tree trimming

well, last week i decided i wanted to put up our christmas decorations. so... its a little early, but i was definitely in the mood. so bryan and i put everything up before he left, except we did not decorate the tree. since he left yesterday for his atls (advanced trauma life support) training in san antonio, the girls and i were feeling a little lonely. so we decorated the tree. grace and raegan were very anxious to put up the ornaments, however, they are slightly challenged in the height department, so all the ornaments ended up around the bottom of the tree.

raegan likes to put all her ornaments on the same branch. nice. they had a really good time, though. grace, raegan, and i finished up today with adding the angel, some ribbon, and the lovely glass balls raegan loves so much. and here is their finished product... with some help rearranging the ornaments

there's a mouse over there...

remember this?

well, when that big field gets mowed and it gets colder... we get these...

we caught this little guy on saturday night... he was number 4... and the first one we caught alive... just saturday morning, bryan said to me... i think we got rid of all the mice. yeah, right.

we just love to look at bugs...

and play in baby jack's crib

halloween

ok, so this is way late, but here are the girls on halloween. grace was dorothy from the wizard of oz , again (yes, same costume as last year... maybe next year we can be more creative) and raegan was a ladybug (same costume as grace 2 years ago... nice). the girls had a good time trick or treating. it was the first year we have taken them around a neighborhood and grace was thrilled. raegan was frightened of all the outdoor toys (see video) and scary costumes and she quit early with bryan. i finished up with grace and they got some good stuff.



at one house, they has all these scary things, so we told grace to go stand up next to this treasure chest and we would take her picture... she went up and right on cue the pirate skeleton came out and the picture is great... she was pretty scared.

raegan's first experience with a pixie stick was quite entertaining...

and here is a nice halloween surprise for you... bryan... as napoleon dynamite...

he was allowed to dress up for halloween and this is the costume he chose. nice...

5 little monkeys... courtesy of auntie rachel

auntie rachel taught grace and raegan this little song this past summer and raegan goes around singing 'and snap that monkey right out of that tree' all the time! i love it!

sneak peak

ok, i guess it really isn't a sneak peak since halloween is tomorrow, but we took this picture before our ward fall feast. the girls and i dressed up and we had yummy chili and played games with the ward. they also had trick or treating in a few classrooms. the girls got a bunch of candy (mostly eaten by bryan and me) and had a great time!

pumpkin patch? or a waterpark where they dumped the pumpkins they bought from walmart?

so we took grace's little preschool class to a pumpkin patch today. let me say, not much to it (yes, it was at a waterpark), but the girls had a good time.


don't you love the volleyball net in the background?

when we first got there, another class was running around and they asked us to wait until they were finished with their activity and so the girls gravitated to this alligator and spent most of their time there...



after they were given the chance to roam the pumpkins, i tried to get grace and raegan together for a little picture, but they weren't too excited about it. they mostly wanted to run around and look at the pumpkins. but when the time came to pick out their own pumpkins, all the girls wanted the little baby pumpkins. i tried to persuade them to get a bigger one so we could carve it to make a jack-o-lantern, but they weren't too interested in that... they just wanted the babies...

for those of you who care...

17 july 2008

23 october 2008

yeah, i thought this was so hilarious...

quilt giveaway

enter to win this beautiful rustic quilt at pigtails and snails. hurry! you must enter by 7 pm mst tonight! good luck!

love it!

Twilight

misery... no way... just missouri

this past weekend, we headed to missouri for a quick visit. we had a great time and the kids were so happy to return to their summer home. we traveled for probably the last time before the baby is born and spent the weekend hanging out and having fun. here are the girlies before church on sunday.

we didn't get to see aaron, since he was in utah. we will miss him if we don't get to see him again before he heads to the mtc.

yum, we love butter!

yes, this is butter on their faces.

oh hail!

last week we had a major hailstorm go through lawton. the hail was so big! about the size of a quarter. yikes! the kids were really interested in the hail, all up until the tornado sirens went off and i focused on the news. there was no tornado, just a warning about the 65 mph winds. apparently, if we do have a tornado, the safest place in a house without a basement is in the bathtub. at least we have a bathtub, since we don't have a basement.

tagged!

