Starry Nights

For Josh's last birthday he got a telescope. He quickly outgrew this telescope and upgraded to what Sydney calls "daddy's HUGE telescope." We had no idea Sydney would be so taken with astronomy. She'll likely be one of the voyagers on the star ship Enterprise someday. She goes out with Josh every night the sky is clear to look for constellations. She tells me about galaxies, nebullas, and star clusters. She has a star chart Josh printed out for her which she has colored and is working on learning a few of the galaxies on it. Most nights they just lay on the lawn and look at their charts. Sometimes they get out the HUGE telescope and look for things. (One of these days I'll snap a picture. The flash will probably blind them.) Sydney is really patient for a 3-year-old. She'll just sit out there in the coldand watch her daddy get everything put together and aligned so she can look through it for a few seconds. The other night she came running in the house from the cold all excited and said, "Mommy, I saw the moon THREE times!!"

I've been TAGGED!

I've been tagged by my dear Aunt Barbs. Here are the rules to the game of tag.

Rules:
A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags other people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. My fingers are "double jointed." Apparently, double jointed is not a real thing. It's just extreme flexibility. I can bend the pinky finger on my left hand backwards so far that the tip of it will touch the back of my hand. This is not as easy to do as it was when I was younger. I remember attracting a lot of attention from it in elementary school.

2. I used to collect alarm clocks. I had 5 or 6 in high school. It's because I would get so used to the alarm on each clock that I would learn to sleep through it. So I would rotate through them. I would sleep for an hour through an alarm going off right next to my head. It would wake up everyone in the house but me. My dad used to come in my room and dump water on my face to wake me up. So I learned to wake up to the sound of my door opening. The alarm would be going off right next to me and I'd be out, but as soon as I heard the slightest squeek from my door I was up!

3. When I was 8 years old I decided I wanted to be a piano teacher when I grew up. At 15 I started teaching and just recently stopped teaching so I could take care of my kids. I don't think a lot of people actually become what they wanted to be when they were 8 years old.

4. I love doing the budget for our family. I will spend hours organizing and tracking all our financial matters and making long and short term saving plans. It's almost an obsession. I think I get this one from my mom. It's not so much that I am obsessed with saving money. I really enjoy spending it, but I like to see where it's all going and where we'll be later.

5. I have a very hard time sleeping alone. Funny because when I first got married I had the hardest time sleeping with someone else in the same bed. Now I have the hardest time sleeping if Josh isn't there. It's a good thing he doesn't travel for work. When he is gone I don't fall asleep until really late and get very few hours.

6. I am very spoiled. I have a husband who treats me like a queen and does everything he possibly can to make me happy. He works hard and provides for our family so I can stay home with our kids. And he is the best dad a kid could want. He gets so excited to do the things Sydney loves to do and turns into a kid himself. It's so fun to watch. I have 3 kids who are just little miracles to me. They are always quick to smile and love any attention they can get from their mommy. I have great parents who taught me everything I know that is good. They are always willing to help with anything they can and are so fun to be around. And I married into a great family who I've had the pleasure of being a part of for almost 5 years now. I think my Heavenly Father forgot to include trials in my life. It doesn't seem quite fair, but I'm not complaining.

I tag Wende, Roseann, and Sara!

We won!

Every year our realtor throws a client appreciation party by renting a movie theater and showing a new movie. He does a drawing and gives out some pretty cool prizes too. Almost everyone wins something. He also does a referral incentive program each year and presents the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners their prizes at the party. This year we won 1st prize -- a vacation! It's actually a travel voucher for a vacation for $2000. So I've been browsing my options and can't decide if we want a cruise or trip to the caribbean somewhere or a cruise to the caribbean or something else...Anyone have any suggestions? Also, any volunteers for babysitting? And if anyone needs a good realtor, use ours. We'd be happy to win again next year!

A witch, a devil, and an angel

Aren't they cute? Everyone likes to ask if I favor Natalie when they see what costumes I picked for the twins. I think they really are appropriate though. Natalie is an angel 99% of the time and Tanner is a handsome little devil. Sydney is not really witch in real life, but she picked her costume this year. We took her to gardner village and got some great shots of her with the witches there. While we were there my mom found this fabulous hat and decided to be a witch this year too. I think she and Sydney were the best dressed witches ever!

Picture Day - Take 2!

Sorry for those of you who are tired of looking at pictures of my kids! However, this is my blog and I can write what I want. I was somewhat irritated with my lack of pictures from kiddie kandids last week. 5 pictures just didn't cut it. I have more frames to fill than that! So I decided to try a few techniques I learned from watching Wende take pictures of our twin a few months ago. I snapped these with my little point and shoot camera in our living room a couple days ago. Yes, they are on a sheet from our bed. I think they turned out pretty good all things considered. I have yet to get a good one of all three of them, but I will not give up!