What a Month!

What a great month!! I absolutely love this time of year!! The only problem is it has gone by way too fast and we've been way too busy! We started out the month with some more Canadian visitors!

Brooklyn and Papa watching some TV. Papa hasn't come down to Utah for 4 years, so we were very happy to have him here!

Grammy is smart and know that the key to the kids' heart is through making sugar cookies! They had so much fun pouring and mixing and of course sprinkling!

Sissy helping Grammy roll out the dough.

Trevor graduated from Nursing School on the 8th!! We are so excited to be done with this chapter in Trevor's schooling! It was even nicer to have his parents there, as well as my family for support.

Because I am an RN, I was able to "pin" Trevor at his pinning ceremony! It was awesome!

Trevor with one of his favorite teachers and his study partners at graduation. Too bad he starts school in a week for his Bachelors in Nursing! The fun never ends!

Brooklyn loved playing with Grammy!

We took the in-laws to the Aerospace Museum. Jace and Brooklyn kept wanting me to take pictures of them and I love how this one turned out. They really are the best of friends!!

Here Brooklyn is giving Grammy some "Cheeky Time". She loves to cuddle and have cheek-to-cheek time. I love it!

The kids loved to wrestle with Papa! They also enjoyed playing foosball with him. They stayed for about a week-and-a-half and left way too soon!

The next big event for the month was Jace's preschool party/program. Here's Brooklyn with Santa. Where's Jace? He was too afraid!!

After a visit from Santa we frosted sugar cookies, made crafts, and read Christmas Stories.

Jace is already a big tease to his sister! But he loves it when she's able to come to preschool activities. He wants her to be included in all the activities and is very protective over her.

Here Jace is getting ready to sing "Rudolph". He did such a good job and sang all the words!

Such a sweet boy!

Here are some of Jace's preschool friends with Mrs. Lisa. He has grown up and learned so much since starting preschool! I can't believe he'll be starting kindergarten this fall!

Next up was our ward Christmas party. Again, Sissy sat on Santa's lap but Jace wouldn't.

Kylee was happy to take Brooklyn up to see Santa and is always such a good helper and friend to the kids when she comes over.

Jace & Brooklyn the Sunday before Christmas! Such sweethearts!

Getting ready to open presents on Christmas Eve at Grandpa & Grandma Barnes'. I felt bad that all of us got presents on Grandpa's birthday! Like always, they spoiled us way to much! They kids are getting much better and sitting, smiling, and looking at the camera. They are such cheesers!

Saying thanks to Grandpa for all of the presents! They were spoiled!

Giving loves to Grandma.

Trevor and the kids on Christmas Eve night in their Christmas jammies! It was so fun getting ready for Christmas this year! The kids were so excited to leave out cookies and milk for Santa and were so anxious for his arrival! They make Christmas so magical!

I ended up taking more video of the kids than still photos on Christmas morning so I'm kind of bummed! The kids were so excited about each of their presents and were so fun to watch! Here they are cuddling in their stuffed animal-sleeping bags. I will post some pictures of their favorite toys and presents later. Santa spoiled them way too much! We had such a great Christmas!

We went to Tooele to spend Christmas day with Marc & Shelly and their family. It was so nice! The kids loved playing with their cousins! They all played on iTouches or iPhones all day! The older kids and grown-ups played several rounds of Settlers of Catan and enjoyed spending the day in our jammies and relaxing.

Here is Brooklyn cuddling with Shel!

In other news, most of you know that we're expecting a little boy due May 4th! We're excited and anxious for this new arrival! The kids are getting excited to have a new baby brother and are anxious to spill the beans to anyone who will listen! We're kind of scared to be out-numbered by kids, but we're excited to add to our family!!

Thankful

I can't believe Thanksgiving has come and gone! I think the more I anticipate events, the quicker they go by!! We started out this thankful week by having the Edmonds (aka Trevor's sister and her family) come down for a week long visit!! We love having them come for visits, the kids absolutely adore their cousins, and their cousins dote upon the kiddos all week. Unfortunately, it's become a trend that when I'm busing having fun with family, I don't take nearly enough pictures!! I've really got to get better at it, because the kids adore looking at these pictures.

They started out the week playing outside with our first real snow storm.

Here is their beautiful snowman!! When we came home from church we had a bunch of neighbor boys in the back yard building forts and throwing snowballs up the street. So the kids (sweet Chrissy went out and helped Jace & Brooklyn) went up the street to a vacant lot* to have some fresh snow. (I'll talk more about this later...)

Jace had a Thanksgiving program at school. He got to be an Indian!! I volunteered in his class with their Thanksgiving feast and the kids were a blast! I love his preschool and teacher, and better yet, he loves it too!

Here he is singing during the program. (One of the parts that he actually participated in the actions!!)

Thanksgiving day was FABULOUS!!! We had my parents, both sisters and their families, and of course the Edmonds with us....19 in total. The food was great, and the company even better.

Marc, aka Ariel. Brooklyn thought this was the funniest thing ever!

