8 Months

While we were in Washington Lena turned 8 months old!  She is not crawling or cruising or even scooting.  She doesn't have any teeth.  But she is finally sitting up unsupported for longer amounts of time and eating solid foods very well (baby foods anyway).

Toys Coming Out Our Ears

I have to laugh a little about a conversation Jim and I had before we had kids.  We were at a local little league baseball game and a little girl in front of us was playing a game of house with sticks and rocks.  We decided kids don't need a lot of toys, they will use their imaginations to have fun with whatever they have, in fact they seem to prefer the sticks and rocks sometimes.  Contemplating this fact brought us to the conclusion we would not get many toys for our kids when we had them.  Yeah . .  . well, that decision didn't stick long!  Michelle and Lena already had a lot of toys before the big day, but after Christmas . . . we have toys coming out our ears, or at least spilling out the doors into the kitchen, living room, and even the cars!  They got so much fun stuff for Christmas!  The good news is, they play with it all and really are enjoying it!  It was so much fun to watch them have fun Christmas morning (and all the days since).  Thanks to grandmas and grandpas for fun, thoughtful toys (and Santa too!)  This is just a small sampling!

Santa Clause

We made it safely to Seattle for Christmas!  I don't know if I will post a lot while here or not, but we took the girls to the Tacoma Mall tonight to meet Santa Clause and when we got back I wanted to play a little with the picture in photoshop and share it.  We waited an hour to see Santa, and the girls were really good the entire time.  Of course, if we had gone in Idaho Falls there was ZERO wait time, but that's okay, we had fun in Tacoma with about 100,000 other people!

5 WHOLE YEARS

Today is the day (5 years ago) that Jim and I said "Yes."  He asked me last night if I was tired of him yet and I told him to wait another five years for that!  Of course I was kidding.  How could I get tired of the greatest husband in the WORLD!  I just want you all to know, that I know how blessed I am to have such an AWESOME man to call mine for eternity and I only hope some day I deserve him!  Happy Anniversary, Jimmy.

This is a younger, skinnier us on our honeymoon in Cabo.

How Many Birthdays Does One Two-Year-Old Need?

This video is out of place, but I couldn't get it where I wanted at the end of the post, so it's cute anyway.

The question is, how many times can you celebrate the same birthday?  Michelle got three this year!  She got the one we already wrote about at Grandpa and Grandma Moore's in St. George.

Grandpa and Grandma gave Michelle her new favorite puzzle!

Then on her actual birthday, December 3, she got a little party at home.  We skyped Grandma Jackson so she could watch Michelle open her presents from Grandpa and Grandma Jackson (and Mommy and Daddy again).

She is carefully opening her Curious George gift set.  All she wants to read now is "George."

Can't have a birthday without cake and ice cream!  So we got her a cupcake from Smith's, from which she ate the frosting, after blowing out the candle and singing a few times!

 Sunday after her birthday we had Grandpa and Grandma Thompson over for dinner and then had cake and ice cream (again) and presents.

This is the awesome Crown Rib Dinner Jim and I made from my new cookbook that my awesome mother-in-law sent me for my birthday!

Michelle is dancing as we sing Happy Birthday. Grandma Thompson made sure Lena was involved too.

Grandpa Thompson helped hand out gifts, and Josh (our friend) looked on in amusement.  (Josh pretty much ALWAYS has a smile on his face)

Josh's wife Kelsey (who also always has a smile) is Michelle's favorite person (yes, more than Mommy and Daddy).  They brought Michelle a Pooh blanket and suckers--guess which one she liked best!

We got a photo before Josh and Kelsey, and their boy McKade, had to get going!

Thankful for Birthdays

Thanksgiving time is also birthday time in our family.  This year, Thanksgiving fell on my Grandpa Moore's birthday, so we had a big surprise party with all his 6 kids and their kids (and their kids too).  There were A LOT of people.  I enjoyed seeing my family.  We stayed with my Grandma Swords, thankfully she could put up with us all.  We had family pictures Friday.  Then we headed to St. George for the rest of the weekend.  Jim and Travis got their hike in (though they got a late start of it because our kids did NOT want to sleep all weekend, so that meant we didn't get much sleep either).  Saturday we had a bit more intimate Thanksgiving dinner in St. George.  It was cool to have us almost all together, but we missed Trevor!  Michelle had a BLAST with her cousins, even beating up on Moose (Morgan, Summer's son)!  And Saturday night we had a Dorothy the Dinosaur birthday party for Michelle.  I enjoyed taking these pictures with my new camera--my birthday present from Jim and the girls!

Playing at the church with Maya, Andrew, and Ryan (and Aunt Jacqueline)

Brooke and Trevor are cheesy

Maya and Michelle

Grandma Swords holds Little Lena

We think Mike had a good time?

Michelle and Maya again

Michelle was meticulous opening presents.  Thanks you for the great gifts everyone!  She LOVES them!

Pretty Ballerina

Put the Green Cupcake back (after licking it) to get a Yellow Cupcake

Jacqueline and Andrew, Mike and Lena, Madison and Maya, Summer, and my mom with Trevor's girlfriend, Brooke (but no Trevor)

Yummy, Yellow Frosting

Do you like cupcakes Maya?

