Best Seat in the House

This is Abby's favorite spot right now.  She pulls the  little chair over, climbs in and sits and looks at the tree.  It's too sweet.  The chair is currently her favorite toy.  I can't even tell you how much time she spends climbing in and out...and occassionally tipping..that chair.  Who knew a chair could be so fun?

The Big 1!!!

While we were in San Diego for Thanksgiving (to be documented later..hopefully), we celebrated Abby's 1st birthday.  She didn't really seem to notice or care but we had a little party for her.  Rather than diving into the traditional cupcake, she was treated to a very rich Peanut Butter Trifle.  She has refined tastes! 

Digging in with the whole hand...she loves to eat!

It's not easy being this cute :)

She did love the present opening portion of the party...well, mostly the paper and boxes!

Terrance...In Full Bloom

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who sent back your feathers!!!  Terrance ended the Thanksgiving season looking fabulous.  We had so much fun receiving and reading about all of your blessings....can't wait until next year!

All She Wants for Christmas....

...is at least 1 front tooth!!  It's finally happened..we are in the tooth losing phase!  She has been waiting anxiously for this day for quite a while (so long, that the tooth below it decided to start growing in behind...can you say braces? Bummer ! )  So it's been pretty loose the last couple of days and I told her yesterday it had to come out!  So when Jason came home from work, she let him take it out....with pliers.  I wasn't there but Jason said she was super brave!

The tools and the final product!

And, of course, we were awaken early this morning to her showing us the gold dollar that the tooth fairy left her.  She is so proud.  She told me this morning that she already feels older since losing her tooth.  She definately walked with a little more skip in her step this morning!!

Filling in Nicely!!

Terrence is growing by the day...in fact he has more feathers than even this pictures!!!  We love hearing what our family and friends are grateful for!!!!

Terrance the Turkey

(I will start this post by saying that I completely stole this idea from my fabulously creative friend Jen.)

My girls have been asking for the last couple of weeks about why we celebrate Thanksgiving.  We've talked about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving and read some books but I wanted a way for them to really think about how blessed we are and how much we have to be thankful for.  Then I remembered that Jen had done this with her kids the last couple of years.  So, we have our Thanksgiving turkey Terrance.  He started out November with no feathers..so sad.  We mailed out feathers to our family and asked them to write something they are thankful for on their feather.  Now we patiently wait for the feathers to return and when they do we talk about what other people are thankful for and what we are thankful for too. 

This was Terrance in the beginning.

We are excited to announce that we have received some feathers...Terrance is starting to look more like a turkey!

We'll keep you posted as Terrance fills out!

We Love Fall!!

We have love, loved being here in Boise and enjoying a "real" fall again.  Not to say that we didn't like the weather in L.A., it's just that we had really, really missed actual seasons.  This is really the first time the girls have been able to be in colder weather with leaves changing colors.  Last Saturday, Jason even raked up the leaves so the girls could jump in them.  They've been dreaming of that for quite some time.  On Sunday, after church, we ventured down to the Boise river to enjoy the fall scenery.  It was so beautiful.  I was sad I didn't have a my good camera, the colors were so amazing, but these pictures will have to do.  Since the river is so low now, there were dead and fallen trees everywhere for the girls to play on.  They were in heaven. 

Abby spent most of the time bundled in the stroller!

Halloween Fun!

We had such a fun Halloween.  The weather was perfectly crisp, the leaves were falling and kids were everywhere!!  It was perfect!  I loved every minute of it and I think the girls did too.  This year we decided the girls would be witches and Abby was their black cat.  I braved the costume construction project this year and after much procrastination, a bout with the stomach flu Saturday and a crazy busy Sunday..the costumes were complete Monday in time for school and trick-or-treating.  Nothing like a little pressure!!!

We started our night with a few pictures.  Abby wasn't really the happiest cat on the street, so we didn't really get any great ones sadly. 

 We started our trick-or-treating in my brother's neighborhood where everyone meets at the park and the parents sit aroung the park and the kids just trick-or-treat to the parents.  It's a nice quick, easy, safe way to score a bunch of candy!  We then moved onto my other brother's cul-de-sac.  They have a neighbor that rents a flat bed trailer, lines it with hay and drags it behind his 4-wheeler.  He takes the kids around the next subdivision and lets them trick-or-treat.  He was so patient.  He just moves slowly down the street while the kids go door to door.  It got a bit chilly toward the end but it was so so fun!  The girls loved trick-or-treating with cousins and friends! 

