Santa Pictures at Scheels

We got our pictures taken with "Santa" this year at a sporting goods store called Scheels.  Ron dressed up like Santa for the photo shoot.

This picture was my absolute favorite.  I loved it so much that it even made me cry when I saw it. 

 The leg shot turned out amazing!

 I was so happy with all of the great pictures that we got.  Last year we weren't so lucky, so I was beyond thrilled this year.

 Scheels has a ferris wheel inside the building.  After the pictures we went to ride on it.  Poor Eva was too short.  The height restriction was 36 inches and she is only 33, so not even close.  Lucas, Emrie and I had a lot of fun riding.  After riding, we had fun walking around the store and looking at all the photo opportunity places they had.  The kids loved the huge aquarium.

Eva was such a sport while we were on the ride.  She walked around with Ron and looked at the store.  One of these days she will be tall enough to ride on things. 

Thanksgiving Happenings

Our Thanksgiving was great this year.

 We were able to get some cute pictures of the family.  I wanted the girls to have the perfect outfits.  My mom and I made their skirts.  They looked adorable.  I loved how Lucas matched them also.  At the end of the night, they looked so cute in their turkey jammies.

We went to Cannon's house for dinner with Ron's family.  We always have a ton of yummy food.  This year was no exception.  There were 3 turkeys, fried, smoked and baked.  They all tasted amazing!  We also played our annual dice game with some fun gifts.

Lucas had a Turkey Trot at school.  He had so much fun running his heart out.  It is so much fun getting into all the Elementary school activities. 

Fall Family Pictures 2012

On November 1 we met my friend, Jen, down in Lehi to get our family pictures taken.  Jen is my friend that I used to work with when I was in high school.  She lives in Phoenix now.  I was happy to be able to get together with her while she was up here, so we could take some pictures.

This is my favorite one as a family.  It totally shows each of the kids personalities. 

There were some abandon railroad tracks near where we were taking pictures.  I was really excited to get some cute shots.  The kids didn't want to cooperate though.  These were the best ones we got. 

Here are a few more cute ones, along with some individual shots of the kiddos. 

Ron and I have very few pictures of just the two of us.  I was super excited to have her take some of us.  I love this one!

Overall, I was pretty disappointed in the session.  It was definitely not because of the photographer, she is awesome.  I guess I just had in mind that the kids would be so smiley and perfect in every picture.  We all looked so cute that day, I just wanted perfection.  I guess I need to give it a few more years before expecting that.

Thanks to Jennifer Greene Photography

Halloween Happenings

Halloween was so much fun this year.  My mom and I spent a lot of time and hard work making the girls costumes.  They turned out absolutely adorable.  I really wanted to make a costume for Lucas, but he wanted, more than anything, to be Luigi.  I was able to find it for a good deal, so I just bought it instead.

Lucas as Luigi - Emrie as Alice - Eva as the Queen of Hearts

 A week before Halloween, we  went to a party with some friends.  It was so much fun! 

 We had soups and other fun Halloween foods.  The kids played games and made a craft.

We started out the day by going to the parade at the school.  I was so proud to be able to wave to my child in the parade.  I then performed my first job as a room mother and helped with the party in Lucas's class.  I helped the kids make candy necklaces.

That night we went to Grandma and Grandpa Jacobs house for chili.  After dinner we went trick-or-treating with Anna and Olivia.  The weather was amazing and the kids didn't even have to wear coats.  I was so surprised about how much candy the kids got.  It really didn't seem like we went to that many houses.  Overall, Halloween was a complete success.  I am already planning costumes for next year. 

Frightmares and a Nightmare

Back in October my sister and brother-in-law, Stacie and Mike, invited us to go to Lagoon for Frightmares.  Since we didn't get to go during the summer, we were so excited to go!

The kids has so much fun going on the rides.  Eva was especially excited about the airplane in this picture.  Lucas was such a trooper to ride by himself on some rides, since the girls were riding together.

Lagoon makes Frightmares so much fun for Halloween.  They have several Haunted Houses for adults.  They also have little mazes and areas for kids to go trick-or-treating.  Ron was excited to see the Barber Shop in Pioneer Village.