Dancing with Dorothy and the Wiggles

Aunt Summer and Michelle dance with the Wiggles

Lena was having a good time too, and the kids liked playing with her

We were back home for Micki's actual birthday, where she opened gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Jackson and Mom and Dad.  Grandpa got her a charm bracelet and mostly she LOVED the jewelery box that almost snapped her fingers off!  Grandma got her the coolest Curious George set with books and a puppet and little monkey!  She had fun with that for a while and is still enjoying it the next day.  The best part of birthdays though, if you go by her reactions, is singing Happy Birthday!

Michelle Is Big Sister

Michelle is a great big sister.  I caught this moment of her reading to Lena while I made dinner!

Old Faithful Field Trip

For one of Jim's classes he had to take field trips to several "green" buildings.  The first qualifying building in a National Park is the new Visitor's Education Center at Old Faithful in Yellowstone.  So we braved the chill and ended up having the best trip ever to the popular site.  Usually it is packed with people, but it was the last weekend being open for the season and was nearly empty.  The center was neat, Michelle especially liked the youth section.  We did a few little walks.  The air was crisp and clear and the sun was shining!  We lucked out though, because the snow moved in the next day!

Happy Halloween (A Few Weeks Later)

I just wanted to share some Halloween memories.  Jim was in Wyoming :(.  But Micki was SOOOO CUTE!

Let it SNOW!

Winter has come to Idaho Falls!  In fact, the reason this post has no pictures is because my camera is in the car, and the car is covered in snow!  Michelle likes to say "Noing" which means "It's snowing."  We are making holiday plans and birthday plans too!  Jim is working on finishing this semester of school.  Next semester he should start work on his Master's Thesis/Project, and hopefully he will be done next December! The girls are cute in their winter gear (of course).  And I have an excuse to wear hats and scarves two of my favorite accessories!

Zion's Canyon and More

I got my Taste of Home magazine for October and it had the CUTEST Halloween cupcakes.  I had to try making them.  So I got the stuff and called my friend Kelsey to come over and help.  It took 2 days to get them all done, but we had so much fun!  We took them to a couple different families in our ward, one that just welcomed a new baby and another that we both have babysat for in the past.

These are called Green Eyed Monster.  They have a marshmallow stuck on top, then green frosting put in spikes all around and a Junior Mint for the eyeball.

Kelsey is the cutest, modeling her favorite of the 4 designs (we never did make my favorite, we ran out of time and didn't get around to making the purple frosting. It's called the Purple People Eater.)

Believe it or not, these have chow mein noodles stuck in, then were dipped in melted orange frosting.  Two wheat sticks have mini marshmallows on top with brown M&Ms for eyeballs and chocolate for the lashes.

You can get this recipe free online here.

Jim had to go back to Kemmerer, WY on the 16th, so I headed to St. George alone with the girls.  We had this trip planned for a while, we wanted to go to Zion's Canyon and do some hiking, but Jim was supposed to come with us :(  Still, it was a lot of fun.  Michelle is talking more and more and loved the time with Grandpa and Grandma Moore, Aunt Madison and Uncle Travis (Thanks Travy Bear for substituting for Jim and carrying Michelle on the hikes!).  Lena just LOVED Grandpa.  Any time he spoke he had her undivided attention. We all enjoyed hiking and Micki kept us entertained, as usual.

Resting at a visitor's center after our first hike.

Just one of the beautiful views at Zion's.

Michelle tried mimicking everyone . . . here Grandma is walking backward with the video camera so Michelle decides to try it too!

Lena LOVED playing with Grandpa! (Michelle was creating mud).

Tuesday everyone was at school except my Dad, so we got to spend some quality time with him.  We went to an awesome park where Michelle was boss and Grandpa mostly did as told!

Lena had fun at the park too!

Michelle REALLY wanted to go down the BIG slide, but Grandpa was pretty nervous with her up so high.  I think they both felt better when they came back down the stairs a bit.

I love this picture, I just wish I could figure out how to zoom the camera on my phone!

We left St. George and stopped in Riverside/Tremonton to visit Grandpa and Grandma Thompson. We have to thank Grandpa for some of the BEST homemade salsa any of us ever tasted!  We were going to go on the pumpkin walk in Logan with Grandma's school class on Friday morning, but the girls (and me) slept until 9:30!  We missed the walk, but my mom reported it was AWESOME if any of you are near Logan you should check it out.  We headed home Friday afternoon and Jim came back home too! When we came home there were packages waiting in the mail from Grandma Jackson--and Halloween Cards too!  Thanks Grandma for keeping the holidays fun! (And keeping our girls well dressed!)

Michelle just woke up from a nap, and you can tell as she tries to understand what I am telling her to do.

Saturday we got to take the girls out to the pumpkin patch.  It was cold, but we had fun anyway.

Michelle tried to pick up her pumpkin of choice.

Since she couldn't lift it, she tried just pointing to the one she wanted.

When neither of those got the desired results, she staked her claim.

Lena just enjoyed the stroller ride.

Lena is 6 months old!