Easter Pics

I finally got a picture of the kids in their Easter clothes - yeah!!! I had hoped to do it the week after Easter, but Kiersten was very adamant that she was not going to wear her Easter dress that week, but she was going to wear what she wanted to wear. Thankfully Grandma asked her to send her a picture of Kiersten wearing her Easter dress. So Kiersten was a little more workable the next week! (We've even figured out how to do sponge rollers in her hair for Saturday night so she's really easy to get ready - we do 3 pony tails - one on top, that stays in on Sunday, we just add a bow, and then one above each ear - that way the curlers don't get in the way while she's sleeping. Nate can even do her hair on Sundays if he needed to, although he looked a little green when I told him that!) Thankfully Tanner isn't nearly so picky - he'll wear whatever you put him in. He did think it was pretty neat to have a tie like Daddy has. He walked around all day saying, "tie" and holding up his tie for us to see.

Easter and The Bunny

So this year Kiersten completely cracked me up. All she could talk about was "The Bunny." And the way she said it, you could practically hear the capital letters as she spoke. She wanted to get a basket of eggs ready to leave for The Bunny (like we left Santa a plate of cookies at Christmas time). It was funny because once she saw The Bunny at an Easter party, she wouldn't even give him a high 5 - she was terrified of The Bunny. Maybe someday I'll have pictures of my children sitting on the Eater Bunny's lap, or even Santa's lap for that matter . . . maybe someday!

We started out our Easter celebration the week before Easter with a primary Easter Egg hunt/activity at the park. My favorite game to watch was when they had the kids put a lemon between their knees and walk a distance and then drop the lemon in a glass without using their hands. If only I had gotten my camera out and gotten into position in time . . . !
I'm not quite sure what Tanner was up to, but it probably involved "Ready, Set, GO!" since he's always about to take off! I don't think he ever learned how to walk - he just runs!

Kiersten did very well at balancing an egg on her spoon - I don't think she dropped it even once!

Kiersten has always loved sack racing, ever since she and I tried it a year ago. Luckily there were lots of other children who wanted to participate so I didn't have to this time! (It just isn't pretty, especially when I'm way too big for the sack and have to lean over just to keep it up!

Tanner was super happy to find just one or two eggs - he didn't get that he was supposed to get all that he could. Oh well, this was one of the times in his life that he was very good about sharing with the other kids!

Then on Sunday I let Kiersten wear her Easter dress since Easter Sunday was General Conference and we weren't going to church. I'll have to post pictures later - like when I take some. (With 8am church it's a mad dash out the door every Sunday and I figure we're doing well to have everyone fully and appropriately clothed and there on time. I can't remember to take pictures too!)

Then Kiersten had all week to look forward to dying Easter eggs once Daddy got home from work on Friday. They had lots of fun, while I did my best to keep Tanner from making a big mess and dying more than just the eggs!

On Saturday, the day before Easter, Kiersten's dance class was asked to perform at the local Easter celebration. They did very well, for having learned the entire dance in just 4 weeks. Some things never change, and Kiersten is still very concerned about making sure she is right on her polk-a-dot.

After the girls danced, I'm not sure how it happened, but we ended up with an entire jumping castle to ourselves for 20 minutes or so, so I took Tanner in and let him jump until he was exhausted (which, we learned, was not even enough to satisfy him!). He had a ball, and thought he was pretty big stuff.
Easter Sunday morning Nate and I were woken up to Kiersten running down the hall and telling us that The Bunny had been to our house, and that he'd left Tanner an Easter basket, but he hadn't left her one. I assured her that He didn't forget about her and that if she would just look harder I was sure she would find hers too. Then I rolled over and Nate and I went back to sleep! Eventually she found her basket on the other side of the couch and she was delighted with her Cinderella doll and Tanner LOVES his bubble gun - I think in just 2 days we've managed to go through all the bubble solution that came with the gun - good thing I have gallons more!

I didn't think we'd put that many sweets in their baskets, but Tanner decided he needed to try and eat all of it before breakfast. So it was no surprise when he spit up chocolate only a few hours later. Thankfully he did that on my tile . . . unfortunately he walked through it and on to my just-professionally-cleaned carpets (thanks Jamie - I loved Jim - he did such a good job!) to show me how yucky he was. And the best part is that I've now put away their baskets, with most of their treats still in them (at least what Tanner didn't eat in that first hour or two), and they seem to have forgotten about them!

New Year's Eve Skookie Party

For New Year's Eve, we decided to have a fun family party. My brother, Todd, and his wife gave us a skookie for Christmas, so we decided to have a Skookie party. Skookies are the 7-inch cast iron skillets you see in the pictures. We let each person make their own personal pizza . . . well, except for Tanner. He got to help put some of his toppings on (more like he threw what toppings I gave him onto his pizza!), but I didn't think letting him go at the pizza sauce was that good of an idea! Kiersten, though, had a great time and felt very grown up, making her own pizza.


