Grace Comedy

We were having a Saturday morning clean-up awhile ago and we were getting some resistance from the kids. Grace was pretty upset and she just sat on the floor of the playroom saying it was too hard to clean it. After awhile of this, she came to our room where Mark and I were folding laundry. Grace said- "I have an idea. If you don't like our house the way it is, we should move".
___

Then the other day Grace wanted help with something while we were all busy with other things. Exasperated, she said "You all need to stop thinking about yourselves and think about me!"

We love our funny Grace! Have a great day!

BethAnne's Clogging Competition

BethAnne's clogging group participated in a clogging competition on Saturday. She and her group did very well, I'm really proud of the progress she has made.

 

I think she looks so gorgeous in her clogging outfit, complete with hair and makeup.

 

While we were waiting for BethAnne's turn, BethAnne taught Grace and Joy some dance moves. It was very cute.

 

 

Here's a cute picture of photogenic Grace. We had a fun time at the clogging competition. I've been morning sick on and off, but it's been manageable so far. I had a bad cold last week, but it got better really fast and I'm so grateful for that (it's hard to be pregnant and sick :) So life is good here in Boise. We hope you are all well.
Love,
Aubrey

Here's the video I made of her performance. It's not great quality but you get the idea. BethAnne starts out in the back row on the very right, then for awhile she's in the front row on the right. Enjoy!

Christmas 2011

We had a very festive house this year, especially thanks to Mark. I've always wanted to hang up colorful lights inside and I told Mark about it and one morning he surprised me by putting them up all around the main floor. I got some bows to go with them and it's been a fun addition to our decorations.

 

 

 

Here's our Christmas tree this year with presents underneath.

 

This one big present didn't fit under the tree. Daddy spent a few hours building it on Christmas Eve, I've always wanted a train table and wooden train set for our kids and I found a great deal this year so we got one. We got some Thomas engines to go with it, so that makes it even more fun.

 

This is a beautiful flower arrangement Mark got me last week. It smells like a fresh Christmas tree (without all the hassle) and I've loved it.

 

Here's the family room after "Santa" came.

 

The girls are enchanted by their big Christmas present. Yay for Santa! Joy didn't open any other presents because she just wanted to play with the train table. If we tried to hand her a present to open she would say "don't like presents". It was very funny (we opened her presents for her).

 

So much fun, they've played with it all day!

 

A new cuddly friend for Grace.

 

We had a lovely Christmas day. We started with a devotional in our room before we went downstairs. We were able to bear our testimonies and share the Christmas story from Luke and other scriptures from Isaiah. Then we got a fun surprise. Mom and Dad had been downstairs making breakfast for us and it was almost all ready when we came down to open presents. We opened presents with them and then had a wonderful breakfast all together. I love my family and I love living here in Boise. I'm so grateful for my Savior and for the Gospel. I love my sweet husband and dear children. I hope you all had a beautiful day too.

Love,
Aubrey

December

We've had a fun month this last month and before I get to posting some Christmas pictures, I thought I'd post some other pictures from the last month.

 

I thought this picture of Grace was adorable. My kids love olives!

 

The girls got to decorate a gingerbread house at Nana and Papa's house and they used some nice candy (like chocolate orange sticks). So we decided that this house would be an eating house and we put it on the kitchen table to pick at for awhile. It didn't take Joy long to discover the house and start sampling. :)

 

 

 

She liked the house a little too much, so we didn't leave it there for long.

 

This year, the girls got their own 5-foot tree to decorate with colorful ornaments and lights. That way I can have my nice tree and they can have their fun tree. Although with two puppies and a two-year-old, my tree didn't look very nice most of the month :)

 

BethAnne had her first clogging performance at the Festival of Trees, right before Thanksgiving. Here she is in her cute outfit. She is doing pretty well with clogging and she's really enjoying it. I'm glad we stuck with it and I think we'll continue for awhile.

Kid Comedy

Grace- My school shoes are too small for me
Me- Really? (we just got new shoes a few months ago)
Grace- Yes, I am too big for my tennis shoes
Me- So, you need new shoes?
Grace- Yes...shoes that light up.

Have a happy week!
Love,
Aubrey

Portraits 2011

We weren't going to do portraits this year, but I got an amazing deal, so we decided to get some of just the girls. I'm not posting the main one we're using for our Christmas card, but here are the others. I wasn't thrilled with the photographer (she zoomed in too close a lot of the time), but it was super cheap, so I guess I can't complain. Here are my favorite shots. I love my beautiful girls! Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!
Love,
Aubrey

P.S. We have the CD and copyright of the pictures, so any of you can print any you want. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cute dogs and cute kids

Mark's parents got our doggies some costumes for Halloween and so we dressed them up for a few minutes.

 

Lily seems to be saying "help me, please". She's a patient dog though.

 

I didn't get a good picture of Daisy, but here you can see that she was dressed up too.

 

I like this picture of Joy, she is so often just really happy.

 

Daisy and Lily were groomed today and they are so white and fluffy and beautiful when they're groomed. They smell great too for a few days, so that's good (they don't smell too bad the rest of the time either).

 

Today when we asked Joy to smile for the camera she would scrunch up her face so cute and smile. Such a cutie!

 

And here's our pretty Grace posing for the camera.

That's it for now. Things here are going pretty well. I've been sick with some back-to-back colds and a pretty bad sinus and double ear infection, but I think I'm on the mend (with two antibiotics on board). Joy's appointment with the infectious disease guy was pretty fruitless. He thinks she just gets sick regularly with high fevers, with no other symptoms. Can't say that I agree with him, but at least it's probably not serious, just disruptive. We're going to wait and see how she does.
Grace and BethAnne have most of November off (because their school is year round), so I'm looking forward to having my girls home this month. Hopefully we can practice cleaning and playing nice together. Have a great week!
Love,
Aubrey