O Christmas Tree

When the kids and I were finally able to come home to Keenan, (we had been gone about 3 weeks) he surprised us with a beautiful noble fir in our living room. It is by far the biggest most beautiful tree we have ever had. Sam had a great time decorating the tree so we decided to spread out the fun and we let him put a few more ornaments on every night before bed. Molly enjoys staring at the lights. She will sit in her bouncer in front of the tree and babble the cutest stories. I love Christmas trees! They just make me feel so happy and festive!

Did you watch election coverage...

Like this?

When its fall time...

We had a wonderful visit from my mom this weekend. It was so much fun to have her with us for trick or treating. Sam has a great time with his Grandma. His favorite activity with her this weekend was playing "whirley twirley" in the leaves in our front yard. Can't wait to see you again soon Grandma!

Trick or Treat

Sam loved trick or treating. We practiced once at our own door so he would know how it all worked. We went to our first house and instead of taking candy from the bowl that was held out to him, Sam gave her the treat he already had in his pumpkin. This reversal of trick or treat continued for a few houses and then he got the hang of it. I figured he last 20 min or so, but this little monkey wanted to go "again" and "AGAIN!" for almost 2 hours.
Sam was not alone in his excitement. I wish I could have gotten a picture of our neighborhood on Halloween night. I have never seen such a busy place. Kids arrived by busloads. One of our neighbors said he lost count after 3oo trick or treaters came to his door. We were out trick or treating ourselves for most of the night, so we only had about 30 come after we got home.

We were all monkeys for Halloween. The boys were monkey monkeys and Molly Jane and I were sock monkeys. I tried to get a family picture of all of us monkeys, but one monkey would not cooperate- so I photoshoped him in. :) Here is our monkey family.
And I just had to add a few pictures of my little sock monkey!

Happy Halloween!

Boo at the Zoo

Our little monkeys at the zoo!

Pumpkin Patch

Visiting this farm has become our favorite family outing this month. We have been there four times! Sam just can't get enough. "punkin patch, big barn, tractor, animals...pleeaase!" How can we refuse this evening of family fun.

Here is his quest for the perfect pumpkin
Pony riderunning through the hay maze
petting zoo
and the cutest pumpkin in the patch

arts and athletics

Sam likes to throw things. He loves basketball and baseball. He loves throwing rocks. He likes throwing the fallen leaves. We spend several hours each day honing these athletic skills. Sam also likes to throw everything else especially his dinner (and lunch and breakfast and snacks and everything that goes along with these meals) I've tried everything I can think of to break him of this wonderful habit, but nothing is working yet. Anyone have any good ideas?

Today, Sam decided he no longer wanted his yogurt and threw it across the room. He spent a few minutes in timeout while I cleaned up the floor and walls. I must have missed a spot,because awhile later I heard him singing the alphabet song and drawing on the window. Here is his finger paint (or rather yogurt) art. Now I am all for encouraging creativity through art, but I would prefer other mediums at the moment.

Dreaming of...

Does this ever happen to you?
Your alarm goes off, but you don't want to get up yet and so you accidentally allow yourself a little extra snooze time. You fall back asleep, but you dream that you got up and are going about getting ready for your day and then you think you are so on top of it until you wake up and realize you are still in bed and are late! ( This used to happen to me all the time. Now, my alarms are a little more noisy and impatient and seldom allow me to get any extra morning snooze time)
Yesterday morning, I had a the opposite occur. I was sitting on the couch and I had just finished feeding Molly and we were watching Sam play when I dozed off and dreamed that I was in my bed sleeping! Do you suppose my dreams will really come true!

Four Weeks

4 weeks old already!

Molly is starting to smile at us. She will be fussy in her bouncer and then I walk over to talk to her and as soon as she sees my face she flashes me an adorable grin. Too precious.
This little one loves her grandpa. She is so content when she is held by him. She loves to just stare at him. I was lucky enough to catch them smiling at one another the other night. Aren't they a cute pair?

Aquarium

We had a surprise one day visit from dad and so we all went on our favorite daytime outing - a trip to the aquarium.

