The Christmas dress

I promised my mom a picture of the infamous Christmas Dress. KB is in heaven with a dress that is so so so spinny. I begged her to pose, okay in essence I begged her to look at the camera, smile, and keep all hair and fingers out of her mouth. (is that too much to ask?) Anyway, she complied after a little bribery, and compromising. So luckily the camera is able to get some action shots of KB crouching low and popping up in an attempt to show grandma just how spinny and bouncy her dress truly is. Enjoy, KB sure is!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We are so grateful for the joy the Season brings! I love Christmas, and I love that there is no other day in the year you can sit around enjoy family, friends and games and nothing else, while having the time of your life! I love that on Christmas there is no reason to be anywhere else but home or someplace that feels like home.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I was cooking the other day and found KB just hangin', I felt it portrayed the enjoyment of sitting around quite well.

DADDY

Hooray Daddy is home with us for TWO weeks. We have not seen daddy for quite a long time, except for one short snow day! KB really wanted a snow man, mom tried and tried but the snow wasn't cooperating. Daddy got out on Saturday morning and helped, as you can see he got a little over zealous and well we couldn't lift the balls to make an actual man.

SNOW!

Alright, so it snowed a long long time ago, like 2 weeks ago. Which feels like a long long time ago. Anyway I have been meaning to get these pictures up but have not found the time. The morning we woke up to snow KB stood at the window begging me to go outside and play in it. I made the mistake of telling her we needed to wait until the sun came up. I then got a play by play of the sky and the minute it was light she was ready to go. It was still way to cold and early for mom to be outside yet. KB LOVED the snow she played in it for hours and when I finally made her go in because Buster did not dig the snow as much, we had to bring some snow inside and play with it in the kitchen. The first time we went out Buster walked outside sooo excited and then after about four steps in his snow suit he began screaming and had to be held the rest of the time. The second time we went out we went our amazing neighbor and she had the coolest little sled. Needless to say the combination helped Buster to see that the snow can be fun. The kids had a blast sledding down a little hill by our house, the girls built a snow castle, and a big snow mountain.

Snow what a fun way to spend a winter!

Home!

Well on Thanksgiving Swifty got in a small car accident. . . No worries he is fine, however we have moved backwards into a one car family, which means the kids and I have been spending a LOT of time at home. The more we sit at home the harder it is for my kids to understand why getting dressed or wearing clothes at all is important. However, they both feel that slippers are a must. In the end this is what they came up with.

Is it a phase or just bad style? :) :)

I know, of course it's a phase! I don't know if anyone remembers KB's phase when she insisted on wearing two different shoes (I tried to find a picture but couldn't. I promise to post one once I find it.), then again how could you forget the different shoe phase. Anyway, we have moved on. The question is... is it getting any better? Here are just a few of my sweet little girl's most recent favorite hair and clothing choices. I just want to make things clear that she came up with these combinations all by HERSELF!

I do realize this comes with the age and personality of my sweet KB. I am glad she is taking full advantage of the age. When else will she be able to dress this way and people will say it is cute :)! I figured all you would love to see our new style.

Big Thanks for Big Fun!

My great sister aka aunt Kellie, found a super cute blanket on sale and decided we needed it. I just wanted to say Thank you! Not only is it cute, warm, and matches our living room. The best part is all the entertainment it provides.

What's this?

Buster?

Surprise!

As you can see we have found a new love for hide and seek. I fold that blanket like 6,000 times a day just in time to find a child pulling it out and hiding under it. Thanks for always thinking of us Kellie.

THANKSGIVING

My friend Aubrey tagged me to tell about all the things I am thankful for. So here it goes, well at least I will tell about some of the things I am thankful for, because if I told about all the things I am thankful for we could be here a very long time.
** I am thankful to be a member and most importantly have a testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Some of the things I love about the Gospel are... The knowledge it gives me of Eternal Families, which in turns helps me to keep the things that are truly important in check. I love how I am always able to have guidance from my Heavenly Father, and it is able to come to me in so many forms (scripture, talks, prayer, the Holy Ghost...) I love the knowledge of repentance. Anyway I am so thankful that my parents chose to raise me in a faith that has blessed my life and allowed me to find true joy.
** I am so grateful for my family. Some things I love about family... The chance they give me to learn and grow (patience, understanding, forgiveness, etc.), the feeling of security, and always knowing they will be there for me. The way they make me laugh. I am also grateful for our friends that feel like family, and are always there when we need them.
**Fall I Love the colors, I love the spirit it brings that lasts until after Christmas, I love the activities and energy I get in the season of Fall.
** I am Thankful I am able to feed, clothe, and give my children a warm place to sleep. During this time in our lives it is easy for me to realize what an amazing blessing this is. I am grateful for the chance I have to need to be creative with gifts, decorating, etc. Oh what joy it gives me to actually make something that looks good and buy something that was an amazing BARGAIN!
**I am Thankful for well The Simple Things. The smiles my kids give me, the witty comments my husband comes up with, the fact that my mom and sister call me at least 3 times a week (I love the calls), friends that live close by and are willing to just hang out with me and the kids so that our days are filled with joy, and not so much stress.
I could go on and on. I will stop now, I am grateful for the opportunity to think about what I am grateful for.
I have tagged... Jenny G, Karalenn, and Carissa
Once again thanks for the opportunity Aubrey.

