Merry Christmas!

Have a very merry Christmas! 

Oh yeah, and happy (late) Thanksgiving!

catch up

I don't like playing catch up, but since I've kind of skipped the past -almost- 3 months of our lives, I figured it'd be nice to do a post about the important stuff.

Instagram has recently taken over my life and I don't even pull out my camera anymore...  (for shame!!)

so here are a few fun ones, if you didn't see them.

We recently adopted an elf into our family.  His name is Scout, and the kids love him and already have behaved better under his watchful eye.

We attended a Romney rally downtown.  We were sad he didn't win the election, but it was fun and exciting being there to (sort of) see him! 

Nate and I got a surprise date night when some sweet ladies he works with offered to watch the kids for us.  We will be going back to Cool Basil.  Sometime.  It was delish.  :)

 We went to Kennedi's first parent teacher conference.  Her cute teacher had nothing but great things to report, and we are proud of our good student!

We had a fun Halloween.

and Griffin turned 3 months...

then 4 months... and next will be his 5 and now 6 month picture!  Yikes.

Right now we are preparing for our Thanksgiving meal, and then we will be getting ready for the 16 hour drive home for Christmas.  We can't wait.

and so it begins...

Things are very different around here... 

 We don't sleep in anymore...  (ever)

We have homework to do, snacks to buy and take, projects to do...

 lunches to pack...

 and lots of praying that this little girl makes good friends, has fun, learns a lot and stays safe all 6 hours she is at school everyday.

We love our kindergartner.

*sniffle sniffle*

shopping with the kindergartner

This past Saturday I had a date.  A date with a Kindergartner.  

Nate and I decided to schedule solo time with the kids, to have a special day every once in a while just for them.  

Kennedi and I wanted to spend ours school shopping, since school starts in just weeks - August 15th.

 I remember being excited to go school shopping with my Mom.  It was something I always looked forward to.  Now I'm doing it with my own daughter!  

Scary!

Whenever we go to the mall she requires a stop at Bath & Body Works.  She has to smell every scent, and then she makes me smell every scent.  Then she samples lip gloss.

She ended up picking out some sparkly pink hand sanitizer to go in her backpack.

She gets pretty silly when she's excited.  She was having "the best day ever" (as she says) and was dancing, posing and twirling around to prove it.

 She got a few cute things for school, and she's already asked me to wear almost all of them.  BUT - just like my Mom told me, I said she had to wait.  Ha Ha.

I have a pretty cute and awesome shopping partner.  

I'm going to have a heart attack on her first day of school, I just know it!  :)

two months

He's 2 months old now... already.

And his temperament has definitely changed.

He was always so quiet and peaceful in the beginning, and now he goes from being just fine to flat out angry in about 2 seconds.

 He just started smiling and talking a lot this week, and he's starting to pay attention to things around him.  He has this wide eyed/curious/alarmed look on his face a lot.

And angry again.  He's got some lungs I tell ya!

Kennedi took this picture for me.  Can you see the red tint to his hair?

We wonder if it will stay...  and his eyes are looking more blue every day.  Still no green eyed baby for me!

This kid is definitely loved.  

happy July

Our 4th started out with tie-dyed red & blue waffles for breakfast,

then quickly moved to swimming out back.  

Actually - covering their bodies with colored bubbles.

 We went to the city parade, which was in the evening and was awesome!  I think they all should be at that time.  It was still hot, but not as hot as it would've been in the middle of the day.

Waiting for them to start chucking the candy.

 They literally got more candy than they do on Halloween.

They loved it.

As for fireworks, we headed to the same park we went to last year where we know the fireworks are pretty awesome.

Messing around, watching the fireworks on the grass instead of on the blanket.

Happy 4th!

On the 24th we had a fun Pioneer Day activity at the church.  The kids got to decorate their bikes for the "pioneer trek parade",

and follow the leader of the company while listening to some stories as they crossed the "Mississippi".

 Then we got to have fun eating watermelon (and spitting the seeds),

and playing games like the stick pull, jacks, and jump rope.

Kennedi with her good friend Molly.  They will start school together next month!

We love July holidays!  We hope everyone had a fun one.

Now we can't wait for the Corn Festival!! 

visitors

We were lucky to have visitors for Griff's arrival, which meant we got to spend some much needed time with Aunt Kylee, Grandma, Papa and Grandma Reta.  

It'd been a whole year since we'd last seen them!

They spent so much of their time swimming, they were all starting to look like fish.

At Monkey Joes, their other favorite past time.

To make room for Griff, we got some bunk beds that were a real pain joy to put together.  Good thing we had Grandma to help us.  ;)

All the boys in Cord's new big boy bed.  He was pretty proud.

There's always something to learn with Papa.  Wish we were closer so my kids could be smart!  

The babies always love Grandma Reta.  

Taking turns holding the baby.  

Eating out at Zombie Burger.  Delicious.

Liberty Jail

Grandma Reta teaching me how to make her infamous pies!!  So delicious.  

No matter how many times I try, they still won't taste as good as hers. 

Being served in Grandma and Grandpa's "restaurant".  

And Griff being pampered and adored by some of his biggest fans.

Yes, he's enjoying every minute of it. 

We had so much fun while they were here, and it was hard to see them go.  Those two ^ helped me with everything, I never had to lift a finger.  They made having a third baby a cinch!  I could never thank them enough.  

Thank goodness we'll be seeing them all again in Utah in just a little less than a month.

Hooray!