It's the little things

Sam loves trains and he loves playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine train. However, his good friend Thomas can sometimes cause him major frustration (screaming and throwing Thomas and Percy and other train cars across the room, and ripping the tracks apart). This frustration used to sometimes be caused by the trains not sticking together. It took awhile to learn to turn on of the engines around for the magnets to attract each other. For his 2nd birthday Sam received two Thomas gifts. One was a book with magnetic pages and magnetic trains. We thought this would be a great book especially during church. (We figured magnets would not poke anyone's eye out if he threw them four pews ahead). However, one of the pages of the book has two tunnels pictured. Sam was so frustrated that he could not push his magnet Thomas through the tunnel. He whined and cried and threw poor Thomas on the ground and then tried again with the same result. He wouldn't let us put the book away, but just continued to try to get Thomas through that tunnel. The other Thomas frustration of late is his other birthday present - a Thomas shed (pictured above). Sam loves opening and closing doors, so I was sure this was the perfect Thomas accessory for him. For 2 weeks Sam enthusiastically enjoyed opening and closing the door and scooting Thomas out with the lever. The problem arose two days ago when Sam got out another engine and train car. The shed only will fit 2 engines. If you try to cram 3 or 4 in there- it just doesn't work. The poor guy will cry and will plead for help. It is just so sad. "Momma, help pleeeasse, shut shut." This frustration has turned in to several wild temper tantrums in recent days. I kept hiding the extra engines, but he would always find another one. I hoped that he would figure it out and just accept the facts. Last night I hid all the engines except two small ones and now...Thomas and Sam are friends again.

Service and the mystery quilter

It seems that lately I have been hearing a lot about service. We had a great lesson in relief society this week based on Elder Amado's talk Service, A Divine Quality. Elder Uchtdorf gave a wonderful talk at Women's Conference related to service, and this month's Ensign cover story is is about service. With the birth of my new daughter I have been the beneficiary of many acts of service. My mom and mom-in-law have taken such great care of us. Many friends have brought us delicious dinners. But I wanted to highlight one particular person's charitable acts of service - our ward's mystery quilter.
There is a woman in our ward who anonymously makes a beautiful baby quilt for every baby who is born in our ward - and there are a lot of babies in our ward. Each quilt is amazingly unique and adorable. Here are pictures of the front and back of the quilt she made for Molly. (You can click on each image for a better view)


We were lucky enough to live in the ward for the birth of both of our children. Here is the quilt she made for Sam.


Thank you mystery quilter!

3 weeks old

Molly Jane is three weeks old now. How time flies by. Sam loves his little sister and gives her lots of sweet drooly kisses.

Two!

Guess who turned two! He will proudly tell you if you ask him how old he is.
He had a very fun little party. He loved being sung to and blowing out the candles. We did it over and over :) He asked us to sing him birthday again the next morning.
Birthday activities included blowing bubbles, playing with his new basketball and Mickey shape sorter, building and knocking down towers and eating his favorite dinner- linguine.

Happy Birthday!

New Arrival!

Molly Jane joined us on September 4 weighing 8 lbs 1/2oz 21 inches long!

I'm so glad when daddy comes home!

These are the lyrics to one of Sam's new favorite songs. Its no wonder why. Keenan has had some time off while we wait for our new little one to join us. He and Sam have had so much fun hanging out together. They go on an outing to the zoo or aquarium almost every morning. Here are some pics of their latest adventures.

Summertime at the park

Sometime earlier this summer we started going to the park two or three evenings a week as soon as K gets home. There are so many great playgrounds within minutes of our house. We usually pack a picnic dinner and if it is warm we head to one of the parks with wading pools. It has been great family time. Father and son run wild and mom gets to watch, enjoy, and relax.

Independence Day!

For our 4th of July celebration we went to the Mariners game. We got great seats right behind home plate from a guy selling tickets outside the stadium for the price of bleacher seats. Sam was very excited to watch "bay' ball!" and kept repeating "bay' ball" all the way to the stadium and all through the first few innings. Sam was very a very enthusiastic fan for three entire innings cheering and clapping. When he got too antsy after the seventh inning stretch rendition of Take Me Out to The Ballgame, we took him to the playground. It was a fun outing and my boys looked very cute in their matching shirts. ... and the Mariners won! We weren't quite ready to end our festivities after the game was over so we went over to my parent's house for a traditional 4th of July BBQ.This picture is for you Kara. We were lamenting that you weren't around to create a festive dessert, so Keenan decorated his angel food cake appropriately.

We put our own fireworks show on for Sam with sparklers and two fountains complete with a patriotic soundtrack (Grandpa's favorite Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA). As you can see, he was thoroughly impressed.

Mr and Mrs Jones

My brother Jeff was married to beautiful Keiko in June here in Seattle. Here are some picts from the happy event. Congratulations!

Keiko and Sam!
Sam loves Keiko! He can say her name perfectly and does so everytime he sees her picture on the fridge.