Turkey Day Times Two!!

We spent Thanksgiving with Jared's side of the family (since we were having a gathering with my family on the Saturday following). They held their dinner at Jared's brother Jeff's house in Vernonia. We arrived a little bit early so that the kids and Jared could play flag football with Jeff and his family. The kids really enjoyed playing (this was the second football game that Jared got to play in this day, the first was at the Jones's house and was not flag football). Jared enjoyed being able to play football with the kids. Bella and I watched for a little while, before Bella got to cold to be outside. Below are some pictures that I took of them playing.

Jared with Lexi, Spence and Gillian (niece) getting ready to play

Spence getting ready to kick the ball he was so excited to do this!!

Lexi and Spence listening in the huddle

After the game was finished we got things ready and sat down to eat. We were able to share dinner not only with Jeff's family, but also Jared's parents, Brent and Mark and his family. It was a full house, but fun to see everyone and enjoy their company. It was also good food too.

On Saturday we enjoyed a day with my family. We had a great dinner at one of the church buildings where the kids were able to run around the gym and enjoy themselves. We brought Spence's tricycle for him to ride on in the gym he loved that and it keep him entertained. Since we weren't bringing something like that for Lexi. We came up with something different to entertain her. She wanted to do a thankful jar and have everyone write down what they are thankful for and then she (with my help) read them to everyone, while we were eating. I wasn't sure if she would help me read them, but she did. She is getting so big. I was so proud of her.

Spence and his other two boy cousins riding on their trikes

This picture is so cute, Bella doesn't move much in her walker, but Abby who is a week older is all over the place. Abby though does have a lot more room to move around also. Anyways so Abby was pushing Bella with her walker it was so cute.

So we all had a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoyed spending time with our families. I love this time of year because of the time that I get to spend with my family. I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving also.

1st Video Blog

This is a video I took of Lexi making Bella laugh so hard! I have never done a video on here before, so I decided to try. Enjoy!!

Family Pictures

So here are those pictures that I promised you. All went well with them Bella was asleep until we were called back and was so happy through the whole thing. Hope you enjoy. Let me know what you think.

Here are some pictures of the kids that we took at JcPenney's

Sorry I have to brag...

Lexi did a fundraiser at school and when she brought the thing home we found out the you could get a Nintendo Wii for selling the most stuff. We jumped right on it and got a whole bunch of our family to help out. Good thing that we have such big extended family and that they live close by. So I thought she did a pretty good job selling it, but we had to wait for a couple weeks to find out if we sold enough to get 1st prize. So we found out about a week ago that Lexi got 1st prize, a Nintendo Wii (we probably would not have bought a Wii otherwise), The kids love it and it can give you a little workout on the sports game that we got. Jared and I also enjoy it and find the game that we have fun. So I just had to share. Sorry no pictures this time. I will try and get the family pics that we just took up soon (they turned out great)! Thanks to all that helped out!!

8 Years Yesterday!!

Nov. 2, 1999 (our second date)


So it was 8 years ago yesterday that Jared and I had our first date!! It was weird thinking about where we were when we first met and what we did on our first date and such. So I decided to get a babysitter (my parents), so that we could go out to dinner together. So we went to "Applebee's" and had a great dinner and a little dessert also (they have this new thing called dessert shooters and they are just the right amount of sweets for after dinner and only 2 dollars). Anyways so after dinner we thought that we would go over to Target to pick up a couple of things that we needed and look at a couple of things we didn't. As we were walking down the main aisle just minding our own business we bumped in to the Director of the Portland Institute downtown. Which is ironically where we had met eight years ago, so not only is that where we met, but he was also there for the first time that we met. His name is Bro. Weed. He is such a great person and so easy to talk to. So he asked us how we were doing and we told him that it had been eight years since our first date and that we were out on a date. He was also there with his wife. We talked for like 45mins in the middle of Target. It was so nice catching up with him and talking about old times. He couldn't believe that our oldest is six. He told that he still tells the story of us meeting and other stories about us to his classes. That is weird sometimes to think about, but cool to know that we were someone that left an impression in his life. I know that he has also left an impression in ours. So how weird was that to run into someone that was there the day that we met and through our courtship on the day we were celebrating being together for 8 years.

Bella's 1st Halloween

My kids were so cute for Halloween!! They were a cat, dog and mouse. These were costumes that we basically had already from previous Halloweens, so we didn't spend really anything on costumes this year (yeah, me!!) Above is Bella in her mouse costume (this costume was one that Lexi wore her 1st Halloween also)
Spence as our little Dalmatian dog He was such a cutie.
Lexi as a cat, she said she was posing like a cat. Don't you love her socks. They were left over from a previous costume when she was a witch and she really wanted to wear them to school, since they were not able to dress up this year for their party at school.
Here they are all together. They had such a great time "Trick or Treating"!! Bella was in the carrier again and loved seeing everything and didn't complain once. What a good baby. While we were out we stop by for a few minutes at family in our ward that was having a party. We didn't stay long because were were all bundled for the weather outside (which was great by the way for Halloween) and didn't want Bella to get over heated in her outfit. We also had fun the Saturday before Halloween, because it was our ward "Trunk or Treat". We invited my sister and her family, and friends of ours. They came to our house before hand and we had dinner then went over to the activity. It was fun and I know the kids enjoyed it. The kids now have enough candy to last them forever. I always end up throwing out some around Easter, because they never eat it all. Partly because I don't let them just chow down on it. That's just me.
Here is a picture of there pumpkins. Lexi's is on the left she wanted it to be a cat, it has a tail in the back also and for the first time did it almost all by herself. Spence told me what he wanted and I helped him. We cut them at my oldest sister Carolyn's house. Every year she has an annual Halloween pumpkin carving party and gives out prizes. She always has prizes for all the kids and they love doing it and we love going and having a great time eating and socializing also.

Bella's 1st Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Okay, so having three kids has made me busier that I thought. Blogging has not been a top priority lately, not like you can't tell, since I haven't blogged for over a month. So here is a little catch up for the end of October. We took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch and choose the worse weekend to go. It was so stormy with wind and rain. I thought we could handle it but when we got out there it was worse then we thought it would be. Lexi was upset about being cold even though I had her in warm clothes and she wanted to go home. She kept saying, "I am mad, can't you see I am mad. I am cold and don't want to be here." Which was funny because she was the one that was so excited about going even if it was raining. Above is a picture of Jared, Lexi, Spence and Billy (cousin) trying not to get too wet under their umbrellas. At least Lexi smiled in this picture. Probably because at this point we said we were going to leave.
Here is a picture of Lexi not so happy, Spence wasn't bothered by the weather and neither was Bella. She loves being in the baby carrier outside, though she has to be facing out to be happy. So being out in Canby at the pumpkin patch we decided that we would just go over to Bullwinkle's family fun center and play some video games, so that the day wouldn't be a total loss. We have never gone and just played the video games before, we usually did putt putt golf there, but it had been a long time since we did that. So the kids really enjoyed themselves and with some other family there they were able to earn lots of tickets and the kids got to get lots of prizes. We split the ticket between the kids and they thought that was great. They had more tickets then I ever had. They were really lucky on a couple of the games.
Here is Spence enjoying himself.
Lexi and me trying to play a motorcycle game, we weren't very good.

Jared wasn't able to join us at Bullwinkle's because when we went to leave the pumpkin patch our car wouldn't start. Jared had thought he had got it fixed, but it turned out there was more to the problem. He was able to get it started for a little bit and headed straight home to work on it. (We hitched a ride with other family back to our house.)