Christmas Greetings!

Click on the picture to see full size and read our happenings!

Congratulations, Buka (a.k.a. Tungaa)!

We are so happy for Tamir's little sister, Buka, who was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday, Nov. 22. Tamir was excited to be able to fly out to Provo to baptize and confirm her. She is the first member of his immediate family (besides him) to join the Church since he joined in 1997. Buka is a special person and we are so grateful she made this choice!

Thanks to my Provo-based family for participating in her special day. And since we are Mormons, they had a good time without the influence of alcohol (thought I might need to clear that up once you saw the last picture).

They dressed themselves.

I was raking leaves, and Mary got into the winter gear. Then she decked herself and Alli out and broke out of the house to join me (I guess they thought they were now ready for inclement weather).

Better than we dared hope for...

Our prayers were answered. What else but divine help could get 5 people (including 3 children 4 and under) to smile in sync?

We've got really cute kids

Dare ya to disagree.

Bent on destruction?

Caught in the act and then smirking about it.

Halloween

I was inspired by Shauna's pictures of subsequent Halloweens with the same costumes! And glad it wasn't just us. Seriously, when they can still squeeze into last year's costumes and don't ask for new ones (not that I really let them know that was an option), why switch it up? Experts say kids thrive on repetition.... Top picture is last year, bottom is this year.

Life in the Zoo (whoops, I mean AT the zoo)

Since I'm a bad mom and don't give my kids enough "life experiences," and Mary didn't know what a zoo was when asked by a speech therapist, we went to the super-expensive but luckily free-admission-on-Tuesdays Brookfield Zoo not far from Chicago. They thought it was fun! And we are still recovering, so now I understand WHY I'm a bad mom--it's way too tiring to take 3 kids 4 and under to the zoo!

Looking church pretty

Ew, yucky!

Apparently Joseph doesn't like girls to be all over him. Good thing!

Another good clip

My sister-in-law has this on her blog. We're not Catholic, but we share many of their beliefs and I agree that some issues (moral) are more important than others (economic).

Please watch this clip

This clip from the Family Research Council tells the true life consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage. I do not agree with same-sex marriage, but I was unaware of the implications of legalizing it, reaching all the way down to my children. At this point Illinois has not legalized it, but I think it is only a matter of time before the issue comes up.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1815825713/bctid1819819843

Kids' chatter 2

3:30 AM. Alli is crying. Daddy goes in to check on her. She stops crying ...
Daddy: It's OK, Alli.
Alli: No wake up, OK! Close the door!


Mary: Daddy, are you fixing your hair?
Daddy: Yes, Mary.
Mary: Oh, you're gorgeous!

P.S. - it takes a lot of effort to keep up my rock star hair... :) (see the prior post)

Kids' chatter

Mary: Daddy, what are you doing?
Daddy: I'm ... (fill in the blank).
Few minutes later:
Mary: Daddy, what are you doing?
Daddy: I'm ... (same as above).
Mary: Oh yeah, you're right.


Mary: Daddy, what are you doing?
Daddy: I'm fixing my hair.
Mary: Oh, you look pretty now!


Mary: I want Memo! (Translated: I want Nemo!)
Alli: I want Do-ee! (Tr: I want Dori!)
Mary: No, I want Memo!
Alli: I know. Mame (Mary) want Memo, but I want Do-ee.


Alli looks at Sarah's new dress.
Alli: Mommy, you look cute. Cute dress. I wanna dance.

The three amigos updated

Our most recent picture of the three kids together, taken this weekend.

Hi there little Jofis

A great investment

How exciting can a big beach ball squirting water be? VERY (at least for small children). One of the best purchases I've ever made. It's brought the splash pad to our back yard.

This is what happens when I leave the room

Joseph, this is just what happens when you have older sisters.

Alli's 2nd Birthday

Alli got two birthday parties--one with our own little family on her birthday, and then one a week later when we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Lunt.

She's been acting two for a few months now, so the transition hasn't changed our lives much!

The kids look sweaty in the first few pictures because it was 85 degrees in our house. Not because I was too cheap to use air conditioning, but because it was broken for 2 1/2 weeks. Thankfully it is now fixed!

I hope I am never, EVER a single parent!

I have been alone with the kids for 4 days and 3 nights, including a Sunday at church which must be worth an additional day. I admire women who have to raise children by themselves, because I would be nuts!! I am so ready for Tamir to come home in 3 hours. Unfortunately, the kids will be in bed, and probably will be still asleep when he goes to work tomorrow. Make that 5 days and three nights.

Kudos to my mom who had 5 kids from a baby to nine-year-old twins while my dad traveled two weeks at a time before we moved to Texas. It's a wonder she's not in a funny farm. Kudos also to Shauna whose husband was in Iraq for months at a time. OK, and also kudos to Cherisse, who was pregnant and had two other kids to take care of while they wouldn't see Chad for days at a time when he was working for Lehman Brothers. Maybe I'm just a big, whiney wimp.

Just look at this picture to see the wild animals I'm dealing with! (Actually they're doing pretty well, but after an hour or so of jumping on the couch cushions and other roughhousing, they were looking a little rough.)

Mary's artwork

I know these are hard to see, but I think they're funny. The top one is of our family with the names by them (as explained by Mary). The artistic dots are snow. I love that we're potatoes with protruding sticks for limbs. And Alli has hair drawn in, of course. The second picture is make-believe. She told me these people were Cody, Tody, and Kelly (and the horizontal lines across are wind). I don't think she knows anyone by these names. I would show Alli's artwork, but we've mostly erased it off the walls already.

More updates coming soon ...

We have been settling in our new place and haven't kep up with the updates. Sorry.

We live in an older neighborhood with big trees and nice sidewalks. We have four playground/park areas in walking distance. Unfortunately, we haven't taken a full advantage of all of them because of the frequent weather changes. We think it changes from sunny to stormy in few minutes. Maybe that's why Chicago O'Hare is known for its flight delays.

Speaking of which, we see lots of airplanes. Everywhere we go the girls love spotting them and say, "Look, airplane! Look, another airplane!" In Provo the favorite phrase was "Look, letter Y!"

More updates coming soon ...

We've moved...again

We've made our way to Hoffman Estates, IL (about an hour's drive from downtown Chicago). It was a pretty smooth trip considering we have a 3-1/2-year-old, an almost-two-year-old, and a 3-month-old. We had minimal breakdowns, and the cars did great, too! Below is a picture of how we traveled.



We drove 11 hours or so from Provo, UT, to North Platte, NE, where we spent a night in a hotel. The next day we drove 12 hours and made it to Charleston, IL, to be with Sarah's family. The first leg of the drive seemed to go forever. Going up on Utah and Wyoming mountains was a challenge for our van. We followed some semis driving at 30-35 mph few times.



On the first day we stopped at a fastfood place in Laramie, WI, for dinner. Tamir was glad he didn't wear his BYU shirt that day because there were some Universiy of Wyoming fans there (both schools are in the same college sports division).

The girls loved watching Finding Nemo over and over. They must have watched it 7-8 times those two days. We were glad that we all endured the trip.

Happy Mothers' Day

Baby Mary

And some of Mary...

Baby Alli

I thought it might be fun to post some pictures of Alli as a baby. She's always had amazing hair.

5/11/08- I just inserted a picture of what her hair does now upon request. It's the first picture.

Dapper

This is our adorable Joseph in his blessing outfit, taken a few weeks ago. Couldn't you just kiss his little cheeks?

Baby Joseph

Three months old! He's growing up so fast!