Our Christmas

We had a great Christmas and we hope everyone else did too. Here are the kids on Christmas Eve in their new pj's.

This is Christmas Day...Jake loved his tractors. I love this shot of him and his daddy.

And the kids playing with their toys...

New Cabinets

Since we bought this house, we have slowing been remodeling one part or another. Last year we started the kitchen by installing recessed lighting and texturing/painting the ceiling. (by "we" I mean "cody"), so this year we decided to take down our existing (ugly and disgusting I might add) cabinets to sand and repaint them. Cody and his brother Chad did such an awesome job. They had to take the cabinets off as one piece because they were built that way back in the 60's when this house was built. We got new hardware and knobs for them. After painting them, I sanded down all the edges to "antique" them. I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. I'm so happy Cody can do all this!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We got the top cabinets done...the bottom is next.

Jake and the No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Week

Well, to start off these tragic events was Jake's haircut. Cody was holding Jake so I could hurry and just buzz it and he was being so good that I was kind of in a hurry. I totally forgot to put the guard on and buzzed his hair completely off right down the middle of his head! I kicked myself all night for being so dumb. So since Jake's hair was so long, we had to buzz all of it, but just not as short. So this is the wonderful haircut he's get to have until the hair grows back. His mother is a genius.

Next on the list...we were all downstairs by our fireplace because Cody had started a great fire and we're all just hanging out. Jake comes running in the room, trips, and smacks his head right on the corner of the stone fireplace. At first we thought he's just missed it, but then Cody realized he wasn't breathing because he was crying so hard. Poor kid. Huge goosebump on his head; I'm just glad it missed his eye. Luckily he let us hold ice on it until bedtime so the swelling went down really fast. He actually only woke up once that night, so pretty good for how bad I'm sure his head hurt.

Up next...Jake + his dad=wrestling. This is inevitable. Jake loves to jump on Cody no matter where or how he'll land. Well he jumped on the back of Cody's neck and started to fall forward, so Cody reached up to catch him and caught his thumbnail on Jake's eyelid. Again, I'm glad it missed his eye!

Later that same day, Jake must have caught the 24 hour flu or had eaten something bad because he had been throwing up all day and we changed about 10 diapers that day also. He is also teething so he's got a runny/stuffy nose and his gums are swollen.

So that has been our week. Hopefully next week will be better. This little boy will get tough fast at the rate he's going.

Thankful

I figured out how to take black and white pictures with my camera and so I bribed the kids with M&M's to sit still for a minute so I could test it out.

I am so thankful for my husband and my kids. I love them so much and I don't know what I would do without them. They make me so happy and I have a wonderful life with them. Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Leaves are Falling

The kids helped me rake leaves last week. It was really fun for them to run and jump in the piles I would make. I can't believe how many bags I filled up and all the leaves hadn't even fallen off the trees yet. That will be this Saturday's project. Yippee!
Jake helped...he did a good job, a little hard for him though since he didn't realize he could use both hands.

He also gave special leaves to Anna and she'd just stare at him. But when she wanted to give a leaf back to Jake, she'd chase him all over the yard and push him over so she could put it in his hand. I don't get it.

Anna is a great leaf thrower. This was Jake's turn to just stare at her.

But this picture will definitely go in the scrapbooks.

There's No Place Like Home

Halloween was pretty fun this year, with the exception that Cody is sick and really didn't feel up to anything. Anna dressed up as Dorothy and Jake as the cowardly lion. They turned out pretty cute I think. Last Halloween Jake was only 6 months old, so this year was a lot more fun with him. It was like he knew exactly what to do with his candy bag and he knew what was supposed to go in it.

I think it is hilarious that candy is such a treasure to kids. I love how they have to study each piece after they get all their loot and sometime they even "organize" it.

We hope everyone had a great and Happy Halloween!!!

TAG 8 THINGS!

*8 t.v. shows I like to watch:
1. The Office
2. Amazing Race
3. Biggest Loser
4. Seinfeld
5. Jon and Kate Plus 8
6. Little People Big World
7. News
8. Friends

*8 things that happened yesterday:
1. Went to work
2. Cleaned the kitchen
3. Went grocery shopping
4. Made bbq chicken for dinner
5. Went to the bank
6. Helped with kids clean their rooms
7. Watched the news
8. Ate Halloween candy with Cody while watching the news

*8 favorite places to eat:
1. Olive Garden
2. Wingers
3. Brick Oven
4. Pizza Factory
5. Gandolfos
6. In the backyard
7. Ruby River
8. Red Lobster

*8 things I'm looking forward to:
1. Holidays with the kids
2. Dressing up the kids for Halloween
3. Payday
4. Paying off the truck
5. Next summer
6. Christmas
7. Jacob talking
8. Dinnertime

