Speaking of Barbie's. . .

This poor boy. I was trying to pay bills and so I gave Jaxton some of the Barbie's the girls left on the floor. He was playing quite contently with them and then he was getting really tired, and just couldn't take it anymore. I gave him his pacifier and Hayden's pink blankey, which was also left on the floor, and he just went right to sleep. I hope he won't be permanently scarred from playing with Barbie's and using a pink blankey, but he does look so peaceful!

Our Future Fashion Designer

Overheard at our house the other day:

Hallie: mom, can my Barbie wear a dress with her pants?

Me: (doing something else and not totally listening) no, probably not.

Hallie: I think she can.

Me: no, dresses don't really go with pants.

Hallie: well I think they do.

Me: okay, its your Barbie do whatever you want.

Hallie: (brings me her Barbie that she has dressed in the dress and pants) see I told you she could wear a dress and pants. You know, you should really listen to me because I know what I am talking about. I am really styley.

She was right, Barbie looks pretty good. Very styley.

Gee, Thanks Grandma

My mom felt so bad that the kids couldn't play with the rat dolls that I have that she decided to give the kids some of her extras.

When eBay was still new, my dad went a little crazy buying things. My mom used to have to travel to Las Vegas or California to get her Anna Lee dolls, so when he found so many rat dolls on eBay for such good prices, what else could he do but buy all that he could find. So these pieces aren't so special and she gave them to the kids. She tried to give the kids these little elves that you pose like they are climbing things, but they were just way too creepy and I said no. So the girls settled for this weird bear and a reindeer that is about 2 feet tall. Just what we need giant stuffed animals that are too precious to throw away.

I forgot to mention when my mom and I were out shopping last Friday, she found some Anna Lee at Tuesday Morning. She tried to buy this big, ugly, white mouse, but I talked her out of it, your welcome Natalie and Katie. She really wanted this Mrs. Santa that was pretty cute, but "she" (yes, mom refers to them as he and she, not it) was too expensive as mom had just spent all of her spending money on new toys for the grand kids. What a good grandma!

If you haven't read the first rat doll post, you must read that first or this probably won't make much sense, you can find it here.

Thanksgiving and Christmas Trees

Hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving! We had a good time celebrating for several days. Here are a few of the things we have been up to over the last week. Sorry for the super long post, there was just too much that happened over the week.

Isn't that the most beautiful turkey? You may call me Saint Nicole because I made the whole Thanksgiving feast on Wednesday just for our little family so that we would have our own leftovers. I was quite impressed with myself because, not to brag, but this was the best turkey I have ever had. I brined the turkey overnight, which I had never done before, and that made it really delicious and moist. Then I rubbed it with an herb butter that I made with fresh sage and rosemary and lots of garlic and it was so yummy. I also made homemade stuffing, rolls, jello salad (which the kids love because I only make jello for Thanksgiving) and pumpkin dessert.

Thursday we headed down to Nick's mom's house and had Thanksgiving with her. Jaxton was having a great time playing with everyone.

Nick's sister Emily was also there, here she is texting on her phone.

Me in the after dinner festivities.

Thursday night we headed on down to my mom and dad's house in Visalia. My mom and I went out shopping on Friday, fighting the crowds and getting bullied by the many non english speakers. Honestly I can't believe how aggressive and rude some people are. My mom had her hand on a toy and some lady came up to her and said "I'm going to be taking that." My mom was so shocked that she gave it to her. We did get some good deals and got most of the things that we went for. We had a good time spending the whole day together, which we never get to do. Nick and Hannah, my sister were so good to spend the whole day with the kids. Nick even did laundry, kept my mom's house clean, fed the kids dinner and got them to bed. He also took the kids to the mall to see Santa, what a trooper!

We always get our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, so we thought we would try and get one down in Visalia. Nick looked up some Christmas tree farms online and the closest one was about 40 miles away, so we headed out Saturday afternoon to get one. We drove out to the middle of nowhere, literally, and drove around trying to find the farm. We finally found a farm and they had about 25 trees and it was about $50 for a 3 foot tall bush, they weren't even trees. So we decided to cut our losses and get one at home.

While Hannah and I were out Saturday night, I spotted some nice looking trees in the Save Mart parking lot so we checked them out. We found the most beautiful tree, it looked like it was a fake tree it was so perfect. We went home and told my mom and she wanted us to go get it. So Nick, Hannah and I headed out in the "paint van." For those of you not familiar with the paint van, my dad used to paint houses and this was his work vehicle (I call it the child molester van because it has no side windows.) It is a 1992 white, Chevy van with no seats in the back. Hannah sat on a motorcycle rack in the back as there is no seats. I haven't been in the paint van since I lived at home and I really forgot how embarrassing it is. So we loaded up the tree and brought it home to my mom.

I let my mom have it instead of taking it for myself because she has not had a tree in several years. She bought a fake tree about 15 years ago after being tired of the cheap trees my dad wanted to get. It all came to a head one year when my dad bought a $6.99 tree at Allen's Supersave (the trashiest local grocery store) and it really was the Charlie Brown Christmas tree with about 15 branches on the whole tree. After that she bought the fake tree and then they through it away when they moved and since then they haven't had a tree at all.

