Our attempt at Christmas Card pictures of the kids

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The Craving is here!

Just wanted to let everyone know that The Craving has finished 2 tracks on their album and I have posted them on my blog. Please check them out and let us know what you think. Kristi- I hope this holds you over until the next tracks are complete! Enjoy!

The Polar Express

Me and Andie

Jason and his friend Cydnee

Cute kids getting ready to go on the Polar Express

We had a fun kick-off to our holiday festivities by going to the North Pole on the Polar Express train (heber valley railroad). Jason has loved the movie The Polar Express since it came out so we thought he would enjoy this little train ride and he sure did! On the way home he said, "This is the best Christmas present ever!" Although fairly expensive, I would recommend this one to all of you, it really was fun, unlike the Thomas ride we did a few years ago.

A few upcoming events....

First is Kevan's bands show on Monday the 10th at 5 Monkeys. This will be one of their last shows for a while as they are going to focus on getting their album out. If you haven't ever seen them play or it's been awhile, this is a great show to go to. It is at a bar, but there is no smoking, plus they will be recording this show. It is located One Block West of State Street at 7 East 4800 South in Murray. The show starts at 8:00 p.m. Hope you can all make it. Call us if you have any questions.

Second, most of you know that I sell Usborne children books. The extent of my selling is an open house I do every year around this time. The books are so cute, and great quality. 80% of their books are under $10. There are books for ages 0-12 years. If you are as sick of toys as I am, these books are a great gift to give instead of toys. I am holding it this Tuesday the 11th from 6-9 pm at my house. If you don't know where I live, email me and I will give you my address. Once again, call or email if you have any questions. Hope you are all having as wonderful a fall time as we are.

Fall/Halloween Fun!

Andie trying to get in on the action.

I even got my hands, I mean gloves, dirty and helped a bit.

Jason's favorite thing to do in the fall is to jump in the leaves. This year we had an enormous pile of leaves! Check out the video...

Isn't my husband hot!

Tagged!

So I was tagged TWICE for the 6 insignificant things about me that most people may not know. It's taken me a while but I've finally come up with some good ones. Here they are:

1. I've never lived outside of Utah and....

2. Although I've lived in Utah my whole 27 years, I've never been skiing! I have snowboarded once and didn't particularly love it but might try it again.

3. I have a really bad habit of "picking". My nails, my feet and my lips. I know it's kind of gross, don't think less of me.

4. I love taking bubble baths and usually take at least 4 a week. When I am sick it's more like 2-3 per day.

5. I love being in the hospital! Probably because I have never been in the hospital for anything bad only for having babies. I take full advantage of the 5 days I get to stay in the hospital for having a c-section and wish I could stay longer.

6. I rarely make my bed. I think it is pointless. I also don't sleep under a sheet because when I do make the bed, it is just one more part of the bed I would have to make. Plus I get tangled up in the sheet when I do sleep in it. Apparantely I move around a lot at night. You may wonder, "do I make my kids make their bed? Nope. Pretty much the only time we make our beds is when we have company over and when I vacuum (so there aren't pillows all over the floor).

Now you know some of my dirty little secrets.

I know I'm a total geek, but....

Is there anyone who wants to see High School Musical 3 with me? I'm pretty certain there is no way I can convince Kevan to go with me and I want to see it. I know there has got to be other geeks like me who like to watch teeny-bopper movies, so fess up and let's do a girls night out.

Big change for Jill!

So... obviously something is different! I actually hadn't been
thinking about changing my hair color for very long. I was inspired by one of my young women who once had lighter hair and has since gone dark brown (Amy). I kinda just thought, "I wonder what I would look like with brown hair?" Since I don't know what my original
hair color is, I figured why not give it a try. I actually really like it. Not just because now people say Andie looks like me, but I just thinkit's a fun change for me. Now, I want all of your opinions! I am putting a poll on the side of my blog and want all of you to respond HONESTLY! I won't
know who voted for what so please tell me the truth. So far all responses have been positive, but seriously who would walk up to me and say it looks terrible? No one I know. Jason took this picture of me and Andie, isn't he a good little photographer?

Oh, what a beautiful morning!

We left Andie's hair in last night and this is how it looked
when she woke up this morning. I love it!

