So I went to the library yesterday BY MYSELF. I haven't been anywhere by myself in months! It felt very strange, and very quiet. They closed down the little branch I'd been to before because of budget cuts in Philadelphia, so I went to a different one. It was interesting. The first person I saw was a very large man wearing women's clothing, lipstick, and a lop-sided wig. He worked there. Laugh if you want, but I was NOT laughing, and if you know me very well, you know why. Another man came in who was clearly drunk. This is where I live now! Sometimes I miss the suburbs...

Christmastime

You can just see our house between the trees in the center there. Don't be jealous of our neighborhood. I'm not sure what that huge piece of trash in the street is, but it looks like it could do some serious damage to an unsuspecting driver's tires!

Waiting for the "El".

Penn Dental

Chillin', practicing his walk.

Finger acrobatics on Locust Walk - University of Pennsylvania campus

Luke with his friend Ben.

Doesn't it look like he's snowboarding?

Drexel U., adjacent to UPenn, with downtown Philly in the background.

Tag got sick with a bug on Christmas evening, so the next day he was down with the yuckies. Jim took Luke for a ride on the train to campus and they walked around downtown. Luke went upstairs to his bed after dinner saying, "I'm real tired from such a long day walking around."

Liberty Bell

Yeah, it's the other side that's cracked, or "scratched" as Luke says.

Christmas morning! Santa got the boys some more Legos (how much do I love craigslist??). This picture was taken before Luke discovered that the wrapped box behind him was also filled with Legos.

And this picture was taken after.

I love Christmas morning hair!

We spent three days in Hershey and surrounding areas this week. It was really fun! Hershey has a lot of fun things for kids, including a "factory tour" that wasn't really a tour of the factory (it was like a ride at Epcot that teaches you how chocolate is made and seriously promotes Hershey candies).

It was FREEZING in Hershey. The temperature stayed between 20 and 25 degrees BEFORE the crazy windchill! This picture is my attempt to pose under those circumstances.

Drink this, it will make you feel good.

After the "tour", we meandered through the shelves of Hershey products, and bought a treat. We decided on the best product they make: Twizzlers!

Indian Echo Caverns in Hummelstown, PA right outside Hershey
LOTS of stairs to get down there:

This used to be a huge opening to the caverns. It is believed that Indians used these for food storage since they stay 52 degrees farenheit all year.

Jim did the best he could taking pictures inside. His lens kept fogging up, but he got a few good shots. I highly recommend this tour. It was interesting and beautiful!

Does anyone else see aliens on the cavern walls?

We found a driving tour online that took us through Amish country, several covered bridges, and amazing scenery. We ended up in a tiny town called Lititz. It was quaint and adorable. We ate at a cafe that served tiny portions and we left feeling hungry (and kind of ticked that we spent money for so little food). The atmosphere was nice though.

One of several covered bridges we found, awesome!


Our bad, we should have had some gloves around those skinny little fingers.


Poor Tag froze just walking from the car to Chocolate World. We made sure to bundle him up more the next day, and he was much happier.

"Hershey's Sweet Lights" is a 2-mile drive through a wonderful display of lights. We were provided with glasses that made the glare from the bulbs look like snowflakes.

Love this picture
Have I ever posted this before? I love it! Tyson took this at my brother-in-law's wedding last year. Jim's dad and grandmother are the two people you don't recognize.

A little behind...
We were in NC for Halloween, and of course I forgot to bring my camera. This is a picture my friend Julie took of our trick-or-treating group. Luke is at the top left (the hotdog disinterested in our photo opportunity), and Tag is the hamburger in front. We miss our NC friends!!

