Christmas Tree

This year we decided against going to the snow for a Christmas Tree. It is hard with three kids and let alone FREEZING! We will save our trips to the snow for Trinity Lake where there a perfect sledding hill and a house with a warm fire. The kids had a blast at the tree lot. Julain and Jocelyn ran around and hid from eachother! We picked out a 6 1/2 foot tree. The kids also helped hang the decorations this year. Take note of the picture of the tree decorated. Now with all the pulling on ornaments and candy canes it is basically decorated top half only! Thats what we get when there is little ones in the house.

Thanksgiving

Let the countdown to Christmas begin! We had two Thanksgivings this year. Thanks to my wonderful mom and wonderful mother-in-law for opening up their homes and cooking delicious meals. And a happy 86th Birthday to Grandma Ruby!

No More Diapers!!...

No More Diapers!!...for Jo at least :)  I am very happy to say that Jocelyn is no longer wearing diapers...day or night! She has been in undies for about 6 months but we would put diapers on at night.  She was continuosly waking up dry so about a month and a half ago we stopped putting a diaper on her!  Of course she has wet her bed a couple times and she will still pee her pants everyonce in a while if I don't remind her to go when she is busy playing.  She was easy to potty train. At 18 months (last Christmas) she kept wanting to sit on the potty and I was able to get her schedule down enough that she would usually pee her pants once a day, then once a week and then now only once in a while. Sounds like a lot of extra laundry....but it paid off. I would say that by the timed she turned two she was fully potty trained (during the day), knowing when to go and holding it. I didn't use pull ups, I  had a couple that I tried a few times it was a diaper to her. I would just put her in jeans and that is what really made her stop peeing, she hated the feeling of wet jeans!  Number two was never a problem, which I guess is opposite of most kids...I would rather deal with wet   pants! I also used bribery in the beginning, she will do just about anything for a couple M&M's !

Trick or Treat!

Pumpkin Carving and more fun!

I thought to myself it would be great if Halloween landed on a Saturday every year. Friday, the 30th, we went to the Harvest Festival and went trick-or-treating at Grandma Ruby's. We also stopped by Grandma Linda's work, the girls in costume of course. After all that wer took a nap!  Julian had a parade at his school too. He makes a great batman! I also added some pictures from the 2nd annual pumpkin carving party. Lots of fun pumpkins.

I have kinda of decided that Halloween might just be one of my favorite holidays. It's not the candy or trick or treating (not that we have done it yet) but I really like dressing the kids up. Also pumpkin carving and baking is lots of fun. I have a ton of different outfits for the kids and one day this week I dressed the kids up and took some pics. Sam is also now crawling. She began crawling on Sunday the 17th. She was just going foward a little bit but it was definately a crawl. Ron had taken the week off to go hunting so he left early Tuesday. By the time he got back the following Sunday she was already moving room to room and crusing freely around the house. He could not believe how much she progressed in 5 days. Even the other day I left the front door open and was talking to someone outside and I turned around and there she was! For those of you who don't recognize the little mouse at the bottom that is Jordan, Julian's little brother. He just turned four.

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PUMPKIN PATCH

This year we made two trips to the pumpkin patch. The first trip Ron was able to go with me and the girls and it was a nice hot day and we had a really good time. Jocelyn picked the first pumpkin she saw which was a small rotton orange one. After some convincing she put it down and ended up with a "green baby pumpkin." Julian had wanted to go the the pumpkin patch with the tractor ride and wasn't able to go with us the first time so we loaded up about a week later and went again. Julian wanted a HUGE pumpkin. Even though our friend Jana came with us, I couldn't hall a 50lb pumpkin and 3 kids around so Julian picked a different one, that he could pick up. . . .barely!  So there is a lot of pictures for everyone to enjoy! This Saturday we are carving the pumpkins so I will post more soon.

Sam's 6 Month Stats

Sam had her 6month check up today. Poor girl, she only got two shots. I scheduled an appointment for the flu shots just so she didn't have to get so many at once. Anyway here are her numbers: Height: 26.5 inches, (76%) Weight 15 lbs 10 oz (42%). The docter said she is tall and skinny and looks like a healthy happy baby!

Sam is 6 Months old!

10/9/09
Sam is six months old today. It has gone by so fast. She is still a good baby, very easy going and mellow. Her personality is beginning to shine through a little bit. She is VERY close to crawling. She gets up on all fours and rocks and moves backwards. She isn't teething either.  She is not sleeping through the night but now with solid foods she gets at least one 4 hour chunk in most nights, other than that she wakes me up every hour or two to nurse. Ron and I had planned on putting her in her crib at 6 months but we both enjoy that she takes up most of the bed to cuddle with us, so it looks like she will sleep in our bed for a while longer!

Ron's Visit to Julian's Classroom

10/6/09

Every parent in Julian's Kindergarden class is asked to come in and share a hobby of their's with the class. Ron was the first parent to do so and he chose to share his hobby of abalone diving. It was a great subject. Ron did so good and interacted with all the kids. They got to look at some jewlery with abalone in it, touch some shells that were polished by one of Ron's buddy and check out Ron's diving gear. He brought in everything but the wetsuit. Julian was very proud of his daddy and the class really enjoyed learning about abalone diving. They even got to keep a shell for the classroom! The kids really wanted to know if he ever saw sharks and begged him to put on the mask and snorkel!

MOONSTONE BEACH

This last Saturday (9/26/09) the weather was beautiful so we decided to take the kids to the beach. They had a great time playing in Little River and building sandcastles! I didn't think that it was warm enough to get in the water so I didn't pak their swimsuits. Sure enough Julian and Jocelyn wanted to get in anyway so they stripped down to their undies and played.

Even though the castle doesn't look all that pretty it took us a while to do it. The most exciting thing for Julian is that we made it 3 stories high!

                                                                    Jocelyn loves the water but hates to get her hair/face wet. She was pretty careful to stay ankle deep while Julian was brave enough to go all the way under!

Sam was her usual easy self. I only took one picture of her and she was napping in the shade, content as could be!

We were there during naptime so of course that meant a mini meltdown for Jo. So I put her in my Ergo and went for a walk...out she went.