New Year's Eve, 2007

For New Year's Eve this year, Tom and I just grabbed some take-out and stayed at home. Jeff and Crystal finally got the chance to go on a date for New Year's Eve since we took Leo and Ella for the night. When the kids come over, we can never resist taking lots of pictures. Here are a few we got...

Of course, the first thing Leo wants to do when they come over is run back to our room and pop in "Lightning Mcqueen," which to the layman means "Cars". He pretty much stayed to himself all night, just cuddling under his little blanket, so we didn't get pictures of more than his head. Ella, on the other hand... Well let's just say that this is one of the few moments she was holding still.



Ella loves holding all the stuffed animals we keep around for when they come to visit. She also loves trying on shoes. She let herself in the closet and found our shoe bin. She actually dug through the bin until she found some shoes with a heel on them. She liked trying to walk with them on, but wanted me to hold both of her hands while she did... She was a little off balance, lol.



Then since she was dressing up anyway, she found a robe in the closet that she liked. She was touching the silky fabric saying "Oooooh!" I had to hold it up so she could model for the camera. Otherwise it would've looked like a blanket here.



Then she found a little travel electronic Sudoku game on my nightstand... which she apparently thought was a cell phone. She was walking around for a long time with it to her ear saying "Hello? Hi.. Yes... No.... Hello." Trying to be all grown up, lol.



Poor Ash is scared of the kids, so she kept trying to hide under the Christmas tree. Since the tree skirt has batting in it, it's really soft and she thinks it's another bed for her. The problem with this picture is that a few weeks ago she took a liking to it and decided it would be fun to tear out some of the stitches and pull off the buttons that were on it. I didn't want to repeat this, so I leashed her to the door. She didn't really mind, since we kept the kids mostly in the other room and then turned off the lights in the front.

Ella, however, didn't seem to mind that the front room was dark. She kept running down the hall (beckoning to me with her hands to come with her like she was doing the motions from "Popcorn popping on the apricot tree"), and plopping down in the corner right next to Ash. She was so sweet and careful petting the dog, and kept saying "Gentle, gentle." She's been listening I guess. :D After a few minutes she'd get tired of petting and go back into the other room.... only to come back a minute later and do the same thing.



Tom and I played "Settlers of Cataan" before the kids came and after they went to sleep. We had fun, and I whupped him ;D. We downed a lot of Pepsi, and I think it was a good thing. Even then we were feeling pretty sleepy, and we needed to stay up watching the kids who didn't want to sleep.


Thanks for a great year, everyone! We appreciate your love and friendship, and hope this new year will be fantastic for all of you :D

--Amy

Christmas 2007

We sure had a great year. We didn't get as many pictures as I wanted to get of our Christmas celebrations, but I guess that means that we were distracted by having so much fun. We made a huge breakfast feast on Christmas Eve, just the two of us. Ash got spoiled with leftover eggs and sausage, so she had a great celebration as well :D

This is our lovely fireplace and Christmas tree. Aren't those stockings adorable? The tree skirt matches them, but it's buried in this picture.



Here's a closeup on our full stockings.



Some of the mess after opening gifts Christmas morning.



Ash discovered that she REALLY loved peanuts. She got excited every time we cracked the shells open, and just scarfed them down when we were trying to show her she wouldn't like them. We were wrong, lol. After that she kept trying to sneak into our stockings to find more peanuts. I had to get a picture of this.

Only a minute or two after this picture was taken, we discovered that apparently she wasn't able to chew them up enough or something... when she vomited on the floor and then tried to do it again. We ended up having to tie her up so that if it happened again it would at least be on linoleum instead of carpet. Stepping in her vomit wasn't exactly the highlight of my morning >:P



We went to my parents' house on Christmas afternoon, and soon after Jeff and Crystal arrived with their kids. Leo was especially cuddly. I was lucky to snatch this adorable picture of him kissing Tom on the cheek :D



Mom didn't have time to make everyone pajamas this year, but she bought them for us all. Crystal was showing Ella her p.j.'s here, and as you'll see in the next picture.....



Ella loved them!! She started carrying them around the house with her, just like they were her new favorite dolly. It was adorable! She loved getting them put on, although she wasn't sure what to think about the long sleeves. She's used to her shorter-sleeved p.j.'s I guess.



Leo got this anime hair from one of his uncles on his mom's side of the family. He wore it around all day (that is when Devin, Ryan and Tanner weren't stealing it to model for themselves).



