Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Or should I say Happy belated Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day and we have SO much to be thankful for; our families, friends, jobs and our faith. We are truly blessed. We had dinner at Kevin & Judy's house in Issaquah. All the kids were there with the exception of Kim's other half, Paul, he was out in the forest being a manly man - he spent 10 days out in the woods hunting. =) It's always nice for us to all be together - we don't get to do it very often. Judy prepared (in my opinion) the best Thanksgiving dinner. She BBQ'd the turkey on their Weber and it was wonderful, the potatoes were yummy, the sweet potatoes were fantastic and the brussel sprouts (yes I said brussel sprouts) were out of this world. If I keep talking about it I'm going to get really hungry all over again and then be sad because there is no more food left. =( I'll just leave it at...it was wonderful!

Hannah & Jakob up to no good...in the bathroom.The boys up to no good, outside.Emmie's making sure the big kids don't come near her toy.Tom sneaking some turkey...the next picture in the sequence is Judy swatting his hand with the knife...yikes. =) It was blurry so you'll all just have to use your imagination!Jakob the T-RexUncle Rich...the new horsey.

We love Uncle Rich!

I'm sad to report that we didn't get any family pictures. Seems there wasn't a time when both kids were willing to cooperate at the same time. Isn't that the way it always works?

After dinner we left and headed back north to my parents house. Hannah got to stay at grandma Judy's with Jakob so that they could get an early start the next morning to the Ocean. My dad's birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year so we had a little party for him after the rest of the family left. I think he was a little sad that Hannah wasn't there but Emmie made up for that. =) Now that I think of it, I don't think we even sang Happy Birthday to him. I'm glad that Hannah called him and sang to him first thing in the morning. Poor Dad!

Happy Birthday Dad. We love you.

=)

I know, I know...it's not even Thanksgiving, but all the cuteness of Christmas sucked me in and the next thing I know our blog has a new look. Sorry to all those traditionalists who say no Christmas before Thanksgiving...blah blah blah. Sorry. =) We even have our Christmas lights up outside. Shhhhh.....

Isn't my baby getting SO big!

Emmie has recently discovered that she can open Papa & Nonnie's drawers and that they are filled with all sorts of fun goodies. She has lots of fun emptying them out, much to Nonnie's dismay. =) When I look at these pictures I just can't believe how big she is. Next month she'll be one. Yikes! That makes me a sad, sad mama.

Such a big girl.

Go KW

I'm back with pictures from Kolten's playoff game from last weekend. They played a really good game on Saturday and advanced to the state finals. They played yesterday afternoon and I was hoping to report that they had won, but it looks as though they didn't quite get it done. We haven't talked to Caryl to find out any of the details but that's what Idahosports.com is reporting. I'm actually hoping that they have the scores mixed up. We are so proud of Kolten and the rest of his team.

Kolten is in the middle, #15

Hannah & Parker - you can't see it but their faces are decorated...GO KW!Heidi, errrr Emmie. Kolten in action. Love those red striped socks!I think the entire town came out to watch the game. =)Where the REAL fans sit and watch the game. Hannah, Caryl & Katie (Kolten's girlfriend). Hannah fell in love with Katie and her gigantic bag of makeup. =)I got out of the car, heard people screaming, turned around (hence the blurry shot) to catch Kolten jumping into the end zone. TOUCHDOWN!WOO-HOO!

Super Star

The big week is FINALLY here! Hannah is Star of the Week! Woo-Hoo!! We've been practicing line leading for several weeks. She should be pretty good at it. I just hope that no one gets out of line or tries to cut infront. =) Ms. Shellee sent home her posterboard a few weeks ago and last week Hannah and I had a date night and we went to my favorite scrapbooking store and picked up some goodies. Hannah picked out two pieces of paper, a pack of princess stickers and some chipboard letters. Hannah's friend Anne got her a set of glitter pens for her birthday and Hannah insisted on using them to help decorate her poster. We decided that the letters would be the least messy route. I assumed that she would want to color the entire letter with glitter but she surprised me with wanting to do polka dots. So cute. She had to incorporate all of our favorite colors on the letters which really surprised me. =) She told me which pictures to print out and put the flowers on all by herself. I kept reminding her (and myself) that she was star of the week, not me. Her and I had fun working on it and she was SO proud of her poster, especially when Ms. Shellee said she loved it. =)

I'll be back soon with pictures from our trip to Spokane/Idaho.

