Merry Christmas

We had such a fun Christmas Eve! All day long we played game after game with the kids and then in the evening we met some friends and had a bonfire and picnic at the breach. I was in heaven of course since I was at the beach, and we all had a lot of fun with friends. Can I just say I love the military? I love all of the friends we have made in various places that become your family. I would have loved to see my family or Jacob's family during this holiday season, but it's nice to still be with others you care about when that's not possible.

This was just about the best picture I got of Kent all night. This kid is fast!!

Jacob is a stud! I'm so lucky to be married to this handsome guy!!

My sweet Rachel-girl.

I love my family!

We had a little pageant and Rachel got to be an angel. Doesn't she look just like one?

Merry Christmas! I hope everyones day can be as filled with love and loved ones as ours will be! 

Chocolate Eggs

So today I took the kids grocery shopping with me (I finally found my keys...in my diaper bag) and while I was picking out the eggs, Rachel saw the brown eggs and starts asking me if we can buy the chocolate eggs instead. :) It made me giggle.

Lost Keys

So, I lost my keys about a week ago. They are probably hanging out with my mind somewhere because I can't seem to find it either. Well it hasn't been too big of an issue except I haven't been grocery shopping since before I lost my keys...way before. I guess I'm going to have to go get some copies made of Jacob's keys one of these days so we aren't so stranded. We ran out of milk yesterday and only had one egg left in the house. We were almost completely out of produce and we didn't even have any canned milk to make fudge, so I decided to take action. I put Kent in iur umbrella stroller and grabbed and empty backpack and we walked to the commissary. We loaded up on what ever I thought we could carry home. Just so you know, two gallons of milk plus other miscellaneous items get a little heavy on the way home. Not too heavy though. Thankfully we love pretty close. I forgot the canned milk though. :( if anyone finds my keys (or my mind) I will personally make you a plate of fudge to enjoy all to yourself (once I buy the canned milk). 

Lemon Crepes

My poor little sick girl just wanted pancakes for breakfast and since the biggest tragedy of all has happened at our house (we ran out of pumpkin) I decided to make lemon ones. Doesn't that sound divine? Lemon Pancakes? I thought so. I got on Pinterest and picked a recipe to try. The recipe I picked was very yummy and we topped it with a little left over cool whip from Thanksgiving, but the pancakes were very thin and more the consistency of crepes. The kids didn't eat them as well as I had hoped. Rachel ate three which was pretty good for her (especially since she's sick) but Kent my major pancake eater only ate one and a half. :( and since I doubled the recipe, I have tons of left overs. More for me I guess, I think they are delicious. They are yummy with out anything on them even.

See my cute cute helpers? (Don't mind my messy kitchen in the background)

Snowman crepes are not easy to make just in case you were wondering.

My cute boy folding his arms after the prayer. It's a step in the right direction at least.

If you are wanting to try these lemon crepes you can go to www.mynameissnickerdoodle.com and look for Lemon Pancakes. I think I might look for a different recipe next time that kent will eat better. 

"No! Don't"

I love that Kent is learning to talk. He has the cutest little voice ever, but it seems like the words he uses most often are things like, "No!" "Don't" and "Stop!" He uses his words to communicate his displeasure at situations more than for anything else. I was changing his diaper this morning and he was telling me the whole time "No! Don't! No no no no no! Don't! No, don't!" It kinda makes me laugh hearing him say "No" so vehemently for such a little guy (I don't let him see me laugh of course, its mostly on the inside.)

Some other words he has been saying lately are:

Go 

Stop

Dog

Cat

Eat

A bite!

baby

grandma

grandpa

uncle

apple

banana

cheese

Jesus

Mama

Dada

Scratch (the name of his bear)

And a myriad of animal noises.

He is saying so much more than that too, I just can't think of what else he's been saying. All day long he says new words and it is so fun to hear his little voice and see how happy it makes him. 

Croup

Jacob locked his keys in his car at work today so the kids and I went to rescue him. Rachel fell asleep about 5 minutes before we got home and was acting really sleepy after she woke up. She said that she was more tired than hungry and decided to go to bed at 5:30 instead of eating dinner. By 8:30 she had a high fever and was coughing "barking" and had thrown up in bed. Poor little girl has croup. :( It just breaks my heart when my kiddos are sick! I know I don't have enough children's Tylenol to get her through tomorrow. :( we've had a lot of sickness at our house this season. Jacobs been sick 3 times this last month and Kent and Rachel have each taken a turn already as well. Poor kiddos! Looks like we will be having soup the next few days.

