Valentines Day

It seems Valentines Day is a family event for us. We were lazy most of the morning while the kids watched their new Curious George video from Bry and I, but finally we got our act together to go sledding.

Our snow bunnies(these pics were taken Valentines day though they look a lot like ones we took earlier in the week on our sledding trip)

An awesome pic of me and my love... not really an awesome pic at all but at least it is a pic of me and my love.

Here is a video of the kiddos racing on the slides.

And now for your viewing pleasure, allow me to introduce a collection of videos that we will call Bryan bites the snow. I know it may look like a lot with there being four videos and all, but they are all pretty short, some really short depending on how long it took him to fall. If you don't want to see them all Bryan's personal favorites are the first and last. Every time he has watched the last one he laughs so hard one might think it was the funniest thing he has ever seen.

Here we are ready for our all red dinner. It is actually mostly pink but who cares. Please don't mind Bryan's hair in this picture. He usually does not wear it like that but he said he needed to look "respectable" for dinner. Thanks for that Honey! He also thought our drink should be strawberry quick which we came to find out is GROSS! Of course the kids loved it, but one sip was enough for me. He said he remembered it tasting a lot better than that, but it turns out the last time he remembers drinking it it included blowing bubbles in it. Last year, or when he was five...who knows?

Jello jigglers for dessert.

Here are the pretty flowers and cute house plant that I got from Bry and the kids. I used to have lots of plants but they have all slowly bit the dust so that is my new start. May it be around longer than some of its predecessors.

I will have to echo Jake's sentiment that this was," the best balentimes ever!"

Happy Balentimes Day!

Jake had his first school valentines party today. Last night he was so excited he was having a hard time going to sleep. After the 1000th time of telling him to get to bed, he threw up his hands and said,"I guess I'm just excited because I never been to a balentimes party before." How do you get mad at him when he says that? So today was the big day and here is a (blurry)picture of him with his loot.

As we drove home he said," That was the best balentimes party ever." We will have to thank Miss Susanne for throwing the party of the century.

So, what's that she's doing?

Starting when Kate was 3 or 4 months old, she loved to stand on our laps and bounce or bounce in her johnny jump-up/exer-saucer. She still has a little bounce left in her.

Snow Day!

We have gotten a few new inches of snow in the last few days so we(Lacey and I) decided to take the kids to a great park and enjoy some time outside yesterday. We had the whole place to ourselves and the kids had a blast! They went sledding, ate snow, played on the playground and wore themselves out. Then we headed to Lacey and Mason's for lunch, hot chocolate, and rice crispy treats. They slept great at nap time too. We can't wait for spring time so we can run around outside every day!

Here is a little video of them sledding down the hill. Sorry it is a bit shaky. I was walking backward down the hill trying to record the action.

You know your husbands love of Rocky is rubbing off on your kids when...

while changing your two year old's diaper, you ask her to hold still and she points a finger at you and says,

"Mom, you're better than that!"

(that is from the most recent Rocky Balboa film, chapter 18, for those of you who are not familiar)

Stripes go with stripes, right?

Yet another great outfit selected by blondie herself. Who knew you could even get a turtle neck on upside down?

Walking with Dinosaurs

We headed down south to SLC this weekend. First we went to Saratoga Springs and saw our friends Ryan and Melanie and their kiddos. It was good to see them and some of Mel's family and get to celebrate their little Kara's 2nd birthday. Here is the only picture of our Jake and Kate with their Jake and Kara that I got where someone was not blurry.From there we headed to downtown Salt Lake to see "the most awesome show ever", so says Jake. Someone who knows Jake and his love for dinosaurs pretty well:), got the four of us tickets to go see "Walking with Dinosaurs". We all had such a great time, though no one had as much fun as Jake. When the first dinosaur appeared from behind the curtain his jaw dropped. He then asked question after question the whole rest of the show, and really wanted to be able to go see them all after the show. That, unfortunately, was not allowed but we got lots of pictures and videos and he even got a spinning flashlight to take home as a souvenir. All in all it was a show made for a 4 year old dino lover. Waiting for the show to start.

Here is the stegosaurus peeking out from behind the mountains and trees.
The narrator is on the right, the triceratops on the left. They were huge! The dinosaurs, not the narrator.
The ever popular T-Rex!

Here is a short video of some velociraptors in action. They seriously look real.

Good times. Great times.

A little early

When we got the bins out to put away all the holiday decor the kids found a bag of Easter eggs that had snuck their way into the Christmas stuff. Jake asked if he could play with them which turned into more fun than I thought. Both the kids had a great time hiding them and hunting for them. Bryan and I even got in on the fun. The problem with a 4 year old hiding the eggs is that he does not always remember where they are. Once the eggs were retired to the bin for a couple months until the actual Easter holiday, the eggs keep showing up. The fun continues...

Holiday Fun

So here are our holidays in a nut shell. We had Christmas all by ourselves here in Logan this year. The kids and I decorated cookies to help pass the time on Christmas eve. That night we had our traditional (kind of) dinner of cheese zombies, tomato soup, and eggnog punch. Yum. Then off to open presents. Jake was about to explode from the anticipation so we let him take care of his present opening business while the rest of us got a turn here and there. We spent the rest of the night playing with the loot and then put cookies out and off to bed. We got to sleep until 7ish before Jake was up ready to see what Santa brought. We decided to let Kate sleep while Jake dug in to his stocking and started opening presents. Kate's sleeping did not last long with all the excitement flying around in the front room, so she joined us for the fun. We spent the rest of the day being lazy! Playing with toys, snacking on treats and watching movies was about it. We did make it over to the Huffakers for dinner and hanging out for the evening which is always a good time.
Bry worked the day after Christmas and that night when he got home we headed down to Salt Lake for a few days to see my parents and attend my cousin's wedding festivities. My kids were soooo excited to see "dapa, dapa"(grandpa and grandma) as Kate calls them. Bry and I were excited to see them too but we seem to take a back seat these days, wonder why? We had a great time seeing a lot of family from my side and getting to see the lights at temple square, even if it was already after Christmas. Then we headed back to Logan and spent a day with my bro Tyler and his wife Janna and my parents playing games and hanging out. Everyone headed home the next day and we were back to life as usual.
New Years was so exciting...or not. We had great relaxing plans. We took the kids out to a little diner for burgers and fries. Fun. Stopped by the grocery store for treats to ring in the new year with. Fun. Came home and put the kids to bed and started our movie marathon. Fun. Bry and I both fell asleep on the couch by 10:30 and woke up a little before 2 a.m. to head to bed. Fun? Well we were well rested if nothing else. Then we spent new years day putting away Christmas decor and sorting through our 72 hour kits. The fun never stops with us! And there you go. Our holiday season in a nutshell. We really do feel blessed to have such a great family near and far, and who knows maybe we will venture out and about next year for the holiday season.

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.