They just keep getting older...

Cody is pulling up on everything and going up the three stairs from our family room to our kitchen (yikes). Here's some video of him very proud of himself. Our camera has been full for a long time, Char has been dropping all kinds of hints and messages for us to clear it off so she can take the precious pictures - we're so lucky! AND Braden went potty in the potty chair - sorry, no pics or video of that though, it just wouldn't be right without smellevision. The "Your Baby Can Read" stuff that Mom and Pat got us is working on Braden. He can read car, boy and moon so far, everything else is, "duck, quack, quack," until he sees the picture of the word. Morgan is, as always, doing really well in school. She has all of her weekly spelling words memorized by Monday night and is working on her multiplication tables. This just blows my mind, I remember memorizing my multiplication tables, it's just crazy. The big news as of late is that we bought a minivan - Toyota Sienna. I admit it, I begged for it. I was sold when we went to Idaho and Jill and Rhett had one for a rental. When I tried for the last time to shut the door of my Subaru with all three of our kids inside and it bounced back at me I headed straight for the dealer... after taking Morgan to her friend's birthday party of course, I was desperate, not suicidal. Anyway, now I can go to the grocery store and have enough room for the passengers and the groceries. Life is good!

It's been awhile - lots of pics and video

I have some Christmas pics, maybe a few day after Christmas, a couple videos that Char took and at last OUR BIG TRIP TO THE FARM! We went to visit Bret's sister and family (Jill, Rhett, Tobias, Eli, Curtis and Tatiana) at Rhett's mom and Clark's house in Nezperce, Idaho. SUPER FUN - SUPER LOUD (7 kids all running around in one house)!! We all had a great time. The kids went sledding and played games. Morgan got to help Rhett's mom feed the chickens and took home the egg she collected. Bret and Clark took the kids to explore the farm buildings and to check out the barn. Tatiana is their youngest, just turned a year old and it was nice to see another little one as clingy to mom as Braden is. :) I got to hold her a couple times while Jill was getting food together.

We finally see snow...

After a couple days of threats from the weather people we finally get some snow!! "Where is the truck," you say? Bret took Morgan to do his favorite thing in the snow... DRIVE! while I tend the sleeping babes. That's okay - I get to do my favorite thing in the snow... sit on the couch, next to the fire and WATCH! :) As you can see from the pics, the kids already got to do their favorite thing in the snow... SLED! (which happens to be Bret's second favorite thing to do in the snow) Braden was a chore to get ready, he's very much a creature of habit. Gloves, boots and a hat are not part of his usual routine so he was not happy about me forcing them all on him until he got outside to see the sled hill that Morgan and mostly Bret had already built by the time he was ready. Once he saw that, he forgot all about the torture of getting dressed, good thing kids have a short memory. Except Morgan, she has a memory like an elephant.

Morgan built a snowman with Char yesterday with the little snow that they got. Cute!

Gotta run! I've only got a precious few minutes of quiet time. Maybe I'll read!

Oh, too late, Braden's up.

We did it - the tree is decorated!

So the tree is decorated. We've been busy working, sleeping, eating and somehow sneaking in Christmas shopping. Hope you like the pics (I even included some of myself this time).