Here's Orion sledding down the slope in the backyard. Below is our snowman.

Orion is becoming quite a reader. It's fun to see him reading to Jessi.

Yes, we got snow! several times! We've had 6 snow days in the last month. We've learned that in California if it snows that night (no matter how little the amount) school will be cancelled the next day. The kids have been loving it. We've made a snowman, slid down our slope in the backyard over and over, made snow angels, and made snow cones. In Lancaster we got snow only once for a couple hours in the 2 years that we lived there. I guess living in the mountains now we'll be getting more snow. Lots of fun! Here's Ethan and Jess eating snow on the trampoline.

Here's the kids out in front of the house and below is Meri making a snow angel.

a Sunbeep, a Sunbeep!

Here's Princess Jessi in her new princess dancing outfit - she is a girl who loves to do dress-ups!











Here is Jessi already for her first day as a Sunbeam.
- she calls it "sunbeeps". She did great! Since the move to Tehachapi she has been completely anti-nursery probably due to the fact that Mom and Dad were her nursery teachers for her whole nursery experience until the move. After a month or so of trying to get her to go to her new nursery class here and exhausting the nursery teachers with her tantrums we finally decided that she was a nursery drop out and she just started coming to primary with Mom. Anytime we'd even go near the nursery door she'd start to cry. So today when it was time for her to go to sunbeams we held our breath and hoped for the best, but kind of expected the worst. Luckily Mom was busy at the piano in primary and Dad was busy subbing for the CTR6 class so both of us were pretty unavailable when the sunbeams exited the primary room for class time. To our great surprise she walked right out the door with her teacher, no tears! Her teacher is wonderful and Jessi obviously trusted her enough to go with her which after her nursery fits was pretty shocking! After class she was so excited, just raving about how she got to go fishing and even got to color her own crown which she wore all the rest of the day! Hooray for sunbeams! Meri was in complete shock that Jessi actually went on her own - Meri has had her share of fits going to classes on her own. Tonight as we were getting ready for bed Meri asked Jessi "how come you went to class with out mom and dad?" and Jessi simply said "because I just wanted too." A sunbeam, a sunbeam, I'll be a sunbeam for Him!

Our Christmas

Welcome, new family members

Sophie (may also be Pipa or Mazey) the rat
Angel and Squeaky the guinea pigs
Slick Slack the leopard gecko
Padmé the kitten

You don't have to live in NY to get snow

Thanksgiving slideshow

Live Nativity

Orion and Meri with their friend Shelby at the Lancaster Creche festival. We loved seeing all the nativities and enjoyed the children's room with lots of fun activities. Christmas is here!

Halloween lineup

Watch out neighbors, these trick-or-treaters are about to be set loose.

Cast of the year

Due to a plethora of favorable comments, here is a close-up of the cast. Even the missionaries signed it.

Jessica, Dorothy Jr

Meri, Dorothy Sr

Orion M&M, color: red

Jango "Ethan" Fett

Brayton, Clone Trooper

Broken bone number 2

A first in our family - a leg cast. This is Orion's second cast (he slightly fractured his wrist when he was three). After a fall from some playground equipment, Orion went to the doctor. No bone breaks were apparent from the x-rays but they said sometimes bones grind together enough to cause a problem. They recommended a cast for two weeks. Once he got the cast, he tried to stand on it and collapsed in pain so something is going in there. They thoughtfully applied a festive orange and black cast. Trick-or-treating should be fun.

Jessica

First baby tooth to go!

Orion's first tooth loss.

Hoop dreams

Orion and Meri are attending a basketball class.

Walking amongst the stars

After almost three years in the greater Los Angeles area, we finally visited Hollywood. We saw the Hollywood Sign, the Walk of Fame, Kodak Theater, Grauman's Chinese Theater, random people dressed up as movie characters, Rodeo Drive, the Los Angeles Temple, among other things. Everyone had a good time (except Meri was upset by a giant Elmo).