Chased by Bees

Ethan has been so good going to his new Sunbeam class. His teacher told us today that he is a leader in the class. Jen asked, "is that a good thing or a bad thing?" She replied, "a little of both." From her report, today's lesson consisted of a lot of Toy Story sayings, and a round of the class being chased by bees. Ethan has been watching Winnie the Pooh lately, and loves to pretend that he's in the honey tree getting some honey, and then having the bees chase him around the house. It's his new favorite game. He also loves to go on "Bear Hunts" like in the book, We're going on a Bear Hunt. He really has a great imagination.

Brooklyn has been loving The Little Mermaid lately. She is often asking for "more Prince Eric."

The New Year has really motivated us to get more organized. This week we decided to paint our home office and get it more organized. Kyle had Monday off for New Years, and we spent the whole day clearing things out, patching walls, taping, and painting. It looks so much better (especially now since the wall doesn't have Brooklyn's "artwork" on it anymore. The next phase of our project was to take a trip to IKEA and buy some bookshelves, which Jen lined with upolstry fabric to dress them up a bit. It's nice to have a place for all of our books, and it sure helps the office look nice. We still have some organizing to do, but when it's finished we'll be sure to post some pictures. Next week we are going to focus on redoing the storage in our garage and going through our storage room.

December in Review

Wow! It's been almost a month before we posted our last post. We've had a very busy December.

Brooklyn and Ethan was very excited for Christmas this year. Ethan asked every day, "is it Christmas yet?" Santa Claus visited our ward Christmas party, and Ethan was scared at all to sit on his lap. Brooklyn, on the other hand, was a different story. Here's the video:

As part of the kids Christmas present, we took them to Build-a-Bear Workshop, where they chose their own animals and helped build them. They watched the toys get stuffed with fluff, got to put a heart in each animal, gave their new-born toys a "bath," and had birth certificates printed. Ethan named his bear "Pooh" and Brooklyn named her monkey "Monkey." Our kids are very creative. This year, we had the kids each get a present for each other. Brooklyn got Ethan a toy doctor kit, and Ethan got her a Barbie car. They both loved the gifts. Ethan wrote Brooklyn's tag all by himself. All of the letters of both their names are there, just not in the same row:

To:
Brook
lyn

From:
an
Eth

We cheated this year and let the kids open their presents from us on Christmas Eve before we left to spend Christmas with family later that day. It was nice to not have to pack the cars with all of those presents. We asked Ethan, "What was your favorite present?" and he named each of them. He would make a great politician someday.

The kids big present this year was a play kitchen and a lot of toy food. They have loved "baking" cookies and sharing ice cream.








Brooklyn has been obsessed with Jessie from Toy Story. Just about every day she asks if she can "watch Jessie?" Grandma Taylor gave her a Jessie doll for her birthday, and after she opened it, Ethan said, "She thought it was a princess." Jen asked, "Did you think that?" Ethan replied, "No, I thought it was Jessie. I was correct."

Grandma Taylor also got Brooklyn a Jessie costume from Disneyland on her last trip. Brooklyn loves the costume, despite the fact that it is still a bit big on her.

The local newspaper sent out a coloring book filled with coloring contest pictures from local merchants. Ethan colored a number of the pictures, but we were only submitted the one for the local credit union. He ended up winning second place in his category (under 5 years old) and received $10.00! Now we wished we would have submitted more pictures. He was excited to go to Walmart and buy some toys with his very own money. He chose a Barrel of Monkeys and a Toy Story alien. A couple of weeks ago, Kyle peaked into Ethans nursery class. The kids were gathered around for their lesson. Ethan wanted to say the prayer, but another girl was picked instead. In protest, Ethan covered his ears for the duration of the prayer and kept them covered for a few minutes after the prayer was finished. Kyle couldn't resist snapping a picture.

Ethan went to primary for the first time today. His new teacher was one of his first nursery teachers, and he really liked her. We're glad she's his teacher again. He did really well today. His teacher reports that he participated during the lesson, gave the prayer all by himself, and was quiet during sharing time.

One of the best things that happened this month was that we got a new roof on our house. Our roof has been a constant problem since we moved into our house, and the insurance company agreed to pay for a new one. We didn't have to do any of the work. This sure was a blessing.

We took down our Christmas decorations yesterday, and Brookyln cried when we took the tree down. She kept saying, "No, tree! Tree!"

Let the Festivities Begin

Our Thanksgiving was great. We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Taylor the first night and spent most of Thanksgiving with them. Both kids loved playing with Grandpa Taylor and his trains. Ethan put his toy Woody on the train and had him riding around the track. He was nervous to have Woody go through the tunnel at first, but after seeing Woody safe on the other side he thought it was great.

After Thanksgiving dinner, we made gingerbread cookies with Grandma (as it is a tradition) and got to try out her new train cookie cutters. Ethan put most of the hearts on by himself. The kids really liked to decorate Buzz and Woody gingerbread men using the standard gingerbread man shape. Ethan was pretty good at squeezing the frosting out of the bag. We didn't get any pictures of Buzz or Woody because they were devoured too quickly. Thanksgiving evening we went to Grandma and Grandpa Morrey's house for Thanksgiving dinner 2. Ethan and Brooklyn both loved playing with the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head from Toy Story, as well as the Spud Lightyear, Woody, and Jessie Potato Head pack.

