Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Merry Christmas... and some other things!

Where do I begin.  We've been in Antarctica Rexburg for about a month now.  We've had so much going on, I don't know where to start.  Bare with me as I attempt to chronicle the past few weeks.  Our first note worthy event was the loosing of Anna's first tooth. We discovered at a check up at the dentist that her bottom two permanent teeth were actually starting to come up behind her baby teeth, sometimes referred to as "shark teeth," I later found out after a Google search. The dentist assured me that it was actually very common and that once her baby teeth were out, her grown up teeth would just move forward.  Anyhow, with help from a little dental floss, dad was able to get that baby out and Anna was a buck richer the next morning.  Her other loose tooth though has been hanging there for weeks, as she won't let dad touch it.  It is driving us all crazy just hanging there but no amount of bribing or coaxing or making up stories that it is going to get infected and turn green has convinced her to let dad take a crack at the other bottom tooth.

The amount of snow that has fallen has been so exciting. I really do love it. I think it makes things just feel more like Christmas.  It can be a pain trying to get out the door with a ba-jillion layers on, but it hasn't been as bad as I thought.  The girls love it!  Aaron is getting good at shoveling the driveway and using the snow blower as Alain has the cleanest driveway around.  The neighbors are also recipients of this great service as we often find Alain and Aaron at the neighbors cleaning their walks as well.

We spend a lot of time just hanging out probably driving my mom batty with the noise and the little messes and her never being able to find her phones etc. :)  We've had fun though cooking and baking and crafting.


Brooklyn has been Papa's shadow whenever he is home. She'll find me and inform me that she's headed to the shop to hang out with Papa.  She wants to follow him outside if he is snow blowing and sit right next to him whenever he is working on a project.  Here they are working on Nana's tree.


Here is our little button.  Can I just say one more time what a sweetheart he is?



  Here you are witnessing a small miracle as we captured all of the kiddos smiling at the same time!
A quick smile from Anna before she leaves for school.
She is loving school and adjusted very quickly.  She was able to participate in her classes Christmas program as a Christmas tree, and was so excited that even dad was able to leave work to be able to come see her perform. She loves that they get to play in the snow at recess and even forgave me when I forgot to pick her up on early day, and she was left out in the heavy snow by herself for 25 minutes until someone found her and called me.

Mom of the year right?
My mom has some of the prettiest Christmas decorations. We spent all day just after Thanksgiving getting out bin after bin .  It was a lot of work but so worth it.  I love her gingerbread man collection.  The girls had so much fun helping her decorate her tree.  She was very patient as Brooklyn kept putting all the ornaments in one spot.





Anna loves to hold Carter any chance she gets. I always warn her to be careful holding him over her, especially right after he eats.  He is lucky to have such great big sisters who are always looking after him.
Nana got Brooklyn to work doing the dishes
My gorgeous mom and the boy :)
Carter loves his papa
The other day I found Anna scribbling away on a leftover piece of wrapping paper. She was looking very serious when she told me that she was writing on her scroll.  She came to me when she was done and read me what she wrote. What a sweet heart.

"I know my Savior lives. He is my best brother. I love him.  I know he saves us. I know he is my Savior.  I know his birthday is on Christmas eve.  I love him very much."
Anna was also selected to be the person of the week in her class. We needed to trace out her body and decorate it to look like her and write facts about her on the limbs. I hesitate to even post a picture of our finished product because Aaron and I obviously lack any artistic talent what-so-ever. (Don't judge us Brad and Andy :) She had fun decorating it  though and sharing it with her class.
Do they have a great Papa or what? 
Papa's Nail Salon!

Would someone like to tell me when my little Brookie Cookie grew up. I don't like it!

Aaron's job is going very well here. He says how great it is to work on a tax return and have it filed in two days instead of months at his other office. It has been so nice to have him so close that he can come home for lunch and be home for dinner by 5:30.  I laughed the other day because he went to go on an audit for a potato farmer they do taxes for.  He went to count potatoes...... all day. He said he had never seen so many potatoes in all his life. It really is another world here and we love it.  We love being near Aaron's parents and Aaron's little sister Jenn and her family as well. Our kids are going to be so spoiled!  The small town feel is so nice even though we miss our friends so much.  I hope to make new friends here and will cherish all those who changed our lives forever by knowing them.

We are so blessed to have the gospel in our lives.  We love our Savior whose birth we celebrate this time of year.  We wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Adventures of "Clark!"

