Lots has been happening!

It has been a very busy month for us, and Christmas hasn't even happened yet :) The biggest news we have here is that Jeff accepted a job with John Deere. We will be moving to Iowa next month, and Jeff will be working as a manufacturing engineer on their new products coming out. Dallin is very excited to be living in the same town as his cousins, and we are very excited to be in the same town as Jeff's sister and her family. Our next step is buying a house and getting moved there. Here is Dallin wearing the new logo!

Alyssa also had her 2 year appointment. The doctor said she looked great, even though I don't think she looked his way once. Well, she did screaming and crying for a second when he checked her head stuff. She was scared to death of the doctor. She just does not like strangers. She isn't very big. She weighed 22.8 pounds (5%) and was 31 1/2 inches (3%). Her head was 18.25 (25%), so I guess her head is a lot bigger but I think she looks perfect. The kids enjoyed playing in the car under the table.

Dallin had his last day at his preschool, which was another concert. He did great! I was on the opposite side of him and the little girl next to him was standing in the way pretty much the whole time. So I didn't get any good videos. Only one of his teachers was there, so I only got his picture with Ms. Tammy. I also got a picture of him in his classroom.

Here is a cute videos of Alyssa. She loves to sing, and sometimes she sings more words than she did in the video. I just love how she says "I love you".

It kind of snowed for the first time this year. It was more of a light dusting, but the kids still wanted to play in it. Alyssa was scared at first (she is scared of everything right now), but once she touched it the first time she loved it. All day she talked about how she walked on snow. She thought that was awesome! Dallin had to shovel before we went inside. I hope he still wants to do it when he is older :)

Alyssa turned 2!

Our little baby turned 2 on Sunday!!! I can't believe it has already been 2 years. She likes to tell us she is still a baby and not a big girl yet, but she is getting to be a big girl. She talks to us all the time now. It is so much fun to listen to her interact with Dallin. She loves to sing, color, read books, cook in her kitchen, play trains and trucks, be outside at the park, and most of all play with her big brother. She is a much better sleeper and eater from a year ago. She eats pretty much what we eat now, which is really nice :) Her favorite color is purple! She is growing up too fast.

We had been telling her the week before that it was going to be her birthday on Sunday. She would get really mad at us and say no (her favorite word)! On the morning of her birthday she was almost in tears and said she was going to stay one! We did birthday cupcakes with her cousins in Iowa. She cried at the end and hated the attention. She did love her cupcake! She got the best cupcakes, thanks to her Aunt Jeanna!

When we got home it was time to open presents. Then she finally liked her birthday. I don't think she paused very long to look at each present, but LOVED opening all of them. She got pinkie (a large my little pony), a crib, books, coloring books, aquadoodle mat, zoobles, blocks, and a few more little things.

Dallin bought her a dog just for her since he doesn't like to share all of his :) She loves it and has to sleep with it.

Then she wanted to blow out candles on another cupcake. So we let her do it again, and she didn't cry :)

Dallin and Alyssa thought it was funny to wipe the frosting on each other. I didn't think it was very funny.

At the end of the day she said she loved her birthday and now says she is 2!

It's A....

GIRL!!!

We had the ultrasound today and found out we are having another little girl. The kids loved getting to see the baby in the ultrasound. They both wanted a boy, but they were very excited. Dallin said he will be happy and protect her, but he asked if we could make a boy next time :) I haven't felt the baby very much this time, but they always tell me she is active when they try to find her heartbeat. I thought it was because they weren't very good at their job. I could actually feel her on the way to the appointment and I told Jeff that we were going to just miss seeing her in action. I was wrong. She kicked her legs and did little punches the ENTIRE time. It was fascinating watching her little legs move so fast and all over the place. Both our other kids were sleeping/not moving much during their ultrasounds, but not this time. She had 2 legs and 2 arms and everything looked healthy according the technician. Hopefully, the doctor doesn't see anything alarming. We are very excited, and seeing the ultrasound made it much more real that another one is coming soon :)

Our Christmas Tree is Up!

For our Family Home Evening we put up our Christmas tree!! The kids were so excited and couldn't wait for us to finish assembling the tree. They tried on the Santa hats.

Dallin put the star on the Christmas tree.

Alyssa loved putting ornaments on the tree. She only wanted to put them on the top.

Dallin loved everything about the night :)

The finished product. It kind of takes up way to much room in our living room, but it will do.

Tonight Jeff helped the kids put up some lights on our back porch because Dallin really wanted to put some lights up outside. It was so cold outside, so good thing it was just a porch. The kids had lots of fun, but came inside to get warm a lot.

The finished product.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving this year we went to Jeff's sister's house in Iowa. Jeff's brother and his family came also, so there were 6 adults and 8 kids :) The kids LOVED playing with their cousins, and we loved visiting with the family.

My wonderful sisters in law did all the cooking for Thanksgiving so I didn't have to do any cooking, which I'm not gonna lie...was the greatest break. The dinner was excellent and here are the kids enjoying a piece of pie.

It was warm enough for the kids to play outside on their awesome playground. It was too cold for me, but the kids didn't seem to mind the weather at all. They were just so excited to play outside.

Most of the kids in their awesome sunglasses.

Then they played follow the leader with Dallin leading them all. He enjoyed that.

