Christmas Sunday

I don't really know if today would be considered Christmas Sunday, but since we had our Christmas program in church that is what I'm calling it. I was going through the pictures I took today in an attempt to get some shots of the kids all dressed up for church...where is my husband when I need him???? Jer, I know you're gonna look at these and find lots of little distractions, but please, please, please, don't tell me. I already look at the pictures and tell myself everything I could hear Jeremy saying as he looks. I'm being grateful that I was able to even get the kids ready early enough to get a few shots at all and still show up to church 30 minutes early. So... here they are...my sweet little munchkins in their Christmas duds trying their best to sit/stand still for 5 minutes!!Jace wasn't sad in this picture, I just took it at end of his very long "CHEESE!"After a bunch on the couch I decided that a change of position might be better.This is funny because I was all wiped out from being so energetic for our photo shoot (it is a lot of work to get all the kids to smile and look at the camera at the same time) that I decided we had enough pictures. The kids sat on the floor and Jessie said, "Mom, take a picture of me and Jace." Well, Janie jumped in and then Joseph and this ended up being just as good as any of them!

Oh how I love those faces!

School Concerts, Gingerbread Houses and Christmas Trees, Oh My!!!

It is definitely the busy time of year again. We have been going, going, going and hardly stopping to take a breath!! Joseph and Janie both had a little concert at school this year and it was so much fun watching them sing. They get so excited to get dressed up and perform for everyone.

We decorated our Christmas tree for Family Home Evening one night and the kids LOVED it. I let them do almost all of it. I just handed them the ornaments. Of course it has been rearranged about 40 times since then because Little J loves to take the decorations off a lot!

We also spent some time over the weekend decorating our Gingerbread house. One day I'm going to get organized enough to do REAL gingerbread houses like my Mother in law. She makes the gingerbread and puts the whole thing together, has TONS of decorations and ideas etc... It is so much fun!!! Until then...it's the gingerbread house kit. It still turned out cute, the kids loved it and it made my life just a tiny bit easier:)

Here are a few pictures from these different activities.There were so many people trying to get pictures and talk to their kids that I had a hard time getting a picture of Joseph. I think it is so cute that he leaned to the side so I could get this one. I kept hollering at him, but he couldn't hear me. He finally looked up and saw me trying to take a picture and just posed so cute.Janie was totally still just waiting for me to take as many pictures as I could. I think I could use a little red eye reduction...The star and her biggest fan!!So happy with their hard work. Way to go kiddos!!Our lovely gingerbread house. You wonder why my 4 yr old has a black eye??? Even though she is known for being feisty it is NOT because she got into a fight at school. She fell off her bed when she was sleeping and hit her eye on the corner of her nightstand. Poor thing. A nice old man felt sorry for her while we were at the post office (what would I be doing at the post office in December???) and gave her a dollar to buy a special treat:)This is a picture of the nice side of our house. The other side was a little MORE decorated.

I might try and upload a couple of videos of the kids singing for Jeremy and our Grandmas and Grandpas.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Goodbye Daddy

Today we drove out to base on crazy ice covered roads to say goodbye to our Dad who is heading out for a little while. The kids were great and LOVED doing crafts, getting sack lunches, coloring books and a hundred other little things that I stuffed in my pockets and diaper bag.

Here is a cute picture that I took just before we pulled away from his squadron. Little 'J' is always happy with a bag of cheetos. That bag got us almost all the way home and we were driving slow too!We love you Daddy and miss you already. See you next year:) (meaning January of 2011)

Oh, I promise Joseph's shirt was clean when he put it on....

The Latest Happenings

A few recent pics from completely unrelated events!!!Here is the littlest 'J' posing for a picture! He won out and got to keep that crazy binki in his mouth.Some friends of our hosted a Murder Mystery Dinner that was tons of fun. Here we are in costume just before the whole thing started. What did I learn??? Well, other than who committed the crime, I learned that I REALLY need to brush up on my Swedish accent!The latest craft of the fall holiday. This was easy, fun and it looks cute too! I LOVE,LOVE,LOVE fall!!!!We've had freezing rain for the last two days so Fairbanks is a gigantic sheet of ice. What does that mean? It means NO SCHOOL and SNOWMEN!!! The snow is usually too dry and powdery to even make a snowball, but with all of the rain we have WET snow!!!! YAY for snowmen! On top of that, it has been warmer(hence the rain and not snow) so we could stay outside for hours and not get cold!!!!Daddy and the kiddos posing with our snow creation. He is just a few inches taller than Jeremy, the biggest snowman either one of us has ever made:) It was so much fun too! Of course we had a few snowball fights during the building of this guy and lots of running around in the snow. Janie could barely run in it without falling down because it was up to her thighs. Such fun for the kids to play outside.

