Happy Marriage Birthday!

 Happy 6th Anniversary to my one and only!

As I was explaining to Eliza what an anniversary was yesterday, I told her it was like a birthday of when we got married. Being married is like a rebirth of a life, instead of me and mine, everything turned into us and ours Forever! I'm so grateful I've got this life with him forever!

Late last night I had just finished cutting Daniel's hair, he had just jumped in the shower and I was cleaning up in the kitchen when I heard pounding at the door. It scared me to death! I thought we were going to have a break in or something. I didn't answer and went and hid in the room. 3 minutes later, the same pounding on the door. 5 minutes later again it came. Finally Daniel went to the door and saw his seminary students quickly driving away in their car. They had decorated our porch with hearts and streamers. The seminary council organized all of the periods of seminary to write us happy anniversary notes. It was quite a surprise, so thoughtful and I was so glad it wasn't a robber or killer :)

Hello & Goodbye

 

HELLO: Mums. They finally bloomed in late November and we knew the -2 degree at night was going to kill them, but we came back from our Utah trip to these beautiful full flowers.

GOODBYE: Blue Denim Couches. We received you from some friends the week before Eliza was born when we moved into our new apartment. They came to us in pretty good, but tired condition and have seen a lot in our little home. They have become so nasty and I was done scrubbing them and washing off crayons, chocolate, milk, desitine, etc. Little tear, big smile "goodbye"!

Notice the brown couches in the background...so much better! We are getting excited for Christmas and starting the craft projects already :) Jesse looks mad, but that is his "cheese" smile.

Christmas Card Family Pics

My amazing friend has done it again, she took our family pictures last Saturday and the kids were really good. It helped that I had some leverage with the lolly pops. Excited to start on the Christmas cards now!

Halloween Costumes 2011

We were Toy Story Characters this year. I put together the costumes for very inexpensive compared to what the online prices were. It was all mostly made out of Fun Foam. The only picture we got of all of us was at our Trunk or Treat, so hopefully that turned out!

After our Trunk or Treat I was combining all the candy and found a leaf. Then Daniel told me that someone had a chest of candy and fall leaves and you had to dig through the leaves to find the candy. Daniel was helping Jesse choose a piece of candy, but he didn't want it, he wanted  the leaf. Just one more reason why I love little kids, they love & appreciate the simple and beautiful things in life. So I think my favorite treat they got was the leaf too!

October Happenings

My boys (and Eliza) love to take off their shirts and play "Nacho" and wrestle... most times it ends in tears.

Day before Elder Draper went home. It was the same day we found out the gender of our baby #4. We told the kids what gender it was by sonic slushies. One red for Eliza, Blue for Porter and Jesse and the 4th slushy was...BLUE!

We went to the circus with some friends and during intermission Porter took pics

Pumpkin Painting Family Night

Kids wearing their cute Halloween shirts from Mimi

Caught Porter mid-yawn, but we made Frankenstein Faces for letter F preschool and the boys all did such a cute job!

Fall Preschool Field Trip - Pumpkin Patch

If you live around here, the Country Mercantile Pumpkin Patch is a must-visit this time of year! We had so much fun there picking pumpkins, running around in the hay maze, climbing the hay pyramid, seeing the animals and having cookies and punch! Afterward we stayed for some lunch and tasted so many of their delicious samples. It was amazing how it was raining all morning and when we got there the weather was great. Then, while we were inside eating lunch it was a complete down pour! What timing!

Preschool

 

 Eliza and Porter are both in Preschool this year and loving it! Here are their first day pics, even though they didn't start preschool on the same day.

Addition

Happy Birthday Daniel! Daniel is adding one more year to his life - the big 27! He is the best husband and dad, and I'm not just saying that because it is his birthday! I really appreciate his selfless and cheerful demeanor.

As Daniel is adding another year, we thought it good to start sharing that we are also adding to our family! Baby #4 will be arriving beginning of March! What a great life!

Recess Monkey

 Last week we went to the Recess Monkey's show at the library. It is our 2nd time that we've seen them and we had a great time. They are school teachers from Seattle that have toured our libraries in the summer and entertain these kids with their fun & creative music! Porter and Jesse were dancing fools, Eliza got into by the end too! Thanks Kristin for keeping me in the know about when they perform each year! We love 'em!
You can here a lot of their songs on their site here.

Summer Pics

My boys (and first picture with Daniel's new camera*)

Porter and Daniel fishing on Papa's boat

Sunrise on Independence Rock

Rock Creek, my favorite spot on our trip

Had to include a picture of this little muffin!

Fort Laramie

We had a great trip and it was so fun to spend time with family! A huge thanks to my Mom & family and Mike and Em for watching the kids while we were gone!

 Chimney Rock

*also a huge thanks to Papa & Mimi for the camera!