Adjusting
These pictures aren't related to this post, but it's always nice to have pictures to look at, right?
Before we moved to Philly, I tried as best I could to mentally prepare myself for the move. Not only was it a move away from family and friends, but it was a transition away from all things familiar to me. I had a baby 4 weeks before we headed up, so that was an added bonus because babies are always an easy addition to an already stressful situation. I like it here, but for goodness sakes, people just STEAL stuff all the time! We have been robbed of our trash cans and I am not happy! We had two lovely new grey Rubbermaid trash cans outside our house and they are gone. The little thief was nice enough to first remove the bags of trash and leave them on the sidewalk. I now have to keep trash in the cellar until Thursday when I make Jim haul the bags up to put outside for pick-up. We had been locking the trash cans up with a bike lock until we got slack from people who thought we were paranoid. Thanks people!

It's a good thing a friend of ours works for Rubbermaid and has offered to get us two new, NICER trash cans for free! Ha! Only a few more weeks of waiting for them to come in! In the meantime, maybe one of the people who walks by every day with a grocery cart now has a better place to sleep. In all seriousness, I hope that's true because it's pretty darn cold outside.

We had our Christmas party at church on Saturday. Santa was there, and the boys enjoyed seeing him. We had just gone to the mall earlier in the week to take a peek at Santa (neither of them wanted to talk to him), so Luke was noticing that the two were different. He asked why the Santa at church was wearing jeans instead of red pants. Jim quickly answered that he must have torn his red pants on his sleigh and would change when he got back to the North Pole. I was thinking how smart and observant my child was until I realized that he didn't notice this Santa was black.

Why I like talking to adults during the day

Me (while changing Tag): Whoo, Tag. This diaper is stinky! What have you been eating?
Tag: Boogers.
Me: Is that what made your diaper smell so bad?
Tag: Yeah.

This from a kid who just turned his nose up at chicken parmesan.

Luke's no dummy!

When we were at temple square, Luke was fascinated with how beautiful the temple was. He kept saying, "I want to go in there!" I told him he could go inside when he was grown up, and that he could get married forever there. He said he wanted to marry Tag when he was bigger. I smiled and told him he would already be with Tag forever because he was his brother. "You'll find a girl you love someday and you two can get married in the temple," I said. So yesterday while we were in the car, Luke said, "Mom, I think I'm going to marry Shama." Shama is one of my dearest friends, and she is SO sweet to my kids. I said, "Aw Luke, do you love Shama?" and he replied, "Yeah" with a little sigh.

Pictured above is the said Shama. Luke knows how to pick 'em, don't you think? I stole this picture from Shama's facebook page. How sad is it that I have NO pictures of her??

Luke, Tag, Wes, all 4 months

My parents, me and the kids in front of Mary Fielding's house where she raised SEVEN children. She is one of our ancestors.

Inquiring minds...
This is Jack and his super cute girlfriend Joanna. She was a brave soul to meet most of our family after only dating Jack for a month. I want her hair.

The main purpose of our trip to Utah was to attend my cousin Melyn's wedding. I love this girl so much! We have become very close over the years, and I could not be happier for her. Her husband Kyler is fantastic. Melyn will be moving to Jerusalem with him while he finishes up his last year of work there (he is U.S. diplomat). After that, they'll be only a few short hours away from me in Washington D.C.!

This year we got to spend Thanksgiving in Draper with Jim's family because we were in town for Melyn's wedding. We packed in as much as the kids could handle, and had a wonderful time! My favorite parts were going to temple square to see the Christmas lights, and spending time with the family.

On the way home from temple square, we saw a limousine. Luke said, "Mommy! Look! Look at that HUGE car!" I told him it was a limousine. "What's a lemonsine?", he asked. We told him it is a fancy car that people ride in for special occasions like weddings and dances, and that it had a TV, and yummy food and drinks. Jim said, "Yeah, they have sodas like Sprite and Coke." Luke thought about that for a few seconds and said, "That's what I'M talking about!" It was hysterical. About a minute later, Luke was apparently feeling amorous after such a nice evening with family because he said, "Mommy, I just love all my grandchildren." We were laughing and he said, "I love all my boys and my grandchildren." This kid is too much!

For some reason, Luke thinks he's smiling the biggest when his eyes are the squintiest.

Uncle Rob, Tag, and Uncle John. My boys had fun with their uncles!