Baby's First Christmas.

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

Kids at the Ward Christmas Party.

Emary is getting mobile. I left her in the middle of the living room floor, and when I came back I found ther like this.

Happy Baby :).

I almost forgot! No tooth, No coin!

Aaron's solution to the problem. He left the Tooth Fairy a note.

The little red picture in the corner is a picture of Aaron with one tooth missing.

Isn't he cute :).

First Lost Tooth

And by lost, I do mean lost because he has no idea where it is.

As a matter of fact, I don't think he remembered that it had happened because he couldn't tell me where it happened until later.

All I could get out of him was that somebody helped him clean up because he was bleeding and that it was in the lunch room. Maybe he swallowed it with the apples.

And thanks to PBS Kids show "SuperWhy", Aaron thought the Tooth Fairy brought gifts. He was a little disappointed to discover that she only turns the tooth into a coin, but by evening he was pretty excited.

BreeAnna Wins: First Child to Get Stitches

I'm kicking myself now for not taking pictures at the time this happened, but it was pretty traumatic for BreeAnna so she may not have let me. In September we went camping in Rexburg to attend a baby blessing and BreeAnna had a no good, very bad trip. First she got a bad burger and threw up Sunday morning all over the tent. By afternoon she seemed to be alright so we let her play with her cousins at the park while we packed up the tent.

At the park there was a cement culvert with a hole broken out of the side. The next thing we know she comes screaming to the trailer with blood all over her finger and her fingernail hanging by a thread of skin. The best we can figure is that the kids were playing in the cement culvert (made "safe" for the playground). BreeAnna must have had her hand in the hole as Aaron tried to push a big rock through.

No, she is not flipping you off. This is the finger that got the nail ripped off. We took her to the minor emergency where they proceeded to stitch the nail back on. Apparently, the fingernail is the best bandaid for the nail bed, so by stitching it back on they said that the nail may not even fall off. It might just reattatch and grow out! The human body is an amazing thing, is it not?

We drove home the same day. She slept most of the way because she was drugged up with Tylenol with codine. The next day she broke out in a red rash all over her neck. Turns out she is allergic to codine so we went to Walgreens and got some ibuprofin and kid benadryl. Poor kid.

No, she is still not flipping you off. She is showing off her completely healed finger and nail. After she got the stitches out, the nail did fall off, underwhich was a cute little baby nail which she thought was awesome. Daddy laughed everytime she flipped him the bird and said, "Daddy, look! My finger is getting better!"

And as you can see, it's almost as big as the other nails now.

I never would've guessed that my girly girl would be the first to get stitches, but she was a brave little girl and it's all better now.

Trick-or-Treat

I promised Grandma that I'd post some pictures of the costumes this year.

My Mom made Aaron's Peter Pan costume this year. I made the belt and supplied the sword.

As always, it was bitter cold, and BreeAnna had to wear a sweater under her fairy princess dress. Here she is refusing to pose for the camera.

They had lots of candy...

and lots of fun. Thanks for the costume, mom :).

PS There is a sword in his hand, but it's hard to see with the stripey blinds in the background.

Jack Skellington the Jack-O-Lantern

The pumpkin carving gets a little easier every year. The kids are pretty excited for the first 10 minutes of cleaning out the guts.

Actually, BreeAnna wouldn't touch the guts. They were too slimy, but she did want to save the seeds to grow pumpkins for next year.

Emary played with a car the whole time.

In the end Jack looked pretty good, don't you think?

Pumpkin Patch

This year we went to the pumpkin patch for our Jack-O-Lantern so we could pay twice as much. It is worth it so our kids know that pumpkins don't grow at the store, right?

Here's Dad with the winner.

Here's BreeAnna with the Gourd she fell in love with. Alas, it was not meant to be (it was a pretty sad looking gourd. I just let her carry it around until it was time to go).

The kids had a good time.

Emary was a little too warm I think, but better too warm than too cold.

Good times!

The Thrill of the Hunt!

The flies this year were horrible, and Aaron was my go-to fly hunter. The only problem was, he wanted a picture with every kill.

At first I capitulated, but as I said, there were a lot of flies this year.

And really, one fly looks just like another.

Don't Leave the Baby Unattended!

So I thought Emary would be safe bucked into the baby bouncer, since I was only 5 feet away in the other room. Wrongo, bongo. BreeAnna found a permanent marker and proceeded to tattoo her face...

...and her legs.

Luckily, Magic Erasers work on babies too :).

New Family Traditions: Spirit of Boise Balloon Classic

I've always wondered why every year in the early fall I wake up one morning and find that the sky if full of hot air balloons. Well, this year we get the newspaper and I discovered that Boise holds a Balloon Classic every year and it is a free event to go and watch. So we got the kids up early to go see the balloons and it was quite a sight!

It was VERY cold. Next year we will wear winter coats and bring hot cocoa...

...instead of 12 hour old pancakes and water.

When we arrived the balloons were all lying flat on the ground. When they start inflating you run out of room to stand quickly. We were standing between the two blue balloons, but by the time they were full, they would've squished us.

And by the time it was almost over, Emary had had enough of the cold. But we will definitely be making this a family tradition. It was truly inspiring!

Scar

Here is Aaron after his dog bite. I know it was a few months ago, but several people have asked about the scar on his face, so here is the picture of the day it happened just to prove that it could look a lot worse. I must admit that while it was healing I cried thinking about how my beautiful, handsome boy's face would be scarred. Well, it's not that bad anymore, but there is some faint scarring.

How did he get bit in the face, you may ask? Well, our neighbors' little dog is not the most friendly, but the neighbor girl suggested that perhaps if Aaron made friends with him he would be nice to him. So Aaron got down to Patches's level and said hi, and got a bite in the face for the trouble. Luckily we're on good terms with our neighbors, and no stitches were necessary.

Everybody wants to hold the baby

Grandma Morgan holds her Great Great Grandbaby Emary on her blessing day.

Grandpa Perry holds his Great Grandbaby, also on her blessing day.

Daddy reluctantly holds his girls while he watches the game :).

BreeAnna holds her baby sister whenever she can get her hands on her, whether Mom supervising or not!