Halloween has come and gone

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. We had a great Halloween week. It started of on Tuesday with Paige's Halloween party at her preschool. She was SO excited to wear her Cinderella costume. I didn't get it out until that morning so she would be extra excited and I wasn't disappointed. :0) (If you know Paige, you can only imagine how she reacted!!) ;0) Paige's party was so fun. There were a couple of other princesses and LOTS of pirates. The kids were so cute in their costumes. They played a few games and then had lots of halloween treats. Luckily, Paige decided to save quite a few of those treats for later, or else we would have had a very hyper and probably sick little girl!! ;0)

For Family Home Evening, Brian, the kids and I decided to paint pumpkins (much easier to paint than carve pumpkins with a 1- and 3-year-old!!) The kids LOVED it. The entire time, Austin reminded us which pumpkin belonged to which person. He would say, "Mommy's punkin....Daddy's punkin.....Paige's punkin...my punkin"....over and over and over again. It really never got old, though, because it was so cute how he said it! :0)

On Thursday, Brian, Brian's mom, the kids and I all went to "Boo at the Zoo" and had a great time there. The kids loved being able to go to a zoo again (oh how we miss the Columbus zoo!!) and they got the added bonus of trick-or-treating while we were there! :0) We saw some great costumes (maybe a few ideas for Halloween's-to-come) and just enjoyed unusually nice weather. Paige LOVED being Cinderella and Austin had no say in being "Prince Charming". Paige had it all lined out. She knew she wanted to be Cinderella for a couple months and then she said that Austin had to be her Prince. Some days she said that he had to be the coachman or the footman, but I decided to stick with Prince Charming. When I was getting Paige dressed at the zoo, she was so excited and kept saying, "Mom, I'm going to be a true princess, right?!?" It was too cute.

It was a good thing we went trick-or-treating at the zoo because Bri's mom and I went on a State Volleyball date and were pretty much gym junkies for 2 days. It was so fun watching some good volleyball with my MIL. We always have a great time together and this weekend was no different! I have to thank Brian for taking care of the kids for me. He didn't feel very well and Austin refused to take a nap while I was gone, but he still did it. At times he was not very happy about it, but hopefully he knows how much I appreciate all he did this weekend!! Brian, Brian's dad, and the kids came with us for a few hours on Saturday. The kids actually did quite well considering the loud gym and the crowded bleachers. I've included a couple pics of the kids hangin' out at State V-ball!!

Well, enjoy the pictures and see if you can pick out Brian's favorite costume from the zoo! :0)

Here are a few extra pics that I couldn't resist putting on here. Paige got these glasses at preschool and of course we had to model them!!! :0)

Volleyball has come to an end

Yes, that's right. It happened a little earlier than the teams and I wanted it too, but Brian and my kids are definitely happy to have their wife and mommy back!! Maybe now I can get a few more things done and a few more people visited! I have to give a special thanks to all of my friends and family who watched my kids during practices, games and tournaments. I owe you all BIG TIME! I can't thank you all enough.

My cute little boy!

So, I just have to tell you how cute Austin is right now! He's saying the funniest things and makes me laugh so much every day. Paige is at preschool right now so Austin and I went to a couple stores. He wanted to be a big boy and climbed into his carseat by himself, but that's not all he wanted to do...he had to do up his buckle all by himself. "I do it, Mommy!!" he said. With just a little help from me, he did up his buckle and then said, "I did it!!" three times because that's how many times we had to click his seat belt. He had the biggest smile on his face! He said it so clearly that I just had to laugh. Oh, how I love this boy! He's also very into "Little Einsteins" on the Disney channel. He pats his little hands on his lap and says "Bast op" (Blast off, for those who aren't familiar with "Little Einsteins"!) :0) So cute!

Question

OK, I've heard from a couple of you saying that my blog isn't looking right. I know when Brian uses Mozilla Firefox to check the blog it doesn't look right, but when I'm using Explorer it looks fine. Do most of you see it correctly on your computers, or is it just the "Firefox" users that are having difficulty seeing it? It worked fine before I changed the background, but I don't know if that's the reason or not. Just let me know if you have suggestions/solutions.

