Playing in the SNOW!!

The kids have been so excited to play in the snow since the first time it snowed. Sadly it's always gone by the time we get out there to play so finally one day we got to it before it melted. They had a blast. It's so fun watching things through the eyes of your kids, because nothing matters. Who cares if you hands and face and feet are frozen. It doesn't matter as long as you get to play and eat the snow. It's been fun this year as Jayden is understanding more about Christmas. It makes it a little more exciting for all of us. :) Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas Tree

My kids

I don't know what it is about doing dishes that so fascinates the kids, but it sure does. We don't have a working dish washer, so I get lots of help washing the dishes by hand. And sometimes they are nice enough to help when I'm not around. I found them like this, this morning. Both completely drenched from head to toe and giggling like it was the best thing in the whole world.

Another time they helped me do the dishes

They LOVE the cat in the hat!

I french braided her hair one day. She was actually really good while I did it, but I haven't tried again since. It makes her look like a totally different girl

The back. I just think it is so cute!

They LOVE books. Sometimes I can even catch them just sitting there reading them. I LOVE it. In the morning when they wake up if it is light outside they will just talk and then Jayden will get books for both of them so they can read. And they will stay entertained for quite a while before they come and wake us up.

Jennilyn has become quite the biter and poor Jayden gets it all. :( She breaks skin quite often. I just don't know what to do to make her stop! She doesn't do it just out of fun, she is always being bothered when she bites. So maybe I need to work with Jayden to quit pestering his sister.
New outfits from Grandma Knickerbocker. Thanks! They LOVE them!

November

It's a..... Girl! We found out on Chris' birthday that we are having another girl. We took the kids with us to the ultrasound and they were very excited. Jayden kept asking if she could walk and talk and eat. It was cute.

For Chris' Birthday I decided to try and surprise him. He really wanted a new phone and we put my sister on our cell phone plan and she was up for a new phone so he decided that he would ask her if he could use her upgrade. So I asked her and she said she wasn't gonna use it. So I asked her to tell him that her phone was dying when Chris asked. So she did and he was kinda hurt, but he couldn't get mad cause it was hers to use. (And she has been having bad luck with phones, so it kinda worked out great) So I was thinking maybe once I will be able to surprise him. He always figures things out cause he thinks about it too much so I have never yet surprised him. So we went and got the ultrasound and then I asked if he wanted lunch and it wasn't even 11 yet, but we decided to pick something up and he could take it to work. So I drove and we went to the Verizon store. He smiled when we got there and he totally had figured it out the night before while he was lying in bed trying to go to sleep. Darn him. I can NEVER surprise him. I would have to turn his brain off for the whole time and I don't think that is possible. But he did get a new phone and he loves it. Happy Birthday honey! WE LOVE YOU!

We went to the Mall and rode the Train. The kids absolutely LOVED it! Me, I would have been fine not riding. lol!

We were able to go to New York for Thanksgiving, thanks to our flight vouchers that had to be used within the year. Our trip over was long. We left our house at 6:40am and went to the airport. We flew out at 9:45. Landed in LA at 10:45 then had a 2.5 hour layover and then had a 4 hour flight to Detroit where we had an hour and a half layover. The kids were AMAZING! It was a long day, but it was good. I had a rough time. I don't like the smaller planes or take off and landing. I really thought I was gonna throw up on a few flights. Thankfully I didn't. We didn't land until 11pm. We had a nice relaxing week. We had a full house for Thanksgiving. It was fun we were able to see most of the family out here. We were going to go into NYC to meet up with my cousin and her family on Saturday, but Jennilyn woke up at midnight and wouldn't go back to sleep until after 5 and Jayden didn't go to sleep til almost 1. I decided that I shouldn't leave Jennilyn not knowing if something was wrong with her, and there was no way I would last all day in the city walking around. So we canceled. I was so bummed. It would have been fun, but Jennilyn ended up being fine. IDK what he problem was. She just didn't want to sleep. Thanks mom and dad for making us feel at home! Jennilyn got her first bloody nose. She was standing between Chris and I holding onto our legs and then her hands slipped and so she had nothing to catch her fall. She hit her face hard. So her nose started bleeding, thankfully it wasn't very bad. Our trip home was about the same as the way over. We flew out at 12:30pm and stopped in Detroit for an hour and a half and then flew to Las Vegas where we had a 50 minute layover. They boarded us early since everyone was checked in and they told us we were going to try to get out early. It was only a 50 minute flight into SLC. So just as they were getting ready to pull away from the gate a half hour early, there was some error on the computer so they had to check that out. We sat on the plane for 2 hours before they finally got it fixed and we took off. Thankfully our flight was only about half full, so we had a whole row of 6 seats to ourselves. Otherwise it would have been pretty rough, but the kids had fun playing around. We landed in SLC at 10pm and we were so happy to be home.