So on our way home Sunday night, we stopped to get gas and we decided to check out the Save Mart and they had a really nice tree there as well and so we through it up on top of the minivan and traveled home Grizwald style with a giant tree up on our roof.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From our cute little pilgrim to yours!

Bye, Bye Kitty

While Hallie was taking out the garbage the other night, she found a friendly kitty and it followed her in the house. Hayden was in heaven, she was picking the kitty up, petting it, following it around, hugging it, and giving it kisses. We let the kitty stay in the house for about 20 minutes but then it was time for bed and we had to let the kitty go back outside. This was the result of that decision:

Poor Hayden was so brokenhearted. We could barely get her to settle down to go to bed. Hallie also was very sad and kept begging us to get a new cat (we previously had two cats that we had to get rid of for reasons no one wants to hear about!) She kept asking us to please get rid of the dog so that we could get a cat. She came up with a very logical argument as to why cats are better than dogs, sadly for her, mom and dad were not sold. So then we had two crying children.

Meanwhile, as you can see Avery was not nearly as effected, she was busy posing for pictures:

What I Have Been Doing This Week

I taught a bracelet making class at Enrichment last night. It was a lot of work! I made 27 kits. Each kit consisted of 8 strands, so it was a lot of time sorting and counting beads. But everyone seemed to have a good time and it was fun to share with everyone. Plus as a total bonus I found these adorable little bags to put the beads in. I thought they were so cute.

Last week I taught the Young Women in our Ward how to make this necklace. That was really fun and all of the girls necklaces turned out totally different, it was fun to see all of the creativity.

I Guess They Look More Alike Than I Thought

When I took the pictures of Jaxton with the hat on, it reminded me of a picture of Hayden at about this age. So I pulled out pictures of each of the kids at about 4 months, and with their hair covered up, they do look a lot alike.

Hallie

Avery

Hayden

Jaxton

Baby's New Hat

I guess it is Jaxton's turn for some blogging. There is just something about hats on babies, so cute! It was finally cold enough here for Jaxton to wear his hat. I thought winter was finally here, but, it is supposed to be 70 degrees again here today, what a weird November.

Is There Anything Sweeter Than A Sleeping Baby?

I love sneaking in my kid's room's when they are sleeping and taking pictures of them. They just look so peaceful and sweet. Jaxton is such a sweetheart. He was four months old yesterday. I can't believe he is that big already. I took him to the doctor today and his height was that of the average 8 month old. I guess he will hold his own against his sisters!

Sorry, The Rat Dolls Are Only For Decoration

Sorry, I know a lot of my post's lately have been about Hayden, I guess that is because she seems to be ruling our house lately. I actually wrote this post last week but blogger wasn't working and I couldn't get my pictures to upload, so here it is a week later.

My mom collects these decorations called Anna Lee Dolls. If you are not familiar with them, they are made of felt with hand painted faces. Some are people, but others are animals, bears and mice mainly. My dad doesn't really have an appreciation for them and calls them "rat dolls," as does Nick.

Well we got out the Thanksgiving decorations this week and my mom gave me some of her Anna Lee when she moved to a smaller house a few years ago. Hayden fell in love with the "rat dolls," and was carrying them everywhere and putting them under blankets and singing to them. She was so broken hearted when we had to use them as decorations. Now she walks by them and says, "there's my boy and my chicken!" She thinks the turkey is a chicken.

This is another one of her fabulous outfits she came up with.

I Can't Wait Until She Is Teenager

This morning as I was laying in bed, I was listening to the usual morning routine of the girls fighting and yelling at each other, such a nice, peaceful thing to wake up to. They are usually fighting over what TV show to watch, which cereal to eat, and other very important things.

Today Hayden was insisting on wearing Avery's backback, Avery did not want her to and so there was a lot of door slamming as one or the other would wrestle the backback from the other and run into their room and slam the door shut to keep the other one out. From my bed, I yelled for Hayden to come here. She came to my doorway and I explained that it was Avery's backpack and to leave Avery alone. She replied, "quiet mom," and slammed my door shut! Oh she is such a little spitfire! I am sure this will all get better with age, yeah right!

On a brighter note, her hair is finally long enough for pigtails, and she looks pretty darn cute!

Tagged!

I was tagged by my sister Kristine, so here it goes.

1. I absolutely love. . . my family of course! I have a fabulous husband who I still love to hang out with. We still have a fun time together and make each other laugh. I also have four adorable kids that I love so much and are the center of my world. They make life very interesting and they are the reason I do everything I do, well most everything, sometimes I do stuff just for me.

