Pull that tooth!

I was talking to Orion this afternoon. I noticed that his tooth disappeared every time he spoke. It was so loose. I told Orion to get a kleenex and pull that little tooth. It took about two tugs and he had it out. He was quite proud. He called his dad (who is working in Pennsylvania this week). He called both sets of grandparents and he wanted to call his teacher at home.

The gap doesn't really show that much because the permanent tooth is already up about 1/4".

I just liked his beautiful smile here.

Battling with my daughter

Isabella has been having trouble keeping her room clean. She doesn't like to clean. She doesn't care if it is messy. She does art projects in her room, leaving scraps of paper all over the floor. She never puts her clothes in the hamper. I could go on and on and on.

I have been attempting consistency with Isabella and the status of her room. This afternoon she had about ten items on the floor and a cubby full of stuff she cleaned out of her seat in the van. I told her that she needed to clean her room and the cubby.

She came back downstairs after 15 minutes or so. I asked her if her room was clean. She said, "yes." I asked her if I needed to check her room to ensure it was clean. She said, "no. It was clean." As well, Isabella stressed that I needed to stay out of her room.

Shortly after that, she asked me for four pieces of tape to post a sign on her door. Below is the sign. After laughing really hard at the sign. I have to admit I'm proud of her spelling attempt. She intended the sign to read "Mom, don't come in my room. I mean it." She did a great job of putting down the letters for the words she meant.

Obviously, she had not really cleaned her room. She had simply stuffed everything between the wall and her bed/dresser. I pulled everything out and suggested to her that she try again. This is a never-ending battle at our house.

Free spirit

Much to my surprise when I greeted my kids getting off the school bus ... this is what Isabella was wearing. In case you can't tell from the photo she is wearing a turtle neck shirt, tights and the liners of her snow boots. When I dropped her off at school she had on a cute striped dress on top of this and the outsides of her snow boots. Apparently she took her dress off on the bus ride home. I'm glad she is so comfortable with who she is, but this does worry me for her teenage years.

Thanksgiving Movie

Brett took 2o seconds of video with my camera towards the end of Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not sure about the quality of the video because it was taken with my camera. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Dinner at the Wilsons

Thanksgiving preparation

A nice view of the pumpkin pie before we baked it. The filling was made about a month ago, so we had to simply thaw it in the pie crust. How easy and how delicious!!

We spent a relaxing morning preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. Sabrina & Barley spent the most time "helping." Barley was really just hoping that some turkey would fall.

Eat your turkey then you can have a chip.

So even though we've had four kids, I can't remember whether this is age-appropriate or not. We (mainly me) try to watch what the kids eat, trying to encourage them to eat healthy food and not junk food. This task has become increasingly more difficult as more outside influences are around. Orion didn't eat candy or chips or soda until he was over two years old. Sabrina has a sign for candy. She runs up to me asking for candy two or three times a day!! Anything the older kids have Sabrina wants.

Today (the day after Thanksgiving) we were enjoying turkey sandwiches for lunch. Sabrina ate three or four bites of turkey from her sandwich, no bread, and a couple bites of mango. Then I got out a bag of chips. I gave each of the kids three or four chips. They were all told that they could have more chips after they finished their sandwiches (good Love & Logic ;-). Well, Sabrina proceeded to cry at the table for more chips. I tried numerous times talking to her with a piece of turkey in one hand and a chip in another. "here Sabrina - eat this bite of turkey, then you can have a chip." She just cried and cried. After everyone else had finished their sandwiches and additional chips, I put Sabrina down for a nap. Argh! I can't figure out if she is too young for this sort of cause and effect discipline.

Proud Moment

Isabella was being her usual independent self this evening. She was playing in the toy room with the Doodle Pro while the rest of us were finishing dinner. Then she came into the kitchen and said "Mommy I wrote a sentence." I looked at the Doodle Pro and low-and-behold, she had written "I like the cat" all on her own. I was even more impressed with her second sentence - "I like the snac (snake)" because snake isn't a word we have ever practiced. She sounded it out all by herself. I think by the New Year we will have two readers in our family!

Halloween Preview

I'm working this weekend, so I don't have time to post all of the good Halloween pictures. Here is a preview of the four Wilson monkeys with Brett's 75 pound pumpin carved as a wolf. I'll post more pictures later. The kids all had fun and haven't stopped asking for candy.

Learning to do puzzles

I've never really doubted our (my) decision to have four kids, but there are times when I watch my kids as siblings and I think we should have even more kids. Tonight has been one of those precious moments. My older kids relish watching, hearing and helping Sabrina learn new things. For the past 30 minutes Isabella and Hunter have been joyfully teaching Sabrina how to complete our half-dozen wooden puzzles. They are so excited to help her succeed and Sabrina is completely thrilled to have their undivided attetion ... and Sabrina is learning to work the puzzles which she had never touched until this evening.I was prompted to take these pictures because I over heard Hunter talking to Sabrina. The quote is "Sabrina, you are getting to be a bigger girl."

