Merry Christmas!!

We had a wonderful Christmas yesterday and we hope all of you did as well. Amazingly enough all of our kids slept until aftef 7 a.m. except Whitney who was up at 5:30 begging to wake everyone else up. Todd and I had time to get up and shower and I even made cinnamon rolls before most of the family got up. Dustin had his deepest wish come true and he got a gun for Christmas. We decided that if he didn't have toy gun he just uses other things as pretend guns. He likes to walk around telling people to "stick them up". Santa brought Lauren a surprise. She got a scooter for Christmas and since we live in the frozen tundra she has been riding it back and forth across the kitchen. The most exciting thing for Whitney and Katelyn, and lets be honest about it Todd too, was the Wii. I think that we are the last people on earth to get one, but better late than never.

On Christmas Eve we had some friends over. We had a Mexican themed dinner with authentic tamales. We played some games and the kids acted out the Nativity. Lauren was a wonderful Mary. She wouldn't let anyone touch the baby Jesus. Dustin was a shepherd. We realize that shepherds didn't carry around toy cars, but we couldn't get him to put it down.

A Chat with Santa

Santa Claus paid a visit to our ward Christmas party. All of the kids sat on his lap. Lauren stressed and stressed all day about what to tell Santa she wanted for Christmas. She never did narrow it down so she ended up telling him she wanted a surprise. Also, Dustin was looking forward to telling Santa he wanted a gun for Christmas all day long and when it finally came time to sit on Santa's lap he lost it. It wasn't until I picked him up and we were walking away that he yelled, "Santa, I want a shooter gun." We also had a close call with the Santa secret. The Santa looked a lot like Santa, but he sure sounded a lot like Ray Larsen from our ward. Lauren decided that Ray must be one of Santa's helpers.

Brunch at the American Girl Place

Recently we got an American Girl Place at the Mall of America. It isn't as big as the Chicago American Girl Place, but still quite an exciting thing for the American Girl fans at our house. For a fun girls activity I took the girls to brunch at the American Girl Bistro. It was pretty funny. They have little chairs for your dolls. They bring a menu for your doll. They even have loaner dolls if you don't have your own doll. The food and service left something to be desired, but I guess you are paying for the experience.

Happy Halloween

Here are a few pictures from the Pumpkin Patch, playing with leaves in our yard and Halloween night.

Oh, the joy of finding the perfect pumpkin.

The kids had a blast playing in the leaves. It was 71 degrees this day. Unfortunately, I am still finding leaves in Katelyn and Lauren's hair even after a couple of washings.

Our neighborhood fire station had an open house tonight and so our little fireman got to sit inside a real fire engine and an ambulance. He was on cloud nine. We had a beautiful night for trick or treating. Whitney went with one of her friends and they weighed their candy when they got back. She has 6 pounds of candy. It makes my stomach ache just thinking about it. She is planning to enjoy all the chewy candies this weekend because next week she is having some teeth pulled and a retainer put in. No more chewy food after that.

Our Future Olympian

I have been a slacker at updating our blog, but this video is hilarious. I just hope he doesn't try to do the same thing without pillows.

Dustin's Birthday

We can't believe that Dustin is 2 already. He is growing up so fast. We celebrated his birthday a day early so that he could go on the Father and Son campout with Todd. He loved his birthday party. We couldn't wait to open his presents so instead of waiting for us to bonk him on the head when we played Heavy, Heavy Hangover he would jump up and bonk his own head and grab the present. It was hilarious. He also loved his cake. It looked like a race track with cars on it. He was a little disturbed when we cut into it and wouldn't even eat it. He also had a blast on the campout. It was a little hard as a mom to let my 2 year go camping, but Todd's a great dad and he's waited a long time to have a little boy to go camping with him.

Goin' Buggy

Katelyn had a program at school all about bugs. She was really excited that she got to be a Lady Bug because she got to sing with a small group and had a speaking part. I didn't get a very good video of the song they sang, but here is a picture of Katelyn and our next door neighbor Hannah who was also a ladybug. She helped me make the costume and it turned out pretty cute.

Here is a view of her costume from the back.