We fininished off our night, with a visit to a crazy-decorated house in our neighborhood.  We've watched our neighbor decorate all month and wondered what he was doing.  Well, it turns out he has a whole show with music, lights and talking.  To get candy you have to go into the garage where there are multiple scary things jumping out!  I, of course, got freaked out by the garbage can that moved with the hand coming out of it and then our girls wouldn't get any closer than the street.  Needless to say, it sufficiently freaked them out!!  It was a pretty amazing set-up though!  All and all, a pretty fantastic night!

A Birthday Surprise....

A couple of night before my birthday, my father-in-law knocked at our door about 9:00 at night.  I was a little shocked although he passes through on occasion to go to Idaho Falls, so I just figured Jason had forgotten to tell me.  He said he had brought some things from his parents home that their cleaning out for us to store for him.  We've had some of his things before so I didn't think it was that strange.  So we headed out to unload the truck and this was in the back....

a piano...for me...for my birthday!!!

I was so surprised.  I had told both parents that I was saving money for a piano but I never expected to have one at home this soon.  I love it!!  This little piano was left in a rental apartment that Jason's dad's family owns in Idaho Falls.  Apparently, this little piano had taken some abuse, but Jason's dad took it to a piano technician who cleaned it up and got it already to be played.  It has really good sound and suffered no permanent damage.  It has been so fun to have a piano in our home. I have been teaching piano to a few kids (mostly family) and since I started teaching I have really been missing playing the piano myself.  It's been a long time since I've had a piano to play and I think I missed it more than I even thought!  Plus, the girls have been loving playing it.  They hold sessions of Primary often in our front room now!  Thanks Mom and Dad Polson for the special surprise!

A REAL Pumpkin Patch!

For the last several years, we've become accustomed to the parking-lot-pile-of-pumpkin pumpkin patch.  So this year, I was so excited when I found out Lauren's pre-school had a field trip to the real-life pumpkin patch.  It was perfect.  Way out, on lots of land...the kids took a hayride out into the fields and then had a chance to pick their pumpkin.  The only rule was they had to be able to carry their pumpkin themselves!  Lauren searched and took her time...

and found the perfect pumpkin.

 The kids had a chance to play in the hay bale maze & mountain, learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin and then play in the corn box.  The corn box was definately the biggest hit.  Just like a sand box, it was a huge wooden box filled with dried corn.  The kids loved it!  This is Lauren mid-leap into the corn box.

 Abby was lucky enough to be able to tag along...doesn't she look excited!

The only sad thing was we didn't make it back as a family, so Jason and Emily will have to wait with baited breath until next year!

On the Move!

After much waiting and prompting, we are pleased to announce that SHE MOVES!  It only took until 11 months but Abby finally decided that she wanted to crawl.  Honestly, I don't really push my kids to crawl because let's face it, it's kindof nice when they are stationary.  But she was getting pretty frustrated with sitting in one spot.  So finally, on her terms, she did it!!  And of course, once she started crawling...

 then she had to stand....

 then climb the stairs....

 (which by the way..she is so proud of!)

It won't be long until she if fully mobile!!  Sad day, what happened to our baby?

Busy, Busy!!

It seems like the beginning of this school year has been more busy for us this year.  I'm sure all you parents out there with lots and older kids are laughing,  but we are just venturing into the all-day school, sports practice, lessons,  etc.. realm.  I have to admit, I miss the days of half-day kindergarten when it seemed like we have hours of play-time a day.  It's been quite an adjustment for Emily to be gone all day, for Lauren to be without her best friend all day and for me to both fill time and manage time and for Abby to nap somewhere in there!  Most days feel crazier than they really should be but I'm hoping we're settling into a better routine...just in time for the holidays to arrive. 
The girls finished fall soccer 2 weeks ago.  They both had great seasons and seem to really love soccer.  Emily's team just started playing with a goalie this year and she loved playing goalie!  She's funny because she likes playing goalie but when she plays in the field she scores all the time!  I guess on of these days she'll have to choose.  I have to admit, I will be strongly pushing her away from goalie, a little too nervewracking for me.  Lauren's little team was amazing!  Improved so much from last season and won all their games.  She has one more season (spring) in co-ed and then next year it will be just girls.

