What once was lost now is found.

So, I accidentally deleted a PRICELESS picture from my digital camera. Dang it! I googled "recovering a deleted photo" and this site popped up:

www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/60

Lo and behold it worked! Yay!!!! I think you'll see why I was so thrilled to get it back...






Notice the Grip of Death Mallory has on me. Look at the rigid line of her body as she pulls away from Chuck E. As he began to approach, I felt her tighten up as her entire body squeezed mine. The whole ordeal only took about 10 seconds, so I don't think she'll be too traumatized. Funny!

Thank you American Family Insurance!

So, because Edward is such an awesome insurance agent, he racked up a bunch of points toward a campaign at American Family. You turn in your points and get to choose from a bunch of great products. The Sony Handycam is what I, I mean we chose. We have had our other video camera since I was pregnant with Ross nine years ago. It still works, but it won't keep a battery charged. We've tried several different batteries, so apparently it's the camera that is causing the trouble. Anyway, as I said, there were a lot of products to choose from. Edward really had his eye on some exercise equipment, but being the good man that he is, decided to use his points for something we both would use. ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DREW!

Yesterday, our little Drew-boy turned 4! He woke with a gigantic smile. I said, "Happy 4 year-old birthday, big boy!" He replied, "but I'm still 3." I said, "No. Today is your real birthday. Now you're 4!" He squealed with excitement!

Happy Birthday, Grameo!

We just celebrated my great-grandma Rowe's 95th birthday! She is such a trooper. Two years ago she fell and broke her hip. We all asumed she wouldn't really recover. Thankfully we were wrong. After a hip replacement she resumed her life. Since her accident, she stays with her daughter during the week, but she stays at her own home (where she most definitely prefers) on the weekends. She has out-lived her husband by 35+ years and her son by 19+ years. Happy birthday, Grameo!

Daniel Son

Last night I saw The Karate Kid on TV. I decided to watch and reminisce. Ahhh... Ralph Macchio. When I was a kid, Ralph was my first crush. I dreamed of growing up and marrying him. I was in love. I can remember thinking he had a dorky name, but his cuteness certainly made up for it. Whenever I played "house" I was ALWAYS Mrs. Macchio (remember Kate?). I can remember finding out how much older than me he was, but age doesn't matter when it comes to love, right?

Watching the movie now as an adult, I found it quite cheesy. But, then again, it is an 80's flick.

Anyway, it was fun thinking back to that fun stage of my childhood.

After getting over Ralph, I moved onto Ricky Schroeder, then Rob & Fab from Milli Vanilli (Girl You Know It's True!), and finally to my true crush - the one and only Edward Felker. Yes, he became my crush at the age of 12.

Here's to you, Ralph Macchio!

Junie B. Jones

Our family loves the Junie B. Jones series of books, written by Barbara Park. If you've never heard of this, please, check some out at your library! They are so funny! I read them myself because they are so entertaining. Junie B. Jones is in Kindergarten and first grade in the series. She is an honest, forthcoming, mischievous, curious little character. Elizabeth was reading Shipwrecked at church last Sunday. I got a little distracted when I peeked over her shoulder and read the following. I was in tears as I read this:

I put down my pencil to think about this situation.

Only I didn't even have time to concentrate, hardly. 'Cause, all of a sudden, there was a noise on the other side of the room.

I turned my head to look.

And SPLATO!

A boy named Roger throwed up on the floor!

It was the disgustingest thing I ever saw. Also, the air did not smell delightful.

I quick held my nose and closed my eyes.

Only too bad for me. 'Cause my dumb-bunny eyes have a brain of their own. And they kept on sneaking peeks of the splat-o.

It was Cheerios, I believe.

Finally, I put my head on my desk. And I covered up with my arms.

Only just then, more trouble happened.

And it's called, a boy named Sheldon couldn't stand the splat-o.

And so he jumped up from his chair!

And he ran straight out of Room One!

And that was a surprise, I tell you!

Mr. Scary ran after him.

He brought Sheldon back in a jiffy.

Then he quick called the school nurse, Mrs. Weller, on the phone. And he told her that we need her help right now.

"Hurry!" he said. "Fast!"

And so, Mrs. Weller zoomed to Room One as fast as a speedy rocket.

And then she hurried over to Roger. And she talked to him in a calmy voice. And she said everything is going to be okay.

Roger hanged his head real embarrassed. I felt sorry for that guy. Also, he was making me ill.

Finally, Mrs. Weller helped him get up from his chair. And she held his hand. And she took him to her office.

After that, Room One could not do any work. On account of how can you do work with splat-o on the floor?

