Amelia has now lost six of her baby teeth…

Here I was trying to get a last few pictures of her with her baby top teeth.

She started losing her bottom teeth the day she turned 5 and a half (about ten months ago) and had thus far lost three of them.

February 1st she lost her first top tooth.

Three days later she lost the other top one (on February 4th)!

Two and a half weeks later, she lost her 4th bottom tooth!

So she has now lost 6 teeth, three of them this February.  I remember when she started getting teeth at four months old, someone said “Before you know it, they’ll be falling out,” and we were like, “Yeah, okay, whatever.”  Well, it’s here.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.

In other news, Ben and friends mounted a digital projector from the ceiling of the chapel and also a screen for it.  He has a switch back at the sound system that he pushes to lower the screen out of the ceiling remotely, and put it away again.  Very exciting!  (screen not pictured)

That’s not her elbow in the above picture, believe it or not.  That’s a bump she got at ice skating lessons.  I love her pathetic expression!

Ben and I got to church one morning and realized we had dressed alike!  I don’t know that I’ve ever worn jeans to the chapel on a Sunday morning before–but it was very cold and snowy!  When we got home, Amelia took some pictures of us in our matching sweaters, jeans, and boots.

My friends Lori & Diane at Lori’s baby shower:

Amelia wore her favorite dress to the shower and when we arrived, her friend Faith’s family informed us that Faith has the same dress!  Faith’s dad was going to be the guest speaker at our chapel the next day, so we planned for the girls to wear their matching dresses to church.

Amelia was excited to have Faith attend Sunday school with her and to sit with her at lunch afterward!

This past weekend we hosted my mom’s cousin Ben Scripture and his wife Karen.  Ben was giving a creation conference at our chapel.  Sadly this is the best picture I have of him!  We went to eat at Red Robin–Amelia loves getting a balloon to take home.

Now that it’s February, I think it’s time to post our Christmas pictures…

Amelia sang a solo (The First Noel) at our chapel on Christmas Eve.  I really wish I could post video on here!

We had Christmas morning at home this year.

Amelia loves to choose gifts for others…here she eagerly awaits Ben opening something from her:

She was proud to have chosen some movies that he likes!

Usually she is not too thrilled to receive clothing, but when she opened this sweater she put it right on and wore it for the next three days straight!

She loves this dress, with a matching one for her dolls…she asked me right away if she could wear it to my brother Jeremy’s upcoming wedding!

She loves her new chair for her room, and this princess sticker book.

That afternoon we traveled to my hometown.  We stopped at my aunt Nanette & uncle Chad’s to see their new puppy!  Oh, and them too!

Amelia would love to have a puppy and she certainly enjoyed this one!

She was excited to give Grandpa Gary a snow globe with a deer in it for his December birthday.

My Parents:

Amelia reprises “The First Noel” for the family.

I love this picture of my grandparents!

Some of the clothing my mom made for Amelia’s dolls:

My brother and his fiancee, Erin, were also there, but I didn’t get any good pictures of them.  Maybe next time!

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on December 18, 2009, and wanting to mark it in a way other than the usual dinner out, we decided to take a trip.

Boarding the Ship:

However, Ben could only get two days off from work, and it’s winter weather (we don’t do any winter sports, such as skiing), so weren’t sure what to do.  One idea was to experience New York City at Christmas time (I have never been, although Ben used to go frequently for work).  However, when we checked into that, we learned that December is peak tourist month for NYC (read: most expensive month).  Finally Ben suggested a cruise.  I balked.  We have always told each other, “we are not cruise people.”  We are state park people, and would like to be national park people!  We reserved the right to go on an Alaskan cruise someday, but neither of us harbored any interest in cruising otherwise.  However, everyone we know who’s gone on one has loved it.  So we booked a cruise through AAA in August and had four months to look forward to it!

The weather was cold when we left, and we were looking forward to warmer air!

Amelia was eager to get to her friend Faith’s house, where she joyfully (despite a fever) spent five nights!

