Merry Christmas to ALL!!

Well, the day has come and gone and we had a really good time. I will post more pictures in the next couple of days, but wanted to get something up for now. Our computer went crash and we just got that all fixed finally.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day and Christmas Season. Love to all!!!
This is after our PJ's on Christmas Eve. The kids were pretty good about taking a picture this year...you should see us some years. :)

Movie Clip of Taylor's Baby

Hopefully this works. Taylor was so tired yesterday that she fell asleep before we got home from our Christmas visit's and was too tired to open any more gifts when we got home. So Carter remembered quite quickly that she had some to open this morning. This video is after she got her baby doll from Aunt Heather and Uncle Matt. She even shared some of her blankets with the baby. It is just a short little clip, but I thought it was very cute.

Check out my Slide Show!

Mason, Mason, Mason

Mason gets a post all his own. This was the many shots at trying to get one picture to put on his Christmas cards for the teachers this year. WOW!! He was not that pleased about this task. Two shirts, and a ton of pictures later we found a winner. Today I see some I could have used, but hey in the heat of it, you don't think some of them look that great, when they are perfectly fine. I forgot to rotate some of these and didn't want to start over...so sorry about the side ways veiw on a bunch! We finally got him to sit down by giving him a picture of his para, he sat and smiled and 'talked' about her for a bit. I just got kick out of some of these and couldn't help but post them all. Have fun...dont' feel bad if you dont' watch the whole slide show!

My kids are so darn cute!! I can't stand it sometimes. :)

These are just a couple of Carter's Christmas projects from school. He is doing really well in school and loves being there. Even though sometimes he is too smart for his own good. Such as...Teacher Kathy, " Carter we don't throw snow." Carter answered, " My mommy lets me throw snow." While he proceeds to throw snow. Teacher Kathy, " Well, there are school rules and home rules, at school we are not allowed to throw snow." Carter almost had to go inside. because he continued. :) Well, after a talk with mom and dad the next day he got a big thumbs up for remembering not to throw snow!! :) LOVE LITTLE BOYS!!! Of course, I am able to tell the teachers that every once in awhile we get, "My teachers let me do this." :) Man he is a stinker, but he sure is cute!!!!
Taylor is normally napping while Carter is at school and today wasn't any different. Except she got a couple blankets and curled up in the bean bag before we even got her too bed.. How can you beat a sight like this? I LOVE IT!!!

Special Visitors!!

Mikes parents drove him back home from Utah ( I flew--lucky me!). It is always wonderful to have people visit us here in ND. Since there isn't much motivation--besides well us!! :) The kids enjoyed their special surprise visitors. We were very happy that they decided to stay longer than originally planned. I think the kids loved it too. :)
Thanks for visiting mom and dad!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I will post more pictures of their trip when they get back and can email me their camera full.

Wedding....

Congratulations to Kasey and Chelsi Craven!!!!! We were SSSOOO excited to go and spend some time in Utah. It was our time away from the kids and it was wonderful! I love having a chance to go to weddings...It was a great experience to be reminded of the beginnings of a life together. I will never forget how much I love Mike, but I love that chance to reflect on what brought you together in the first place. It has been 7 years for us, and we have been through so much together, we are excited for the many more together. Which technically were two little sisters that couldn't mind their business. Thanks Chelsi and Kellie. :) We love both Chelsi and Kasey and wish we could have stayed longer. Although our cake feeding still beat your's. :) Maybe I will post of a picture of that one day.
LOVE YOU GUYS, CONGRATS!!!!

I love going and seeing the beautiful temples scattered across the mountains and in SLC. We don't get the chance to go as much as we would like too, and I love the peace that it brings just seeing the temple.

I think Mason likes movies?

Tonight we decided that for our Family Night together we would go Christmas shopping for others. Mom and Dad saw a couple things we couldn't pass up. The Santa Claus 1&2. Mason and Carter both LOVE the first. We just have it on a VHS that is on its last leg. So we decided, what the hay, lets get them. Mason saw them and wanted to hold them all through the store, we had a couple more places to go and he got irritated with having to leave them. We got home and he wouldnt get out of the van without the movies in hand. So we get all our treasures from the back, Carter, Taylor etc, come in the house and find.... Mason on the couch, movies, remote and a big smile/whine. If it wasn't a school night he would have watched them tonight. Sleep is a big deal for this mommy and we were already off our schedule of bedtime. So I was the bad guy and told him no. Which then gave me the priviledge of not having to get him ready for bed since he wanted nothing to do with me. He even stopped at Taylor's doorway just to yell at me and make sure I knew he was not happy with me. Of course, his smile can't hide for too long, so yelling and smiling are hand in hand.
He will be even more ticked tomorrow after school when he realizes he has therapy and can't watch then either. I promise I will let the poor kids watch them soon! :) Tomorrow night probably.
I decided that I wanted to post this little experience before I went to bed, otherwise I would probably forget tomorrow. I think we have something planned for every hour of the day. Have a great day everyone!!!

