Nathan has grown a lot in the last couple of months, literally and figuratively. He's grown an inch since halloween and even his nursery leaders have mentioned how tall he's gotten. He's also talking a lot more. The other night while enroute to Grandma Lee Audrey's house, he said " Oh does Grandma's house have an elevator?" He loves wearing his "superhero" costume that I bought for $2 after halloween and chasing us around the house growling. I think he's a "bad" superhero. I can't believe he's going to be 3 at the end of the month!

Lucy is now 9 months, has two toofies, stands, travels, and as demonstrated in this picture, claps! Clapping is one of her favourite things to do. She is such a little doll, is rarely NOT smiling (unless she's getting a tooth, but can you blame her? ouch!) and is so much fun. Her latest trick that she is learning is waving. She has also been standing on her own unassisted for several seconds. Usually as soon as she catches me watching her stand alone, she'll quickly sit down as not to reveal too much about herself. We can't wait to celebrate her first Christmas!

Picking Out Our Christmas Tree!

Ok, please excuse all the collages. but I love these new collage options that Picassa3 offeres. They make them a little more interesing. Anyways we took the kids to a tree farm just a few minutes from our house at the beginning of December to pick out our Christmas tree. It was a new farm to us, and although we missed our Christmas Ranch in Lumby, this one still did the trick. There was lots of snow on the ground, beautiful trees to agonize over, and believe me, Jared and I agonized, and hot chocolate in the workshop when it was all said and done. Little Lucy slept through most of the experience and looked oh so cozy in her little sled.

Our Little Ballerina!

Jorji's First Christmas Performance

Jordan and her little choir from primary performed at the ward creche exhibit a couple of weeks ago. We have a cute little primary which is fantastic because the kids gets lots of opportunity to participate. Those of you that know our little Jorji won't be surprised to hear that she rose the occasion like a rockstar and even brought her mom to tears at one point (or maybe that was just Lucy pulling my hair and the pain of watching Nathan play around all the fragile creches). Nonetheless, a milestone has been reached. She has her school concert this afternoon.

Meanwhile, Nathan has been busy being being a chetah or a tiger or something like that. I bought the kids passes to our indoor playcentre, called Junglemania and on Thursdays they do facepainting. The lady is actually quite incredible at painting the kids faces. The only funny thing is that I'll see her ask a two year old if they want their face painted and then proceed to paint the kids face without asking the mom!! It's quite funny to watch. It's probably not a big deal for most moms, but as you can see it's quite the commitment to get your face painted at Junglemania.

On a thursday morning a couple of weeks ago, I was watching out our bedroom window as the wind blew ferociously. We have this dead Aspen tree (we thought it was a birch until the arborist told us other wise, but only after I said "birch" about 15 times in front of him) in our back yard that we have been carefully watching since discovering it was dead about a month after we moved into the house last April (shouldn't an 80 ft dead tree in the backyard be something that is disclosed??) Anyways, back to that Thursday morning, I was watching the trees sway in the wind and pondering the fate of that big Aspen when all of the sudden it slowly blew over and rested on the trees behind/beside it as seen in the picture. It was amazing to watch! This picture is of Steve, our talented arborist that tackled the project.

A few weeks ago, Em, my dear friend from elementary and high school and i ventured down to kamloops for our other dear friend Alethia's surprise baby shower! I had been at least a a year+ since I had seen Alethia. She and her husband live in Smither, BC which is quite a ways away. It was so fantastic to be able to visit her and her family and catch up. I have the best friends from high school, no matter how much time passes in between visits we are always able to pick up where we left off. Lucy also thorougly enjoyed the shower and enjoyed so much attention because she was the only baby there, but not for long! Good luck Leath, can't wait to talk to you soon!

Last week Grandma and Grandpa King stopped by for a visit. It was great to see them! Grandma decided to bake some bread with the kids, which the kids loved, however, I think about half way through Bernice realized why I don't bake bread with the kids! Breadmaker all the way! But we were so happy with their efforts as Bernice makes the best homemade bread ever.

