Snow, snow, and more snow! Definitely a WHITE Christmas!!
Aaron scored a new pancake griddle. Supersized!
Mom got a pair of black leather boots. Don't they look sexy with the pj's?
Can you see the excitement?? More teenie tiny pieces to become victim to the vacuum.
Logan LOVES his new train tracks and accessories.
Emily got a Bumbo seat. She looks so cute!
Okay, so I'm putting this question out to my faithful bloggers - Should I cut Emily's hair?? Miss Emily came out with a full head of hair and has only lost a little around the signature reverse Friar Tuck hairline. Her full head of hair has been her trademark but she's got this funky baby comb-over/mullet/side burns thing going on. I've trimmed her bangs to keep them out of her eyes, but I keep thinking I should take her in and get everything trimmed up and evened out. Her new hair growth is coming in lighter like the big kids. When Logan's hair got to this point it was no big deal to cut it since he was a boy. Kaya was close to one before her hair was long enough to really do anything with. So what do you think? Should I get it cut by a professional (Not brave enough to do it myself) or just let it grow?
Kaya: Look! There's a cemetery and it's decorated with Christmas.
Dad: Kaya, do you know what a cemetery is?
Kaya: Yeah, It's where we go to find prizes! (Geocaches)
Dad: What else do they have at cemeteries?
Kaya: Pretty Flowers
It was pretty funny that Kaya associates cemeteries with finding geocaches. Silly Girl! We have obviously found several "prizes" in various cemeteries.
Since they like to be outside, we might as well put them to work...
We must have really worn the kids out today, since this is how we found them (with the babysitter) after we got home from our neighborhood Christmas party.
It was pretty funny to find them asleep in the same bed.I can't believe it has been almost a MONTH since I've updated our blog. We have just been busy. For about the last 3 weeks before Thanksgiving, I spent every free moment finishing up my mom's scrapbooks. It took me about 3 years - but I organized and scrapped all my mom's photos from the last 30+ years. Now I just need to teach her how to digital scrap so that she can get all her pictures off the computer. After the holidays, I can start working on my own scrapbooks again. I'm a bit behind now.
Our family traveled to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving. My whole family met up at my parent's time share. We had a GREAT time and enjoyed spending time with family. It was fun & crazy to have the 7 cousins together for 5 days. Thanks to our good friend Tricia, we were able to do some fun family photos. I can't wait to see how they turned out.
Since coming home from Las Vegas, it seems like we've just been trying to keep up and get back on schedule while preparing for Christmas. We've been able to get some fun family activities in there too. Here's a few pictures from the past few weeks:
We took the kids to the Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah.
Emily is getting so big. She now enjoys sitting in the exersaucer and enjoys tummy play time of the floor. She likes to sleep on her stomach and can now roll from her tummy to her back.
This is Damien (8-13-08), Emily (8-8-08), & Wyatt (9-26-08) - The 3 youngest cousins. Look how much bigger Damien is compared to his cousins! (It doesn't hurt that his dad is 6 ft 5 in.) Even Wyatt was about a 1/2 inch longer than Emily.
We took the kids out geocaching to Eureka, UT - a semi ghost town. We had a fun day!
Kaya attended a baptism this morning with Aaron. She looked so cute before she left that I had to snap a quick picture!
Kaya asked Santa for a Barbie Rapunzel.
Logan asked Santa for a Brown Train.
Emily just wanted to go home and go to bed. We waited for over an hour at our church Christmas party to visit with the big guy.
This is the view from our front porch. (I wasn't going outside in my PJ's) This is the first official measurable snow for our neighborhood this season. YEAH!! The kids have been asking all morning to go out and play. I guess I need to go get Kaya some bigger snow boots. I love the silence you hear when the snow is falling. It's a beautiful sight!
Logan wanted to take his pumpkin with him to bed that night. I did have to say NO to that request!
Aaron making the kids laugh.
We let Kaya "think" she was carving out the pumpkin by herself. She wanted one with 3 eyes.
Kaya drew faces on the pumpkins for carving purposes.
Kaya and Logan wore some hand me down HORSE costumes from our neighbor. They worked out great!
Emily crashed hard. All that trick or treating wore her out!
Logan is Mr. Independant lately. He will tell me, "No, Mom, I do it!" As pictured above, he got himself dressed this morning. (NICE choice of shoes!) As long as we're not leaving the house - I say go for it! He's officially potty trained but still needs practice getting his underwear and shorts back on. The 70's/80's handbag is a nice accessory. My family may remember it as one of our dress up items from Grandma's house. It's still getting lots of use here!"Mom, where does the chocolate milk come from on the farm? Does it come from the brown cow or the white cow?"
