Failed Christmas Cards and Airplanes

Marinda attempted round one of trying to get a cute picture with the kids for their Christmas card this year.  Of course, Pinterest gave her some great inspiration and she was determined that it was totally going to happen.

And then the kids put in their input.

And here are the results!

What? Babies don't like being put in new situations and forced to smile?!?!?

A little better, Luke kinda looks like he's holding Jacyl

Well, one out of two is smiling. 50% is passing in most physics classes, right?

Other fun things is that we left for Cleveland this week!  The kids were actually amazingly good on the planes, with Jacy AND Luke taking great naps and no melt downs.  For those of you we are traveling cross country, unless you can get a direct flight, try and split it in as even of two sections as possible.  When we got there we were excited to see Jejema and Jejebapa waiting for us, and we didn't even lose any suitcases or carseats!  Yay!

Luke being super good at the airport

Reports from Seatac airport speak of a new superhero who can run lightning fast at the gates. This blurry photo is the only direct evidence thus far.

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Luke Stories:
-Marinda took the kids to the playground at the mall, and instead of sitting on the bench she took Jacy over to the small "rocks" for her to practice pulling herself up on.  She could see Luke running around, and then all the sudden he was gone.  She stood up, and he was outside the area over by the stairs!  She called him back, and he came running and them dissolved into her arms in the biggest mess of tears we'd seen here at The Heb in a long time.  Apparently, because she wasn't in her usual spot and hadn't checked in with him first, he had thought she had left him!  Don't worry, it only took the next ten years of his life to reestablish his trust in her.
-Luke has invented a new sport!  It's called "suitcase surfing"!  Check out this awesome video with his sweet moves!

Jacy Stories:
-Jacy has started doing this funny thing were she will give herself raspberries.  She'll be hanging out, and then will press her mouth to the side of her arm and blow.  She is also really into sticking out her tongue and blowing.  It is really funny, and really wet if you're holding her.
-Jacy has grown out of her swaddles.  I know, we were terrified too as to what the ramifications of this new development would be.  Then our friends lent us these body suits that are suppose to be like the next step, where mobility is still restricted but it is for bigger kids.  Marinda loves how squishy she is and things about smores, I mean, how cute Jacy looks every time she puts her down for a nap.  The jury is still out on whether it is helping her sleep, but she sure is one adorable marshmallow!

Yes, she does look like the giant marshmallow from Ghostbusters

Jacy Misra: Outdoor Adventure...with style

Luke Learns About Crucifixion

Not too much happened this week.  Marinda got to go to a surprise going away party for her friend Kamie, where they all showed up at her house and kidnapped her for dessert at this yummy place in Ballard that makes lava cakes.  Kamie then had everyone sing Happy Birthday to Marinda, so it was kind of for her too!  

Jacy's crawling has gotten soo much better and faster this week!  She is following Luke around the house now, and Luke has mixed feelings about it.  First off, he thinks it is really funny - until she goes after his toys - then this is the worse thing ever.  We've really been pushing the whole "if you take away a toy than you have to give her one of her toys."  It is kind of fun having her find us in random rooms now, she's just so cute!

We've added a train, and shoes.
Both very important things for our general happiness.
Or at least the happiness of a three year old.

Luke stories:
• Getting Luke to put away his toys is - um - difficult, but this week he surprised us.  We asked him to put away his wooden train set, and he started sorting them by size and type and stacking them into nice, neat piles in the bins.  Pretty cool!
• We're trying really hard to keep up on Family Scripture reading (success varies from "LUKE SIT DOWN NOW OR YOU'RE GOING TO BED RIGHT NOW!!!!" to "Oh Daddy dearest, teach me the words of life that I might know how to seek salvation.")  We also try and talk to Luke about what we're reading.  Well, this week we were talking about how we all needed to follow Christ and do what He did - specifically about how Christ was baptized so we all need to get baptized as well.  Then Luke got this cute little contemplative look in his eye and asked "When am I going to get crucified?"  Amit and Marinda just kind of froze, then tried to explain to him that we don't follow everything Christ did and that only Christ was crucified, but Luke had locked onto the idea and started shouting "I'm going to get crucified!  EVERYONE'S going to get crucified!"  Marinda and Amit kind of lost it and broke up laughing at that point.

I got into my PJs!
Or at they DADDY'S PJs!?!

