Christmas Celebration #1

A couple weeks ago we had our first Christmas celebration with Kevin's family. Dad and Mom and Ryan, Jessica and Makena were all able to come out for a quick weekend visit. We had tons of fun with them and especially loved meeting "baby Kena". She is a sweetheart and totally warmed up to all our chaos right away.

Of course everyone had to take their turn holding her, and she graciously put up with all of it:)

Saturday afternoon we opened gifts with them. Brooklyn was the little helper for the day. Ethan was sent on a scavenger hunt to find a new bike hidden in the back of daddy's truck. We were all spoiled and are thankful for generous Opa and Oma.

Thanks for coming to visit! We love you!

Rainy run and fun friends

A couple weekends ago I had the privilege(?) of running in a relay marathon. Seven of my running friends and I put together two teams and participated in the CIM in Sacramento. It turned out to be one of the wettest windiest mornings I can remember. I will admit I was pretty crabby when we got there and there were 30 mph winds and huge rain drops hitting our vehicle. Once we were out in it though, totally soaked and running it wasn't so bad. My leg was 7.6 miles. We were splashing through puddles and avoiding small streams. Those trash bags kept us dry while we waited to run, but really did us no good on the run. We were soaked! Now I know why I turn the alarm off when I usually hear the raindrops hitting the roof:)

My friend Karrie and I finished with our leg and ready to get some dry clothes on.

Here is the whole group of girls. We also had 3 girls running the full marathon. I have so much respect for them because it was miserable weather to be running 26.2 miles. By the time they finished by the capitol the sun was out, so it was a beautiful finish line.

My little helpers in the grocery store. I let them push their own carts when I only need a handful of things. This "quick trip" took us a half hour:)

That same weekend our friends John and Brenda visited for a couple nights with their son James. I'm not sure who had more fun wrestling, John or the kids.

It was fun to watch our kids play with James.

We had an awesome visit with them and it's always a bummer to say goodbye. We're thankful for these lifelong friends.

And nothing like a little PBS on the computer..0

Update Time

Time for another picture update. This is the only place these days that I am recording our life and actually doing something with our pictures. I wish I was better about printing pictures and books, but for now this will have to do.

We are very serious about gender specific jobs in our family as you can see:) The girls work in the kitchen while the boys work with tools!

And then daddy had the brilliant idea to let a board, screws and screw drivers babysit our kids. This little job kept them busy and quiet for about 20 minutes

Here are Morgan and Ethan loving on our newest family member. We all love to cuddle cousin Emily. I especially am finally enjoying one of Kara's babies now that I don't have my own to hold! We love you sweet Emily!

My Grandma celebrated her 93rd birthday this year. Unfortunately she slept through most of the party. Visiting her is getting harder and harder for me as she doesn't communicate very well, but I know she loves to see the kids and it is good for my kids to love someone who can't really give back to them. They are always so tender with her, it is very sweet.

And little miss fasionista 2. Brooklyn now is getting an opinion about what she wears. We're in trouble!

A friend of mine gave me this great cookie recipe for kids to make. You put all the ingredients (2 c flour, 1 c sugar, 1 tsp baking soda, 2 sticks butter, 1 c choc chips) in a bowl and mix with your fingers. Bake them at 350 for 17 minutes and you have yummy cookies! This was a great recipe for Morgan because she loves to help me bake and she loves to taste everything. I wasn't paranoid about her eating this cookie dough becuase there aren't any eggs!

Four years old and Six years old

I finally got around to doing a little photo shoot with Ethan and Morgan last Sunday before church. They both had school pictures taken this year, which were cute, but just not as fun as taking them outside. So here you go, enjoy our "big kids"!

Happy Halloween

Tuesday afternoon we finally carved our pumpkins. We've learned the hard way that we can't carve pumpkins too early around here or they rot since it is still so warm here.

Morgan wanted to carve her pumpkin just like the jack-o-lantern she made at school. That was easy!

Ethan had a hard time deciding what he he wanted, he finally settled on RC and a football.

Meanwhile, while I cleaned and carved 3 pumpkins, Kevin was researching, drawing and carving his ONE pumpkin. And he still ended up w/ just a basic jack-o-lantern;) He said to remind him next year not to try to do anything special:)

The finished products! As we turned off the lights Hudson started whimpering because he was "cared":)

Finally it was trick or treat time. We walked around our neighborhood first and then headed over to our church for trunk or treat. After realizing what the kids looked like we wished we would have made Brooklyn Dorthy or a scarecrow:)

Hudson chose the lion costume out of our costume box. I was actually surprised he kept it on all evening. He doesn't usually like to dress up. He thought he looked pretty funny with his face painted. He was a cute lion and even carried his bag of candy around all night.

Miss Brooklyn was a fairy princess. She too insisted on dragging her own bag of candy around on the ground all night.

Ethan was a Knight in shining armor. When he saw the girls get make up and Hudson get his face painted he really wanted make up too. So we put some grey eyeshadow on him so he looked like he got in a scuffle:)

Morgan was a princess. She loved wearing sparkly makeup and her pretty dress.

Cousins Annika and Audrey joined us for our walk around the neighborhood. It was really fun. We've doubled our troops since last year. It was a lot of fun watching Annika march right up to every door and ring the door bell. At one particular "scary" house Annika walked right up to the door and Ethan and Morgan didn't want to go with her. Ethan said he would wait to watch what happened to Annika first! Way to go big cousin;)