous, possessed doll is cute right before its head spins around and it starts stabbing people. Her most-honed skills include whining, Gregorian chanting, and depriving her parents of sleep.

It turns out that this is being posted about 10 days after Christmas, which is good enough for the folks in Sweden.

"Farväl!"

2011-12-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

Nobody's very interested in home improvement, so here are some shots of the people whose lives are being torn asunder by the home improvements:
Lucy no fits into the knit dress made by her paternal grandmother. Grandma Deanna created this using the tendons of fourteen robust wildebeasts.

It has gotten cold, as evidenced by our daughters' hats.

However, the hats are not always worn at appropriate times, so don't trust your eyes, people.

Awkward looking facial hair has popped up on people. Sometimes it happens prior to moustache/sweater parties. Sometimes it happens overnight. Sometimes it happens right after eating corned beef hash.

Nora and her evil clone, Nora.

Progress

2011-11-29T14:18:00.000-08:00

Yes, I realize that late November is not the best time to be tearing holes in the structure of a house and re-arranging furnace ducting, but it wasn't late November when we started, and I don't see you over here helping, so shut your pie-hole, smart-alec.
Sorry. We're a little on edge over here, what with the layer of plaster dust in our underwear.
We've gone from this:

To this:

And more impressively, this:

To this:

To this:

To this:

To this:

We got a lot of the ducting done today, and the particle accelerator only needs a couple more components until it's operational.

Meanwhile the girls have become fed-up with the whole project and moved in with Wiley the Wolf. Their hyper-luminescent eyes fit in better with nocturnal beasts anyway.

Nutrient Dense

2011-11-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

We tried to get Nora booked on the new VH1 reality show, "Toddler Rehab: Kansas City", but they wanted more minorities. We'll just start sprinking her Cheerios with Antabuse.

Dora and Boots being stalked by the Mutant Butterfly Woman.

A neuron typically has one axon that connects it with other neurons or with muscle or gland cells. Some axons may be quite long, reaching, for example, from the spinal cord down to a toe. Most axons of vertebrates are enclosed in a sheath, which increases the speed of impulse transmission; some large axons may transmit impulses at speeds up to 90 metres (300 feet) per second.

Wh-what?????

The Shuffle

2011-10-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

We went to St. Louis.

It's nice that our three daughters are all able to sit together, facing the same direction while they watch movies and bicker and poke eachother and scream about their sister leaning too far.

This was the main reason we went to St. Louis.

We met up with the Shakespears. We watched their kids Friday evening at the park across the street. This picture doesn't really show off the fact that Nora is providing a majority of the swinging force.

Justin is giving Sam a piece of his mind. No wait, he's giving her a piece of a squirrrel's mind that he found buried in the sand.

Hyrum is about 6 months younger than our oldest. They made out about 5 years ago, and there's been a romantic tension ever since.

I can't remember if Hunter was trying to defend himself against a brother-afflicted wet willy, or a brother-inflicted smooch. I never had a brother. I bet a smooch would be worse.

Saturday afternoon, we went to the St. Louis zoo. The hippo exhibit was by far the best. If you're willing to spend some money, you can pick one out and eat it, like lobsters at a sea food restaurant.

I kinda wish we had splurged and paid for a $10 parking space, because when we got about 50 miles down the road, we discovered that our laptop had been stolen while we were parked on a residential road near the zoo. I wonder if those kudus had been involved.

Cutsey Bootsey

2011-10-09T17:33:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty decent conference weekend. Here's a shot of Becky and Nora basking in the spiritual bliss of the last session.

Now, before you watch this video, I want you to realize that it was not edited in any way, although we have been giving her performance enhancing drugs, such as cuteserol, cheruberone, and darlingdearsteride.

Sam's been taking lessons for about 3 months. We've purposely kept our craigslist piano out of tune so she'll be better trained. Kindof like the ninja guys that strap those clay sandals to their feet so they can jump super high when they take them off.

Projects

2011-09-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

There's always something to do with a house. I'm not a particularly handy man, but it's been gratifying to do things like turn this craigslist item:

into this:

Of course, there's always more on the horizon. This is going to be our next doozy:

It will require the acquisition of some new skills.

And for your amusement

Better lighting

2011-09-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

September 11th, 2011

2011-09-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago today, I was a journalism major at Brigham Young University. I remember walking through the library on campus, and seeing crowds of students gathered around the televisions that hung from the ceilings near the entrances. I had classes to get to, so I didn't bother stopping to see what was going on. I got to my communications law class, and the teacher got up and told us that as journalism students, we would certainly learn more by going out and watching the news coverage over whatever was going on than we would by having a discussion over privacy ethics or whatever it was we were talking about.
I went out and watched the news. Honestly, I wouldn't have been able to tell you the names of those buildings had you quizzed me the day before. I was pathetically clueless about world affairs for a broadcasting major. I didn't feel connected to what was going on. I didn't feel sad or angry. I only had one friend that I knew was in New York, but I doubted she was anywhere near the World Trade Center.
I watched the news the rest of the day and into the evening with interest, but little else. I should have reflected more. Ironically, I didn't start taking an interest in world affairs until after I got married and decided against a career in journalism.
The horrible, misguided people who carried out the attacks did change the world. It sent our country into the two longest wars in US history, the cost of which have perhaps irreparably damaged our economy. The united, patriotic fervor that embraced the nation in the days and weeks following the attacks has shifted to a bubbling resentment toward our elected officials.
I don't know what the consequences would be if we retreated from the war on terrorism. Would we feel defeated? Would we feel like we had helped the world by ridding it of some bad people?
Maybe rather than worry about the uncertain future, or dwell on the awful past of a decade ago, the best thing we can do on the anniversary of evil is to do good, and be happy in spite of those who would have you feel differently.

Sunday

2011-09-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

Only extraordinarily beautiful people are allowed to wear that t-shirt.

Farms are for dumb people.

Broom Girl

2011-09-02T03:50:00.000-07:00

It's strange when your kids start teaching themselves to do things.

Girls

2011-08-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

Samantha started 1st grade the other day. We gave her a home-grown butternut squash to give to her teacher. Apples be damned. We also taught her proper wedgie techniques to use on the kindergartners. She's good.

Lucy can't explain why she's adding marshmellows to her pizza toppings. She's still not very good with her L's, so the sentence, "I'm a gluttonous sloth" is still difficult.

Hair. Almost.

2011-08-16T06:36:00.000-07:00

We've had a fair amount of trans-sister fighting recently. We don't have very physically violent daughters, but they're extraordinarily vocal. This post is mostly to remind us that it's possible for them to get along once in a while.

Here, they were reenacting the movie "Unstoppable." Sam is playing the part of the grizzly, experienced Denzel Washington. Nora is the young and brash Chris Pine, and Lucy is the the fat guy from "My Name is Earl" that lets the train go.

Here, Samantha pretends to be Al Capone, issuing instructions to the lower crime bosses over a mafia tea.

And some videos.

Thy Fearful Symmetry

2011-07-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

The other children saw Samantha in the feline majesty that Becky created for her and demanded more of the same.

Absence

2011-07-22T04:23:00.000-07:00

Well, while Becky and our eldest are zipping across the country on airplanes and minivans, the rest of us are making do.

Lucy and Nora took to the stage while we waiting for the Deanna Rose farm to open. Here, Lucy is giving us her rendition of "Quando, m'en vo," Musetta's aria from Puccini's La Boheme.

Here, she holds a tomato.

Here is a picture I stole from my dad's seldom used blog of our partial reunioin a couple weeks ago. That's our niece/cousin, Annie, who is excellent.

Smitten

2011-07-12T05:16:00.001-07:00

Our charming little four-year-old, Lucy has been extra charming as of late. She's shown off her progressing literary skills by saying things like, "I do not like M-O-M."
She's also quite an artist. She presented this jewel to Becky, along with a conversation that went like this:
"Mommy, I drew this for you!"
"Oh, wow, is this lightning?"
"Yep! It's hitting her!"
"Who is the girl?"
"It's you."

