Make Up Artists

Sarah got some makeup and she shared.  Her and Isabelle had fun playing with it.  These pictures don't quite do it justice.  Isabelle had eye shadow ALL over her face with nothing on her eyelids.  Sarah had it perfectly on her eyelids and lips.  You can tell whose mom actually gets ready.




Sharon also painted nails with the new nail polish.  Here you can see Isabelle's cheeks and Sarah's perfect eye shadow. I had visions of years to come as 16 year olds.  Isabelle super excited for Sarah to do her makeup and teach her some tricks.

"My Pill!"

There is no fluoride in the water at our house, so our kids take fluoride pills.  Grandma put Isabelle to bed and then she frieked out that she didn't have her pill.  I didn't bother bringing them, so I explained her pills are in the water in Utah, just take a drink and that counts.  So she got a glass, put an inch of water in it and left it on the counter and explained to me that was her pills and no one can take them. Each night she got in her bed and then said, "Oh no!  I forgot my pill."  and would get out of bed take a drink of water and go right back to bed.  What a goof!

Christmas Warm Up

I put my memory card in the computer to empty it before Christmas and....left it there. Luckily Mike's parent's had one, but I definitely didn't get good pictures this year, big surprise.  Anyway, Christmas came in under budget, we got to stay at Mike's parents, see some of his family, and bless Luke.  A successful trip if you ask me. We had a great Christmas!  We quarantined ourselves (the kids and I) the two weeks prior so that we could possibly stay at Mike's parent's house (to the point Isabelle was literally bouncing off the walls in excitement for a drive to the post office drive through).  On the trip to Utah we got the phone call from his mom as long as there was no snot, his dad's levels were good enough for us to stay with them.  We drove down Thursday and came home Monday.  It was a super short trip...again, but Mike had to rush back for work.  Here are a few pictures. Stay tuned...more to come

I love this picture of Isabelle.  She loved her stocking stuff.


Michael was funny.  Here he is with his "dell phone" and Luke's soccer ball, "MY ball!"


And this is the only picture I have of Luke on Christmas morning...I know, I should be fired.


Mike's brother, Jeff had us.  He has made one of these wooden trains for the other siblings and I love it.  It was our year to get one.  I LOVE IT!!!!


Christmas morning in matching pj's with cousins. Sharon and Joe's family spent Christmas Eve at Mike's parent's too.  Christmas didn't happen until 7:15!  We all got to sleep in!

Yuke Dar Deat

A couple of weeks ago in church, Michael was being a typical 2 year old in Sacrament Meeting with 1:00 church and no nap...always a treat.  Luke, who normally slumbers peacefully the entire 3 hours in his car seat, was being unusually irritable.  I finally gave up trying to rock Luke back to sleep and pulled him out.  After a minute, Michael pointed, "Yuke dar deat." and tried getting in.  I helped him get cozy and covered him.  He sat perfectly still for 15 entire minutes.  He didn't fall asleep, but it was something new and entertaining and gave him some quiet time.  Since that day, I can tell he needs a nap or just some alone time and find him in Luke's car seat.  It's cute to see him.  He actually looks big in there with his feet hanging out.

Daddy Time

Every night after dinner while I do the dishes, it's Daddy Time.  This is when Mike keeps the kids away from me for at least 30 minutes, usually longer.  He flies his helicopter for them, wrestles, reads stories, or just snuggles on the couch for a TV show. It's the bliss that makes a cheerful bedtime routine possible for me.  It breaks up the "Witching Hour" (4:30-bedtime).  The latest treat of Daddy Time, is this early Christmas present from his parents.  We got a Lionel train set.  The kids LOVE it!  Mike and I love it just as much, I think.