HaPpY HaLlOwEeN

Our Sweet little Lady bug and Spider... a family full of creepy crawly things.

This has been a week full of parties! It all began with our church Chili Cookoff in which I won the Spiciest chili award. I know you never thought I would be the one for that award, and actually I was praying that it tasted alright, because I refused to taste it. I got the recipe from a neighbor who described it as "so hot you need a package of Tucks afterwords". From what I hear, she may be right. At the cookoff, the kids also got to play some games and trick or treat. The highlight for Buster was snagging desserts off the dessert table. On Tuesday, KB had a party at preschool where we made the cutest pumpkins and spiders I have ever seen, and we had a lunch full of Halloween foods. Finally we end with the big shabang, of dinner in a pumpkin, candy all day, donuts, and of course Trick or Treating! I have to say that Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays, but having kids is really helping me enjoy it. Tonight we had dinner with some friends and then went trick or treating in this awesome neighborhood, most of the houses were all decked out in Halloween attire, and the residents all sit on their front porches. We didn't even have to knock for our candy. We scored 2 buckets full of candy. KB loved it until she got tired, but even then as long as we carried her in between houses she was happy to collect more candy. In fact she would get her candy and then sit there as if she expected them to give her more. She would watch very closely to see what her friends got, and would finally move on when mommy or daddy told her to say "Thank You". Now Buster, he did not want to get that close to the strangers but would hold his bucket if you carried him. Shortly after we began trick or treating he started throwing the hugest fit. Finally we realized as long as his mouth was stocked with candy he was good. In fact at one point during the night he wanted to just plant himself in front of his bucket and eat. I loved hearing the kids complain about how HEAVY their buckets were.

So it's a good thing Halloween is a time to relish in all the junk we can put into our bodies. Let me just tell you a little about my junk food boy. Today he ate some Maple sugar oatmeal, and yogurt, and a few granola/fruit bars, pretty good so far right? Well the rest of his diet consisted of pumpkin muffins/bread, candy and the .... Sugar Cookie. Everywhere I went there was something yummy for my kids to eat, and Buster being the junk food junkie he is, spotted them all. I realize I'm in charge, but hey it was a holiday. Besides, could you deprive a boy out of this much pleasure?

Fall Fun!!

As you can see by the pictures we have been having a blast this Fall. The weather has been gorgeous, most days, and we have a perfect little rake that everyone in the family is able to use. We have been raking up leaves, jumping in leaves, throwing leaves, chasing people with leaves, gathering leaves, coloring leaves. I guess between playing with leaves and climbing in trees we would be lost without a front yard with trees in it. We are grateful for the TREES and the enjoyment our little family gets from them.

The Latest

Because our kids change so quickly and we really want to make sure everyone has a chance to get to know their little personalities, I will give you the latest.

KB: Still loves to climb trees, and in fact is getting more and more daring. Today she climbed SOOOO high, I made her get down. We also got her hair cut today. When I asked how she liked it, she told me, "I don't really, I think it should be a little longer". Needless to say, when I tried to take her picture, she told me "NO". The haircut is cute; it is a little chin length bob and hopefully will grow fast.




Buster: Has started carrying around a little tiger toy saying "RAAA". He also says the same thing when asked what his lion says. He also laughs like crazy when we take his lion and smell it, then hold our nose and say, "eww, stinky". Buster is on the verge of breaking into a run when we chase him. He isn't quite there yet, but he can definitely pick up the pace when he wants to. Buster has also learned to give high fives, if he hears you say "high five" he comes running with his hand ready to strike.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday DAD! Swifty just had a birthday and we would like to say we had an outrageous party, but we didn't. He went to school and the kids and I did what we do (I am not really sure what that is). The resident he is working with did give him a reflex hammer (he lost his old one). We got to go to lunch with him and he even came home a little early. All in all it seemed like he had a great day! We love our dad and glad he works so hard!

Pumpkins

Its official, the most magical time of year has begun. Once the magic of Fall hits there seems to be an indescribable feeling in the air that sticks around until the doom of January. For now we will enjoy the fun of October. For Family night our ward went to a pumpkin farm. Normally you are able to go out and pick your pumpkin off the vine, this year their crop failed, you were only able to pick an already picked pumpkin off the huge piles. That didn't ruin it for us in fact, KB thought the climbing piles were better than any pumpkin patch. I think she is ready to go bouldering. As long as Buster could hit it he was happy!