Burgundy

2011-07-11T03:51:00.000-07:00

We've been fairly blog-lite over the last month or two while we figured out what we wanted to do regarding our internet service. We've figured it out. Everyone can breathe a tremendous sigh of relief. Go ahead.

A majority of the Tolman clan came to KC for a visit over the 4th of July weekend. This is the only picture we managed to take of the entire affair. Nice, eh?

It was 106 degrees without the heat index yesterday. Lucy was trying to look into the camera, but her eyelids melted.

This is Donatello.

Things that occupy my time

2011-06-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

You say tomato, I say weeds and aphids.

Tow-truck drivers, in my experience, don't talk about very much besides tow trucks and towing.

This used to be our eastern view in our backyard.

Now it looks like this.

Teeth, Naked Hopscotch, and Rogue....

2011-05-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

As you can see, Sam's teeth are finally repaired. She was a lot of fun after her dental work. Versed is a great drug, and she has no memory of the couple hours she spent grasping at the "white stuff" that was apparently floating a few feet in front of her.

Tile floors and recent potty training combine to create magical adventures.

Sam completed kindergarten. She got to play the drums during her class's rendition of "Blood in the Rio Grande," a Navajo death chant they learned for Culture Week.

And I have something to confess. I don't believe the plants I was trying give away were zucchinni. I'm 93% certain they were..... pumpkin. It makes sense, seeing as I dumped the guts of the one big pumpkin we produced last year into the compost. Unfortunately, I gave away about 6-8 plants to an interested coworker. I suppose I'll have to tell her. I am shamed.

Nitrous oxide, Commencement, and Rogue Zucchinni

2011-05-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

And life progresses steadily onward for the Tolman clan. Samantha has had 2 of 7 cavities addressed. The first was filled, the second more rotten hole resulted in a quick extraction. That laughing gas is good stuff.

Lucy "graduated" from her first year of preschool. She was voted by her class as cutest and the most likely to be photographed in a cocaine-fueled rage.

This was her a couple days later.

Nora has gone pee in the potty for two days in a row. I believe our current box of diapers is the last we will have ever purchased. Can you feel it? Can you feel that fresh summer breeze? It's a beautiful day.

A red strawberry. This was eaten a couple hours later by one of the aviary creatures with whom we share our land.

Seriously people. Don't you want to be loving parents to one of these orphaned zucchinni plants? Our onions and broccoli insist they need more room. As much as I hate to play favorites... something's got to go. So sad.

Monkeys, Wigs, and Rogue Zucchini

2011-04-30T14:33:00.001-07:00

It's very strange to realize that my 5-year-old daughter is a better athlete than I ever was.

Weaves are this year's hot, new fungal vector.

So last year, we started a compost box. We added our vegetable debri to it all winter and when we started our garden a few weeks ago, we mixed it in with the soil. Well, it turns out that if you include seeds in your compost, there's a good chance that some of those seeds will maintain their viability. We have what appear to be zucchini plants popping up all over the garden where they were never intended. They could be butternut squash, or even spaghetti squash. We ate all of those. They're probably zucchini. It seems a shame to weed them out, so if if anyone wants some zucchini seedings, just let us know.

Quality Eggs

2011-04-27T03:38:00.000-07:00

Happy Administrative Professional's Day, everybody.

We travelled about 30 minutes north this last weekend to a place with nice, rounded bushes where the girls searched about and found brightly colored, egg-shaped, candy-filled representations of the Lord's Resurrection.

Samantha is wondering if the individual on the left is hiding an egg in his pants.

Lucy expertly navigated the ball-shaped bushes without touching them. She doesn't like balls. GOLF balls, sicko.

Nora is to skin pigment as her father is to hair.

Lucyis shorter than the camera operator by a ways, but she's smarter than 94% of all registered dolphins.

Becky made these lovely easter bags, which the girls can now use to carry distractions to church.

I didn't realize until I saw this picture, but my oldest daughter has some guns. Bam! Hyrum, you better start doing some curls if you don't want to look like a wuss next to your wife.

I wonder if egg hunting is anything like antelope hunting. I bet antelope hunting is easier and harder at the same time. Easier, because antelope are so much easier to see. Harder, because anteope are more difficult to open.

I've heard Independence is the meth capital of the United States.

In case you thought your kids were cute.

2011-04-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

Parental Failure

2011-04-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

Our lovely Samantha has had some tooth pain. We looked in her mouth the other day and noticed that she had a couple dark spots on a couple of her teeth. We took her to the dentist.

It's pretty cool that you can see her adult teeth pushing up on her baby teeth. However, the uncool part is that she has SEVEN cavities. She's FIVE YEARS OLD. SEVEN CAVITIES. We knew our girls didn't have perfect oral hygeine, but come on. Seven? We get to go back tomorrow to have them repaired. We haven't told her exactly what's involved. I've failed you, Dr. Shakespear.

If a Woodchuck Could Chuck

2011-04-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Over the last three weeks, much spare time has been occupied dealing with this: With some help from Colten, Faata, Larry and Paul, it became this:

And then with some help from Blake, Kyle, Tyler, and a woodchipper from Home Depot, it became this:

And this:

Thank you very much, guys.

If anyone needs a few wheelbarrows full of mulch, come on over.

Samantha lost her first tooth. Being such an accelerated child, she chose not to wait until her baby tooth was gone to start growing her permanents. Now we'll have to step up her oral hygiene, what with the life-long consequences and all.

Spring Commeth

2011-03-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

There's been some variability in the climate as of late, and it's led to a spectrum of activities and projects. We had three girls eating popsicles on the back porch. We had two little girls cleaning the table with soap suds, cheerleader-carwash style. We had one girl disco skating 'til the break of dawn while the rain poured afuera. Then the weather got bleak, and we moved the TV, cut out the baseboard and chair rail, affixed a cement backer board,... tiled over the backerboard, and installed a wood-burning stove. The exhaust pipe was surprisingly resistant. We figured we needed to have something to help us make use of all that wood we have after cutting down the tree. So it's current;y 38 degrees outside, but 75 in our little house, without using any gas. Of course, it smells a little bit like a campfire, but there are worse things for a house to smell like. And there's Nora, and her nocturnal activities.

Like Unto a Log

2011-03-16T01:53:00.000-07:00

A shot to gain some perspective on the mess:

ROCK-PAPER-CHAINSAW

2011-03-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

Sam's school hosted a "Literacy Night" during which parents were encouraged to dress up as their favorite rock stars. What does rock n' roll have to do with literacy, you ask? Well, that's an excellent question.

The next day, Samantha was honored for her superior literary skills at the Elementary School Reading Jamboree or something. It was there that they got to pet a snake. What does petting a snake have to do with literacy? Another excellent question. You should be a reporter.

Here are our three girls standing next to and sitting on a fence. Why is our youngest daughter look like she picked up her outfit at Chico's? It's because it's been a Chico's kind of day...all week long.

We're thinking that we'll build an addition onto our house next year, assuming we still live here. In order to do that, we need to destroy a couple of ginormous trees right behind our house. This year, we want to put a privacy fence along the east side of our property. Well, we can't put up the fence, until after the trees are down, so we paid a guy to come out and chop down our biggest tree so we wouldn't crush our house doing it ourselves. That's the explanation. You read the whole thing, sucker.

We didn't pay him to haul the wood and branches away because that was really expensive. So now our yard looks like this:

That picture really needs a person standing in it to lend some perspective. That big log in the middle is about 10 feet long.

Purple Unicorn

2011-03-06T07:26:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy a busy month or so. Becky, Lucy, and Sam took a roadtrip to Illinois for Great-Grandpa Marlowe's funeral. Nora and I had to stay home, but we got to hear all about the fun, especially when Aunt Chrissy almost stole Grandpa in his urn for a keepsake.
In all seriousness, he was a very cool man who did a lot of very cool things throughout his very cool life. Plus, the pool at the hotel turned Sam's hair green.

Here they are on their way to the madcap adventure.

I attended Father's Night at Lucy's preschool, which wasn't quite as awkward and weird as I thought it would be. Here I am, about to spit ice cream at the back of Lucy's head.

Here, a group of 4 children are racing about building towers and destroying them, just like the Hebrews of old.

