Busy Fam

Silly Pres

Presleigh got this doll station for her birthday. Holland was trying to enjoy it as well and ended up knocking it over. 

After the events that took place a Sandy Hook, Wayne and I decided that we wanted to get out concealed carry permits.  We went to a class at our friends house and learned all about guns.  I am still pretty terrified of them but I'm hoping that after a few shooting outings that I will become more comfortable with them. 

Holland is such a daddy's girl.  She is constantly saying da da and gets so excited when she sees Wayne, even if it's just a picture of him.  I love their cute little bond:)

We had quite a bit of sickness this winter.  Holland was the one who was sick most often.  It kept us home a lot. 

One night Presleigh was having a hard time.  We use the bathroom as our time out so this is where I had put her.  After a couple minutes I went to check on her and I found her like this.  Asleep.  I figured that she was tired when she was having a hard time because she is usually pretty well behaved.  I didn't realize she was this tired though. 

Another sick pic of Holland.  I enjoyed this time because she was actually cuddly

Once again loving her daddy time:)

Holland all of a sudden started drooling like crazy one week.  I thought that she was probably teething but couldn't really see anything.  She started getting these red bumps on her chin.  It wasn't until I noticed them on her hands and feet that I realized that she had hand foot and mouth:(  She was pretty miserable with it.  She didn't sleep very well and didn't really want to eat.  She would only breastfeed which I figured felt good on her sore mouth. 

Then Noah got it too.  He handled it pretty well even though he looked way worse then Holland.  His mouth and hands got actually sores on them which scabbed over and took forever to heal.  We stayed home for about 10 days before we thought we were in the clear.  Apparently we weren't though because we still passed it to my niece:(

Presleigh drew this picture and taped it to her door.  I asked her what it was and she said, "no boys allowed"  I love that she drew a picture of a girl and then a picture of a boy but the boy has a line through it.  She has been very interested in signs lately.  She cracks me up.

On our way to Utah

When we got to Utah Presleigh and Noah were so excited to see so much snow!! It was perfect play weather because there were piles of snow but it was warm enough that you didn't need a coat.  They spent the whole afternoon outside playing.

I went out with them too and we made a snowman. 

Then we made our way over to Julie's house to visit her fam.  Presleigh was so excited to hold baby Hudson.  We are so glad that we were able to attend Hudson's baby blessing.  

We have been trying to get on an earlier schedule which means that we are up before Wayne leaves for work.  After our family prayers we always do a family group hug this morning I decided to snap a picture of the group hug:)

We went with some friends to Sub Zero Ice Cream.  The kids loved watching their ice cream be made right in front of them.  Noah especially loved the smoke.

Every morning Wayne takes his vitamin and then puts one on the counter for me so that I will remember to take one.  I am the worst at remembering and even sometimes when I see it on the counter I still don't take it.  Just a cute little act of kindness from my hubby.  He is so thoughtful!

Crazy Hair!!

When the weather is nice the kids have been playing in our backyard.  We have a pretty big hole back there that the kiddos love to play in.  I went out to check on them one afternoon and spotted Noah in Wayne's boots. 

Holland is such a little climber.  I took our gate down because it was digging into our wall and scrapping the paint.  I put all of these toys in front of the stairs to block her from going up them but she figured out a way to get over them.  My favorite is the one of her on top of the toy looking very scared just because that was the extra toy I got to put over there and she was still able to climb on it. 

We had our friends over for dinner the other night and while we were chatting downstairs this is what our kiddos were doing.  I was dumb and still had tubs of out grown clothes in there and they even decided to bust those open and throw those around.  They had them in a huge pile and they were jumping off of a stool into them.  It was actually pretty funny.

Finally a little update of our house projects.  The kitchen cabinets are all finished!! Yay! I love my white kitchen and I'm so glad that Wayne was willing to help me take on this project.  We had quite a few late nights together painting but we are so happy with the result.

