It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

I'm so happy that I got 95% of our Christmas things up today. It was a full day. We had breakfast with the whole family, and then sent the out-of-towners off around noon. (Miss you all already, the kids are wondering where you went!) Then I came home to put Jensen down for a nap and jumped on the Christmas decorations. It only took 1/2 of our Saturday - and that was with putting up a new tree and adding hangers to all the new ornaments! Here's the new tree (mostly for my mom who never gets to see my house at Christmas.)I had some gift cards to redeem at Lowes and since we couldn't think of anything else we needed for the house, I finally got a nice tree. Also figured I'd invest in some pretty "shatter proof" ornaments for the tree. The kids had such fun putting the ornaments on... until my control freak side entered and I told them they were all done, and it was mommy's turn.

I even got the lights up outside. Since Dustin was terribly busy with the BYU/Utah game (cough, cough) it was up to me. Nothing new there, but nothing extreme either. However, I did get some more net lights for the bushes out front, so I changed it up this year. I'm calling it good for our house (once again, photo for mom here... the rest of you locals are welcome to come by and look at our pathetic lights anytime you like!)I'm so happy it's Christmas. I love it, even though it seems to come around more quickly every year.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have many reasons to give thanks this year. We were blessed to have Dustin's siblings here for the holiday. (Our kids absolutely love Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Adam and Uncle Jason!) We also had a pretty awesome meal to share- and we probably could have shared it with twice as many people- holy food! Here's a little close up of my pie!One of my favorite things we did this year was making a Thankful Tree. A couple of days earlier we traced the boys arms and hands to make two trees and hand shaped leaves. Then while everyone was getting the food ready, Carson went around to each person with a "leaf" and a pen and asked them what they were thankful for. We were thankful for family, friends, creations, crayons and brownies...just to name a few! Then we hung it up so we could all enjoy.We hope you had reason to rejoice with thanksgiving this year as well!

Here Comes Trouble

(First of all- what a face!)
I thought this shirt was so cute when I bought it for Jensen-even though I don't think he causes that much trouble. But it's pretty accurate for any child of this age!

So today Jensen was unhappy (about seemingly everything) and all he wanted was to snuggle his friends. So I gave him one and we walked out into the living room to find the other. And out of the corner of my eye, as I was walking past him, I noticed that he was looking at his monkey - who was sitting on the ottoman, but he was continuing to walk through the room. He did eventually turn around...but only just in time to smack his forehead on the corner of the brown arched wall which separates our living room and kitchen! And this was one of those full on facial knockouts- he just dropped to the ground. Poor kid. It's kinda hard to tell in these pictures, but if you look, you can see the brow to hairline bump and bruise over his left eye. I did get a cold pack on it pretty quickly, and I'm hoping to have minimized some of the damage.
It's just in time for us to take family pictures next week- Oh Joy!

Man After my Own Heart

I love this little guy...
And not just because he's smiling. :)

Lucky Day

So at the beginning of OCTOBER I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a real double jogging stroller. For about the last year I've been using the only double stroller I had. And don't get me wrong, it's great and I have been especially thankful to have it during the last 3 trips we've taken. But it's an umbrella stroller. Not really made for exercising. So after a little research, I decided on this:Suffice it to say, it's a really cool stroller, and one I plan on keeping for a very, VERY, long time. I actually ended up getting it on Ebay, but after a few weeks on anxiously waiting, I contacted the seller to find out what was taking so long. Apparently I don't read fine print very well, since the ad did say that it would take 7-10 business days to ship...after the 30 day "high demand" period was up! Gheesh!

But alas, the day has come. My lucky day. (Actually Tuesday was my lucky day, but I was so busy that I didn't even have time to open the box till this afternoon!) It's HERE!
The boys were excited to get in and help model it for me. They especially liked strolling around the house in it!
Part 2 of my lucky day happened at about 3pm when Dustin appeared at the door with these.(Despite getting my new stroller, I was still having one of "those" days. These seemed to turn it around.) Thank you, Dustin. I love you, too.

Funny with Friends

We had some friends over the other day and we decided to let the kids watch a movie in the office. So they all hoped up on the spare bed in there and laid down exactly like this:
Is that not the cutest? (Here is Jensen's "cheese!" face.)We also had to laugh at Carson who, when sitting at the table with all the kids, started in on some of his finest "small talk." He said (in a most serious little voice) something like, "So guys, you been getting to have fun at your house?" What a little goof!

Halloween This Year

Maybe it was just me, but I had more than enough of Halloween this year. Don't get me wrong, I had fun making the costumes (wrist is, sadly, still in recovery!) and our Trunk-or-Treat and Trick-or-Treating were great fun. But I'm ready for Halloween to be packed away until next year. Here's our traditional photo on the porch steps before heading out for the evening.(I love those little smiles!)
And getting a picture with our friend, Lusia, has also become tradition on Halloween! They came home in the nick of time, and we were able to take this with the kids.(Jensen cracks me up! He was happy Trick-or-Treating so long as he could do it with a sucker in his mouth!)
My kids got plenty of candy, and nearly ALL of it was good stuff. (I'm feeling a little sick of it already!!!) The best was Carson's journal entry from last night;

"Today is Halloween and I got lots of good candies, and not yucky candies. I will give my yucky candies to Dad and I can have the good candy.... We had a good trick-or-treat time!"