Here, those same children's fathers/father figures have constructed their own tower, soon to be destroyed by the rampaging pre-schoolers. It's as if the tower represents the dads' dreams of financial independence.

This is Marcie, whose husband was featured to the left of the tower above. She does anything you ask her to do. Just walk up to her and ask.

Nora becoming more human day by day. English is her primary mode of communication now, with screaming and crying a close secondary.

Just Our 3 Girls

2011-02-10T04:14:00.000-08:00

Samantha in a lovely dress made by her paternal grandmother.

Lucy in her attitude.

And Nora in her tremendously-sized noggin.

Me Timbers

2011-02-04T03:08:00.000-08:00

It was a blizzard. It wasn't quite the world-ending "snowmageddon" that the news made it out to be, but it was a pretty good storm. This is a shot of the big deisel tow truck that couldn't make it up our street.

This is from the next day when the girls went out for about 5 minutes, made one snow angel each, then scurried back inside.

A few days before, Sam had her first school friend over to play. The guest seems like a good candidate to play the slightly less pretty, but cute enough role as best friend in Sam's romantic comedy.

And Lucy got her first real haircut. Yes, she'll be 4 in June.

We were better off than the other mammals on the property.

California...knows how to party....

2011-01-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

Becky took a few days to trot around Silicon valley with her little sister Chrissy. Chrissy and her beefy, accoustically talented husband needed help looking at residences, but really they just slummed around the town and made gang signs at the chulos. Becky took Nora with her to give Chrissy's beefy, accoustically talented son something to beat up. Plus, Nora turns 2 today, so it was her last chance to fly for free.

Spencer is the male toddler...the one on the RIGHT.

Nora enjoyed the 60-degree air whistling through the gap in her teeth.

And then picked fresh citrus fruits off the neighborhood shrubs.

Meanwhile, Sam created evil little snowmen with her cousin, Ella...

Lucy revelled in the enormity of her father's chin,

and dad cooked himself some shrimp, which is normally an unacceptable form of nourishment in the house.

Then everyone was reunited and celebrated Nora's 2nd birthday with a beautiful cake that Dad and the two older sisters created.

Seriously. This is what the final, unblemished product looked like.

Doombidoom

2011-01-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

We had a few photos left over from the holidays. Rather than explain each in a boring manner, I will narrate the conversation and/or thoughts of the individual in frame.

"That's it. That's the answer I've been searching for! It was so simple. You SMOKE it!"

"Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."

"Well, I decleah. I do beleeve I'm a-gettin' a case of the vaypahs."

"Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."

"Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr."

Tomowwow

2011-01-11T14:56:00.000-08:00

We've had our first real snow of the season, as well as our first pork chops. Dad wasn't working Tuesday, so we trekked our way up to Liberty to slide down Thorne Hill.

Samantha lasted quite a bit longer than expected. Dad would have quit the 10-degree environment fairly immediately. She'll be getting a third day in a row home from school thanks to this weather so that's...just great.

Lucy, who has asthma now, went down a few times as well.

Our last couple of posts showcased the musical talents of the oldest two females in our family, so I thought I would put up a couple videos to show how evenly distributed are the golden Tolman pipes.

Water Mains and Sweet Refrains

2011-01-02T09:20:00.001-08:00

We started out the new year with a bubbly surprise. A water main broke at the front of our yard, releasing a river down the hill and impeding any serious hygiene or food production from taking place in our home. The picture below was taken after the water dude turned the valve at the top of the street to stem the tide.

And this is what the front of our yard looks like after the city "fixed" it. We're grateful to have water, but seriously guys?

And this is beauty incarnate. My wife does not drink alcohol.

The many moods of Lucy Laree.

Christmas Letter 2010

2010-12-26T10:43:00.001-08:00

The Yule log has rolled down the calendar once again, and it’s time for the Tolman Family to avoid paying postage by sending out an electronic Christmas Letter. Fa-la-la-la-la! It’s been a pleasant enough year, with every member of the family experiencing some significant firsts:

Jon earned a 4.0 for the first time since elementary school, and classes like Advanced Pathophysiology were a bit more straining than Cursive. He’s on track to finish his master’s degree a year from now. He also grew his first crop of zucchini, created his first furniture, and saw his first baby squirrel.

Becky watched her first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She then proceeded to watch her 2nd through 53rd episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Has her husband turned this once hip babe into an individual who cares what the Jem ‘Hadar are going to do next? Aside from turning into a total nerd, she managed her first major home improvement as the floor got tiled and her first solo run on a riding lawn mower. I have a feeling that riding lawn mowers will be the handcarts of the 21st century.

Samantha exceeded all reasonable expectations for a normally developing human in her first semester of public education. Kindergarten is enjoyable for her, even if it is . . . elementary. She also received her first love note, though not likely the last. Perhaps we should do something to stem the tide. I’m thinking of something like a pungent body spray.

Lucy, our three-year-old, got her first hair cut, attended her first preschool, and spontaneously quoted her first scripture. Her preschool is run by a pious blind man, which is nice because all the kids get equal praise on their artwork.

Nora, as the youngest, had more firsts than anyone else. These included her first sentence, her first waste excretion in a designated receptacle, and her first tantrum involving the wrong television program.

In the coming year, we’re expecting some more exciting firsts: our first time in 5 years without a child in diapers, our first haiku death match, and our first mental breakdown related to that horribly evil mole that keeps destroying our yard. I’m going to get a back-hoe and DESTROY IT!! KILL AND DESTSTOY IT, I TELL YOU!!!

So Merry Christmas or Hanukkah or Boxing Day or whatever. As usual, if you want more frequent and thorough updates, you can visit our blog at http://tolmanitude.blogspot.com/ or you can ask people who have heard things about us. Ho Ho Ho!
Love, The Tolmans

Gingerbread

2010-12-21T08:40:00.000-08:00

Last night, we decorated some gingerbread lollipop cookie things that came in a cute little kit. The kit included the gingerbread people, the frosting, colored candies, and the sticks.

Sam did a beautiful jobs, giving her gingerbread man sumptuous lavender eyes and Angelina Jolie lips.

Dad went goth with his Ghost of Gingerbread Future.

Mommy decided to go swanky with her Gingerbread French Maid

And I swear to you that Lucy did this all by herself.

Brrr

2010-12-14T03:31:00.000-08:00

It's cold outside. Maybe I'm getting old, but cold like this isn't exciting anymore. Perhaps cold weather like this would be more enjoyable if our windows were less drafty.
At least my wife looks good at all temperatures.

We put up the tree and Nora has green diarrhea. Of those two items, I chose to depict the tree.

Head2Toe Health Care

2010-12-10T03:36:00.000-08:00

I realized that I failed to mention to my limited blog-readership that my mother has started a primary healthcare clinic in Aurora, CO. Obviously, this news will only be relevant to a geographically limited number of people, but it's still pretty cool.
She can accept almost all insurance plans, and if you don't have insurance, she's still a lot more affordable than other clinics. Right now, she's offering flu shots for $15, but she's seen people for everything from strep throat to tumors. (If you have a tumor, she'll refer you to someone who can fix it.) She has an especially cool plan in which you can "join" her practice for $25/month and then you can call her or go in any time at all without any copays. So it's like you're renting her.
Anyway, nurse practitioners are the family practice providers of the future. You might as well get with a good one now.

This is her website: www.head2toehc.com where you can set your own appointments and what-not.

Your Kids are Perfectly Acceptable

2010-12-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

We've been to our first of 11 elementary school Christmas concerts. It wasn't nearly as painful as one might have expected. Each grade only had two numbers, and some of the ones that didn't involve our daughter were actually amusing.

I have to admit, it's very gratifying seeing your daughter up on stage and notice that she is quantifiably the smartest, most attractive, and most talented child within the boundaries of her elementary school.

There she is in the center with her boots and her red gingerbread dress, beaming joy into the world.

This is Nora, not watching the concert. Lucy didn't get to have a picture taken of her because she was a nasty little 3-year-old monster throughout the evening.

This was the finale with all the kids in the school singing. You might have to search for her. She's little tiny one with the halo.

