really

If you have a sister nice enough to massage and exfoliate your feet, even an almost 2-year-old is smart enough to seize that offer.  Plus the foot bath has bubbles. 

Personality

Personality is NOT one of the things our kids lack.  I love these pictures because they really capture something about each one. 

SAMMY is always happy.  Really, almost always.  It's awesome.  And he also loves protien like a real man should.  Thus an ALL protien smiley face breakfast. Even a just-woke-up Sammy is a happy Sammy.  This morning the first thing he said was, "Mom, I have some good news...*pause* "
 and I said, "What's the bad news?"  And he said, "There's no bad news. Just good news!"  NICE.

Miniman loves looking at kid songs on youtube with his grandma or aunt SO much that VOILA...he fell asleep in the office chair.  He was either dreaming of "Go Away Big Green Monster" or "The Wheels on the Bus"...or "Dance like you've got ants in your pants."  All good dreams.  

Miranda in a pre-halloween halloween costume.  She designed the face.  She knew what she wanted from the hair.  She's got style.  

And yes, Xiao Yu, those are your heels. 

Who knows what the next one will be like?!?!?!? Only a few weeks before he shows himself!!!!

Halloween

We are ALL into Star Wars this year so it was an easy choice for costumes.  Luckily my belly lent itself to the death star.  And doesn't Fermando look awesome?!!! He is the secret here! How does the dark side produce such powerful Jedis?  Who knows. 

Luke Skywalker

Lightsaber stopped working the day before Halloween. Sad.  Also, he did NOT enjoy having his hair done this way.  But Jedi power comes with certain style requirements, you know

 Princess Leia

G-ma whipped up the dress in like a half an hour. Impressive.  But of course when she does that we just continue to take her amazing talents for granted.  Sorry ma.

Also, the secred of the hair was rollers made of men's dress socks. Thanks YouTube.

Master Yoda



He can't say Yoda so he says Woda.  So he'll come up to you and ask for "Woda eaws?"  "Woda hands?" Pretty cutey little guy.   

Battling the dark side takes courage... 

...and finely harnessed power. CONCENTRATE...  

Pumpkins!  This is also what Woda thinks smiling is.  

It was a FUN Halloween.  We had lots of occasions to wear our costumes this year!  Our family really enjoys this holiday, but it will be NICE not to have to dress up for awhile.  I wish I could just capture these memories like Dumbledore does and stick my head back into them whenever I want...    

The other day I heard my children laughing SO hard with each other.  I said to my mom and sister, "There is no children's sound better than that!"  And my sister said, "Maybe besides them sleeping."  Which I loved.  And I did have to weigh the two out.  I still choose the laughing but watching our children peacefully slumber is one of my favorite things and always gives me a warm, glittering feeling I wish I could capture and keep forever. 

PLUS I'm hugely pregnant at the moment and not sleeping well at all so maybe that's why I'm posting pictures of the kiddos sleeping lately. 

I LOVE this picture because it looks like Cairo the lion's hair (Daddy's hand me down stuffed animal and thus treasured by Sammy) is actually a goatee.  HA HA HA.  So funny to think of.  Makes Sam look like a troll or mountain elf or something.  This is Cairo's preferred sleeping position.  

I have to limit the number of things Mims is allowed to sleep with.  She would honestly sleep with 50 different animals and toys, even hard uncomfortable ones. 



Maybe I'm too halloweenish right now but don't the baby and Woody look like they come alive at night and plot against us in our sleep?

Sweaty snuggly sleeping guy. LOVE IT. 

Important parenting rule: If your kids fall asleep in an uncomfortable/torturous position, do NOT move them. They might wake up (enough said) AND you won't be able to take pictures of said position. 

Brotherly love.

one way to utilize the scriptures

For real.  Righteousness can be exhausting.

Jeremiah 31:26

26 Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me.

a picture is worth a thousand words

Learning to ride without training wheels.

REALLY fun.

We went to Park City to spend some time with my Aunt Vicki for her birthday. It was lovely.  We ate a yummy breakfast at what used to be Mt. Air Cafe and is now Red Rock Brewery.  I was happy Miranda didn't know the word Brewery because she was absolutely flabbergasted, offended, and deeply concerned when we went to family event at a restaurant called Salsa y Beer in California. So pure. I'm hoping we can keep that spirit alive.  Today she told me she doesn't plan to date until she's 18. NICE!!!

After breakfast we went to the alpine slide, of course!  I'm sure a prego mom could have ridden but I would have cost 12 dolla and Miniman did NOT want to go so I stayed below with my mom and Gma Howell. 

These guys went sliding!

And the Birthday Girl!  

And Pa!

I stayed behind and tortued Mateo.  HONESTLY he asked to go on the up'n'down...what he calls the merry-go-round, even though it looks here like I force him to be entertained.  I usually wait until their 2 to do that...

Everybody riding up to the slide:

By the way we could have won $10,000 on AFV if we would have captured Sammy climbing up this thing below and losing his pants.  So funny.  I was glad to see he just laughed about it too.  Good sense of humor that one.

we love church

Seriously we do.  Even though my mom told me this week after watching us get ready for church a few weeks in a row that it is a full scale production or a factory or something like that.  Which it is.  This week was the primary program.  Sammy's first!  The kids both did a great job, said their memorized parts just right and sang and kept their arms mostly to their sides.

