I need your help!

Ok, so everyone needs to go over to losingmyneedles.blogspot.com and vote for your favorite quilt top design. Then tell your friends to go and vote as well. It is your civic duty.

picassa

So yesterday we were experimenting with Picassa effects. Here are some of the results. What do you think? Should I keep my day job? Can you guess which one was Nate's favorite?

Fun in the Snow

So on Monday we got a little bit of snow out here. It snowed all morning, and we got about an inch. We tried on Nate's snow gear from last year, and sure enough, it still fits. The boots may be a little tight, but they'll do for the amount that he'll use them. He went out while it was still snowing, but didn't like the flakes landing on his nose, so we decided to wait until it stopped snowing to go and play. Both of the boys really enjoyed the snow, which goes to show, that maybe an inch is just the right amount for a toddler and preschooler. I guess Nate would have had fun with more, but Graham probably would not care.

Graham did better than I anticipated in the snow. His snow suit was so puffy and the boots so awkward, I didn't think he'd be able to walk at all, but he tired, and did ok at times, but decided that sometimes it was easier to crawl. Everyone had fun for a while, but eventually Graham just got mad at the whole, not being able to move thing, so we went inside. So it was a fun afternoon. I guess it's only the end of January, and we have February and March still ahead of us, so we could get some more snow. Until then, this will have to hold us over.

Fun with a Ribbon

So the other day Nate found this little green ribbon hanging around the house. He has been playing with it a lot lately. The first thing that he did was to hook it into the top of his shirt and say "yook mommy, I'm ready to go to church." (because it was a tie.)Then today he draped it over his head and said, "yook mommy, I'm a girl." I asked him why he was a girl, if it was because he had long hair, and he said no, so I asked him if it was because he had a ribbon in his hair, and he said yes. So even though we don't have any girls around here to put ribbons in their hair, he still knows about that some how.

In other news it is snowing out there today. This could be the most snow that we have had all winter so far. There is about a quarter inch on the deck. Quarter inch is actually quite a liberal assessment. But it's still coming down, so we'll see how it turns out. The driveway and sidewalks are completely covered, and the road has snow on it. This year I didn't get the kids new snow stuff. I mean, we have old stuff that fits Graham, but we are using a hand me down jacket this year, so I never went out and got some snow pants for Nate, and we never got boots either. I guess now is the time to start looking for those things for next year. The problem is that I had a tiny baby last year at this time, so I never got a chance to go out and check out the sales. So I guess if we have enough snow then I can see if last years stuff still fits him. He's pretty small, and it would not be the first time in the last week that he had worn a 2T.

So there is our fun situation today. Snow snow snow, but we have a ribbon to keep us occupied.

This Week's Photos

Just a few photos from this past week. It was too cold to do anything but stay home and try to stay warm. So we played our own little version of male dress up. (Put a tie on the baby brother- we went all out.) We watched a little tv, and we ate some chips, you know, just lazy stuff.

Oh, and you know, Graham has been walking for a few months now, but he just now has gotten to the point where he is walking more than he is crawling, so that is a good development.

Picture Time

So I know, he always has a paci in his mouth, but he's still really really cute. And he loves his Einstein.

Who knows what Nate's doing.

A Quick Trip West

So this past weekend we took a quick trip out to Arizona. Jesse's grandfather died, and we took our little family out for the funeral. I didn't know him very well, I only met him 3 times, but each time he was so kind and friendly to me. Very welcoming to me into his wonderful family. It was really nice for me to go to his funeral and learn more about him. He was a wonderful man who lived a full, righteous life.
It was a quick trip for us. We flew out early Friday morning, and got back late Sunday night. The boys were little angels. Graham really only got fussy when he was hungry, and a little bit before he was tired, but for the most part he slept when he needed to, which was really nice. They both did much better at the funeral than they ever do at church, which was convenient since we ended up sitting on the front row. The death of the righteous is a celebration, and I'm glad that I got to celebrate the life of this great man with his family.

Priceless

The Cost of Renting carseats: $9 per seat per day. (Which my father in law paid anyway.)
Not having to reinstall 2 carseats at 11:15pm in the freezing cold: priceless.