Then they got out the bounce house. All the kids played on it for hours. They were sooo excited.

Not Up to Much!

It has been cold, and I really have not wanted to leave the house. So we really haven't done much lately. The kids are starting to go crazy (so is Mom), so it's a good thing Thanksgiving is coming up to get us out of doing the same thing EVERY day. I have been terrible at taking pictures, but here a few.

Here are the kids before church one day. They are getting so big! They were kind of being goofy so no good pictures.

Dallin's school had a Thanksgiving party. They gave all the kids aprons and had them "make" some food, which Dallin said wasn't very good. As soon as he got home, he had everyone put on aprons and make some chocolate chip cookies. He was very excited.

Today we built the roller coaster out of the k'nex. I thought I could do it before Jeff got up, but between the kids needing lots of attention and not being able to follow the instructions it was not done. Jeff finished it just in time for bedtime. They were having fun trying to race the car.

Jeff's mom is amazing at quilting. She made Dallin a very cute quilt when we moved him up to his big boy bed. Soon we will be moving Alyssa up to a big girl bed, so she made her one too. Alyssa's favorite color is purple, and she LOVES the quilt Grandma made her. She cries a lot because I won't let her have it in her crib. Soon enough...

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween. On Thursday we carved pumpkins. Dallin said it was the best night of his life.

Alyssa painted hers. She was so excited because she got to wear mom's shirt, and she had lots of fun painting her pumpkin purple...her favorite color.

This was the first year we let Dallin actually carve his. Thankfully he let Jeff help so there were no problems. He was so excited to put his hand inside the pumpkin when we took the top off until he felt it. He thought it was sooo nasty so we helped him take the stuff out.


Dallin's Pumpkin

Jeff's Pumpkin

Steph's Pumpkin
All of ours
On Friday night we went to the ward Trunk or Treat. The kids had lots of fun.

On Halloween we went to a friends house for trick or treating. Dallin is a pro and could go forever. Alyssa FREAKED out. Anything with a mask scared her to death. So I spent a lot of time holding and consoling her. They got plenty of candy. The next day the neighbors gave them a whole bag of candy. So we have lots of candy...not a good thing for a pregnant lady :)

Alyssa LOVES candy. With Dallin he had no problem with 1 or 2 a day. Alyssa tries to sneak in as much as possible. One time they were sorting it, and Jeff turned his head for a few minutes and she crammed 6 pieces in her mouth. They are good at sharing though :)

Dallin's First School Presentation

Dallin had his first presentation at preschool. They sang songs and danced for awhile. He was soooo cute! He really got into the dancing - which is WAAAAY different than his mom and dad :) Some of you might find this really boring, but Grandma really wanted to see them. The first 3 are the best, so if you only watch some watch those 3. The videos aren't great due to my laughing and dealing with Alyssa getting in and out of my lap. I also had to make them smaller to fit on here, so not the best quality but still very cute :)

Here is the first song. I was laughing so it is a bit shaky...sorry. I was also on the opposite side, but enjoy Pre K.

Don't know the name of this song, but Dallin really gets into the dancing. He even has a few moves on the ground :)

The next one is Where do you start your letters.

Shake out stuff song?

Monster song

Utah trip Part 2

I took way too many pictures while we were there, but here are a few more :)

Rock Canyon Park Frisbee Golfing
The awesome Discovery Park.
Blue Bell Ice Cream!!!!! My FAVORITE (It's a Texan thing) and I don't know why Alyssa has such a goofy smile :)
Bridal Veil Falls


The kids wanted to hike up the mountain along side the waterfall, so we let them go up a little ways. We went up until we saw a snake on a rock...YIKES! IT scared me and Dallin so we went back down :)
We went back to campus to eat at Scoreboard and go to the bookstore. For the kids treat, they got a "Y" donut. It was yummy!
The last night we were there we went to Hee Haw Farms with Aunt Tori and Grandma. The kids had so much farm. There was a little inflatable haunted house that Dallin went through probably 20 times and would punch all the scary things out of the way. Alyssa is normally very scared with Halloween decorations, but she loved it and went through several times.
Alyssa only wanted to look at the animals, but she had fun doing other things like let Aunt Tori hold her.
Dallin and Alyssa rode the train being pulled by a tractor. Alyssa really wanted to go until she got in, and then she started screaming and crying. We still made her go, and she stopped about 1/4 of the way through and loved it.
Dallin sat on all the tractors!
Then we took the hayride around. Alyssa was cold, so she wanted inside my coat:) It was REALLY crowded but fun.
Then we did the corn maze. We decided to let Dallin guide us through without the map. He chose which way we went at all the turns. It ended up taking us an hour to get through. I think Grandma was a little nervous we weren't going to ever get out :) We finally made it to the exit, but with a little help going through the walls :) Dallin thought it was so much fun getting lost in the dark and then getting us to the end.
Then it was time to head back home. We were all sad to leave. We had such a fun time and ate lots of good food. The ride home was a little harder on the kids. The sun was making Dallin mad, and Alyssa cried a lot more because she was done being in the car. We ended up driving just a few miles shy of 3000 in a week. We stopped at a hotel on the way home that had a small waterpark for the kids. They LOVED it. Now we are back home, and getting back into the routine.