Jacy stories:
•Jacy's crawling great, but sometimes she doesn't realize that she can crawl. Being a baby, she is still clingy every once in a while, and she'll sit on the floor looking at us a few feet away and start crying because we're so far away, not realizing she can just crawl towards us.  What's even funnier is when she's the one who had crawled away, and then turns and cries for us because we're suddenly not next to her.

The Swaddler his struck again!

Jacy's Crawling!!! (and happy birthday Marinda!)

Yup, you read that right! Our little baby girl has now gained some extra mobility. Last week she was struggling to get up on her knees, and early this week she was rocking back and forth on her knees and taking tentative 'steps'. Then just a few days ago she successfully moved forward! She's now a pro at army crawling, at least when she has good motivation in front of her (iPhones work particularly well).

Watch out world!
HERE I COME!

The other big thing this week was Marinda's 29th birthday! No, she really is 29 for the very first time! Marinda was surprised by a scavenger hunt when she woke up. Amit (with Luke's help) had a bunch of clues written on notecards with cheesy puns like "'Luke' who it is!" and "I 'harp' you!" Each card also had a sweet message. The very last clue led Marinda, of all places, to her google drive folder for her novel where Amit had uploaded her a digital copy of her official birthday card. Our super-hot date night for that night had to be postponed, unfortunately, due to babysitting mix-ups. But don't worry, we will thoroughly enjoy a tasty dinner and Molly Moon's ice cream soon to celebrate!  Marinda ended up calling some of her friends and went and hung out with some girls from Blakley, so it was still a fun night.

Amit gave Marinda the best present ever.  He worked from home and took care of the kids ALL DAY so Marinda could just bump around and read 500 pages of her new book.  Best.  Present.  EVER!

The other big news this week is yet another round of illness has hit our house. It looks like Luke has croup, which, from a practical standpoint, has the following symptoms:

1. Waking up crying at night from coughing 
2. Waking up at 5:30 wide awake even though he should be dead-tired
3. Breaking things by accident
4. Breaking things on purpose 
5. Climbing on everything
6. Jumping off of everything (see points 3, 4, and 5)
7. Getting sibling(s) sick
8. Screaming "NO!" all the time after refusing to listen
9. Waking up sick sibling (see point 8)
10. Saying adorable things (like coughing and then saying 'I'm sick. I need to go lie down' and then lying down on the couch on a pillow) that don't even come close to making up the other 9 things but that melt your heart anyways

We're not sure if that's the official symptom list, but it should be. It's like a constant oscillation between "I'm overtired so I can't listen" and "I have a burst of energy look at me be crazy!"
Needless to say, the past few days have not been fun.

Luke giving Jacy some of her toys.
ALL OF HER TOYS!!

Luke stories:
•Luke has been having some trouble with sleep in general, even when he's not sick. So to help him Amit has been telling him stories about the "Adventures of Luke and Marshmallow." These are, you might guess, stories about Luke and Marshmallow (his stuffed dog) doing things, usually involving heavy machinery or emergency vehicles. Luke is super-cute when he's listening to the stories. Every time Amit says "who could they find to drive the <insert vehicle>?" Luke raises his head and says "Me, me, me!" One of Luke's favorite stories is the never-ending story: "Once upon a time there was a little boy named Luke who was sick and needed to rest, and so did his puppy dog Marshmallow. Luke wanted his daddy to tell him a story, so his daddy said 'Once upon a time there was a little boy named Luke who was sick...'" The first time Luke heard this he was laughing uncontrollably for a good 5-10 minutes straight.
- Marinda has decided that they are going to do a Thankful Tree this November, where Marinda makes a tree shape on the wall and Luke colors leaves showing what he is thankful for!  Luke seems to think it is pretty cool, but there is a definite theme.  Let's just say that Luke is very thankful for the municipal vehicles in our community.

Jacy stories:
- See above section concerning crawling!

How did she get there?!?!
She's a Mistborn!

Oh yeah, need to elevate those legs so I don't get muscles cramps!
You know, because I'm moving so much now!

Fairies and Tigers and NEVERBEASTS!

Happy Halloween! We had a wet and windy day yesterday but that didn't stop Luke from going trick-or-treating! He was the Neverbeast for the 4th time this month (not that we're counting :P) We met up with our neighbors across the street and start out on Luke's first real trick-or-treating experience!  The first house we went to had no decorations, but the porch light was on.  Everyone knows that's the universal sign for "I have candy!" so we took the kids up to the door and rang the door bell.  The lady who answered it gave the kids a blank look, said "One second" and ran into her house.  We waited, and she reappeared with two cliff bars and an apology that that was all she had.  And THAT was Luke's first house trick-or-treating!

