Christmas is Coming....

We went to see the Temple lights last Sunday. It was pretty great. We just decided last minute to go which made it even more fun. This is one of our favorite traditions as a family. We didn't get to go last year so the kids were even more excited than usual. I am glad we went before the weather turned colder. It was perfect. I know Jacob looks pretty wraped up, but it really wasn't that cold :). It was great.We brought the stroler for Katie, but she wouldn't sit in it. She just wanted to push it all night. We ended up hiding it for most of the night behind the stage. Crazy baby.

David doing what he does best! Lookin' good - and filming :-).

The girls wanted us to kiss for a picture. It was so much fun. Joelle did a great job with the camera, don't ya think :-).

Katie was so funny. She led us all around most of the night. I don't think I've seen her that happy before.

The Nativity scenes were some of the kids favorite things to see. I know it sounds cliche, but it really was a magical night.

We went back to the car where David had hot chocolate ready in an igloo cooler. We had crackers and candy canes too. The kids were all great the whole night long. I love Chirstmas!

Katie LOVES hot chocolate. She had 2 cups of hot chocolate that night (they all did).

I loved this face (even though it kind of looked like the Joker to me :-). Does it get any better?

Our little artist

Katie has recently discovered her new favorite passion..... coloring. She loves to color. If she is unhappy in anyway just giver her a pencil and paper and she is happy camper. It is the one thing she will sit still for (and even then most the time she is walking around with it trying to find the spot she wants to color in). Crazy Chica.

Stupiders

I have decided that I can blog with or without pictures. I usually wait for pictures, but with life being crazy I haven't had many pictures lately. Also life is just a little ordinary right now, but the things my kids say are not ordinary, so I want to start keeping track of that. So some of these blogs will be very, very short, but so worth the read. Today David was going to pick up the girls from school with Jake. They decided they were going to kill all the bad guys on the way there. Jake is really into Star Wars right now, so bad guys are "Storm Troopers." The funny thing is that Jake started telling David he was killing all the "STUPIDERS." It took David a second to catch on, but stupiders are Jake's storm troopers. So from now on that's what they are. Stupiders. Gotta love kids.

Halloween

I know I haven't blogged in forever, but honestly we have had nothing to blog about. We have gone nowhere and nothing of any importance has happened in our home. Crazy I know. We did have the ward camp out which went well, but I forgot to take pictures (I was a little preoccupied -understandably:). It was tons of fun though. Anyway, back to Halloween. These pictures do not do justice. In reality you could barely see the green in the girls hair. I think the flash of the camera really caught the color. It actually looked very pretty and not so slimy :). We had a very fun night. We always go across the street to Marni and Brandon's house with a bunch of families that live on our street. Marni and Brandon always make Wassail, the Morris family brought hot chocolate and vanilla ice cream, David made apple crisp (hence the need for ice cream) and the Johnsons brought caramel dip and apples to dip in it (can you say yummy?). We had a fire in a fire pit in the driveway even though we wondered if it was really cold enough. We had a better turn out of trick or treaters this year. All in all, I think the night was a success. We have inhaled so much candy in the last couple of days that my kids don't even seem like themselves. Ben has even more energy than before (I didn't think that was possible). I can't wait for the candy to be gone. I told them they could eat as much of it as possible by Friday and then it would go in the trash. I never thought they would actually finish it, but it looks like they might. It was a very fun Holiday. Emma was a "Snow Queen", Ben and Jake were both "Indiana Jones", and Joelle was a witch.

Katie was a very feisty Tinkerbell. She was totally in character :)

This was David's way of saying "take this feisty fairy, I don't want her anymore." Can anyone actually hear him say that?

This is Trista. She is Marni and Brandon's daughter. I LOVED her costume. Like I said before, the camera does not do justice. I should have gotten a picture of the back. The tail was great. So cute!

Does it get any better than Tinkerbell? Halloween is a Holiday right up Katie's alley!

Once again, no justice done here. This kid's costume was awesome. You can't really see, but the face on the Top Hat is the guy from the "Nightmare Before Christmas" movie. I really liked his costume. Just thought I would throw it in for fun. You can't tell from his face, but he was pretty happy to get his picture taken. He was a pretty funny kid.

Gotta love Halloween!!!

Outside Fun

We finally got another trampoline since ours busted a while back. The kids love the enclosure. I thought it wouldn't be as fun, but they proved me wrong. I love it because Katie can get on. She thinks it's great.

They begged me to take pictures of them playing outside. Since I haven't had anything to blog in a while I said "why not."

The girls thought it was so cool that they could balance on the see-saw. They sat that way forever.

Can anyone say Marshmallows?

The other day Jacob asked me if he could have some marshmallows. I said yes and poured a few into a sandwich bag for him. Then I put the big bag on the counter. I put Katie in her high chair and went to the pantry to get her some food. When I turned around Jacob was unloading the whole big bag of marshmallows onto Katie's tray. I was somewhat forcefully saying "no, no, no, no, no Jacob." Then he turned around and said "But mom, she like dem!" She really was very happy. I did take most of the marshmallows away after Jacob left. She was a little upset, but I thought it was for the best. She still ended up with a great lunch and was very happy.

Can you believe I have a 9 year old!?

Last Monday, Sept. 22, Joelle turned 9 years old. It is so crazy to me. We had a little party at Mike and Amy's since we are there every monday for piano lessons. Joelle thought having her birthday party there was the best. She got some great presents from family. She didn't get much from us that day because she wanted to go to target and spend $75 on whatever she wanted. She got two barbies and a babydoll. What has the world come to? It is a sad day when 75 bucks buys you only three toys. Oh well. She thought it was great. She is such a fun 9 year old. I can't believe we got so lucky to have her in our family. Happy Birthday Joelle!