Thanks for Colorado

2010-11-28T19:24:00.000-08:00

Happy Gluttonous Feast Day, everyone. We went to Colorado. It was a fairly relaxed week in the Mile-high State, with movies, Balderdash games, and Turkey carcass parachutes dominating the festivities.

This is a fairly typical scene. The TV was either football or Team Oomi-Zoomi.

Samantha and Lucy gravitated toward their older, but not-too-older cousin, Eva. Mostly, they just tied leashes onto one another and barked. Girls have no self-respect these days.

Lucy and Nora gravitated toward Grandpa and Grandma's jacuzzi tub, which is a much more efficient bubble producer than our bath at home.

These are a few shots of the very cold, but very worth-while turkey carcass weather balloon parachute launch. For a more comprehensive documentation of the event, click here.

After a long drive home on Friday, our three darlings settled quickly back into their midwestern lives with a hardy bowl of grits each. I'm completely serious. All three of them wanted a bowl of grits at 8:30 PM when we got home.

Hoofin' It

2010-11-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

Today in my assessment class, we got to practice suturing. We were each given a pig hoof, which we then got to injure, and then repair.
So if any of you happen to get a deep cut in the middle of your human-to-pig or pig-to-human tranformation, I'm here for you.

Better than a Urinating Bull

2010-11-15T04:27:00.000-08:00

Becky decided to have her forehead lightened.

But before she did that, she went on a field trip with Samantha.
Now, I think I remember going on a field trip or two when I was in elementary school. Actually, the only special occasion I have a clear memory of is when a rancher brought a live bull to school, and we all got to go out and watch it stand there in the school yard and giggle when it peed in the grass.
Sam, on the other hand, went to the circus.

Here she is, sitting on the bus in front of another cute little girl that isn't quite as cute or smart as she is.

And here's Sam and Becky, sitting in their seats, waiting for the CIRCUS to start.

And here's some elephants standing on stools and doing the conga, which I think everybody will agree, is much more imprassive than a bull peeing in a field.

(Actually, Becky said most of the acts were pretty lame. Dogs refusing to do tricks, tigers moving from platform to platform over and over again, out-of-shape women performing poorly-coreographed dances)

Oh, well. It was the circus.

OCTOBER

2010-11-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

My, how month doth fly. Month doth. Month doth. Try saying "month doth" five times really fast.
Yes, we're back, but we really enjoyed our month of extremely limited computer use, so I don't think we'll be posting as much as we were before.

So, here we go.

The weather has turned chilly, and given our three very fashion-conscious offspring a chance to take even longer getting dressed while they accessorize.

As it turns out, we DID have some hail damage on our roof, so a couple guys from Ashco Exteriors, one with biceps bigger than.... I don't know. He had uncomfortably large biceps. Anyway they came over and arranged with our insurance to give us a new roof.

Not incredibly dramatic, but it does look nicer.

Lucy's been enjoying preschool. It's a great school, but it's bordering on being a little too...evangelical for us. The other day she came home reciting something like, "We declare ourselves friends, in the NAME OF THE LORD!"

Becky, Nora and I got to join her on a field trip to the fire station. Life Flight helicopters weigh about as much as a Buick.

Some lovely people in our ward invited us to their 1-year-old's birthday party at a pumpkin patch. They spend more money on birthday parties than we do.

There was a large, bouncy thing that Sam handled proficiently.

There were pumpkins, which Lucy scaled awkwardly.

And there was a springy horse, which Nora rode obsessively.

And then came Halloween. Unfortunately, the best pictures are locked away on Grandma Sue's camera, but this is how our older two were dressed.

We'll find some pictures of Nora eventually, but this is about what she looked like:

And, since it's been a month since we posted, we'll have to include Lucy dancing. If you're tired of videos of Lucy dancing, go visit another blog. Seriously, what do you people WANT?

You may have noticed that pantless Nora was in there. She's been making a lot of requests to sit on the potty and making deposits about 10% of the time. Usually, it's a ploy to get half undressed so that she can then request a bath. Sneaky little trout.

And here is a video of our couch.

Displays of Excellence

2010-10-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

Alright, enough opinions.
Here's our old girl.

Here's our big tree changing colors.

Here's our baby politely refusing carrot-baby food.

Addendum: We've decided as a family to see how ignoring the computer for a month will affect our lives. We both realized that at times, we were shooing the children away or sitting them down in front of the TV so that we could check blogs or make pithy remarks on Facebook or surf.
So for October, if you want to get hold of us, we'll still be answering our phones. I imagine our next post will be post Halloween.
Tolmanitude out.

My Diabetic Pre-existence

2010-09-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

I usually try to keep the family blog away from politics or culture or other things that might estrange our friends, but sometimes politics and culture walk up and slap our family in the face.
As some of you may recall, I lost my job couple months ago. At that time, I also lost my family's health insurance. It didn't take me too terribly long to find another job with benefits.
Well, I went to my endocrinologist a couple weeks ago for a check-up regarding my type I diabetes, a condition I've had since childhood. I submitted all my new insurance information and paid my $35 co-pay. Yesterday, I got a letter from FMH CoreSource (my benefits company) stating that my health care plan contains a pre-existing conditions clause, and if I don't provide proof that my gap in coverage was less than 63 days, my claim will be denied.
Fortunately, I don't think my gap in coverage was more than 63 days. What really kills me is that CoreSource and Lifetime Benefits (my old insurance) are BOTH subsidiaries of Aetna. So even though I've been funneling quite a few bucks to them out of my paycheck over the last 3 years, they try to deny coverage at the first opportunity.
I asked the gal at CoreSource when the new laws would go into effect that made this kind of thing illegal. She said, "Oh, we won't have to worry about that for a couple more years."
Now, I know that a majority of our friends would place themselves in the reddish region of the political spectrum, and some of them have even done some marching and holding signs as they express themselves. To them, I would say this:
Before you start picketing in support of some of these guys that are promising to repeal the health care reform bill, please just ask those guys which part of the bill is the part that needs to go. I certainly don't understand everything in that legislation, but I know that it's designed to make it more difficult for insurance companies to screw over a middle-class, diabetic dad who is trying to stay alive with his pre-existing conditions while he supports a family of five (By the way, even though I'm still with Aetna, my deductible started over, so I got to pay almost $200 for a 3-month supply of insulin and testing supplies).
If the Republicans want to get into power and make their own improvements, great. Tort reform? Fantastic. Go for it. Interstate insurance commerce? Fabulous. But don't take a giant step backwards just so you can say you were the only ones who made a difference. That's stupid.
That's all.

Angel Poop

2010-09-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty good hail storm a few days ago. Actually, we were up in Liberty at the time, but came home to some fairly impressive results. We didn't sustain any roof damage, as far as I can tell, but I know that there were people in the area who lost windshields. How could Obama let this happen???
There's a tall tree with big, broad leaves next to our garage. You see that some of the leaves took a pretty good beating.
Maybe if have a few more storms like that, we can get all the leave raking out of the way now, before it gets too cold.

This is a mitochondrion.

Stools and Schools

2010-09-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

Now, I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking that our youngest daughter is more awesome than she really is. We haven't actually made any deposits into the pink plastic portal. But she IS clutching herself and saying "PEE PEE" whenever she's gone in her diaper. So this post isn't to announce any early milestones, it's really just to make Aunt Chrissy jealous.

And Lucy had her first day of preschool. It's surprisingly cheap, despite the high teacher-to-kid ratio. Plus, the teacher sent a good page-long individualized email telling all about Lucy's day.

Nose Hair and Heroism

2010-09-08T14:11:00.001-07:00

You know, there comes a time in a man's life when he has to take a minute and really think about things. He has to wonder about the direction his life has taken. He has to wonder what brought him to the point where his wife would go to Big Lots and purchase a nose/ear hair trimmer and present it to him with a sheepish look that says, "Hey, you really actually need this. Sorry, buddy."

Dora. Dora the Explorer. Dora, we a-dora thee. Dora the Explora, command us what to Do-ra.

The only way your kids could be cooler is if they actually fly.

Cocoon

2010-08-31T17:55:00.000-07:00

A couple posts ago, we told you few folks that still visit that we had captured a cocoon and were hoping for a more positive outcome that our last butterfly hatching. Well, lo and feakin' behold.