Messy Andie

Remember in my last post where I said Andie loves mud? Well I guess since she can't go outside and play in the mud anymore, she decided she could make some inside with a chocolate cupcake from her birthday. Apparantely she sneaked in and grabbed the cupcake from off the table at some point while I was cooking dinner. I came into the living room to find her like this. What you can't see is that it was also on her FEET! Oh and all over the couch and smeared in the rug. But, do you see how happy she is about it? Little stinker!

Princess Andie turned 2!

Need I say more?

She loved her Elmo cake made by mom. Thanks mom! We gave her that Tickle Me Elmo for her birthday and she is terrified of it. She says, "Elmo scary!"

Jason helped her unwrap all of her presents of course.

She loves this trunk full of dress-ups! Usually she tries to put them all on at the same time like this.

This is Andie's friend Elizabeth as she was leaving Andie's party. Andie held on for a full minute or so. They were both watching Elmo at the same time.

I can't believe she is 2 already! What can I say about Andie? I'm sorry but she is the cutest little girl in the world! She has always been a goof ball, always trying to make people laugh by pulling a weird face or saying "tickle, tickle" in her cute high pitched voice. She gives the best squeezes and is very polite right now, saying "thank you" to everything and "bless you" even if you burp not sneeze. She loves to tackle Jason and her daddy and would play in mud all day long if I let her. I could go on for ever on all the things I love about Andie, but I'll leave it at that and say WE LOVE YOU ANDIE!

More Cincinnati...

Cute kids!

At a cool castle called La Roche Castle in Loveland, Ohio

Sitting on the throne.

Jason loved this castle and walking through it. There was a dungeon with a prison and armor all over. It was pretty cool.

Is this not the cutest picture? This was the river that separates Ohio from Kentucky. It was such a nice day, people were boating and jet skiing.

Cincinnati trip

Loving the plane ride.

Andie did surprisingly well on the airplane. We decided last minute to buy her a seat so she could sit in her car seat and it was a lifesaver! She was able to fall asleep and stay contained. This picture was right after she threw-up, the only tragedy we had this trip.

Looking at the awesome white tigers at the Cincinnati Zoo.

I just had to throw this picture in because I love the white tigers. Our zoo seriously needs some help right now. This zoo not only had white tigers, but white lions as well that were so cool! Our zoo doesn't even have a regular lion!

Gunnar, Jason (pulling a weird face) and Courtney. Aren't Jason's cousins so cute? They had a blast together.

Kevan's biggest client at work wanted to fly him out to Cincinnati to meet with them and since my brother and his family live there, we decided we should all go. We had a great time seeing the sights and hanging with family. We are tempted to move there because it is so beautiful! Big thanks to Erik and Summer for letting us stay with you! Enjoy the pictures.

Cornbelly's.......?

If you haven't been to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point you have got to go! We went with our friends the Tuckett's and had a blast! This is Andie with the Pumpkin Princess. Andie got to dress up like a princess and take a picture.

Us in the kids corn maze.

The kids just chillin on a giant rocking chair.

How cute is that?

Cornbelly's.......?

This is a creature that will be haunted starting in October, but was not haunted when we were there. Warning-this was scary enough not haunted, I don't recommend taking young children to it. Jason would not go in it at all! But Cydnee did and she is only 4. I'm thinking when it is haunted it will be for older kids like 10 and up or something.

Waiting for the cow train to come back.

Riding on the cow train.

These were called jumping pillows. They had one for little kids and one for everyone else. Don't you love Andie's face in this picture? She actually really like it.

Kev and Jace on the jumping pillow catching some air!

Andie's hair cut!

Andie before (notice the nice long pigtails)....

Andie after (well, a few days after actually).....
Not exactly long enough to do pigtails anymore. I didn't want or ask for her hair to be cut this short, but I do think she looks darling. This is after she has gotten out of the tub and just let her hair air dry, so no oomph right now. At Cookie Cutters they round brushed her hair afterward and it really looked cute! Of course we couldn't get a good picture at that time. I am so envious of her straight hair. How I wish I could get out of the shower and let my hair air dry and it would look like hers. Anyway, I think she looks older and it is a good thing her hair grows fast, soon enough I will be doing pigtails again.

We've made it 7 years!

Kevan and I celebrated our 7th anniversary on September 26!

