Letter to Santa

WARNING: Mommy bragging here....

A couple weeks ago Hannah wrote her very first letter to Santa. I'm such a proud momma! She is three and doing so well with learning her letters and their sounds. She has been writing all her letters for a while now and she wanted to do this by herself, so I agreed. It was so sweet to see her excitement and I will save this letter FOREVER!
Dear Santa,

Can you please bring me a Tinker Bell baby? Love Hannah

Family Night

I love Monday nights. I love it for many reasons, one is that it's Scott's day off, that is the day we have our date's since the other day off is Sunday, and the other is that it is our family night. It is our night to relax as a family and learn about the the gospel. The girls are very squimish and it is hard to make it through our short lessons, however, it is so special to hear what Hannah learned and to hear her repeat it days later. We know she listens, we know she learns and we love how excited they get to have this special time with us.

This was the FHE board I made a couple weeks ago and it is fun to use. I really like it!
Tonight it was Scott's turn. He discussed the birth of our Savior. And I thought it was so cute that he "recreated" the scene of His birth with the girls toys. We saw an amazing play at church the other day, Savior of the World, and Hannah watched most of it. She knows all about it and was answering all of Scott's questions correctly. She said that Jesse doesn't sing as well as Mary did in the play though. hahaha Mary was amazing, as were the rest of them. I am so grateful for Family nights and I look forward to them every week.

I love my beautiful family!

Just some family pictures taken by the wonderful Tonya Joy,http://www.tonyajoy.com/myjoy here is her website. And her very talented sister Gena has a beautiful and delicious website (www.genasusan.com), check them out if you want some gorgeous ladies to capture your beautiful families.

Halloween Parade

This is a fun clip of how many kids were there, and some where even missing from this video!

Halloween

This year my kids were costume snobs! hahaha No they just wore two different costumes and some people teased me about it so I tease back. ;) Anyway for our ward trunk or treat my mom made Hannah a Minnie Mouse costume and I think she wore it so well. She just gets more pretty with everyday and we always have fun watching her play dress up. My mom did a great job and Hannah can't wait to wear it again to Disneyland.
Leah was a flying monkey, no I think you can tell what she was and she was so flipping cute!
They had fun posing for the camera. Hannah thinks she is a model and she strikes poses all the time. She even has her runway walk down!

Then this was the next night, the actual day. We went to a friends house for their 2nd annual Halloween party and we had so much fun. They did crafts, a parade, had a slushy machine, jumped on the trampoline and so many more fun things. We all had a great time being with our peeps.
Ummmm, yeah she is cute! She was a flower this night and I think the sweetest darn flower I have ever seen. She left her whole costume on alllllll night. She can be so easy going at times. Although I feel bad because she was eating everyone's food. If they blinked their eye, food was gone! But she was happy and with all the candy no one seemed to mind that their veggies were missing.
They had a projection screen up and played a movie with popcorn and hot chocolate. So much fun! The kids actually stayed and watched 90% of the movie and I was able to have some serious chat time with my friends, which is always nice and so appreciated.
The girls were so excited to eat some candy from trick or treating.
As you can see, my little princess looks better than the real Belle. She is so sweet and sassy, but she sure made a gorgeous Princess!

(Just to clear things up. Only one costume was purchased during the making of this post.)

What the????

So I have a hard time following through with the threat that I put out for Hannah. I only put out threats that are within means and understandable, nothing like I'm going to ring her neck which is often how I feel, but threats to get the point across. So today we wanted to go to the pumpkin patch for our family outing. We told her she had to take a good nap and we will go somewhere fun. Well she sounded like she was practicing for the 100 yard dash up stairs. All we heard were the sounds of her running from room to room. You would have thought that there were five grown men up there and not a 30lb little girl! So she comes down and we tell her that she made a bad choice and her consequence is not going to the pumpkin patch. I feel horrible leaving her and having her miss out on this opportunity until this conversation happens...

Hannah- " I'm going to the pumpkin patch with you."

Me- "No your not."

Hannah- " Oh yes I am. We are a family and we will be together forever and so you can't leave me to do something fun. Your my mom and you have to take me!"

Me- " Yes we are a family and yes we will be together forever but tonight your staying with a sitter so we can enjoy the fun night we had planned."

This arguing goes on for a while and she is not budging. Finally I stop and just ignore her. She is TELLING me that she is going with us. Now I'm just annoyed by this little person who is being so sassy.

