Feels like Christmas!!

This has been a "milestone year" for our family. We done a few big firsts. Bought our first house, bought our first mini-van, and the biggest first of all....set up a full size Christmas tree. This means that we are not traveling this holiday...another big first. The kids and I had so much fun setting up the tree together and ever since we did they can't stop talking about Christmas!!! We all can't wait for it to come!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Gingerbread house!!!

Remember last year....yeah, not so good....This year....not so bad, and a happier face!!!
Good job, Kyle!

Kid's Christmas Party!!

Kevin's work had a children's Christmas party this week and it was so fun. It was at Pump it Up and the kids were in heaven. They just ran and jumped and bounced for 90 minutes straight. Besides the bouncy stuff and snacks, Santa was there for pictures. Let me just say...I never liked sitting on Santa's lap so I never force my kids to, but I put Anna on his lap and she just stared at me with absolutely no emotion on her face...that'll be a good picture....and then Kyle would only get in the picture if we were all in it, sitting on Santa's chair with Santa standing behind popping his head out from behind the chair.....so we'll see how that turns out!!! Whatever... Kyle on his favorite bounce toy....so hard to get a good picture with him moving non-stop.
Anna has no fear...let me just say, we lost her for a second and I found her climbing up a 6 foot wall, getting to the top and then sliding down the other side with no hesitation....I cannot let her out of my sight for a second!!!
Mid-bounce....and loving every minute of it!

Doesn't that look like a worn out, sweaty, happy face!!! Just perfect!

FHE out of the house!!!

The other night for FHE we went to Chuck-E-Cheese. The kids had so much fun and even Kevin and I had a good time as well. Can you see Kyle's excitement?...you would think we never left the house.....
Dance Dance game.....all they did was jump up and down.

They LOVED air hockey and once Kev taught them how to do it they actually did it on their own and did great.

Spoils from their tickets.....five lollipops each....they couldn't have been more happy with them!!

new project

My new project is doing Anna's hair. And we are both having a lot of fun with it. She's surprisingly good at holding still while I do it...I think she just like the spray bottle that I use to get her hair wet. Anyway I realized a while ago that she has more hair that it looks like so I've been trying new styles...this is today's!!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVIN!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!

A couple new hobbies

The kiddo's have a couple of new hobbies. Anna has recently discovered the piano. This really warms my heart because I always hoped my kids would enjoy music, so fingers crossed that this sticks. But anyway, she will sit and dink around a quite a long time and she LOVES to sit next to me when I play...so much so that no matter what she is doing, if she hears the piano she comes running and sits herself right up by my side to join in. I must say I don't mind!! Kyle has also learned the joys of pbskids.org, specifically the Curious George games. I don't feel too bad because they are all somewhat educational and he enjoys it. The best is that, again, Anna can't be left out. Every time Kyle is playing she drags a chair over for herself as well....totally content to just watch.

Halloween Festivities

Well, HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!! We've had a great couple of days full of the usual festivities. First we started by carving the pumpkins that we picked up at the patch.As you can tell, Kyle was VERY unsure of the pumpkin guts. In fact when he actually touched it he was so grossed out that he was on the verge of tears (a little strange, I know)

This is as close as they got. All the really did was spoon out the air that was in the pumpkin...not a lot of help.

The finished jack-o-lanterns. Anna and I did the small one, Kevin and Kyle did the big one.

Then the day before Halloween, Kyle's pre-school class had a little party. It was pretty small, but fun none the less. Here is a picture of his class. (he's the monkey)
Then the big night of trick or treats!! The kids were very excited to get out and knock those doors. As you can see Kyle is a monkey (AGAIN)...those of you with good memories will see that this costume is the same as last years costume. What can I say, other than no amount of talking could convince him to be anything else. He still loves Curious George and honestly I was just relieved that the costume still fit. The only downside is that he was ROASTING in it the entire evening. The full fleece costumes was great for Chicago last year but a not so great for the 77 degrees that we had here in Dallas. And Anna was a "pink Fairy" as she stated. She had to get used to the wings but once she did she really enjoyed pretending to fly.

We went out with some of the kids in our neighborhood.