Here's our front room painted and furnished. We are getting closer and closer to having all of the rooms painted.  it's been quite the process to paint all the ceilings and rooms in the house plus the kitchen cabinets.  There is still a lot of things that I would like to do to spruce the place up but I'm kind of worn out by it all.  Someday it will be all done and then we will move and start the process all over again i'm sure.

Holland taking her first steps.  She is still not walking.  She takes steps but then slowly drops down so that she can crawl. I'm not pushing it though, I enjoy getting to hold her and she still feels so little. Maybe it's because she still doesn't have teeth either. 

More hand foot and mouth pictures.  Hopefully we won't have to deal with this sickness again.

Update

So I did the software update on my iphone and it went into restore mode and I ended up losing all of the pictures I've taken the last couple months:(  It was a very sad day especially because those months were pretty busy and fun.  We had Wayne's birthday, Christmas, and then Presleigh's birthday. Luckily I still have instagram which I will eventually have printed. but for now I will try to remember our month without many pictures.
 
Wayne's birthday was a fun one.  He ordered himself a TV this year. And about 5 other things to go with it.  He is becoming quite the online shopper these days:)  We aren't very good with surprise birthday gifts, usually we just pick out our own.  The TV wouldn't be that exciting except that we haven't had a TV in our home for a couple years so it was a pretty big deal.  Wayne was so funny about wanting the very best for the lowest price. That meant returning the costco one, then ordering one offline, then ordering a different one a couple days later from a different store.  Thankfully our returns all worked out and he got the one he wanted.   

We celebrated by going out to lunch at our traditional Tucanos. We planned on having the Lewis family over the next night for cake and ice cream but we all ended up getting the stomach flu.  Poor Wayne was the last to get it, so he was stuck taking care of the rest of us on his birthday weekend.    

My cute girls!!

Christmas Eve was very relaxing this year.  We had dinner at Costa Vida which is my new favorite Christmas Eve tradition. Then we headed over to the Lewis'.  The kiddos opened up their jammies and we read the Christmas story and watched Elf.  We didn't make it through the whole movie cause the kids were super tired.  We drove around a little bit and looked at some Christmas lights.  We were trying to get them to fall asleep.  I think we got Holland and Noah to sleep but Presleigh stayed strong:)  She was so excited for Santa to come. 

Hollands new ear warmer that Santa put in her stocking.  Love her!!!

Each of the kiddos got a note from Santa telling them about how proud he was of how good they were this year.  The kids loved them. 

Our kids were so cute this Christmas. They loved every thing Christmas.  The lights, the decorations, the tree, the advent, the parties, the sugar cookies, learning about the birth of the Savior and of course Santa.   Our month of December was a busy one.  Wayne took 12 days off over Christmas  and we chose to stay in Meridian and enjoy our time together relaxing as a fam. It was so nice to have him home. 

New years was so fun this year.  Our friends had an "Amazing Race" party and it was probably one of the funnest nights we've had in quite a while.  We got a babysitter for all three of our kiddos which never happens and we played amazing race.  We got to be on a team with our good friends which made it extra fun.  We did end up losing the game although we totally rocked the challenges.  It was a fun way to bring in the new year. 

More Iphone Pictures

Someday I will get out my good camera and take some pictures of my kids.  But for now we have the more convenient pictures from my phone. 

Holland loves to stand, and has started walking along the couch.  She is so much fun these days.  She plays so good on her own and enjoys playing with her little toys.  This doesn't usually last long because her sibs love to bother her but she does pretty well on her own.  I think that because she can stand and is interacting more her brother Noah thinks that she is fair game to attack.  He tends to push her and lay on her and can get pretty rough with her.  She is a good sport about it though.  Someday she'll get him back, i'm sure!!!

Election night was a rough one.  Not just because it didn't go the way we wanted but because Presleigh was so tired and crabby.  I was getting ready to leave to play basketball  and she had a total melt down.  I was trying to talk with her and she was sobbing and I just thought that her expression showed exactly how I was feeling.  I was about to have my own meltdown:)  Instead I left and got my frustrations out on the court.  

