Family Photo Time!

I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.

I LOVE MY FAMILY!

*I know there are no individual shots of Chelsea. That was an oversight during the bedlam that was our photo shooting session. We'll take some individual ones later so she's not left out forever!

The Christmas Season is Upon Us

Here are our new friends Missoni and Alize (pronounced Ally-zay, or Zay-Zay for short) They moved to a place just a couple blocks from us. We like them a lot and see them a couple times a week usually. It was past Zay-Zay's nap time this day, can you tell? It was past Brie's nap time too, can you tell? Probably not so much. Brie is napping less and less frequently nowadays. Sigh. There are days that *I* need her naptime more than her. Oh well. She's growing up!

Chelsea and Brie had a good ol' time "helping" put up the tree and other decorations. Here they are having potato sack races in plastic bags.

Daddy helped Abby participate in decorating the downstairs tree. We have a big tree upstairs and our smaller tree set up downstairs. It has lots of our memory ornaments. You can see the Care Bear ones in this pic. There are all sorts of ornaments that bring back childhood memories. Grandma has also started collecting ornaments for the grandkids-one for each child for each year. They are stored away separately with a note of who it goes to and why it is significant or special. Then when they are grown, they will have a set of their very own special ornaments. I love that idea.

It was a full day of decorating! We haven't taken pictures of the finished decor, but we should. It looks really good!

Nobody was left out of the decorating. Some of the ornaments are even still on the tree, after having been up for awhile now. Ha! Actually there are only one or two that repeatedly keep disappearing or "falling off."

And we finally got a smiley face from Abby! Nevermind the off centered-ness of it, or the tissue laying next to her. I was watching her instead of framing her in the camera.

Here she is talking. Cooing is so cute at her age! Her eyebrows tell more of what she is thinking than her voice does. What do you think she's thinking here?

Abby is my first child to suck on her hands/thumb. Only rarely does she find her thumb, but once in awhile she'll suck her knuckles for fun. The other two never really did that. I don't let her suck her thumb. I don't want to have to help her break that habit later on. I'd rather go with breaking a pacifier habit. She's pretty good about only needing a pacifier to help her go to sleep though. 

Christmas photos coming up!



Almost Thanksgiving!

We had a little leftover milk (Mommy had gone to the movies!) so Daddy got to feed Abby for the first time. So cute!

What to do for FHE when it has snowed outside....Sledding, of course! I caught Chelsea off guard here so I took a second one, but Brie was so cute I had to post them both.

These girls LOVE their snow gear. It is usually a challenge convincing Brie to take her coat and boots off after coming in. And getting her to come in is almost always a struggle as well. Getting her out of the van has become an issue too. She likes it all too much! It can take a long time to get back in the house and settled some times.

And everyone is ready to go!

This is Brie's first experience with sledding.

After going down the hill, they went up the next one a little bit with their momentum. As they stopped, they ended up tipping backward, which Brie got the biggest kick out of.

For our treat we enjoyed a lovely homemade pie from the Bent family.

Grandma had Abby smiling and cooing like crazy. But of course the camera puzzled her and distracted her, so no smiles were captured. Again. Someday I will be able to show her that yes, she was actually happy as a baby and not always serious. Or bored looking.

Helpful big sister putting the pacifier back in her mouth.

These girls love the iPad. They'd play it all day if they were allowed. I love that it's an easy distraction, and if I need some quiet time I can suggest Chelsea play a game on the iPad and she's all for it. But now Chelsea is saying, "Brie, don't you want to play ponies?" when she had no interest in the iPad at all. Then she wants it. Grr. I'm trying to limit the amount of electronic entertainment they have, and it's difficult when big sister suggests it all the time. Oh well. They'll be pretty good with all that stuff thoughout their lives. Not like us parent-folk, right? ;)



Early November

Abby won't be left out! She got her turn on the teeter-totter at the mall play place.

 

And here we have a cute little baby bonnet that we've never used. But she sure looks cute anyway!



Now Chelsea gets a turn. This is also a very common occurrence: kisses. I have to remind her constantly that people don't like other people in their faces all the time. It doesn't stick.

I "helped" Auntie Beth make lefse last week. I mostly watched or flipped a lefse here and there. Grandma prepped the potatoes and Beth did everything else. I did enjoy eating one though. :)
What is lefse? It is pretty much riced potatoes with a couple ingredients like cream and flour and something else I think (That's how much I helped, I don't even know the few ingredients!) made into dough and cooked on a griddle. Mmm.

