What mammals do best

Dinosaurs have invaded our house. To be truthful... it is kind of a fun break from princesses. It started with Juliana's discovery of a dinosaur book from Jonathan's childhood. She looked at that thing over and over for days. So, we got some more dinosaur books at the library, and then more dinosaur books at the next library trip and then lo and behold... nice big plastic dinosaurs showed up in the Target dollar section. We "adopted" four of them and Anna the deinonychus, Trudy the tricerotops, Ted the stegosaurus and Larry the apatosaurus all found a loving home in the Whisler house.




Juliana loves to include the dinosaurs in play with the dollhouse. One day she was playing out a little scene where the dinosaur arrived at the house and roared. This seemed to scare the dollhouse baby so the baby tickled the dinosaur and that seemed to start off a friendship. The baby then rode the dinosaur all the way to the couch where Jonathan and I were sitting. Evidently, all that riding had made the baby a bit thirsty so Juliana announced, "Dinosaur nurse!!" and put that little baby right underneath the dinosaur much like a baby calf would drink. Gabriella came along to observe this and with a rather reproving voice announced, "Juliana!, dinosaurs are not mammals!"

So there you have it. Dinosaurs can play with babies, but not breastfeed them.

Haircut

I have been in a state of hair desperation for months. My straightener died at the start of summer. Thus began the summer of the long poufy ponytail. After several failed attempts at actually getting a haircut I finally had an appointment and nothing was going to stop me. Nothing... except the fact that the car would not start. As Jonathan messed around with the car I called to cancel my appointment and tried to choke back tears. When to my great surprise Jonathan was actually able to get the car started (even though he never figured out what he did to do so) I said, "Whatever you do, don't turn it back off! I am GOING. I can always call someone for a ride home!! See ya!!" I'm pretty sure he tried to argue with that, but I was out the door before he had much of a chance.

After an hour of quiet, child-free, head massaging bliss with a miracle worker named Brianna I emerged a new person. And, the car even started. When I went to work the next day an eight year old boy said to me, "Natalie, I really like your new haircut!, but when you walked in I thought you were one of the teens." Remind to to forgive that blessed little boy the next time he attempts to drive me up a wall.

I asked Jonathan to take a picture of my new haircut. He said he would do it if he didn't have to get out of the chair he was sitting in. This is what I got:

Not the best picture of my face ever, but the hair looks pretty good. I guess it doesn't take much to beat a long frizzy ponytail.

Thanks to be given

We hosted our second Thanksgiving this year. We had 11 adults and three children total... all family and some of them were even related to us ;) Jonathan's sister and her family were able to join us and our other "family members" joined us from our church.

This year Jonathan cooked up: A beautiful turkey, cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, tarragon green beans (do I get points for going outside to cut the tarragon in the pouring rain? Hmmm... I suppose Jonathan did do more work) corn, and homemade cranberry and orange sauce. I made: One dairy free (coconut milk) pumpkin pie for Gabriella. Our guest provided the rest of the desserts. Lindsay even brought Jonathan's family's traditional dessert that has been passed down through the generations, "Oreo dessert fluff." OK, maybe not passed down through the generations, but the Whislers certainly like that stuff. Especially Jonathan, who is not much for pie.

Unfortunately, after Jonathan completed so much hard work I failed in my one duty as a wife, which was to take an amazing picture of Jonathan with his beautiful turkey in all of its golden, we-don't-use-turkey-bags-in-this-house, glory. By the time the turkey was done out guests were more than ready to enjoy it and the photo opp was missed.

So, in an attempt to make things right, I ask you to observe Exhibit A:

Do you see it? Way down there in the bottom right corner?

I know, you'll have to stretch your imaginations, but see the beautifully browned skin? The garnish? The moistness practically oozing out? Imagine it whole and magnificent. Tell Jonathan that he made the prettiest turkey that you've ever seen imagined and you will make his day.

I also failed to get many decent pictures of the adults we had the pleasure of sharing a meal with. Mostly, they have unflattering "I'm eating faces" (another testament to Jonathan's good cooking) and I like these people and want to have them over again, so I won't post those on the web. I figure most of you just want to see the kids anyway.

Notice the place where the cranberry sauce used to be on Gabriella's otherwise perfectly intact and untouched plate of delicious food.

Ethan seemed to enjoy his first Thanksgiving. He was really into this tasty orange. Too bad it was plastic.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Duo

I am never quite smart enough to set aside a non-busy time to take Halloween costume pictures. Each year the thought strikes me that I should really plan a little costume mini-shoot on a non-Halloween event day and each year... it doesn't happen. Looking at these pictures you might be thinking... "Good job Natalie, this year your planning paid off." Not so much... this year we seemed to have about a zillion Halloween events and I certainly didn't plan any decent time in for pictures. So, on our hurried walk to playgroup candy-free trick-or-treating I spied a nice spot with good light and abundant leaves, stopped the stroller and spent about 6 minutes taking pictures before rushing the children along so we wouldn't be late. Somehow I managed to get nice pictures of both girls individually and together with (mostly) pleasant facial expressions (OK, so the first isn't really a pleasant expression on G, but it is definitely a Gabriella expression and it makes me smile.)

next year... I really will plan an actual costume session.

Regal

Pounce!

Happy Punkin' Day!

Juliana loves pumpkins. Not even the discovery of the gooey disgusting stuff on the inside of pumpkins that she refused to touch would sway her from that love. We carved our pumpkins on Friday (plenty of time to spare right?) and from the moment Jonathan told her we would be carving pumpkins she walked around saying "Its punkin day!" Then, actual Halloween day was also deemed, "punkin day." Right now, if you ask Juliana what her name is she'll grin and tell you "punkin." If it happens to be Daddy asking she might even say, "I Daddy's punkin." (Finger + wrapped around indeed.)

Anyhow, cute stories aside... I know grandparents are dying for costume pictures. And I have them. Plenty of them. The girls attended four costumed events during the last week. Plus, I never posted pumpkin patch pictures. So while I'm sorting through all that I'll give you a preview of our princess queen (Gabriella promoted herself at some point during the week) and our white tiger.