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.

Rudy

Michael was being a normal boy climbing all over the place and fell and did this to his face. He got dubbed Rudolph and then it got shortened to Rudy for a week.

Ug...Snow

We finally got snow a little bit ago (I'm playing blog catch up). Isabelle told me she wanted to go out to make snow balls. We got all bundled and had a good time outside. I found a kid snow shovel cheap, and now it's all she wants to do. "I need to go shovel, Mom" She had to shovel before we could make snow balls...She's a hoot and apparently responsible. I can't keep that girl inside even in the winter. I found her outside without a coat numerous times and she tried going out barefoot. Despite my best efforts, she did it, and then came running back saying she had cold feet. I love it when I prove that Mom actually knows what she's talking about.

Michael loved it for about 10 minutes. He first headed straight to the swings and was completely disappointed when he couldn't get in because of his snow suit. He wandered around and tried moving the water puddles with his hands. Then he proceeded to tell us how he really felt, "I no like snow balls. I go inside." He thinks snow is called snow balls. Since then we went out a few times, but he just complains that he no like snow balls and wants to go back in.

My Boys

I feel like it's so hard to get a picture of what your baby actually looks like. I always look at pictures and think, "That's not Luke." Well this is finally a good one. This is Luke. I love little church outfits!!!!!!

And so the headband thing continues...he even knows how to match his outfits.....

2!

Michael turned two last week AND he let me take a picture!!!!! We didn't do much but play. He wanted Macaroni and Cheese and hot dogs for dinner. This kid LOVES hot dogs. He's really into pirates right now. He loves the show "Jake and the Neverland Pirates." So I made a pirate cake for him and some cupcakes. While I was working on his cake I heard, "YEAH!!! NEW CARS! NEW CARS!!!!!!!! from Mike's office. He had opened one of his presents. It was a Lightning McQueen and Mater cars. He was so excited! He loves them and even likes to go to bed with them.

Another point in the day, I found him, chair pulled to the counter, digging into the cupcakes. He must be 2, can you tell?

He didn't get near as excited with any of this other toys, a car garage, game, book, wooden semi truck, and some money. He loved his new cars.

I love this little face. He makes us laugh and is really starting to talk up a storm.

I'm Back!

So I've been looking at this face. A LOT.

Turns out you don't get much done when your baby either sleeps or cries. Visions of Michael were haunting me again. There was no way we could do that again for another year. I continued to try to cut things out, peanuts, tree nuts, eggs...etc thinking it was all related to what I was eating. At his two month appointment, the dr. pointed out he wasn't vomiting, or even spitting up for that matter, and he didn't have diarrhea and was gaining weight REALLY well. Duh! I don't know why I didn't think of that. Those were Michael's major problems. She said he's just super colicky. So, I've gotten to snuggle this bundle lots and lots and haven't done much else. Oh, and I've been enjoying all my delicious foods again. Except chocolate. He screams worse with chocolate.

His two month appointment went great. He weighed in at 12 lbs. We all go flu shots and he got his 2 month shots. Isabelle was quite dramatic about the whole thing. She was so worried about Luke getting shots and he barely cried, but when she got her shot, she screamed so loud. The nurse even commented, "Wow! I think I'm deaf after that one." We were quite the family circus with the entire family at the dr. Luckily everyone was on best behavior for the most part.

A couple of days ago, it hit me that I never know what time it is with the insanity around here and that could be why he is so extra fussy. So I've been paying super close attention to the clock and the last 3 days, he's been so much better. He definitely needs a schedule. We've gotten lots of smiles, and even an couple of giggles.

A Child's Prayer

Sometimes you just never know what your kid wants until you hear their prayers. Some of the things Isabelle has prayed for over the last little bit:

• "Help me to not breathe on Luke" (She had been sick)
• "Bless Daddy to get more bubbles in his packages in the mail" (You can never have enough bubble wrap)
• "Bless Mommy to quit being mean" (Self explanatory)
• "Help me to not be scared of the dark." (Mike and I looked at each other...what? She's scared of the dark?)
• "Bless Sydney to not have to go home."
• "Bless Grandpa to not get bit by a dog." (What the?)
• "Bless Dinner to actually be yummy."

And so many others that are just as random, I wish I could remember. As funny as this is, I'm glad she understands she can pray for things that are important to her, even if they seem silly to someone else.

Michael is also starting to copy prayers. At his age Isabelle had already taken over praying at every opportunity. Even still she has a hard time sharing the center of attention. If you are ever a guest at our house, just know, even when someone else is called on, she has to pray as well. She must be a first child, or something.

The other day, I asked Isabelle to bring me something. She said, "I can't! My hands are all slobbery." She had just put on lotion. I thought that was a clever way to describe not all the way rubbed in lotion.

Happy Halloween!

We didn't get our pumpkin carved this last weekend. Well, yesterday was grouchy kid day at our house, and I spent the day consoling 3 sad faces. Finally at 5:00 while dinner was in the oven, we got it going. We made it to the scooping out part, had dinner, and then needed to get the kids out trick-or-treating before it got any colder. So I have a half carved pumpkin sitting on my kitchen floor still....our project for today. Michael was hilarious. Big surprise, he "No like yuck pumpkin. Yucky yucky pumpkin." He wouldn't even stand close to the pumpkin while we were digging out the guts. I have it all on video, and never got a picture. It was so funny! I asked him if he wanted candy, "YAH!" I told him he had to help if he wanted candy. He picked up the scoop, got close, made a face, and then proceed to tell me what all he "no like" about the situation. What a funny boy. Isabelle did a great job and loved helping me do all the scooping. Helping me finish the pumpkin was the second thing she asked for this morning. The first...candy, of course.



Here's our little fairy, blue, of course. She dubbed herself the tooth fairy. I have no idea how she even knows about the tooth fairy, but she does and that's what she was for Halloween.


Our cute little homeless bum. I can take absolutely no credit for this costume. I stole it from my sister in law, Karen. This is what Nick was. It was the best costume I found that was free. It was so stinkin cute! He got lots of good laughs. I was hoping for a better picture, but thanks to his grumpiness towards the camera, this was as good as it got.


Our cute baby elephant. Yes, this is what Michael was last year, at 11 1/2 months. It was big on Luke, but actually not very big. His hands and feet were at the very tips of the sleeves and legs. I swear these boys are going to be in the same size clothes by 2T.


Headed off with Dad for trick-or-treating, bundled in the wagon with blankets. They still only made it to all of 10 houses before they were done.


Michael came home with a bucket full of half eaten candy. When I dumped his candy bucket out, it looked like every piece had a bite through it, wrapper and all. It's fun to have kids old enough to be excited for and enjoy Halloween! Now, I'm off to finish a pumpkin!