Wes and Noah. Such handsome boys!

We looked through all the ads, and formulated our plans for the next day (actually, we started that night and didn't get home until 6:00 am the next morning!).

It seems like there was a LOT of playing on the iPhones, laptops, etc. This is a frequent scene at our house. I think my kids have spent more time on my iPhone than I have!!

More playing on the computers....

And again...more iPhones! It's nice that Jen's girls get along so well with Shel's kids!

And then on Saturday, it was time to say goodbye :o(. The week went by way too fast and we couldn't believe it was already time to say our farewells. Here's Brooklyn with Uncle Kevin.

Aunty Jen got some gifts for the kids to give before she had to go. (And she left more to give to them on Christmas! She spoiled them WAY too much!)

Kisses from the little Sissy Mouse.

The girls are helping Brooklyn play her Princess Memory. Jace, on the other hand didn't want much help, he just wanted to play his own way!

Jace giving a big kiss to Kevin! He sure loved him! He always wanted to sit on his lap and cuddle him.

More kisses to Sarah.

Sarah, and Brooklyn!

**Here is the whole Edmonds family on the lot that they BOUGHT while they were here! We are absolutely THRILLED!! It's across the street and up a few houses/lots from us. We're counting down the days until they will build here and make the big move, but apparently it's going to be about 2 years....but we're hoping it will be sooner!

We also saw the new Harry Potter and Tangled while they were here, did WAY too much shopping, ate WAY too much food, and didn't play NEARLY enough games. We loved our visit, and look forward to our next set of Canadian visitors at the end of the week!

Halloween Overload!!!

We had so much fun this October! There are so many fun things to do during the fall, and we loved every minute of it! Since I'm doing a condensed post, I just chose a couple pictures from each event..

The Pumpkin Patch

This has been the third year we've gone to a local nursery where they have hayrides to the pumpkin patch and the kids are able to pick out their own pumpkins.

Here's the kiddos waiting in line. Luckily, Kylee came! She is so great with the kids and they love spending time with her.

This is the typical greeting between Noah and Jace. Jace absolutely ADORES Noah, and Noah is so sweet to put up with Jace's excessive doting.

Jace & Brooklyn standing in front of the tractor. They absolutely LOVED the tractor ride!

Jace with his prize pumpkin. I was happy that he chose one he could carry himself!!

My beautiful Brooklyn. Both of these pictures were cute enough to post.





LOVE this girl!!! We've been enjoying spending some quality "Mommy and Brooklyn" time while Jace has preschool lately. She makes a GREAT shopping partner!!





Black Island Farm

Jace had a field trip to Black Island Farms a few weeks ago, and I thought it would be fun to bring Tara and Noah along!



This picture is after they went on a hayride and learned all about pumpkins, corn, onions, carrots etc. Again, they got to pick out their own pumpkin to bring home! Noah was not thrilled about the picture, Jace is trying to make him feel better, and Brooklyn is keeping her distance!

Brooklyn playing in the "corn box". This has become a classic Brooklyn face. It's like Zoolander's Blue Steel!!

Noah LOVED playing in the corn!!

The kids also enjoyed going down the slides, feeding the llamas, watching the pig races, and jumping in the bouncy house. This is the abbreviated version!

Jace's Halloween Party

Jace had a pre-school Halloween party. Jace and Brooklyn got all dressed up, and enjoyed playing games, trick-or-treating, bobbing for donuts, etc. Jace was always so concerned about his Sis. He made sure she had a turn doing everything, and that she wasn't left out. They can be so cute sometimes!

Jace and Brooklyn. Jace decided to be a pirate, like last year, and Brooklyn decided to be a butterfly (actually, she wanted to wear her puppy costume from last year, but the pants were total floods, so she was convinced to be a butterfly!) I LOVE that they love each other (most of the time).

They had the cutest Halloween program! I was such a proud Momma!! I don't know how to upload the video, but it's the cutest thing ever! I was so proud of Jace for singing and doing the actions. It was far better than the primary program a few weeks ago when he just sat there the whole time!!!


Halloween

For Halloween we went to Tooele for Kylee's birthday. Kylee was a sweetheart and invited the kids to her birthday party at Build-a-Bear. They were in heaven! Unfortunately, I took all of the pictures with Marc's camera, and haven't gotten copies yet...

This is Jace sneaking a peak at the treats they were passing out. He elected to be spider man, and was very impressed with his muscles!

Here's Brooklyn's classic face again. I didn't get any cute pictures of her in her Halloween outfit. She was a fairy princess!

The birthday girl!!! I can't believe she's NINE!!

And little Noah spent most of the night walking around with something hanging out of his mouth!

Last, but definitely not least, here are Jace and Brooklyn trying on princess clothes. I think it's sweet Jace plays dress up once in awhile! Just as long as he doesn't go roaming the neighborhood dressed as Sleeping Beauty!

We had such a great time celebrating Halloween! This time of year is so much fun. It's just one holiday after the other! We're excited for the festivities of the next few months!