The Nutcracker

The girls and I went to the Nutcracker on Saturday afternoon for a fun Mother-Daughter date.

Our seats were pretty high up but we could still see pretty well.

Poor Brooke was feeling sick but still enjoyed the show.

It must be December

December in Texas means raking leaves...

Kaylee and Brooke were good helpers but they had to jump in the piles a few times first.

9 months

Little miss Emma is 9 months old! (She is very hard to get a picture of.)

This girl is always on the go. She crawls everywhere but her favorite thing to do is this... 

If she had her way she would walk like this all day. She's pretty smart- she'll pull herself up on something and look really wobbly so we have to help her and she immediately grabs our fingers and starts walking. She knows how to work it.

This is one of her favorite places right now- playing with the nativity by the fireplace.

She loves to eat real food. She'll eat baby food but prefers to feed herself.

She recently learned how to pull herself up in her crib. I always find her this way after her naps (and occasionally in the middle of the night.) She is quite proud of herself but she hasn't figured out how to get down yet.

Lubbock Nativity

Last week we went to the annual Lubbock Nativity, Our Stake puts a lot of work into this and it is a big event. I love going and feeling the spirit of Christmas. This year Flat Stanley got to come with us. He is for a project for Kaylee's class. They have pen pals from a small fishing village in Kake, Alaska and they took pictures with their flat pen pals to show what life is like for them here.

Tooth Trouble

Brooke lost her first tooth in the morning on December 2. She excitedly put her tooth under her pillow and went to school.

That night the tooth fairy may have forgotten to come (after all she lost it in the morning and we didn't mention it again.).

The next morning when Jake and I realized we didn't tell the tooth fairy to come I jumped out of bed to see if I could help her but it was too late. The girls were already up and somehow Brooke had a dollar for her tooth. I determined either the tooth fairy really did come or Brooke has a very kind big sister! (When I asked Kaylee about it later she had a big grin on her face and admitted she got $1 from her own money and gave it to Brooke- so sweet of her!)

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. We got together with our friends the Dormans and had some great food. Of course I forgot to take pictures while we were eating, but I did get a picture or our yummy pie. Kaylee requested the chocolate mousse cheesecake we made last year. 

After we ate and hung out for a while my friend wanted to go shopping. Originally I wasn't going to go. I didn't want to shop on Thanksgiving but I decided to go with her and let the husbands do the dishes and watch the kids.

Here is our Thankful Tree. Every night at dinner we wrote something we were thankful for on a leaf.

Friday we got our Christmas decorations out! I put up the tree and got out the decorations and the kids went to town decorating.

They did 99% of the tree decorating. My only help was taking some of the decorations off when they got a little carried away. Kids get so excited about little things, it makes the holidays way more fun!

Carlsbad Caverns

The girls got our of school early on Tuesday so we decided to head to Carlsbad Caverns for a little family vacation. We didn't leave as early as we wanted because Jake didn't get out of class early.  He had a presentation and couldn't skip class so ended up eating dinner on the road.

We had a free hotel stay which was really nice! We went to the lobby after unpacking and had some delicious hot chocolate!

It was a nice hotel room with 2 beds and a pull out couch bed but it was a rough night! Emma was up 3-4 times, Austin woke up a few times and Kaylee and Brooke kept fighting "you're pulling the blanket", "move your feet", "she punched me". Finally about 2 am we separated the, and I slept with Kaylee and Jake with Brooke. We got a little sleep after that. Everyone was awake by 6:30.

After eating a good breakfast at the hotel we headed to the Caverns.

We took an elevator 750 feet down into the cave instead doing of the mile hike into the cave (maybe when we don't have small children we'll hike it.) 

I think the kids liked it for the most part. There was just over a mile of trails inside the cave and Austin walked the whole time. He got a little worried as the trail kept going and going "We're trapped in here!" 

FHE

Kaylee and Brooke decided to teach the family home evening lesson last Monday. We had recently had tithing settlement so they taught us about tithing. 

They chose the subject, found the material and taught a great lesson!

I'm happy they enjoy FHE and have learned enough to teach us. I love to see their knowledge and testimonies grow!

Snow

Last week we got our first snow storm. It started snowing after church and the kids couldn't wait to get outside. It only snowed about a quarter of an inch but the roads got pretty icy so school was delayed until 10:00 the next day...the benefits of living in Texas. :)

Austin didn't last long outside. He could only handle a few minutes of the 20 degree weather before he wanted to come back in. Kaylee and Brooke don't seem to mind the cold.

Disguise the Turkey

Brooke and Kaylee both had disguise the turkey projects for homework. 

Kaylee made hers into a cute indian girl. (She turned it in before I took a picture.)

Brooke made hers into a bunny.

It was fun to do these creative projects with them,

8 months

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago (I'm a little behind). I had a really hard time getting 8 month pictures and I know it is only going to get harder. When I took these Emma wasn't crawling yet. She really wanted to be moving but had not quite figured it out yet. (She started crawling last week and couldn't be happier.) 

This is how most of our pictures turned out. She was not in the mood for a photo shoot. Emma is a happy baby most of the time. She is even happier now that she can crawl around,

This baby LOVES real food. She eats baby food like a champ but especially loves to feed herself "big people" food. She also loves drinking from a straw.

Emma gives the best big slimy kisses and I love it!

We all loves this sweet girl!

Halloween

Wednesday was Trunk or Treat, Thursday was the Fall Festival at Kaylee and Brooke's school (they played games, jumped in bounce houses. I don't like going. They lines are really long to play simple little games but the kids had fun.) By Halloween they were all a little tired from staying up late the nights before but of course they had to go out and trick or treat.

 

We had our usual jack o' lantern pizza for dinner before heading our trick or treating.

Brooke was still a bunny, Kaylee was still Elsa (my mom made her awesome wig), Austin wouldn't wear a costume anymore, and Emma was a skeleton.

The skeleton tired to eat the bunny.

 

Emma was a trooper and put up with all the festivities each night even though she would rather have been home in bed. Austin had a good time at first but then all the late nights caught up to him and after every house we went to he said "I want to go home."  They got a good haul of candy (which I went through and pulled out what we didn't want to give to trick or treaters. :) )