Allie's Fashion

Allie will put anything on her head! This choice is a pair of underwear!

Allie frequently gets her shirt stuck on her head, and she loves it
Upside down sunglasses
The backwards baseball cap, very cool!
One slipper, one snow boot, mismatched jammies (her choice) and the backwards cap - with the tag sticking out, she is one stylish chick!

Movie Night

It's really nice when you find a movie that pleases every kid!
FYI The Iron Giant

What's Emma Standing On?

Believe it or not Emma is standing on eggshells. Nine of them to be exact, and no, they are not cracking! Emma stood on the shells for over a minute and only one shell cracked a tiny little bit!

This is what Emma did for her science fair project with Michael. They cracked eggs in half and tested their strength on the pointed side and then on the dome side. On the pointed side using a group of four eggshells it took 16 books to crack and 30 to collapse. On the dome side using four eggshells it took 15 books to crack and 25 to collapse. SO - it seems the pointed side of the eggshell is stronger!
Emma won 3rd place at the science fair at her school, so she gets to go to regionals! Way to go Emma!!!!

Michael Stops Shaving

This is Michael after about a month of not shaving. I am currently in Seattle. Michael's mom had surgery and I came up to help her out. I am here all by my self! A friend of mine took care of the kids during the day for the first week and this week Michael took work off to be with them. So, yes, I am in Seattle without my family and it's been almost two weeks! Can you imagine the quiet I have been enjoying? Michael's parents told me I would get bored and sick of the quiet. Well, I miss my kids and husband very much, but I am not sick of the quiet yet! I will be back home on Saturday and I am very excited!

Congratulations Emma!

Today was an awards assembly for the 4th graders. Emma received an award for perfect attendence for the quarter, and she was on the Superintendents Honor Roll which means all A's and good citizenship. Great job Emma!

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Today is Jacob's birthday. He is three now. All he wanted for his birthday was a Thomas the train cake. The girls even asked him if he wanted presents and he said "No, I want a Thomas cake!" He got a skateboard which is his favorite gift, and also Allie's favorite gift, she rode it around for an hour after he opened it and screamed like a crazy girl when she had to get off. I may be making a trip to the toy store to pick up a 2nd skateboard for Allie, for no reason but my own sanity, and keeping the peace.

Soccer

Emma played soccer this past year and had a great time. Her team made it to the playoffs and they ended up getting 4th place. When you consider that in 17 years of soccer in our town, no girls team has ever even made it to the playoffs, this is a pretty big achievement for them!


Emma was also chosen to play on the All-Stars team. They played three very good games, but did not make it to the All-Star playoffs. They tied two games and lost one. All of the girls played very well, and Emma was awesome as defender and keeper. Emma is not ready for it to be over but I am glad for a break from soccer for a while!

Bat Girl

Allie likes Jacob's mask almost as much as he does!

Congratulations Gracie!

Today Gracie received two awards at school. One was for perfect attendence for the 2nd quarter, and the other was for academic excellence in all areas! We are so proud of her!

Way to go Emma!

At the begining of the year, Emma signed up to participate in the oral language event at school. She had to memorize a poem or short story and perform it using facial expressions and hand motions in front of a panel of judges. She entered in two catagories. She did a serious solo and a humorous group. The competition was in December. Her group won first place in the school level, and her solo won second place. All of the first place winners got to go to the regional level. At regionals her group took third place. It was fun to watch her perform! Emma had tons of fun and is already looking for an entry for next year.

Kids say the darndest things!

Today was a bad day for injuries for Jacob. He had several. The highlight was separating the frenulum between his gums and his lip. He got hit in the face by Gracie's head. His lip was bleeding and he bit his tongue. His injuries were not funny, but his response was. He finally stopped crying enough to be coherent and said "Mommy, I broke my tongue!" He sticks out his tongue and says "See it's bent!"
Emma and I did really well not to laugh, but it was hard.

Our little escape artist

On Christmas Eve Allie figured out how to get out of her crib. We thought she would keep doing it, but she didn't - until tonight. We put Jacob and Allie to bed and left the room like we always do. Next thing we hear Jacob screaming from his room and we hear Allie laughing and running down the hall. She had climbed out of bed and closed their bedroom door (which Jacob hates). So we put her back in bed and 15 seconds later she was running down the hall again. It amazes me to think that Gracie could do this at 10 months and her crib was even harder to get out of!

Temper, Temper!

The following is our funniest Christmas morning story. Jacob opened a present that had a Lightning McQueen backpack in it. He thought it was cool. Allie thought it was very, very cool and attached herself to it. I knew Allie was getting a bag of her own so we had her open it. The following pictures don't quite capture the moment very well, but it's the best we have.


Jacob's Car backpack




This is Allie opening her princess bag




It's out of the box now




You can see she is upset




This picture is right before she chucks the princess bag across the room. She immediately runs over and grabs Jacob's bag and hangs on to it for the rest of the morning. I made the mistake of getting her a bag without wheels or backpack straps. She let us know she was not happy! It was SO funny!

Christmas 2008

11 Years

Friday December 19th was our anniversary. Michael and I have been married now for 11 years! It goes SO fast. We went to a movie. Seven Pounds. Neither one of us recommend it. Michael got sick from the operation scenes and I almost had to carry him to the car. Thankfully after a drink of pop he felt better and was able to get himself to the car and we went to dinner. Claim Jumper just opened here a few months ago so we went to check it out. The food was good but the restaurant was very noisy. No quiet dinner for us. We had fun going out together, it is a rare occasion. Thanks so much to Noelle for babysitting our adorable crazy kids!

My first snow!

OK I'm Ready

It's Cold!

Okay I'm done!

My toes are cold!

Christmas lights & snow!

The lights look even prettier with the snow!

Snow at our house!!!

The kids had a blast in the snow!

Allie

I love Allie's smile!

Merry Christmas!

Decorating the tree

We had a great time decorating our tree this year. Jacob had one favorite branch that he hung all of his ornaments on, and Allie takes them off faster than we can put them on!

Is it Batman? or Superman?

Jacob's favorite outfit.
Santa Claus jammies
Superman cape
Batman mask

2007-2008

Dinosaurs and an Apostle

The day after Thanksgiving we went to the Dinosaur Museum in St. George, Utah. The kids love it there. This trip was very memorable. We met Dieter F. Uchtdorf, The Second Counselor in The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Michael recognized him and said hello (I was chasing Jacob). He told Emma and Gracie "This is Elder Diederdorf" and they shook his hand. Michael then said "He works with President Hinckley" (President Hinkley passed away at the begining of the year). Michael came and asked me if I saw him and then told me what he said. He was very embarrassed. I told him that President Uchtdorf is probably used to people getting his name wrong and he felt better about that. And for the President Hinckley remark I told him that President Uchtdorf probably just thinks he is inactive.

Our very first blog!

We have decided to try blogging as a way of letting family and friends see what we are up to.