Extra pictures

Happy Friday! Here are a few pictures I found on my camera that made me smile.

In case you're wondering what's on Hannah's face...she put some make up on. When I first saw it I rubbed my monitor thinking there was something on it. Didn't she do a good job of blending it in. =)

ooohhhhhmmmmm...our meditating Buddha baby. She slept like that for almost an hour without moving.

What happens when a sleepy daddy changes a wiggly baby. The blue is the front and the pink polka dots go in the back.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Quick trip

We made a really quick trip to the ocean this last weekend. We woke up on Saturday and Tom said lets go to the beach. I laughed as I looked at the piles and piles of laundry just lying there. We did one quick load of any clothes that we would need and were out of the house by 11. Not too shabby if you ask me. We had a somewhat uneventful trip down at least where the girls are involved - they both did really well. As for Tom and I, not so much. As we were driving by McChord AFB, Tom and Hannah started playing the alphabet game. Tom found the A - Apartment he shouted and pointed. I looked up (to make sure he really did see an A) only to see the car in front of us stopped. Yes, stopped, as in NOT MOVING...on the freeway! Tom swerved into the right hand lane, and the car tried to move towards the left. I can only imagine what they were thinking - looking through their rear view mirror seeing us barreling towards them at 75. How we missed them I'll never know. I told Tom that he was banned from playing the alphabet game while driving!

We got to the Ocean at 2. We figure without traffic, we are exactly 3 hours from our door to Kevin & Judy door. Not too bad. On the way in we passed this guy. According to Tom - "he's the huge-est deer". It made me laugh all weekend long.

We took a quick walk down to the beach as soon as we got there and did a really good job of avoiding the rain. It didn't start raining until we were back in the warm house. I am always amazed at the beauty and power of the ocean. It was such a beautiful sight.

It's COLD out here guys!Jumping from Aunt Kim & Uncle Paul's bed to the air mattress is GREAT fun.The ocean air has a wonderful affect on Hannah's hair. It turns to ringlets as soon as we get out of the car. =)

Emmie even got in on the fun.
We're headed back over the mountains again this weekend. Tom's nephew, Kolten, is playing in the Idaho state playoffs for high school football. Tom is SO proud of him and we'd like to see him play at least once before he graduates and moves to Arizona. =( We're also thinking that this might be our last trip over until after tax season, unless the weather allows us to go over the first part of January. We'll be squeezing lots of Nana time in for the girls in a short amount of time. =) I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Cute, cute, cute.

Well...at least I think it's cute. Hannah has been wanting to feed Emerson for some time now and I finally agreed to it. It was so sweet to watch her carefully spoon up some Sweet Potatoes and make sure nothing was dripping off the spoon, then to watch her carefully put it into her mouth and scoop up what was left on her face. It was hard to tell who was more excited, Emmie or Hannah. Hannah L.O.V.E.S her little sister it's seriously so sweet.

I really, really, really hope their love for each other will last. =)

Random Tuesday Pictures

Here are just a few pictures from our yesterday.

Last Thursday when I picked up Hannah from school she was just beside herself. She got to bring home THE snack bag. What's in that snack bag you ask...an elephant and elephant clothes. Each child gets to bring home the snack bag the Thursday before their week of snacks and this was our week for snacks! Hannah had so much fun with the elephant, dressing it, undressing it, wrapping it up in it's blanket. Oh the fun. She was so "proud" to have the snack bag. It was pretty cute.

As if the snack bag wasn't enough excitement for our house. Look what came home with her today! It's finally here...her week to be the star and the most exciting thing about being the star...item #3.