I went back to work a couple of weeks ago. I go in at night after the kids are in bed. I only work 10 hours a week as the floral manager at a grocery store. It's fun to get out and do flowers to help support our family. The kids don't even know I'm gone most nights. However, last week the local HS had their homecoming dance. I've been building the dance corsage & boutonniere buisness since starting a year ago. My first dance I had 11 corsage orders. Last weekend, I made 55 corsages. My friend, Melinda, was able to come help me for a couple hours one night. Even Aaron's brother Nick helped me some. This week, the store had an open house. Aaron brought the kids down for all the free demos and to visit. Here's one of my arrangments. Some of you ladies will remember these from Mr. Ritchie's class. People LOVE these things:
This afternoon the kids and I made Halloween sugar cookies. Just between you and me....I HATE making sugar cookies. I guess it's because I've yet to find the perfect recipie and I just get frustrated when they stick to everything, get rock hard, or just don't turn out. The kids had a GREAT time though making and decorating the cookies. All Logan wanted to do was eat the cookie dough. (Thanks Papa) Here's a picture of the kids having a grand time:
Below is a picture of Kaya's finished product. It's supposed to be a cat. Aaron said it looked more like a murder victim.
I need to take some more pictures of Emily since she's growing like crazy. I got her to giggle the other night and she's got such the personality. Thanks to the advice from my friend, Lisa, Emily is sleeping an average of 7-9 hours at night. Her naps are still kind of erratic but she's sleeping really well at night. With Logan not taking naps these days - all the sleep we can get at night is crucial.
On another happy note, Aaron got a promotion at work. I won't go into details since this is still a public blog but we're happy for the extra income this will bring in along with the "perks" of the job including a "take home car". With the price of gas these days - having a vehicle from his employer to drive to and from work is a huge BONUS!! (Especially on the pocketbook!)
And guess what? It's supposed to SNOW tonight!!! 2-4 inches here on the valley floor. I'm not ready for the snow yet. I really enjoy the Fall weather. Kaya has been asking me when it's going to be warm enough to fill up her pool and play in the sprinklers. No matter how many times I tell her, the 4 year old mind just doesn't understand that it's going to be MONTHS before it'll be warm enough for that again. Time to break out the winter clothes.
Kaya had her first field trip with the pre-school to Wheeler Historic Family Farm. She had a great time. Look at the picture below. The geese came running when they realized the kids had food to feed them. It almost looks like something out of a horror movie. Attack of the Geese!! (They're about as big as most of the 4 year olds!!)
2 Fridays ago took the kids to the BYU Life Science museum. (FREE!) The kids had a good time checking out all the animals and playing in the activity room with the museum's toys.
After the museum at BYU we headed to J-Dawg's restaurant just off of campus. This is the infamous hot dog shack that we've been dying to try. Not only were the hot dogs and polish dogs superb (With the special sauce) - we got to meet a "Utah" celebrity. Former BYU Head football coach LaVell Edwards stopped by for a bite to eat. Aaron struck up a conversation and I happened to watch him rub somebody's bumper while pulling out of the parking lot and then keep driving. In Lavell's defense, I don't think he realized what he did, but it was pretty funny none the less.
A week ago Saturday we took the kids to the Utah State Fire Museum. It was a fun and FREE museum in Grantsville, UT. The kids enjoyed climbing all over the old fire trucks and we just enjoyed getting out and doing something fun. The kids got some free fire hats!
After the Fire Museum, we zipped over to the Tooele Valley Railroad Museum. Another FREE attraction for the kids. Logan LOVES trains and loved seeing the full size trains up close and also checking out the huge model railroad disply they had. Kaya's favorite part was the picnic lunch we brought with us to have on the grass. We had a good family outing seeing some of the museums in Utah.
And for Emily...well we have a thumb sucker! Kaya started sucking her thumb when she was about 3 months old. (And she's STILL sucking her thumb - any tips?) Logan preferred the pacifier. We just broke him of the pacifier shortly after his second birthday last month. Now that I've had one of each, I must admit I prefer the thumb sucking. Of course, that's going to obviously be a harder habit to break than just snipping a hole in the pacifier. But it was so much more convenient than always trying to FIND the pacifier and making sure it's clean. I especially hated the stage when Logan needed the pacifier to fall asleep and then would wake up and cry when it would fall out (because he didn't know how to find it and put it back in his mouth.) We would have to give him his pacifier 10 or 12 times a night before he would get into a deep enough sleep and not care if it fell out. Emily has never really cared for the pacifier and she likes to suck on her hands. She's been getting closer and closer to finding her thumb over the last 2 weeks or so. It's only been in the last couple of days that she has definitely shown a preference to sucking her thumb. It does look cute and she's pretty content when she gets it in. However she does get pretty mad when it comes out. She'll get the hang of it soon enough, I'm sure. So here's a picture of how I found her after her nap the other day:
