Our new house

I have had a couple people that don't live close by ask to see pictures of our new place. So here they are for anyone who is interested. I didn't take any pictures of the upstairs, because...... honestly it is to hard to get both floors cleaned at once.... and there is really nothing exciting up there :). Joelle wanted me to add one of our christmas tree, so I had to add that too.

As Usual, Better Late Than Never

Halloween was a blast this year. The weather was amazing (a little warm for my taste, but perfect for trick or treating). We carved 4 pumpkins. Joelle and Emma did their pumpkins by themselves. And of course, in my typical parenting fashion, I forgot to take pictures after they were done (lame :). Anyway, take my word for it, they were cute.

David loves Halloween. He makes it so fun for the kids. He keeps wanting to set up a haunted house in our garage for trick or treaters, but we keep going other places, so it hasn't happened yet. One of these years he'll do it. We went to our old ward for their trunk or treat the night before Halloween. David ended up winning the prize for best decorated trunk. He had a black light and a fog machine going and all these spiders and skulls and grave markers everywhere (all of which he grabbed last minute), it was pretty cool. I thought it was the best trunk (I might be a little biased though :).

Emma was a "Darling Devil" and Joelle was "Double Trouble". They thought that these costumes fit their personalities very well. I wasn't going to argue :).
Jacob loved his BumbleBee costume until we went to the trunk or treat the night before Halloween where he saw someone that was dressed up as Boba Fett. I had a hard time convincing him that his costume was good enough for Halloween. We'll see what happens next year.

Ben was just happy that it was finally Halloween so he could go trick or treating.

Katie loved trick or treating. David said she wanted to keep going even after all the other kids were done. That's my girl. We ended up with over 8lbs. of candy. Our kids don't really like the candy bars which makes David and I very happy. The starbursts are the first things to go in our house. Does that seem weird to anyone else? We all had a great Halloween. Thanks Mike and Amy for letting us hang out in front of your house. It was a great party.

Kids say the darndest things :)

I made Jacob breakfast this morning and asked him if he wanted a plum or grapes with his breakfast. He chose grapes. I rinsed them off and then gave them to him on a paper towel. I didn't really dry them off.... because...... who does really? Anyway, I gave him the grapes. He looked at them, then looked at me and said "not those ones, I don't want those grapes, I want the other ones." We only had this one kind, so I was a little confused. I said "we don't have any other ones, just these ones. What's wrong them?" He looked back at me very seriously and said "They're sweating."

lol. Sweating grapes..... really. He makes me laugh

Hooray for the Holidays!

I love the Holiday season! One thing I will say about where we live, it is fun to take your kids trick or treating and people can actually see their costume because you don't have to wear a jacket. We went to our new ward's "trunk or treat" this weekend. The kids had a blast. I love Halloween candy. David always says that one of his favorite smells is a bowl full of Halloween Candy. Why haven't they come up with that scent for a candle yet? :) Here comes the Holidays!

Laurel's little man

My little sister Laurel had her 4th baby boy! He is so cute! I just wanted to post the few pictures I got so everyone can ooohhh and aaaahhh over this cute little baby. I loved holding him. What a sweet baby!

He really didn't cry much. He just wanted to be wrapped up. I just had to add this one because I thought he looked so cute. I love the way little babies look so mad :) You just don't see a face like that on an adult (nor would you want to - cute on a baby, scary on an adult).

Happy Birthday Joelle

Joelle's birthday was a while ago, but apparently I forgot to blog about it, so here I am doing it now. I am a horrible mother sometimes :). Joelle really had a birthday month. She loved it. We gave her money and took her shopping (she spent her money so wisely that it took a couple of trips for her to use it all). I had gotten her a gift to give her on her actual birthday, but silly mom left it out in the shopping bag with all the other groceries and (for the first time ever) Joelle decided to see what mom had brought home from the grocery store. So she got that present early. It was a very fun birthday month. The only thing she wanted to do on her actual birthday was go to Josie's house for piano lessons, dinner and swimming. That is what we did. We had spaghetti (her favorite) and then vanilla ice cream for desert (also her favorite - she is kind of a Plain Jane when it comes to food :). Of course the pictures were taken after they went swimming. She does look happy, doesn't she?

