Luke's Birthday

Luke turns 7 today. He is so excited for his birthday party at Uncle Tim's. We don't know exactly why but he insisted it needed to be over there. Poor Uncle Tim has to clean his house and mine gets to be messy.

Luke loves to draw, play with action figures and play in water. He is still very shy but he is so much fun to be around that he has a lot of friends. He's in the 1st grade and loves his class. He's very nervous about changing schools. But, I think he'll do great once we get there.

October

Finally, here is Halloween. Halloween was low-key for us. We love Halloween but most of us had the flu that week. We went trick-or-treating and trunk-or treating but that was enough for us. Everyone was exhausted by the time we were done.

Jonah was Captain Rex from Star Wars:Clone Wars, Luke was Optimus Prime, Kira was a leopard and Morgan was a ladybug. Kira insisted on having Morgan in her picture but Morgan wanted to leave then.

The week after Halloween we sold our house and bought another one in West Jordan. We are moving in 2 weeks. So, November has been a crazy month! Here's a picture of our new house.

And, finally, here's our little Morgan (10 1/2 months now) that used to love playing in her exersaucer but now climbs out of it. She follows her sister and they are quite the tornado. We're in so much trouble. The picture wouldn't upload. Look on facebook.

Parks & Fun

Jensen came to play for 10 days. He is younger than Kira but most of the time they get along really well. We played and played and played. We hit a couple of parks for them to get wet and I had to show this video of Kira dancing. I am singing Mama Mia so I apologize for the shaking at the first and I'm glad there's no sound. Mama Mia is her favorite show. Allie & Reed took a lot more pictures than I did so maybe I'll post some fun ones later.

1st Week of School

Jonah is in 3rd grade and can't stop talking about his teacher, Ms. Grubb. Luke is in 1st grade and won't say anything about his teacher, Ms. Taylor. That is their personalities. They've been in school 3 weeks and we miss them during the day.

Having fun with girls

The boys have gone to school for two days and I haven't taken a first day picture yet. I always forget my camera (bad mom).

I took the girls to Thanksgiving Point today. Kira had such a great day! She danced and fed the animals. The pony ride line was very long but she made it and was very happy to ride on a little pony. She got mad every time I tried to help her. I forgot snacks (once again, bad mother) and so she was hungry, too. Morgan sat in her carseat most of the day but on the pony ride, I was holding her, trying to help Kira and get pictures.

FYI: Thanksgiving Point has $2 Tuesdays in August and it is very crowded. It was fun but I don't think it's worth the lines in Farm Country to save only $1.50/each. Kids three and under are free (so I only saved $1.50). I think the dinosaur museum was even more crowded.

Summer's Over

I can't believe that summer is over. I'm happy but just surprised. Jonah & Luke start school next monday. Kira is still extremely active. She just got her first haircut. It's a little short in the back but I hope it will grow back. Morgan is very excited about the world. She'll be crawling any minute.

Disneyland

We took the kids to Disneyland for three days. Most people advised to leave the 5 month old and the 2 year old home. But, they were both really, really good there. Kira was tired on the third day and only saw the princesses before spending the afternoon in the stroller mad or asleep. Here are the pictures. My kids are SOOOO Cute!!!! Kira was so excited to see the characters but then she acts cool in the pictures (she's following in Luke's footsteps).

Kira's Birthday

Kira turned 2 today. She found her presents and knew they should be opened but I found her before there was too much damage. She took a nap at my parents so I could get things done and when I picked her up she was very excited to see the balloons in the car. She was very excited at all of her presents (Aunt Lara helped her so the kids wouldn't open all of them). I'm surprised at how girly she is. She loves princesses and I would not have expected this much pink in my house. She made us sing happy birthday three times so she could blow out the candles again on her bunny cake. And, she tried and tried to ride her bike and scooter. She didn't like me taking pictures (she kept yelling stop with her hand up and everything). She's pretty cute and we love having her around.

Easter

Here are Easter pictures of my kids. Kira had already spotted a sucker and there was no way to take pictures of her if it wasn't in her mouth. Morgan always looks a little scared (I think she's thinking about where her sister is and what she's going to do next). Here's Kira searching for easter eggs at Grandma's house.

Baby Blessing

Today is Morgan's two-month old birthday. It seems like time is going so much faster than it did with Kira. Maybe, it feels that way because we're not having more. We blessed her at church today and had a great party after. Kira thinks she's the star and everyone is always here to play with her. (Allie, notice how warm it was that everybody was outside without coats). Ian and Kira had a great time on the trampoline.

Luke says to write "My brother is crazy!!!!!!! And, he kisses girls."

Balance

My baby is beautiful, of course. And, I can't believe she is already one month old. I want to just sit on the couch, hold her and watch her sleep. But, unfortunately, my other children and my house don't really cooperate. My mom had a needlepoint on the wall when we were little that read,

Cleaning & Scrubbing can wait til tomorrow,

for babies grow up we've learned to our sorrow,

so cobwebs & dust mites just go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

So, now, I'm in the struggle to reclaim my house (not easy with a 1-year old) but still enjoy my baby growing up. Kira thinks she needs to hold her all of the time and when her turn is over she usually tries to get in a good hit or scratch. So, if you notice scratches on Morgan's face, they are from Kira. That's a battle for another day.

Happy New Year

Todd and I love to go to bed early on New Year's Eve. We try to downplay it so that our boys don't know that they might be missing out on something. It always feels good to get up on time on New Year's Day and get lots of things done. And, we really had a lot to do to get ready for the arrival of our new baby. She had different plans.

I spent all day New Year's Eve wishing that the contractions I was having weren't happening and that they would go away. But, that didn't happen and we decided to go to the hospital at about 7:30 p.m. We did get a little nap sometime around midnight but at 4:29 a.m. our cute little Morgan Elizabeth came into the world. So, we were up all night long and went to bed sometime around 7:00 a.m. She was the first girl born at St. Mark's Hospital in 2009 (3rd baby). She weighed 7 lbs. 3 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long. She has a lot of hair and she is doing really well.

Kira is still pretty happy with the new doll that she thinks she got. She wants to hold Morgan and put in her binky all of the time. The boys love to hold Morgan but they would also rather play their Wii or wrestle. Morgan and I were at Jonah's baptism the day we came home from the hospital. We thought it was planned well in advance of having the baby but two weeks apparently wasn't far enough for Morgan's early arrival.

Christmas

December came and went way too fast. I knew it would but I still wasn't prepared. Christmas was good this year. We got a Wii for Christmas and that has provided many hours of fun. Kira got some dolls and animals so she is still happy with that.

Jonah's birthday was the day after Christmas and it was pretty uneventful. We went out for pizza and he got some more presents. No pictures, of course. We are the worst at that.

Here is a picture of Kira with one of her dolls. Kira was an angel in our ward nativity program. However, she absolutely refused to cooperate and instead spent the whole program trying to steal the baby Jesus doll.

We've had tons of snow. And, the boys spent most of their school break playing outside in it. They built forts and snowballs and tried to sled down the little hill in our front yard. Also, here is Jonah with his dad at his baptism.

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas!