G.I. Darth Ninja Iron Bat Turtle Ice Man

Cam pretending to be G.I. Darth Ninja Iron Bat Turtle Ice Man.


We've been laboriously showing our house to perspective buyers and leasers, but with no real luck. It's wearing on us with the constant emergency cleanings and having to be here every single weekend for the people who call from out-of-state who say they are coming and half the time don't show up. It's making us crazy, but we hope it will have a good outcome.

Jonah and I basically have to take turns going out on the weekends. One weekend, Jonah went with two of our friends on an incredible one-day canyoneering trip in Zion National Park. I wasn't even tempted to go because the trail to the start of the canyon was the "Angel's Landing" Trail (the infamous "I am now going to throw up and die" trail) and also included numerous 100-foot+ rapels. He had a great time, of course.

Ana and I got to go with those same two friends the following week through an easier canyon in the Red Cliffs Area, and we had a surprising and fantastic time. It was surprising because this usually dry canyon had about 12 chest-deep ice-water pools to get through. Luckily, the guy in our group carried us all through them. Lucky for us, but unlucky for him.

I haven't done an update on the kids in a long time, so for those interested, here it is:

Ana has been... ummm... delighting us with her precociousness lately. Here's a few funny stories:
(Here she is on our canyoneering/rapelling trip last weekend...love "hurry and take the darn photo" face.)

1. She sang last Sunday in Sacrament Meeting all by herself. She had sung a solo in the primary program and the music leader asked her to sing again, so she said yes and picked out a song and hired me as her accompanist. She sang a nice rendition of "I Feel My Savior's Love" and did a great job, thanks to the three weeks of practice she put me through. She wasn't scared one bit (she doesn't get that from me...must be an Eyre or Sonna thing), and smiled huge when she was done. She told me, "I really REALLY like being up there. I wish I could be in charge of the whole meeting!" She said the only thing she doens't like is all the compliments afterwards.

2. At dinner that night, she told us that someone complemented her and told her she could be in a play at Tuacahn someday (its the big outdoor theater near our house). We told her that you can make money doing that, and told her how much her friend made this last summer with a small part. She immediately said, "Where do I sign up?!??!!"

3. Elsie is going from a baby to a toddler and looking more grown upevery day. I looked at her at dinner tonight and said to Ana half-jokingly, "Ana, Elsie is getting more grown up and beautiful. Maybe some day she will be as beautiful as you!" and Ana giggled and said, "Not a chance!" I gasped that she said that and then came back with, "Actually, I think she'll be MORE beautiful than you because she will brush her hair more than once a day!" and Ana said, "Well, with hair like hers that looks like a BOY, she'd have to do more than brush it fifty times a day to make it look like mine. Besides, you brushed your hair a lot when you were my age and it looked like Troy Bolton's best friend's hair!" That would be a fro. The moral of the story: don't get into a "yo' mama's so fat" match with Ana.

The $1 Wall-E t-shirt made her day.

Elsie has suddenly gone from 100% angel baby to crazy possessed toddler thing. She will randomly start screaming NOOOO!!! for any reason... or her new favorite, "NOT!!" As in, "Elsie, it's time for bed." Elsie: "NOT!" She also has started crying when we put her to bed and crying when she wakes up. She refuses to eat with us at dinner, and either screams in her high chair or, if we let her down, crawls on the dinner table and tries to throw our food on the floor (she doesn't actually throw the food ont he floor because she's been put in time out before that point, but I can see it in her eyes!). She usually does better on the days that I take her to do something, like go for a walk or run errands with me, but I'm also facing the fact that the terrible twos have come in full force and we'd better just hunker down and press forward. She's been totally unlike my other kids in every way (the other two weren't like each other either), so I'm learning new skills every day. Now that you know the rough stuff, I'll give a few shout-outs for Elsie too:

1. She is 90% potty-trained! She's been working really hard on this, and we're so proud of her. She still has an accident every day or two, and is not even close to being dry during sleep, but she's come a long way in the last month. She even tells the ladies in nursery when she needs to go. Ahhhhh.... excuse the pun.

2. She's talking more and more everyday, and it is such a delight to find out what she's been thinking all this time. Usually, she's thinking about "juice!" or "milk!", but the other times, she makes connections between things and their names, like watching Kung Fu Panda, and then a couple days later calling a photo of a panda "Po!" (the name of the main character). Or, tonight I sang "Silent Night" to her for the first time, and after the first line of the song she says, "Oh!... Jesus!" She also tries to count, but usually just says "nine, ten, nine, ten, nine, ten..." She loves the letter nine.
3. Elsie learned how to get out of her crib and open the child-proof egg-shaped doorknobs in our house on the same day. Ana and I came home from a baby shower to find Elsie sitting out on the porch by herself watching her brother and dad and cousins playing in the lot next door. I thought maybe Jonah got her out, and didn't think much of it, except that someone told me she'd been out there for over an hour. That night, I figured out what had happened when twenty minutes after we put her in bed, she was standing silently in the middle of the family room. I looked over to her room (the room under the stairs...Harry Potter-like) and the door was closed. I was confused and put her back in her crib and closed the door and two silent minutes later, the same thing happened. Ana staked out the situation for me and discoverd that Elsie was slipping out of her crib, silently opening the door, sneaking out, and totally silently closing the door behind her. She is very very sneaky. She is also very mad, because I promptly dismanteled her crib and put the matress on the floor and put up a child-proof gate so she can't escape any more. She couldn't believe I spoiled her newfound freedom so quickly.

Cam, as always (except for age 12 months to 18 months...I still haven't forgiven him for making me cry and call my mom and ask her to take him from me), is a totally easy child and always tries his best to be agreeable and obedient. He's set to graduate from speech therapy on December 10th, and though he's still below average (just barely) in the speaking area, he's progressed enough that they are going to let him go. Speech therapy has been a GREAT experience though, and I can't imagine where he'd be without it. Man, am I ever grateful that I didn't listen to the pediatrician when he said that Cam was not bad enough to qualify for speech therapy and that he was already too old. Um, 8th percentile in understandability DEFINATELY qualifies you for free school district speech help, just FYI. And, no child is too young or too old for "speech school". Face to you Mr. Doctor.

Cam is attached at the hip to his friends Heath and Hadley (and he would be to Kellin if we lived closer), and he can't survive a whole day without hanging out with at least one friend, if not all. Luckily Heath and Hadley both have parents who willingly drive their sons to our house or Cam to theirs to give him his buddy time every day. He and Heath LIVE and BREATH Legos, and he and Hadley spend hours with their Transformers. He gets the best of all worlds.
Cam is the only child who is upset about possible moving out of our house soon, and will randomly break into silent tears about every other day. When you ask why, he says something like, "I was just finking, I mean thinking about how much I'll miss Heath when we move. ... But, maybe Heath can move too!" It really breaks my heart. I think we may just have to leave Cam behind. (As Elsie would say, "NOT!")
Happily using our free passes to the indoor bouncy-castle-bouncy-slide-fun-park place.

Anyway, hope everyone is surviving the crazy world we live in-- crazy-delightful and crazy-what-the-heck! -- and have all started singing Christmas songs, because it is just around the corner...... and then we can finally say GOODBYE to 2008:Not So Great. It's going to be 2009:We're Doing Fine. Or, 2009:Ain't it Sublime. If it is 2009:Please Be More Kind or 2009:Another Land Mine, I am going to eat nothing but hot chocolate and bagels.