The monday morning after Halloween, I got a call from "Junglemania," our indoor play centre here in Salmon Arm to notify me that Nathan had won their ghost decorating contest and had won a webkinz! At first when she said Nathan I said "do you mean Jordan?" because Jordan had spent quite a bit of time on it and it was more elaborate but she said "no, I mean Nathan, he won." Oh my gosh, I got off the phone and had to laugh out loud remembering Nathan's ghost and the little face that he had drew on it. When we went to pick it up she said that they just loved how simple it was and thought that the little face was absolutely adorable. And I couldn't agree more. It ended up being a good teaching opportunity as Jordan was not thrilled with the situation but it was allsorted out when Jared came home and her first words as he entered the door after work were "Dad, Nathan won! We need to celebrate Nathan!"

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We had a great halloween and we still have a ton candy to prove it! Friday afternoon we headed downtown for some early trick or treating. It was packed and the kids loved it. Normally I would be a little anxious with so many people because Nathan tends to run off but he was pretty easy to keep track of that night:)

After trick or treating downtown, the papworths came over and after a quick bite, the kids went back out around the neighbourbood. Jordan, Avery and Chloe with their scary faces!

When the kids got back from trick or treating, the first thing Nathan said to me was "Mom, look a pop!" Nathan got a pop from one of the neighbours and he thought he'd died and gone to heaven, because this is is all time favourite treat! I love this picture of him hugging his pop!

Lucy seemed to enjoy her first Halloween. She was an elephant, the cutest one out there! And ironically enough, we did see several elephants that night.

Nathan loved trick or treating and ran from house to house, sometimes biting it in between, but always getting back up for more! It was a rainy night, so Nathan soon went from being a shaggy dog to a wet shaggy dog. It was awesome! Mom found this costume randomly somewhere in Vernon and it was a huge hit.

Jordan was a black cat, but not just any black cat, a scary cat, hence the fangs and the blood on her face. We thought it was a brave choice considering she always gets so scared on Halloween! This year was no exception for her. It didn't help that we were belting scary music from our house and had a grave yard in our front yard.

Happy Halloween Everybody!

I love this little face that Nathan drew on his pumpkin. In the end, he wanted his pumpkin to be scary and picked out a design from our book for me to carve into his pumpkin. I liked his own design better:)

Jordan did a great job on her pumpkin this year. Like Nathan, she wanted her pumpkin to be scary too and was quite disappointed when Jared cut out her design and it didn't look scary enough. To make it scary, she added eyebrows and a nasty scar, we were quite impressed with her imagination!

Neither of the kids are too into the "guts" or a pumpkin. This makes it so much easier and cleaner for Jared and I! We clean them, kids draw the design and we cut them. It's perfect!

Is it even legal to have a blog and not post pictures of your kids in a pumpkin patch??

Yeah, I didn't think so. Well, it has to be done. Every year. This past Saturday we took the kids to Demilles Farm here in Salmon Arm to see the animals and pick out our pumpkins. Basically we spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine and taking a million pictures of the kids. The kids had a fantastic time. It took them exactly 2 minutes and 38 seconds to pick out their pumpkins and it took jared and I at least half an hour to pick out ours. I can't believe the kids put up with us.

Our little pumpkins.

Lucy seemed confused by all the orange.

We do love the fall. The crisp air is so refreshing and it brings us back to our U of I days of playing soccer and watching Football.

More Demilles Farm

Are You Kidding Me???

How cute is our Lucy???

Demilles Cont'd

Jordan, or Holly as she likes to be called is having a great time in kindergarten. Yesterday she came home and said "Hey mom, I know how to say "Can I have some soap?" in French. "Oh really?" I say. "Yeah" she says and then busts out with the best french accent ever "Est-ce-que je peux avoir du savon?" So impressive. It's great to see she's learning the essentials right away:)

I love Lucy as the the little Piggy! I'm ashamed to admit that this picture came at a cost. Little Lucy lost her balance right after this pic and toppled over, luckily it was a soft landing.

Mighty Machines! Nate, as do most boys his age, loves huge machinery, the greasier, the better!