Uncle Mikey

Whenever my brother Mike comes to visit the kids are so excited. They love Uncle Mikey so much. Noah adores his mad video game skills....he always helps him with the hard parts and is so much fun to play games with. Addie loves to be wild and wrestle with him. Katie just loves how sweet he is with her. She really gets excited when you talk about Mike. I just think he is so funny... a serious crack-up! He always has me laughing so hard. Not to mention he is so great about helping me out with things like babysitting, lugging heavy food storage boxes and other odd jobs. He's back at BYU for now, but he is finished at the end of this semester and then will be home until he starts dental school this fall. He will likely go to school at UW so we are lucky and excited to soon be able to spend a lot more time with him.

Thanksgiving 2008

We had a great Thanksgiving over at Grammy and Papa's house. The food was great and the company was wonderful. We ate all the usual Thanksgiving fare, and had Michelle & Aaron, Mike, Dave Jen & Lizzy, Aunt Dianne, Mom & Dad all there. The boys even talked Grammy, Papa, and Aunt Dianne into playing tag with them out in the cold after dinner. They loved it. Then we went to see Bolt at the theater with some friends and the kids really liked the movie. Special thanks to Mom and Dad for a great Thanksgiving, we really have so much to be thankful for.

Hot Dog!

Katie loves meat. Really her favorite foods are hot dogs and chicken nuggets. She hasn't met any type of meat that she doesn't like. It's downright odd, but still so cute. Well this morning she turned up her nose at bacon. Imagine that.

Big Brother, Little Sister

Addie adores Katie. He always has right from the moment I brought her home from the hospital. No actually before that, from the moment he got to hold her little hand in her NICU isolette. He has been a gentle, loving, attentive, and helpful brother. Now that she is older they have serious fun together. Addie helps her play the games he makes up, when she's throwing a fit over something he tries to help her do things the way she wants, and he even shares his treats and snacks with her. What a big brother!! In the morning the first thing he tells me is "mom, I hear Katie, can I go get her?" He tells her "you're such a pretty baby." He is so sweet with her, aside from the occasional teasing of course.

The feeling is pretty mutual. She loves Addie and looks at him adoringly. She tells me, "silly Addie." She laughs at all his craziness, she loves all his games, and always plays in the forts he makes for her. They make a very good team.

Katie & Me

Katie is good company. We get to spend our mornings together doing errands and hanging out while the boys are at school. She's always been fun but now that she is talking so much it's even more entertaining. Katie herself is very girlie and loves shoes, jewelry, and babies. When we are out and she sees any of these things, or just any old thing that interests her it's always, "I see that. I see that." At the checkout whenever I want to put the things back it's a very loud and tearful parting. When Katie is with me people are so friendly. People love babies. They just love to engage her in conversation, or complement her shoes and eyes. I am always hearing stories about grand kids Katie's age, or grown children and how fast it goes. It's nice to be able to connect with people through something as sweet as a little girl. Katie is grow fast, though her hair is still growing slow. Hee. She is a lovely, agreeable little companion.

My New Niece

This is my new niece Elizabeth Rose! She is just so darn cute and I got to take some cute photographs of her today and loved it. We are so happy to welcome her into the family! Addie wants to know if we can have her, and Katie LOVES her and just wants to feel her soft hair and kiss her lots.

We heart Soccer

Soccer season is officially over. Today the boys had their last games followed by team pizza parties and trophies or medals as the case may be. It was a great season and today they both played really awesome games. These are their soccer pictures for the year. I took Noah's teams pictures this year and though I was kinda stressed, I think they turned out OK. I especially liked this one of Noah....how handsome does he look!!!

After the parties Addie was so excited to have his first medal that he went to bed wearing only his underwear and his medal. He looked like a little Olympic swimmer!! Here's to more Saturday free time, although we will miss excitement of the games. Till next....go Rat pits and Galaxy!!

Something for Everyone

One new thing about each of our kids starting from the littlest up:

Katie has embraced the joy of being two in full scale. She is into and up to everything. She is so particular about everything, so easily frustrated when she can't do something just the way she thinks it should be done, and don't even think about trying to help her. You will get an earful for your trouble. She must use utensils at the table, even for dino chicken, and even though more food is going onto her lap than into her mouth. If you try to "forget" to set her spoon, after the prayer she will politely say, "spoon please." We can't leave her alone much anymore because she is pretty mischievous. After I was done taking a shower last week I can downstairs to find she had unwrapped three ding dongs and taken one bite out of each one. This week after a few too many minutes of quiet from upstairs Jason went to check on her to find she had pulled out about 100 DVD's from our changer. Each time you catch her doing something naughty the second she sees you coming she starts saying, "uh-oh." Sigh. The pictures from this post are a little storyboard of Katie doing her favorite trick, climbing onto the table and drinking everyone's water.

Addie has announced that the only thing he wants for Christmas this year is a new baby or a new puppy. I hope that Santa has the sense to know that I am already busy enough. Bigger Sigh.

Noah just got his own library card and has been in heaven checking out those portable books. You know, the ones you plug your headphones into and they are talking books or music. Loves them. Also loves checking out DVDs to play on his really old little DVD player. It's pretty cute, he's always asking me to take him to the library and is always ready to explain how you have to be really responsible to be able to have your own card. Meanwhile I have like $20 in overdue fines on my own card, I guess I need the lecture. He's telling me for Christmas the number one thing on his list is an ipod so he can listen to his music, he'll undoubtedly want to download the Mario music considering he has it on repeat in his head anyway. Truly it's the soundtrack of his life.