Only hurray, hurray!

'Cause pretty soon, our janitor named Gus Vallony cam rushing through the door.

I jumped right up when I saw him. "Gus Vallony! It's me? It's me! It's Junie B. Jones!" I hollered out. "Roger throwed up? Roger throwed up!"

Gus Vallony winked at me.

Then he went straight to Roger's desk. And he took out his important janitor equipment. And he sprinkled powder all over the splat-o.

And wowie wow wow! That stuff sweeped up like a miracle! We could not believe our eyeballs!

"Whoa!" said my friend named Lennie.

"Si...whoa!" said my other friend Jose. "That powder is like magic."

I sniffed the air. "Yes! It is like magic, Jose!" I said. "Plus now it smells lemony fresh in here!"

Other children sniffed, too.

"Mmm. It does smell lemony fresh," said a girl named Shirley. "I wish I had some of that stuff for my mother. She loves to clean up messes."

"Mine does, too," said my bestest friend named Herbert.

Then, all of a sudden, Herb springed out of his seat very excited.

"Wait! Hold it! My mother's birthday is on Sunday!" he said. "And so that's what I'll get her! I'll get her a tub of that magic powder! What's the name of it, Mr. Vallony? Huh? What's it called? What's it called."

Gus Vallony's face went kind of funny. He glanced his eyes at Mr. Scary, and then back at Herbert again.

Finally, he ran his fingers through his bald hair. And he said the name of it.

"Vomit absorbent," he said kind of quiet. "It's called vomit absorbent."

At first, Herbert just stood at his desk very frozen. He did not say any words.

Then, after a minute, he did a little shiver. And he sat back down.

"Maybe I'll just draw her a picture," he said.

Extreme Makeover

Elizabeth invited a friend to spend the night last weekend. They were very good to include Drew in their fun. Apparently, he volunteered to be their makeover client.

Our Little Mary's Growing Up!

We have another Felker wedding to anticipate! Mary Caroline, Edward's baby sister, is getting married to Tyson on May 17th in the St. Louis Temple. They made it official last week with a proposal in the mountains of Utah. We are very excited for a very excited "May-May." She seems quite smitten!

It's funny because Mary seems so young, but she's already older than I was when I got married (one week before my nineteenth birthday). Here's to The Andersons!

Two Little Razors

Mallory's first two teeth popped through a couple of weeks ago. The kids are infatuated with them. The first thing Elizabeth tells people is that she has teeth now. Drew keeps saying, "I thought babies only got one tooth." That is the image he sees in cartoons! I constantly have to tell the kids to keep their dirty little fingers out of her mouth. Mallory continues to amaze and entertain us.

Right On!

I LOVE this article! How funny is this! If only we had more "Jane Hambleton's" we'd probably have less "Britney Spears'."

‘Meanest mom’ sells car after finding liquor
Iowa woman shares teen son’s misdeed with the world via newspaper ad

DES MOINES, Iowa - Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the "meanest mom on the planet."
After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone — by placing an ad in the local newspaper.
The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."
Hambleton has heard from people besides interested buyers since recently placing the ad in The Des Moines Register.
The 48-year-old from Fort Dodge says she has fielded more than 70 telephone calls from emergency room technicians, nurses, school counselors and even a Georgia man who wanted to congratulate her.
"The ad cost a fortune, but you know what? I'm telling people what happened here," Hambleton says. "I'm not just gonna put the car for resale when there's nothing wrong with it, except the driver made a dumb decision.
"It's overwhelming the number of calls I've gotten from people saying 'Thank you, it's nice to see a responsible parent.' So far there are no calls from anyone saying, 'You're really strict. You're real overboard, lady.'"
The only critic is her son, who Hambleton says is "very, very unhappy" with the ad and claims the alcohol was left by a passenger.
Hambleton said she believes her son but has decided mercy isn't the best policy in this case. She says she set two rules when she bought the car at Thanksgiving: No booze, and always keep it locked.
The car has been sold, but Hambleton says she will continue the ad for another week — just for the feedback.

The Champ

Ross won first place in his wrestling tournament this weekend. We were all very excited for him as this was his first time to take first place. He was SUPER excited to receive a trophy. He won his first match 3-2, he had a bye the second round, and he won 5-3 in the championship match. We didn't get pictures of him in action unfortunately. I missed the excitement because Elizabeth had two basketball games here that day. She also had an exciting day. She scored her first two goals.

Christmas with the Felker clan

Miscellaneous Christmas Pics

Peppermint Patty

Miss Mallory is crazy about candy canes! Well, actually, she's crazy about any candy she can get her hands on. This morning she was going to town on a wrapped Hershey's Kiss that fell out of one of the older kids' stockings. She was so broken-hearted that we put a stop to her fun!