We had our usual "talent show" this year. Our camera doesn't take videos with sound, but this was Leo and Ella singing the "ABC" song. They are speaking so much now. Leo's speech especially is getting a lot more easy to understand. The dancing and bouncing here was cute, so I couldn't resist posting it.



We hope all of you had a great Christmas wherever you spent it. Have a happy New Year!
--Amy

Tom's Toon of the Month December 07

This is the first of a what I hope to be a series of blogs. I love animation and want to share that with you folks at home. This month I'm discussing Steamboat Willy from 1928. This is the first Mickey Mouse cartoon ever shown to an audience. (The first ever produced was Plane Crazy).
What makes this little cartoon a piece of history is the innovation in sound.
Cartoons had sound before Steamboat, but this was usually just music pasted onto silent cartoons already produced.
The small, scrappy Walt Disney Studio needed something big after flagging sales and badly handled deals in which Disney lost all rights to his first original character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
As you watch, keep in mind that nobody ever conceived that cartoons could be the source of sound or vocal effects. Steamboat was the first cartoon ever to attempt such an effect. The voice of Mickey is Walt Disney himself. Credit goes to Ub Iwerks, Mickey's co-creator and the primary animator on the early Mickeys.
This little parody of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill is the film that launched Mickey into super-stardom and promised that his co-creator, Walt Disney would not be far behind.

-Tom

Family Temple Square visit

We finally got Tom out to see the lights at Temple Square this year. Somehow he's been in Utah over four Christmas seasons and never gotten up to see the lights. Now that we're only a few minutes away, it made it much easier--at least for the two of us. My family came up to go with us (My parents, Devin, Ryan, Summer and Tanner). We gathered at our place beforehand and ate dinner and played some games. It was really cold, so we were bundled up like Eskimos and stuck close together. We had a really good time and will definitely have to go again next Christmas.



Tom and I look like we're dressed up for the arctic. It was COOOOLD out there!



This is part of the beautiful nativity they have out on one of their lawns at Christmas.



This is a great reflection pool just outside the temple. These lights flicker and look like candles.



The Spauldings (back-front, left-right): Ryan, Kim, Becky, Devin, Summer, Tanner.





Lights around one of the many fountains




--Amy

Amy's top five...

So Deneal requested that I post MY top five film characters of all time. This is a tough one for me, but this is what I came up with. Not sure of the order, though, I think it changes...

1. Eeyore ("Thanks for noticing")
2. Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice)
3. Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean)
4. Severus Snape (Harry Potter)
5. Elastigirl (The Incredibles--or as Leo likes to call them, the "cwapabose")

So once again, your replies are welcome. I'm curious to see YOUR list now, Deneal.

--Amy

Local Sith Lord Makes Good...

The British magazine Total Film recently published the results of a poll of favorite film characters: guess who made the number two slot? Duh duh duh duh-dah-duh duh-da-duh!! Your favorite Sith Lord and certainly mine, DARTH VADER. Here’s how the rest of the list broke down;

1. Jack Sparrow
2. Darth Vader
3. James Bond
4. Indiana Jones
5. Gollum
6. Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver)
7. Ellen Ripley (Alien)
8. Michael Coreleone (The Godfather)
9. Han Solo
10. Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)
11. Batman
12. Maximus (Gladiator)
13. Tyler Durden (Fight Club)
14. Jason Bourne (The Bourne Trilogy)
15. Yoda
16. Bridget Jones
17. Shrek
18. John Mclane (Die Hard)
19. Norman Bates (Psycho)
20. Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs)

It goes without saying I wouldn’t have put Vader in the number two spot. At the risk of getting sucked into the pop culture obsession with lists, here’s my top 5:

1. Darth Vader
2. Captain Kirk (“Khaaaaan!!”)
3. Indiana Jones
4. Jason Bourne (the trained assassin you’d have no problem taking home to meet mom)
5. Mickey Mouse (yes, seriously. What kinda mickey mouse list do you think this is?)

What does your list look like? Feel free to opine below.

-Tom

Ryan's upcoming adventures...

Well, I've fallen behind already, and I only started this blog last month. Last Friday my brother Ryan Spaulding received his mission call for the LDS church. He's going to spend the next two years in the Maputo, Mozambique mission. Yes, that's the Mozambique in Africa. He is being asked to speak Portuguese, so he will enter the mission training center on February 6th, and stay there for two months learning the language. Way to go, Ryan! We're all proud of you.

I stole the map below from Matt and Deneal's blog, so hope they don't mind ;D.