Sorry about the bright spot on the picture. Don't know what happened there, but it is the only picture of the only present she actually got on her birthday. Amy and Josie got her a Chihuahua webkinz. She loved it! Thanks guys! We love you!

"I'm so glad when Daddy comes home!"

David got away to Utah this week to go on a camp out with all the boys in his family. They do it every summer and he lives for it. He came home late, late, late Friday night. So the kids and I were pretty excited to have him home on Saturday. We decided we would take the kids to the Superstition Mall and then go see Monsters VS. Aliens at the dollar theater. We had a terrific time. When we came out of the mall and were headed to the movies, Emma said "Mom, this is a great family day." "It is like Family Home Evening!" I think we are going to count it since Dad wasn't home Monday night. :) We had a lot of fun.

Katie turns 2

We celebrated Katie's second birthday last Saturday. She had a fun filled weekend. These first pictures are from Friday night. She got a package in the mail that day from her Nana Christensen. She had so much fun opening it. It is really the first thing she has ever opened (she wasn't so good at wrapping paper this last Christmas :).
This little cow now resides permanently in her crib. It is so soft.

She wore these sun glasses and carried the card around for the whole next week. It was pretty funny. People the store would always ask her about her glasses. She also learned how to say birthday this week and would point to her card and say "birthday." She is a pretty smart chicky.
Thank you Nana! She loved every gift! She likes to change her outfit about 3 to 5 times a day so it was nice to have something new to try on :).

Since her birthday was on a Saturday, Dad got to be home with us the whole day. It really was all about Katie that day.

The other kids were so excited to give her her presents, we did it first thing in the morning (well right after breakfast or we never would have gotten Katie to eat :).

I had taken her to Target to get an idea of what she would like. I meant mostly to look for a baby, but when we went down the isle, she saw this purse kit and was glued to it. I had the hardest time getting it away from her and sneaking it back into my cart later. I really had to distract her with about 3 other toys. I was so excited to give her the purse on her birthday. She has taken it everywhere with her sunglasses in it. She loves the purse and the phone that came with it. Believe it or not. She really doesn't like the baby. I tried to talk her into other babies, but that is the only one she wanted to look at, so I thought it would be the one she would want. She won't play with it. I was a little bummed till I noticed that Emma and Joelle won't put the baby down. It gives me hope that Katie will like it more when she is older. Haha.

Katie loves phones. She is always sneaking into my purse to get my phone (or my gum :). She loves putting all her fake makeup, and phone, and glasses into her purse. she is such a girly girl!

Every morning when she wakes up she wants me to get her dressed right away. Then she wants a flower in her hair, then she wants to put on some of mommy's makeup (just lip gloss). I have to follow her routine or she get pretty sad.

That night we went to Mike and Amy's house for piano lessons (my sister-in-law Amy teaches my girls piano and we trade with making dinner for both our families each time - I get the better end of that deal for sure:). We had dinner and went swimming and then came it for the cupcakes that Katie and made with her Daddy that morning.

This was actually her second time with the candles. She did really well blowing them out.

She only ate about a quarter of her cupcake. She would much rather have candy.

Amy got her this bouncy ball. She loves it. All my kids think it is the best gift ever.

Grandma Glemser had sent her a very fun basket with all sorts of fun little thinks inside, things to color and a winnie the pooh book (Katie loves to read). But I wasn't home when John dropped it off, so the kids took it on themselves to give it to Katie. She loves it all, but I never got a picture of it all together. Thank you Amy and Mom for your gifts. They helped make her birthday so happy. It was her best one yet (wink, wink ;).