Snow

So we thought that since the rest of the country is getting some Christmas snow, we should get some of our own. It actually did get cold last night. I turned the heater on for the night because it was 63 degrees in our house at bedtime and that was after we had baked our dinner and some gingerbread cookies in the oven. This morning there was actually a little ice outside! 

Anyway back to our "snow" (aka shaving cream). We did this quite a few times last winter but Kent was too little to play in it then and we haven't done it since before we moved last.

Look at the excited and fascinated expressions on my kids faces in these next two pictures. 

It wasn't too long til Kent tried to smell it and taste it. :)

Seriously this kept my kids happy for almost an hour which is a HUGE deal for my super busy into everything Kent boy!

It was bath day anyway right, so I might as well let them have as much fun with it as they can! 

Kent is like a baby Santa Claus almost in this next one! 

As soon as Rachel saw kent putting it in her hair she asked if she could do it too. My first reaction was absolutely not. So she didn't. But then I thought about it for a minutes and thought "Why not? They are getting a bath afterwards anyway." So I told her "Have at it!"

And her expression was COMPLETELY worth it!

Don't you love Kent's socks? They are actually Rachel's but he insisted this morning. This kid LOVES fun socks. :)

The can of barbasol was 1.29 at Target but my kids enjoyment of this activity was totally priceless! We WILL be doing this again soon. 

2 Things

1. We had dinner for breakfast tonight and Rachel kept accidentally calling the tater tots, teeter totters. She knew she was saying it wrong but couldn't think of the right way to say it. ☺️ She makes me laugh!

2. When I ask Kent if he wants me to tickle him, he will lift up his shirt, stick out his belly and say, "tickle, tickle!" It's super cute! And sometimes he will just come to me with his shirt up because he wants me to tickle his belly. It's the cutest thing ever! 

Fruit Loops

So I would like to start using Facebook less and my blog more. Maybe if I start posting short things on  here like I do on Facebook, it will be less daunting to me and more things will actually make it to my blog. Any way here is a little something Rachel told me about when she was eating Fruit Loops this morning.

Rachel's interpretation of the different flavors of fruit loops (she doesn't know they all taste the same yet): 
Yellow: Lemon
Orange: Orange
Green: Some of it was Kiwi and some of it was mint
Blue: Blue berry and some of it was grape
Purple: Plum and some of it was grape
Red: Some of it was strawberry, and some of it was plum and some of it was raspberry. 
She cracks me up. Especially about the mint. 

Pictures for Uncle Josh

Jacob's mom asked us to take some pictures to send to Jacob's brother Josh whose on a mission for Christmas. This top picture cracks me up. I don't know why bawling pictures are so funny somtimes.

The kids had just bonked heads and like a good mom, instead of giving them hugs I just took pictures. :)

 

 

And some smiles. :) I love them.

If I was good at editing pictures like my sister, I would just have to post one picture, but since I'm not I have to post 3 so you can see at least one good shot of everyone. (Taking pictures of kids is hard!)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

This Kid is Trouble

Notice where his feet are? What a stinker!

Rachel's 3 Year Old Interview

 

1. What is your favorite color? Green
2. What is your favorite thing to do? Playing and also dancing and having a birthday party. I also like to do ABC mouse.
3. What is your favorite toy? My present for my birthday. I will tell you what present. The present is Sweetie Pie (Stuffed cow)
4. What do you want to be when you grow up? A mama and also a missionary
5. What is your favorite food? Pizza
6. Who do you like to spend time with? Mom
7. What do you do really well? I am good at cleaning up and eating my food. I am good at being happy and patient.
8. What makes you laugh? Saying Laughy Caffy
9. What is the best time of the day? Eating pizza, and playing, and coloring and having friends over.
10. Who is your best friend? Emmy and Lucy Mitchell
11. What do you like to do with your family? Give them hugs and kisses
12. What do you love to learn about? Jesus, and I love to read scriptures also, and I also like to count!
13. Where do you like to go? To the store and the produce place where they had big big pumpkins.
14. What is your favorite book? Too Many Turkeys
15. What are you afraid of? Monsters!
16. What is your favorite animal? A cow and an octopus
17. What is your favorite snack? A fruit snack
18. What is your favorite song? Silent Night Holy Night All is Bright...That one!
19. What is your favorite game? Hide and Go Seek!
20. What do you like to sleep with at night? My present, and I will tell you what, and it is Sweetie Pie!
21. Is there anything else you want to talk about? I like to read a book and eat pizza and have a movie night and have a cake. I love to have friends over and eat pizza and watch a Baby Signing Time. I also like to eat pizza. And I love my family. And I love to count to 3. And I also like to play outside. I love to fly a kite. And I also like to go up in the sky and go to sleep up high upstairs. I like to pretend to be something else. And I also like to color with a pencil and a marker.

