We are Thankful for Ryan

We had a nice Thanksgiving weekend. The highlight was that it was Ryan’s birthday on Thanksgiving Day. Wow, he is five years old. It was five years ago that he was born on Thanksgiving Day. What a great kid! He had a fun birthday. He got some art supplies, hot wheels, puzzles and books. His favorite presents have been Construx set that he can build a crane, dump truck and front loader out of. I have spent several hours building with him over the last few days.

He also got a huge stuffed dinosaur. It is probably about three feet tall. It’s a lot of fun. He carries it around and makes it talk and pretend to eat stuff.

Ryan likes to get into really small spaces. Here he is in the bag his dinosaur came in.

Ryan loves pumpkin pie. It’s a good thing since his birthday falls on Thanksgiving Day every five years. He had pumpkin pie for his birthday cake this year.

Lauren's Room

One of Lauren's favorite things to do is to decorate her room. If she isn't actively decorating her room, she is planning new decorations for her room. She has been dying to paint her room since the last time she painted it last year. One of her least favorite things to do was to practice the piano. To combine the two, Marsha institute a new program called "Positive Patient Piano Practicing for Paint." If Lauren would have a positive attitued about practing the piano and put the time into doing it, she would get a star for that day. If she stuck with it for two months, Marsha would help her paint her room.

She stuck with it, so last Saturday was painting day. She decided that she wanted to move into the room upstairs (she had been in the basement), so we moved Joseph into Ryan's room (The picture is of the first night in the same room for Joe and Ryan.) and set to work on painting Joseph's former room.

Lauren originally wanted to do stripes, but we talked her into doing multiple bright colors per wall.

Her friend Annie Estes came over to help her paint. They had a great time.

She was almost giddy while she was painting she was so happy.

She bought a new comforter, sheets and curtains to go with her room.

The room turned out great.

After finishing the painting and going to a BYU football game, we decided to get dinner at a little burger place called Chadder's. It is a knock off of In-N-Out berger.

Ryan and Joseph had a great time taking big bites of their burgers. You may notice that Ryan discovered that scissors will cut more than paper. He's a little mangey, but it will grow back.

And for those that are curious, Lauren is doing great on her piano. She now plays just for the fun of playing. She has been improving quickly and actually admits to liking to play. The following is a video of Lauren playing in a recital in October. If you can't see the video, click the Part of Your World link and watch the video on Vimeo.

Part of Your World from Derek Lindsey on Vimeo.

Halloween 2008

We had a great time for Halloween this year. We are still trying to come down off of our sugar high. We carved pumpkins the Monday before Halloween.

Ryan designed and carved this pumpkin himself. He was pretty excited to put a candle in it.

Lauren's pumpkin is also of her own design. Isn't she cute?

We grew Mark's pumpkin in our garden.

Mark stayed home and gave out the candy while Marsha and I took Ryan and Joseph trick-or-treating. We wanted to try and dress Joe as Syndrome again this year, but he wouldn't go for it. He was willing to wear a Bob the Builder costume that we bought for Ryan a few years ago. He really filled it out. He got lots of comments on being so bright.




Ryan went as a snake hunter. He originally said he wanted to be a snake, but we couldn't figure out how to have a kid go trick-or-treating as a snake. We had some jungle/adventure clothes, so snake hunter was a good alternative to being a snake. Ryan and Joseph were pretty impressed that they could knock on doors and people would give them candy. They were still going strong at the end.

Lauren and her friend Esty went trick-or-treating around our block by themselves. They then wanted to go to the rest of the ward, so I took them around. We went to every house in the ward. They were pretty excited about that. They kept complaining about sore feet, but didn't want to quit.

We had great weather for halloween this year. I think it was the warmest trick-or-treating we have had in years. It rained a little bit, but it was warm. We had a very impressive sunrise on halloween this year. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it is still pretty good.