We were better after that at picking which houses to go to, and after a little bit Amit went home to man the door and put Jacy to sleep, while Luke, Marinda, Liam and Stephanie (friends from across the street) kept going for about a good hour!  It was hard to stop, but eventually Luke turned to Marinda and said "I think we should go home now.  I'm tired and it's past my bedtime."  WTPC?  Then we stopped off at Liam's house for cookies and Marinda's Mom's homemade apple cider.

Sadly, we only had a small handful of actual trick-or-treaters. We knew Seattle was anti-trick-or-treating, unless it involved trick-or-treating at the mall, but we figured Bellevue would be better. But the important part is that Luke had a great time, even if Marinda is bummed that not everyone is so community-centric like she is. I mean, come on, what screams community like promoting childhood obesity?

All ready to go trick-or-treating!

Amit's, Marinda's, Luke's (designed by him), and Jacy's pumpkins!

And if you want to laugh to hard your face falls off, read THIS blog entry we found.  Marinda couldn't stop laughing, and when she read it out loud to Amit while driving he almost crashed.  SOOOOOooooooooooo true!

Earlier on Halloween we went to the zoo. It was, like we mentioned, cold, windy, and rainy, so not many people were there. But that meant we got to see a bunch of cool stuff all by ourselves. Our first stop was the reptile house where we saw turtles both big and small. Some of the small turtles were eating lettuce, carrots, and broccoli, which Luke loved. We also saw some giant snakes, like a python that can eat a deer and a king cobra that could probably eat the python that can eat a deer. Ask Marinda how she felt about seeing that, and about just a sheet of glass between the snakes and her children.  "It was flicking it's tongue right next to Luke's face!  He wanted to eat him!"  Yeah... But we did get to see all three tigers! Luke wasn't interested in first (there were rocks to climb!) but then one came right up against the glass near him and lied down. To top that, another tiger came over and started licking him clean! How cool is that!?!?!?!

Ghost Pancakes

One of Amit's co-workers actually thought Luke was petting the tiger!

Luke stories:
•Amit told Luke he was going to make him french toast for breakfast. Then a little bit later Luke started getting really upset saying he wouldn't share with his friends and that he wanted to hit. After a few minutes of this Amit realized that Luke thought Amit was making "Friend's Toast" instead of french toast! Once Luke understood that he was getting french toast (the toast with the eggs cooked in it, as he described it) he was much more pleasant.
•Luke has started watching Daddy walk to the bus stop every morning. Well, not just watching, but also shouting at the top of his lungs "BYE DADDY! I LOVE YOU DADDY! HAVE A GOOD DAY AT MICROSOFT!" repeatedly.  We guess all our neighbors know now where Amit works.

For FHE Marinda had cleaned one out already and used it to show Luke
that like people, we don't know what is inside them from just looking at the outside.

Crazy Boy!  But check out that healthy lunch Marinda made him!

Jacy stories:
•You know, I think all these presidential candidates are taking the wrong strategy. It's not about kissing cute babies, it's about being a cute baby! Every time we take Jacy anywhere she just seems to have this presence, and everyone needs to look at her and fawn over her.  Marinda can't take her to Costco without at least three people coming up to her to tell her how cute her baby is.  And in Starbucks, this one lady came up and said she honestly thought Jacy was a doll until she saw her move.  What a rock star!

Mine!  ALL MINE!!!!!!!

And the Winner of BEST FAMILY COSTUME Goes To...

The Best Family Costume!

And the PROOF!
WE ARE THE BEST!!!!!!!

We got an award! Yesterday was our church's Halloween party and there was a costume contest and WE WON BEST FAMILY COSTUME!!!!  Luke was, of course, the Neverbeast, Jacy was Fawn, Amit was a rock tower that the Neverbeast built, and Marinda was the green lightning storm. It was pretty funny to see people try to guess what the two of us were. A couple people came up to Marinda and said "So...are you some superhero I don't know?" Nobody had any clue about Amit's costume, so he eventually he would start saying "I'm just a good guy who really, really loves his wife and kids." Because that's the reason he was dressed up. Apparently they announced the costume awards after dinner while we were getting our car ready for Trunk-Or-Treat (trick-or-treating in the church parking lot where everyone decorates their car trunks) so we didn't find out until after the fact. We're super happy though - just look at our awesome plaque and our tasty medals!