Halloween Time

I have got to get these Halloween pictures up before Thanksgiving! We were lucky enough to have Jeremy home for Family Home Evening the week of Halloween so we were able to carve our pumpkins together. The fun thing for us this year is that two of our pumpkins came from our very own garden!! Yay for long summer days!!
Jace was hilarious. He kept scooping up everything that Jessie had put into the bowl and dumped it all back into her pumpkin!Halloween costumes this year were a little odd. Jessie was going to be a doctor and Joseph a Ninja. The day before they both changed their minds. Joseph wanted to be a cowboy and Jessie wanted to be a hiker? Who wants to be a hiker???? Anyway, makeshift costumes from what we had in the house already was this year's theme!Since Halloween fell on a Sunday we decided to celebrate a little differently. We had a special Halloween dinner. We ate bugs in a blanket, Jack 0 Lanterns, bones, and gremlins for dessert, all with some slime to wash it down. The kids had fun wrapping up the bugs and cutting out the Jack O Lanterns too:)

BUSY!

My life seems very busy to me. I think about updating this blog often, but I have just been trying hard to be vigilant in other areas. Here is my attempt to catch up. Just some of my favorite pictures since July. We've had three birthdays. Janie turned 4 in July, Joseph turned 8 in August and Jessie turned 6 in October. I guess I'd better get started.
We had Janie's b-day party at the park and it was a PERFECT day!! Such easy clean up too!
Don't be fooled by Janie in this picture. These are the cupcakes Joseph requested for his birthday. Janie was just modeling because the birthday boy was at school!
For Jessie's birthday she asked if she could have caramel popcorn instead of cupcakes at school. She decided that cupcakes were too messy. Her teacher was grateful too:) Jessie was so excited to have Janie and Jace there to celebrate!
We had a swimming party for Jessie on her b-day and then her friends came over after for cake and presents. These are her closest friends here. She LOVES to spend time with them!!
This was taken one Sunday before church. I thought my boys looked so handsome. I love Jace and all of his girly sippy cups.

We spent as much time as possible outside over the summer. Here we are doing our weekly marshmallow roast. I look at this picture and can't believe how blessed I am to have such a sweet family.

Next to come will be our Halloween post! Stay Tuned....

A Little More Summer

We had 28 tons of rock delivered to our driveway and spent MANY hours spreading it. The kids were lucky enough to be invited to the neighbors for a few hours which made our work a bit faster. Jace stayed with us and helped every minute. He threw rocks, fell in rocks, and ate rocks!! He loved everything about it. Definitely a boy!!!The only picture from swimming lessons that really turned out was this one. This little guy really is a trooper. He sat in that stroller for two hours every day for two weeks straight. We HAD to find things that would entertain him!The kids have also enjoyed jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath for a quick cool down. We haven't really had that many HOT days, but yesterday was beautiful so we turned the water on and let them play.Jace didn't love it as much as we though he would.What he does love though is his little slide. He would play on that for hours and hours and have the time of his life. What a sweet little man.
After the trampoline I tried to see if Jace would like just the sprinkler, but he really didn't even want anything to do with it. Janie had a blast and didn't care how cold the water was at all!It has been a fun summer. The kids participated in a reading program and just got their free books yesterday. We woke up this morning to a big moose trying to eat our radishes out of our garden. No picture though because Jeremy chased him away. SAVE THE RADISHES!!!! Too bad I didn't get a picture of him chasing the moose away. It was a pretty funny:) He came home just in time. I haven't had one moose in the garden the whole time he has been gone and now just hours after being home one shows up. Welcome home hon!

July 4th!!!!!

Today is my FAVORITE holiday!!! The kids and I have been trying to do some fun things to celebrate Independence Day here in North Pole where the sun never goes down and we won't get to see fireworks. We have been hearing fireworks today which has been fun, but for some reason it just isn't the same for a family who is used to having a HUGE celebration with a massive firework show over the lake at the cabin each year.We went to a little parade they had in town with a bunch of friends from the ward. The kids got lots of candy and enjoyed waving their flags around.

