Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

These are the pics we used for our Christmas cards this year. It had been a cold weekend, and that Monday it started to snow. I was talking with my friend, Tara, and she said, "Wouldn't the snow make for such beautiful Christmas card pictures?"

So naturally I had to drag my family out into the freezing weather. Without coats (because what's the point of matching outfits if they're covered up?). And then yell at the boys to stop getting dirty, and won't you PLEASE, for the 20th time, stop putting your hands in the snow or your hands will get wet and then you'll whine because they're too cold? And no, I don't have any snacks! And don't look at dad while he's running to get into the picture- look at the camera!

Anyway, Tara was right. They made for some awesome pictures, even if we were all shivering and had snot running down our noses because it was so cold. Lucky for you we didn't include those pics in the Christmas card.

And because I'm so proud of the fact that it wasn't a complete catastrophe, yes, I made Melanie and I matching skirts. Well, my first skirt was a catastrophe, but that's beside the point.

Has it Already Been One Year?

I could have sworn I had Melanie just a short while ago. The first year seems to go by faster with each child you have.

She turned one on November 9th. Still not walking or talking. She had only 2 teeth but if you saw her eat, you'd swear her mouth was full of 'em. And did I mention she's positively adorable?

It was hilarious watching her eat the cake. Whenever she gets something that she's really excited for, she doesn't tear at it right away. She sits there and laughs for a bit first. It's great fun.Such a sweet little thing. We couldn't imagine life without her!

Pumpkin Pickin'

I'd really like to post what we did for Halloween before the Christmas post. I was supposed to do that before Christmas actually got here. But (not surprisingly) I didn't get it done. Now I'm trying to frantically update our bloggity-blog.

So here's the annual pumpkin pickin' at the pumpkin patch. And yes, we made our kids wear their costumes to the farm so we could take cute pictures. Thankfully they're not yet old enough to care.

There were so many cute pictures of Melanie. It was hard to narrow it down so the post wasn't a mile long. Because I think she's awfully cute.

Surprisingly Erik didn't love the guts out of this sweet little kitten. I was scared for it for a while.

It's really hard to get a picture of all the kids looking at the camera and smiling. We'll settle for one where they all look fairly normal.

There was a corn maze there as well. It was pretty well-planned, seeing as how Kent and I actually got lost.

At least we got a decent picture of all of us out of the trip.

Sweet little cow tale.

The end.

*chuckle*

The Great Outdoors

So pretend it's still September. And this post isn't over 3 months late...

Last year we went to Kalaloch by the coast and camped there. We LOVED it. Close enough to the beach to walk there but not so close that you're cleaning out sand from every orifice for 2 weeks. So Taylor wanted to go camping for his birthday. Lucky for him that we had planned on doing that anyway.

First on the list was some beach action.
This is me sleeping:
And this is what happens when I fall asleep and fail to keep Melanie from crawling away:
Erik doing what he does best.

Warning: lots of pictures ahead.
I love this pose.
There's a short and easy hike close to the campsite. Off the trail a little is a small stream. We love to go there, eat lunch, and throw all the rocks into the water.

How can you NOT laugh at this picture?
We decided to go check out the tide pools that were a little further away than our beach. It was totally worth it, although it was freezing and incredibly windy.

This was our pitiful attempt to get a picture of all of us. I'm sure it will be much easier when they aren't all trying to go 50 different directions.
And for my two FAVORITE pictures. I have to laugh at this picture. It makes it look like we try to lock her in the tent the whole time we camp-
"Ooh, they're not looking. If I could actually walk, I would be able to make a run for it."

And the winner is:
Yes, we're totally white trash. By the end of the trip, between the two boys, we had about 5 or 6 pairs hanging off of our rack. Good times.