Sweet outfit

Can you tell what she is singing?

Some of the letters blend together, but not a bad start.

Jake's Christmas Program

We got to attend our first preschool Christmas program this week. Jake was very excited for us to come to his school. They acted out the nativity, sang some songs and then they got stockings from their teacher. Jake got to play the part of the inn keeper during the nativity and as always likes to sing. He did a great job and we sure love him!

The kiddos waiting for all the parents to get there.

The inn keeper in action telling Joseph and Mary that there is no room in the inn but they can sleep in the stable.

And now for your listening pleasure, "Jingle Bells". The parents were supposed to join in on the chorus so that is why it gets a bit louder.

Should we get that checked out?

Bry came home from playing basketball the other morning and said," I guess I got hit in the shin some time playing ball this morning."

Um, yeah you did.

They love to see the temple

Snow Angles

Oh to be a fly on the wall of his brain

Jake has been having a lot of dreams that he remembers and tells us about. A couple nights ago it was about a red, black, and white super hero costume. Last night he woke up around 11:30 and came to tell me that he had a dream that Bryan was," trying to cut an old dirty piece off the stove and cut his finger off." Our stove is pretty new so I would love to climb inside his mind and see what he envisions. Then when we were trying to get him back to sleep he came back into our room because he was scared. This time he said he looked out his bedroom door and saw our Christmas tree and thought it was Darth Vader holding a gun. What an imagination.

Jakedance

First off, this video is long. Like almost 4 minutes long. Feel no pressure to watch the whole thing. We just recorded it for us to enjoy when he is older. Jake will asks us to put on some "cool" music so he can dance every once in a while. Apparently Bryan's old school hip hop c.d. qualifies as "cool". Kate is dancing as well, and sure she falls off the couch part way through, but we were mostly trying to capture Jake's breakdance/karate style dance. If anyone knows of a class that offers this style of dance please let us know so we can enroll him and refine some of these sweet moves.

Snow!

We woke up to this this morning. Not a ton, but enough to play in. Why did it take me half an hour to go from p.j.'s to this?
Here they are in action Merrick was the only one who would pose for me once we got outside, but I did capture Jake dumping a hand full of snow on his sister's head. I did not just let it happen, I didn't realize that is what he was up to. Here is Jake's first snowman of the season. Good cold fun.
Now the snow is all melted off but I am sure we will have many more opportunities to freeze our buns off this winter!

Busy fun filled weekend!

We need a weekend to rest from our busy weekend, but we sure had fun. Saturday was Kate's 2nd birthday! I can not believe she is already 2! I know that is what everyone says, but time seriously has flown! We went to breakfast with some friends, did some shopping, Bryan and Jake went and got our tree and we had a few people over to celebrate with some ice cream cake. Kate was a little weirded out with everyone staring at her and it seemed as though she had no idea how to open presents. She ended up having a great time and she got some really girly stuff, which she seems to love. Sometimes she can be so rough and tough that I wondered if she would get into fairy wings and things like that. Turns out she is. Here are a few pictures of her watching Missy open her presents since she would not(I know it is blurry, our apartment has dim lighting), and her all fairied up.

Here is a video of her opening a birthday card. For a little background, Jake is into telling Kate and I that we are the pretties, sweetest, [most] fabulous, mom/girl in the whole wide world. It is really sweet and I have no idea where he got this from. I swear I didn't give him the idea! Well Kate has picked up on that but instead of calling other people nice things, she calls herself nice things. Humility is next on her list of things to learn. Here you go.

After a fun Saturday, we filled our Sunday up as well. We had church, cooking and naps, the Huffakers annual Soup and Bread social(so fun!) and then home to finally decorate the tree. We didn't take the camera to the Huffakers, but we had good food, company, games and program. We always look forward to the fun. Then we got our tree decorated. Jake keeps saying," This is the funnest day ever!" when we do anything to do with getting ready for Christmas. I think he said it ten times while we hung ornaments. He even got to put the angle on the top. Kate mostly wants to take things off and play with them. Again most of the pictures are blurry due to low lighting, but you get the idea.

Gotta love an action photo!

This is for you Bryan Tait

Yes she is on the toilet. I don't choose when she tells me she is daddy's girl. I just record it for her dad.

"All the women who are independent, Throw your hands up at me!"

Kate's favorite phrase these days is," No, me do it!" Whether it she needs help with getting dressed, putting shoes on, buckling her car seat, brushing her teeth, putting her coat on, zipping it up, reading books, singing songs, she can do it all if you ask her. That is what she is saying as she tries to get her p.j.'s on in the video. That is also what she said before she put her shirt on backwards and inside out. We sure love this independent, exhausting girl.

What is in your hair?

We have been able to avoid some typical parenting experiences thus far i.e. removing things from ears or noses, clogged toilets due to little ones filling it with t.p., and things of that sort (knock on wood). But Jake decided now that he is creeping up on turning 5 he might as well experiment with his gum. I've cleaned it off his fingers and cheeks before, but this is the first time I had to get it out of his hair. When I asked him how it got in his hair he said," I took it out of my mouth and put it in my hair." At least he's honest.

Family Pics

A couple weeks ago we had a friend of ours from church take family pictures for us. Her name is Danielle and this is something that she does on the side in addition to working full time as an RN, being a mom and a wife. She did such a great job. We have so many fun ones to choose from. Thanks again Danielle! We hope you enjoy and if there are any requests let us know. We could hook you up:)

Where is Kate?