"Ginger"

The yearly treat finally got done yesterday.  I love making our gingerbread house.  Isabelle kept calling it just plain ginger.  "Is it time to make the ginger yet?"  This year, I've had a rough time getting my act together.  Turns out I'm having thyroid craziness.  We'll get it figured out, but in the meantime, that means making the most of the few days I've been feeling normal.  It took me 4 days to get the gingerbread dough made, cooked, and then decorated.... impressively horrible, I know.  Not to mention I bought the rest of the candy I needed 2 weeks ago.  So Isabelle has been excitedly asking for 2 weeks for the ginger.  I'm glad we got to do it, I was feeling ok and we had a good time.  Turns out, it's a good thing we didn't do it earlier.  Just this morning, Michael has devoured a big chunk of the candy from off the house.

Cheeks full of candy for a pose as we work.

The final product...While Michael picks it apart as fast as his little hands can.




I LOVE traditions.  This is one of my favorites from growing up.  We always got together with the girls of our best friend family, the Smiths, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Us ladies had a blast munching and chatting.  Just as much candy made it in our tummies as on our houses.  Then our family would blow ours up on New Year's with an impressive amount of firepower from the boys.

Santa

Santa came to our ward party. Big surprise....Michael didn't cooperate, partially because Santa was "scary", and partially because it was almost 9pm. Either way, it was funny. Isabelle was SO excited to get to sit on his lap and asked for a baby (as in a doll, although she is asking about that baby sister again) and a car light for Michael. She's so thoughtful.

Luke has awoken to the world. I love 3 months when they realize they have hands and that little personality starts to come through and are all smiles. He is gradually getting less cranky too!

Pixie Dust

Isabelle and Michael are in love with Neverland. Isabelle stumbled upon "Return to Neverland" on TV recently. She fell in love. They found "Jake and the Neverland Pirates." Then Isabelle found the Tinkerbell movie and some of the other fairy movies. Isabelle had a friend give her this thing around her neck (pictured above). It's not a necklace, but it has Tinkerbell on it. She wears it and calls it her pixie dust. This is her pretending to fly with her pixie dust. On the Jake show, there is a girl named Izzy and she has pixie dust "just for emergencies." Yesterday at dinner she said she was running out of pixie dust, so of course she said, "We need to check online to see if pixie dust is on sale right now." HA! I love the world of pretend!

Disaster

Oh the disaster called family pictures...Picture this, Michael needs a nap, Luke 3 month old still on the floppy side, sluggish Isabelle, plus uncooperative Jake (he was awesome last year). Guess how good of a picture we got this year? We got a few ALMOSTS...

But mostly just a WHOLE TON of this...

Thank you everyone for not cooperating! Thank you Michael for being absolutely ridiculous! This was 4 different attempts. We put boys down for naps, tried again, gave Michael fruit snacks and a break, tried again. We tried outside. We tried EVERYTHING! If only they knew it could have been 5 min or less like last year.

Too bad we couldn't just photoshop Luke out of my 36 week belly from this one...

Something Happened

Literally overnight, Michael became attached to things. He's always liked his blanket to go to bed, but it's always stayed there with the exception of the occasional TV show or car ride. He now wants to carry it around all over. This blue dog was his as a baby. He didn't seem to ever touch it, so I put it away like a year ago. I pulled it out for Luke and he yelled, "MY DOG!" and has not let go of it since. And then there's "Cars and Mater." He doesn't say Lightening McQueen, it's Cars. He has to have all 4 things it seems all the time. The other night putting him to bed, he didn't have enough hands to touch everything while he got comfortable. He was a little frustrated he didn't have 4 hands. He tried to hold all of them in one hand. He finally settled on laying his head on his blanket and clutching it in one hand, Cars in the other hand, and Mater and Blue Dog touching him. It was hilarious! Funny kid.

Tis the Season

We decorated our tree. I don't know why I EVER try to get the tree and lights set up with kids awake. Every year, I think, "I'm in a good mood this will be fun." and 30 minutes later I'm a crazy person. Mike told me to write a note on the Christmas tree box: "Put together with children asleep." Anyway, I got it set up with no harm to anyone and we decorated it for FHE.

