Just more fun pics of the kiddos....

Allow me to explain this one--remember how a few posts back I said that the kids were all learning to run/chase very carefully in the house? And mainly it was Jacob and Julia aquiring all the injuries? Well, apparently Evelyn's hitting a growth spurt. That girl has been biffing it left, right and center the entire past week. See the whole side of her face? That from tripping over her own feet right outside Walmart (of course it was before going in...). The very next day she fell again and scraped up her knees and the palms of her hands. For three days after she continued to fall and bump some sort of body part. It got to be so bad that I banished her from running, jogging, skipping, ect. She was to hold my hand at all times whenever we were out. I just couldn't stand the thought of her getting hurt again. But she hasn't fallen in about two days now...maybe she's done growing for now. I hope so!


Here's a rare moment when they were actually all smiling AND sitting still!

Putting up the tree

Yeah, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but hey....why not? I found a Christmas CD and put that in the surround sound in the living room (A Normal Rockwell Christmas) and the kids and I had tons of fun decorating.







The kids were so excited to have the tree up--they begged to be able to sleep in the living room. So here's Jacob completely konked out (Evelyn's on the next couch over).


Mind you, we, for the first time, don't have a fire place and Julia's first question was "How is Santa going to get into the house without a chimney?". It has slipped Ryan's and my mind how that works exactly.....Mom? Papa? Any suggestions?

It's in the air....

Dad, this new look is for you. Ryan's out of town and the kids and I have plans to put the tree up this weekend. Julia and I were debating where to put it in the living room.

So Joycelyn...when are you putting yours up? :)

And for anyone heading to St. Louis, check out the radio station 101--they're playing endless Christmas music. :):):)

Our new home

Our house is actually a very long duplex...the middle wall was taken out of this one and so we get the entire thing to ourselves. :) You'll get to see how it's entirely wood floors inside. I thought it was great--for about 30 minutes. I think that was how long it took til one of the kids biffed it. And it didn't stop there. The first weekend here, Jacob fell so often that he aquired two huge bloody noses, the biggest fat lip I'd ever seen (he couldn't even speak right cause of it), and his very first black eye. Julia received her first black eye too. They've quickly learned how to run on their toes. :) Of course, we could just avoid the spills if there simply wasn't any running in the house....but good gosh, we're talking about kids here! ;) So one of the first things I invested in was a large rug for the living room and a couple of floor runners for the hallways.


I wasn't able to fit all of it in this picture...it's missing the other front entry way, the other drive way, ect....it humors me that it's yellow. Reminds me of the house which I grew up in. :)



Here's my awesome living room...it's HUGE! (Looks are deceiving, I have the furniture pulled out about 1-2 feet from the walls on all sides to make it more cozy). It's actually supposed to be a living room/dining room, but there's NO WAY that our living room furniture would fit in there along with the dining room table...talk about scrunched.










So we moved our dining room into this room instead...



It was originally a bedroom (hence the closet right there)...you can see on the floor where it divides and there was a wall at some point. It was a wall that connected both sides of the duplex.



Here's the other end of the now very long room. I use it for a computer space (since it's the size of a normal bedroom over there anyway). The closet right there is nice...stores extra computer/desk such. You can catch a glimpse of the kids literally running from one end of the house to another.









This is the other living room/dining room (since we have both sides of the duplex, that means we have two of these along with two kitchens--though I use the extra kitchen for my laundry room). This room is just as enormous as the other living room. I thought it'd be perfect for a play room (or as a wii room, as we call it around here). I LOVE the huge windows (which take up almost the entire wall). If we were actually going to be here longer, then I'd be investing in tons of curtains. As it is, this place has 26 very wide windows. So much better than the FIVE we had in our old house!


My very outdated kitchen...but oh well. It actually has lots of cabinets (there a whole other row on the other wall next to the refrigerater) and then if I still need more, then there's always my spare kitchen (which also has a refrigerater in there too).




And here's is Julia's very own room (she's loving having it all to herself!).




We're all settled in--it only took maybe a week to get it all put together. The kids adjusted wonderfully to their new school and new schedules. The ward here is nice...mostly military. And I found out that when a new military family moves in, they're typically only there for maybe 3-4 months. So if you miss a couple of weeks at church, when you go back, it's like walking into a new ward. LOL. And I thought the bishops at BYU had it bad trying to hand out callings and such.

We are sooooooo happy to be living as a whole family. I'll never take that blessing for granted ever again!

More pictures of our daily life to come soon.....

Witch Crap and Weirdry

I know it's been FOREVER since the last post...and truly, I've been meaning to get around to it, but life happens and there's always something that is needing my attention. Well, life happened just a minute ago and I simply have to share this funny tidbit......

So Julia wrote a Harry Potter chapter today. It's called "Harry Potter and the Mystery of Malfoy". She was so excited and quite frankly, I was very interested to read what she came up with (she has a very creative mind). Well, a few lines into it, she wrote how Draco's dad put a spell on him which caused him to be the mean boy at Hogwarts Witch Crap and Weirdry!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!! I could not stop laughing....soooooo funny! She read the line out loud to me and apparently she thinks it reads "Hogwarts Witchcraft and Wizardry". :) LOVE THIS GIRL!!!

Evelyn's 4th Birthday

Happy Birthday to Evelyn! She's officially 4 today but you can't convince her that she didn't already turn 4 last Saturday. :) As I said before, we celebrated by having some pizza and games at Chuck E. Cheese.

Before we get to Chuck E. Cheese though, I gotta show everyone what Evelyn spent her birthday money from Western Grandma on:



Can you say "ultimate princess package"?! The thing comes with 5 outfits, a horse, a carriage, and a prince charming (which Jacob has claimed for his own)! As a bonus, the actual package is a zipper case to put all the toys in and carry around. Here's Evelyn with her new toys all set up and ready for play. :) THANK YOU GRANDMA IN THE MOUNTAINS!!!!!!


Here she is opening her gifts at Chuck E. Cheese. She received a Little Mermaid princess package from Grammom and Papa. Fun!


Gee, look! It's one of the princess's that I had hidden under my bed.....little turkey!


Onto the rides and the games! Ryan and Marcus riding the large rocking horse.



Kyle was hooked on this racing game. All you gotta do is look at his laughing face to see how much he was enjoying himself!


Marcus being brave (and having fun) on this ride--it's a seat that goes up and around a few times. Sometimes it's scary the first time around cause kids aren't used to being up so high off the ground. But he was all smiles while being the same height as daddy.


Ok, this is just precious! Here Evelyn is all dressed up as a princess and showing a very patient, amused Uncle Rob all of her pretty gifts. He just sat there the entire time smiling and oohing and ahhing over her new toys.



Our future basketball player (one of them at least--I didn't manage to get Jacob to hold still long enough to get a really good pic of him).


Scratch that--here he is with Chuck E himself!

The Look

Ryan said he could only laugh as he read the previous post about Evelyn. He asked me if I could find a picture that has her impy look. Well, I don't have an pictures of "the look" on her face...but I have a video! Check out the look she gives behind her before she bowls....



Grr...nevermind, moving the footage from my camera to youtube totally cut down the clarity. Anyway, I think all close family members will know the gist of what her face looked like. :)