We didn't do anything real special this year because we are going to Cincinnati this week so we are saving all of our money for that, but Kevan did surprise me with these flowers that were delivered to our house. That was the first time he has ever had flowers delivered, usually he just brings home a bouquet that he has made. Just in case you're wondering, he makes wonderful bouquets! We've honestly thought about opening a flower shop because he's really good at arranging flowers. He claims his passion is music, not flowers though. Thanks for the past 7 years Kevan, hope the next 7 are just as good! Love you!

A Cardboard box, a Friday afternoon and a five year old...

Jason and I got creative Friday afternoon. He had been asking us to save a cardboard box so that he could make a house for his lego dudes and we just happened to get the perfect box. So I set out with my very limited architectural skills to make him a house he would approve of. This is what we came up with. I have to say that I am pretty impressed with my self on this one.

Jason picked out all the colors for the house. He hasn't yet learned that red and blue should go nowhere near each other. He is a pretty darn easy child to please - I was trying to convince him that he needed 2 coats of paint on the parts where there was tape and the paint wasn't staying very well and after a few minutes of persuasion he finally said, "Mom, I don't want to paint it again so quit arguing with me. I don't care if my house looks crappy." Okay, then. Yes, that is the lego dudes personal jet parked next to their house.

The bed that Jason created all by himself!

And the stairs that I created all by myself! And I only cut myself once during this whole process. Yeah for me! Yeah for my creative little boy.

Our little angel/devil!

We had Andie's 2 year pictures done yesterday and it is a good thing we did them a little early this year. Less than an hour after we got home, Andie crashed and got a big goose egg on her forehead and then woke up this morning with a cold. Who knows when we would have been able to get her pictures done after that. Isn't she so cute? This was the only good picture we got because she was being a little stinker and she hated the flash from the camera so she would get mad after every picture and then just not cooperate because she knew what was coming. How this beautiful little girl can be so devilish, I'll never know. She just entered the stage where everything is "no", but she doesn't say it meanly (yet), she says it so sweetly and it sounds like she is saying, "noa". She talks like crazy but not to anyone but her family. She's taking after Jason with singing and will sing "Twinkle, twinkle little star", "We will rock you", "Elmo's world" and "ABC's". I'm not sure many people would know that she was singing any of these when they hear her, but I can understand pretty much anything she says or sings. Our sweet baby girl is getting too big, I'm getting way too baby hungry! For now, I'll go satisfy my need for a baby with my sister's 2 week old baby girl.

My wonderful son!

Okay, so I have to take a moment to brag about Jason. On Sunday I had one of the proudest moments of my motherhood career. My sweet Jason (remember he's only 5) was asked to sing a solo for the Primary Program this year. He stumbled a little at first, trying to remember which verse he was to sing but once he got going he did an incredible job! Not only did he have me, Kevan and my mom crying, but numerous members of the congregation also told me they were crying. We did record it on Kevan's phone and are trying to put it on the computer so I can post it and make all of you cry also! Jason may look like me, but he is all Kevan, right down to the no-fear of speaking, talking or acting in front of large audiences. He is such a natural performer! He continues to amaze me every day. He memorized that song in a few days and memorized his speaking part in about 10 minutes. Just so you don't think I have a perfect angel - after he sang his song so sweetly, he sat down and messed around the rest of the program. I seriously don't think he sat still or sang another song. Anyway- I love that kid and will really try to get that recording on here.

My handsome little boy!

Doesn't he look so handsome on his first day of school? Poor kid got sick that night and couldn't go to school the next 2 days. He's doing much better now and was very excited to go today with his buddy Finn. Jason really is a good kid and a great big brother. One day last week I had a migraine when I woke up so I asked Jason if he would babysit Andie while I took some medicine and lay down. I was half-awake this whole time, so I could listen for any screams. When I got up, not only had Jason entertained Andie for a good hour and a half, he had gotten her a sippy cup and filled it with milk and gave her some dry cereal so she wouldn't starve. Granted, the house was a disaster, but who cares? My kids were alive and my headache was gone. I am very thankful for my little man!

Andie's Daily Antics!

At least once (usually twice) a day, Andie dumps her food on the floor, table, and herself. This is the first time she has actually dumped it on her head! And as I write, she has taken all the DVD's off the shelf and thrown them on the ground. Oh, the joy of toddlerhood!