2. I don't care if. . .I never watch another TV commercial again. Thank goodness for TIVO!! It makes the reality shows that Nick likes so much watchable. Do you really need for Chris Harrison to point out that this is the last rose at the rose ceremony, I'm not blind, I can see that. Or do we need to hear Paula Abdul go on and on about what a beautiful person everyone is, um, I think this is a singing contest. Or the worst, is Survivor when they watch the people write down the name of who they wanted voted off, but don't actually show the name and then Jeff Probst pulls out the names and gives us the play by play. He says, one vote Mary, one vote Joe and then he pulls out Joe's name and updates us again in case we forgot in the last 5 seconds, one vote Mary, two votes Joe. It is so excruciatingly long, these shows could be about 20 minutes long. Sorry that is enough ranting, for now.

3. I like to. . .exercise! I hate the days that I miss. I feel so great when I am all finished. Exercise is one of those things that the more you do it the more you like it, because it gets easier as you get in better shape. I used to hate it. Lately, I especially love kickboxing. If you are feeling stressed or annoyed or frustrated it feels good to kick or punch as hard as you can. You must go ahhh! as you are punching or it just isn't the same.

4. I play. . .with my kids I guess, I don't really know what to put here. Maybe this is for people who are more fun than me, the only thing I really play is solitaire, maybe that should go under the next category. . .

5. I have a horrible habit of. . .staying up way too late! Every night as I am starting to read my scriptures at 11:30 I am saying "why do you do this to yourself?" There is no reason I should go to bed this late, my kids are all in bed by 7:30, which means they are up by 6:00. I just can't seem to get myself to bed any earlier, it is usually about midnight when I finally go to sleep.

6 I love to. . .be at home. I am such a homebody. Luckily I married a fellow homebody. It isn't that we don't like to go anywhere, we both love to go places but when it is time to go home, we are always ready to go. There is nothing better than sleeping in your own bed with your own pillow and having your own routine. My dad always says that he when I was in high school he used to give me money, the keys to the car and beg me to go somewhere. It wasn't that bad, anyone who knows me knows I would never turn down money!

I am not going to tag anyone, if you want to do it, great. It was pretty fun and I would love to hear all about all of you!

When 2 Year Olds Dress Themselves

It is so fun when your kids start doing things for themselves. It is really difficult to keep clothes on this kid lately. If her shirt gets slightly wet, which is quite often, she strips everything off. This is what Hayden dressed herself in the other day. Yes, that is a sweater that she is wearing as pants. I don't know how she even got the turtleneck on herself, they can be a little tricky. She did not want to change into pants, she insisted that her sweater pants were just fine.

Maroon 5

Last night Nick and I had the opportunity to act like young, fun people. Nick's sister Emily gave us tickets to the Maroon 5 concert for Christmas. We had such good tickets, we were in the front row and were literally about 2 feet from the band. We were screaming and cheering and dancing like 14 year old girls. It was so much fun. Here we are before the concert.

The opening band was Phantom Planet. I guess they sing the song from the TV show the O.C., California. They were really good.

Next were the Hives and they were hilarious. It may have been the most entertaining half hour I have ever experienced. The lead singer spent a good part of the time doing high kicks, throwing his microphone in the air and blowing kisses to the audience. The lead guitarist didn't do much guitar playing but he was quite entertaining. He cocked his head like a chicken and talked to the audience and threw guitar picks into the audience, that is his picture above. The drummer would throw his drumsticks way up in the air and catch them and go right back to playing. All in all it was very entertaining. They are from Sweden, and I can't help but wonder if all Swedish people are weird or is just Swedish musicians. Here is a clip of them from You Tube if you want to check them out. That video is pretty weird, but I think this is my favorite Swedish music video of all time.

These pictures of Maroon 5 are not zoomed in, we were actually this close to them. It was really cool. They sounded so good live, they put on an awesome show. Also the lead singer thanked us for being there about five or six times, it was nice to be appreciated. It was a fabulous night and we had so much fun. Thanks Emily!

Happy Halloween!!

It was another fabulous Halloween. It was Hayden's first time trick-or-treating and she had a blast! First we went to our neighborhood block party, which is really fun. They have dinner and games and you get to know your neighbors a little better.

Check out Hayden peeking over the bowl, "yum, chips!"

Hallie was a cat. She looked quite adorable and "posed" for all of her pictures quite nicely.

"Jazz Hands!"

Avery was Belle. She on the other hand thought that she was posing for her mug shot, these are the best pictures that we got.

I don't know what her problem was. These were the two faces she was giving in all of the pictures. She looks so funny.

Here is the only semi-smile we could get out of her.

Hayden was a witch, and as I said to my mom, no costume would be required for her to be a witch, but we decided to dress her up anyway. She did not feel like cooperating for pictures at all. Hallie snapped this picture of me putting her cape back on for the 3rd time. She thought it was fun to wear for about 5 minutes and then she was done with it. The hat didn't even make it out of the house. She was sick of that after about 1 minute. Oh the joys of two year olds!

I finally did get one good picture as we were heading out to trick-or-treat.

Jaxton was an adorable little chili pepper. He slept through most of the trick-or treating. He was such a good boy.

Here we are on our way out.

The girls in action!

Afterwards they checked out their loot. Looks like a pretty good haul to me!