Changing Seasons

In anticipation of the storm rolling in this last weekend, we raked up all of our leaves and got our yard ready for winter. Ethan had a blast playing in the pile of leaves. He was such a great help using his own little rake and spreading the pile of leaves out after Mom had gathered them all.
It was a good thing we got the yard ready, because this morning we woke up with nearly a foot of fresh snow covering the ground. After church, Kyle and the kids headed out to have some fun. Seeing Brooklyn in her snowsuit reminded us of the movie "A Christmas Story" - we don't know if she could put her arms down.

By the time we got out to play, the snow had formed a thick layer of ice after sitting out all day. This made it hard to roll out the snow balls for a snow man. We were able to build this little guy though.

Ethan likes to watch a fairly new PBS cartoon called "The Cat in the Hat Knows a lot about That." When he saw the snow coming down, he got really excited to build a snow Cat in the Hat, just like they do in one of the episodes. Brooklyn just wanted to eat the nose.

Ethan had fun making snow angels.

Brooklyn is cute. We can't believe how fast she's growing up. She more like a little girl and less like a baby every day. She had her two-year-old doctor's appointment this week. She came in at 24.8 lbs (25th percentile) and 34 inches (75th percentile). One of the milestones for kids her age is if they can speak at least 20 words. She probably knows more than 200. This girl never ceases to amaze us with the things coming out of her mouth.

We also took the kids to the dentist for their 6 month checkup. Ethan was so excited to go to the dentist. We heard him saying things like, "I'm so excited to go to the dentist," and "Do I have cavities?" He got X-rays for the first time, and has no cavities. The dentist says both kids have very good teeth, but he can already tell that they're both most likely going to need braces when they get older since their teeth are packed so tightly. Better start saving now...

We celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on Thursday. It was a fun day. We ate lots of chocolate fondue. Mmm, boy!

The other day, Ethan wanted to get out the costumes we got on clearance after Halloween this year. He liked the soldier because it was like the toy soldiers on Toy Story. He loved talking on the phone and drinking from the canteen. He still uses the canteen to get a drink when he's thirsty.

Without any prompting, he knew that pirates say "ARRRR" and "Shiver me timbers."

Two Much

We had a very busy weekend. Brooklyn turned two on Friday. Jen's uncle got married this weekend too. His reception was the same day as her birthday and we were occupied for most of Saturday with the actual wedding. We managed to squeeze in a little birthday party on Saturday evening. Brooklyn had a beautiful princess castle cake. Jen was pretty stressed getting the cake finished in time between all the other things we had going on, but it worked out almost as planned. She planned on making lots of tiny fondant flowers for the cake, but realized after she started making a few that the cornstarch she was using to prevent the fondant from being too sticky wasn't cornstarch as she thought, but baking soda. Yuck. Oh, well, fortunately the heart shaped sprinkles we had on hand worked fine and saved lots of time.

She was actually excited to open her presents this year and with a little help from an overly eager brother, she managed to find out what was inside.

We got her a dolly that looks just like her and a princess book. Sadly, she hasn't gotten too attached to them yet. She got a princess dress from her Grandma and Grandpa Morrey, which we're sure she'll eventually love, but at the time she seemed to have the most fun sitting in the box it was wrapped in. She instantly loved and still loves the big soft puppy that her aunt and uncle got for her.

While at the wedding reception on Friday, Brooklyn must have caught on to the romantic spirit. We don't know who this little boy was, but she kept following him around to give him hugs.

We are so glad out kids love each other so much! They were really good throughout all the wedding events.

We took Brooklyn to pick out a toy at Wal-Mart for her birthday. She sure had fun playing with all of the toys she could reach. We don't normally let them out of the cart so freely, but they sure loved it.

Ethan has been his funny little self lately. We bought Toy Story 3 when it came out a few weeks back and he refuses to watch it. He told us that he is allergic to movies. After a few days, he changed is mind and said he's only allergic to movies that he doesn't like - including the Toy Story movies. He loves the toys and wants them for Christmas, but won't watch the movies.

Flames

Wednesday afternoon, Jen got a very loud and persistent knock on the door, accompanied by a fireman barging in yelling for us all to get out. He told us that our neighbor's house was on fire and that we needed to quickly evacuate. After waking Brooklyn up from her nap, she herded the kids outside to find the following scene:

The afternoon was spent outside watching the action and at a neighbor's house playing with their toys. Fortunately, the weather was good since we didn't really have time to grab any jackets and Jen didn't grab her shoes. No one was hurt in the fire and the cause as far as we know is yet to be determined.

We celebrated Jen's 29th birthday this week. We celebrated on Tuesday, then went on a date Friday night (out to dinner and to an arcade--which was a blast). The kids were excited for Rachel to come over to play (babysit). She is one of their very favorite people on the planet.

This is what Ethan would look like if we never cut his hair. He had fun wearing Mommy's Halloween wig. He makes such a cute little girl, no?

Wal-Mart had their Halloween stuff 90% off yesterday. We grabbed a bunch of costumes for ~$1.00 that we thought the kids could use for dress-up. Today Ethan wanted to be an astronaut. He put his suit on, jumped in an empty box, counted "3,2,1, blastoff" and took a quick trip to the moon. Thankfully, he was home for dinner. He thought it would be fun if next year for Halloween, he could be an astronaut, Brooklyn could be his spaceship, and mom and dad could be the moon and the sun. If only we could find those sun and moon costumes from those Jimmy Dean commercials, we would really rock.

For the last few months Ethan has had no interest in watching any movies, though he likes PBS cartoons. We just bought Toy Story 3, which we he saw and loved in the theater. Ethan refused to be in the room where it was playing. He even went as far as say, "I am allergic to movies!!"

Brooklyn hasn't seen the movie before and doesn't have quite the attention span for a movie yet so we showed her just the opening sequence of the movie with the train. She know and loves the characters because Ethan has many of the toys. It was so funny seeing her react. She would say, "Oh no!" at the right parts and get excited whenever she recognized a character. When she saw Bullseye she exclaimed, "Getty-up Bullseye!" How did she grow up so fast?