My little beastie!

Preston has finally taken quite the liking to his baby sister. He gets excited when he hears her wake up from her nap and loves to play with her. He tells me, "mom, I go and get her" and if I follow him he says "NO, you stay there!" He says the funniest things lately, I really need to be writing them down, but that doesn't even capture it. He is really growing up I am not sure if I am ready for that. Preston is SO independent, he always has been too! He started feeding himself and using utensils before he was a year old. He always wants to do everything himself and lately that has included making himself lunch. The other day Preston went in to meet Aubrey when she had woken up and they were playing so nicely. I was in my craft room right next door and I could here Aubrey belly laughing and Preston was jumping and throwing things and laughing. He was getting a kick out of making her laugh. Finally I went in there and this is what I found. He was throwing everything that he could find into the crib and then climbing in with her to play.

Preston is like the energizer bunny, he just goes and goes. I believe this picture was taken Halloween night after we had all come in and were sorting our candy, he just crashed. The nice thing about having such an active child is that he sleeps wonderfully!

Last Saturday morning I went downstairs to see what the kids were up to and I found this next to the TV. Apparently Preston was hungry and instead of asking for something to eat he took care of it himself. Cheese must have been sounding like a yummy breakfast so he just started munching on the ENTIRE block of it. The best part was that Kendra an Ethan were sitting down there with him and knew what he was doing but didn't bother to try and stop it or tell Josh or I. When I saw it I just ran back upstairs to show Josh laughing the entire time. Sometimes you just can't get mad!

Although Preston tries my patience, he is so sweet and I love him so much. He keeps things interesting and light hearted around here. He has been the family clown from the very beginning and I am thankful that Heavenly Father blessed our family with such a happy child.

Cursed

Eating spiders or wild mushrooms that land you in the emergency room, coloring on the walls in permanent marker, how about that dirty nasty water that you get when you are scrubbing out the fridge, imagine a child stripping down and then climbing up to the sink to get in it and using it as their own personal bath water. Screaming incessently, not responding to spankings AT ALL, and spending HOURS in their own personal time out chair. These are all stories that I have heard over and over throughout my life. Why did I hear these stories all of the time? Because they were all things about me! My mother raised six children and I have been informed numerous times that I was the biggest handfull (something about that third child!)

When Kendra was little my mother would often say "that is what you get." Since I had been such a crazy little girl then she felt it was only natural that I would have a handful of my own. Kendra really wasn't that bad of a toddler, (Preston has taken that crown), it was the baby months that were tough. I am afraid that her little sister is trying to follow in her footsteps. LITERALLY! Aubrey is officilly walking! She took her first steps (more than two) on Sunday and she is super excited. She loves to walk to Josh or I and she knows that she has just accomplished something big. Kendra first started walking right before she turned nine months and Aubrey will be nine months tomorrow. I think that I have now been punished accordingly for all that I put my mother through as a child. I am glad that she has accomplished this milestone, she could have waited just a few more months though and I would have been just as excited. Sorry that this is sideways, I couldn't figure out how to get it switched so you are going to have to turn your head to enjoy. I apologize!

May The Force Be With You

We had a most spooktacular Halloween and hope that everyone else did too! Actually in all honesty I had one of the most fun weekends that I have had in a long time. Our festivities started on Thursday night with a tri-ward trunk-or-treat and carnival. I love being able to see all of the cute costumes. Friday was a CRAZY day. I was trying to make it over to a friends house for a luncheon but had a bathroom meltdown with Preston and had quite the mess to clean up. That night we had a birthday/Halloween party to go to. The rule was that adults all had to dress up and so we put on our costumes and away we went. After we got home that night it was pretty late but our friends called us and wanted to hang out. So after all of our kids were asleep mom and dad got to play with our friends. Little do the kids know what fun we have after they are asleep. We played cards and other games, I think, it is all kinda a blur. They stayed until almost two in the morning, I kinda felt like I was a teenager again. Then Saturday we ran some errands and went to watch Josh's little sister play some b-ball. Then we got home and had some quiet/nap time before the storm hit.



My cousin, her husband, and their two little ones came over for some taco soup and trick-or-treating. And so did Josh's dad, step-mom, and little brother Kolton. So we had a house full as they all got into their costumes. They defiantly weren't too happy when I made them all wait one more minute to pose for a picture. They all had a good time trick-or-treating and got TONS of candy. After we were done we loaded up and went over to our friends house and got the kids to sleep and played some more. We were definitely tired and after eating far too much of our kids' candy we got plenty silly too. I moved to Sheridan Wyoming when I was in third grade and there were many wonderful girls there that were in my ward and also in my grade. Mandy is one of those amazing girls and I am super lucky that she lives here in Billings with her hubby and three cute kids. We enjoy one another so much and is the best girlfriend that I have ever had (and our husbands get along too which is a great bonus). On Saturday night we were acting like we were in 8th grade again and I even ended up putting on a silly costume and let's just say that the camera made it's way out but those pictures won't be seen any time soon. About 2:30 we packed up the kids and made it home. Today we made it to church and we were actually ALMOST on time. I was feeling fine, but I think Josh was a little tired. We just aren't quite 21 anymore. Tonight our friends came over again (we get together most Sunday's) and this time our kids actually got to play with one another. We ate dinner played just one game of wah hoo and two hands of cards and called it a night. Definitely some fun times were had this Halloween weekend.

Here we are at the birthday party. Last year right after Halloween Kendra and Ethan became quite into Star Wars for a while and we came up with this idea. As Halloween was approaching this year I asked them what they wanted to be and gave them a few ideas but they still wanted to be from Star Wars. So here we are, the force is strong with this group. Aubrey is an Ewok if you couldn't tell and Preston is YODA NOT SHREK, he got called that a few times this weekend.

I don't know why my camera was all blurry!

Aubrey has been standing up on her own and I had been trying to get a pic and finally got one at the trunk-or-treat. The crazy thing is that was only a few days ago and now she is always standing up.

Here is luke skywalker after eating a donut off of a string.

Our very own Master Yoda. He was super excited to be yoda and if you asked him who he was he would say, "I ODA" It was so cute!!!

Princess Leia won the donut eating contest, she was pretty proud of herself.

Our tuckered little Ewok

I had to throw in this picture that I took of Aubrey today, I just love it and she is growing and changing too fast.