 I have to admit, while we love soccer it has been nice to have our Saturdays back the last few weeks.  Finally, we've been able to finish some on those pesky projects that we started so long ago (pictures to come!)

Every Inch!

 Love this sweet baby so much....from head..

to toes!

Backyard Camp-out!

We really wanted to fit in some camping this summer.  We've never really been able to go tent camping since it's pretty hard to find spots in California.  There are a lot of fun places close to Boise but as it turned out our weekends just got to busy to make it.  So we'll put in on the "must-do" list for next summer.  Since we didn't make it real camping we decided to do one backyard camp out this summer.  The girls were super excited.  We roasted hot dogs for dinner and then Jason and the girls got to work on the tent.  They were actually quite helpful and had the tent up pretty quick. 

As it got dark and before bedtime we cooked up some smores (on our barbeque).  Suprisingly, our girls weren't really fans..so sad.  Maybe it's an acquired taste!  They each had a couple of bites and handed them over to Jason and I.

All ready for bed!!  Abby and I were exempt from the actual sleeping outside portion of this camp out!

The tent all lit up but their little lantern!!  They had a fabulous time.  Just one more fun thing to do in a backyard!

Swimming Lessons!

We took a couple of sessions of swim lessons this summer at the YMCA.  The first session went really great, mostly because both girls had a cousin in their class.  Second session was a differest story.  Emily's class was fine.  She loves to swim and has no problem getting in and taking off.  Lauren mostly loves water but like most things if she decides she doesn't like it that day...well, there's just not a lot you can do about it.  We got to the first day of the second session and it turned out that Lauren was the only one in her class.  I was super excited, she basically had private lessons, which she kindof needed.  She had the same cute teacher as the session before, so I figured, no problem.  The first two days were great.  The third day she decided she wasn't getting in....at all.  So frustrating.  I think all young moms know the feeling, I am frantically offering her everything short of Disneyland to get her in the water...to no avail.  Of course, all this made a little more awkward by the fact that she is the ONLY KID IN HER CLASS.  Her sweet teacher talked to her for the whole half hour from the pool, yet she never stepped foot in. The next lesson Jason came.  It took him 15 minutes to get her in and then had to sit at the edge (of a waveless pool) for the next 15 minutes.  Bless his heart, he was soaked.  Each lesson after that, we whittled the time to enter the pool down a little and finally the last lesson she cheerfully jumped in at the beginning and swam the entire time.  Definately a lesson in patience for me!! 

Emily's a fish...loves the water and is quite a good swimmer!!

First Days!!

 I know that I'm way behind on summer pictures but I figured I get these up and start fresh in September.  Summer has come to an end (except it's still 90 degrees).  The girls were both so excited to get back to school and I'm excited to be back to a schedule.  Emily is a big first grader this year.  She is over the moon excited.  She gets to ride the bus, which she loves...me, not so much but I guess it works.  She so far loves her teacher and her class.  She didn't really have any of her friends from last year in her class but she's having fun making new friends.

Lauren just started her last year of preschool yesterday.  I can't believe she'll be in kindergarten a year from now.  She is at the same preschool as last year just with a new teacher.  She had a great day yesterday and is excited to go back tomorrow. 

These cute cousins are at preschool with Lauren!

Bath-time Fun!

Our cute little Abby has absolutely hated baths since the day she was born.  Everytime we put her in water she would just freak out.  Well, last week we started something new.  We have a pretty big kitchen sink and since she can now sit up, we let her take her bath in there.  Miracle!!! She loved it...loved splashing and kicking.  It was too fun!!

Besties!!!

These two cute girls spent the week of the family reunion in best friend heaven.  They loved being together....they are crazy, adventurous, silly, loving and sometimes a little naughty but they sure love each other.  It's so funny to see them together and it was equally heartbreaking to see them have to say good-bye.  Lauren has shed many tears since Kaitlyn left and keeps asking when we'll see her again.  I sincerely hope it's soon!

How Low Can You Go?

To end the Sock Hop, we had a friendly game of limbo...which turned out to be quite impressive.  Of course the little kids were great, but some of the adults displayed some hidden talents of their own.  I wish I could show you all the pictures but here's a small sampling of the fun.  In the end, it was Kat's boyfriend T.J. that won....he had some serious limbo skills. 

Emily and some other of the kids, may not have completely understood the rules to the game!

These two, Travis & T.J were the last two adults and despite some crazy flexibility of Travis's ankles, T.J. prevailed!