4 RANDOM THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MY HUSBAND:

1 - he loves to play with our kids
2 - he works hard
3 - he is nice to everyone (literally everyone)
4 - he can't remember song lyrics and always sings the wrong words

4 JOBS I'VE HAD:

1 - golden chain gang (ah yes... the high school years)
2 - byu creamery (yum, came home sticky from ice cream most nights)
3 - modern shoe (shoe sales... nice)
4 - engraving etc/floria keys (loved working here!)

4 MOVIES I'VE WATCHED MORE THAN ONCE:

1 - pride and prejudice (a&e version... like 5 hours)
2 - psycho
3 - lord of the rings trilogy
4 - back to the future

4 TV SHOWS I WATCH:

1 - barefoot contessa
2 - heroes
3 - the office
4 - lost

4 PEOPLE WHO EMAIL ME REGULARLY:

1 - mom
2 - rachel
3 - sarah
4 - bryan

4 OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:

1 - stuffed sopapillas (best thing ever)
2 - mashed potatoes
3 - ice cream
4 - homemade soup

4 PLACES I WOULD LIKE TO VISIT:

1 - germany
2 - new york
3 - hawaii
4 - belize

4 THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO IN THE COMING YEAR:

1 - aaron's mission in november
2 - baby in december
3 - family vacation to lake ozark (first time with bryan in 5 years)
4 - seeing friends and family

4 PEOPLE I TAG:

1 - shannon
2 - kathy h.
3 - alison
4 - sarah... if her internet ever gets hooked up :)

we miss you, grandma kathy!

mary, mary, quite contrary...

our little grace loves to pick flowers. as we are walking at night, she will occasionally stop and ask to pick some flowers. most of the flowers she asks to pick are grown by our neighbors and in their gardens, so those stay put, but occasionally we will pass a group of weeds with these little purple flowers and she will get to pick some. she stops her bike and asks to pick a 'beautiful flower'. then she gives one to all of us and we move along on our journey through the neighborhood.

yikes... bikes!

one of the things that grace got for her birthday was a bike helmet with some knee pads. one day we were out riding her bike and she said, 'mom, i don't have a helmet. i think i need a helmet when i ride my bike.' well, nana and papa bought her one for her birthday and she has been a riding machine ever since. we take walks around our neighborhood most nights and the girls ride their bikes. grace has taken a few spills, but thanks to her knee pads, she feels protected and asks to go for a walk/ride every night.


we also bought raegan a tricycle so that she would stop riding on the back of grace's bike. she has very little control and hasn't quite figured out the pedalling thing, so bryan attached a cord to her handle bars so he could mostly direct her and she could learn how to maneuver. it is so cute to watch her ride around.

fire safety 101

grace is participating in a little preschool with some girls in our ward and for their safety week, we decided to take a trip to one of the local fire stations. unfortunately, the day before the trip, raegan got sick and so i needed to stay home with her and laralyn jones took grace for me. grace was so excited for the trip, she talked about it all morning. when laralyn arrived to get grace, raegan was so sad. she cried and said, i want to go to the fire station! i told her that she was sick and couldn't go, so then she said, i want grace to stay home.

laralyn and kim strupp both took some pictures for me and told me that grace was the first to volunteer for everything. she wanted to be the first to do everything and since some of the other girls were shy, it helped them to want to try too. i was so surprised, usually grace is just as shy as the others, but i was so pleased that she wanted to be involved and wasn't afraid.

happy, happy birthday gracie, dear

i can't believe that my little grace turned 4! she is getting to be such a big girl. we celebrated with friends on the saturday before her birthday. we had a party for her here and had a great time. thanks to the dahlke, jones, strupp, and furdek families for coming to celebrate!

tuesday, the 16th, was grace's actual birthday. when she woke up, she had her first gift waiting for her. a new table for her and raegan to color and be creative at. it is perfect for them.


