Alrighty then . . .

(Images are slightly out of chronological order.)
These past few months have been pretty busy for our family. October was spent with me and the boys in California with Blake in Hawaii by himself. November brought us back together along with Blake's friends, the Huangs, from Bakersfield. Then there was Thanksgiving and Blake left a couple days later for Training in Missouri. He came back in December the same day his parents came to visit us. The day they left, we left too. Back to California. My Dad passed away on December 5th and we had the Memorial Service on December 21st. It was a bittersweet thing. I'm sad that he is no longer with us but he has absolutely no pain and I'm glad for that. I'm so grateful for the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. We will see him again and that is comforting. We got to celebrate Christmas 3 times. We had a Christmas on December 18th - we opened our gifts to each other. We had Christmas with my mom, brother, sister and her family on December 23rd. (Santa came early for the kids.) And then we went to Bakersfield to visit Blake's family and had Christmas on the 27th. (Santa came again.) We made it home in time for the New Year and then Blake left again. This time for the whole month. He's at NTC (training) and will be home near the beginning of February. Crazy busy!!

At the Memorial Service, Jacob, Aiden and Tia sang "I Am A Child of God" (You can't see Tia)

On the way to the cemetary for the grave dedication (Dad was already buried earlier in the month) the kids fell asleep so we left them in the car.

When Blake's parents were with us, Susan found a coconut somewhere outside so we decided to open it. We don't own any machettes (yet) so we used a saw, hammer and a screwdriver to bust it open. Blake became frustrated at how long it took.

Christmas #1 - Jacob and our tree. (No real tree since we were going back mainland)

Daddy reading the Christmas Story from a picture book.

Joshie's first Christmas! And of course all he wants to do is eat the wrapper.

Someone (Aunt Melissa) gave Josh his first lick of a fruit bar.

Too cold!!

Jacob tried on Grandpa Termeer's cowboy hat and of course hammed it up.

Jacob LOVES to help Josh.

I got Josh's food ready and left it on the table to check on dinner. I hear a noise and this is what I find:

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.