Christmas

 The first BIG snowstorm.  Nightime sledding with daddy while me and leah get the hot chocolate and popcorn ready for a movie night.  This was the first year that we watched some really fun Christmas movies with our kids - Miracle on 34th street, The Muppets Christmas Carol, and The Santa Clause one night when we had a sleepover with Jo's kids.  And my very, very favorite we watched when Byron and Karen were with us for a few days before Christmas,  It's a wonderful life.

 Myah and Clara's anual pj shot

 We did white elephants with the adults this year and oh it was fun.  I kinda don't think this is meant to cover your nose, but I can't remember.  I was burned out by Christmas Eve.  is that horrible?  It's true though.  Byron had his knee replaced about a week and a half before Christmas and stayed with us while he was recuperating, and getting Christmas ready for four little kids is no small feet by itself.  By that night - I was toast.  I think my siblings were too.  Instead of the nativity and bells, and all the other meaningful fun stuff for the kids, we sent them all downstairs to watch a show while we sat upstairs and laughed at silly presents and relaxed for a while and then went home.  And for this year, that was perfect.

 Papa and Leah

 Santa came - lucky ducks

 give it up for the rainbow loom - WOOT WOOT!

 Graham is in love with his train set.  He played with it for 3 hours straight Christmas day.  3 hrs!!!

 The 2nd best present of the year.  Thank you dear trampoline for burning so much winter energy.

 and the best present of the year - the teepee.  And I couldn't believe how easy it was, despite how much time I spent pouring the internet for teepee tutorials.  no tutorial needed.  We cut a bunch of willows up at b's parents over thanksgiving, drilled some holes through them and lashed them together.  Then I bought a huge drop cloth that I just draped around the top and tied with some leather that I cut holes for in the top.  I cut around the bottom with pinking shears and whishy woosh, a teepee.  It was at least february before Clara and Gray slept in their beds again.

and two of this one, because I can't get enough of those chubby little fingers and those brown cow eyes. Merry Christmas - ----fewf, we made it through:)

random fall stuff

 He plays a mean harmonica

 she is busy, and naughty and always hungry and the most adorable thing I could imagine.

 Brandons cousin moved and when he went to help they were loading their tramp up to take to the DI....what??? so we got a free tramp to replace the last one that flew down the street in the horrible wind storm a few years ago.  AWESOME!

 This is a pretty standard look for Graham when he eats oatmeal in the morning.  When i asked Gray why in the world Graham had a big x on his back he got all red in the face and then admitted that they were playing treasure hunt and grahams back was the map.....cool.

 Grady has turned into such an awesome little homework doer

 The note clara left under her pillow.  kinda steep sister...

 And she brings home stuff like this.  I don't even know what it says, and she's only in 1st grade.  something about pizza I think....

 hold on tight babe!

 We got some surprise tickets to go see the Nutcracker one morning, and I was so excited I could hardly stand it.  I had no clue how happy I would be to share Clara's first ballet with her.  I fell in love with the name Clara after watching it my mom and sisters when I was a little girl, so it felt so special to see it with her.

 kinda odd - but I took this picture to remind me that instead of being grumpy when I see this, I need to remember that one day I will have beautiful bowls of fruit on the counter that no one will take bites out of and put back - and it will probably make me cry to realize I have no little chubby, fruit snitching hands to hold.

I love this fireplace and mantle and bookshelves.  We got the shelves from Ikea and one week when b was in Japan for work I surprised him by having someone come put up the brick and the mantle.  And now we are moving and I won't get to decorate this anymore for the seasons and i'm gonna miss it. So.... one last picture for me to remember my pretty mantle I've loved so much. 

Thanksgiving and Trees and B

Brandons parents have a little cabin just outside of west yellowstone in montana.  Brandon and his Dad and brother built the whole thing themselves when B was in high school.  This past summer they decided it needed a little more room if we all ever wanted to be up there together, so they got to work.  On Thanksgiving morning we drove up to see the progress and to cut down our Christmas tree - it was beautiful and sunny and snowy and cold.  Just the way thanksgiving in montana should be.  I know I just went off about how much I love Halloween, But I also really really really love Thanksgiving.  A whole month to really think about how blessed we are.  To focus on gratitude and thankfulness for all the abundance we've been given.  So wonderful.  

 and after all the food - we had about ten pies and a cake to celebrate Brandons birthday with.  I am pretty darn thankful for Him so it felt pretty perfect to celebrate his birthday on Thanksgiving this year.

Our cute John pumpkin.  Happy Thanksgiving.

side note: I look at all these pictures of my family and I feel so overwhelmed with happiness for my sweet family.  These guys really are the greatest most luckiest thing I could ever imagine.  Such a perfect day to celebrate how thankful I am for my Heavenly Father and my family and my life.  

Halloween 2013

Halloween rocks my world.  Really.  I love it.  I know I say that every year, but I think it's so much fun.   Here's halloween in pictures.

 He seriously ate raw pumpkin and liked it.