Snow already!?!?!?

We woke up Saturday morning to this. (Take note of the trike and the basketball in these pictures.)

When I got home from my volleyball tournament it looked like this (Brian had already wiped off the railing, by the way!).

This is what it looked like Sunday morning. Do you see the trike and basketball now? This was such a crazy storm. My parents and in-laws almost always get more snow than us, but with this storm, they had flurries (ended up with a few inches) and we had this...around 10 inches! Crazy!!

When we heard that a storm was going to come in, we got out our winter clothes. Paige and Austin LOVED these hats (thanks Grandma Buhler!!) Have to love the suckers, too! :0)

Paige has been going through a "clothes" phase, especially with her jammies. By this I mean that she puts on jammies for bed the night before and she ALWAYS comes upstairs the next morning with a different set of jammies on. On Sunday she woke up in these jammies which are definitely NOT winter-type jammies. I had my slippers on, Austin had his slippers on and Paige wanted hers on, but her horse slippers are too small. She decided that she could settle for my fuzzy socks. She thought they were hilarious, as you can see in this pic!! ;0)
This snowstorm dumped wet, perfect for snowmen, snow. After naptime, we all went out to make a snowman. Paige informed us that we couldn't make a snowman...we had to build a snow princess instead, namely, Aurora. So that's exactly what we did. Brian and I are pretty proud of ourselves! :0) Of course Brian had to put a "chest" on the princess. We had to tone it down a bit when we noticed how "busty" she was and thought it was a bit too much. These pictures were taken before the "edited" version. :0) After the snow-princess making, the kids got on the sled and enjoyed having Brian take them around and around our backyard. He definitely got a workout doing this. The kids didn't want him to stop!

Isn't this Aurora the snow princess, great?!? Paige sure thought so! :0) We even put a crown on her! ;0)

Volleyball pictures

We had an amazing photographer, Nema Blanchard, take our volleyball team pictures this year. She did such an amazing job. She's based out of Pocatello and is the sweetest person you'll ever meet. As you can see, she does amazing work.

Here's both the JV (in red) and the Varsity (in black)

Coach Bowman and me

Funny story - When I met Carol the first time, we got talking and she told me that she grew up in Murtaugh. I told her that my dad grew up there also and then told her his name. She seriously about dropped dead at that moment because she went to school with him. She's a couple years younger, but when your graduating class is 15-20 people, you're pretty much in the same class! ;0) It definitely is a small world!!

My JV team
This cat would not move, so Nema just went ahead and included him in the photo shoot!

Preschool days are here!

Paige has started going to Preschool and, boy, does she love it! She gets so excited when it's a school day. Her teachers are so wonderful and that helps with her enthusiasm of learning. She comes home with the greatest projects, fun treats and she is so excited to tell me what she did that day. She is such an intelligent girl and loves to learn new things. I'm so proud of her! I do have to say, though, that it feels really weird having a child that's old enough to go to preschool. I can't even imagine how it's going to feel when she starts kindergarten!!

Austin has realized that he has full reign of the house while Paige is at school and he definitely takes advantage of it. He plays with all of the toys that Paige doesn't like him to play with (note the pink butterfly purse on his head!) and just has fun having his mommy all to himself. It wasn't like this the first day of Paige's school, however. He went all over the house calling for Paige over and over. It was so cute, but a little sad, too. After about the first hour, though, he realized the freedom he had and he definitely started to take advantage of it. :0)

Fair time

We were able to go to the Fair this year. Paige LOVED all of the animals, the Kid Place and the rides (she was only able to ride one ride, but she really, really, really wanted to ride more!). Austin LOVED the goats, the balls at the Kid Place, and just walking around. He would get mad when we put him in the stroller because there were too many things that he wanted to touch and get into. Here are a few pics of our fun night!

Labor Day weekend - Yes....I'm still way behind!!