*8 things on my wish list
1. Unlimited amount of money for books (for the kids and me!)
2. Family vacation
3. Clothes
4. New kitchen
5. Healthy happy kids all the time
6. New couches
7. Scrapbook supplies
8. Piano

*8 people I tag
1. Nicole
2. Amanda
3. Erin
4. Stephanie
5. Mom H
6. Angie
7. Sandra
8. Shawna

Halloween Treats

I'm a total sucker for anything baked with sugar and frosting. Anna is the same way, so we like any excuse to make cookies with sugar and frosting. We spent yesterday making Halloween sugar cookies. We found some cookie cutters at the dollar store and, come on, you have to admit that making cookies into certain shapes is really fun! Anna is such a helper...she organized the cookie cutters and had them all ready to go, about three hours before. But we had fun.



Since I wasn't about to let Jake get near the frosting or sprinkles, I gave him a piece of dough and some flour so he could roll it like me. That entertained him for about 30 minutes, which is really amazing when you think about it. The dough was eventually eaten, but the flour was still really fun to play with. He had it everywhere, but at least he had fun!

Doesn't she look like a professional chef with her apron on?

And the finished product...

Yeah, you might be wondering what's with the blue/purple frosting? Okay, well, I realized that with our bat shaped cookies what color were we going to frost them? I didn't have any black frosting, so I thought I'd try to "make some". Yeah, just for future reference, no matter how much food coloring you put together it doesn't make black. So I tried to salvage it by trying to turn it into purple for the witch's hat shaped cookies and this is what it looked like.

I'll try to save some for the kids to eat while they are sleeping...he he he.

Playing Outside

Since our warm days to play outside are numbered, we've been taking advantage of it every chance we get. We got some cute pictures of the kids (don't you just love digital cameras? you can take 100's of pictures and then pick the best ones!) and Anna is getting to the stage where she LOVES posing for the camera. "Dad, take my picture!" "Dad, are you taking my picture?" "Dad...take my picture again!" Jake will just smile his cute smile and wave.


Apparently we have a cowgirl in this family who loves to jump on the tramp with her "lasso".

Jake is just happy with his rock collection. I never knew boys could get so excited about a rock. By the look on his face when he finds one you'd think he'd just been given a toy, a really, really awesome toy. I found about 10 rocks in his pocket yesterday. No wonder he was walking weird!

Pajamas

I love pajamas.
Especially my kids' pajamas.
I love snuggling with my kids when they are in their pajamas.
I love buying new pajamas.
I love washing pajamas. Weird. I know.
I love watching them run around in their pajamas, especially Jake since his pajamas are just a little too big and the footies come off so his foot gets stuck above the elastic that usually goes around his ankle. Then he just stops and points to his feet until one of us fixes it. I am all about cumfy clothes and I even get into my pajamas as soon as it is considered not too early. Last night Jake ran over to his big sis and gave her the biggest love, with his arms wide open and everything. So sweet! And since they were in their pajamas, which I'm obsessed with, yes, I had to take pictures.
Pajamas, my comfort object.

Happy Birthday Cody!!!

It's Cody's birthday today and we hope he has a wonderful day. We are so lucky to have such a loving and funny husband and daddy, who ALWAYS makes us laugh! We love you!!!

Mt Loafer

Cody hiked Mt. Loafer today with his friends Dallin and Aaron, elevation 10,685.
Here he is at the summit...

Since they left at 5:00 a.m. he was able to see the sunrise and hike half way up using his headlamp since it was still dark!
He took some beautiful shots of the trees with their changing colors up in the mountains.
I love this picture!
Part of the trail they were hiking on. What can I say, die hard hiker or what?

Goodbye, Farewell!!!

Last Wednesday we took my brother Derek to the MTC to start his mission. He will be serving in the Lima Peru Central Mission and will be speaking Spanish. We are so proud of him for deciding to go on a mission and we will miss him.

These pictures were taken right after he was set apart as a missionary the night before he left. We love you Derek and we know you'll do a wonderful job serving the Lord!

Utah State Fair

We went to the Utah State Fair up in Salt Lake City on Saturday and it was so much fun. The kids loved it! We saw lots of farm animals (cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, and pigeons). Here is Anna standing next to one of the cows; I'm personally shocked she got that close, even with her dad next to her.

Merry-Go-Round ride - this was Jake's first time and he was so enthralled by everything around him. He had this stunned smile on his face the whole time.

They had 4 white tigers there also and Jake kept growling at them, because he was saying what the tigers say!

Cody won a toy blow-up hammer for Anna...hooray for Daddy!

The helicopter ride was fun for Anna; she couldn't stop waving at us, even when we weren't facing her. She'd just keep waving all the way around.

Anna got to ride "the real horse" too... and she loved it! She was so excited to get to ride a real horse - by the time she got comfortable with it she was petting the horse also.