Me- " Hannah, who is the mommy?"

Hannah- " You."

Me- " Who is the one who makes the rules?"

Hannah- " Me! And your taking me with you and that's that!"

What the????? She said many more things that turned my face as red as it will ever be but I just want to know when did I allow this disrespect to enter my home? What am I doing that makes her think she can talk to me like that? And all I have to say is WHAT THE ----???

Our trip to Washington

Warning: Lot's of pictures! 

Last week the girls and I took our first plane ride together. We were going to Washington with my mom and sister to visit my brother Nathan who was getting married to the right person for him this time. The days we traveled were excruciatingly long, but the trip had a lot of positive sides to it.

This was our very first plane ride which was 3 hours long to Seattle. They did amazing on the plane with the exception of a few cranky moments due to the dvd player dying and not being able to roam free. Other than that, we got told how amazing my little travelers were.
I had to post two of these pictures to show you Hannah's new "picture pose". When I say smile she frowns! And most pictures I have are like this now, urg!
Leah was pooped on the flight over and passed out in my mom's arms for a total of 10 min! Oh well, I guess all she needed was a cat nap.
I suppose I'm teaching Hannah well, she ran up to this stuffed whale and said "take a picture of me!" Every time we passed it, I had to take a new picture.
When we arrived 7 hours later in Spokane, my brother and his daughters were waiting for us. It was a greeting out of a movie I swear! They were waiting for us right outside our gate and ran to hug us and gave us the best greeting ever. It was awesome.

Leah could not wait one more minute till we got into the car to pass out again. 

This trip was so cool because we got to spend a lot of time with my nieces and since they live so far away, we soaked up every minute of it! This is my niece Alya (pernounced Ayla but they misspelled it). 
I love her expression here. She was having so much fun roaming around and playing with some new toys.

My princess getting out some stored up energy.

Leah and Sydnee are just 4 months apart. They played so cute together and we had a blast watching them interact. 

The main event, the reason we flew there. My brother and his new wife are perfect for each other. They live a totally different lifestyle from me, but they are two of the most loving accepting people I know. They don't judge or talk bad about anyone, ever! I'm so happy that she can put up with my brother and is now apart of our crazy family. hahahaha
This picture is awful of me, but Hannah's face was too dang cute, and not the grump face that she does in almost every picture now. So the girls and I stole a shot on a beautiful day.
The next day, my niece Katlyn and nephew Vaughn whom I have not seen in 6 years drove up from Oregon with their mom to see us! That was so great to see them again, it just stinks that it has been that long. We really had a lot of fun with them
Leah was kinda grumpy on the trip. Pretty much no one but me could touch her and since I am documenting the whole trip, this is the face we saw a lot of.
Spokane has the most beautiful park I have ever seen with so much to do there. We did most of it and it took the whole day. I wish we had a park like that near us, I would go there everyday! This carousel was from 1900 and it was the fastest one I have ever been on, it was great.

They had the largest Radio Flyer wagon in the world turned into a slide. 

My niece Katlyn and nephew Vaughn

That is my sister with us on the gondola ride over the Spokane falls. Really pretty to see.

We took about a million pictures.

I could not help myself with this gorgeous face

Leah kept picking up the phone to call her Dada. I think she could sense how worried I was about him with the riot he was in the night before. Scary stuff!

They all came to see us off to the airport so I had to get a cousin shot

She literally passed out seconds before our wheels touched down. It was a LONG day in travel mode and I didn't blame her, only wished that I could have done the same.

We had a great trip and I would do it again, if the travel days could have been shorter. Three hour flight, three hour layovers and a one hour flight= not fun and cranky kids and mom!

Families are Forever

One year ago yesterday our family was sealed for time and all eternity. It was one of the happiest days of my life!
I get to be with these two perfect girls for ever and it brings so many tears of joy to my eyes knowing that! I remember them in the sealing room and how we had perfect composure until they came in. We both lost it, angels in white and they belong to us, what more could we ask for? Doesn't get better than that!!!
My stud and I got to make promises to each other and every time we visit the temple we remember the feelings we had that special day.
I am so blessed to know and have this gospel in my life. To know with out a shadow of a doubt that we will be together for all time and eternity. My family is my love and my life and I thank Heavenly Father for blessing me with them every day. What's special is that Hannah still remembers that day and we talk about it all the time. She was telling me happy anniversary all day yesterday, so cute. I am such a lucky woman!