Taylor Mae

Just a few shots of our Taylor who is growing up. We did her hair in sponge curlers for the first time this last Saturday/Sunday. It was pretty fun to see just how curly her hair can become. She was quite pleased with herself. She is a beautiful little girl with an independent spirit. She likes to do things in her own time, with her own ideas and especially without help. She is strong and I love that about her. She can hang out with the best of the boys and still be sweet and gentle when the time is right. :) The perfect combination!

racing cars

This is the latest addtion in our collection of things that go. We probably have far to many cars to count and each year the population gets larger. This is a pretty fun race track. The cars have sensors and swerve to miss things. It works better than I thought it would. Mason thought it was hilarious and he really enjoyed catching the cars as they came around.

Can you tell Mike has been off with his beard? To bad tomorrow he has to shave it off.

Magic Tricks

Carter has a new talent! Magic is making him think he is the cleverest boy alive! He was great at performing his tricks for daddy and Mason. He is quite the showman! I told him he needed to keep talking to his audience to distract them from his hands and he was so cute. He was just telling them how tricky it was to make things disappear and to read their minds!

A Challenge for all

REVERSE

How long can you go in your vechile without reversing? I am on day 10. That is right, TEN full days without using reverse. Not that I don't want to, I can't!! Our van's reverse went out. It apparently is something to do with the torqui converter not transmission. (I knew someone out there would wonder the problem.) So while the price to fix it is much greater than the worth of the van we decided against the repair. In the meantime while we decide what to do we can use the van, we just can't use reverse. One never realizes how much you use it until it is gone. So I challenge you all to see just how long you can go without that good old backwards driving!

Here's our Kitchen...okay, this is the after math of 4 Mormons and many Dr. Peppers later. Thank you Mike and Damian for the great entertainment!!

THANK YOU ZOIE!!!!!

Just a sample of the colors that are on our wall upstairs. This is only a quater of what the room looked like. This was also the next morning after I had already took a bit of vibrancy out of it--thank you Mr. Clean, however this is a job for....

a new can of paint.

*Edit* Let me specify, that is marker on the wall. I need new paint in order to cover it. Sometimes the Mr. Clean eraser is just not big enough.

More Christmas

Just a few shots from the night with our friends. We had a few people over and exchanged gifts. Then we played games, or should I say game. Cranium overload! The girls won all three rounds and we called it a night around 3 am.....yes it was a long day! How incredibly handsome is this boy!! We have noticed since his hair cut he is getting some red tints, it is pretty cute.

Taylor really LOVES to color. She is quite the artist. I will post a picture of that later. :)
Mason with his new Disney book. He is so great at just going through all of his books. He really enjoys all the pictures from his favorite movies. Mason has the potential to sit for about an hour or so and just look through books--it is fabulous!
Carter and his newest weaponry additions. This was a great today because they also received Narnia 2(thanks Gma and Gpa Mason). Carter was so excited to play Narnia with his shield and sword!
Had to break out the new coloring set as well. Everyone had a special project going!

Merry Christmas

Just a little bit from our day. We captured most but missed some that will have to be etched in our minds. Love technology and the instant pictures we can have to help us remember the great family memories.

Christmas Eve

Just wanted to share a few moments from our Christmas Eve. We had the missionaries from our church over for dinner. Mike fixed a FABULOUS roast, potatoes etc. We have a wodnerful set of missionaries right now and we are sad that transfers are next week. Hopefully they both make the cut to stay a little while longer in this area! :)
Then on to our tradition of new PJ's. I wish I would have had a video camera set up for some of these reactions. Mason was thrilled. Carter was so thankful that his were about his favorite game(football--oh I mean soccer), and Taylor just said, "oh cute!" She was excited about it being George. Brennan didn't care, but Mason was very pleased about helping his little brother out in the opening up department.

Merry Christmas!!!

Follow santa around the world on Norad Tracks Santa 2008--the kids loved it.

Are you ready for Christmas...Mason is!!!

Isn't food coloring great? That's all I have to say about that. :)

This was after i mopped up the large amount....didn't want it sitting there for a long time.

Brennan

More posts of Brennan. I think this is the least number of pictures we have had one of our children. Not because we don't get around to it with number four. Just because our camera situation. It makes me sad because he is growing so fast. Here are some we caught with our okay camera that we do have.

