Family Pictures

Check out these great pictures we had taken while we were in Utah! My mom was nice enough to let us sneak in a family photo during the shoot. Do you like the one in color or black and white better?
This is my favorite picture of them all. Everyone looks so cute and happy.Here's the whole fam. We're good looking, huh?

Christmas 2009 & New Year 2010

Wow. It's really over? We had such a great time this holiday season, it just flew by way too fast! We spent a week over Christmas in Utah with my family. It has been over a year since I've been to Utah and it was so wonderful to be there! The boys were enthralled by the snow. Daddy helped them make a snowman.
Joseph and Justin performed with their cousins in the Anderson family Christmas program. It was so great to catch up with so much extended family who I haven't seen in years.
The kiddos at Pirate Island Pizza.
Here they all are on Christmas Eve sampling Santa's cookies and milk before bed. We had a giant sleepover at my mom's house on Christmas Eve with all of my siblings and their families. It made Christmas morning so very fun!
Santa made it and we all got to enjoying our new gifts. Here's Joseph enjoying his gifts from Grandma Jolley: a new solar system book and a Snuggie like Daddy's. Guess what else is like Daddy?
Justin had a Thomas the Tank Engine Christmas!
I loved getting to know my niece Elle, who was a newborn last time I saw her. Now she's walking! Look at that gorgeous face.
Happy Birthday to my sis Jordan! Poor thing was born the day after Christmas and we made sure to go out and celebrate.
Here's the whole gang.Snuggles with Grandma and Grandpa! We love you so much!
And congrats to my bro Taylor who just got engaged. His fiance, Melissa, is wonderful. Now I get to go back to Utah in June! Hooray!
We made it home to spend the week before the New Year just chilling together as a fam and playing with friends. Here's our last meal of 2009. This year has been a big one full of love, blessings, new challenges and growth. Thanks to all our friends and family who made our year and our Christmas so very special.

Happy Thanksgiving

I know, I know, it's Christmastime now and I'm way behind. But I had to document how wonderful our Thanksgiving was! We spent Thanksgiving in Oregon with Darren's family and had such a great time. Check out the kids table full of cute boys!Here's the Jolley clan that was in attendance. Love you guys! The food was soooo good and I ate soooo much pie!The next day, Grandma and Grandpa took us to a great little gym and the boys had a blast. Here's Caleb and Justin hanging around.They played in the foam pit forever. Justin called it the pool and kept pulling me back and back and back to it. So funny. And yes, I saw New Moon, and my dear sweet husband took me to it. Isn't he a good sport? There was much that I loved about it, but overall it didn't live up to my high expectations. I fell deeply in love with Jacob in the book, but Jacob just didn't do it for me in the movie! Too many bad lines and the acting just wasn't up to snuff. Sorry Taylor Lautner.What a beautiful break from real life this holiday was for me. I'm was so thankful to spend a relaxing weekend away and be so well taken care of. It doesn't get better than this: Thanksgiving dinner cooked for you, came close to beating Darren in Scrabble, boys play hard with their cousins, free babysitting to go on a date with my hubby, and talking and laughing with great family. Life is good and I am definitely thankful!

My Little Sunbeam

This is Justin's favorite song. It must be sung before every nap and bedtime. Usually twice. Here is his performance.

Halloween Fun

A great Halloween was had this year! This is us at the ward Halloween party. Darren and I threw together our costumes literally an hour before. Too bad the picture doesn't show Darren's knee high golf socks or my cowgirl boots. They really made the outfits. There were cute carnival games, good food and trick or treating.Spiderman and Batman teamed up to save Seattle from evil villains. Here they are before their trick or treating in our neighborhood. Can you tell Justin isn't quite up to it? Poor baby was still recovering from the flu.Spooky Dinner is back! We haven't had Spooky Dinner at our house in several years. It was so fun to share it with friends. We ate buzzard brains, zombie saliva and my favorite, kitty cat eyeballs.Look at our cute kids!

Welcome, Fall!

I always pout during the time of year when fall takes summer away. I don't like the gray skies and rain replacing the blue skies and sun or the socks and shoes replacing my flip flops. But when the trees start changing colors and Halloween is on its way, I can't help but give in and love it. Not to mention all the great things that come with fall. Like football! This is the time of year when we cheer hard for the Oregon Ducks and the Tigard Tigers. Darren's bro, Marc is a high school football coach and we love to make a weekend visit out of rooting for his team in Portland. Darren's parents came up for the game and we came down. The bad part was, we got stuck in nasty traffic and nasty weather and didn't even make it to the game on Friday night. But we made up for it with a Saturday full of fun at the pumpkin patch. Here's our hay ride on the tractor,the perfect pumpkins,the adorable farm animalsand the corn maze.Joseph and Justin loved raking and jumping in leaf piles in the yard last weekend. It was very cute to watch Joseph teach Justin how to really mess up the pile. Justin was an attentive student.And finally, the jack-o-lantern debut on the front porch! Joseph was really into it this year, designing and cleaning out his own pumpkin. (His is in the middle.)I am so thankful for family, football, pumpkin patches, leaf jumping and jack-o-lanterns to help me embrace the fall.

What the kiddos have been up to...

Update time. We're finally feeling settled into our new school schedule and Joseph is still really enjoying Kindergarten. He always wants to go and he loves his teacher. I'm so happy about that. His favorite thing to do at school is P.E. He's learned to skip and jump rope and he loves to exercise. If you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he'll tell you he wants to be a guy that makes exercise videos. He wants to do an exercise video everyday, either one of mine or one for kids from the library.

This is also a common sight at our house. Joseph's favorite books to read are the kids non-fiction books. His favorite subjects are the body and how it works and the solar system. A new book makes him really excited, but then he reads his favorites over and over again until he can practically quote them. Smarty pants.His reading inspired this body of artwork on our wall. If you ask Joseph about Pluto, he'll tell you he's sad it's not a planet anymore. He's hip to the whole debate. My favorite piece is his interpretation of earth. It's the multi-colored planet towards the bottom.He's also been loving soccer again this year. I'll post some pictures soon.

Check out Justin's new skills! I just love his tongue in this picture.
See him in action and listen for his cute "twysicoh" for "tricycle."
Justin cracks me up everyday. He picks up hilarious things from his brother like, "What the heck?" and "Sweet!" He often tells me something and follows it with, "That be awesome, Mom?" But my favorite is his fascination with the word "cool." He thinks everything he does is "cool." Our conversations often go like this:

Justin: Look, Mom!
Me: That's so silly, Justin.
Justin: It's not silly, it's cool.

After catching on, I think I'm doing him a favor by telling him he's cool, only to hear him respond like this:

Justin: Look, Mom!
Me: That's cool, Justin.
Justin: It's not cool, it's way cool.

Apparently Mom is just always wrong.