What made this costume even better was that there were two little girl's dressed up like
Scout Fairies from the same movie and they chased Luke around

All Ready!

Our car had the BEST decoration - we had a baby in our trunk!

The night before our ward Halloween party Luke's preschool had a Fall Festival (aka Halloween party). There was about a dozen different activities for the kids to do, but by far the most popular activity for the parents was 'fawning' over Jacy. Amit joked that people at the school knew Jacy better than either Marinda or Luke, and Marinda assured him that it was 100% true.

Luke loves shooting this apparently.
I guess we should get him a crossbow for Christmas..

Marinda's Dad left on Monday (which was sad) and Luke kept saying he wanted to go to California with him.  Marinda's Mom didn't leave until Thursday, so Marinda got sometime to play!  She and her mom went to the outlet mall up north, and then Marinda's Mom went with Marinda, her friend Kamie and her student Katherine to this agent talk for a writing group here in Seattle.  It was very informative, but very overwhelming too.  Marinda realized that she had no idea how the book publishing industry works - like - at all.  But her book is, like, the best thing ever, so we're not going to worry too much.  ;)

Cute Grandma Pic!

Most of Luke's bonding experiences with Grandpa seem to involve books - and we're ok with that!

Mom was here - so we needed to feed Rachel!

Luke stories:
•Today was our ward's primary program. We figured Luke would be excited to see all the kids singing and giving talks, but he just wanted to hang out in the primary room (which was empty) with Marinda.  When he saw the podium he got really excited and instructed Marinda to get a chair and put it right in front, because "I have something to teach you."  He then got up behind the podium and got his serious face on and said "I'm going to teach you about Jesus and about how we can go home to live with Heavenly Father and about how Nephi built a boat."  Then, to Marinda's complete amazement, he recited The First Article of Faith!  We had tried to teach it to him back in July but kind of gave up because it really didn't look like he was listening/ready, but here he was, giving an impromptu lesson!  He is SO ready for Primary!
•One night before bed Luke climbed up onto a chair and said it was a stage. When we told him that people usually sing or dance on a stage he went and got a bunch of musical instruments for all of us while he led us in his own renditions of the Mighty Machines and Bob the Builder theme songs. Someone has a future as a music director!
•On Tuesday a police car came to visit Luke's preschool! Oh, and I guess a police officer was there too. Luke was very excited, obviously, and even more excited that he got to bring home a police hat and a sticker badge. Check out the video of Police Officer Luke in this video!
•Marinda was sitting with Luke eating lunch today, and Marinda started talking about things she's grateful for (like trees and other profound things).  Then she asked Luke what he was grateful for, and he said "Being Loved."  That caught Marinda off guard, so she asked who loved him, and Luke said "God."  Wow - where did this amazing little boy come from?!
•Marinda picked up Luke from the babysitter, and he said that he wanted mac and cheese for lunch.  Marinda said that they were going to have PB&J, but he insisted on having mac and cheese.  When Marinda said that they didn't have any mac and cheese, Luke said "Mommy, I think you need to try and make mac and cheese."
•You know those fairy princesses who have flowers spontaneously appear behind them where ever they walk?  Yeah, we're pretty sure Luke has the same power - only instead of flowers it's toys.  That's the only conclusion we can come up with for how widespread the mess gets in our house!

Costco may be crazy, but you gotta love those double seats!

Police Officer Luke!

Jacy stories:
•Jacy is officially up on her knees now! Looking back at what Luke was doing at her age, he was getting up on his tippy toes, but apparently Jacy has skipped that step altogether and is primed for crawling. One of these days we'll have to actually baby proof...
•Marinda has advanced Jacy's eating to TWO meals a day now!  Yes, this cute little girl is eating random stuff for lunch AND dinner now!  But she has decided avocado is gross - because, you know, Marinda bought a bunch of them at Costco so she has to refuse to eat them now.

Child Abuse

Amit thinks she looks like a smurf in this shot!
Oh, only with the blue filter? 

What an AWESOME hat!
(no matter what Daddy says....)

Pretty Girl Shots

The Great Pumpkin Caper!

THE Picture!

