Halloween 2012

Halloween banner the kids and I made. I love the black one on the left with 2 mouths.

 Katie's cat. I love that she is at an age that she can produce things like this on her own. Levi still needs a lot of help so it looks "mommy-crafted."

 Katie and I had matching outfits and she loved it. Someday that will so not be cool:)

 All the kids are our lifegroup Halloween party.

 Mini-Chicken pot pie mummies.

 All three kids gettting in on the carving action.

 Brotherly love.

 Squish.

 She picked a Cinderella pumpkin.

 The trick-or-treat crew.

 Happy Halloween! Katie was a monarch butterfly. She talked about it for weeks! Levi was a hippo and Gray was the obligatory first Halloween duck.

 Clones.

 Checking out her loot.

 This is the best pic of all three of them. The outtakes were hilarious. Let's just say Grayson wasn't happy for too much longer.

Disneyland

The day after Kevin and Lydia's wedding we were leaving to fly home around 6. The night before we made a last minute decision to go to Disneyland the next day. I am so glad we did. Was it a ridiculous amount of money? Yes. Did we have 3 very tired kids? Yes. Did we have to leave by 3 to make our flight out? Yep. Given the chance I would do it again in a heartbeat. After coming through a long season of school for Taylor and 3 babies in 3.5 years it was such a fun celebration for our family. The kids were all at such a perfect age. Everything was magical for Katie. Levi was in awe the whole time and Gray was such a trooper and even slept for part of the day. We told the kids what we were doing on the way there that morning and their excitement was so priceless. The pictures are out of order, but I will fix them in the scrapbook and don't want to mess with it now!

 

Levi on "Small World"

 The Buzz Lightyear ride. This was one of our favorite rides. You got to shoot the characters throughout the ride and it actually tallied up your score at the end. I was not as good as I thought I would be:) Gray was zonked at this point. Betty's face is so priceless!

 The Suppes family was out for the wedding and we ended up realizing we were all going to Disney that morning. It was so great to have an extra pair of hand and friends to share the time with. Taylor's family used to go to Disney with the Suppes when they were younger.

 Disney Pic! Levi was crashing hard at this point.

 One of my all-time favorite pics of Katie. We were standing in line to see Rapunzel! We waited for 30 minutes. Apparently that is a ridiculously short time.

 Meeting her favorite princess. She was so excited.

 And...the corny Disney posed picture. I love that each character has a set pose. It actually really looks like the movie character!

 Taking our tired crew home. My feet were tired, so I'm sure they were exhausted.

 They ended up not falling asleep until we got home. No idea how with a face like this!

 Katie loved this ride so much. We went several times. When Levi finally got brave enough to go on the ride. We told Katie she couldn't go never thinking she would go by herself! It was so weird to see teeny Kate by herself in the first car. She loved it!

 Meeting Cinderella.

 Snow White was the only princess Levi would get close to.

 Katie on "Small World"

 Sillies

 The teacups! Mommy was more than fine sitting this one out.

 Arriving at Disney.

 Levi hugging Pluto. So cute.

 They were a little unsure at first.

 Yay for Disneyland!

Skiing!

We took this little peanut skiing with us for the first time while our friends were here. It was such a rite of passage for all of us. Katie loved it and so did we. We have looked forward to having our kids ski with us for so long and it was great to finally see it happen.

 Taking a break after a morning of skiing. It took us an hour and forty-five minutes to do one run down the mountain.

 Katie and Caroline. They were pretty pooped when we made them do one more run:)

 On the lift. I will totally admit it kind of freaked me out having my daughter that high in the air!

 Obligatory family pic.

 Down the mountain!

 A break half-way down.

 Ski snow angel. Or she might have been trying to get up:)

 The Gillems coming off the lift. For anyone taking their littles up...Buy the ski harness!

 Carrying kids down the mountain.

 3 exhausted kids. Katie was crying at the end of the day,"I just want to go one more time!"

 Taylor is a rockstar Dad. He has Katie and both of our skis.

What a fun day it was. Katie also told us she doesn't want a birthday party, she just wants to go skiing again...done!

BFF's

Katie and Caroline making snow ice cream outside.

Our good friends the Gillems came to visit us from Oklahoma last week. We were friends before we had kiddos and now we have matching families. Katie and Caroline are 3 months apart. Levi and Gray are 3 months apart. And Grayson and Ben are 5 months apart. Katie and Caroline kept up laughing the whole time. They are cut from the same cloth. Both oldest girls with sweet and STRONG personalities. Within 5 minutes of their arrival the girls were planning slumber parties and playing dress up. It is so much fun to see your kids being such good friends with your closest friends' kids! Even though they ended the week with a stomach bug, we had the best time having all of them visit!

 

Katie and Caroline during just one of the many nail sessions.

 Sledding! They swapped clothes the whole week and we couldn't tell them apart. Who wouldn't want to wear your best friend's undies?:)

 "Show me a sweet smile."

 ...and their true selves.

We miss you Caroline!

 Oh yeah, we did have some other kids hanging around too.

2012 Scrapbook

So in 2011 I scrapbooked once a month. When January 2012 rolled around I made the finishing touches and ordered my book. (Go me!)

 My 2012 book has been started on 3 different sites and I got to about May.

Tonight I finally decided to go with Blurb, which is a site I can just load my blog onto, edit a few things, and call it good. That being said, my blog got pretty sparse just after Kevin and Lydia's wedding. I blame you guys! So get ready for some Halloween and Christmas posts in March!

New lens.

I got a new lens for Christmas from Taylor. I am excited to keep playing with it. I am also looking forward to playing with photoshop, which was another gift from Taylor...thoughtful guy.

Here are some of my favorites.

 I just missed this shot of the two of them snuggling. Katie loves her brother so much and he usually puts up with, and loves her, too.

 Love these two sillies.

Thanks Taylor!

Christmas morning

The kids spent the whole month playing Mary and Joseph. They did add in the occasional crucifixion just to spice things up.

 Looking for Santa. They were actually pretty terrified. Levi wouldn't go downstairs in the morning until I checked that Santa wasn't still lurking downstairs.

 Christmas morning.

 A remote control car that they wore the batteries out the first day.

 Reindeer pancakes for breakfast.