Temple Lights

So last night we had an impromptu trip down to the beltway. One of the servers at Jesse's work crashed, and he needed to manually reboot it, so he needed to go into his office. He asked if we wanted to ride along, and I thought I could either sit at home with the kids while he was gone for 3 hours or so, or we could pack everyone up and have an adventure. We decided on the adventure. As we were headed down we decided that while we were in the area we should go ahead and go to the temple to see the lights. We had not made it down there yet this year since we have been so sick all month long. So we did that, and Nate thought it was pretty neat. It was freezing though, and we didn't have a stroller or much in the way of hats and mittens. But we survived.
In other news Jesse woke up this morning with head to toe hives. Also, Graham woke up with evidence that he has finally succumbed to this illness as well. I however am feeling a little bit better than I have the past 2 days, which was absolutely rotten. I am scared to wake up tomorrow and find out what sort of turn for the worse our family has taken. When I saw those hives though, all I could do was laugh. It has gotten to the point where it now is just comical how bad things are getting over here. On top of that, another server at work crashed, and no one was there to fix it, so Jesse had to go into work once again to reboot the server. Graham is oozing snot and is whiny. Nate is just well, the same as he has been for the past week. Tylenol takes the fever away, and he's happy once more. But Graham has told me my time is up. Hope you all are having a better start to the year than we are.

December Pictures

This is what happens when you give a baby an oreo.


Grammy and Grandad also got Nate a scooter. Now it just needs to be warm enough to take it outside.

This is kind of a weird picture, but it was taken in the dark. And the exposure was long enough that you can see Nate's profile and face all at the same time, so he looks a little freaky. But Grammy and Grandad gave him that Crayola light explosion drawing thing. It is really cool, and of course, it uses light, so no mess! He loves it.

Well, we did finally get a tree up this year. It was one of these little fake ones that I had in the basement from a few years ago. It's ok, it's about all that would fit into our living room anyway. I think we put it up on Christmas eve, and then it just came down today, so it was up for a week.

Here are Nate and Graham rocking their matching Christmas jammies. Thank you Grandma for making them for us.

Graham really likes to sit inside and on top of things. He thinks that he is so clever when he does it. Here is a cute picture of Nate sitting in the box with Graham giving him a hug. They do sometimes like each other. Also, Graham was so proud of himself when he decided to sit on the computer desk as we were putting it together.

Santa DID come

So, much to everyone's surprise, Santa did come this year. There was much speculation especially as leading up to the big morning, there was more naughtiness than usual. But he did come, and these kids made out like bandits. Nate had to take a pitstop in the middle of opening his presents because he got his remote control car, and that needed to be played with extensively. To his great surprise and enjoyment, it did not even need to be charged in order to play with like daddy's old remote control cars.

Graham even got into things this year, and was tearing wrapping paper off of some presents. He was very into this new toy thing. One of the biggest crowd pleasers this year was the little people shopping plaza. It came to both kids, and they love it.

And what would Christmas be without a disaster to clean up afterwards. I think we're still digging out.

After opening presents we quickly got ready to go, and headed over to Grandma White's house. Once there, we opened more presents, and mom got to see what she got this year. We also had a stocking to give her that all of the brothers and sisters had sent stuff to put into. It was a surprise for her, and she really liked it, so that was nice. This year we got her a web cam for Christmas. So the rest of the day was spent setting up the web cam and getting it ready to work. Then we were able to chat with Erin a few times. In the week since I think pretty much all of my family have gotten web cams so that the grandchildren can all chat with Grandma on a regular basis. So if anyone else out there has a web cam and wants to chat, we're available.

Nate also got this super cool hot wheels ramp thing. There are all sorts of tricks and things that it does. I'll have to post pictures of it too, but I don't have any yet.

So we made it through Christmas. Jesse has been sick all week, very sick, and the rest of us have been kind of sick all week, but we were all feeling just a little bit better on Christmas day. It was a Christmas miracle.

Gingerbread houses

One of the activities that we enjoyed this year was to make Gingerbread houses. I decided that I wanted to make a larger one that looked nice, so I needed to let Nate make his own small one. Nate's favorite part of the whole thing was to cut open the little bags that the life savers came in. He actually did a pretty good job. I made some suggestions and helped a little bit, but for the most part, I just put icing where he told me to. He hasn't been so interested in eating it though. He would sometimes pick the candy off of the house, but then not eat it. Silly boy. Oh well. So this is my first experience making a gingerbread house from scratch. It was not too bad. It's not like it had a turret and covered porch and candy windows. (Pictures of that to come....)