Talía's Birthday

I remember the day Tali as born. Mom gave birth to her on November 8 at 1:00 AM in the morning. Actually I was asleep. But that's not the point. The point is that when she was born she was screaming and unhappy to be out. If only she were born three hours earlier our birthday numbers would be 6,7,8, and 19(cause Jared had to be born late).

Chess Tournament

On November second I went to a chess tournament at Walsh High School. First off the points are determent if you won, draw, or lost. If you won you get one point. If you draw(means you both decided that no one lost or won) you both get half a point. And you can guess that if you lost you get no points. Usually you need around four or five points to get a trophy(depending on how many rounds there are). And three points for a medal. In my section I won first place with a perfect score of 5.0(there were five rounds). In fact I got the highest score in the whole tournament. By Marcus

Carlsbad Caverns

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Ceci's Birthday and Baptism

I can't believe my little girl turned 8 this year. It was a big month for her with her baptism and party. My Dad came down from Utah for the baptism. That meant a lot to me. This was the first time we had family other than us there. He gave one of the talks and helped confirm her. Marcus and I played a flute and violin duet of "I'm a Child of God." Marcus is getting real good. It's such a joy to play songs with him.

Two of Ceci's primary teachers, Sis. Johnson and Cook, came also. They taught her last year. Sis. Johnson was so emotional seeing Ceci getting baptized. Sis. Johnson just loves the primary children. She and her husband taught them last year, but he died from a heart attack last March. Ceci and all the kids in the class had a rough time saying good-bye to him. They all came to the funeral and sang a song at the service. Sis. Johnson insisted that the flowers the children gave him at the funeral remain with him in his coffin. He was such a sweet man.

We had Ceci's party later in the month. I just couldn't get it together earlier. She wanted to have a party with the Disney fairies as her theme. She loves her fairies. The girls decorated bird houses into homes for their fairies which they took home. They also made some jewelry and played games. It's getting harder to entertain kids when they get older. After one of the games, one of the girls came up to Scott and said she wasn't playing anymore because she was bored. Time to move on. Many of them are used to going to Chucky Cheese or other venues that entertain the kids for you. We always look into it, but decide not to once we find out how expensive it is.

Painting Easter Eggs

The kids had fun painting Easter eggs. Marcus wasn't so interested in helping this year. He's getting older and painting eggs holds little interest to him so we did them while Marcus and Scott were at the priesthood session of conference. Marcus is so funny. He said the apostles should try harder to make the priesthood session more entertaining! "It's so boring, Mom." I asked Marcus if it would be better if they were juggling or something. Marcus thought that would be good idea. Kids!

Talía's First Laugh

My beautiful Talía laughed for the first time today! We have been trying for weeks to get her to laugh and all we would get would be a grunt or cough with a smile. Leave it to my friend Anne to get her to laugh. Anne and Dana were over at the house today, so we could rehearse our trio music. As soon as Anne picked her up and started playing with her than Talí started laughing. It's contagious! You can't help but to start laughing too. Enjoy!

Chunky Monkey

Yes, that is the new nick name we have for Talía. When she was real skinny we and all the doctors and nurses called her peanut. I am just so excited she has gained weight that I thought the name was fitting and cute. We also thought it was appropriate because she is always moving around. She will scoot all over the floor on her back. It's not wonder she doesn't have any hair on the back on her head.

Well, Ceci came home from school upset that one of her good friends said we were being mean to Talí by calling her chunky monkey. I had to reassure Ceci that we weren't being mean to Talí and that we just were so excited she has some meat on her bones. When she gets older we will of course no longer call her chunky monkey. I seriously doubt Talí will remember that we called her chunky monkey at the young age of 4 months and need therapy as a result. Good grief!

Of course that comment came from eight year old kid so I can let that comment go. What I don't like is when complete strangers feel the need to tell me how to raise my child. Case in point, many years ago while at Sea World I was feeding Ceci a bottle. A women out of the blue came up to me and started lecturing me on how to properly feed Ceci because I wasn't doing it right. She than assured me that she was nurse. I guess she felt that entitled her to being completely rude. Not to mention that I fed two other perfectly healthy children with the bottle the same way and they turned out just fine. Scott said she was probably a nipple nazi trying to make me feel bad about not nursing.

I remember my dear neighbor, Michelle, coming home from the grocery store in tears. People were coming up to her and telling her that her son, Gabriel, was obese (I'm not kidding) and that she shouldn't feed him so much. He was just an infant at the time. Unbelievable!!!!

The wonder of π

My wonderful nerdy son memorized π and recited it to 101 places. He had been practicing all week. His math class had a day of π filled with eating pie and reciting π. They had a contest to see who could memorize and recite the most places. Marcus blew away the competition at 101 places. Gotta love that boy! He is blissfully happy at his accomplishment. Heaven knows I couldn't remember that many numbers and be happy doing it:)

He was also very happy that during our black belt class today that he remembered our form better. I told him it's because he gets more sleep than I do:) The truth of the matter is if he can remember 101 places for π than I shouldn't be surprised he can remember the form better.

Wierd Weather in Austin

We had snow in Austin about two weeks ago. Literally a week later, we have the AC on. Figures. The snow was fun while it lasted. This isn't Talía's first snow. It actually snowed in November while Talía was in NICU.

Talía is doing great. She went to the doctor yesterday for her 4 month visit and she now weighs 9 lbs. 10 oz. My big girl! She had a rough time with the shots this time. Usually she's fine, but her legs were sore. She cried a lot at home. Jared and Ceci were a little freaked out because they weren't used to hearing Talía cry a lot. After some Tylenol she was fine. She woke up a happy baby this morning! Usually babies at four months can start eating cereal and other pureed foods, but the doctor told me to wait since she's can't support her head for very long. She's getting stronger though. She gives everyone the prettiest smiles. She was charming all the ladies at my flute choir concert on Thursday. Scott came since he didn't teach that afternoon. The concert was at a church in downtown Austin. I'm glad Scott came because I hate having to drive and find parking downtown. I hate one way streets. The concert went well. Scott really liked the piece, The Sorcerer's Apprentice. He had never seen a bass or alto flute before. Most people haven't, so when they attend our concerts they come up after wards to see the large flutes. I played the alto flute in the flute choir at Northwestern. They are fun to play.