The finished product.  I love my chairs!!! I am sad that my kids already poked a hole in the cane back of one of the chairs:( but they still look great in my front room!!

Playing airplane with my buddy!!!

We finally finished the fronts of our cabinets.  We wanted them done before my family came for Thanksgiving.  They are complete.  We just need to finish the board and batten on the island and order some hardware for them.  

She loves to grab at everything.  My phone, my glasses, my earrings, my nose.  

My favorite snack these days.  I love pomegranites with greek yogurt!!

They found these tucked away in the garage and decided to play with them.  

We were so excited to have my parents, grandma, and brother in town for Thanksgiving.  I  love Holland's face in this picture.  She thinks wrestling with grandma looks like so much fun:)

Uncle Devin is so strong and and played airplane with the kids in his hands.  Our kids got plenty of attention while family was here:)

Presleigh has said for the longest time that she wants to grow her hair out like rapunzel.  Over Thanksgiving  She changed her mind and decided she wanted it cut off.  I took her to this cute little kids place and they painted her nails first.

Then they chopped it off.  It is so cute.  Her hair is so curly that it makes it super easy to style.  I do miss being able to throw it up in a pony sometimes.  But it has forced me to brush her hair daily:) yes we use to cover up her tangles with a pony tail.

Noah loves to play with Holland.  When he's not torturing her she actually enjoys it.  Notice how Noah is wearing shorts and a tshirt.  When we leave the house Noah puts on pants because I make him.  But as soon as we get home he runs upstairs and puts shorts back on and it's usually not the same pair.  Presleigh does the same thing.  She wears leggings underneath her skirts when we leave the house but then takes them off as soon as we walk through the door, sometimes even in the car on the way home.  Because laundry was getting out of control I finally put all of Noah's shorts up high in his closet.  This has significantly reduced our battles. 

I made this burlap banner to add some Christmas decor to our home.  

My cousins have an indoor batting cage set up in their garage.  It is so fun.  I love this picture of my dad.  My sweet  father loves sports and was very active growing up.  Parkinsons has limited so much of what my dad can do these days, so it was very cool to watch him be able to hit baseballs.  I love this guy so much!!!  

Presleigh is the live doll that my kids and their friends love to play with.  

Presleigh wasn't afraid of Santa this year!!! She got right up there and told him that she wanted a  Hello Kitty  microphone with a stand.  She was also very proud of her bravery.  Noah stood a little ways back from Santa and told him that he wanted a Big Captain America.  We ended up going back a second time because Noah wanted to try again to sit on santa's lap but he was unsuccessful.  

Holland is not a fan of sitting in the cart.  She get super stiff and tries really hard not to sit in them.  She would much rather be held.  or maybe it's because she is use to the wrap.

One night after we got home from running errands Presleigh ran upstairs and got her "workout clothes on"  Wayne and she decided to do some "exercises"  It's so funny to watch her and her dad do p90x together:)

We found the kids like this one night after we had put them to bed.  They made a fort in Noah's super small closet and somehow fell asleep in there.   

Presleigh and Noah gave Holland a little makeover.  

The House of the Lord

We have had the most amazing opportunity the last month to enjoy and focus on the Temple.  The Boise Temple has been closed for the past year and was finally reopened at the end of October for an open house.  

We talk to our kids a lot about the Temple.  And before we were going to the open house we really tried to prepare them to go inside.  They were so good and reverent while we were there.  It was so special to be able to go as a family and see all the changes that they had made.  Our kids were really excited to be able to go.  I strapped Holland to me and then carried Noah for part of it because I wanted to be able to talk to him about it as we went through.  Wayne held Presleigh and talked with her about the different rooms.

After we left I asked the kids what their favorite part of the temple was.  Noah didn't really give me a response, but Presleigh said, "my favorite was the room where I will put on my dress."  It was such a sweet moment for me.

After the open house ended Wayne and I were able to go to the rededication.  We are so lucky to have good friends here who were willing to watch our kids so that we could go together.