Friday, February 13, 2015

Pre Christmas

Decorating the Christmas tree!  I love that the kids are just as excited as I am to decorate for Christmas!  It was fun to decorate our house this year!
The boys do a great job hanging the ornaments

Even Naomi was a good helper!
Naomi decorating herself.
Peter's turn to put the star on the tree!

I tried my hand at making a wreath this year, I think it turned out pretty good!  One of the great things is that is was made from the free trimmings from Lowe's!
It looked perfect with Alan's snowflakes!
We decided to have a cookie Christmas party this year instead of delivering a million cookies.  Issac was a great helper.  I couldn't touch the kitchen aid without him running in from wherever he was in the house and saying "mommy, can I help?"  It made the process slower but I kept reminding myself it was ok!

Peter even helped a bit with the gingerbread men, we have noticed he doesn't like to help in the kitchen as much since it requires him to follow the directions instead of doing whatever he wants....hummm, sound familiar?

We baked cookies for two weeks, our house smelled like sugar and butter! But it was a success and so fun to have our friends and neighbors over.



Naomi snacking....again
She also discovered the thrill of eating raspberries off her fingers!  Best day ever!

She also loves to "play" the piano right now.  I love it!

First pigtails!!!

"Captain" Peter.  I think we had just recently read about Captain Moroni and this is what he made one day for quite time!  I love how creative he is and how much he loves reading the scriptures!  He couldn't pick a better hero!
Cutting up our pumpkins to make pumpkin pie!

I love when they play together!

Cookies with friends



November

The week before Thanksgiving we went to visit my parents.  The boys have been wanting to go up in teh arch forever but it seems the last few trips I made by myself and there was no way we were doing that without dad.  So we stopping in STL on the way and went up!

Here they are in the little egg elevators.  I get a bit of claustrophobia so mommy was glad when we reaching the top!
 Looking out over the Mississippi towards Illinois


 Cardinals stadium (that's for you Jake!)
 Finally at grandma and grandpa's.  They sure do love Lucky but I am not sure if he returns the affection as much!  They just love so rough!

 Getting ready for Church
 My sweet baby!  She is so funny, she has to have a "pretty" everyday!  

We had my sister and her family here to visit for Thanksgiving and since it was cold we found a fun place to play inside. It was a great place to expend some energy and I was grateful that I had help keeping track of everyone since Naomi thought she was big enough to do everything!


Playing with cousin!


The boys wore themselves out jumping and sliding!


Naomi and Jackson loved this little slide!

I even got a smile out of him!


The rest of October

Playing in the basement.  Naomi sure does love to color.  I have to really watch her though because she doesn't always stay on the paper!  But I am amazed every time she sits down for like 30 minutes and colors.  That is even more of an attention span than her brothers!
Selfies


Naomi is finally getting some hair, down side is she likes to run her fingers through it while eating!
Sourdough butter rolls.  I have managed to keep my sourdough started alive for almost a year! whew! and one of the ways I have been able to do it is by finding recipes to use my "discard".  We usually make pancakes, so this was a new try.  They turned out pretty good!
Naomi is our grazer for sure...if I don't keep the pantry locked you can bet she is going to go rummaging.  And for some reason she loves sitting on our bottom step while she enjoys her snack.

This is what I found in my bed after I pt the boys to sleep.  Not sure what happened to his shirt or how he fell asleep half falling off our bed! Funny boy!
We have been enjoying our backyard and one of our first additions was a fire pit!  We had been trying our hand at lots of fun different smores, surprisingly when we have people over they are usually pretty conservative on what they create! (side note, new favorite marshmellow is the coconut ones!!  they melt really fast bt are oh so yummy, especially with nutella or dark chocolate!)


It wouldn't be fall without a trip to the pumpkin patch!! Naomi was lin love with pumpkins this year and was in heaven at the patch!  Every few seconds she would laugh, point and say "punkin"!

I couldn't have posed this if I tried!  HA  This is a perfect Isaac shot!
Already tired of mom taking pictures!
We are at this stage with Peter where he makes a silly face every time I pull the camera out! So we get lots of squinty eyes, wide open mouths and tongue. Oh well!

We were a little disappointed in the picking at the patch.  Most were rotten or bug filled.  I think this is a pic of Isaac stepping in some pumpkin goo.
One of my good friends came to visit and she and Naomi were picking buddies!





It is so fun to watch the kiddos play in the yard.  I was a major purchase point for buying the new house and it hasn't disappointed us!  I will admit I am a bit surprised and nervous about what Naomi climbs to keep up with her brothers, but she enjoys it so much!







I am typing this up in February and missing very much all the green!  I can't wait for spring!

If you ever want to come visit...our yard is so fun!
Passing the time before church.  It is nice to have Alan home on Sundays!
With all the trees in our yard we had tons of leaves!  The kids and even their friends loved raking them up into piles and jumping in them!

Naomi liked picking the flower petals....




Did you notice Isaac's fangs?
These boys sure do love their sister!

Carving pumpkins.  Isaac did pretty good scooping out the "guts"  Peter on the other hand was totally grossed out!  lol



Watching a movie and eating popcorn with dad.  Naomi LOVES popcorn if you can't tell!