Thanksgiving!

Aaron's parents came out on Veterans Day and then the following Sunday we all traipsed off to the airport.  Sydney was very excited to "ride the big airplane like daddy" (sometimes he has to go on business trips).

 Sitting with Grammy & Grandpa on the airplane.

 Mady and I were one row ahead.

 While visiting, we ripped out the old wallpaper in my mom's kitchen, painted, and did board and batten.  Hooray for a fresh new look!  Thanks for letting me work out some project urges out there!

For Thanksgiving, we had a big combined dinner/extravaganza at the church with both of our families.  It was so fun!  The kids went on a little train ride while we were setting up.  We ate dinner, I choked on a pickle and lost my voice, and then the games began!

 Most of the adults joined in to play volleyball, and those that did not feel like participating brought in the couch and chairs from the foyer and watched. 

 The kidlets made Indian headdresses, colored, got their faces/arms/legs painted, got animal balloons, and turkey cups with treats.  They were in heaven!

 The next day, Aaron's grandma came up to spend some time with the family. 

 We put up Grammy & Grandpa's tree and Mady decided the beads would look better on her.

 This is a decoration on Aaron's parents tree.  It is a small beaded bell that Aaron's great grandmother made.  Lots of family history stuff going on!

 Four generations right here!

 Lots of play time with all the various cousins!

 Nana was kind enough to drive us back to Salt Lake at the end of the 3 weeks so we could go home. 

 On the plane we even ended up in a first class seat that was big enough for the girls to fit in together!

We sure had fun everyone!  Thanks for coming and seeing us!  We got to see all of our siblings, our parents, lots of little cousins, some grandparents, friends, and even old teachers!  The blizzard and getting snowed in reminded us that we REALLY enjoy Colorado weather, but it was fun to go back and visit!

November

Since Christmas is right around the corner, I'm doing 2 big posts to record November, then I promise we'll move on!  First, and foremost, Mady discovered pink milk.  I'll let the picture tell you what she thought.

Yup, she's a fan. And both girls liked the new park we went to that had a ginormous field. Turns out they like to run!

Such a classic Mady picture.  Pigtails sticking out, cape, skirt, and 50 necklaces on.

 

  Always find time for a zoo trip with your bestie.

 We played in the leaves

And a few days later Mady got to relearn what snow was.  I really don't think she remembered! 

 Look at the turkey on the right side of my mantel.  I made him!  Isn't he darling?  I love him a lot lot lot.

 And Aaron's parents came to visit.  There was a lot of dancing to a certain former Beatle and my kiddos have a new favorite song!



Why We Moved to Colorado

This picture was just taken out of my parents front window in the frigid land of Idaho.

And they want us to move back?

Pictures

These are some pictures I took at the beginning of October, which put Sydney at 3 years, 1 month old and Mady at 20.5 months.

 Believe me, it was not easy to get a couple of decent ones!

 Are your kids that wiggly?

 Um, this child is SOOOOO going to be trouble.  This was 100% Mady.  I had nothing to do with any of these poses.

 She sure is a happy girl though!

 What a silly girl.  She loves to pose!  She's a little diva.  Maybe she'll do theatre like her momma?

Sugar Overload

Today Sydney had a bucket of candy and three pepperoni for lunch (we're awesome parents right?).  By dinner time she was completely crazy.  She ate some food and wanted more candy.  Around that time she started being naughty.  She just couldn't seem to do what we asked.  By bedtime she was still all sugared up.  We asked her if she was hopped up on goofballs and crazy pills, and she replied, "No, but Mommy is."  Thanks for tattling Sydney.
While Aaron was putting her to bed she kept saying, "It's real hard to hold still!"  Poor kid!  She was trying, but she had so much sugar in her system she couldn't handle it!  Tomorrow we're back to normal living with just a few pieces of candy thrown in and at least 1 of the basic food groups in every meal.  That's how you feed your kids, right?
Guess how I eventually got her to sleep?  I swaddled her.  That's right. My 3 year old still loves to be swaddled and asks to be "wrapped like a baby" sometimes.  How cute is that? 

Happy Halloween!

We're not so much into the whole celebrating Halloween on Sunday thing, but don't you worry!  The girls still got plenty of loot and don't have any idea that they are missing the "real" trick or treating. We've had the front porch decorated for almost a month and it's been so fun!  The girls have been super excited about it too and almost EVERY time we leave the house they mention the pumpkins or the giant spider (which I snagged at a garage sale along with the skull sign in this picture, 2 grim reaper outfits and a skeleton, all for 50 cents!)

The inside was all ready too.  We're just crawling with creepies!

We've been doing lots of Halloween/Fall activities too!  We went to a fun little straw maze for the kiddos (3 times in 1 week!)

 Daddy came the last time! 

