Happy Holidays!

It looks like I need to add our holiday pictures!  Lets start with Halloween!  Kaleb was a phantom, Cameron was Repunzel, and Sam was a lion!  They were the cutest little things ever!  We went to the best part of town (the big houses) and got loads of candy!  One funny event, Cameron comes running at me from a door screaming "look mommy, I got a potatoe!"  Apparently a couple was allowing kids to pick between candy or a potatoe and my sweet little Irish lass picked the potatoe!  Thats my girl!

Second, Thanksgiving.  A week before Thanksgiving I got a call from Joe's brother, Will, stating that he was landing in Spokane in a few hours for a surprise visit!  We jumped in the car and headed up there to pick him up (Me, Katie, and the kids - Joe was at work).  We got him back to the house and totally surprised Joe when he got home from work!  Will has been with us a for few weeks now and we had the pleasure of having Thanksgiving with him (and we will have Christmas with him too)!  It makes up for lost time, we hadn't seen him in over 2 years! 

For Thanksgiving, I did my very first Thanksgiving at my house!  I prepared a ham, potatoe casserole, deviled eggs, asparagus, snickers fruit salad, biscuits and more!  We also had an AWESOME snack spread with chips, dip, crackers, cheese, salami, pepperoni, and more!  Mmmm!  It was just me, Joe, the kids, and Will but we had a great time!  Afterwards we all crashed in the living room, full and satisfied, and watched movies!  A great day!

Lastly, it is not Christmas yet so I will post after that - but we did decorate our Christmas tree!  The weekend after Thankgsiving we went to our usual spot and chose a Christmas tree.  We let it sit outside overnight to open up and then anxiously waited to decorate it the next night.  The kids were so excited to begin decorating!  They each carefully hung all of our ornaments on the tree.  Kaleb got to top the tree last year so Cameron got to this year, she was very excited!  I love my family and am so thankful for them and each day I have with them.  What a great place to be in life!

Ok - just a few extras:

 Kaleb had a national level tournament in Spokane, WA.  He kicked butt and took names!  Both him and his best friend Wyatt took first place in their weight groups!  I was so proud of Kaleb, he walked in there with such determination and drive!  He saw the trophys and medals and told me that he WAS going to get one this time!  What a great kid!

 

And we got a new puppy!  Her name is Olive, we call her "Ollie."

Wrestling

I'm pretty sure I've missed important posts inbetween this one and my last but I will do my best to go through pictures and get anything I've missed up!!  With that said, I had to get this post up because we are just so proud of our boy!  Kaleb joined the Moscow Wrestling Club two months ago and we just started having matches/meets.  It has been so awesome to watch him wrestle the other kids.  He is doing so awesome!  He has learned so many techniques and it is SO awesome to watch him wrestle and know when to use each move!  He got hurt on the last meet but finished wrestling his last three matches like a tough guy!  Won one match with his right eye closed dang near the whole time!  I just can't say enough good things about Kaleb and how proud we are of his dedication to this sport and all the fun he is having doing it.  We are having a blast too!  Last match (in Lewiston) our whole family was geared up in red and black, even Sam, it was awesome!!  We love you Kaleb! (He's in the red!)

Potlatch 10/20/12

Lewiston 10/27/12

The first 9 weeks...

It has been 9 weeks since Sam was born.  We have been happily adjusting to our new little family!  Sam sleeps incredibly good at night, he wakes up once to eat and thats it!!  I've gone back to work and school but its going alright and I'm not too overwhelmed YET!  I take Sam to work with me and so far that is going great.  He is one of the happiest babies I've ever seen and just coo's and smiles all day!  He loves his siblings!  Now that he is giggling and talking, if Cameron or Kaleb start talking to him he just watches them and smiles like crazy!  Kaleb is so helpful, he is constantly getting me things (like diapers, wipes, binky, etc) and it has made my life so much easier - that boy is the best thing that ever happened to me!  All three are.  I love them so much and have really enjoyed getting the camera out and taking pictures of these three bundles of joy.  Cameron helps a lot too, she helps me pick out clothes and loves shopping for baby clothes with me!  Joe is helping me out around the house so much.  It makes me so happy because I am so busy with work, school, and baby - I think housework might do me in!  Joe has completely taken over the laundry and dishes, leaving simple sweeping, dusting, and mopping!!  So some milestones of the last 9 weeks are:

1. Kaleb started school!!  A big, bad first grader!  One of his best friends is in his class and he is loving it!  I just got some of his spellings tests back and he is getting 90-100% on all of them!  He gets that from me!

2. Kaleb started wrestling!  He is a bantam weight wrestler and his coaches say he is a natural.  He practices for 1.5 hours twice a week and is learning how hard sports can be.  He doesn't complain a bit, even when he comes home exhausted, he is so excited to be a wrestler.  Tournaments start October 20th, I'll report then and talk about how he's doing in his meets! 

3. Sam started smiling and cooing!  Its the cutest thing in the whole world!  Sam is 11 pounds now and 23.5 inches long.  He's growing like a weed and loves to eat!!  He is starting to get those cute chubby thighs!! 

4. And Cameron is just awesome as always!  She got 4 shots the other day and it was a rough experience on her.  So she got some princess treatment, we took her to Baskin Robins and let her pick out some pink ice cream.  Then we took her to McDonalds for dinner.  She screamed and cried while getting her shots (me and a nurse had to hold her down) but as we were walking out the door she stops, puts her hand on her hip and says "see mom, I told you it wouldn't be that bad!"  Right Cam!

Here are some pics of the last 9 weeks:

We also went to the fair (me, mom, Katie, and the kids) a couple weeks ago - I will get photos of that up soon!!  I'm sure I'm forgetting some other even I should be mentioning, I'll have to scope things out and see what I'm missing - until then!