We didn't notice that the critter had emerged until it had already dropped down and moved over to a plastic bag on the counter. The kitchen looks the way it does because Becky decided to paint the walls.....again.

We moved it outside pretty quick. I figure that if the oil-based paint fumes were burning MY eyes, it must have been even more uncomfortable for a newborn who breathes through its skin.

Learned Child of Mine

2010-08-22T05:24:00.000-07:00

Our oldest child joined the ranks of the publicly educated this week. She even rode the bus to school. I will now narrate her thoughts during her arrival back to the house on Thursday.

"I may seem small compared to the vehicle on which I traveled, but I will soon have the power to destroy objects many times that size with a single, focused thought."

"Hello, youngest sister. I'm back from a day of intellectual growth and socialization. I'm sorry you had to deal with Lucy all by yourself, but I think my absence will ultimately lead to a closer bond between the two of you."
"Hello, Lucy. I'm sorry you had to deal with that screaming baby all by yourself today. Don't worry. I'm home now and you and I can immediately start giggling about the cute boys in my class. Most of them look and smell like hemorrhoids."

"The square of the hypotenuse of any right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the two remaining sides."

Squash and Metamorphasis

2010-08-18T03:53:00.000-07:00

We had to figure out what to do with the one, enormous pumpkin that ripened in our garden two months early. It's too early for jack-o-lanterns, so we decided to make pumpkin-bean-chicken soup and a jack-o-lantern. We're not really doing the creativity thing.
We found a cocoon clinging to the drive gate. I believe it's the same species as the one we captivated two years ago. Hopefully, we'll have a more positive outcome than the last time we tried it.

Craftiness

2010-08-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

We got a package in the mail the other day from my sister, Allison. She has four children, who have been making crafts indoors because the weather in Austin has been almost as miserable as the weather in Kansas City. They had apparently run out of things to make for themselves so they turned their attention on our girls, since they're small and cute like dolls.

Nora was not outwardly happy, but she looked very frilly.

Sam is planning on wearing her outfit to school in a couple weeks. You can't see the shoes very well, but there are little cube-beads that say IAM on one shoe and SAM on the other.

Becky has also been crafty. She made this cake here. The stuff under Barbie's skirt was surprisingly tasty.

We've had a number of zucchini's picked too late. Jon had to figure out something to do with the behemoth squash.

Vualah. Lucy used ionized particles trapped in her hair to craft a portal onto a beach in 1923, where she instigated a fight between two wet women

Seen here:

And this is an obligatory baby falling asleep video. Mommy had just finished reading to her out of the Ensign.

Bath time is fun time

2010-07-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

If you're not LDS, this won't be as funny to you, but nonetheless, this is what I just overheard from Samantha while she was bathing with Lucy:

"Brothers and Sisters.

"Ladies and Gentlemen.

"I would like to excuse the shower curtain for being in the way.

"I would also like to announce that bath time is fun time."

Sauce and Cakes

2010-07-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

Well, the Thornes won 3-2. Your votes can still count if you send in checks or golden nuggets.

Terry's let the win go to his head. He's been holding shiny things over his head and is refusing to wear pants.

A few things over the last few weeks:

Samantha turned 5. She's still more attractive then everybody else's kids, but now we say "pretty" instead of "cute."

Lucy had courageous and ultimately victorious battle with pink eye. Wiping snot out 3-year-old tear ducts should be an Olympic sport.

Nora now has pink eye. We've felt bad enough for her that she's been aloud to exist in the buff. Consequences be damned.

My beautiful, 31-year-old wife also has pink eye. Yes, 31. That's what I said. She was 30 YESTERDAY, people. Seriously, get a calendar. Dummies.

Contest

2010-07-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

My folks came over for a weekend and played. We thought we'd take the opportunity to have an online contest to see which set of grandparents is cuter.
So, if you think Wendell & Deanna are cuter, make a comment or send five dollars to our address.

If you'd like to vote for Terry & Sue, make a comment or email us with your credit card number(s).

Here's three little girls, who are not in the contest, as they haven't had children who have had children.

This is how Nora feels now that they're gone.

Sam had a pre-birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.

Really. Crappy. Pizza.

Grumpa Wendell is starting to resemble the knotted redbud tree, no? Both excellent perches.

Bearing Fruit

2010-07-07T19:35:00.000-07:00

You want a zucchini? I'll give you a ZUCCHINI! And your LITTLE DOG, TOO!!!

Polijuice

2010-07-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

These two pictures kinda make it look like our daughters have been hanging out at Hogwarts.

LUMOS!!!

Expelliarmus!!!

Happy 4th, everybody.

Tubes and Vampires

2010-07-02T06:55:00.000-07:00

Becky had her sisters over last night to watch the Twilight movies in preparation for the 3rd installment's release this weekend. That meant that the husband and the little girls who don't yet appreciate smoldering had to be out of the house. We went to McDonalds, where nary a sparkly, J-Crew-wearing vampire doth go.

Then we rocked out at ToysRUs for a few minutes before they closed.

It turns out that the ladies only managed to watch the first movie, which is interesting because watching the first movie is like having a pitchfork colonoscopy.

This is a clever edit that Jeremy and Megan had posted on their blog.

Papa's Job

2010-06-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

We've kept this a bit of a secret over the last month or so, but I got fired from my job at the hospital. The reason for my termination was a few "documentation issues". I didn't murder any patients or steal any drugs or make out with any doctors.

Anyway, this would be a long, uncomfortable post if I talked about getting fired. Long-story-short, I was out of work, sent out about 75 or 80 applications, and I've been hired at Hospice Company here in Kansas City. I start next month.

In the mean time, we found that we still require money to purchase things like food and diapers and electricity, so I went and got myself a job that I had 10 years ago.

Nothing says 2 Bachelors degrees and part of a masters like matching hats for you and your car. Oh well. We're just really grateful that this very stressful time only lasted a month or two.

Real and fake children.

Strawberry pie, minus the pumpkin

2010-06-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

These are pictures of Becky's parents and their time in Hawaii. If you want more, you'll have to talk to them, because when we see them, we just get bitter.

Becky's mom brought back some tropical fabric, which Becky promptly made into tropical dresses. We're hoping they'll help the Polynesians in our ward like us.

Lucy's 3rd birthday was yesterday, the same day as Father's Day. Becky gets crafty on most occasions, so the girls got t-shirt dresses to wear to church.

I know we keep going on about our garden, but it's kinda the only thing going really well at the moment. Here's a picture to give some scale to the pumpkin and zucchini sections.
You may need an interpreter to understand this, but for those who are truly gifted in baby talk, you will see the genius in our child. Also, you will see the results of trying to steal the spotlight.

Hot Cakes

2010-06-14T05:20:00.000-07:00

Some of you were wondering where Lucy gets it:

Growth

2010-06-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Well, there's been some progress of late.

This...

has grown into this.

with these...

becoming these.

Our psychopathic first child has grown into a pre-kindergartner. She's attending school 5 days a week in preparation for "real" kindergarten this fall. I'm really not sure what the difference is.

In Sam's absence, Lucy has assumed the role of big sister and socialite. Here, she frolicks in the meadow with her rotund friend, Jacob. Watch out, Hunter, this guy could crush you.

This is a hot dog that grew into an octopus.

Shakespear in Love

2010-06-06T04:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it's in a notarized contract. In 19 years, expect to see the following picture amongst the photographs displayed on the welcoming table at the reception of the newlywed couple, Hyrum and Samantha Shakespear. We took a little day trip down to Springfield Missouri, where the Shakespears have recently relocated. Jeremy and I were roommates in college. He's now a dentist with four children. It's been determined that one of his boys will marry one of our girls. I'm not sure if we should encourage Hyrum and Lucy, as that would be simply too Mormon.

Nora and Hunter could work out, but he's currently looking for someone with more hair.

We spent much of the afternoon clinging to the shade along the back wall of their house with the twin babies. Here, Megan is in the middle of describing the size of her appendix.

The children got wet and probably sunburned. Lucy is amused at Hyrum's pasty studliness.