At one point, Kyle was left tending the kids and decided it would be fun to jump on the city bus and go for a ride. We rode out to Smithfield, grabbed a treat at McDonald's, and caught the bus back home. Both kids had a fun time riding the bus, despite the near-record cold temperature.

We didn't do any early Black Friday shopping, but we did go see Tangled with all of the Morreys (while Grandma and Grandpa Taylor watched the kiddos). We all really loved the movie--definitely one to buy.

On Saturday, we went with the Taylors and saw Harry Potter, which we also really enjoyed.

Brooklyn is playing dress-up with Ethan a lot lately. They especially love Toy Story.

We usually try to put up our Christmas Tree after we get home from Thanksgiving. This year we were a week late getting it up, but now that it's up it's beginning to feel a lot more like Christmas. Ethan and Brooklyn had fun "helping" put the ornaments on the tree. Thank goodness for plastic ornaments.

The other day Ethan was very sad (we don't remember why). To express how sad he was, he ran into the office and drew this picture on the white board. He says it's a picture of him crying.

Ethan has been getting his (and Brooklyn's) Christmas lists together. Today he announced that he was going to ask Santa for a Toy Story 3 Ken with Ken's Dreamhouse. He says Brooklyn wants a Toy Story 3 Barbie.

And now it's time for another deep thought from Ethan Morrey:

"I have lots of toys. The only thing I need is lots more toys."

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?

Super Why Halloween

Wow. We didn't know how well he actually knew who Super Why was brought to you by until we did this video and looked up what was actually said. He had it nearly word for word. The only part he missed is at the very beginning where it says "Super Why was funded by" instead of "brought to you by." We've noticed that he has quite a gift for memorizing things. He can basically quote the first ten minutes of various episodes of different cartoons from memory, including sound effects.

As you may have guessed, our family were the PBS's Super Why and the Super Readers for Halloween this year. Ethan has been planning this for about 12 months. He was Super Why, Jen was Wonder Red, Kyle was Alpha Pig, and Brooklyn was Princess Presto (Caucasian edition).

We had a few close calls that almost ruined all of our plans. The first near-catastrophe happened two days before the big day. Ethan got a small owie on his finger. He was approached Jen genuinley concerned that, "Super Why doesn't have an owie on his finger." Luckily, the owie healed in time.

The second close call happened Saturday Morning. Jen made Ethan's costume from scratch, and she put the Super Why logo on his shirt the night before. She used an iron-on aplique that is printed on special paper for the book on Super Why's shirt. When Ethan saw it, he burst in to tears, exclaiming, "That's the wrong book!" He knows that the real Super Why's book doesn't say "Super Why" on it - it's just the book. We figured it would be better to use the one we did so more people would recognize who he was. He was so upset he almost gave up on being Super Why and wanted to be Mr. Incredible instead. WOW. After about fifteen minutes, Kyle convinced him that it would be OK (for those familiar with the cartoon, Ethan agreed that the letters would be the "Super Letters" that give the "Super Story Answer").

All day, he kept changing between Super Why and Whyatt, his alter-ego. In the process, his mask got very stretched out.

Both kids had a good time Trick-or-Treating, although both kids took a little while to get the hang of it. At the first few doors, Ethan refused to say "Trick or treat." Jen told him to pretend he was saying it to her instead. On the next few stops, he looked at Jen, said "trick or treat," then looked at the people answering the door.

Brooklyn didn't really get the idea of getting lots of candy. Once she got her first piece, she wanted to eat it and wasn't intested in getting any more. She eventually caught on, and wanted to have a taste of each new piece of candy. She handed us many half-eaten suckers.

After we had been out for half an hour, Ethan asked, "Can we stop going to houses to get treats?" He was tired and wanted to go home.

This year the kids had their own pumpkins. Kyle made Brooklyn's (on the right), since she didn't have much interest in helping. Ethan (on the left) helped clean it out - he used a spoon and extracted four seeds, and he drew the face with a marker. The face he drew was much too small to actually carve, so Kyle had to make it bigger, but this is pretty close to what he drew.

Friday we took the kids to Wheeler Farm in Murray. We all had a lot of fun. Brooklyn walked through the pumpkin patch trying to pick up pumpkins. She squatted down, grabbed ahold, and tried to pick one up. When she couldn't do it, she exclaimed, "heavy."

The corn maze was pretty pathethic. It was more like a weed maze. They only made us pay for Ethan's admittance, but we still felt like we got ripped off. Jen's exact words were, "I want my giggle back." (referencing Thumb Wars)
Before we went to the farm, Ethan drew a map so we wouldn't get lost in the maze. He kept checking it throughout.

Brooklyn was obssed with picking up rocks and giving them to the animals.

She had fun petting this goat and wished she could touch all of the animals.

The ducks weren't too happy when she tried to pet them. The expression on her face here is priceless. Click on the picture to see it bigger.