He is so good at jsut falling asleep where ever and when ever he needs. No fussing required, he just drifts on into dream land.

Who says your brother can't eat your homework? Brennan decided Mason's stamp he made was very tasty.

Cereal Time

Wow! Can anyone else believe that little Brennan is almost 6 months old!!

Considering he was trying to snatch food off our plates during dinner we decided it was time for cereal. This boy does not mess around. He was immediately assisiting with the spoon to make sure I wasn't teasing him.

Brennan eats cereal once a day at 5:00 pm. He is on the ball about it, and if I get carried away making dinner for the rest of us he is yelling that he would like to be fed and milk is not an option! Taylor loves to help, but she does not understand that he does not need the spoon down his throat to get the food. So she just watches now and says, "me can't." We did have to convince her that it was okay for Brennan to have the food. We have been telling her not to feed him because it would make him sick. So it was cute that she was concerned for his health. Good times for our baby. He is still rolling from one side of the house to the other and loves to get to anything he can.

New nephew

We just wanted to welcome our new nephew into the world. Auklin Reed Craven was born on the 9th of Dec at 9:45. He was 8lbs 4oz. Chelsi and Kasey, we are so excited for you both and wish we could be there to send our love in person. You are both fabulous and will do a great job as mommy and daddy to your little man.

Congratulations!!

Why can't we all just get along?

I just have to vent CALLING MS. NATALIE!!! We need you back. I miss the days of people taking Mason to school that were wonderful, fun, happy, understanding, and just down right great friends!!! I fired Mason's driver today. It felt good. They switched his driver back in October...without going into details we have been on a down hill slide since he started and today we hit rock bottom. Am I really that annoying? That demanding? I just don't get it. I will be taking Mason to school and although I can't afford the gas to do so it will be over my dead body that he gets into a vechile with someone who shows me no respect. Carter even said he was sorry that Mr. *****(nt using name) was rude to me. Yes, right in front of the children we had our arguement.

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! I will not let this spoil my mood and the fact that my phone got cutoff because our bill didn't go through for whatever reason. They do not mess around here. Due the 6th, payment didn't process, no phone for you. The problem is now solved, but we won't have our phone back until tomorrow--how annoying!! People can still call, so that is good.
Alright I am done...not too bad. :)

Jack Frost is nipping at our toes here. Carter now invisions 'Jack' Frost' from The Santa Claus 2 blowing all over England. FUNNY STUFF!!!
oh ya---Brennan started cereal.. I will get pics up soon.
Still don't have our new camera--back order, when things are cheap, you wait longer. :(

That is our life right now...You know, we are so blessed...My kids rock, Carter is going to be an Angel in his Christmas program from school.
Taylor was ssssooo easy to potty train. Our bishops wife is totally responsible. She watched her while we were moving for ONE day. She peed in her toilet and so she and Taylor celebrated by jumping on the couch together--I would never do that! I am horrible!! It worked, Taylor has wanted to go in the toilet ever since. She has had accidents, don't think I have a super human girl, but she is doing fabulous for the last week and now I will send Brennan to the same house when his time comes around. :)
Mason is really enjoying being in school. He is making friends and you can hear people telling him hi the whole time he is walking through the hall at school. It is great!
Brennan smiles at EVERY person that tells him hello and makes eye contact. He is a beautiful, happy, healthy, content, energetic, and talkative baby!
Okay, this post kind of went everywhere. SO congratulations if you read to the bottom.

To all our friends and family about to have babies--GOOD LUCK!! I love the experience of giving birth--I am jealous. Yes, I am weird. You all are beautiful woman and we are anxious about hearing your news of new babies!!

Christmas is coming....

The star is always a favorite. Carter put it on this year because he is the only one anxious to get it done.

Mason was actually excited about decorating this year. All the other years he just plays in the tree box, but this year he was grabbing the ornaments and helping Dad get them on the tree. It was awesome. In this picture he is playing with a little Nativity set that the Grand Forks Ward Primary put together last year. He was loving the little figures that go in it.



Brennan is rolling! His first day of rolling everywhere was Nov 13th. He finally figured out back to stomach and was off! We now have to watch him closely as one minute he was in the middle of the floor, the next he was hiding under the tree. He was captivated by the lights.

