Christmas Part 4

 For a little fun, we decided to take the kids to the Idaho Falls Aquatic Center.

I'm guess we were crazy when we decided to do this,

because this was not fun for anyway.

Maybe Clara enjoyed herself a little bit,

but the water was freezing!!!

 

Clara has such cute chubby legs,

its nice to have a chubby baby!

 Luke was not happy about being there.

We thought we were trying to help our kids have fabulous experiences.

Luke was not about to get into that freezing water.

 

We even got a ball for Luke, to try and convince him to try out swimming.

NOPE!

 Thanks to Uncle Sterling for being a trooper and swimming with us!

In the end, Luke lasted about 15 minutes before we got out.

Christmas Part 3

 Christmas morning: Presents began at 9:00 am.

Until then, it was a fight to see who could sit closer to the tv for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!

They both scooted closer, to each be the closest!

 Christmas morning: 9:00 am, Clara was napping peacefully.

She had already been up for the day, and down for her first nap.

We gave her, her stocking, and laid it next to her.

Her stocking was as big as her!

 We gave Luke his stocking first.

He dumped it out, and found a bunch of match box cars.

He ran off with them and thought Christmas was over!

I guess all he needed was a few cars.

 

Clara finally woke up, mid-present opening, it was a good thing because lots of presents were just for her!

 

After a while, Luke figured out was all this presents business was all about.

We had to help show him how to open them up,

but then he thought every present was for him.

He kept saying, "Oh Wow, and Woa!"

Every present was another adventure waiting for him.

He wanted to open every present right now and play with it!

Yea for presents!

 

Of course, after presents always looks like a tornado came through!

Lots and Lots of presents!

 There was lots of delicious food the whole week to eat!

I made a cheese ball that was delicious.

We had a fabulous Prime Rib Christmas dinner, and plenty of treats to  last a year!

After opening all these fabulous presents, Gilbert had the task of trying to pack them all in the car.

Getting home this year was quite an adventure.

We bought a bigger car, to accomodate an extra kid,

this bigger car barely fit an extra kid's Christmas too.

Thanks to my parents for the best Christmas present ever,

a TRAMPOLINE!

I will very much appreciate it when my children entertain themselves for hours on it!!!

Christmas Part 2

We have a tradition on Christmas Eve that we started some years ago.

We love to go bowling on Christmas Eve.

 I grew up going bowling often.

You would think I would be good,

but I am not.

My parents, are actually pretty good.

They have a secret competition going on every year,

this year my dad won :)

 

This year, I bowled in style,

with Clara.

She helped me break 100,

which is a really good score for me!

 The kiddos were around to help

or get in the way depending on how you look at it.

 It was just a fun environment for all,

especially for Luke,

there were so many balls around that he couldn't resist touching.

Thankfully, Luke didn't smash and fingers or toes!

 

Thanks to aunt Juell who helped entertain Luke in between turns,

he was all over the place!

 Gilbert and Luke has lots of fun bowling together!

 

Go Brooke!

Here is the peanut gallery below!

Christmas Part 1

 We went to Shelley, Idaho for Christmas this year, just like we always do.

We stayed with my parents in Shelley.

Their ward has a tradition,

a very neat tradition, that I had forgotten about.

 They have Santa go around to all the families in the ward,

and Santa delivers oranges for the kiddos.

In years past, Santa hasn't come to my parent's house,

because there weren't any small children there to appreciate it.

This year, Luke was the benneficiary of a visit from Santa.

 Luke is kind of a scardey cat when it comes to these types of things.

A visit from Santa was no different.

Luke kept backing up, away from Santa.

All Santa was trying to do, was give Luke an orange.

Luke finally warmed up to Santa, enough to sit on his lap.

For this quick photo moment!

5 months old

 I can't believe that this little princess will be 5 months old in just a few days!

The time has gone by so quickly!

She is such a cute little princess, but definitely a princess.

She has preferences, and wants and feelings.

She is just a girl for sure!

It's so funny how their personalities come out at such a young age!

 She is full of smiles, but no giggles yet.

She adores her brother, and always has a big smile on her face when he comes into her sight.

She loves to be in her swing, and be in the center of everyone's attention.

She doesn't love a binki or even her thumb.

This princess needs to find something to help sooth herself to sleep!

She loves to roll over and be on her tummy,

so that she can lift up with her arms and look around.

She can twist herself around in circles doing this.

She is full of wiggles, and loves to stand.

Mostly a happy girl, when she is with her mama.

conversations

Luke was trying to show me his muscles in these photos.

Now that Luke's vocabulary has picked up, we are able to have some conversations.

Luke can be good about playing by himself, as long as he can turn around and see me every now and again.

If he turns around, and I'm gone, he comes looking for me.

This morning, he found me in the bathroom, taking care of some business.

He opened the door and said,

"What are you doing?"

Brandi: "I'm going potty."

Luke: "Oh, (pause) ok, BYE!"

Then he shut the door and walked away.

I don't know why I found this to be hilarious, but it just made me laugh.

He is one silly boy.

This little boy....

 This little boy is crazy!

He has learned that there is good stuff on the beaters.

He doesn't care what it is,

its usually something sugary,

he LOVES to lick them clean!

 This little boy is just full of energy,

probably because we feed him too much sugar!

 This little boy absolutely fights sleep to the core.

He will fight keeping his eyes open every second he can.

I really don't understand why he just doesn't embrace sleep!

We have gone on countless car rides to embrace sleep peacefully.

 He thought he was ready to wake up.

He thought his nap was sufficient.

It's so funny to watch him fight sleep when he really needed more.

He was sitting in the chair, asking for his movie.

Then every few seconds he was closing his eyes.

Along with some hilarious head bobs,

he was just too tired still.

Then a few minutes later I looked over and saw that sleep had won.

Seriously!! 

Just let yourself sleep!

This little boy has to be moving constantly until he just falls over tired.

When he goes to bed at night, he is constantly moving his legs until he just gives in.

He couldn't stay still to save his life!

for a giggle...

Some funny conversations to share:

#1

My neighbor let me know that her 6 year old son had this to say to her the other morning:

boy: "Mom, I think one of your friends is pretty."

mom: "Oh, ya, which one."

boy: "her name is Brandi."

boy: "Too bad I can't marry her though, because she's already married to that guy who is Luke's dad."

#2

Luke was running around naked, and then decided to scoot around on the carpet on his bum.

Parent #1 "Luke, do you have worms?"

Parent #2 "Everybody loves a good bum scrathin' every now and again."

Parent #1 "excuse me?"

Parent #2 "ya know, it feels good to scratch your bum, not with your raw finger, 

but through your underwear with your finger."

Parent #1 "you should just stop there, we don't need to finish this conversation."

Just thought you might need a good laugh....

We kept it anonymous to keep you guessing who was who in that conversation.

choo-choo train

Luke loves his "choo-choo train" set.

He asks us to play with him and his "choo-choo train" all the time.

He can even put the pieces together himself!

 For the love!

Why are our kids so full of energy that they just don't sleep?

We have tried every trick in the book to help our kids sleep better.

I have often thought it was something we were or weren't doing,

but for some reason, our kids simply don't need very much sleep!

 They both regularly wake up at 5 am!

We have tried putting them to bed earlier,

putting them to bed later,

early nap, no nap, late naps.

No matter what we try, 5 am is simply morning!

We even have tried locking Luke in his room until a more appropriate time like 6 am,

it just doesn't work!!!

This cutie wakes up as soon as she hears her brother's voice.

Its a signal that its play time and time to wake up!

If we look like walking zombies, that's because that's exactly what we are!!!