Samantha: "Hey, guys! Watch me shake my hair....out....."

Hunter is actually 6 months younger an d much more even-tempered than Lucy, but he doesn't seem to mind a challenge.

Hmph.

Only 7 years ago, Jeremy and I were beginning to feel pretty hopeless at BYU.

And there stands 5/7 of the fruit of our loins.
Not my loins and his loins together. We had to get two other sets of loins involved.

And on the way home:

The Wilderness

2010-05-22T05:27:00.000-07:00

We camped out in the backyard. We had originally planned to campout at an actual campsite, but it turned out that the backyard was a much better idea, since we would have been without things like lighter fluid, and a roof.

Little Nora in the great outdoors.

Little Becky roasting marshmellows over an open flame.

Four girls enjoying nature's bounty. Sort of.

The two older girls actually slept really well in the tent. We eventually moved everyone inside on account of the thunder and lightning.

Damp

2010-05-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

For the following pictures, I will attempt to transcribe the thoughts that are running through our daughters' beautiful little heads:

"Ooh, I hope Mommy doesn't think to look under her own socks....WHAM-O!"

"Someday I'll own you, Dad. You take that picture now, and put it on your little blog, but someday, I will OWN YOU and then I'll sell you to Belgium."

Lucy: "I wonder which one of us is going to be more popular in high school?"

Sam: "Me."

"Whenever we come to measure something, we ultimately create that system, by giving it meaning, texture, colour, shape ect - and the information thus floods into our beings/consciousness. The human mind is a dimension of its own, threaded into the external world of reality."

"SPRING!"

A Tribute to Deanna

2010-05-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

Everybody else seems to be doing blog postings that honor their mothers, and I was beginning to feel like a slacker. I don't have any good recent pictures of my mother. Most of the images I have are from before she went to New York to get her doctorate and get skinny. She'd be embarrassed if I put up one of her old fat pictures, but she'd also be embarrassed if I put up one of her new skinny pictures, so I'm going to put up some photos that represent her awesomeness.

She's like the statue of liberty, except that her arms get tired more quickly and she hasn't corroded green.

She's like Xena, but she's not quite as handy with sharp frisbees and she's not as much of a Lesbo.

She's like Queen Elizabeth, but her family is a little more functional and she's more anxious for her son to take over for her.

She's like a gazelle, but wears clothing more often and has fewer ticks.

She's like Florence Nightengale, except she believes in the germ theory, and though Florence Nightengale might not be able to beat up your mom, my mom could beat up your mom. And she would, so keep your mom away, for her own safety.

Love you, mom.

Wood

2010-05-04T07:01:00.001-07:00

So, I made a porch swing. Turns out, all you really need is some wood, a few power tools, and a willingness to ignore your children for a couple days. It's also helpful to have a wife who's willing to do the more annoying parts like sanding and staining.

Another recent project:

Avid tolmanitude readers may recall that we have a big shed in the backyard where we keep tools, sleds and corpses. Behind the shed, we had this:

<- This picture was taken a couple years ago before the weeds got out of control.

So now it's this.

With cute little squash and pumpkin plants like this.
And now we can do something productive with those decomposing Albanians.

Las Mesas

2010-04-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

Here are two girls, one of which has recently had her first authorized haircut. They are painting at a table in the yard. In the shade. Twitter tweet.

Here are those same two girls on the same day, sitting at picnic table constructed by their parents. Out of lumber. Brrrrzzzzzzzz.

Here is a third girl being held by her shiny-headed father on a Sunday morning. Aaaaaaaamennnnnnnnn.

Don't be jealous.

2010-04-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

"Who's the sassy miss mixy?"
"LUCY!"
"Who can make the trick tricksy?"
"LUCY!"
"Who gives Gandalf two goosies?"
"Whoosy?"
"It's always gonna be Lucy!"
"LUCY!"

Tranquil Females

2010-04-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

This one time, I was riding through the park on my bicycle, and a bird flopped in front of my wheel. I ran over it. It was still alive and flopping around, I felt a duty to stop its suffering.
So I picked up a pinecone and smashed its head. Then it died.

This post was just an experiment to see if anyone actually reads the text of our posts.

Oh, if anyone is more into reading than looking, I've started my own opinion-centered blog. It was started mainly in response to a good friend who has a blog with opinions that I wanted to disagree with.

http://jonsshallowthoughts.blogspot.com/

Hippity Hop

2010-04-06T03:28:00.000-07:00

Once again, we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ by eating obscene amounts of food and hiding treat-filled plastic eggs for our children. The Thorne grandchildren haven't increased in number over the last year, but they have increased in volume and mass. Here's the traditional pic-on-the-stump.
It's not perfectly clear from the group shot that our children are better than the others, so here's some ancillary evidence.

Exhibit A

Exhibits B&C

Our daughters have plenty of dresses, so they got Easter play clothes instead.

We have family that are...well...they don't live in our neighborhood. A few of the eggs turned out to be filled with things that are less exciting for small children, but much more exciting for older children. Sam ended up with one of the really good eggs.

They're so pale. It's like they're about to start controlling people's minds and taking over the town. That's Zoe. She's closer to Sam's age, but she and Lucy are actually getting along pretty well.

Duhn

2010-04-02T03:36:00.000-07:00

Ok. Here's this is the last post about our floors. As you can see, we made some some other changes besides the tile on the floor. We took all the stuffing out of that brown recliner and weaved it into an area rug. Then we took the wood from that armoir and carved a bunch of little wooden rings to hang behind the TV. Finally, we sculpted a yellow lamp out of clay from from our backyard and saliva from our two younger daughters.

BEFORE
AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER
The kitchen isn't as dramatic, but man, creating paint out of crushed lilacs, goat oil, limestone, and elderberries is not the easiest process in the world.

Conviction

2010-03-28T12:06:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple weeks, we've been spending all of our spare time and some of our not-so-spare time tiling the kitchen, bathroom, and living room of our house. This was not easy.

Above is our bathroom/cranny. (I call the little hallway thing between our bathroom and the rest of our house a "cranny" because I've never actually seen a "cranny," but I figure they must exist because you look in them at the same time you look in the nooks. Becky actually did most of the tile cutting and grouting. I did all the setting. Thank you to Papa Thorne, Jenny Thorne, and Larry Clarke for your assistance, and to all the good people who watched the girls.

I don't think Becky would be very happy if I posted a picture of the living room before she gets it looking the way she wants. We're trying to craigslist our way out of thrift store purchase.

This is Nora after being told that she's had enough Cheetos.

And Lucy.

Spacers

2010-03-22T22:40:00.000-07:00

We've been busy. I accidentally wrote, "We've been busty" there, but then I changed it.
Anyway, we've been very busy with work, and school, ward talent shows, pre-school, ward choir, and a couple very time-consuming home improvements. We'll post on that in a couple days.
I think Becky and I have decided not to go forward with the private blog thing, mostly because we're too lazy to get the email list together. Sorry for those of you who were really looking forward to being exclusive.

This is Sam, peeking through at us from an alternate universe in which car tires are made of hardened cheese, congressmen behave like adults, and Evan Lysacek is known more for his skills with a switchblade.

A haiku:

Two daughters staring

Pillows don't need fluffing here

Sticky with ennui.

This is bread made to look like people's heads.

You might notice some residue in this clip that could hint at what's been going on around here.

Angry Beaver

2010-03-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

Do you remember this little girl? This sweet little Nora?
Well, this girl doesn't like going to bed. We've tried a number of times to just put her in her crib and let her cry herself to sleep. This doesn't work for two reasons:
1. She screams loud enough and long enough that it keeps the other girls awake, which is pretty remarkable since Lucy and Sam sleep like grim death.
and....

2. Can't see it? Let's zoom in...

This little angel gnaws on the crib while she's screaming and ends up with a mouthful of wood splinters. What is she? Part gerbil? I wonder how long it would take her to chew all the way through.

Dad got a fancy-schmancy pull-up bar thing for his birthday since Becky is into bulging pecs and biceps. Sam's gotten more use out of the thing.

Most of February

2010-02-20T07:34:00.000-08:00

We've obviously been slacking in the blogosphere lately, and that "going private" thing hasn't happened yet. It probably still will. We're just lazy.