Tanner LOVES playing with the spatula, and when he found this round of pizza dough just sitting on the counter he couldn't resist getting out the spatula and helping!
We had quite the festive dinner - Nate bought matching paper cups, plates and napkins (my way to do dishes!), and Martinellis (although, now as I think about it, we forgot to have a New Year's toast!). Kiersten really liked the Martinelli's, and I think we let her drink too much because after dinner was over, she told me that it felt like there were bubbles trying to come up her throat!
I even gave Tanner some of the Martinelli's (I figure he likes grape juice, so why not?), but he didn't like it so much. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of the horrified face he made after a couple of sips. But, when I let him keep his straw to play with, he was in heaven!

After dinner we had a race to see who could put on their pajamas fastest - I don't remember who won. Probably Kiersten, she's quite competitive! Nate put Tanner to bed and then we played a game of "Somethin's Fishy," a card game Kiersten loves. Then we got out the blowers, and rung in the New Year (at 7:15 pm!). I must have ended up with the dud, though, because everyone's but mine made noise as you blew on them.
After that we put Kiersten to bed, and Nate and I played several rounds of a game Santa brought him for Christmas, Sequence. Let me just tell you, I LOVE that game! Nate is very analytical and thinks all the possible scenarios through before ever making a move. I, on the other hand, tend to make the first move that looks good. Needless to say, he almost always wins whenever we play a game. But, with this game, I won 3 of the 4 rounds we played! I love a game I can win at on a regular basis, and I really LOVE a game where I win more often than not!

We finished around 10:30, and were ready to head to bed. Nate got on the computer to check something "real quick" and I was going to read "just a couple of pages" while I waited for him. Yeah! At 12:05 Nate looks up from the computer and says, "Happy New Year" and then we get sucked back into what we were doing for another half hour until we realize it is MUCH, MUCH later than we should be up and head for bed. We're such the party-ers, huh? :)

(Unfortunately Kiersten didn't sleep well that night, and I was up from 2:30-4:00-ish with her, and then up for the morning with Tanner at 7:30, and Nate slept through it all! Oh well, he made up for it - he got up with her the next 2 nights.)

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning came bright and LATE to our house! Our children must still be too little to get truly caught up in the Christmas morning anticipation because they slept the latest they did all of our Christmas vacation - Kiersten slept until 8:45 and Tanner woke up at 9. What a wonderful Christmas present they gave Nate and I - letting us sleep in, and wake up when we were ready to!

Kiersten was very excited over all the candy and presents (she was amazed that Santa gave each of us a different candy cane in our stocking. Thankfully she didn't notice that they all looked like candy canes from last year or the ones Santa gave them at our ward party!), but Tanner was pretty excited by the banana that Santa left in his stocking! He wouldn't let go of it until Nate put him in his high chair so he could eat it (which wasn't that much later!).


Back when I first started my Christmas shopping, I asked Kiersten what she wanted for Christmas, and she didn't have any ideas so I picked what I thought she'd like. As Christmas got closer, however, she found a set of princess dolls at Target that she really wanted and started telling everyone that is what she hoped Santa would bring her. A few days before Christmas I really started to worry that she was going to be disappointed by the Doctor kit Santa was bringing her. I even sent Nate to Target 2 days before to get the princesses, but no luck for us . . . Target was out (or, he may have been looking in the wrong spot, I don't know!). So I prayed really hard that she'd be happy with the 1 princess doll Tanner gave her and the Doctor kit Santa gave her.
And thankfully that prayer was answered - she was delighted that no longer did she have to find things to pretend to play doctor with her babies. She now had the "real" stuff! We decided that Santa must have known how much she liked to play doctor with her babies, and that Tanner was going to give her a Belle doll.

Tanner has the funniest look he gives us on a regular basis, but we've never been able to capture it on film. This still isn't quite the look, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what he looks like. (By the way, this was a random face - I was taking pictures because he was so excited sitting on Nate's lap opening the truck from his cousins Brooklyn and Savannah.)

I was a little worried that it would take about 15 minutes to open presents Christmas morning because it was just our small little family of 4, and we only got each person 4 presents (1 in their stocking, 1 from Santa, 1 from the kids/their sibling and 1 from Mom and Dad, and that was a combined present for the 2 of them). However, Grandparents, Aunts, and cousins came through and filled under our tree, and it took over an hour and a half to open presents Christmas morning. Of course, not all of that time was opening presents - we stopped and got Tanner a snack (his stocking banana and some Nutter Butters that Santa had left), and we'd stop opening presents and let the kids open the toys and play with them for a bit before going on.



After we finished opening presents and had breakfast, Kiersten organized another rendition of the Nativity. This time was different than the night before because we had different costumes (I've never known Mary to have such bling, have you? And Joseph has never looked so good in pink, don't you agree?)
Tanner really didn't have a role in this rendition of the Nativity - he just jumped in where he wanted. This time I got a little more for my shepherd's costume - instead of just a hair bow like I had the night before, this time I had a blanket to wrap around my shoulders.

After naps/quiet time Nate took the kids out back and set up the trampoline we got for them. I'm hoping to save my couches and mattresses from all the jumping they've seen over the last several months! Unfortunately our back yard isn't big enough to accommodate a large trampoline, so hopefully they won't mind sharing and taking turns until we move into a house with a bigger back yard (no, I'm not making an announcement - we don't have any plans to move, we'll get a bigger back yard "someday int he future!") and can get a bigger trampoline.