SNOW!

About a week-and-a-half ago we had a chance of snow. I was pretty skeptical because it seems like the first snow everyone gets so excited and makes these gigantic predictions. At the bottom of this post Elizabeth tells how to bring on the snow!

And this is what we got that night!

I thought the snow would make the house look prettier, but it didn't work. Still needs A LOT of work to make that happen.

Here is a shot from the balcony of Edward and the three big kids playing in the snow. This was a Sunday (church was cancelled and Edward was delighted for a chance to get out in the snow), and the kids had the day off of school on Monday. We only had about 3 inches, but our town doesn't function so well with snow. I'm sure our Utah, Chicago, & Pittsburgh family and friends find that funny, but our neighborhood streets don't get cleared very well so the buses can't run through the neighborhoods.

These are the Felker snow kids!

Merry Christmas

I'm a day late but wanted to wish a Merry Christmas to all of our loved ones! Christmas time is such a tender time of the year for me. I love the peace I can feel as I reflect upon the magnitude of the event of the Savior's birth. I can't imagine how inadequate and humble Mary must have felt as she had the responsibility of raising the child that was to become the Savior of the world. I have those same feelings as I think of raising my own beautiful children, but what an entirely different perspective Mary had. I love this amazing portrait of Mary and her new babe by Liz Lemon Swindle.

Diversity

Today, I was sitting at the kitchen table, busy making hair bows for the girls. Elizabeth was sitting near me, drinking hot cocoa after a day in the snow. She asked, "Mom. Can I have a Bar Mitzvah?" After a good chuckle, I replied, "Darling, we're not Jewish." She then asked, "Are Jewish people rich?" I asked, "Where are you getting this stuff?" She replied, "Zack and Cody" (a show they watch on the Disney Channel).
Oh. This one really keeps us on our toes.

Our visit with Santa

This is part of Winter Wonderland. Our city does an excellent job providing this service each year. There is a huge village display with electric trains running through out (Brother Gibson, you would be impressed!). They've built a walk-way over the village. There are lots of great decorations in the hall, and of course, the highlight is making the long walk to see Santa.

Finally, the big moment. They've waited for this since December 2006. If you'll look closely, this Santa might look a little familiar to some of you. It's a secret that my dad is actually one of Santa's helpers! The oldest two were amazed when they figured out what was happening. I told them it is a big responsibility to keep this secret. Elizabeth especially is having a hard time keeping this new secret. Their cousins were behind us in line, and they both wanted to rush right over to tell them. Of course they too figured it out once they got up there, but Andrea was telling them, "NO! Santa just looks familiar!"

Ross was smiling from ear to ear when he figured out what was going on. It was pretty cute.

Elizabeth was priceless! How I wish I had my video camera with me! First of all, she has quite a lengthy list this year. So she asked Santa for a guitar that wasn't "cheap" this year because last year he brought her one that broke right a way. After they were done talking, Santa whispered to her, "I love you" because he knew that she knew. I WISH YOU COULD HAVE SEEN HER FACE!!!!! It was hysterical!!!! She stopped for a minute to think about it, and she had these furrowed brows. Then she said, "WEIRD." Santa had to pause for a moment to regain his composure.

Drew kept pushing the other kids in front of him. I guess he needed proof that The Big Guy could be trusted. He told Santa he wanted a PlayStation. Can you tell he has a big brother? Luckily Santa knew what was going on and talked him into a new Buzz costume or super hero toys.

I have a cousin whose 5 year-old is fascinated with reptiles - live reptiles. His mom, luckily enough for her, had a connection with Santa and called him to request that Santa tell Joey he can't bring live snakes in his toy sack.

Surprisingly, Mallory didn't cry for Santa. She really stared at him for a while, though.

Mrs. Claus with a little elf.






Nice picture, right? Now check out Elizabeth. Rather daring, I'd say. I told her she had a lot of nerve sneaking bunny ears on Mrs. Claus. "You'd better watch out..."

#6

The sixth Felker niece of 2007 has arrived! Baby Lauren Emily was born to Andrew & Sarah and big sister Audrey on Wednesday. She weighed 7 lbs. 10 oz. and is 21 inches. I think she's beautiful and can't wait to get my hands on her! Hopefully if all goes well we will get to meet her in about two weeks. That makes 19 grandchildren under the age of 10!