In the mean time, we've had a month here at the Tolman household. Lucy spent most of her free time yelling at us with phrases like "I DON'T WANT TO!" and "I DON'T LIKE YOU, DADDY!" and when she wasn't doing that, she was staying up late watching Mr. Ed re-runs and Saw IV.

This is her hair.

Samantha let us do her hair. She's making some spectacular progess in the reading department, and she occasionally retreats to her room because she "can't stop thinking about what people are saying." Seriously. Becky's family has some OCD tendencies, so we're thinking she might have some of that going on. She's otherwise a very well-adjusted kid.

These are our three girls' 1-year pictures. No, your children are not as cute, but I'm sure they'll be good people eventually.

Nora Deanne had her first birthday. Here she's wearing the magical T-shirt made by her aunt Chrissy. Too bad it's only accurate for 24 hours.

Dad also turned 32. This is not as exciting.

As I was going through our camera, I found some pictures we took quite a few months ago from when Jeremy Shakespear visited. Our older girls treated him like Dick Clark treated that Albanian gentleman back in 1974. Youch!

Nora don't budge. She's progressed from this to hitting us in the face.

Sometimes we'll hear them putting their toys in mortal peril, or dying, or informing other toys of their mother's death. Imagination is wonderful.

Nora is a toddler. A lazy, spoiled toddler, but a toddler nonetheless.

The Hair

2010-01-30T17:25:00.000-08:00

We haven't quite compiled our list of invitees prior to the privatization of our blog. Whether it's due to our remarkable popularity or our tepid enthusiasm for the change, we're dragging our feet a bit.

In the mean time, we've had several people asking us about the results of our baby shave which took place last September. Well,

There it is. Behold the flowing, golden locks. A veritable Rapunzel. Did it work? Eh. Would I take more advice from a Mexican Gypsy? Almost certainly.

Going Private

2010-01-22T16:46:00.001-08:00

We've heard enough horror stories that we have decided to make our blog private.

However...

the reason we update our blog is to amuse, entertain, or help you feel better about yourselves.

Therefore...

we need visitors to make the updating time worth while (or is it worth wild?).

So...

if you want to keep having access to our blog, we will send you an invite. Just leave us a comment and tell us so and we'll e-mail you an invite. Even if you don't know us all that well, we're happy to have you peeking in on our lives, as long as we know you somewhat.

So go ahead, click on the comment section and tell us so. If we don't have your current e-mail, you might need to e-mail us to tell us so (or you can leave it in the comment section if you're comfortable with that).

Our e-mail is: xarthog at hotmail dot com

(For those who are not familiar with blogger, going private means you will have to be invited and have a password to look at our blog in the very near future).

UPDATE: This is not us trying to exclude people from getting to know us. We're glad that friends of our parents, and people we haven't seen in years, and even random friendly people have visited our blog. However, we have three very pretty little girls and we live within walking distance of quite a few registered offenders. We don't want to stop posting pictures of our daughters or sharing personal details about ourselves. That's the whole point. We just want to be safe. Anyone is welcome to an invite, we only ask that you introduce yourselves. Example: "Hi. I'm Boba Fett. I'm a friend of your mom's and I love your blog. Here's my email: bountyhunter4hire at clonedman.com."
Easy, right?

The Grind

2010-01-21T11:54:00.000-08:00

The holidays are over, and we're getting back into the rhythm of our ordinary existences.

Very back in the rhythm.

Nora is just about to turn one. Grandma Deanna made her this remarkbly soft jacket. It would actually fit Lucy were it not for our girls' tendency to have humongous skulls.

And, to demonstrate the full use of the Tolman cranium:

The following video will start to grate on your inner ear at about second 40. She can keep this up for hours. She wanted another bandaid.

This is Samantha, because I hadn't included a picture or video of her.

Last Regarding the Lone Star State

2010-01-13T04:00:00.000-08:00

On cool, but not cold, winters day in Austin, Texas, nineteen people related by blood or marriage to Wendell Tolman set out capture catfish so that they might consume fish flesh.

Samantha Love Tolman is much more attractive than a catfish.

Nora Deanne Tolman is smarter than a catfish, though she'd probably fare worse if we were to toss her into a fresh-water pond.

Several things should be noted here as you compare and contrast the following two digital images:

1: Both Jon and Becky Tolman are mightier than a catfish

2: Becky, with her 10-pound catch, is obviously mightier than Jon

3: That fish is as large as Becky's leg

4: Adam Benefield and Ben Terry did not catch any fish.

These are not catfish, though I suppose they could one day grow whiskers.

Lucy Tolman and Annie Benefield were not interested in fish. They are dainty. They say things like "teacup" and "pony" and "nuva ring".

Tolman Clan

2010-01-11T05:32:00.000-08:00

So we went to Austin for New Years. The trip involved flaming tractors, propeller hats, and a fair bit of vomit. Overall, a spectacular time.

From left to right: Becky Tolman, Eva's Angry face, Rachel Terry

Hyrum Benefield pondering, "Could I hide a shiv in here?"

Grandma and Nora Tolman wondering, "What does that boy want with a shiv?"

Manly men with guns. Big guns. Guns that kill.

One of the vomitters. Here, Becca Terry ruminates on the religious significance of dark matter.

Samantha and a pile of bramble.

This picture of Becky holding Lucy's coat was taken just milliseconds after a bird's nest fell onto her chest from the foliage above.

This gets a little repetitive. Sam "jumped" at the opportunity to bungee around at the Leander Mall. It was fun for Jon to use his language skills on the unfriendly immigrant who operated the contraption.

I'll post a late Christmas without you.

2010-01-07T08:33:00.000-08:00

We've been pretty busy since Christmas Day. In fact, the girls got a letter FROM Santa Claus explaining that he had heard Dad would be working on Christmas Day so Santa was going to come one day early. We tried starting a tradition this year of giving each girl 3 presents, just like like Jesus got. We fudged a bit by not including gifts in the stockings and presents from girls to one another as part of the three. We may or may not stick to it once we actually have money to spend.

Sam woke up at 5:30 AM. We put her in bed with us and told her she had to wait until Lucy woke up. She kept us awake by telling us the time on the clock. "It's 5-4-7!!"...."It's 5-4-8!!"..."It's 5-4-9!!!" I finally took her out and we laid down on the couch looked a the presents and waited for Lucy and Mom."

Sam took a picture of her computer-based Dora Candy Land game.

Then Dad worked the next 4 days in a row and we left for Austin. More on that in a bit.

They're big and bright because there aren't any street lamps

2010-01-02T05:25:00.000-08:00

Well, we're a little behind. I suppose Christmas pictures and what-not might get posted next week sometime. Jon had to work Christmas Day and the three days after, then we headed down to Austin for a Tolman gathering of sorts, so spare computer time has not been plentiful.

This is a sunrise view of Allison (Tolman) Benefield's back window in her new, cavernous home. It accomodates 19 people, and every one of them can hear what the other 18 are doing at any given moment.

Here is Rachel (Tolman) Terry giving Jon a swift kick to the goods.

Here is a group of people.

Here is some of that same group of people.

Here are two small people. Lucy finally has a cousin her age to play with.

Topper

2009-12-23T05:32:00.001-08:00

I think I failed to show our awesome tree. Becky and the girls made the topper, which is a dual representation of Yuletide wonder and guilt. Many of the ornaments were also created by small hands. You can really sense their anger.

Grease? I'll give you GREASE!

2009-12-13T03:27:00.000-08:00

This is the face Lucy makes when nobody seems to care about previous posts that involve her.

These are two girls getting all boozed up for a day on the slopes.
This is story time. Nora is not normally involved, as she eats books.

You'll note that her front tooth has not fallen out, but merely turned a pleasant shade of grey. "Pleasant Shade of Grey"... is that one by the Mommas and the Papas?

GO-RI-LLA!

The Fruit of Sue's Loins

2009-12-02T20:42:00.000-08:00

Last week, from Tuesday to Thanksgiving Thursday, Terry and Sue Thorne and their descendants descended on the Great Wolf Lodge, a hotel with a water park and an arcade and Magiquest and what-not.