Michael LOVES the "mis mas tree." He loves the glass ball ornaments even more. After breaking two at Sharon's house, we only put non breakable ornaments on this year with the exception of our few glass ball ornaments at the top of the tree. He put all the ornaments in the exact same spot, tucked away not actually hung. He looked like a little hoarder. Ignore the orange face. We had spaghetti for dinner.

This is what Luke did the bulk of the tree decorating.

We have this reindeer riding a motorcycle that sings, "Grandma got run over by a reindeer." Michael LOVES it. He pushes the button a hundred times a day. He sits and stares and sings random words throughout and carries it all over the house.

Kid Quotes

Mike pointed out that I always put Isabelleisms and now Michaelisms on Facebook, but my blog is what I print out. So I'm going to try to do better at recording that kind of stuff here....

Michael and I were reading a Christmas book. It shows the manger scene and Michael keeps pointing at Jesus and whispers, "Baby Yuke! Shhh....Baby Yuke sleeping." He puts his fat little finger to his lips to say shhhh. It is the stinkin cutest thing! No matter how many times we talk about Baby Jesus, all manger babies are Baby Yuke.

The other day, Isabelle and I were cleaning the bathroom and I said, "Oh my! This mirror is dirty!" Isabelle said, "That's a job for the Incredible Isabelle!" She took the glass cleaner and climbed up to the counter and sprayed away. I love how helpful she is. I would not make it through a day without her.

I love my kids in Sunday clothes. This is after church waiting for dinner so it's definitely the scraggly look.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we went to Utah. The kids did well in the car. We tried not to stop too often, thanks to Isabelle giving Luke a couple of bottles on the way. The stops we did have were LONG! Gas, potty breaks, diaper changes, nursing, and grab some food, there was no getting it done in under 30 minutes as hard as we tried.

Wednesday evening, we hung out at Sharon's house and let our kids get their energy out. Our kids get along really well. It was fun to stay with them. We stayed up too late every night playing games and visiting.

Thursday morning we played and then headed to my sister's house. We were excited to have our babies together. Bradley and Luke are a week apart. This was also both Jill and my first Thanksgiving without a mom doing everything and telling us to cheese the celery. We were both nervous something was going to go wrong, but NOTHING did! It was all perfect and delicious! We both feel like real moms now that we can cook a Thanksgiving. Turns out, it's not all that hard. :) This picture was perfect turkey and perfect rolls...the two things we were most worried about.

Both Bradley and Luke were great during the dinner. I can't say the same for the mischievous looking 2 year old. But we still had a good time and it was DELICIOUS!!! Michael was grateful for chicken and Isabelle was thankful for her new baby brother.

After a bit, we walked to the BYU duck pond to feed the ducks. We stopped at a park on the way back, and then had pie.

After pie we headed to Mike's parents. Mike's dad has recently undergone heavy chemo and a bone marrow transplant and the kids can't see him yet. Mike was able to see his dad for a few minutes, kids and I stayed in the car and his mom came out to visit us in the car.

Friday morning, we headed back to Provo to meet Matthew and Casey at Jill and Tommy's house. Matthew and Casey drove up from St. George just for a few hours to come say hi and meet the nephews. It was so fun to all be together again. We all used to hang out alot when we all lived close. We went to feed the ducks again and stopped at the park again.

We played a little longer with Jill, Tommy, and Bradley then headed to Eagle Mountain to see a couple of friends.

My mom got the boys coordinating outfits when they were born, so of course, we had to take pictures! Bradley is definitely bigger! He is so cute and vocal!

Saturday was Mike's family day. His brother's family and mom came down for an evening of pizza and fun. Of all the fun things we did at Sharon's this is the only other picture I have....I was carrying my camera with me constantly and this is it? Seriously! The kids played and played and played, inside, outside, screaming, and screaming louder (there was nothing quiet about us there). We had so much fun! It was hard to leave family and friends to come back to reality here in Washington.