Remember Christmas?

Yeah, we tortured Sabrina at the ward party.  Classic pictures. 

Come on 3.2 inches!  If we're going to get this close, we might as well break record for snowiest winter in recorded history!

Remember Halloween?

I have a lot of catching up to do (mainly because sometimes it takes a really long time to get pictures from other people).  So here's that awesome Halloween party Tom and I went to.  It was a photo scavenger hunt.  So Batgirl and Batman and the rest of our team were spotted all over town.  

A member of the ward runs a mortuary, so they had us stop at the mortuary to do a few things.  Including having someone in the casket who then woke up to scare us (I totally saw it coming, but a few did not).

And they made us eat and drink nasty things and we got points.  See the guy in the back that looks like he has a wreath coming out of his head?  He ate and drank until all their points were gone.  And asked for more points since there was still food left.

A picture of us with someone "21" by Forever 21 (we didn't actually ask her age).

Probably my favorite picture of the night.  She's totally flying.

We ate some "local pie" at Burger King.

Met some nice, bored firemen.

Found some "Alaskan wildlife."

Asked about birthday parties at Build A Bear.

Spotted Harry Potter (and some owls).

And went a ton of other places.  Our team completed everything on the list and won.  And it was honestly the craziest, most fun ever.  Happy Halloween! (Only 5 months late!)

Celia: Family Pictures

Celia really likes drawing our family.  And writing our names everywhere.  Here is the progression of family pictures from the past couple of months.

This first one was drawn in preschool on January 19th.  Sabrina is flying, she told me.
On the back is a hilarious questionnaire where Vickie (her teacher that week) wrote in her answers to questions:
What is your name?:    Celia Stock
Do you have a family?:    Yes
How many people are in your family?: 3 girls and 1 boy
What are their names?:   Marel and Tom and Sabrina
What does your dad like to do?:   I don't know
What does your mom like to do?:    I don't know what my mom likes to do either.
What does your sister like to do?:   She likes to play with me
What do you like to do?:  I like to play a lot with my mom and dad.
What things do you do together as a family?:   Sing
How do you help your family?:   I don't know.
Do you have any jobs?:  Yes.  I paint and color.
What do you like to play with your sister?:   Play go away.
What do you like to eat with your family?:   Toast

"We're at the park and we're all swinging together.  And all the girls are wearing crowns."

This next one was drawn on Sunday, January 22nd.  Celia included her Grandma and Grandpa in this one because Grandma Sue was at our house at the time.

"We're all at church.  And Grandma is finding her Grandma class."

And this one was drawn on February 29th after we went to Benihana's for Tom's birthday the night before.  Again, all the girls are wearing crowns.

"We are jumping on the trampoline at Sophia's house.  Nothing else is happening.  Those are just dots (upper right corner)."

This one was drawn just yesterday.

"We're at the park.  That's you (upper right).  You are up above this.  Your wings are made up of special sponge so you can fly and it doesn't have any holes!  That's me and that's Sabrina swinging on the swings.  And there's my daddy and there's Sophie and there's her sister Evelyn, and there's her mommy.  And there's her neck.  She's really nice, isn't she?  That's a really special park."  (The rest of the picture is "part of the park" and right over Tom "is the slide".)

I think she's actually improving quite a bit.  

Aurora!

Last night we caught our first real aurora. We've seen it a couple times before this, but only quite faintly. This time we saw it in full force.

 They were bright enough to be seen even with a near-full moon.

 Marel of the North.

 At one point the aurora was right overhead assuming animal shapes. This one seems to have been taken as the firebird was morphing into a moose head.

 Before it faded away, we got an especially bright burst of green, white, yellow, and purple.

Keep in mind that all these pictures were taken either from our living room window or our driveway.  Don't we live in a cool place?  It never ceases to absolutely floor me.  And the Northern Lights were no exception. At times they would be gently flowing and billowing like clouds, then they would just go dancing and shooting across the sky.  They move so fast sometimes!  And they pulse.  As our neighbor said, "if I didn't know what these were, I'd be really freaked out right now."  They are not as peaceful as I expected.  They are wild and unpredictable and all-consuming (at least when they're this active).  They were completely awe-inspiring and I hope everyone gets to experience this at least once.  Unreal.

Iditarod 2012: It's happening

Yes, the Iditarod is happening right now.  They had their ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday.  We were putting in new cabinets and did not attend.  A lot is happening right now in the Stock house (see previous entry), so I will not be doing this year's commentary.  I just wanted to tell you that the Iditarod is happening, I want Jeff King to win (or a second-year win for Alaska Native John Baker would be nice too), and that you can follow it on the Anchorage Daily News website.

February: Derailed

Don't worry.  I haven't given up my goals.  And Tom and I had two awesome dates (thanks to friends and family babysitting) in February for Tom's birthday.  One night we went to the theatre pub, had delicious pizza and watched The Artist.  The next day we went to paint bowls (which turned out okay actually) and then had dinner at a super fancy place.  We were over by the emergency exit light, so it ruined the ambiance, but the food was very ritzy.  I had the filet mignon and tom had lamb.  I love dates and I really hope to keep them up monthly. 

But we did get derailed a bit in the cleaning department.  We decided to do a kitchen renovation.  Then I got called to be the Roadshow Coordinator (less than a month before the performance on March 17).  And then we all got sick.  So, life has been pretty chaotic.  The day I spent writing the road show script with Karin, the cabinets were delivered.  And here's what our house looks like today:

Yes, the pots are in our bedroom and we're using boxes as our countertop.  Hopefully things will calm down  after March is over and I can get back to keeping the house clean.  I'm itching to get everything put back in its place.

Sabrina: Starting to Talk

Just since Friday, Sabrina has started to use the words that she has occasionally said.  She now appropriately and consistently uses: Dad (she loves yelling this whenever she wakes up or needs help or hears a car out the window when Tom's at work), Moh (More), Bye, Hi, Hehwoah (Hello - but only when talking on a fake phone), and EWW (which is actually the clearest thing she says and she says it when she's poopy, sees a dirty diaper, points to the toilet, etc).  Today she has experimented with saying: Done, Haaa (hot), Gah (Gone), and Booch (Boot).  We think maybe if she took the binky out of her mouth more, she might talk more, but the binky is staying (more for me than for her) for the near future anyway.