Line leader for the entire week! I'm not too sure what she'll do with herself. A whole week of being the line leader! =) She's been looking forward to being the line leader since the first day of school. We practice every day. She's the line leader down the stairs and I am lucky enough to be the line leader up the stairs. And if you're so lucky to go up or down our stairs with Hannah, make sure you don't head down without her. She'll make you come back up and get in line behind her. She takes being the line leader very, VERY seriously.

We came home from dropping Hannah off at school and Emmie wasn't quite asleep so I put her in her bouncy. She started to cry and as she was climbing out of the seat she fell asleep. She managed to get one arm and one leg out of the seat before crashing. So cute.

Hannah and I got a good laugh at her today.I came home from taking my car BACK to the repair shop (yes we did just pick it up from there and yes we did just pay an arm and a leg for the leak to be fixed, funny thing is, the leak wasn't this bad in the first place! grrr....) and this is the face that greeted me. Apparently, Grammy did all of her exercises and Hannah, aka the boss, had been supervising her and gave her stickers for her job well done. Grammy is such a trooper.

That's all for now. =) Hope you're having a great week.

Election Day

Just to ease my sisters mind. Yes, we did vote. Now I'm just hoping I remember to drop them off at the drop spot. =) Just kidding. I'll remember.

Pray...vote...and pray some more! Happy Election Day.

Halloween Recap

I'm back with pictures from our fun filled Halloween! We started out our day with coffee and donuts from Haggens. Nothing like starting a sugar filled day with a good balanced breakfast, right? Hannah wanted to wear her costume all day but fearing that she might get it dirty, I pulled out one of her play costumes. Big mistake. She wanted to wear it all day and she decided that it was the costume that she wanted to wear trick or treating. Second mistake, taking her to Target to get eyeliner to decorate her face with. It was there that she decided that she didn't want to be a cheerleader anymore, she wanted to be her friend Fancy Nancy. We had a few tears in Target but nothing that a new tube of lip gloss couldn't cure. =) We came home and we had to practice writing on her face to make sure the eyeliner would work. It worked just fine and Hannah then decided that she would surprise me by writing on her face. She needed to add her own Hannah flair to it. I about fell out of my chair when I looked up and saw this face looking at me.

She was SO proud of herself. I couldn't stop laughing. Then she wanted to try it out on me...I assumed she was giving me a beard, but it turns out that she wrote her name on my chin. =) We left it on until nap time and got a good laugh every time we passed a mirror. That girl cracks me up. While the girls took naps I finished up some laundry and made Hannah's pom-poms. After naps we had a bit of a scare. I headed up to get socks for Emerson, well, Hannah decided that her and Emerson would hide from me in the bathroom, with the door locked. I came downstairs to Emerson crying and Hannah yelling at me that she couldn't open the door. I couldn't find the key that is usually above the bathroom door so as I was scrambling around the house looking for it I heard Hannah trying to calm Emerson down. She was singing through her own tears. It was the sweetest, most sad thing I've ever heard; Hannah's quivering voice singing "I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee". Broke my heart and made me smile at the same time. I found the key and as soon as I opened the door they both stopped crying and practically jumped into my arms. I took Hannah back into the bathroom and made her lock the door again so I could show her how to unlock it. She had been turning the button the wrong direction, poor girl. I don't think she'll be locking any bathroom doors anytime soon.

We made it to my sisters house just before dark and as soon as Tom got there we headed out with the kids. This was the first year that Susan didn't have any kids there. It was a little sad. The forecast was for rain but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was actually pretty comfortable outside. One of the more mild Halloweens we've had in a while. It was really nice. Emerson stayed in and helped Aunt Becca hand out candy. She wasn't too sure about some of the costumes. I think that a few of them scared her a little bit, but for the most part she did really well. I have to say that I think that Emerson and Hannah were two of the cutest cheerleaders I've ever seen. =)

Much to the dismay of my family - our girls said GO Cougs!Can you see the attitude in Hannah? =)Madison & HannahMadi, Hannah & Pirate Jake - ARRGGHHEmmie & Papa listening in on other conversations. GO Team!Her latest thing is to "talk" on the phone. Would you look at those legs! SO squeezable!

Have a great week!