 We even had fun well into the evening when it got dark.

The girls had fun riding with Stacie on a few rides.  Poor Eva was too short for the rides that you had to be 36".  So she had to sit out on a few.  Nearing the end of the evening, Stacie took the kids on some kiddie rides and Ron and I went into a few haunted houses.  They were very well put together.  While waiting for us to come out, they sat on the ledge and had a snack.

To wrap up the night, we decided to get a funnel cake.  Lucas and Ron had gone to use the restroom before headed home.  That is when the nightmare hit.  Emrie tripped on a curb and hit her lip on another curb that was holding up a lamp post.  She immediately started crying really hard.  I picked her up and her mouth was bleeding SO hard.  When I looked at her and saw the blood, I immediately lost it.  Ron came running up and asking what happened.  I tried to explain, but was crying so hard.  Someone at the funnel cake shack called the Lagoon EMT.  They came and checked her, but because it was dark and they were just looking with a flashlight, they couldn't see much.  We finally got the bleeding to stop and left the park and drove home.  

Oh the way home, we decided that we should take her to Primary Childrens Medical Center.  We got home, then Emrie and I headed up to PCMC.  It was about midnight when we finally got there.  I was so sad to have to take her alone, but my parents were out of town and we didn't want to wait for anyone else to get there.  When the dr at the ER came in, he pulled her lip out and the blood came gushing again.  He said that because of the blood, he couldn't see what was going on, so they would need to sedate her.  I was a mess.  He kept telling me to calm down.  Really?  You just told me that you are going to sedate my daughter!  After trying to put in one IV, with me holding her down, they were successful with the second.  Seeing her go into that state was definitely one of the hardest moments I have had as a parent.  The pediatric dentist came in.  They did x-rays.  Luckily she had not hit her teeth and there was no damage to them.  Her gum line had split open.  So they had to put some stitches in.  I then had to wait for her to come to.  As much as it was horrible to see her sedated, watching her come out was hilarious.  She was slurring her little baby words.  It was so cute.  We headed home and arrived at about 4:30 am.

I really wish that I would have had my camera with me that night to get some pictures of her poor little face and lip.  Emrie has a tiny upper lip.  Her lip was super duper swollen.  It was the saddest thing.  I took this picture the following day while she was napping when it had actually gone down a bit.  It is amazing how quickly kids bounce back.  She was feeling so much better the next day.  The swelling went down quickly.  Her gum line was puffy for about a week, but then went back to normal.  Let's hope for nothing like this to ever happen again.

Witches Murder Mystery

For 2012, my friend, Randi, had her annual Witches Tea.  She had a spin to it instead of just the tea.  She made it into a murder mystery party.  She sent us all info that we needed to know about the night.  We all came in character.

These pictures are me with my amazing playgroup mamas.

 My witch name was Luna.  My friend, Shannon, was named Mildred and she was my adviser. The plot was that some of us were trying out to be in the witches guild.  I was one trying out.  However, my character was super bored and didn't want to be there.  I just wanted to be home making potions.  In the end there was a murder of one of the witches and we had to figure out who had done it.  After that, the current witches guild voted on a new member.  They ended up voting me into the guild.  Yahoo!

This is the whole crowd of witches.  We are all doing our most witchy cackle.  Is was such a fun evening with amazing friends.  Thanks Randi!

Twins Twins and Random Fun

The girls and I met my friend Ashley and her twins, Brinly and Brooklyn, at Wheeler Farm.  Ashley and I used to work together.  We haven't seen each other for about five years.  It was so wonderful catching up.  Our girls are less than two months apart.

Getting four 2 year old little girls to look at the camera is nearly impossible.  This was the best one I got.  Three out of four isn't bad.

Ashley and I had so much fun walking around the farm and watching the girls play.  We can't wait to get together again soon.

Lucas and I made a homemade rocket.  He loved it so much.  He enjoyed sitting in it backwards more than forward.

