You've heard of pictures with Santa, what about pictures with Rudolf?
The kids got to sit on Santa's lap and get their pictures taken at our ward Christmas party. Annie didn't seem to mind a bit, we were hoping for a funny picture, but instead we got a happy one as usual.
I can't believe my baby is 1. This past year has gone by too fast. We had a little family party for her on Thanksgiving. She didn't care for opening presents or for eating her cake. Annie still has 4 teeth, is standing up on her own in the middle of the room, but not walking yet. She has taking a couple of steps as she moves from the coffee table to the couch. She doesn't say any words, but Dada, but she is almost always talking. We love having Annie in our family and are excited for another year full of exciting firsts.
Brandon is watching the premier of the new show V wearing his V costume (from the 80s miniseries) that I made him a few years back for Halloween. He put it on as a joke, but as you can see in the 2nd picture he kept it on to watch.
I joined another quilt exchange with some friends. There are 12 of us and each gets a month and everyone makes a block for them during their month using fabrics you pick and rules you set. I got the month of October and so of course I had to do a Halloween quilt. This is what I got back. (I am missing one in the picture, but I will post each of the block individually later so you can get a closer look). I am really excited to put these together to make a fun quilt. Stay tuned for a completed quilt soon. The one I made is the spider web pattern (bottom right).
Kate played softball again for the winter season. She learned so much and did so well. She had a great coach and really enjoyed playing. In complete contrast to our football season, we really enjoyed attending Kate's games. We also discovered that Kate is really good at the batting cages and to Brandon's delight they liked having a daddy daughter date there. Kate's team played on Halloween and Kate dressed up like a bat (not a baseball bat, ha).
We had a Star Wars themed Halloween this year. Kate was Princess Leia, Matt was a Clone trooper, and Annie was an Ewok.
The kids carved their own pumpkins (pretty much all by themselves) this year. Matt really loved his happy face, Kate made a scary one and Brandon is excited for the new season of V and showing his support with his pumpkin.
This Halloween Annie is 11 months old. Have you every seen something so scary??? Annie is such a sweet and happy baby. No new teeth yet (besides her green vampire teeth that only come out on Halloween) and she isn't walking yet (thankfully). She calls me Dada and says AAAA for Matt and I know that only because she copys me when I yell his name. It's no surprise that she would say his name before anyone else since she hears it the most often when we have to constantly yell at him to get off of her. He sure does love his sister and it drives us crazy sometimes.
We took the kids to Cal Poly to visit the baby cows. Matt was brave and petted them, Annie too, but Kate....
We signed Matt up for flag football and it turned out to be a nightmare. He had 2 hour long practices and one 1 1/2 hour games a week. I think a lot of the frustration we felt came from the fact that his coach was very serious about winning and hardly let Matt play in the games and then got frustrated with him for goofing off on the sideline. It was for 5-7 year olds and it wasn't suppose to be about winning. Also, this particular league is a tackle league and so the flag team has a lot of contact and nobody stops it. Matt was one of the smallest on the team (being one of the youngest) and he was thrown around quite a bit. We were happy when the season ended and we don't plan on doing it ever again (well I don't, but Brandon loves football and says when he's older he's doing it....We'll see....) Watch this video of Matt, he was so cute running around even though he didn't understand the point of the game...
At Least He found something worthwhile to do with his padded pants.
Kate has had quite a summer so far. She had her dance recital in July and had so much fun and did a great job. She just started a new dance school in just ballet. She loves to dance and is doing great at it.
Just before her 7th birthday she got her first loose tooth. I tried to get it out before she turned 7, but she didn't like me wiggling it. So she lost her first tooth just after her 7th birthday with me holding her down wiggling her tooth back and forth till it came out.
For her birthday she invited two friends, Brianna and Isabella, to go to the American Girl Store in downtown LA. Grandma gave her money for her birthday to buy an American Girl that looks just like her. We had lunch at the Cafe and then shopped. She was so silly during lunch she kept saying "We're fashion models and we don't drink out of straws" or other things that fashion models do and don't do. The girls had a lot of fun and Kate keeps asking to go back.