we asked her where she wanted to eat and she said she wanted tortillas and rice and sopapillas. bryan was pretty pleased with her choice so we headed to rosa's for taco tuesday (all taco meals are $3.33 on tuesday, what a deal!) after filling up on dinner and yummy sopapillas, we headed home to finish our family celebration. grace opened up the rest of her gifts and we had cake... yum.



happy birthday grace! we love you tons!

labor day weekend

ok, so apparently my growing trend is to post our adventures one month at a time. yikes! it really starts to pile up. well, here is the much anticipated post (sorry it took so long, mom!)

for labor day weekend, my mom, dad and aaron drove down for a visit. we had a good time just hanging out for a few days. on sunday night, we decided to put the girls hair in rollers and see what happened the next morning.



well, grace kept most of her rollers in and produced very curly hair (sorry, no pictures), but raegan managed to ease her way out of the rollers on one half of her head producing a half-curled head of hair. it was pretty cute.

aaron wanted to play a game on sunday night, so he brought out monopoly. after several hours of aaron and bryan ganging up to try to beat me, i won and then hit the sack.



aaron also like so keep up his workouts while he is away from home... any object... or person... will work. i wonder what he will use on his mission...


we are so glad that the clarks were able to come visit us. grace and raegan were thrilled and have been asking ever since when we will see more of our friends and family.

all smiles

yesterday we decided to take some pictures before church since the girls were all smiley. grace was very excited about saying the scripture in primary and raegan was ever-ready for the nursery.

can i get a number one?

ok, so, last night we were driving to a campsite to have a bonfire with the strupp and jones families. as we are driving, bryan rolls down the window when we get close the campground to enjoy the nice weather. out of nowhere, raegan says... 'can i have a number one?' um, yeah... so, bryan and i look at each other and are like... what is she talking about. is she really talking about going through the drive thru window? less than a minute later she says... 'can i get chocolate milk?' oh yeah... she is definitely pretending to go through the drive thru window (we always get chocolate milk with the kids meal). nice. then bryan proceeded to ask her if she wanted apple dippers or fries... at least she chose apple dippers. raegan is in a crazy copycat mode these days. she just listens... and then repeats... at the oddest times. we actually don't go through the drive thru window very often, let alone get value meals... she must have been storing this one up for while.

welcome to lawton, oklahoma

the view from our backyard

bubbles...

i probably could be a cowboy... if i didn't have to listen to country music

as i mentioned before, the rodeo came to town. apparently, it is a big deal. so, we made plans with the dahlkes and greg furdek (another dental guy doing the aegd program) to attend the rodeo on family night. it was great fun. i was quite surprised how interesting it was. we stayed as long as we could and left during the bull riding... really the attraction most people come to see, but it was already around 10 pm and grace fell asleep while she was sitting on my lap. here are some pictures of us enjoying the show.

we made it!

after over a month of no posting, i suppose i should let everyone know that we made it to oklahoma safe and sound. we left jeff city on 03 august and drove to lawton, oklahoma. we arrived late that night, checked into our nasty hotel, and slept. on monday, bryan had to report to fort sill and get checked in and while he did that, we ate a yummy waffle breakfast and made plans to change hotels. the hotel we were in was so gross... i found a beetle in my bed on monday morning and i had a mysterious bite on the bottom of my foot that itched like crazy. hmmmm.... the shower was disgusting as well, so i told bryan we had to switch. the problem was, there was... the rodeo was in town and most of the hotels were booked... also, a unit was getting ready to deploy, so lots of family members were in town... also, lots of new soldiers were coming into fort sill... so... after lots of work, we got a new hotel that was clean and nice. we spent monday looking for a place to live and found one and started the paperwork. by tuesday afternoon, they told us we were approved to live there and we started getting our utilities set up. we called the army moving company and they told us that they could deliver our household goods on 13 august (yes, 8 days after the day we got our house). so, we settled in with an air mattress we borrowed from the dahlke family (fellow yucaipans station here with us) and got ready to live with nothing.

once we got our things, we got unpacked fairly quickly... it only took about 2 weeks... and now we are pretty much settled. we really like lawton (considering the lack of things to do) and have made some great friends. the ward is great and the people are really nice. i think this will be a fun place to live for a bit.