Mark's Fourth Birthday

Mark is four years old! Time just flies. He had a wonderful birthday party and of course was totally spoiled by everyone. He is growing into such a wonderful boy. He is terribly helpful and handy around the house. He likes to be in charge and tell Megan what to do. He is also good at teaching her how to do new things and new words to say.

He is very smart and ALWAYS asking, "Why?" Our latest learning conversation was about his ear infection, antibiotics and prescriptions- all new words that he likes to remember and use.

Our latest funny conversation was about the new Lowe's that they are building by our house. I commented that it looked like they were just about ready to put up the sign. Mark told me, "They are going get a really big truck with a really big marker."

His favorite things are movies, the library, popcorn, wrestling with dad, riding his bike, the park, sleep overs with grandparents, all his toys, his friends and snuggling with mom. I tell him that he is awesome and he replies, "I certainly am!"

Here are the kids on the first Sunday this year. Mark has graduated from nursery and is in the Primary now. He is in a class of 13 kids (all of them three year olds) and loves it. He did so well. Megan is warming up to nursery. She looked so cute in her hat- she wore it most of church. My kids are getting so big!

Some Christmas

I always seem to forget I own a camera during the holidays so the pictures are slim. I did get some good video of christmas, butI cant remember how to post it so this will just have to do. The kids had an awesome holiday. Mark's big gift from the Las Vegas Santa was a bike and Megan got a kitchen. Here are pictures of us making our traditional brithday cake to celebrate Jesus' birthday. This kids love it. Note that Mark has to have one bowl for the cake and one bowl for the ice cream- his food can't touch.

Christmas day we spent some time in Mesquite and had another round from Santa. The next day the Brey family came to town and Santa came for round three. These kids are so lucky! They had so much fun. Thank you so much to all the Santa's out there. Mark is still asking me how long until the next Christmas.

Megan's 18 mo Pics

She is totally so adorable to me. She stood like this for the first few minutes- playing shy. She was like that so long that it left a mark on her cheek.

This was the most pleasant looking face we could get. No real smile, but hey it works.

Brother and sister!

Really Mom do I have to keep doing this?

Ready for Christmas

Mary and Joseph

Megan getting ready for her 18 mo pictures- I will post more later. Her hair was awesome and she looked way cute, but no smiles for the camera- not one.

However she will smile for daddy's camera.

Here is our family right after church today. Aren't we festive? Mark is totally ready for Christmas to be here. He asks me every morning, "Is today Christmas?"

Mostly Thanksgiving

November began with an unprecedented long stay at home for our family. We used Mike's day off on Veteran's Day to finish our yard, paint a wall and build some furniture (I'll try to post pics later). We weaned Megan off the binkie. Mark is enjoying preschool more and more- so much so that he asks me everyday if today is the day he gets to go.We did travel to Utah for Thanksgiving. This is what the kids look like when we start the trip. Yes, Megan is wearing curlers in her hair. They are one of her favorite toys to steal out of Grandma P's bathroom. We helped remodel Grandpa and Grandma's bathroom as their Christmas present. We also got to finally celebrate Grandpa and Grandma B's 80th b-days. It was great to see the whole family.
Mark as always has a ton of fun with the uncles. I think its because they pretty much do whatever he wants.
We took a trip to see the lights and temple square. This is Megan experiencing the Front Runner train. She kept saying hi to every stranger we met.

She loved the lights but it sure was cold.
Bryson helped out. Apparently Megan thought the stroller is not that cool anymore so she got carried everywhere while being wrapped up. The kids don't have winter coats because they only need them for a few days out of every year. We just layered. I think Megan has four different layers on in this picture.
Mark enjoyed being carried also.
This is my favorite part of the square. Its hard to tell, but Megan is reaching for the lights. She tried hard all night to touch all of them.
All that fun is hard work. Mark fell asleep on the way home right in the middle singing a song. It was only 5:30 or 6:00 but Grandpa's house wears him out.

October in December

It is glaringly obvious that I am way behind so we will just jump in. Let's start in October.

Megan is getting to be a big girl. This is one of her attempts at yogurt. You have to watch carefully because if she gets board then she just starts playing with her food.

Shoes continue to amuse her greatly. Here she is wearing Mark's on the wrong feet of course. Her favorite thing is to take of her shoes and socks while in the car and then put back on only her shoes on the wrong feet.

Mark is our builder and enjoys Lego's as he would say "a lot and a lot."

We spent a few day in Midway with the Brey family. Most of my pictures were blurry, but this one of the view outside our condo came through. You don't usually see fog in Utah so I took a picture of it. The kids had a blast with their grandparents and the Uncles.

We had a fun Halloween. The kids had been kinda of sick, but they rallied in time to go trick or treating. Mark and Dad had fun with the pumpkin carving as always. Mark refuses to stick his hand in to help clean it out. "Its too scary" he says.

Megan was our little purple princess.

Mark wanted to be a prince with a sword who fights dragons. Mom is usually the dragon. They both really loved the concept of getting candy from all the neighbors. Mark already has a few requests in for what he wants to be next Halloween. I told him that we have to have Thanksgiving and Christmas first.