The boys
The girls

As we were walking past this guy in the LA airport Jennilyn said " That guy silly" So we had to take a picture by him. They were both trying to get the peace sign down. haha

Jayden asked me if my arms were tired from carrying my backpack. I said ya so he said I will help you and I'll carry yours and Jennilyn can carry mine. LOL! Everyone was cracking up that walked past us. One guy asked Jayden if he would carry his bag too. Jayden didn't respond. He had to bend over or he would fall over backwards.

For one flight Jennilyn was so tired, she was out before we even took off.
In Vegas there were a bunch of rocks and Jennilyn decided they were her phone.

Playing on the plane while we waited

Me + Running in flip flops = NOT GOOD

So on November 1 I had a bit of a scare. The kids and I went to return a paper to a neighbor. We got talking and the kids were being crazy, picking all her tomatoes and playing with the neighbors cat. Then the cat went under a truck parked on the side of the road. I told the kids to come away from the truck but of course they didn't listen so I was watching them. Then Jayden started walking around the other side of the truck (The road side) so I yelled at him and he came back. Then Jennilyn did, so I yelled at her to come back and she did. But she didn't come back on the sidewalk. She was standing on the road, but right by the curb. I saw a car coming from the other way so they couldn't see her standing behind the truck. I told Jayden to go bring her to me and instantly I knew that was the wrong thing to do because she will just run from him. I took off running and screaming at her. But I was wearing flip flops and I totally can't run in them and I totally fell like 2 feet from her. Flat on my face. The car saw me and her and stopped. Smiled, probably trying hard not to laugh, and drove past. I just started crying. First of all that is SUPER EMBARRASSING and secondly I seriously saw my little girl getting hit by the car in my head. It was so real to me and it scared me to death. I ripped a hole in my knee of the only pair of pants that currently fit and scraped up my toe and totally cut up one knee. The other one was only a little scraped. I cut up my hands a little, and even what wasn't cut just BURNED. I was a little worried cause I was 18 weeks Prego at the time but my stomach never hurt at all. My hands and knees took the whole fall, thankfully.

So it was pretty much my embarrassing moment of the year, but when it comes to your children it really doesn't matter!

September & October

For the General Relief Society Meeting all my sisters were in town. It was so fun. We all went up to the Conference Center with my mom and had a blast. Afterward we went and ate at the Lion House. It was yummy. Thanks for getting the tickets mom. It was fun. Lets make a tradition out of it. I like that!

My Brother Jared had his 3rd child on the 28th of September. A little girl and she is just so tiny and adorable. They named her Brinley and the kids just LOVED her so much. Jessica had to help me pull her out of Jennilyn's grasp a few times. It kinda makes me nervous for our next one. Jennilyn will be a great big sister. I'm sure she will want to help so much more than I want.At his Farewell
My youngest brother Spencer went into the MTC. It's been harder on me this time then when any of my other siblings left on their missions and I think I figured it out. I am looking at it more from a mother's perspective and I sure don't wanna send my kids out on their own for 2 years. It sure scares me. I am however grateful that it is quite a few years away . Maybe by then I will feel that I trust Jayden on his own a little more. But we were excited for him to go and start serving the Lord. I know he is going to be a great missionary and the people of New Jersey will be blessed.

The whole group

All the FUTURE MISSIONARIES

Anne's boys with Jayden & Jennilyn

All I wanted was a nice pic of us with Spencer and of the kids with Spencer and they did NOT want to cooperate with me. I guess they had too many cousin there to play with.

This is the best we got.

And he's off

Jennilyn learned how to climb out of the crib. I woke up one morning to her standing by my bed. She said "mom I wanted out" lol I cracked up. I tried to get her to show me, but she was pretty scared, so she never did it for the camera.

For Halloween we went to my parents house for dinner and then went Trick or Treating. The kids had a bit of a runny nose, but that wasn't going to stop them from Trick or Treating. They were both crayons and were very excited about it. They LOVE going with my little sister Alesha and hopefully she enjoys it too. While we were out Jennilyn got going a little too fast and totally fell and scraped up her nose. So her and I went home to clean up, but she was not done so we had to go back out and get some more candy. Jennilyn would only carry her bucket when she got to the door for the candy. Then she would walk to the edge of the porch of every house and say "Hold my bucket." It was pretty cute! They got lots of candy and they had so much fun. They are starting to get the hang of it and it just gets more exciting.

It wasn't the best weather, but we got to see some rainbows out of it.

Aubrey was painting Alesha's face, so these 2 needed their faces painted too!

My sister Alesha as the vampire
Here are our faceless crayons

They had fun seeing the kids come trick or treating

My 2 cute little crayons
So it took me until I was 26, but I finally got toilet papered. Not that I was wishing for it... We went to a lodge with some friends for a weekend and my friends Toilet Papered our house. It rained that night.. :( Thankfully it was dry when I cleaned it up. The kids thought it was pretty cool and had a blast helping me clean it up. lol! Thankfully there wasn't much.