Get 'em while they're HOT!!

Would anyone like to have a couple large masses of concrete? They're both about 100 pounds with a short metal pole sticking out of one end. The usefulness of these things are boundless! Here are just a few of the things you could use them for:
1. Anchors...for those boats of yours!
2. Paper weights for really, really big pieces of paper!
3. Book ends for really really big books, like the ones you never read in college!
4. Awesome, manly piñatas! Just get some guys together, put on a helmet, a blindfold, and some football pads, spin around, and start swinging that sledgehammer!
5. Centerpiece! Provided you have a steel-frame kitchen table.
6. Trebuchet ammunition!
7. Headstone, for a loved one that you didn't actually love at all!
8. An idol! If you're tired of worshipping the true God, why not switch to something a little less demanding? This mass of cement!
And those are off the top of my head!
I'll help you load them into you car.

It's been a bit cool over the last few days, the girls are bundling up with the few warmer items we have available.

The temple open house is going on as we speak. Jon got to help with parking the other day while Becky was helping with refreshments. We'll both be leading tours through on the 18th.

The girls had some friends over for a sleepover a couple weeks ago. Everyone was lovely, but I suddenly have a lot more empathy for my childhood friends' parents.

And really. Those giant concrete turds are available immediately!

You know you've met the perfect couple when THEY initiate a date where you are dressed like this:And you know you found the right man when he can see you dressed like this and still find you attractive:
And you know two guys are good friends when they can pretend they're driving alone in a minivan while dressing drag. But did you know that our husbands made us wear little girl tights on our heads and nasty, nasty used slippers on our feet while we repeatedly got up at a nice Italian buffet restaurant? Maybe we'll invite you next time. If you ask nicely.

Sorry ladies, they're taken.

Red Bud

We have a great big, knotty red bud tree in our back yard. It dropped a fairly large branch into the yard the other day, and though the loss of a good 4th of its canopy is not a positive sign for the tree's future, it did offer a photo op for the little darlings. If they were any cuter, I'd just spew chunks all over myself.


And here's a couple more.



That's all. No. I'm done. You'll have to wait until later. I'm serious.

It's done

We originally estimated that our little construction project would be done by Thanksgiving. ThanksGIVING. Well, it turns out that we had to work and eat and pay attention to our children occasionally and go to the bathroom and several other things that take time. But the carpet went in this last wednesday, which was the only part of the project we paid someone to do for us. A big shout-out goes to Kyle Cromar, who engineered the structural changes and did a good portion of the early construction, Joseph Dawson who assisted with the roof, Jesse Neidholdt who kept our house from burning down from an electrical fire, and Becky's family who helped watch kids and helped with mudding and painting.
So, this:



Became this:


And this:


Became this:


And this:


Became this:


For these:


Yes, that is a dog collar around Nora's waist. She is a puppy.

The Icy Tundra

We finally had some snow. It was enough to cancel school which meant that dad didn't have to work on his birthday. Sam decided to break out the psychedelic snowman kit. I'm sure Mr. Pschedelic Snowman would agree that global warming is a myth, but we didn't really get a chance to have a long conversation about it since his first opportunity to exist happened February 13th, and he's pretty much gone already. Oh, well. We'll discuss it next year.

Toothless Joe Jackson

Sam lost another tooth. And she looks cute, and we had some nice soft lighting for this picture.


The ball's in your court, Hyrum Shakespear.

Dinner

So, Becky made a lovely meal last night, which included cupcake meatloaves, mashed potatoes with secret cauliflower, and some warmed-up canned green beans. We emptied both cans into the warm-up-the-vegetables-in-the-microwave pot that everyone has, and then we warmed them up in the microwave, and then we began to serve everything up onto our plates.

Yes, that is a bright red grasshopper with its legs cut off. Whether it became red due to the preservatives/salt in the greenbeans or it was born red because it was a grasshopper from hell, I cannot be sure. We threw away all the greenbeans.

Tertiary

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

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!"

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.