Busy Halloween

We started the trick or treating action nice and early. On main street the shops offer trick or treating to the kids from 10a.m until 6p.m. It was nice to be able to go early and be able to avoid bigger kids. I had the little guy that I babysit,Merrick, with us and Lacey and Mason came too. We had Incredible Hulk, Batman, a giraffe, and a gorilla. Jake and Merrick loved it. Kate just wanted to eat each piece of candy she got. That continued all day. You will notice in a lot of the pictures she is looking or reaching in her bucket. We finished there in time to come home eat lunch and put the little ones down for a snooze. Then Jake, still Hulk, Kate, now a fairy, and I headed to trick or treat with Brynn at her mom Marci's work. Again good times and Kate eating candy at will. From there we went to see Bry at work and get candy there. Finally we made rounds at the mall since it is in the same parking lot as Bry's work. By the time we finished there and we got in the car it was all of 5:07. And we were done! We came home had some dinner and went to the Huffakers house to visit. It was a fun and tiring day for all.

6 something this morning...

Me: Zzzzzzzz
Jake: Mom, Mom wake up.
Me: What is it bud?
Jake: My belly hurts.
Me: Do you want to climb up into bed with me?
Jake: Yeah.
Climb, climb. Settle, Settle.
Jake: Mom?
Me: Yeah bud?
Jake: I guess I'm just really excited about Halloween. We are going to go trick-or-treating with Brynn. I'm going to paint my face. I have my basket all ready. Becky brought me a sucker that is in my bucket right now. Kate wants to be a fairy and a giraffe. Dad has to dress up for work. Carla is going to be a witch...

It may be a really long, yet exciting, day

Preschool Parade

We got to go to see Jake and his preschool class in their Halloween parade today. There were lots of superheros and princesses present. They paraded around in a circle and then lined up and sang some songs to us. Here is one of their songs. It is about a mean old witch in a hat in case you can't quite tell from their singing.

He is one cute Incredible Hulk.

Pumpkin Walk

For FHE we went to the pumpkin walk. Looking at all the pumpkins and scenes is OK, but the best part is once you are through the whole thing you get treats and get to take pictures with the cut outs. In most of the pictures of Jake his face is dirty with chocolate from his cookie, we didn't leave the house that way don't worry:). Going to the pumpkin walk is just one of those things that seems to make fall officially here.

Fall!

Today after we got back from our walk to the library, the kids decided to have a little fun playing in the leaves. Lacey was a great sport and kept raking them up for them to throw and jump in. I now have crazy crunched leaves all over my house, but the kids sure had a great time.

Carving fun

Saturday night we went and spent time with the Huffakers and family to have chili, scones and carve pumpkins. Jake gave great instructions on how he wanted his pumpkin to look and Kate just wanted to use the scoop to get the guts out. Good food, good company and fun times.

The hosts of that evening were Greg and Stacie. We for got our camera at their house but it turned out to be a good thing because we now have this awesome picture to show for it;).

Lucky kids!

Our kids have been lucky enough to get some fun Halloween packages from family. We just wanted to say a big thank you and let everyone know we sure enjoyed them!

The part I enjoyed the most was being asked by Jake," Mom, could I have some boogers please?"

Got Milk?

Did she learn this from her brother too? No, this one is from Dad.

Thanks Logan!

Jake got a puzzle in the mail from his cousin Logan. Here he is enjoying it and trying to get a thank you out.

Not quite

While Matt and Jessie were here visiting, Jessie and I decided to give our carmel apple making another try. Last year we made apples sitting in a pool of carmel. This year things were looking up until we tried to go fancy and copy the ones from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. The cinnamon and sugar just slid right off. They might not look the best, but they tasted great. By next year we will be pro's I'm sure.

Boo at the Zoo

Last weekend they had the "Boo at the Zoo" at our local Willow Park Zoo. They had fun stuff for the kids to do beside just seeing the animals. They had crafts, games, face(or hand in my kids case) painting, treats, a bounce castle and a scavenger hunt. Our good friends the Lakes were in town and they even got to come with us. Other than the fact that I was a bad mom and did not even think to put the kids in their costumes, they had a fun time.

If you were 4, what would you sing in the shower?

Nanxgiving Point

One of the things we did get pictures of from our visit was our trip down to Thanksgiving Point to the dinosaur museum. Tyler and Janna met us there as well. We made our way through the museum, had some lunch and even got to see the IMAX dinosaur movie. Well most of us saw the movie. Kate got scared about 3 seconds in so she and I spent that time wandering the gift shop and she fell asleep on my shoulder. Jake has always been a lover of all things dinosaur but this trip has multiplied that for him. At the end of the museum there is a pit where the kids can actually dig for dinosaurs and if I could get one for Jake we might never have to take care of him again.

Surprise!

The beginning of October my parents (Jessica) and my brother Kyle made the drive out here to Utah to visit. They were here for several days and we did lots of stuff and had a great time. Unfortunately we took hardly any pictures of their time here. I did get a short video of when they first got here. We did not tell Jake they were coming. In the morning of the day we were expecting them Bryan told Jake he was going to get a surprise that day. Jake asked all day when he would get his surprise. My mom called when they got to our house and I was at the ready with the camera to capture their arrival. He was so surprised that his little 4 year old self could not seem to contain his excitement so he just kept running away. Funny boy.

Who needs Saturday morning cartoons...

when "The Adventures of SharkBoy and LavaGirl" comes in 3-D!

He's taught her a thing or two