 "Double Five!!!"  This is the reaction I get when the kids come in the kitchen and instead of cleaning up all the pumpkin carving goo and making another mess for dinner I decide to go with popcorn and smoothies instead.  oughta do that more often. The one below is the parade at school.  Grady has afternoon kindergarten and wasn't going to be able to be in a parade.  Clara told him he should just come with her and be in the school parade in the morning.  So we took them both to school dressed up to see and sure enough, Mrs. Moore told him to come on in.

Gray knew from the start he wanted to be a skeleton and we had so much fun making his costume together with glow in the dark paint and ironing on a freezer paper stencil.  Clara was a little more fickle and decided two days before she didn't want to be a disney princess, she wanted to be an egyptian princess.....thank goodness for slips and the birthday cape I made for her a few years ago and the wig that I somehow ended up with after a CDT concert in college.  She turned out pretty darn cute i think.

 Brandon grew some HUGE pumpkins this year.  I wish I'd gotten a picture of them all on our porch.....it was kinda crazy there were so many.  This is the big one they decided to carve.  B's awesome - he just comes up with an idea in his head and draws it on and carves it up.

 most handsome skeleton I've ever seen...

 Presenting, "Clarapatra",  mouse, giraffe and skeleton boy.  Gray was so excited to start he literally could not sit still.  YAY FOR HALLOWEEN! ...and a bucket full of free candy...

 b unzipped his face, and i died.  good night.

 "leah do you like halloween?"  YES!! look at those cheeks - holy cow I could eat her.

My favorite part of the night was after we were all done scouring the neighborhood for treats we drove over to see this guys house that he decorates with a whole ton of pumpkins that he carves every year.  He's amazing (his name is also Ken Klinker and when we moved here almost eight years ago I backed into his car at the city office bldg one day.  Soo... I'll always remember ken klinker)  anyway, on the way back we decided to stop at tom and monicas and try and scare them.  Me and B knocked on the door then hid on either side.  Little did we know that Tom was inside, alone, watching some horror movie.  When he answered we jumped out and scared him and I think he about peed his pants.  He let out this crazy howl sound.  HAH!  I really really really love scaring people! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

hot

This morning was kinda crazy and after we'd been home from taking Clara to school for about 45 minutes I walked into the kitchen and saw Graham sitting at the table with the saddest little look on his cute chubby cheeks.  He also still had his big down coat zipped up with his hood on.  He looked at me and said in the quietest, tiny voice and with tears in his eyes,  "I'm riwy riwy hot mommy".  Poor hot little boy can't even get his mom to take his coat off. geez louise............

poop

Yesterday was the pits.  and I cried in front of a police man.

We are moving.

Not to the mountains.

But to a beautiful home (at least in my dreams it will be beautiful one day after a whole lot of work) that is close by with a whole bunch of land and animal rights.  But the whole process of getting this house has been really stressful and I haven't been sleeping very good because my mind is so full.  Sunday night I didn't sleep very much.  Then I got up and went to Latin Jam which is really the funnest class ever but because I was so tired I left class kinda feeling like I wanted to puke.  I took Grady to kindergarten crying.  I handed him to Ms. Moore kicking and screaming for me not to leave him - but I did anyway. (he's never ever done that before by the way.)  I got in the car and went to my visiting teaching appointments at 12:40 which were kind of rough because I usually put Graham and Leah down for naps at about that time.  They were grumpy and tired and I was stressed thinking about Grady and how if his teacher called me (like she told me she would if things didn't get better) I didn't have my cell phone with me.  Leah lost my keys at one house.  When we finally got done with our visits I put my crying/tired babies in the car but drove to the school instead of home cause I just needed to peek in Grays classroom window and see with my own eyes that he really was ok.  But as soon as I hopped out of my car I realized that I had been followed in the parking lot by a cop who quickly told me I was speeding and asked me to get back in my car.  He gave me this big lecture about why it's so important to drive slow in school zones (duh) and I was so upset that I was so upset that I didn't realize I was speeding (make sense?) that I just started crying because I don't want crazy upset moms driving fast where my kids walk either.  And I felt so dumb.  But He didn't give me a ticket.  And Grady was at PE and I had a good talk with his teacher and she told me that after about an hour of him giving her the evil eye her perked up and was acting like his usual happy self.  Then i came home to find an entire container of granola spread out over most of my house.  And I hadn't had a drink or food since the gym.  And..........just cause I feel like complaining, I've changed two peed in cribs, cleaned up one peed in teepee and one peed in tub and was peed on once directly - all in the last 48 hours.  And about ten minutes ago I was lucky enough to have a hand full of poop.

DONE - all done, just needed to get all that off my chest!

WHEW does that feel better!  Brandon knew I was a little hammered last night and picked up pizza for a dinner - we watched funny videos on you tube and had a great little discussion about prayer for FHE and then we put the kids to sleep and watched an episode of "parenthood" in our bed.  So it was all ok.  And in like a year from now I'll be in a clean new house with a yard all put in, our house now will have been long sold and everything will be ok then too.  

and hopefully graham will still be leading us in "BINGO" for our closing song in FHE then too.  Cause thats the best thing ever.