Halloween Costumes

So, I know its a few weeks late but I decided I had better post some pictures of our Halloween Costumes. Rachel insisted early on that she wanted to be a pumpkin which was way surprising, because I thought she would want to be Cowgirl Kate (since that is who she is all the time anyway), but I think when I told her that Halloween is a time to pretend to be something you aren't normally she probably thought "I'm normally Cowgirl Kate, and I'm not normally a pumpkin so.."
I decided to make her costume (silly of me, I know) and I bought enough material to make two costumes. I thought that the kids could just play in them for a while before Halloween but the costumes didn't work out the way I had envisioned in my head so I ended up not finishing them til the day of our ward trunk or treat, and by that point it was too late to decided on anything else for Kent. They sure make cute pumpkins though don't you think?
 

 

 

I just love this next picture of Kent and Jacob. Aren't my boys so cute?

Rachel took this next picture. After a little cropping it didn't turn out half bad. :)

 

 

I love this boy of mine!

 

I don't know what we were thinking when I decided to let them go trick-or-treating. I should have told Jacob just three houses or something, because here it is, 3 weeks after Halloween and we still have tons and tons of Halloween candy. Granted, I do keep forgetting its there and so the kids do too. I think we will have Halloween candy in our house until Easter!

We had a fun Halloween, although as  usual, my favorite part is just the celebrating we do all month long with themed dinners and stuff. It was fun that Rachel was a little older this year and so she thought it was a lot more fun to see all the crazy Halloween dinners Mama was making. I love my job! My kids make it so fun!

Book Review "The Hero's Lot"

The Book: The Hero's Lot

The Author: Patrick W. Carr

The Synopsis on the back: When Sarin Valon, the corrupt secondus of the conclave, flees Erinon and the kingdom, Errol Stone believes his troubles have at last ended. But other forces bent on the destruction of the kingdom remain and conspire to accuse Errol and his friends of a conspiracy to usurp the throne.

In a bid to keep the three of them from the axe, Archbenefice Canon sends Martin and Luis to Errol's home village, Callowford, to discover what makes him so important to the kingdom. But Errol is also accused of consorting with spirits. Convicted, his punishment is a journey to the enemy kingdom of Merakh, where he must find Sarin Valon, and kill him. To enforce their sentence, Errol is placed under a compulsion, and he is driven to accomplish his task or die resisting.

My Review: Does anyone remember a while back when I reviewed A Cast Of Stones? You can find the link here. It was so good I stayed up late nights to finish it while Jacob was deployed? Anyway, this is the sequel, and it is just as good as the first one. It has taken me a long time to get this review in a) because we moved right after I got it, and b) I read the first one with Jacob before I got this one and he insisted on reading  it with me. I easily get sucked into just about every book I read (as long as it is clean), but my husband is a little more picky about what he will spend his time reading, so if my stating this as an awesome book doesn't mean much to you, maybe it will mean more coming from my husband. He keeps asking me when the next book is coming out (February 4, 2014 just in case anyone else is wondering.) I can't say enough about this book. It has excellent character development, lots of action, a little romance, and leaves you just wanting to know what is going to happen next. The main character, Errol, is totally an underdog from the beginning of the first book, but he makes changes that are not easy but are necessary. In the first book he starts out as the town drunk, but by the end he has saved the kingdom and mastered the staff. In the second book, he is unjustly forced into doing something that he doesn't expect to survive from. I like books, but its not often you find the caliber that is in this authors writing. I will be reading the next book when it comes out! I just wish I didn't have to wait.

I received this book from Bethany House Publishing for free in return for my honest opinion.

Time Flies

Seriously I don't know how time seems to get away from me so quickly! I have so many things to blog about but with two little ones keeping me busy I never seem able to blog about them. I can't believe its November and I haven't posted any of our fun Halloween pictures or beach pictures or other just life pictures. I'm behind two book reviews as well. Rachel turns 3 next week (ACK!!) and Thanksgiving is the week after, and Christmas is just a month after that. There are so many things to do, people to play with, and places to go around this time of year. Well I will do my best over the next week to get some past blog posts up and some pictures shared. I can't promise I will do much more than that.
Here are a few pictures of some random happenings, but I promise I will post more pictures later.