Later that evening Kiersten was so excited to set up her easel from Grandma and Grandpa and get to work. She's colored and painted so many pictures. Watch your mail - you may be the lucky recipient of some of her original artwork one of these days!

All in all it was a wonderful Christmas day. We really enjoyed being able to spend time as a family. While we missed our family and friends, we were also glad we couldn't share our sicknesses with you (Kiersten had pink eye, Tanner had a fever, and Nate and I had colds!). And, Kiersten has done a wonderful job of keeping the Nativity story in the forefront of our thoughts, as we've now had to act it out 4 times in the past week (and that's only because we've put her off several times! If she had her way it would have been at least daily!)

Christmas Eve

This is the first year we've celebrated Christmas by ourselves. There are several things we've really enjoyed about it, but we have also really missed being with our family. However, thanks to technology, we've been able to participate with our families - my mom read her favorite Christmas story to us over web cams, and we got to watch Nate's family perform the traditional Nativity story via a live broadcast over the Internet. In between those events, we've had our own family things too . . .

Kiersten decided that for an "activity" we were going to act out the Nativity (she used to confuse "activity" and "nativity", but I think by now she usually gets it right!).

Here she is pulling out all the things she's collected over the last couple of days to use for the "activity" or Nativity or whatever it was we were doing!

Tanner was far more interested in giving Daddy (and everyone else!) kisses than getting for his role as the lone Wiseman!

Our Nativity telling started with the Angel Gabriel appearing to a very pregnant Mary and telling her that she was going to have a baby and that she should call his name Jesus.
" And she brought forth her first-born son . . . " (I didn't mean to time the picture just so, it just happened, and it's the only one Tanner was in, so I had to use it!)

Here's Mary and Joseph admiring their baby Jesus who is laying the the manger (which is really the stable to a Nativity my mom bought for the kids in the Phillipeans!). (Keep in mind Kiersten chose everyone - including Joseph's - costume!)

Our telling of the birth of Christ ended with the visit of the shepherds (my shepherd costume consisted of a Christmas hair bow and the white sheep on my lap) because our wiseman had moved on to bigger and better things!

After our re-enactment of the Nativity ended, we had my Grandma's bread pudding - I didn't expect Kiersten or Tanner to like it (I remember not liking it as a kid, but now I love it!). I was right on one count - Kiersten was interested in it only long enough to determine that she didn't have the nut and win the prize. Tanner on the other hand couldn't get enough of it; I think he ate as much of it as I did!

Kiersten and I ended our Christmas eve festivities by putting together a plate of cookies for Santa. (We even had fun decorating the plate together, although it did get a little stressful when she and I had VERY different ideas about which font we should use to say "Cookies for Santa." Thankfully, in the end, she saw the light, and I prevailed!
We've had a wonderful Christmas Eve, and look forward to more family time tomorrow, and I'm off to bed so Santa can come visit our house!

Happy Easter!

We had such a fun Easter! I was determined to not let Easter slide by un-noticed, since it came just a couple of days after Kiersten's birthday and the day after her party. So we started the festivities the week before . . .Nate gave a good FHE lesson on Easter and the Resurrection Monday night, then Tuesday we had our Easter party in preschool (which I was in charge of), then Easter parties in dance on Wednesday(Kiersten's birthday), Easter treats for our playgroup friends on Thursday, dying eggs Friday night, the ward Easter egg hunt Saturday morning (and her party that afternoon), and of course Easter baskets Sunday morning! Hmmm, as I read this I'm beginning to wonder if I went a little overboard! We didn't need to do something Easter every day of the week! Oh well, maybe next year I'll remember to tone it down some.

Kiersten's main excitement for Easter was getting to wear her new church shoes. A couple of months ago she started complaining that her shoes hurt her feet and she would cry when I would make her wear socks to church (I didn't think much of the tears - there's always lots of drama in our life!), so I checked and realized that her shoes really were tight. So we went out looking and she found a pair that she really liked. Unfortunately they were more than I wanted to spend on shoes, so I told her we had to wait until they went on sale. She was ok with waiting, which surprised me since patience is not one of her strong points. They finally went on sale, so we rushed out to get them, and then didn't have church the next week (General Conference). So, Easter Sunday was her first chance to wear them and she was so excited. She was sure that everyone would tell her what pretty shoes she had on.

Tanner, on the other hand, is not in his Easter suit. For Christmas Grandma and Grandpa Berrett had given him the cutest suit that is just now starting to fit him. I was so excited for him to wear it - it has a cute little bow tie and everything! I got him dressed 10 minutes before we needed to leave for church (which is our typical routine on Sundays, and even then he usually manages to spit up on his outfit before we get to church!). I walked out of the room for just a couple of minutes and when I came back to get him to take a quick picture I realized that he had messed his diaper (which I had just changed!) and it had managed to leak onto his shorts. I know he didn't do it on purpose, but I was so mad at him for ruining my picture, and for making us late to church (but more for ruining the picture!) that I was in such a bad mood by the time I got to church! Oh well, there's always next week for his picture in his Easter suit!