Our Flower Girl

Crystal's Dad sent us this picture of Gabby from last summer in Hawaii. Gabby was the flower girl at her Aunt April's wedding and was very proud and excited to be in the wedding party.

Only slightly embarassed

As many of you know, Kellen is recently potty-trained so Crystal and I still pay extra attention to his bathroom needs. In light of this, we arrived at Church a couple of minutes early and while Crystal set up for primary, I took Kellen to the nursery potty. I should note that the nursery potty is specifically designed for those who are small - I think the toilet seat is ~ 18inches off the ground and may not even be that high. Kellen is also very specific about his bathroom routine and noted that there was a little toilet paper already in the potty when he got in there. That required a flush so Kellen could have a fresh bowl to do his business in. Unfortunately the toilet didn't flush. It was plugged. Great. Now it looks like Kellen or I plugged the kiddie potty at the church. I dutifully went to the custodial closet to find the plunger (I am One-Plunge after all), but I couldn't find the plunger. Unable to do anything else about the matter Kellen and I simply headed back to the chapel for sacrament meeting.

After sacrament meeting I took Kellen to nursery. As I was entering the nursery room, someone was coming out of the nursery potty and told me that it was plugged. Rather than admit that I knew the toilet was plugged and had left it that way, implicating myself as a possible culprit in the process, I told the woman I would go to the custodial closet and look for what I thought was a non-existent plunger. I entered the closet and within moments located the heretofore unseen plunger (I genuinely don't know how I missed the plunger the first time). Having located the plunger I now had the unenviable pleasure of making the walk down the Church hallway with plunger in hand while people were filing to their respective classrooms. I should note that the route involves a widely traveled hallway between the chapel and the room where Gospel Doctrine is taught. Wonderful, and only slightly embarassing. I did my best to stay close to the wall and give my best, "I didn't do it" face, but honestly I don't know what that face looks like and the one I made probably looks more like a chagrined-face that told people I was responsible - so yes the 6'5" guy was responsible for dropping a deuce on the nursery potty and clogging it up - never mind the fact that it would have required an act of flexibility I haven't been capable of for a few years with my knees up around or even higher than my ears whilst my hindquarters hovered near the ground. I did eventually make it to the bathroom and was able to quickly unclog the toilet. I am one-plunge afterall.

Rather than a face a second walk of shame, I elected to leave the plunger in the bathroom when I was done. Was church this exciting for anyone else?

More sayings of the kids . . .

Kellen: we have a family saying that we've adopted from another family: "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit!" Kellen decided (appropriately probably) that it should really be: "You get and you get and you throw a fit."

In what is perhaps a related comment.

Cade: speaking about our baby on the way, and perhaps thinking of Kellen, "I hope the baby is a quiet and calm one."

Kellen sweeps the leg

Cade's Baptism

We had a great day with Cade's baptism and really appreciated all the friends and especially the family that came for Cade's big day. I think people were especially impressed that some came from as far as Kabul, Afghanistan for the baptism. That said, they were left with some questions about Crystal and I when they learned that both sets of grandparents were named Thompson . . .

A Wilson Family Christmas

Christmas is over and everyone is back at work or school - thank goodness for that! We did have a last minute scare when our cul-de-sac was coated with snow last night. The kids were decidely more excited about that than we were. We had a great break with 5 Thompson/Nakanishis visiting, 2 Thompsons, and 4 Atkinsons all over at our home at some point during the 2 week period. We welcomed the New Year with a with Cade and Gabby at the stroke of midnight. Mom and Dad were very tired the next day. So were Cade and Gabby. We had a massive amount of food - hello holiday 10lb! (Highlights included Stollen - which most of Crystal's family stayed away from so as to not incur my wrath - cookies, eclairs, multiple bread products, cheese log, boursin & brie, beefstick, multiple bacon inspired products, and a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings). We did some sledding and snow shoveling. We played lots of "Cooties" and lots of Stratego and Gabby put on a LOT of makeup.

Cade was also baptized this past weekend and we really appreciate everyone coming to see us.

Pictures and more details on Cade's baptism are forthcoming . . .

Cade's Birthday

Our newest family member - Ming, a panda hamster

He has already brought a lot of joy to 3 people in the house

2 others remain decidely uncertain about having a rodent in the house

Two of the happy people and the arm
of the third happy person

Opening presents

Cade had a slumber party with LOTS of

video game time