Sledding videos

Here are a few videos from sledding. One of them is Matt's sister and the other is, of course, Jackson.

Sledding

Since we have had quite a bit of snow - we went sledding Christmas day. It was a lot of fun. The kids loved it. Maggie would carry the sled back up all by herself and just go down again. If we asked to join her she would say "No, I am just going to go by myself." Jackson found a jump and went over it again and again. Hailey gets bundled into her little sled to keep her off the snow and warm. she would grin a little about sledding too. It all brings back a lot of memories of all the sledding I did at home with my siblings. We were pretty crazy. I'm not sure how we all came out of it in one piece.

Cool stuff

In Family Fun I saw a recipe for making these cool drinks. You can layer different drinks on top of each other and they stay seperated. We also did red/white/blue for 4th of July. All you have to do is find drinks that have different sugar content. The one with the most sugar goes in first and so on. Usually it's juice, then pop, then gatorade or something with really low sugar content. Sometimes it makes for interesting flavors depending on what you use. This one is cran/apple juice, then 7up, then koolaid lemonade (tinted green) I didn't plan ahead enough to get green gatorade. Anyway, make sure you have ice in your cup and pour slowly so you don't mix it when you pour it in.

Christmas

It's always fun to watch the kids opening presents. They always want to play with whatever one they open - they don't even care about the rest. It was a good, quiet Christmas at home. It was nice to not be traveling through any mountain passes or busy airports. It was sad to not be with more family though. I look forward to the upcoming family reunions so we can travel when the weather is better.

Let it snow!

We have gotten quite a bit of snow over the past few days - about 8 inches I think. The kids are lovin' it. Even Hailey gets out in it but I'm not sure I would say she is lovin' it. She tolerates it - for a little while. She like her little sled as long as it is moving.

Holiday lights

Williard Bay - a campground near here - puts up a light display each year. You drive around the campground to see all the lights. The kids really enjoy it because we let them get out of their buckles and stick their heads out the window. There are also some funny displays.....

In this one they crash into the tree and get all hung up in the branches.....

This one says - Reindeer Flight School - as you can see he hasn't quite gotten the hang of it.

The kids love to look around and see if they can figure out the different groupings - which generally means 4-5 trips around the loop (much to Matt's dismay). They also had a couple of real reindeer that we got out to see but I didn't take any pictures of those. I should take a picture of the lights on our house..... although they are pretty sparse.

Mouse House

I was cleaning up the other day and the mouse ears from the dress-up box happened to be out so I put them on Hailey. Maggie thought that was great so she wanted to be a mouse too. Maggie also had her "princess" shirt from the dress up box.

Snowman

We finally got some more snow! Jackson headed right out and started on a snowman. He made this one all by himself - from start to finish! It's amazing how capable and independent he is getting! My little boy is growing up :)

Christmas is coming!

Maggie was grocery shopping with me and spotted this hat. She was very excited about it. They loved pretending to be santa claus. One of these days I will have to post a picture of our tree. It's pretty sparsely decorated. We started getting ornaments for the kids each year - and that it about all the ornaments we have so that makes ..... 8, I think :)

Wow, Hailey!

Sheesh - look what our baby is up to! I can't believe how fast she is growing. It seems like just yesterday that I was pregnant. I still can't believe how much better I feel NOT being pregnant! Life is pretty good right now :)

She can't sit up for very long and is pretty wobbly but she obviously loves to see things a little better. What a happy girl!

Rocket motor test fire

We went to another test fire at Matt's work today. We had a nice parking spot so we just opened up the back of the car and had lunch while we watched. It made the car vibrate as it burned. It's really a pretty cool thing to see. I'm sure an actual shuttle launch is much cooler but for now .... this is as good as it gets. The kids enjoyed it. Jackson kept asking when it was going to take off and Maggie kept saying she didn't like the car wiggling.

New Car

Well - here is our new car. It's a 2005 Honda Pilot. It has a 3rd row seat so it can fit 8 people. I have decided that there is just no easy way to use a 3rd row - but it's very nice to have the extra room. Now we just have to figure out a good car seat arrangement....... At first the kids had a hard time adjusting to the idea of a new car - I don't think we warned them very well. Jackson cried for awhile over the idea of losing the blue saturn but now he has decided that we should keep the bigger one. Especially since we are going to start taking one of his friends to preschool with us - a girlfriend apparently - "Mom, Brooklyn just said she's in love with me." I asked "what does that mean?". He said "it just means she likes me". I said "How do you feel about that?" He said "It's ok". Ah, young love.

Trampoline tricks

We have had beautiful fall days recently so I have been trying to get the kids outside a lot. It works fine if I go with them.....

Treehouse

Finally a finished treehouse! Matt finished this a few weeks ago. It's nice to not have to worry about kids climbing up there and falling through rotting boards. What a great husband and Dad. I think he's a keeper!

More Hailey

I know there are a lot of pictures of Hailey - for a few reasons - she can't run away from the camera yet and she is constantly changing. I will keep working on the others.....