 We carved pumpkins.  Sydney enjoyed it, but Mady was running the other direction from all the "pumpkin guts" yelling, "No, yucky!
  Totally hilarious,

 Hooray for some spooky pumpkins!

 Does this child look deprived to you?  This was after her first little mini trick or treat at Barnes & Noble yesterday.  Happy as a little kitty!

 Round 2 was our ward Trunk or Treat last night.  We went dressed for warmth, so this pirate and doctor were the warmest ones there!

 Today we went to Round 3 at our local outdoor mall.  Trick or Treating to all the stores on Mainstreet with a million other kids.  How did they feel? 

 Pretty thrilled little fairy and pirate if you ask me!

 Get a load of those candy levels.  Yeah, I think we're good this year!

 Happy Halloween!

Projects

Whenever my parents come visit, we put them to work!  When they came out in October was no exception!  We finally had someone paint our living room this fall (YAY!!!!! it only took 4 years!) so it was time to do something Aaron has been wanting to do since we moved in... Case all those darn windows!

For those of you that have not been here, our living room actually has 11 windows in it.  10 are small like these and 1 is big.

Now the 9 up high are all nicely cased and oh so pretty!

Look at the great work they did!

Me likey.

High in the Sky

Our clubhouse has a history of hosting some fun/slightly odd events.  This one was no different - Oktoberfest Family Style!  Here we are enjyoing a pancake breakfast!

 Here we are in our little Christmas card type photo.  It would be perfect without that big ReMax sign on it.  Oh well.

 Oh yes, we actually got to go in the balloon!

 And up we went!  The whole time Mady was saying "like it!" as she shook her head no.  Our tall heads were awfully close to that blower.  When we got down she kept saying "like it" and actually sounding like she meant it!  I think she was really confused at first!

All in all, another fun, yet totally random event!  It was pretty lame as far as Oktoberfests go though, I think!  The strongest drink there was Orange Juice and the craziest thing that happened was that the girls got airbrushed tattoos on their arms.  Mady was beside herself when she got a panda.  It's her current favorite you know!

Mountain Time

 On October 8, 9, and 10 we rented a home in Estes Park and hung out there with my parents.  We had so much fun being back in the mountains! 

 Some quality time with Nana and Grampy.

 Did I mention it was FREEZING?  Do you like that my children are wearing every scrap of clothing we could muster?

 Look at those baby blues.

 After that weekend my parents came to stay with us for a week.  Hooray for carousel time at the zoo with Nana!

A girl and her kitty

I think I'm always going to be playing catch up.  It's just my current way of life.  I know I should blog more frequently, but the stack of books by my nightstand, lessons and talks to give at church, and those darns back episodes of glee that I missed keep taking my attention first.  Sorry.  I've neglected you folks.  Here's something fun though.  Sydney:  The little girl is a fireball.  She is an absolute hoot.  She is a defiant, crazy, smart, stubborn little monkey, who is hilarious, sweet, and beautiful. 

Oh yeah, she still loves to dance.  We discovered that we can get youtube videos through our blue ray player and the girls watch all sorts of music videos and dance like crazy.  Their favorites are Soul Sister by Train, Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz, and the Numa Numa song (Dragostea din Tei).  I actually took an awesome video of them dancing yesterday, but I had to get rid of it because Sydney decided to seriously flash the camera.  (We're having issues again in the potty area).

I love this picture of Sydney though.  It's fun to have one of us and her.  We were having our pictures taken and she ran over to us and linked her arms around our necks.  Little sweetheart.

Blogger flipped this picture from landscape to portrait and I can't figure out how to turn it back.  It cracks me up though.  I walked in the hall in the middle of the night once and found these two snuggled up on the floor.  Sydney being out of bed was not unusual.  She floats around the house at night (we can't figure out if she's awake or asleep), and Frodo liked to sleep outside our door in case we opened the door.  (He secretly was hoping we'd let him sleep with us I think).

 Frodo really is a great cat for us though.  He's funny and curious, he snuggles with us, and he lets the girls drag him around the house.  Right after we got him I gave him a talk about hose he better be nice to my babies or I was going to take him back or kick him out and let the hawks/coyotes get him.  He's been very good to them and almost never complains when they maul him.  Even when Mady drags him around by the neck (which we don't advocate or allow) he still doesn't even meow!  He is a crazy cat though and is fun to watch.  He has to be involved in everything.  He walks around the edge of the bath tub while the girls are bathing, he comes running every time you flush the toilet so he can watch (?), while I cleaned out the fish tank this week (the girls are not interested in the fish now that we have a cat) he got in it, which meant I had to give him a bath, which meant we had a largish black rat running around our basement for awhile.  In this picture, he's climbed to the top of the 5 ft ficus tree in our bedroom.  I think he was feeling like an adventurer.