 I decided to flat iron Emrie's hair to see what it would look like.  Her hair was still sporting quite the mullet.  When I pulled up the sides though, it looked adorable.

I decided to blow dry Eva's hair with a round brush the same day.  It ended up so cute.

We went to the mall as a family.  The kids were super excited to be able to go on the train ride around the mall by themselves.  It's fun that they are getting big enough to do things like this. 

Butterfield Canyon

Ron and I had never driven up Butterfield Canyon before.  So we decided to head that way, to look at some fall leaves.  After taking a minute to find it, we finally started the drive.  The leaves were so many colors and beautiful.

 We stopped a couple of different places to take some pictures.  This is my favorite of the kids.

I love that in this one Lucas and Emrie are doing a cute little pose.

 They smiled and did goofy faces for a bunch of pictures.

 I just love these kiddos!

I also really love this picture of Ron holding their hands while crossing the street.  When we got to the top, we decided to drive down the other side of the mountain into Tooele.  I don't think it is called Butterfield Canyon on that side, but I am not sure of the name.  On the way down, we saw a lot of cows on the side of the road, which we thought was kind of strange.  I am glad the kids didn't have on their best clothes, because we ended up all getting dirty from walking on dirt in the leaves.

It was a wonderful drive.  We ended the evening with eating dinner at Denny's in Tooele.  We searched and searched for somewhere fun to eat, but they don't have a huge restaurant selection.  After eating we drove home.  I was so happy to see such wonderful fall leaves.  It seems like we normally wait too long.  So I was glad that we caught them this fall.

School Carnival

We had so much fun walking Lucas to school while the weather was still warm.  This was one day before we went on our journey. 

We attended our first school carnival on September 28.  The kids had so much fun jumping on the bounce houses, slides and playing games.  One of the highlights was getting their faces painted.

  Lucas getting his first layer of face paint

Emrie holding really still for her paint.

Eva wondering what in the world this lady was doing to her. 

They ended up absolutely loving their painted faces.  We are so excited to go to more school carnivals over the next several years.

Family Zoo Fun

We got into the zoo for free on September 22.  Our reproductive doctors office gave us tickets.  So we decided to make a day of it.  This was the first time that the girls have walked the zoo and not been in a stroller.  They were such troopers and loved it.

Since they are doing a bunch of construction, we couldn't get near the gorilla picture where we measure ourselves, so we took it near this gorilla instead.

 This is the first time that we had been to the zoo since they finished the new Rocky Shores area.  It is a really fun area.

I love getting pictures of the kids looking at the animals.  They are even adorable from the back.  This was such a fun family day together. 

Soccer Take 2

 Lucas played soccer again this fall for the second time. 

 He looks so cute in his uniform.

This was at the last game.  There were a few kids missing.  They got their trophies and posed for a picture with their coach Maria. 

Unfortunately, Lucas was not a huge fan of soccer this season.  I think it had a lot to do with all of the 9:00 games that we had on Saturday mornings.  He values his sleep and didn't want to wake up for most of them.  I really wish they would have the games start at 10:00.  That extra hour would be a lifesaver.  I guess when sign-ups come around, we will ask him if he wants to play again.  If he doesn't, that is fine.

The girls had fun coming to the games, cheering and being little divas. 

Congrats Nic and Jessie

Yes.... I am still behind and still trying to catch up.  It is going to take me a while.  

On September 21, Ron's niece, Jessie, got married.  It was an amazing day.

The family all dressed up for the wedding.

 The kids had a bunch of fun.  They loved dancing.  They had a DJ that played a bunch of exciting music.  Lucas was super excited to have his own champagne glass of sparkling cider for the toast.

 Here is Nic and Jessie, the cute couple, getting ready to cut their cake.  They had quite the cake fight when they fed each other the cake.  I personally like it when people feed the cake nicely.  Here's to many wonderful years together!

 Between the wedding and the reception, we decided to go and eat at one of my favorite restaurants, Magelby's Fresh.  It is not near our house, so we don't go very often.  Since the reception center was right by it, that made the opportunity to go a perfect one.  The food was yummy.

Overall the night was so much fun with great memories.