Three Million, One Hundred Fifty-Five Thousand, Six Hundred Ninety-Two Minutes

This Friday we celebrated six wonderful years together. We had a nice date going to the Salt Lake Temple and doing sealings. We did the work for one of Jen's ancestors, which was neat. Then we had a lovely dinner at The Garden restaurant, overlooking the temple. We ended our romantic escapade by going to Best Buy to demo a potential Christmas present.
Ethan is really good at making the most out a bad situation. The other day, he lost the privilege of playing with his Lego's. He was pretty upset at not being able to play with them, until, being the innovative boy that he is, he asked to print off these Toy Story Lego pictures from the Lego website and cut them out. He spent the rest of the afternoon playing with his homemade toys.

Birthday Girl

Brooklyn turned 3 on Saturday! She was so excited to have a Sleeping Beauty Cake (she sometimes calls her the Owie Princess because she gets an owie on her finger in the movie).
We've been asking her for months what she wanted for her birthday, and the usual response was "a Princess cake."

Brooklyn had a really fun birthday. She had a special birthday breakfast of Belgian waffles, opened her presents, played with them, watched Sleeping Beauty with Dad, went to the toy store and picked out new doll stroller, ate dinner at Pei Wei, and came home for cake and ice cream. She also gave us a very special present in return - she FINALLY pooped in the potty for the very first time (she's been out of diapers for going on three weeks, so this was a big deal)!

We gave her a Rapunzel toddler doll, and Grandma Taylor gave her a Little Mermaid that swims in the bathtub. Immediately after opening it, she had to have a bath to test it out.

Ethan was just about as excited as she was to get the new dolls. She was really nice about sharing her new toys with him.

Throughout the day, we'd say "Happy Birthday, Brooklyn!" She'd reply "Happy Birthday!" (similar to saying Happy Halloween, or Merry Christmas).

Happy Birthday sweetie. We love you!

Meet the newest member of our household

Yesterday morning, we woke up with four inches of snow on the ground. The kids were dying to get out and make the year's first snowman. Ethan decided that his name would be Snowball Snowflake. Jen did not approve of the corncob pipe, but Kyle liked it.
Last Wednesday was Jen's 30th birthday. She got a nice food processor a few months early so she could use it for canning salsa. She wasn't really expecting anything else, but Kyle surprised her with a dozen roses, an appointment for a 90-minute massage, and dinner out. He also made a delicious carrot cake from scratch (we continue our tradition of using binary candles). Thanks to Kate for watching the kids (especially since Brooklyn pooped in her underwear twice--she is doing very well with her potty training except for # 2's).

On Halloween, the kids were so excited to go Trick-Or-Treating that they wouldn't hold still for their pre-Trick-or-Treat picture. This is the best one we got. After changing his mind several times - from Spider-man to Toy Soldier to Lightning McQueen to Word Girl - Ethan finally decided he'd be Woody. So we dug out his vest from a few years ago and Jen sewed him a belt and holster (or "pocket," as he used to call it). Brooklyn was excited to be Ariel. It was such a nice night and both kids had a lot of fun going door to door.