The trip down was uneventful–non-stop flights are great!!–and we checked into the hotel the travel agent recommended.  It was not a hotel, but a motel, and a pretty scary one at that.  We suffered through.  Here we are the next morning waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the port (a 45-minute drive):

We boarded the cruise ship on our 10th anniversary (after they confiscated Ben’s knives!).

We were able to see NASA from the ship and planned to visit it when we disembarked three days later.  We were on deck to watch ourselves pull away from the port when it started to rain.  What ensued then were three days and nights filled with the kind of disasters people make movies about, if they’re funny.  Ours were nowhere near hilarious enough to warrant Hollywood attention, just disappointing.  However, I will try to focus on some of the highlights of the trip in this post!

Dressed up for dinner the first night.  The travel agent had requested we have a private table (and other people did have them).  However, we were seated at a table with two other couples.  When they say to allow two hours for dinner, they mean it.  Neither of us are skilled at making conversation with total strangers.  It was interesting.  The food was okay, but the desserts were not.

It’s good to know where the lifeboats are!  And which one is yours!  The ship was decorated beautifully for the Christmas season.

Coming up to our first stop, Nassau…Ben was amused with the fake rocks!

I like to take pictures of boats.  This one seemed colorful.

It was warmer on Nassau than it was on the boat–we spent most of our time wishing we’d brought more sweatshirts and long pants!  It was nice to walk around a bit in the sun.  It was still really windy though.

There were six cruise ships docked there, so it was very crowded.  The streets were wet and smelled of sewage.  People tried to sell us stuff at every turn.  I found it stressful.

Senor Frog’s is supposedly the number one party spot on the island…although probably not mid-afternoon!  We took a picture on our way by to the pirate museum–Pirates of Nassau.

Notice the rats:

I really like the blue ropes on this boat.  Anybody want to tell me what they’re for?

After the pirate museum (which was overpriced but fun), we walked through the straw market and attempted to barter with vendors for cheap souvenirs.  We were unsuccessful and walked away empty-handed.  After being on the island a whole ninety minutes, we re-boarded the ship and told each other that we would enjoy the next island much more.  The next day promised an all-day stop at the cruise line’s private island!

Having not yet worn a bathing suit, I insisted we attempt to lay out.  I thought it might be less windy since we were docked.  It was still really cold.  I left my pants on over the suit and ended up wrapping up on top of it anyhow.  Ben left his jeans on.  It was too windy to read a book on deck.  After about half an hour of that we gave up and changed into sweatshirts again!  Here’s our view of Nassau from our deck chairs:

Ready for formal night:

I’m not sure what’s going on with my hand in this one:

I liked the first one better of Ben and the second one better of me…so we got both!  Now I have to decide which one to frame…

You know, they will give you a seminar on how to make towel creations so you can impress people back home.  We were bored, but not that bored!

There are interesting things at the midnight buffet.

However, the people behind me weren’t too happy with how I kept holding up the line taking pictures of the food!

The next morning we got up early to watch the sunrise…of course the camera battery died and I was too sleepy to remember to put the spare in my non-existent pocket, so we don’t have any pictures of the sunrise!  While watching it (alone, because everyone else had just gone to bed drunk), we saw an island coming into view…and Ben said, “I hope that’s not our island, because no one’s going to it today!”  The waves were so high they looked higher than the tree-line from our vantage point, crashing into the shore.   Sure enough, at about 7:30 AM, the captain came on and said that we could not make our scheduled stop.  We were disappointed, to say the very least.  There went any hopes of seeing any sand on this trip, touching the ocean, snorkeling, sunbathing, and so forth.  We slowed down to 11 MPH so that we would not arrive back at the port too early and had a very slow, but still very windy and cold, day at sea.  The captain said the winds were 40MPH and the waves were 12 feet high.

Don’t be fooled by my short sleeves–after about five minutes, I’d put my sweatshirt back on!  I had to hold my hat on my head too!  You might say, well, it was warmer than home (which was 15 degrees)…well, that’s true, but at home I would have been indoors!

We went to a classical concert–this trio was actually very very good!

That evening we decided to watch the sunset (yes, the same morning that we watched the sunrise–but they were less than 12 hours apart, after all).  The camera was working this time, so now you’re going to have to put up with several sunset pictures!

