The Next DANCING with the Stars!

OUr DaYs

Jake and Lyss zonked out in the living room.

Playing in the snow that's all gone.

This was just funny. Lyss wanted Hallie to wear panties. I love her chubby legs in it!



The girls love to dance! They dance all the time. Hallie squats down real low and bounces up and down. Lyss is so into pretending. We are rarely who we really are. In the spirit of the season, Jake has been Santa and I've been Mrs. CLause. She also has some pretend friends that are with her all the time, Emma and Madalee is there names as of late. She had a friend over, a boy, and they played "Tangled".....HE was Flynn and Lyss was Rapunzel. Then they danced like ballroom dancing....TOO cute!
Hallie has started to run. She loves to be chased....epecially when she is supposed to be getting dressed! She tries to keep up with Lyss and loves following her and her friends around. She is just getting so big!

Thanksgiving

Well, Thanksgiving didn't go as we had planned this year. Three days before we were supposed to leave to go to Jake's family it started snowing and didn't stop. And we were supposed to be driving into that huge blizzard that hit Utah and Idaho. To say the least I was totally bummed and part of me wasn't giving up hope that we would somehow go....even though I really knew we weren't. :( So we got together with some of our friends that got stuck here too and made the best of the situation. It was actually AWESOME! We had such a good time! We reserved the church so that the kids would have more room to play and also in the hopes that we could play games and such....It WORKED!

So we did the turkey.....My FIRST turkey! That was fun...a little stressful, but fun! THis is our guy! Some friends of ours let us barrow the TURKEY CANNON to cook it and it turned out SOOOOO good! Tender, MOist- nothing worse than a dry turkey on THanksgiving!

This was my table scape. It was fun to decorate and do things the way I would do them. Nothing much but better than just the grungy church table right?!

All ready to eat! I love how well Jake cut it up and made it look so pretty on the platter! I saw on Food Network the best way to cut it up and Jake did it perfectly!

The girls having a pre-dinner roll. I did the rolls too. So much fun!

We had a Great Thanksgiving and have had a very relaxing "Vacation", sleeping till 8 everyday, just hanging out....I did miss the fam though! THanks to all our friends that brought enough food to feed and army!

Family Pic Overload!!!!

These were from the other day when we went and picked apples. We love picking apples!!

Happy Halloween!!!

I have had a blast with this Halloween! We kicked off Monday night carving pumpkins. We were lame parents and waited for Hallie to go to bed.....She'll probably hold it against us forever...well, until she has a 1 year old!






Then we made Halloween cookies....


We went Trick`or`Treating downtownt this year. At first Lyss was pretty leary of it, till she got some candy in her bucket!




That night we went to the wards' Trunk`or`Treat.....


And I truly have the best husband in the world!!! He completed out mouse family! It was soooo much fun! I wish he could have gone downtown with us too. I think we look awesome!!!!




I practiced my fondant skills again and made a Halloween cake! I just love the way it turned out! I'm already thinking up my birthday cake......I'm so amused by it!

LoOk wHO's 1

My sweet Hallie turned 1 on the 14th! I know everybody says this but seriously that year flew!

This picture was too funny to not share! My mom makes all the grandkids a teddy bear for their first birthday.

At first she was way more interested in ther balloons than her presents...of course...

But when Lyss started playing with her new kitchen, Hallie caught on and now they fight over the kitchen quite often!

As she was unwrapping her presents she handed all the little peices of paper to Grampa Carvel.......Grampa Carvel and Gramma Patty were able to be here with us for her birthday!

This was her cake....it was my first time working with fondant. Not what I had pictured in my head but it turned out pretty well!


She wasn't too fun with the cake. None in the hair or all over her....I should be thankful for that, but I love the first birthday mess!



Hallie is so sweet! Some of her latest tricks/favorites are:
~She is starting to walk!
~She has discovered her voice and does the most high pitched shrill scream when she is unsatisfied with her situation. Very nerve rattling!
~She is "Hi" with her nose all scrunched up and cheesey grin! Too cute!
~She waves good goodbye
~She blows kisses
~When you ask her for a kiss she sticks out her bottom lip and makes a smacking noise
~She thinks Lyssie is Hilarious! They have started to play pretty well together.
~She can follow simple instructions and helps clean up.
~She loves animals, especially dogs,and makes a kinda barky noise

Playing In Portland

Last weekend Jake had an Optometry Conference in Portland. So me and the girls and my parents went with him and PLAYED!!!! Some of our activities included:

The Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch....I went to this a couple of times while we lived there, but it was soooo much more fun to take my little girlies to it! Alyssa LOVED it! You get to go on a hayride out to the pumpkin patch, then they had this little cow train that you could go on that was pulled behind a little tractor.


They both had so much fun out in the patch.





Lyssie found one just her size!


On the hayride back with our goods!

Onto the next excursion: The Air Museum in Tillamook
They had these cockpits that you could get in and Lyss thought they were so cool!


And you can't go to Tillamook without hitting the Cheese Factory.

Then it was up the coast to Cannon Beach and some yummy Mo's Clam Chowder! Lyss was a little leary of the water at first, but finally decided it would be ok to wade out a little with Grandma!


Then to the Zoo:
The Sea Lions were putting on a great show for us. I love this pic with Lyssie right there and the Sea Lion right at the glass.


If you look closely you can see the Tiger in the back asleep. Lyss asked if we could stay there till he woke up....We told her that could be a long time!

And Pittock Mansion:
I wanted to go to this all while I lived there and just never did. I've heard that for Christmas they deck it out. But the children weren't really into the mansion. So I'll have to go again someday without them!!!


Some other things we did:
Went to Papa Hydens.....VERY BAD idea I had with two kids at bedtime.
:(
Went to VooDoo Doughnuts....I heard about this on the Food Network and wanted to go. It was fun, but mostly because I went to something on I saw on Food Network. Nerdy I know!!! And taste wise we should have gone to Krispy Kreme! THey were good but not as good as Krispy Kreme!
Went to OMSI....Always a good time! JAke still has never been! We'll have to go sometime when he doesn't have to sit in class all day while we have fun!

We had such a good time in our GHETTO hotel and REALLY seeing Portland. I really never actually went into Portland while we lived there because everytime I did, I'd end up totally lost....thank goodness for GPS now! I only almost wrecked once!! I'm glad my parents were able to come with us....I don't think I would have gone if they hadn't!