Sibling Unity

This picture was too cute not to pass along. The girls got spoiled by grandma and were given their very own bathrobes, in which they are dutifully proud.

I imagine this shot was immediately followed by hair-pulling and stuffed-animal-stealing, but we'll stay with this scene of sibling unity.

Earlier This Morning

Earlier this morning...

4:50 am: I wake up to the blissful sound of our two Japanese students packing up and lugging their bags to the front door.

5:15 am: I shake their hands, offer good-byes from Annie, take their house keys back, load up their luggage in the van, and drive off.

5:30 am: We pull up to the UCD Extension Center where several vans are waiting in the darkness to take our students back to finish their work in Oregon. I say my final good byes.

5:35 am: I get in the empty van, pump my fist in the air, and shout for joy. They were really good housemates, but it's wonderful to have our house back. Victory and freedom are ours.

5:50 am: I arrive back at home to a student-less, Lindsay-only household. I surprise Annie by clearing out the playroom of the furniture that we put in there to make it a bedroom.

6:05 am: I kiss Annie good bye and head in to work.

An early start to a very good day. Freedom. My home has been reclaimed as my castle.

Counter Top Over Carousel Horse

Boy have I been a naughty semi-blogger. Sorry for the web-silence!

I was cruising through our photos and spotted these two of Julia. The first one dates to Thanksgiving. You can see from her face that she is far from pleased at having been placed on a carousel horse. Too bad, Julia. You are here for your parents' amusement. Get used to it.



















This second photo is from only a few nights ago. She was tugging on my pant leg while I tried to cook dinner. The only way to assuage her demand for attention was to drape her in beads and then set her on the counter so she could watch while I prepared my culinary master piece. As you can see, she prefers being placed on a counter much more than on a ceramic horse. Go figure.

It's All Uncle Chrissie's Fault

A few days ago we had our first real injury among our children - the first one that required a doctor's visit and the dressing of wounds. And it's all Uncle Chrissie's fault.

Kate was playing at Uncle Chrissie's house, dancing and prancing as she is wont to do, when her hand innocently collided with Uncle Chrissie's over-hot fireplace. The result was instant blistering and second-degree burns on the back of Kate's hand.

This first picture of is Kate looking very sad and in pain because of Uncle Chrissie's fireplace (her hand is wrapped in ice and propped up). You can just see Genna in the corner of the photo, on hand to try to cheer her sister up.

I was able to coax a smile out of Kate by telling her that I would be filing a claim against Uncle Chrissie's homeowners insurance. She is very much looking forward to her portion of the pain and suffering money we are going to sqeeze out of Uncle Chrissie (we always give our kids a cut when something like this happens).

And with Kate being Kate, that smile worked itself into a princess smile. Suddenly 'wallowing in agony' became 'being draped luxuriously across her throne'. Quite a difference. I told her to cut it out so I could get some more agony photos, but it was to no avail. When the princess takes her, there is no getting sad-Kate back, even with a lawsuit pending.

Eggs and Corndogs Needed

Our household has recently received an infusion of two more Japanese men (exchange students, for those of you who need clarification). Both are very nice and we are happy to have them. But as is always the case, such additions to the family always result in sitcom-worthy escapades. I shall devote this post to two such events, both of them surrounding food (as they so often do).

On their first night here I asked if they liked egg salad. They both said yes (they speak very good English, so I'm sure they understood me), so I hard-boiled nine eggs. I then told them I would be making the salad the next day. But when I got home from work, all the eggs were gone. My students had eaten all nine of them for breakfast. Don't know what to make of that.

Then last night we had another over-eating incident. Since Annie and I were going to be gone attending a session at the Sacramento Temple, Annie left the boys with a note, stating that they could partake of the new box of corndogs we had placed in the freezer for them. This morning Annie checked the box to see how many they were gone. Our two students had managed to eat fourteen of them! We don't know if they had them all for dinner, or if they saved some for breakfast, but we were very impressed.

In the end, this is a financial tip. It's time to buy stock in eggs and Foster Farms corndogs.

San Cawz! San Cawz!

This sunday Julia used her ever-increasing vocabulary to embarass the family. It was during Sacrament meeting, and we were busy listening to the speaker (or doing our best with three small girls to keep corralled). Julia looked over Annie's shoulder and began calling out, "San Cawz! San Cawz!"

That's how Julia pronounces 'Santa Claus.' And she kept saying it, over and over again. "San Cawz! I see you! I see you!"

Looking behind us, we could see that there was a white-haired, white-beared man wearing a red suit. But Julia wouldn't stop. People behind us started laughing, and even the Bishop, who was sitting up front, began to smile.

I took her out of the meeting, and only came back in towards the end. As soon as I sat down, Julia looked over my shoulder, and spotted San Cawz again. "San Cawz! I see you!" She paused, then, "San Cawz night night! San Cawz tired!." Sure enough, a quick glance back revealed that San Cawz was dozing off. He was busted by a nineteen-month-old.

I Can't Get No Tracking

Have you noticed that Tracksy has been down since Friday? As of today, Tracksy is back up, but since one of their servers crashed, they lost a lot of their information. I can't login, which probably means I need to open a new account. Very lame.

But there is more bad news on the web traffic tracking front. Performancing announced today that they will no longer be offering traffic tracking. That leaves only Google Analytics still fully functional of the three services I use to track my traffic. I love Google's service, but it is always several hours behind in reporting their data.

But Performancing reports that FeedBurner has just recently begun to offer traffic tracking. Here is the link. I'll be registering today.

Oh the vagaries of free services!

Girls with Rocks

We've got time for one last post on our trip to the beach, don't we? (please, no comments on me slacking on posting here).

This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Julia. I like to collect rocks on the beach, and she likes to copy me. So, here you have her displaying her two favorite beach rocks. Check out those blue eyes and sandy cheeks.

Kate got into the rock- gathering fun and picked up her own specimen. Julia wanted to show off her own finds, but Kate was much more interested in her much larger rock. I'm just surprised that no one ended up with a bruised forhead with so many young ones wielding rocks. It's the small blessings in life, my friends.