Another little sunbeam boy kept touching Sammy's hair which was so fun to watch. I couldn't blame him. LOOK at that hair.  YES it is completely solid :).  He takes after his dad.  Miranda had a new dress she went to Sears to pick out with Grandma Cynthia. They had to try on MANY dresses to find one without anything that bugged Miranda (too high waist, to sinchy, too floofy, etc.).  She slept with curlers in and said she would NEVER do that again.  We women are slaves to beauty I tell you.

Here is another day at church with these squish faces.  Mateo loves church...until we leave him in nursery.  But somehow good vibes survive because he talks about nursery throughout the week: "Camden, bubbles, toys, cars, songs, snacks" are the words he uses, besides "Chuuch."

I like these guys.  You will not see me sad to be having another one.  THEY ARE GREAT!!!

Ta Da!   Something in my mind flashes forward to later in their lives.  I hope the time goes slowly!

The good life: staying with Grandma and Pa

While we are in limbo with houses, we get to stay with Grandma and Pa.  And we've been reaping the benefits!  We got to go downtown to have lunch with Pa, which included a train ride, 

...and the LDS Business College (I teach for them) 125th birthday celebration.  The kids got free cotton candy, snowcones, and a picture with the new unnamed LDSBC mascot.  Mateo wouldn't go near him. 

Miranda's favorite thing is science.  KT and J gave her a science set and lab coat (with "M" insignia on the pocket...she now goes by Dr. M) for her 6th birthday.  She LOVES to make messes with this thing.  At our house I avoided such messes but my mom is not a stress case so she can cope with potions exploding everywhere!  Grandma and Pa's is a science-friendly zone. So Dr. M has been enjoying that.  And yes one must wear lipstick to perform experiments properly.

Not the best clarity in this picture, but this is Teo dressed up like Pa.  Glasses and baseball cap. He really enjoys being here, especially because granmda makes him pancakes on demand.  He would eat nothing but pancakes if we let him!  He goes into the pantry, gets the batter, the syrup, and even goes into the drawer to get the spatula whenever he gets a craving.  His physical makeup is probably 75% pancake at this point. 

No picture of Sammy here, but grandma and pa's house has "the wii."  Joy. 

Mostly we love being around them and the warm homey spirit here.  SUCH generous parents.  We're lucky to have a place to transition that is so fun.

yes we actually still exist

The blog slipped through my fingers and then I thought both my siblings and fams in China couldn't access blogspot so I thought I would need to get a new blog so that was my excuse for awhile. But then I found out recently they CAN see blogspot even though it takes a few extra clicks and that my mother-in-law never gets to see our cell phone pics we send and...
suddenly I felt more compelled to return.
Even though it's embarassing.

But luckily I left those cute Easter pics to look at in case anyone did venture back here to see us.

WELL update Seminarios:

• little people have grown
• we had a great summer in California and Utah including Mimi's birthday
• the baby coming after Christmas is a boy one (which would have been a good post had I been writing. It would have been about Miranda's horrific shock and the aftermath of mourning when she found out)(people ask her if she's excited and she says, "well I'm not really going to see him because I'm staying in my room after he's born because it's a boy!" No drama here. Maybe we aren't ready for another girl yet hee hee)
• we don't have a name for him yet
• our house is being leased-to-own so we moved out of it, but still get to stay in our ward for awhile (yay!) because...
• we don't have a permanent new address yet and are staying with my parents until we find the right place, which is so nice of them and fun for us
• we still have the same jobs
• the kids have a new homeschool co-op which is awesome.  For our homeschool at home we are having fun and Miranda gets curriculum for us through a charter school she is registered for, Harmony Ed, which has been nice too
• we have a new cutie nephew Bruce
• Fernando got to go camping with the guys and I got to go condo-ing with my high school girls (some of them)
• we loved our Baugh family reunion
• we haven't connected our old computer in our new digs so I have a limited amount of pictures to share in this post, but we'll go with it
• I'll think of more stuff when I see the pictures.

Daddy and the kids made masks one day. He taped them on their faces. I don't know why but that thought has never occurred to me...to just TAPE stuff to their FACE. The difference between men and women. I guess I should be thankful it wasn't duct tape.

Speaking of king of making stuff...Fernando made the pinata for our new homeschool co-op. It took him awhile and it was awesome. It was a rocket ship with the name of our co-op "BLAST" on it and I don't know how he smiled as the kids happily destroyed it. After all that work. And of course he did a Seminario perfection job on it so he'll be asked to do it again. Glutton for punishment hun.

Miranda got a slip'n'slide for her birthday. I know being a kid has drawbacks (I actually get lectured about that regularly) but come on!!! Playing on a slip'n'slide for hours? Don't complain sister.

Yeah he never actually slid on it. But he still had fun.

Some pics for the Chinitos here for these last two: we went to Sol's Quincenera. Sorry everyone I don't know how to type the right Spanish "n." Now I've ruined Pinata and Quinenera.

And cousin Brooke got married. She is going to make the best wife. She's good at everything and so nice and WOW I could go on...

And I will end this post by mentioning that these little childrens used their best manners at the luncheon and, aside from my dad having to eat dinner that had pink punch spilled all over it, they did GREAT! Soon I might be the only one left who spills at every meal.
Well, I did it. I posted something. Here's to me doing it again before next Easter.

Easter 2011

We spent Easter this year in California. It was lovely. Hence the beautiful weather :). I really love these people.