January in a Nutshell

Just an update on our January happenings. The kids spent time outside sledding. We had a few warmer days so we took the chance to go out!

Joseph got this marble maze for Christmas so he and I built it, which was lots of fun.

We have a lady we know here who paints faces and offered to paint the kids so she could practice. This is Joseph's dragon.

We played lots of games that the kids got for Christmas. This one is Hoopla. It is a crack up:)

Jessie's goldfish face.

I don't know exactly what this is, but Janie thought it looked Princess-y so she chose it!

Janie modeling the Valentine's Day candy necklace she made for her teacher (in Feb. NOT Jan.)

The Jaceman sledding.

We thought we'd try a new do to match the Jack O Lantern Jammies.

I love those little teeth:)

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....