Katie Jane

One of Katie's loves is her baby sister Lexie. She wants to hug and kiss her all the time. This is something we hope does not go away anytime soon. Katie says "I like to sit with her. I like to brush her hair. I love Lexie!"

Right now Brand has gone off to school, so that leaves Katie and Sara at home with Mom. These two are becoming quite the duo. Katie says when she is home with Sara that she "likes to play with Polly Pockets and Barbies and eat popsicles. I like to watch Scooby Doo, Super Friends, and Duck Dodgers because it has pretty ladies."

One of Katie's favorite holidays is Halloween. This year she was a princess. Katie says that next Halloween she wants to be Tinker Bell. Her favorite part about Halloween is "wearing costumes and getting candy." She also says she can hardly wait for Christmas because she loves opening presents.
This past August Katie celebrated her 4th birthday. We had so much fun. We went to the Dollar Store and bought a bunch of princess presents. She played dress up and enjoyed every minute of it. Then we went to Cracker Barrel and ate dinner. Katie loved eating eggs and drinking root beer. What a combination! We just love our Katie Jane!

Trimming the Tree

We had a great night trimming the tree. It was so much fun. It's great to see that Christmas is here.

Brando

Brandon is growing up so fast it seems impossible. Recently he lost a tooth. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. He showed me his tooth, but he wasn't having anything to do with me pulling it out even though it was so close to falling out it was ridiculous. So Brandon left the kitchen and went into the living room. He showed his tooth to Sara. She looked at it, reached up and grabbed it, an "poink" she pulled his tooth out so fast he couldn't even scream. It was amazing. She had a smile so big it alone made me happy.

Brandon has returned to the soccer playing field. Not much has changed for him. He really wants to play but just doesn't quite get it yet. He runs around after the ball but he's just not ready to get in and kick. We are having a lot of fun playing together.

This last Halloween Brandon wanted to be a ninja so badly. He said the funniest things as we went from house to house trick or treating. "Mom, I'm going to climb this tree. Just have the people look for me okay?!" He looks really cool in his costume.

Well, this is one young man who loves his little sisters. Here he is just enthralled with baby Lexie. He calls her Lex Lex. He just can't get enough of this beautiful little baby sister. He thinks she is really cool.

Hannah

Hannah, the Cleopatra. She had a great time this last Halloween playing the role of the Pharaoh. She really isn't interested in any Mark Anthony's yet (thank heaven).

Hannah is always trying to help dad. We had a really neat experience with one of our neighbors. He grows these ginormous pumpkins around Halloween. He gave us one that weighed over 100 pounds. On the way to our house it got dropped and it split open. Rather than chucking the beautiful thing, we decided he would make a great Frankenstein's monster. Hannah was great helping me work through all the details of putting Frankie back together.

Hanna is always in the middle of things with the family as well. She is so helpful. I love to watch her with the little kids, motivating them to do things. It's lots of fun.

Hannah is also developing a love for fine food like her mother. These two are eating Chocolate éclairs from one of the best bakeries I have ever eaten from. Lily (Tricia) absolutely loves these éclairs and has to drive about 60 miles one way to get them. They only cost $3.25 a piece. Yippie. I am not a fan of éclairs until I ate on of these. They truly are delectable.

As you can see, Frankie turned out to be a pretty cool creation. You can see the light shining through the cracks in his head. We stitched him up with jewt cord. It was a blast!

Kayla Turns 12

Kayla just recently turned 12! Wow! This doesn't seem possible. We had a great night at her 12th birthday. Lily made a Tinkerbell cake and Kayla decorated it. We ate homemade pizza and opened presents. Then we watched Meet the Robinson's. Well, actually this all did not happen on her birthday. Michaela was so excited because her birthday was on her first night to attend mutual. We had a very nice evening with our stake president. He said some very good things to the youth. So then we held off for the celebration until Friday night.

One of the exciting things that has happened is Michaela has started playing the violin. Her elementary school has an orchestra where she has been learning to play. She's slowly getting used to the idea that playing is not easy and "No, your violin is not broken. It takes time for it to sound good."

One of the things Yaya's class is doing is their "university of learning." They are responsible to pick a topic they want to study. Then they spend time learning about that topic. Michaela chose baking desserts. The ghosties are one of the things she made for her class.

Not only is Michaela becoming a little confectionery baker extraordinaire, but she is also an exceptional artist. I included here a painting she created for her class in school.

She entered the reflections contest, a contest at school where students produce some kind of art project centered around a theme. We don't have an electronic image of her drawing, but it surely is neat to watch her developing her talents.

Snowy Day

Today was out o' control in the snow category. We had about 12" on our driveway. It took a long time to shovel. Then one of our neighbors came over to say we could borrow his snow blower. It was sooooo nice. Everything is so beautiful now.

These are some pictures from our front window. This is our neighbor's backyard. And the other picture is simply a stunning view of the sunset.

Typical Sara

Hello everyone। We thought we would join the blogging world. We thought we'd get things started with a post of our little princess Sara. We're so excited to catch up with everyone. It's great to see what's happening in your lives.