Make a Smilebox slideshow

Christmas Pictures

Smile, miss reindeer!

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving was a long, fun day. I slept in, then went for a run (picture pre-run below). Jerry and Carrell read the paper. We wound up deep frying the Turkey which was yummy. All preparations were done before guests began to arrive at 3:30-4:00.

In attendance - Todd Whittaker family, Jerry/Carrell Whittaker, Howard/Liz Wright, Albert/Lisa/Allison Hafer, Darleen/Grace/Kate Burke, Jeremy (family friend), Chunbo Choo (Todd's co-worker), RJ (family friend). We missed Bud and Howard this year. Matthew was sick so Joe stayed home with him.

We had LOTS of food and pie. Turkey, corn pudding, green bean casserole, rolls, oyster stuffing, sausage stuffing, sweet potatoes, squash, tortellini soup, cheese/crackers, wine, coffee, wassail, 3 pumpkin pies, 1 black raspberry pie, 1 french silk pie, 1 apple pie, and pumpkin cookies. Fortunately, we provided only the rolls, turkey, green bean casserole, wassail, and tortelli soup


Rebekah and Kate Burke watch a movie.


Grandpa Howard and Nathaniel


Grace Burke


Darleen Burke fixes Kates hair.


Grandma Liz catches up with new mom, Lisa.


RJ and Jeremy


Grandma Carrell and Grandpa Jerry


The boys kibitz.


Chunbo holds Allison


Earlier in the day Grandma Carrell comforts fussy Allison. Allison had a tough day. Lots of excitement and people and gas...

Thanksgiving prep

The day started out OK. I had stayed up late (2:30 last night) because of a decafe coffee at 8:00 PM. I slept in until 9:30 but boy was I tired!

Lisa and Allison came to spend the day with us while Albert worked.


As I began the preparations for Thanksgiving, I began to panic internally. Then... it hit the fan... the Turkey pan was not going to fit in our oven! The list of To Dos I had made while my head was spinning yesterday was completely useless. ADD set in and my mind began to spin... it got worse when Mike Sullivan called to let us know some old friends were coming to our homechurch gathering at their house tonight. My head felt like it was going to pop. Except no one else seemed to feel the pressure. We still needed to figure out the tables and how to seat 20-21 people and finish cleaning the Living Room and Dining Room.

Todd and Lisa saw my panic and helped get everyone in motion... thank goodness!

Everyone pitched in... here is Rebekah mopping the kitchen floor. She was using one mop to mop and the other to clean up her dirty foot prints.


Todd, Jerry, and Nathaniel went out to get Peanut Oil so we could deep fry the turkey in Lisa's Turkey Fryer. They also went to get some last minute groceries. Afterwards, Jerry returned to work on his book he was translating to 32-point font.


While the men were out, we got the carpets swept, the tables set up, and table service set. I felt relaxed again except for Rebekah desperately needing a hair cut. After a while Todd took Rebekah out to a Fiesta Hair nearby while I took a nap.


Todd entertains the kids by juggling oranges.

Flat as a pancake

Oh no! Spiderman has been run over by one of the pavement rollers!

(make sure you look at the fingers of the gloves.)

Up, up and away...

Oops! That's superman - not Spiderman. So the Spiderman theme continues...

Today as I began to work on dinner Rebekah sat at the kitchen table doing homework. Suddenly, Rebekah said, "Thats the sound of Nathaniel crying!" We both went to the back door and found Nathaniel standing outside crying. He had thrown his Spiderman figure up onto the roof. (our house is a 2 story!)
According to Nathaniel, the Green Goblin attacked spiderman, hit him, and spiderman flew right up onto the roof!

Yesterday, you could barely see it at the 'tippy-top'. Spiderman fell down into the gutter before I could get a picture. But you can at least see how far up he threw it.

Mini-Me

Todd often teases me about Rebekah being my own personal Mini-Me. She decided today to sneak into my clothes and showed up in the kitchen looking like... well... me.


Rebekah wearing my jeans, shirt, hat and shoes.


Then she tried on Daddy's clothes - no quite the same effect.

Rebekah in Todd's pants, shirt, and shoes

The Morning After

This morning, I heard the boys bumping around at 5:45. Noah said... "I saw a 5 on Nathaniel's clock." I said, "Yes - that means it's still night. You can get up when it says 7-3-0. I went back to bed hoping that would work. But those two were too excited to have time together (they go to different schools and church services now). I heard them bumping around downstairs.

"We're hungry." While I fixed them something to eat Nathaniel informs Noah that if he went to college he wouldn't have to work on Saturdays and Sundays. (Apparently, this observation has made an impression on him.) I gently let him know that even though doctors went to college and went longer than the rest of us, they had to work weekends and nights. We'll see what he does with that.

Sleep-over with Nadia and Noah!

Last night both Nathaniel and Rebekah had friends here for a sleep over. Sleep? What's that?

My plan was to cash in on the short days by feeding them dinner at 5:00 and starting a Star Wars movie by 5:45. They all love Star Wars and decided on Star Wars 3. After 20 minutes, each child except Rebekah had became bored and disappeared into the basement to play. The boys came back up... Rebekah went down to hang with Nadia. We decided to put on Alvin and the Chipmonks. They all stayed for most of that. Finally, after having a cup of hot chocolate, we watched The Grinch.

Around 8:30, all kids brushed teeth and went to the appropriate bedroom. Todd and made sure they were all situated and retired downstairs. I made one trip up and then stood in the hall to make sure there was no "visiting". Nadia was clearly exhausted and had begun to rock herself to sleep on the floor (she wanted to sleep on the floor). After about 5 minutes Rebekah and Nadia were out. Nathaniel and Noah continued to "go to sleep" with bumps and giggles and a couple Dad visits up until 10:30-11:00.

Spiderman, spiderman, does whatever a spider can...

Nathaniel has been wearing this spider man outfit for hmmm.... 3 years now. I got it on sale
at Target around Halloween. He was spiderman for 2 Halloweens and has worn this outfit at least 50 other times. You can see the runs in the face mask and the rips around the back zipper. Best $13 I ever spent on him.

And in case you weren't yet convinced that Nathaniel is Peter Parker in disguise - just check out his moves on the videos below.

Nathaniel on education

There's no pic for this - but it's a story not to be forgotten.

This morning Nathaniel came into our room to wake us up and announced to Todd, "Daddy, I'm going to go to college so I can have Saturdays and Sundays off."

Albertina - aka Allison Marie

Allison Marie Hafer born October 4th looks just like her dad. And like her dad, she takes food very seriously!

Nathaniel the photographer

Occasionally Nathaniel will find the camera and start snapping. (We let him as long as the strap is around his neck.) He's been doing this since he was almost four and even then was very good for a four year old. He LOVES to do this. Let's just say we have PLENTY of pictures for insurance purposes. Here are a few shots:

Lambchop and Patchy

The weekend of November 7-8, the kindergarten guinea pigs came to our house. We lucked out and had a long weekend with them since parent-teacher conferences were on the 6th.



This was our 2nd time with them since Rebekah had a turn last year. She sings in this high pitch gentle voice which they seem to love. I think she will follow her Grandpa Howard and Uncle Wally and go to Vet school. I grew up with Gerbils which now I hate. So I'm not so warm and snuggly with the Guineas either. However, I'm all for education.