Kyle in action...notice his hat is off, if it were a close up picture you would see how sweaty his head was.

Little pink fairy walking to get more loot. One good thing about having houses packed together like they are here is that you don't have to walk very far to hit a ton of houses. All I have to say is we have WAY TOO MUCH candy in our house....I guess I better get to eating it all.

That time of year....

Saturday we went to a pumpkin patch that is honestly about a mile from our house (welcome to Texas...lots of space!) And it was pretty fun. Not quite as quaint as I was hoping but that is mainly because there were a bazillion people there with us. Probably because we live in "young family" central...this is usually a great thing, just not when you want to do young family activities. Seriously though, the kids didn't even notice how busy it was a still had a great time, and I was able to get a few good pictures of the day.

Kyle on the tractor

Cute Anna-Banana
My favorite guys!

Jumping in the bouncy house

Anna picking a pumpkin...We let her get a big one too.

By the petting zoo..but didn't pet anything, Kyle was very concerned about getting his fingers bitten off so he wouldn't even get close to the animals and being the protective older brother that he is he would pretty much tackle Anna away from the fence if she got too close as well.

After the hay ride we had pay respect to the John Deere tractor that Kyle (and now Anna) loves so dearly!!

Texas is where I live!!

It's been a long while since I've updated and now that I'm sitting here doing it I realized that I have taken hardly any pictures...so this may be a bit boring. Anyway, we moved to Texas about a month ago and have been since trying to get organized. We so far really like Texas. The thing that I've noticed the most is how nice everyone is here. Not just people who you would expect either, EVERYONE here is nice to EVERYONE...hopefully some of that niceness will rub off on me.

We also like having a bit more space. Our house is perfect for us and the kids really like it. Kyle thinks that the house is Texas so we will be out and about and he will say that he want to go back to Texas which means that he wants to go home, I think that it's cute so I don't usually correct him. Speaking of Kyle he has started in a pre-school (obviously need geography lessons) that is two days a week and really liking it so far . And Anna likes to have one-on-one time with me two days a week as well. And I really like running errands with only one child to run after. Kevin's job is going well too. Basically just training and stuff like that so far...the usual!! Here are the few pictures I've take thus far!

The kids in their favorite room...the one with all the toys!!

Anna in the kids 2nd favorite room...the one with no furniture, all the more room to run around in!!
Anna being an Airplane in the empty room.
Anna on the back patio blowing bubbles
Anna in the back yard.
Kyle didn't want to be in the back yard, but he didn't want to be in the house alone, so he was pouting in the doorway.
Playing at the neighborhood park that is a couple of blocks from our house.

Quick Note!!

We are in Texas and doing great. Just trying to get settled and adjusted. I have not taken a single picture yet...what is wrong with me??? Obviously posting on my blog isn't at the top of my to do list right now!!! Hopefully it will be soon!! But believe me I've been checking on all of yours so keep the posts coming!

Fun in Utah!!

Again...while in Utah we had a ton of fun, but didn't take many pictures. I did take the camera on a trip to the good old Hogle Zoo that we took with my folks and my sister and her two youngest boys. The day was perfect weather and the animals were the most active I've ever seen....for example the two black bears were wrestling and we saw the tiger eating raw meat!!! Probably one of the best trips to any zoo that I have experienced. Adam, Anna and Kyle (they are all exactly 11 months apart)
Checking out the Giraffes. I think that they might be my favorite animal.
Grandpa with Kyle and Adam.
Grandpa with Anna (my favorite picture of the day)
Riding the Train...Kyle's favorite part of the day....no surprise there!!!

Family and Friends in Seattle!!

Probably the main reason that we went to Seattle was to see family and friends. Sadly I didn't get pictures of everyone (Ahlstroms, Wiggins, & Fawcetts) but it was SUCH A GREAT WEEKEND!! We just loved catching up and reconnecting with everyone. It was great weather and it really made me miss living there!! My grandma peterson
My grandpa peterson

My aunt Chris

Friends from Issaquah

Hrncirik Family

Oh and we saw a few sights as well!!! Seriously I forgot how much I loved living in Seattle...maybe we will live there again sometime!!!

ps I just realized that I am in ALL of the pictures in this post...that's a first!!!