We went to Brian's parents' house over Labor Day weekend. John and Bethany were able to be there and we finally met Dan's girlfriend, Rachel, who became Dan's fiance that same weekend!! It was a great trip! We are so excited to have Rachel join our family. She is very sweet, talented, athletic and her and Dan make a very cute couple! We can't wait until December! :0)

While we were there, the boys decided to go bird-hunting. They didn't see any grouse, but they came home with a couple doves (they had to bring home some proof that they could hit something!!) :0). When they came home, Brian's dad gave us a little bit of an anatomy lesson while he skinned the bird. (I know you don't "skin" a bird, but I can't think of another way to say it!) Anyway, Paige and Austin had the funniest looks on their faces throughout the entire process. They were completely enthralled by it all and got mad whenever someone got in their line of sight. You can see their expressions in the pictures below. They seriously had these same facial expressions THE entire time! It was very entertaining to say the least! ;0)

While the men were off hunting, the kids, Grandma A., Aunt Bethany and I went to the park. It was a bit chilly and we weren't very well prepared for the change in weather, so we had to borrow Grandma's jackets, gloves and socks. Thank goodness Grandma is always prepared for anything! :0) The kids didn't mind the cold one bit. They had so much fun going down the HUGE slide (according to Paige anyway), swinging in the swings and showing us what monkeys they are. Paige even surprised us by doing the monkey bars by herself. I was so excited watching her that I forgot to take a picture. Then she refused to do it again so I couldn't take a picture. That's Paige for ya! She did, however, discover how much fun it is to slide down the slanted bars with her arms. She got very good at it by the time we went home!

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa A., for the great weekend!!

Yes, we are alive!

I know I am a major blogging slacker right now. I keep telling myself that this is considered my journal and I need to keep it updated, but, boy, does life just get in the way!! Volleyball is still going on (2 more weeks), Paige is going to preschool twice a week, Austin's busy getting into things and just being cute, and Brian's working and has been busy lately with Scouts (helping a few of his boys finish their Eagle). Life has been good, though.

It's funny reading so many blogs and seeing that your kids are doing the same thing that mine are, for example, getting a hold of your camera without you knowing and taking some pictures with the said camera. What's so enticing about these little machines anyway?!? (Maybe it's just that they see us using it all the time to record the silly, cute and memorable things they are doing constantly!!!) Here's a couple of Paige's um.... self-portraits. :0)

Brian's brother, John, and his amazing wife, Bethany, were able to spend the night about a month ago (again...I'm a major slacker). It was so fun spending time with them! Paige had the best time playing hairdresser on Aunt Bethany and came up with some very interesting hair-dos. Austin even joined in at times. Thanks for being such a good sport, Bethany! I guess my kids are just breaking you in for your future little one!!!! :0) (We're so happy to have another cousin to play with!!!)

I've decided that 3-year-olds are much more challenging than 2-year-olds!!
Paige is such an intelligent, energetic girl, but what a drama queen she can be! :0) She is a sweet girl, though, and takes care of her little brother so well. I'm just hoping the tantrums and sneaking around end soon!! :0)

Here are a few pictures from our FHE a few weeks ago. We took the kids to the park a couple blocks away so we could enjoy the warm weather and spend some quality family time together. Boy, are kids funny when you set them free on a playground! Paige had to show Brian and I how big she was and how high she could climb on the rock wall. She would then jump off and tell us that she can jump "SO high". Like I said before.... drama queen!! :0) Life would definitely be boring without her!! :0)

I told Paige to smile pretty for the camera and this was the pose she came up with. Great, Paige!! :0)

Austin has been very funny lately. He finds things that he becomes fascinated with for a day or so and then moves on to something else. The day we went to the park his "item" was this whistle. Luckily there weren't very many people at the park with is, because it could have been very annoying listening to this whistle, over and over and over... you get the idea.

I think Austin was pouting about Paige having the whistle in this picture. I love this puckered facial expression of his! I can't help but to laugh and give him a little kiss!! :0)