Hey! It's been awhile.

Due to Facebook, Instagram, and lack of self-discipline I have not been a very dedicated blogger. But, I do want to have these pictures on our internet-journal, so here they are with some captions:

We celebrated Thanksgiving with a few other families from our branch this year. Here is our Thankful Tree that we had in our dining room:

Aubree LOVES purses. She has about 8. And they are all full of the most random, and sometimes important things (like the DVD from the library that we now owe like $8 on - and we never even watched it!)

 Here's a little faith promoting (and kind of funny) story that has to do with Aubree's purses. The day of General Conference I was frantically looking for these little prophet cards that I had put on the computer desk just a couple days before. They were no where to be found, and NO ONE knew where they were! Well, about 15 minutes before Conference starts I finally think to say a quick little prayer to help me find them. A few minutes later the thought came: "look in one of Aubree's purses". Of course! And what do you know? Yep, they were in one of her purses!

This is a sample of the randomness that comes out of one of her bags.

Also, Aubree learned how to jump rope recently.

Happy Movember!

Crazy hair day for Carly. Look how long Ellie's beautiful hair is!

Christmastime!

I love having this banister to put a garland and stockings on. And I love having a cute little girl to pose with the garland!

 (when you grow a beard it's not cool to smile in photos)

A local ballet school invited some of the 2nd graders to be elves in their nutcracker performance - for FREE! The 5 weeks of ballet lessons would be free, the costume would be borrowed, and she would get the experience of being in the Nutcracker - awesome! Only I didn't know at the time that the tickets would be $40 A PIECE, and the ballet shoes are $20, and the week of the performance would include 10 HOURS of rehearsal time! And to top it all off, Ellie was only on stage for 10 minutes and the whole time she was sitting on a prop - not dancing, not even moving. A little disappointing, but even so she is so cute even just sitting on a prop and she did get ballet lessons, and I got to see the Nutcracker. AND Ellie and I had a special dinner date before the performance - dinner dates are always fun!

Halloween 2013

Halloween around here is generally pretty low key. No school dress-ups or parades or carnivals to worry about and the girls just choose something out of the dress-up collection to use for their Halloween costume. We probably wouldn't win any costume contests, but the girls haven't complained, so we'll just keep it simple!  

Carly was a Cat. The ears are homemade and the tail is one of my belts!

Ellie was an Enchantress this year (I think she was last year too). Here she is with one of her new best friends that lives the next block over. (I love Ellie's face in this picture)

Aubree was a fairy princess. Her costume consists of a very badly stained pink princess dress, torn wings, and a very red shirt. She was happy as could be with this costume and extremely proud of this full bag of candy!

We had a dinner at our neighbor's house, then Aaron took the girls trick-or-treating while I handed out candy. I think we got close to 400 trick-or-treaters this year!

The next day the girls had the traditional Halloween candy sorting and trading. I love seeing them do the same things I did (and probably every kid does).

A Bunch of Bookworms

The other day the girls and I decided to go through all of our picture books and try to weed out the ones that are falling apart or that we don't really like. 

But man alive, it sure is hard to get rid of books in this house full of book worms. Almost every book was someone's favorite or held some importance. In the end we did get rid of a couple dozen. Here are some of the books we kept that brought back some memories:

I read this book so many times to Carly. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the illustrations, I love the message and the memory.

We really like the Mercer Mayer books.

This book was given to me by my Aunt Janet in 1989. Also, I love the fables in it.

Ellie was reading this book to me last year

 and when she got to this page she paused to look around at the picture, and then she said, "Hey, I could use some of that stuff!" Ha ha! It's especially funny to us because one of Ellie's nicknames is Hector the Collector - she is always finding little "treasures". She would LOVE to explore a junk yard!

This is a book from my parent's house that I grew up looking at.

Anne of Green Gables. Really, no explanation is needed here, but I just love this book (the original as well as this one), and the movie. Chicken soup for the soul!

(One time Carly and Ellie were watching Anne of Green Gables together and I overheard this conversation:
Ellie: "Gilbert is so handsome Carly."
Carly: "I know. I love Gilbert."
Ellie: "Me too."
Carly (realizing the significance of what she had just said): "I can't believe I love Gilbert!"


This is the first "chapter book" I remember reading. (Not this exact copy though) And this is one of the first books Ellie read on her own.

Super cute - especially considering our love of big dogs.

Trudy Harris was one of my Young Women's leaders and she gave me a couple of her books at my baby shower for Carly. I read this book to her sooooo much! (Another one she gave us that we totally wore out from reading it SO much was "Pattern Fish".)

 It's been well loved!

A book I remember reading in elementary school - this is the exact copy. It's a very touching story. And I love Eleanor Estes books - especially the Moffat books.

When we first got this book I was a little annoyed with it. I didn't like the illustrations or the way it used certain rhyming words. But, Aubree loved to have me read it to her and she even memorized it - so cute! So, now I love this book too.

I've always loved Shel Silversteins writings and this book particularly. We gave it to Grandpa Leon for Christmas one year and he got emotional as he read it - pretty sweet.

Jenny Nielsen gave us this book when we lived in Moscow because it reminded her of Carly. It's about a super short little girl who is taught confidence by her grandma. Definitely one of my favorites!

This is a book that Aaron's parents gave to his brother Troy when he was little and being bullied at school.

I love the cute poems in this book. (It's where we got the nickname Hector the Collector for Ellie)

 And it's even more special because it was given to me as a gift from my oldest sister.

Here's a picture of Carly walking home from school today. She was finishing up book 6 in The Sisters Grimm. I guess it's pretty good...

Stephanie's Surprise Visit

We didn't tell the girls that we were having a special visitor come. So, when Steph walked into the family room Thursday morning the girls were sincerely surprised. Carly was speechless and just stared for a few seconds before they all ran over and tackled her. 

Our first day together I let Carly and Ellie stay home from school and we took Steph to Mystic to see the drawbridge, get apple cider donuts at Clyde's, and visit Mistick Village.

The next day we took her to Watch Hill after school (and drove by Taylor Swift's house).

Saturday was apple picking with our Branch

Sister Avery and Sister Blair

Then we headed over to Harkness State Park (most of the pictures below were taken at Harkness and none of them include Steph. :( Steph and I did take pictures together, but they are mostly on her iPhone.)

 There were beautiful gardens and two old mansions

 and the park has a beach!

This is Aubree's camera smile:

and her real smile (and yes, this picture makes me want to eat her up!):

 We found this cool barn door at the park. I wish we would have been more coordinated in our outfits and actually done our hair.

Carly took this awesome picture of one of the beautiful views at Harkness State Park.

Aubree was always giving Baby Kate kisses and kept reminding Stephanie of how big her belly was. (Baby Kate is due in December)

 It was fun to bring Stephanie to our branch meeting house on Sunday.
On Tuesday I got my first migraine (because of my neck being out) - complete with blurred vision and vomiting. So, that day was pretty much spoiled since I was stuck in bed most of the day. But thankfully Steph took over and played with Aubree, cleaned my house, and picked Carly and Ellie up from school. What a sweet sister!

The last two days of Stephanie's visit, she and I went to Newport, RI. We did a Servants Life Tour at one of the Newport mansions (we wish we would have done just one of the regular house tours, but oh well), went out to eat, and rented two redbox movies. The next morning we got massages and walked around East Greewich, then off to the airport.

We sure loved having Stephanie here with us!