Ugly Sweaters!

The Third Annual Ugly Sweater party was a success. We enjoyed a night of clam chowder, sausage tortellini soup, cider, numerous appetizers, and lots of sweets. We enjoyed everyone's ugly Christmas Sweaters... they were great and there was so much creativity. This year we did Sweater cookie decorating, Bling My Stocking, and Christmas Bunko! We had a lot of fun... here is a small sampling of the pictures.

Ugly Sweater Couples winner went to the Smiths who spent the entire night in a snowman hug.
Host and hostess.
Josh was trying to make the same face as his cats.
The winner of the contest this year was Carson with his not very Christmasy, but oh so complete look... he was very sparkly and tight and the hair and mustache were special for the occasion.

An Awkward Conversation

Jacob and Claire made these really cute nativities out of milk cartons at preschool. They brought them home today and were talking about the differences between them. Here is how the conversation went.

Claire: "Jacob, and look, your Mary is awkward."

Jacob: "huh?"

Claire: "your Mary is awkward."

Jacob: (whining) "Mom, what is awkward? what is awkward?"

Me: "uhhhh"

Claire: "Jacob, it is just like a lighter than blue."

Me: "Ohhhhh... Aqua Claire, that color is aqua"

Claire: "oh... awkard!"

Jacob's is on the right... you can tell by Mary's awkward dress.

Thanksgiving

We had another very successful Thanksgiving (I am pretty sure I have a couple pounds to prove it). Claire and Jacob helped us remember the first Thanksgiving.

Amber took some great pictures to show off the table and the food.







We enjoyed having Amber come to visit for another Thanksgiving (I think this should be a yearly thing). Chris, Jim and Mel, Ben and Ashley and their families also joined us for dinner.
We had plenty of yummy desserts as well. Wyatt and Brittany and Carson and Paige also came to join the rest of us for dessert.
For my reference, here is the menu:

Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, cornbread stuffing, cranberry grape pomegranate salad, green beans with roasted red peppers and almonds, Chris's Mac and Cheese, Mel's delicious rolls, cranberry sauce, veggie tray. Chocolate Mousse Cake, Pumpkin Cheesecake, Apple Pie, Pumpkin Pie, and Bread Pudding. Thank you everyone for helping out.
While Amber was here we did some crazy late night after Thanksgiving shopping. We both found a lot of stuff. We also went to the Portland Saturday Market and Powell's Books (2 things Amber loves in our city).
We love the food at Saturday Market.
I am so grateful for my beautiful healthy family, our warm home, and especially my Savior Jesus Christ.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone... Christmas is underway!

Primary Program

A couple weeks ago was our Primary Program at church. It was Jacob and Claire's first Primary Program. We had been practicing their songs and their lines every time we were in the car. They did a great job, they both delivered their lines unassisted and so you could understand them. Jacob said "Heavenly Father gave me Parents" and Claire said "Heavenly Father gave me family." Their lines were right at the beginning and Jacob ran all the way off the stand to the back where we were after he delivered his line, when we told him he wasn't done and still had songs to sing he was like "oh, oh yeah!" and ran toward the front, but there was someone in both isles directing the song and he tried both isles then ran back crying because his path was blocked. Jared had to help him get by and then he and Claire both sang really well and knew most of the words. It was really fun to watch. I tried to get a decent picture of them when we got home from church, the following pictures are the sequence of my attempts.

Halloween

Trying to catch up. We had a fun Halloween this year. I was bummed at first when I found out Halloween would be on a Sunday, I broke the news to kiddos as early as possible, but they were fine when they knew they would trunk-or-treat at the ward party on Friday, and I am fairly certain that they had way more fun handing out candy than they would have trick-or-treating on Sunday. Most of the kids never made it to our door because our excited kids would run out into the driveway with candy when they first spotted them. They yelled "Happy Halloween" and "I like your costume" out the door to everyone. I had to keep calling them back into the house. Here are the obligatory halloween pictures...

Jacob's pirate pumpkin (thanks for the bling Nana).
Jared's tombstone pumpkin.
My happy dude.
Claire's princess pumpkin.

Claire was a princess, but really wearing a bride costume that she insisted on wearing the veil for instead of a tiara, so we compromised on princess bride.

Jacob was "a credible... but you can call me just Jacob the credible"

Kiddo-isms

Some of our favorite funny things kiddos say:

"Pork" or "Porking" - Poke, or poking. Used in a sentence - "Claire keeps porking me!"

"Blenders" - Lenses (for Jacob). Typically said in Jacob's really important voice.

"Worm" - Warm, as in "I want the tub to be worm." Claire is especially funny when she says this.

"Persh" - Push. We try to get them to say this one all the time because it's funny.

"Pew" - For a long time, Jacob didn't know the word "gun," so he would call it by the sound it makes.

"Peeps" - if "poo-poos" can be shortened to "poops", than, logically, "pee-pees" can be shortened too!

"Lasterday", "Last Day", "Next Day", "This Day". Yesterday, tomorrow, and today. I'll admit to singing the Beatles "Yesterday" using "Lasterday" instead.

"Neeeeana" - Nana (for Jacob). We're not sure if Nana finds this endearing or not!

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"Hadded" - "I hadded to hit the ball"

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"Squirk" - Would it be a squirk pew?

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"Forenoggin" - In Finding Nemo, Crush and Squirt (the dad turtle and the little turtle - yes, we know their names) give each other noggin. Noggins are part of the bedtime routine. One day, Claire decided she no longer hadded a forehead. It was now a Forenoggin.

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For fun, here's all of them in a sentence! Imagine Jacob talking to Nana (since he's the one who says 'blenders' and 'Neeana'):

"Neeana, lasterday when I hadded to do my peeps, I brought my pew wiff me and squirked worm water on my blenders, so I purshed them on my forenoggin and I porked myself in my eye."

School photos

Today was picture day at pre-school! Claire reports "I had more pictures than Jacob!" With that in mind, I express my hopes in the following letter:

Dear Mr. Pre-school photographer,

We already have lots of pictures that look like this one.

and this one

We want this kind of smile.

Please find a way to get one that gets a good smile! It's elusive, but it's possible! I would advise that saying "Cheese" does not work well.

Thanks!

Dani and Jared