You'll note that our children are the more attractive ones. A two year comparison can be made here.

Lucy, Samantha, and Zoe Ralston enjoyed free, late-night HBO episodes of My Little Pony.

This is a photo featuring Grandpa Terry's gut, his wife, and his immediate offspring.

Chrissy enjoyed screaming at the babies. She didn't scream anything coherent. Just horrid, guttural screams that seemed to last for hours.

I believe Lucy is contemplating the acquisition of Kim's wallet.

That look from the tall, bald one may not be mere goofiness. I may have been losing it a bit due to the fact that I was unable to participate in any of the water-oriented fun due to a relatively fresh pacemaker incision. Lucy is either embarrassed, or spreading snot up to her forehead.

Pachalla's Blade

2009-11-21T18:58:00.000-08:00

This will be another conglomeration.

First: Cute baby.

Second: Cute girls snuggling while they slumber.

Third: Two girls doing dishes just like their mother does.

Fourth: The pacemaker. When I awoke early Tuesday to go to work, I felt an unusual amount of pacemaker activity. I continued to feel it at work whenever I sat down, so I put on one of the heart monitors and had a look at my rhythm (one of the perks of working on a telemetry unit). Indeed, my pacemaker was not behaving as usual, so I spoke with one of the cardiac nurses and one of the cardiologists and arranged to have mt pacer interrogated that afternoon.

Now, when I say "interrogated," I'm not necessarily talking about anything involving Dick Cheney or electrodes. Well actually, I guess it does involve electrodes, and I suppose there's really no way of knowing whether or not Cheney was involved.

So it turns out that my battery needed to be changed. When the battery is low, the pacemaker reverts to a power-saving mode in which it only fires in one chamber, and the minimum rate is 65. My lower rate had been set at 50. So, ironically, the power-saving mode was shocking me any time I stopped moving.

With some cajoling, I managed to get Dr. Sarat Pachalla to agree to switch out my pacemaker on Thursday. It's a good thing I know the man, because I seriously never saw the guy's face. I spoke to him briefly from under the surgical field, but then the drugs kicked in.

So here's number 2...

And here's number 3.

And here's some proof that our daughter is pretty much the most awesome.

The Magic of Descriptive Language

2009-11-12T06:57:00.000-08:00

A quote from our oldest:

"Yesterday, I made a poop, and it was shaped like an 'L' and this long."

Amberthing

2009-11-04T20:36:00.000-08:00

Octoberween

2009-11-01T13:31:00.000-08:00

The spookiest and least diabetic-friendly holiday has passed over the Tolman household. Come to think of it, Halloween is a lot like Passover, but with fewer feasts, more costumes, and less Judaism.

Our youngest was an apple. Or a strawberry. Or a chili. I think it was probably an apple, since it had a worm on it, but she's shaped more like a chili, and she tastes more like provolone.

Lucy was an African version of Cruella DeVille. Has no one else heard of "101 Wildebeasts"?

Samantha pranced about as an adorable invertebrate.

Superdad. Delivering chilis to the hungry children of the world.
There was actually a version that involved red jocky shorts instead of running shorts, but we figured that if Dad's superness was making us uncomfortable, it would likely make the neighborhood children and their parents uncomfortable as well.

Rebecca Tolman, the unwashed lima bean.

It was a theme. All things from nature. An apple, a ladybug, a zebra, and a creepy doofus.

Poops, Moves, and Emotional Fats

2009-10-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

There are pros and cons to having all girls. Potty training is one of the pros. Lucy, our 28-month-old, snaggle-tooth muffin with hair like Frasier season 1, just decided the other day that she wanted do her business in the toilet like her big sister. She's even pulled the little stool over to climb up there and drop a couple deuces that looked like infant Klingons. Two down. One to go.

Becky REALLY likes this show. I keep finding myself wanting to see how many crossbow darts could be shot into those whiny fat people before they finally shut their pie-holes. Seriously, all the Biggest Loser contestants do is cry. Wah wah wah, my whole life has been about tacos. Wah wah wah, I miss my mommy. Wah wah wah, I have a jelly bean embedded in one of my back folds.

And all that blubbery blubbering is rubbing off on MY wife. We need to get back into Heroes.

And Nora can crawl now.

Sicks and Giggles

2009-10-17T03:49:00.000-07:00

Sam is learning how to read and write. We need to work on vowels and we need to work on looking at the word instead of making it up based on the picture. She made this crown all by herself the other day. I guess we also need to work on connotation.

Is the whole world ill right now? Holy cow pox. At least one member of our family has been dripping something from somewhere since July.

This one kind of goes on. But you're here, so this is probably the sort of schlock you're looking for.

Go. To. SLEEP.

2009-10-14T20:14:00.001-07:00

PLEASE

Disjointed Post

2009-10-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

Ok. A few things.

We have three very cute girls.

One of them doesn't mind having her hands and feet superglued to the walls.

Lucy assumed Dad was looking and launched herself off the top bunk toward him. Luckily, she didn't sustain a head injury because the impact was absorbed by her front teeth. One of her incisors did bleed and move back a smidge. The dentist said over the phone that it might heal on its own if we leave it alone. We're hoping so, because we hadn't bothered to put Lucy on our dental plan.

Speaking of dental plans, we've been married 5 years as of yesterday. I really really like that Becky. She's very nice and pretty.

Lucyisms

2009-10-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

Lucy is not as linguistically gifted as her older sister. Sam was talking in very complete, understandable sentences by this age. However, Lucy is getting much better about putting words together and has developed a functional, individual vocabulary, some of which is as follows:

Mommy = MOMMEEE!!!

Daddy = DADDEEEE!!!

Sam = Drai-jrai (no idea)

Nora = Baby

Bottle = Bahbo

Nose = Bop bop

Horse = Gidyup, or Eeehaw

Food = Eat

Dora = Dada

Ear = Eeeyoo

Insect = Dubby

Any color = Puhpoh (Purple)

Any fruit = Appoh

So, when discussing an orange: "Lucy, what's this?" "Appoh" "No, it's an orange. Can you say 'orange'?" "Puhpoh."

Waaboo dwee no no daymo Drai-jrai hahpoo fai = If you don't take that toy away from Sam and give it to me, I'm going to burn the couch.

Join Our Cause

2009-09-24T11:34:00.000-07:00

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

We Shaved the Baby

2009-09-20T17:38:00.000-07:00

See what happened was we went to feed baby goats again and then we stopped at the new playground before we left. There in the playground was this lady, who claimed to be from Chihuahua. Mexico but really she was probably a gypsy. I guess there isn't really a reason that a gypsy couldn't be from Chihuahua, Mexico.

So there was this Mexican Gypsy and she had this daughter who was about 3 years old and this little girl had more hair than any five normal adults combined. It was super thick down past her little tushy. In a jealous tone, I told the gypsy lady that her daughter had lots of hair.

She replied, in a very mysterious gypsy-like, Mexican accent, "Yes she does. When our girls are between 6-10 months old, we shave their heads, then it grows in thick. And here, take these magic turnips."

Actually, she didn't offer us any of her magic turnips, but we did ponder on her words. We figured that Nora is pretty much bald anyway and if it helps her hair grow, she might look like a girl a little sooner than Sam did.

So yeah, we shaved the baby.

Becky made some surprisingly stylish dresses for the older girls using her own shirts.

Sam was not prompted to use Magnum.

I think Sam kinda looks like a little Nephite here.

Less Successful

2009-09-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

A few examples of some activities that turned out less than triumphant.

We're trying to get Lucy off the bottle. When we just took it away, she refused to drink to the point where she got really constipated, so we relented. If you look close you can see a lovely bottle rash around her lips. I got her to use this twirly straw the other day, but that only lasted about an hour. Maybe I should just start an IV to keep her hydrated.

This was supposed to be a meatloaf.

This was supposed to be a picture of something other than Sam's finger.

This was a very pleasant activity for our middle daughter, until she stood up and walked around on the carpet with her toes curled under.

This was supposed to be a thawing chicken, but those scheming naked babies are always running around and pooping in any body of water they can find.