Breakfast with Santa

Our Parents As Teachers organization hosted a breakfast with Santa on Saturday. They had some fun, kid-friendly crafts as well as sitting on the big-man-himself's knee. Actually, the line to see Santa was WAY too long, so we skipped that part. We'll get to see him in the next few days at our town's Winter Wonderland - very fun (of course I'll post pictures of that after we go!).
Even Mallory had a jolly good time!

Elizabeth at the cookie decorating station

Mallory was pretty bushed when we got home. Ross didn't mind being her pillow.

Ornament making party

I have such a special Aunt Cathy. She is very thoughtful and fun. She invited her sisters, nieces and great-nieces over for a fun afternoon of ornament making. I'm glad Grammy was there with an extra set of hands.

Emmaline and Mallory
Cathy and Andrea making little mice ornaments

Thanks Cathy!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We were a little late setting up our tree this year (we've been so tied up with the play). We usually set it up on a family night. It's always fun to look at our ornaments and remember where they came from or who gave them to us. Most of our ornaments were given to us by Edward's dad's cousin, Carrie. She is a very special lady to our family. She never married or had children, so she has always kind of spoiled Edward and his siblings over the years. Each year since he was born she has given him an ornament. Now that we have children, she sends each of them several of their own ornaments each year. The kids love to find their own. We also have a tradition of buying an ornament on each vacation we take. So far we have ornaments representing Orlando, Bar Harbor, Maine, San Diego, New York City,and Montreal, Canada (somehow we missed one in Washington, D.C.).

Ross gets ready to put the angel on top.

Mallory's job was to make sure the tree skirt was straight.

Nighty night

I don't know about you all that have young children, but at our house, bedtime can be absolute CHAOS! Actually, Elizabeth is usually excellent, but the boys... well that's another story. It usually sounds like elephants are break-dancing above us from about 8:30 until around10:00 each night. I'm serious. Elizabeth feels left out not having a roommate. She doesn't believe us when we tell her she'll be thankful for that in a few years. So every once in a while, we feel sorry enough for her that we allow her to sleep in the boys' room, even though we know we'll need to take a couple Advil before we retire to bed.

A couple of things about this first picture. There are exactly 14 inches between the boys' beds. At the other house, we stacked the beds into bunk beds, but they still shared the bottom twin bed each night. So, when we moved here I thought I'd put the beds really close together so they'd feel like they were in the same bed, but they'd still have their own space. Wrong. They still share a twin bed each night. Anyway, when Elizabeth bunks in with them, she has to sleep in that 14 inch space. Even though there is an extra bed. Even though there is plenty of other floor space. Crazy. Also, you'll notice that Drew fell asleep sitting up. Leaning against the metal bed frame. Ahh. Now that's a good night's sleep!

So, apparently on this particular night, Drew and Elizabeth were driving Ross nuts. Of course the chaos is never his fault. He decided they were too loud, so he said he would just sleep in the closet. And he did! When we came up to check on the "quiet" we found him in the closet with his pillow and blanket. Therefore, both beds were empty that night. Crazy.

In the holiday spirit!

Please click on the link below to see how our kids get in the holiday spirit! Too funny!


http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1120020530

Babes in Toyland

Ross and Elizabeth are taking part in our little theater guild's performance of Babes in Toyland. They were allowed to choose the toys they wanted to be. As you can see, Ross chose to be a baseball, and Elizabeth chose to be a china doll.

I wasn't quite sure what to do about the baseball costume, but it came together pretty well with fabric, foam, and red duct tape. Luckily, we had a Mulan costume from last Halloween, but I didn't know how I wanted to turn Elizabeth's blond hair black. Thanks to a suggestion from my friend Emily, we found that FamilyFun.com (my favorite costume idea website) shows how to make an Asian princess wig out of black tights, bubble wrap, a hot glue gun, silk flowers, and chop sticks. It's hard to see in the pictures, but it turned out great.

The kids don't have speaking parts - they just walk in a toy parade and wave to the audience two different times and then participate in funny, choreographed battle scene. Then for the last half hour they just stand on stage and act scared, mad, surprised, etc. It's such a great production! Last night was opening night, and it runs through Sunday afternoon.

Earlier in the week I was giving the kids directions on where to go to meet me as soon as the play was over so we wouldn't become separated. Ross said, "Well, Mom... it might take a little while because I'll probably be signing autographs afterward." I think my humble little boy has seen his Uncle Ben perform a couple of times.

Mallory's new trick

Mallory has just learned to wave. In this video, she doesn't do it for long. She waves ALL the time to anyone who will humor her. At the mall the other day she was the welcome committee for all of the shoppers. Just about every time she sees my sister Andrea she starts waving. It's always fun when they learn new tricks!