This big counter sure does come in handy! We like to use it for baking mass amounts of cookies, eating, and even sewing projects or other art projects. I could get used to having it.

Here the master lefse maker takes the thinly rolled lefse off the board.

It bubbles nicely on the grill.

If it's done right, it puffs up with air bubbles. It happened, but was not captured in this photo.

A stack of yumminess. If you've never had lefse, have some homemade lefse. How do you eat it? Cut it in half, butter one side a little bit and sprinkle a smidge of sugar on it, fold it in half again, roll it, and eat. Repeat with second half.

My goofy girls love climbing into beds. This one happens to be Grandma and Grandpa's bed. It doesn't matter who normally sleeps in it, a bed is a bed and they will utterly destroy the niceness of any bedding. But they have fun.

I had a birthday. Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7. Hours of fun abound. There were some other little gifts, but I'll spare you the goofy photos. I look chubby. I still have a few pounds to lose. Now my six weeks of restrictions is officially lifted. Have I worked out yet? Ask me again tomorrow. Maybe I'll have a better answer...

Once you hit thirty you have to start over. At least you do if you don't want a bonfire in the kitchen!

FHE moment: Making Thanksgiving turkeys!
Yes, that is Abby just laying on the counter. Don't worry, she wasn't there for long. I wanted everyone in the picture (except me, of course, bwah ha ha!). She even got to make a turkey, with lots of help.

And here it is! The cute thing about these turkeys is how they are made. The body is actually your foot traced, and the feathers are actually your hand traced! This was our smallest turkey for that very reason. It was also the cutest in Chelsea's opinion. I might just agree.

Here is our family of turkeys. Can you guess which ones belong with which family member? Never mind the strange body shape (and facial expression!) of the biggest turkey.
I received a cute turkey birthday card from Michelle which was hanging out on the fridge until we took everything off to clean it. I didn't know where it wandered off to when I took this photo. But don't worry. It has since been located!

Brie was loving the infant car seat. Chelsea liked taking care of Baby Brie. She even found her a baby bottle and filled it with water and gave it to Brie. Silly!

Halloween Time!

Wowsers, these are all completely and totally out of order. What's up Blogger?
Well anyway, here are my earless Minnie Mouse and my lovely Snow White at our ward Halloween Party. So sweet!

And here is our gorgeous family of FIVE. I love being able to say that, hehe.

We were supposed to Trunk-or-Treat at the ward party, but it got rained out. So we went from room to room instead. Brie was very cute holding up her bucket and saying thank you. Chelsea was a little more shy and didn't say thank you too much, but it's ok. She's grateful.

We went over to Edgewood Vista early Halloween evening and visited with Great Grandma Heit and also to Trick or Treat around the facility. The girls enjoyed the fruit Great Grandma shared and also chowing down on their candy while we visited.

This year we did a little bit of REAL Trick or Treating. We were fortunate enough to have some pretty nice weather and kids that are old enough to understand the concept. Abby stayed home though. She snoozed right through it. We also took a car ride to trick or treat to Brenda's and to Grandma Heit's, but I didn't bring the camera to those places.

Here is our neighbor to the east. The puppy was only mildly intimidating.

Here is the finished version of the pumpkins we painted a couple weeks ago. They've since been rained on and are a little less painted/markered now, but it's all good. They've fulfulled their purpose.

Chelsea and the other girls in her dance class got to wear costumes to dance class last week. There were some really cute cosutmes, but I think my favorite is my Snow White. But I'm not biased. Right? Sure.

Wide-eyed Abby after one of her baths. I was trying to capture the sticky-uppy-ness of her hair as well as the curliness of it when it's wet.

It's really hard to see in the photo. It shows a few curls though.

Brie loves her accessories!

Chelsea learned "three special steps" from Agent Oso on how to make a healthy snack: ants on a log. So of course we had to do those three special steps. Did she eat it? Of course not. She enjoyed the ants and peanut butter. Mommy ate the log part.

My little Ladybug getting ready for her first Halloween Party, and one of her first outings in general. She's only been to church a couple times now and to Grandma's a time or two. We haven't ventured into Walmart yet. But soon. I'm not excited to try wrangling three little ones alone yet. But soon. I can't believe it's been nearly a month already. Time has gone by very quickly. But it's been a good time!