Conviction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.