This is Clark. He belong to an adorable little 4 year old in our house.  He was named after our friend's little boy.  He is practically part of our family.  He must be found at movie watching time, dinner time, and always bedtime.  We find our little Clark in the funniest of places sometimes and I wanted to share.


Here is Clark gazing at the baby Jesus in the manger. Well actually it is more like the sheep but......

Here is Clark hanging out in a Christmas tree. When we asked Brooklyn what he was doing she said very serious,  "Well, monkeys do live in trees!"

Here is Clark playing dress up in a beautiful pink number, while gazing out the window at the newly fallen snow.
Last but not least Clark has found a new friend in the adorable, squishy, smiley, pumpkin we call Carter!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

the boy

Saturday, November 27, 2010

giving thanks


We had a wonderful thanksgiving

I am so grateful for all of my blessings including my sweet husband and my little munchins

Looking forward to Christmas and what the upcoming year will hold for our family


Monday, November 22, 2010

welcome to rexburg


After receiving some news that a rather large storm was headed for Rexburg Sunday afternoon, we decided to brave the trip in one day, arriving in Rexburg just after midnight. I am sure glad that we did.  The snow started to fall early afternoon and didn't stop until the next Morning.

The girls were so excited and wanted to play in the snow right away.  We rounded up as much snow gear as we could and sent them out.  Needless to say after about a half hour, they were back in with frozen little toes (they were wearing rain boots) and today we headed to the store to get some genuine snow gear to keep them warm this winter.

Aaron had so much help getting everything unloaded and we're still trying to get settled. We feel so blessed to have so many people who helped make this move a smooth one.  You'll never know how thankful we are!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

its official

I posted a few weeks back about our upcoming move, but Aaron said I should probably wait to post until he told his work. Well yesterday he gave his notice.

It's official

We are moving to Rexburg

We've always kind of known that we wanted to head back to Idaho but I have to admit when we found out we were going to be moving back I had a lot of mixed emotions.  We really have loved our time here in Oregon and will miss so many things. We are looking forward though to Aaron not having a 2 1/2 hour commute each day, and being so close to grandparents and cousins. 

We've had a lot of people tell us, when they hear we are going to Rexburg say,
"Do you know how cold it gets there?"

Yes

Isn't it going to be wonderful though

Think of all the great stories I'll have to share about the Antarctic cold and snow we'll get!
Our move date is just before Thanksgiving.  This will be our 8th move in 8 years of marriage. Yikes!
I can't wait to buy a house and really settle down for once.

Monday, November 1, 2010

the festivites- part 2

Anna in her classroom

halloween alwasy stresses me out. This year I decided to start early this year so that I wasn't scrambling at the last minute. It seemed to work and we had a really great year. I feel like a bit of a slacker mom because I have no pictures of Carter. I think he was asleep in his car seat during every activity. Sorry buddy!

            Anna with her best buddy Sage
 Anna during the hallway parade
 Anna's teacher was very kind and let Brooklyn sit by Anna and participate in the class party. Brookie was so excited to be included.
 Our little spider. I loved how her costume turned out even though her little arms did get pretty tired holding up all those arms!
 walking to dad's office






At the ward party

Happy Halloween!

the festivities-part 1

Our friends threw an amazing costume party last week for Halloween.  Aaron went as an Amish man and I went as a totally awesome 80's girl!  It look me 2 hours to crimp my hair but it was worth it!



Some of my best gal pals
before we left.... compliments of the babysitter

Sunday, October 24, 2010

my boy

Our little Carter is 3 months old now
What a joy he still is
He is smiling and laughing and cooing and talking

He has been sleeping great sense about 6 weeks old. Most nights I am only up once to feed and sometimes i get lucky and he sleeps all night.  Oh how that makes a mama happy!

The girls love him so much. Anna loves to hold him and kiss him and try to make him laugh. I have to watch them though because sometimes they think the harder they shake him the harder he'll laugh.  It is a miracle these little babies survive older siblings.

We feel so blessed to have Carter in our family. I thank my Heavenly Father that he is healthy and strong. I am trying to count the simple yet so important blessings I have in my life.

My favorite thing in the entire world is going to get Carter after he's woken up.  He smiles and kicks his legs frantically. He looks like a little burrito all swaddled up. 
Look at those cheeks
He loves his baths so much.


Sunday, October 10, 2010

10-10-10