Winter Wonderland!!!

We got a very large dose of snow over the weekend. Mike and Carter were out working hard today clearing off the last of the snow drifts in the driveway. Carter of course, needed his hot cocoa to sustain him through. Daddy couldn't miss out on that!!

Taylor and I joined them for a very short lived moment. Her hands got too cold and she wanted in. Then she kept sneaking outside just to play for a quick second. So she took her toy out and brought some snow in to try out. I once told Carter not to eat the snow, now I just tell him to eat the clean looking snow. :) What is childhood if you can't eat a bit of snow?

WIND CHILL!!!!

Children are truly oblivous to cold!!! Carter insisted that we needed to go outside and play in the fresh new snow. Well, if only negative 2 degrees(feels like neg 16 with wind) meant something to him. So bundled we got!!! It took us longer to get ready than to actually play in the snow. I think he wants to go out so that when we are done he can have hot chocolate. Little does he realize I would skip the cold and go straight to hot chocolate. :) Although I love that he wants to play and have fun. It is fun having kids who do want to be active. That was Carter'sface of, "mom, hurry I am freezing." My response, "if you are going to make me come out and freeze I at least get a couple pictures."

Taylor did have a grand time standing in one spot and playing in the snow. This is really her first year of playing in the snow. She LOVES to watch it snow. We sat over our vents last night with blankets over us watching it come down. She thought that was great. As you can see, our effort to get the toys put away before we got hit didn't quite work out. Well, it is now complete by mom, the cleaning and freezing..so fun!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

We had a great Thanksgiving. It was just us this year, but we enjoyed our little feast!
Carter and Mommy were the main chef's. He loves being in the kitchen. He came in handy after Mom burnt herself and had to tend to that. Watch out for that steam!!! :) We hope everyone had a great day!

Love to all!!!

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Does he or does he not? That is the question...

My own unoffcial testing, says yes he certainly does. Our big debate with the teachers in school is if Mason understands and knows his colors. Well, they have him 'sort' colored bears into their designated cups and he just doesn't get it. I just think he doesn't get the sorting part of it all. We were playing with blocks and I decided to do my own testing. I would hold up two blocks and ask him to choose which ever color i said for the next on the tower. 100% accuracy with all the colors!!!!

Mason was so proud of himself, and the big question is answered finally. Why I didn't think of this sooner is beyond me. His para of course knew he knew colors, she often picks up on things that the teachers don't see. Thank Heaven for her. She is wonderful...no one will tell if I kidnapp her and take her to England, right?

Just another proud Mommy and Daddy moment!!! Wanted to share. With Mason being at school all day we probably don't share as much as we should about him. What a stud.

So Carter has been singing this song since learning it at school and I thought it was too cute. The only way I could video him doing it is to tell him he had to teach his cousin Zoie this new song. Then she could go to school and teach her class. It is amazing what kids will do for someone else's benefit.

Enjoy.

Update On Operation PCS-England

For all you non military folk--PCS--Permanent Change of Station(although there is nothing permanent about it) :)

I wanted to update everyone on our adventure to England. We got the extension we were hoping for and now won't have to leave until the end of school. We should be flying out of Grand Forks around the 24th of May, 2008! That sounds so weird, 2008, but it will be here before we know it. We did have sad news with our move coming up. We decided the money it would take to fly Dakota(our dog) over was not in our budget. It is a little insane what they want for that. For the curious it was $1200.00. Anyway, we already found her a home here in ND. She lives on a 25 acre farm now and has chickens and pigs to play with. We were sad to see her go, but we will be visiting her before we go to say our official good-bye. Carter just thought it was really nice of us to share our dog with someone else. :) Mason was very clear how he felt about it--not happy at all!! I don't know that Taylor has really noticed after the first couple of days of signing 'dog' around the back door. We feel we made that best decision, and that is all you can do I guess.
We are looking forward to our adventure to Utah this December to help celebrate in Chelsi and Kasey getting married. Although Mike and I are the only ones making it we are excited for the couple of days we will be there. Mostly I think we are excited about having no children for a couple days. What is that like? It will be our first overnight adventure alone since Mason was born in 2001. How crazy that will be!!! Our very good friend Beth is staying here with the kids and so i know they will be be in great hands.

I better sign off so that the pile of laundry can get folded. That is one thing I really do not enjoy to it!! I don't know why, but it is highly obnoxious to me.
Have a wonderful 1st Day of November!!