Despite it being evening, no one else seemed any more interested in watching the sunset than they were the sunrise, at least not on the deck we were on.

You can see the moon (a crescent) in the upper left of this one, illustrating how the sun shines on the moon:

The moon is visible in the upper left of this one as well:

Dinner the third (and final) night:

Our trip to NASA the next morning got canceled (we found that out less than two hours after we heard we couldn’t go to the island).  We got off the boat at 9 AM, got to the airport at 10:45 AM, and our flight didn’t leave until 6:30 PM.  We got home just before midnight.  I read a whole book and started a second one that day.

So, to sum up, the weather was cold, windy and wet.  We did go to Nassau (which was stressful and disappointing other than the pirate museum), but we did not get to go to the private island.  We never touched sand or ocean water.  We didn’t get a private table at dinner.  There wasn’t much to do on board since we do not drink nor gamble.  We didn’t get to go to NASA, which we both would have greatly preferred to Nassau.  Were there any good points?  Well…it gave me something to look forward to for four months, and I was able to buy three dresses to wear (I found it fun dressing up, but Ben didn’t).  We had four days alone.  Ben enjoyed leaning on the railing looking at the water.  Um…that might be it!

So, we didn’t think we were cruise people, and now we know we’re not!  If we ever go again, we will  1.  Go for longer than 3 nights (we were tired from traveling, but I didn’t want to waste time napping when we were only there a short time and should get our money’s worth!) and 2.  Go with people we know.  It would be much more fun in a group.  Plus we would have had a lot more pictures of the two of us.  However, if we never go again, that’s okay too!

Amelia, however, had a fabulous time with her friend Faith’s family.  It’s quite possible she had a better time than we did!  And thus ends the tale of our tenth anniversary trip.

Married December 18, 1999.

Click for much, much more…

Amelia was an angel in this year’s chapel children’s Christmas program!

We knew she only had one line, so we weren’t expecting much.  Imagine our surprise when she completely stole the show!  The first few songs she didn’t even really sing–she was mainly fooling around with her costume, adjusting her halo, and generally looking lost.

Around the middle of the third number she suddenly started belting out the song loudest of all, just a little behind everyone else, and with a shocking vibrato.  Where this came from we haven’t the slightest.

She continued to amuse with the remaining numbers, and I honestly don’t think she was performing or showing off–she was just really enjoying herself!!  Several people told me afterward they were crying from laughing so hard!!  I really wish I could post video on here!!  I guess she just couldn’t get enough as she went back up on the stage afterward!

After a lunch at Wendy’s (with a Frosty for Amelia to celebrate), we stopped at the Garden Factory for their train display, etc.

Next stop–the alpacas!

Amelia kept trying to feed them…it wasn’t really working…

…until their very kind owner suggested they would rather eat hay (food) than straw (bedding) and showed her where to find it…

Here are Miki and I at our chapel’s annual White Elephant party:

Following are some Christmas card photo attempts…none of these is the winner!

You’ll have to wait to get your card in the mail!

The day before Thanksgiving, Amelia got a very exciting package…

Amelia chose to use her “please quit dance class” bribe money to buy an American Girl doll.  She received the red-haired one, Felicity, for Christmas last year, so now she has two.  The new one is Julie, who is supposed to be from 1974, whereas Felicity is from 1774.  She arrived on 11/25, exactly half-way between Amelia’s birthday (10/25) and Christmas.  I have never seen her so excited.  She was almost crying over how beautiful Julie is.

The above is what Amelia did on the white-board as soon as we got home from our Thanksgiving trip!

The following is to show you that we still have roses in December!  It was 11/28 that day, but they are still there!

Christmas tree hunting!

We got our tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving and got the lights on that night.

Sunday we went to the Nutcracker!

After that, we got the tree and the rest of the house decorated.

First snowfall that stuck this year (I think):

Tuesday was Amelia’s last ice skating day for the fall.  Here she and Faith are taking a break:

Wednesday I got my hair cut and some stripes put in…pictures for my sister’s interest, but the rest of you are welcome to look too!