Taylor woke up early a few mornings ago, she got a yogurt and then was gone. I went looking for her and she was curled up next to Brennan sound asleep. She is really sweet to him most of the time and is very concerned if she hears him crying.

Do I look cool?

This is the question that we got asked about 10 times while we were cutting hair and then Carter insisted we take a picture of him because he did afterall look, "way cool."

It had to be done.....

First picture is of a night where mom had an activity at the church and Taylor was in charge of feeding Brennan. She didn't last long, but she had fun anyway. You can see that Brennan took over the job. Now, the hair. Brennan's hair was just way to long in spots, nothing in others and fresh growth in others. Are you ready to see the final result?


I'M BALD!

Although it takes a bit to get use too I am sure that Brennan's new look will catch on quickly. We need to go get some hats to keep his poor head warm now.

Signing off..

For now we say, goodbye. Didn't we just do this? :)
See you all in a couple weeks. It takes that long to get things up and running here. Bummer. :(

Blog Books

I have a problem folks. I was going to start working on my book from our blog on blurb.com which no longer supports blogger. So my question of the day is this. What other companies allow you to do this. I really want to get a printed out book of our blog...HELP!!!

*** EDITED*** Alright, you people that are smarter than I. How exactly am I doing this wrong. I logged in how I thought I was suppose too....please, treat me like a child evidently I need it. :)

Our new house....YES!!!

This picture is quite small, but it gives you an idea. This is going to be our new house! We are so excited to get out of our mold situation--finally!!! It has been a long time coming and we are ready to move on. The fact that we need to move is obviously not exciting, but the new house is! Good thing we have fabulous ward members from church that are anxious to help out. We will be moving this weekend and will be settled by Monday. :) Right, I can hope can't I? The neighbourhood is great, there is a little park right around the corner, and we have a much larger garden(yard). We are going to be even closer to the church and Carter doesn't need to switch schools--so yippee skippy!!

Framlingham Castle

Framlingham is a magnificant example of the late 12th century castle. Built by Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, the castle, together with Framlingham Mere, was designed both as a stronghold and as a symbol of power and status--as befitted one of the most influential people at the court of the Plantagenet kings. Artchitectually, the castle is notable for its curtain wall with mural towers, an early example of this design. The castle fulfilled a number of roles. It was at the centre of the sturggle between the Bigod barons and the Crown, and Mary Tudor mustered her supporters here in 1553, before being crowned Queen. At the end of the 16th century it was a prison:later still a poorhouse was built within the walls. That was your short history lesson in regard to Framlingham Castle curtiousy of the English Heritage members guide book. This was another fun castle to explore at your own pace. It was fun to see the walls that still stand strong and imagine what it would have looked like hundreds of years ago. The kids always have fun when we go on these adventures. They have been dying to go to a castle as we haven't been for a long while. It was a bit rainy, but overall it was fabulous. We were some of the only people there, and we always enjoy the freedom that allows you to explore.
Exploring the castle grounds. You can see that Brennan was especially interested in this castle.

The kids on the tower walls. They had made a catwalk that you could go on the upper level and walk around the castle walls. It was a gorgeous view from up there, you could see for quite a ways.


Going up the spiral staircase. That was an original stair case. They were so small and you had to pay attention or you would have gone down quick! Carter decided he didn't need a coat with us today. He said he would not get cold. We did point his coat out to him at the front door and said take it with us please. We got there and realized that he hadn't grabbed it. Good thing his 'Uncle' Damian is such a nice guy and donated his. I would have let him go until he was whining about the cold so he might remember next time to bring a coat!! Cheeky guy!

Like father like daughter...goodness!! At least she didn't go as far up as Mike did.

Enjoying life in the carrier. He just started sucking his lip recently. He is such a good boy about being carried around all day.


This is a picture of the inside grounds. The fencing and bridges you see in the picture are the upper level.

How cool is this giant chess set? The kids were having a fabulous time playing with this even though they didn't have a clue as to what they were doing.

Carter got a bit nervous after climbing up the side of the hill and wasn't sure how to get down. Then Dad showed him how to get down using the berlap going down the hill. We decided if it snowed this year we would need to come here and go sledding.