Jacob putting on his shorts for the first time...

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Home again, home again, jiggity-jig!

Jacob's birthday cakes!

So excited for his birthday cakes.

Jacob and his "fly swatter." He saw me getting the flys with the real fly swatter and he wanted to help but I didn't want him to touch the thing so he improvised.

Joshua's first time with solids!

Jacob REALLY wanted to help make dinner so I had him put the chopped carrots into the pot for me. He was so excited!

We had the missionaries over for a day-before-Thanksgiving-Thanksgiving Dinner. After dinner Elder Higgley said that he forgot something in the living room and this is where we found him a couple minutes later.

Only in the military would you find a child playing with (empty) magazines and IR Chem Lights (Infared Chem Light - can only be seen through night vision goggles)

More California Pictures!

Well, as promised here is the picture with all the cousins. Even though Tia isn't really smiling and Josh isn't smiling - two out of four isn't bad for how things were going that day. Besides the individual pictures this is the only one where everyone was looking and making a decent face. :o)

The day before Halloween IHOP was giving a free Scary Face Pancake to children so we took the three older kids. They loved it! (Notice Jacob trying not to smile.)

Saturday night was the ward Halloween party. Aiden ended up going home sick so we didn't get pictures of all the kids at the party, but here's me and my little clown.

Lion Melissa and Penguin Joshua.

Grandpa and Joshie

Melissa took the kids over to Aiden and Tia's great grandmas house. These are all different costumes then the ones they wore to the Halloween party. Jacob's gorilla costume jacket is a little small and doesn't quite match the Thomas the Train PJ bottoms he's wearing but he's cute none-the-less.

There are so many birthdays in our family this time of year so we decided to celebrate everyones birthday. We had a pizza party and invited my in-laws (Susan and Stephen) to join us. We decided to decorate cupcakes for each person.

Melissa - January 1 - Rainbow Cupcake

Mom - March 17 - Eyeball Cupcake

Josh - April 26 - Didn't get a cupcake (plus he slept the whole time)

Dad - August 29 - San Francisco Giants cupcake

Zion - September 14 - Laptop cupcake

Aiden - September 15 - Elmo cupcake

Stephen - October 5 - Fishing cupcake

Me - October 6 - Movie cupcake

Susan - November 5 - Music cupcake

Brooklyn - November 6 - Monkey cupcake

Jacob - November 10 - Soccer Cupcake

Matthew - November 17 - Italy Flag cupcake

When we were in Bakersfield Susan and I took Jacob and Josh to the park. He love throwing dirt clods, feeding the ducks (eating their crackers in the process) and sliding on the slide but he DID NOT like the swing! Josh had a great time just looking around at everything.

Pictures from our California Trip

Ok. These pictures have been under editing for a long time. I meant to post while I was still in California but that never happened. These pictures were taken the last couple days in Fresno. Melissa got some matching shirts for the cousins and we took some pictures at the park. There was a really cute picture of all the kids but I am too lazy to go and look for my camera right now so you'll get to see them later. In the meantime, individual pictures . . .

Aiden

Joshua

Brooklyn (Tia)

And Jacob wouldn't sit still for a single picture so here are a couple of crazy ones.

While we were there my parents got a new dishwasher. Jacob "helped" install it.

Jacob was Aiden's little shadow the whole time.

One night Jacob and Tia got really quiet. We found them on top of the table eating a Costco muffin. I guess they decided they were hungry and took it upon themselves to get a snack. This is after we already took Tia down.

Ate right through the wrapper he was so hungry.

Cute kids!

Jacob loved to play in the dirt. Until he had it thrown on him. It was in his mouth, ears, hair, diaper . . . he was NOT a happy camper. Until he got a bath and had his ears cleaned out and then he wanted to go back outside and play again. Silly boy