Thursday we found out Ben is losing his job at the end of December.  This is the 3rd time in our 10 years of marriage that he has been laid off at Christmas, and the 4th time he has been out of work (unless of course he finds work to start right when this one ends!).  I have been complaining a lot lately that Ben only gets 8 days vacation at his current job…be careful what you wish for, right?  It looks like we might be spending a lot of time together as a family in January!

We spent Thanksgiving at Camp Iroquoina, where our friend Miki’s parents live…

We started Thanksgiving morning with a pancake breakfast at our chapel.

Amelia was thrilled her friend Beth was home from college!  Here’s Amelia with the three Larter girls:

After breakfast, we got on the road to Iroquoina…it’s over three hours, just south of Binghamton into Pennsylvania.

After Thanksgiving dinner, we got a tour of the campgrounds.  We all loved the Camp Cat!  It was neat to see how much pride the Thomas’ have in the campgrounds and how much they enjoy living and serving there.

Ben and Elijah (one of Miki’s brothers) played a few games of chess!

Miki’s mom pulled out some dolls from Miki’s childhood, complete with a huge bin of clothes!

Not to be outdone, Miki’s dad pulled out turtle shells from the camp’s turtle population (they have three ponds)!

I didn’t know their skeletons were attached to their shells!  I forgot to get a picture of the turtle head–it was very cool!

We stayed in the long house, one of the camp buildings.  Here is our room:

Frost on the hillside Friday morning (it snowed!):

Amelia loved feeding the cat leftover turkey!  The cat is not regularly fed, and is used to hunting, so we were all impressed with how quickly a pile of turkey scraps disappeared!

Chapel Barn:

Miki’s dad took us for a ride in some sort of all-terrain golf cart thing up into the woods to see some cool rocks and stuff.  We had a great time piled into the back of it (see first picture of this post)!

Chapel Rock:

It was a great visit, and well worth it for the conversation alone, not to mention the great setting!

We headed home Friday afternoon…Amelia insists she was awake the whole trip, but we have proof otherwise!

Amelia received a fish bowl and gift card to a pet store for her birthday from Grandma Sharon.  She chose a blue betta and named him Dan.

Nutmeg gets even more enjoyment out of the fish than Amelia does!

Dan brings a lot of cheer to our kitchen!  I make sure to move him when baking to avoid flouring him!

We often catch Nutmeg drinking from the fishbowl.

Several times the cat has dislodged Dan’s plants and we find them floating at the top.

Amelia lost her third tooth!

She is most often found reading!

The first week in November was parent observation day at Amelia’s dance studio.  We both attended to see how much she had progressed and if she was enjoying herself or not.   We only had a week after this to decide if she would continue, as recital/costume fees were coming due already even though the recital isn’t until the end of May.

She does what she’s told, but she’s not into it–clearly bored and would rather be elsewhere.  However, she really wants to be in a recital because she thinks once she has participated in one, she will be a ballerina.  She doesn’t enjoy her lessons at all, but has been suffering through it to reach her end goal.  Part of me thinks that’s really good for her, a great life lesson–so much of life is suffering toward a worthy end.

However, the recital/costume fees were really ridiculous, plus the monthly lesson fees do add up, and she enjoys her ice skating SO much more, and those lessons are SO much cheaper…and her teacher said she could tell she’s really disinterested…the three of us went around and around…finally Ben did something I never would have come up with…

He offered her cash in the amount of 1/3 the remaining cost for the year.  I said, “You don’t give that kind of money to a six-year old!!”  First she said she didn’t have anywhere to put that much money.  Then I had to explain what kinds of things one could purchase with such an amount.  She took the deal and a few days later asked if it was enough to get an American Girl doll.  It is.  She’s thrilled.  Ben thinks he made out great on the deal, and so does she.  Go ahead and judge us; we’re doing the best we can!

Ben took Amelia to an orchestra performance for children.  They were encouraged to wear costumes, and beforehand were given the opportunity to try out some instruments.

Amelia, Miki and I went to Springdale Farm for a field trip.

In early October we took a hike at a place where there are several pieces of abandoned, antique farm equipment along the way.

These mushrooms were growing about seven feet up!