We made some "Fourth of July Guys." My mom and sister came up with this little crafty fellow and so we decided to follow suit and join in on the fun. Joseph and Jessie LOVED making them. Joseph actually made his and Janie's while she napped. They turned out cute and the kids enjoyed waking up to them this morning.Oh how I just want to kiss those sweet faces!!!! I love, love, love how Janie's fingers are touching Jace's arm and how his chubby little hand is resting on her lap. It just makes my heart melt!We didn't do Easter outfits this year so we did patriotic instead! Wow! All four kids smiling and looking the same direction at the same time. What a wonderful day!! We came home from church and drank sprite with red ice stars (out of crystal goblets too:)!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!

Summer Time!!

For Father's Day we decided to make a special meal for Jeremy. He had been fishing the week prior so I baked up some Halibut for him. I told him that I was showing how much I really loved him because not only did I cook fish IN my house, but I also ate it and didn't fix anything else. Well, the kids and I decided that we'd also grill for him, but this time we thought it would be fun to grill dessert. It turned out quite tasty too!

This is actually an idea I got from the Family Fun magazine and I thought it looked like such a great idea. It was easy and the kids got to do most of it! We love our dad and our grandpas too!!


We've had a bunch of fun this summer. We've had some swimming lessons, Tae Kwon Do camp, and 3 day trip to Valdez where we went on a glacier cruise. We were able to see some breath taking sights and amazing wild life. Those of you who know our family well know that I sometimes bring my camera along but even when I have it, I don't take pictures because Jeremy takes enough for all of us. I'll try and get some of his shots from the cruise and post them soon.

We look forward to more swimming lessons, sports camp, and some camping before school starts again in August.

Our Little Lion

I brought out a couple of costumes that I bought for Joseph when he was little. It was way too hot in Florida and Okinawa for them so they've never been used. Jace has taken a liking to the Lion costume. It is so funny to watch him with the hat, he has me put it on him, takes it off, and then asks me to put it on again. He did this over and over for about 30 minutes the other day. Anyway, I was able to get one shot of him before he pulled the hat off and it turned out kind of cute, minus the runny nose :)A couple of other fun shots from recent days or semi recent days are as follows: On Easter Sunday we were watching conference and this was the last 5 minutes of the morning session.
How many people can you get around one little tiny screen to watch a You Tube video????Swimming lessons and soccer season are coming up so we'll have some more shots soon.

Catching Up!

I wonder how many blog posts I have labeled "Catching Up" or something like that. It seems that when I go through my pics there are always a few sporadic shots that I'd like to put on the blog, but don't really go with any specific event or theme. Here are a few of those:So, Jessie has a stuffed dog names Shasta. It is the ONLY stuffed animal she owns that isn't named Chance. She had a best friend in Oklahoma named Chance and she names everything after him still. This is a translation of what she wrote above. "Shasta the law dog has a job in a house baby, because I own her." My favorite part is "I own her." That is exactly how we slur all of our words together and it definitely should be spelled I ONR don't you think?This was on St. Patrick's Day. The Leprechauns brought the kids some little treats and left them in their shoes. Anyway, they left their footprints all over the floor and they turned the milk green. Joseph thought it was awesome to have "Leprechaun milk" and Jessie wouldn't eat her cereal with it, not even one bite!!The kids were on a bowling league during the winter and they had their awards ceremony a couple of weeks ago. Here they are with their trophies and happy faces. How about Janie's trophy? She wants to be in every picture so she grabbed the closest thing to function as her trophy:)

Jace was playing with Jessie's tutu the other day and I think it entertained him for about 15 or 20 minutes. I guess it was the new texture along with the silly thing getting caught under his feet every time he tried to walk. It was so funny watching him play and giggle.

That ought to be enough random shots for now. More to come!!!

The Little Man Turns 1!!

Jace turned one a couple of weeks ago. I have mixed feelings about him being all grown up. He is so much fun, but I can't believe how time has flown this last year. We kept things real low key, just had a couple of friends over for cupcakes and social time. Jace wanted NOTHING to do with his cake which is kind of crazy and very unlike him. He just wanted to get down and play with his toys.That little dab of chocolate on his mouth was all he ate and it didn't even really make it in his mouth.

Happy First Birthday Little Man!!!