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

About a week ago Hailey started to work really hard at rolling over. Now she has it down pat. I was amazed that she started doing this now - she is only 3 1/2 months - the other two didn't roll so early. Just goes to show how different each one can be and how fast they grow up!

Maggie gets a haircut

The first picture was that morning before she got it cut. She was so good the entire time. She just sat and watched in the mirror as the lady cut her hair- although I think it helps that our neighbor has a hair salon in her house and works from home (and is also the mom of one of Jackson's friends...) so Maggie knows her fairly well. Still, she is so different from Jackson who wiggles and whines that it tickles his neck..... I expected her to be terrible - she is 2, and acts like it :) most of the time.
It is a lot easier to brush her hair now and it doesn't have to have a clip of some sort in it all the time to keep it out of her face. She wants to get her hair cut again.

Also surprising - we took her to the dentist the other day for a checkup - and she was great. She lay right down on the chair and let them clean and look at her teeth. No complaints at all. Huh. I thought it would be a battle. Shows what I know!

Hailstorm

These two crack me up. It started hailing the other day and Jackson was standing at the window watching in bounce off the trampoline. I asked why he didn't go out and play in it. He was concerned about it hurting his head...... so I suggested he wear his latest helmet. "Great idea, Mom" he responded and suited up.

Maggie followed right along and needed a helmet too.

They played out in the hail for quite awhile. I can't believe winter is upon us already. It seems like yesterday it was 100 degrees and I was pregnant!!

Hailey

Hailey is such a happy baby. She makes us smile and laugh everyday. I can't believe that having a 3rd is just as exciting as the first two. I thought it might get old..... but each one is so incredibly different! I can't wait to watch Hailey grow and change.

Halloween

With some of the neighbor kids.

Aren't they all cute? I think costumes are a lot of fun.

Masks aren't allowed at the church parties so we added some facepaint. Jackson thought it was great.

Mark and Amy visit!

The other kids were running around with helmets on..... as soon as he could get ahold of one Mark wanted to put it on too.

Playing with the toy kitchen.

It was a lot of fun to have Mark and Amy visit us for a few days (I went to school in Kettle Falls with Amy). Mark knows quite a bit of sign language - it was cute to see him sign baby everytime he saw Hailey. He also loved the trampoline and wanted to spend all of his time jumping.

It's so fun to see your friends have kids and watch them grow up. I am excited to see some more friends this weekend as I go to WA.

Kiddos

Maggie loves to play with legos (Jackson's all time favorite toy) - but she plays with them a little differently....... her favorite part is the little lego guys. She loves to change their hats, hair, faces, pants.....it's very funny to see her playing with them like you would dolls. They actually have quite a few accessories you can change!
The red mark on her chin is from a sidewalk crash. She has had a number of those lately.

Jackson showing off his strong man muscles. He is very much into superheroes etc right now. It has been Jango Fett for awhile but the other night Matt showed him a few scenes from Ironman and now that has been his latest obsession. People at church have a hard time keeping up because he always introduces himself as whatever obsession he has at the moment.

Hailey

Hailey having some tummy time. She really doesn't mind it as long as she isn't tired. She likes to watch Maggie and Jackson play with toys in front of her. It won't be long before she is into everything!!

She pushes with her toes alot and sometimes manages to get onto her knees a little. But when the bum goes up the head goes down...... so I'm sure it doesn't mean she will take off on us anytime soon but it's fun to watch her try!

Hailey found her thumb the other day - it was very cute. As soon as she started sucking on it she almost fell asleep! She is still an easy going, happy baby. She loves to smile and "talk" to us. At her two month well child check she weighed 12 lbs 8 oz and was 24 1/2" long.

Snow Day

Can you believe that we've gotten the first snowfall of the winter already?! We got about an inch in 1 1/2 hours. So of course the kids wanted to play in it.

We looked out after the kids had been playing a little while and Jackson had managed to make this huge snowman ball all by himself!!


This is our snowman. Jackson dubbed him 'snowy'.

One tired kiddo!

Maggie has started to drop her nap - she's not even 2 1/2!! I don't know what she's thinking. I try to get her down for one but it's happening less and less that she actually goes to sleep. So one day at dinner (yes, pancakes for dinner) she pushed her plate away and laid her head down. This happens so rarely with our kids - that they fall asleep at random - we were all amazed. We told Jackson that Maggie fell asleep and he goes around where he can see her face and just stares - as if he's trying to figure out if she is kidding. He stared for quite awhile before Matt took her up to bed.

Costume parade

A pirate says "Arr!" It's way too big for her but she wanted to be a pirate that day so.....
Hailey as a giraffe.
Hailey as a ladybug.
Jackson as Jango Fett (Star Wars character)

The kids love costumes and October is always fun as we try to decide what everyone will be for Halloween. They love to try on different things as the month goes by - we have quite a well stocked costume box (thanks, Gram :) ). So who knows what they will actually be when Halloween comes around. Jackson wore the Jango Fett for days on end when he got it but now isn't quite so interested....... and after we made guns from toilet paper rolls and a gun belt from duck tape too!