Dresses made by my Grandma

What's wrong with this picture?

If you think you can name the three things "wrong" with this picture, please post.

It isn't very nice for parents to set their kids up, but what else are we going to do for entertainment.

We're home!

We left Hawaii at 9pm Friday night. As we walked from the terminal (which is completely outside) to the airplane I told Brett I didn't want to leave. We had a blast in Hawaii. I can't wait to go back some day. We flew all night and Saturday morning - arriving in Denver around noon. We stopped in Castle Rock (about half-way between the airport and our house) at Sonic for some lunch. Then we spent the rest of Saturday unpacking and just hanging out. We were all very tired - so tried that we slept 12+ hours Saturday night. It has taken longer than I thought it would to adjust our body clocks. I will post pictures to the blog from the last half of our trip gradually. We are back into the busyness of school, work, MOPS, basketball starts on Saturday, etc. Thanks for everyone's thoughts and prayers for our safety and enjoyment of our vacation!!

Deep Sea Fishing

Brett, Orion, Harve, my Dad and Mike went on a deep sea fishing trip Sunday afternoon. They each caught a couple of small tuna. Orion reeled in a 10 pound tuna that we ate for dinner. Brett reeled in a 160 pound marlin.

Island Breeze Lu'au

These pictures are from a few days ago, but we couldn't figure out how to download them from Brett's camera.

On Wednesday night we went to the Island Breeze Lu'au at the King Kamehameha Hotel. It was a great experience. The only glitch for me was that while the narrator was a really dynamic voice, I could only understand about 50% of what he said; his Hawaiian accent was very thick. We sat at long tables. The food was buffet style. Before dinner we wandered around the sacred grounds - there was live music, hula dancing lessons, a royal procession from the beach, a ceremony uncovering our pork which had been cooked in a pit lined with rocks

and lots of mai tais.

A group shot at our table
Isabella and my mom learning to hula dance - bottom right corner.
Our dinner
Another group shot watching the pig being uncovered.
The royal processionOrion drinking Hawaiian punch
Sabrina dancing to the Hawaiian music

Hunter dancing

Isabella dancing

We figured out we're going to support ourselves while living in Hawaii - we're going to employ the kids as hula dancers. They LOVED dancing. They spent most of two hours on the side of the dinner area dancing and running around. There was even a little cabana at the back that had a stage where they performed.

Where we're staying

The house we've rented for the week. I would like to stay here the rest of our trip, but today we're moving over to cabins near the volcano. This house is great! Anyone planning a trip to Hawaii - stay here.

This is the view from up the mountain from our house. The rental house is somwhere in those trees along the coast.

Ironman Race Day

My Dad and Brett's Dad took Brett down to the race start about 5 am Saturday morning. The rest of us caught a shuttle bus at the end of our driveway. We got to the race start about 6am and I wandered around a little bit trying to find Brett, but I didn't. We parked ourselves on a little beach near the race start. The sea wall was lined with people 4 or 5 deep.

An Air Force C-130 dropped three Navy guys off. They parachuted to the starting line, got into a boat, changed into their race gear and then did the Ironman.
We couldn't see the actual starting line, but we could see folks entering the water. It looked like chaos. The starting line was about 500 yards from this spot where they enter the water.

Swimmers going out.

This is part of the sea wall that was lined with people. We moved onto the wall after the start. After Brett's transition we came back to the beach for quite awhile. My brother swam out into the ocean and got to swim with spinner dolphins. He says it was an experience of a lifetime.

Mike flew in Friday night and all in one day he got to snorkel, swim with dolphins, see sea turtles and watch THE Ironman. I joked with him that after 36 hours in Hawaii, he could already go home because he had experienced so many new things.

Brett coming out of the water - he is in the middle of this picture and wearing only a swimsuit. (Most of the race participants had skin suits to swim in, so I guess Brett didn't have every piece of tri gear that he could have.) We were right there behind the swim exit. Some how I found favor with a race official. I asked her if we could get up in the bleachers; she said they were off limits, but she took us behind the fences and let us sit there until Brett came out of the water. Brett going out on his bike ride. He did not see the bike course ahead of time. At the banquet the race announcers said this is an advantage that first -timers have. Brett didn't think it was much of an advantage. He says it was the hardest bike ride he has ever done.
Our beach hang out. My mom made the banner - it hung from the porch of our rental house all week. I had our matching shirts made. The kids' say "Go Dad!" on the front. It was easy to spot them during the race in their matching shifrts.
Brett coming in from his long, hard, hot, windy bike ride.

Brett going out on the run - this was where he told us it was his hardest bike ride ever!
This was about 100 yards from the finish line. I don't have an in-focus picture of Brett at the finish line. He finished at 10:56:07 which was 6pm local and just about dusk. We'll get "official" finish line pictures later.