This was a super fun week, because Grandma and Grandpa came to visit!  So we decided to take advantage of the cute generational bonding time and go to a pumpkin patch!  Marinda has been wanting to do this for years, but we've always just done the good old QFC patch and taken strategic pictures so it still looked cute and not like, well, the front of a grocery store.

We went to a place up north that was just called "The Farm" and was expected a big field of pumpkins and maybe a hayride.  What we weren't expecting was the Disneyland of Fall Festivities!  Yes there was a giant field, and a huge tractor pulled hayride, but there was also a petting zoo, a giant corn maze (maybe next year), a two story barn with a hay bail maze for kids with a slide, and so much more!  We did it all (and remembered to squeeze in getting pumpkins) but Luke's favorite was the slide in the barn.  He would have stayed there all day if he could!  We also ran into some unexpected friends!  The Houstons, Bushmans and Heaths were there as well!  How crazy is that!

First couple attempts at a cute sibling picture

Oh yeah, this really worked!

Why do you hate me?!  Look at this tear!  I could fix the drought in California with the size of it!

Awwww.....

Cute Families!  The kids are even holding hands!

The Behind the Scenes Shot....

Traditional Play Time with these three- Luke with his truck while the other girls play :P

This was the greatest thing ever while we were standing in lines 

Awww... Look at how cute Grandpa is!

Daugh!  She's so pretty!!

Hayride - or Luke's Tractor Watching Extravaganza!

3 out of 4 - we'll take it!

Look at the cute couple!  All they need to do is photoshop out that crying girl photo bombing it.

Luke looking profound

Luke's new love!  He went on this slide five million times!

Only a toddler can look so serious about driving something that actually doesn't move

Luke helping his Grandpa

I want THIS one!

And this one and this one and this one and this one....

I want ALL the Pumpkins!

This was also Luke's first week of GYMNASTICS!!!  Yup!  Luke's first real extracurricular activity and he did great!  It's a class of other three year olds, and the teachers were great at pulling them back but expecting them to run around, and Luke was a pro at all the climbing and jumping.  Yay Luke!

Luke LOVED it!

Luke and Jacy were also a big help getting our house decorated for Halloween!  Look at Luke putting on those spiders!  And Jacy was great with telling us if the house looked spooky enough.

The spider had to be put on JUST right...

Tada!  Soooooo SPOOOOOOOOOKY!

Jacy Supervising

Luke stories
•We try to encourage Luke to do things on his own, but sometimes we give him a little too much independence. We told him he needed to get his PJ's on on Friday night, and he did - he just didn't put his pants and shirt on the right part! He thought it would be sooooooooo silly to put his shirt on like a pair of pants and his pants on like a hat!
•We played "Spacy Jacy" this week! This is part of the "rhymes with Jacy" series. You might remember "chasy Jacy" from earlier or the ever-popular "scary Jacy" (okay, so scary doesn't rhyme with Jacy, we know). Luke and Jacy both sat in a cardboard box/pretend spaceship and blasted off together!
•Luke was helping Marinda plant some bulbs (Marinda was planting, Luke was playing in the dirt with his toys) and then Luke starts saying "Hey kids!  Welcome to the FLOWER YARD!"  and would then burst into giggles.  He then would act out his own episode of Mighty Machines, complete with "Today is a very special day!  Today we get to DIG!" and "Do you know what kind of machine this is?  It's an EXCAVATOR!"

What a goofball!

What?!  We're going to SPACE!?!

Starbucks date - with the holiday themed cookies that Luke LOVES

Jacy stories
•Jacy had a hard time the first two days grandma and grandpa were here, but now she seems to be okay with them. Just look at this picture of her and grandpa during church!
•This was THE dress that Marinda and Jacy picked out at Costco 'super-fancy shopping establishment  that is probably Italian or French or something' and Jacy finally got to wear it today! Amit even made a comment about how she looked she was ready to go to the ball and have a prince ask her to dance with him (but of course, only after he was vetted by Amit).
•This was also a week of firsts for Jacy - she had her first ride in a shopping cart!  What a big girl!

Jacy's first time riding in the cart!

Life is so much better now for EVERYONE!

Oh yeah, I really need to roll out these muscles on my arm

THE Dress - to go with THE Girl!

Do you remember when Luke used to make this face?!?

In the middle of Sunday School the teacher looked over and saw Jacy
and just stopped his lesson to comment on how happy she was being held by Grandpa!