Pinewood Derby

We were able to attend Eric's very first Pinewood Derby tonight. We were thrown into this. Our first Sunday back in Volcano Cliffs Traci comes up and says "Pinewood Derby, three weeks until weigh in." Uhm... okay. By the time we go the car we only had two weeks to prepare it. Not that I had anything to do with this process, Brandon did it all (with a little help from Eric). He did a very good job and Eric came in 2nd on his heat. I know that he was disapointed not to win, but he had fun. He and Brandon were talking about next year already.

Here is Eric with his car. He had a hard time deciding on the color. I think that he was really going for a rainbow colored car, but it got hard to paint. There is blue on the car, but it was primarily black and gold, in honor of the no-longer playing Steelers.

Eric received an award for having the best decals.

progressing forward

Well, we are almost there. Katie crawled "two-steps" yesterday. I coudn't believe it, I mean, finally! And while my house is in no way ready for her to move about it freely, I love crawling babies. They are fun and so happy! They find the most mundane things interesting. Not that there is anything in my house that would be catagorized in the previous statement.

Okay, so what does that mean for my housecleaning? Well, I think that I will have to get better at it! I would hate to have her to get a goat head on her hands or knees. I think that I will become better friends with my broom and vacuum. Now when will I have time for that?

Bragging rights

What good would this blog be if I could not take the opportunity to brag a little about my kids? We all love to brag on our kids, right? Well, I need to share the wonderful report card we received for Eric this week. He had all check +'s and +'s in his report card, the top grades available in the grading system that the school uses. He is at the top of the class in reading and has mastered almost of the skills taught in the language art portion of the report card. He did fabulous in all the other areas as well. Brandon and I are so proud of him! Thanks to you all who put up with this proud Mom's bragging moment. Love you all!

6 more to go

In the midst of the move and Christmas, Katie turned 6 months old! I can hardly believe how the time has gone. She is getting so big, she weighs 15 lbs 8 oz.

As you can see by these pictures (which were actually taken the day she turned 6 months) she can sit up. She really likes this because it gets her even less tummy time which she hates! And so, as you can probably guess, she is NOT crawling. I am okay with this as I don't think that I can handle that right now. Our house is NOT child proof, well for a baby/toddler.

Can you believe it!? This child, who hates her tummy times LOVES to sleep on her tummy. I will admit it make me a little nervous, but what can you do when they turn themselves over? Just turn up the monitor and never sleep!

Katie is a fun little monkey. Grabs everything in sight and never sits still, as you can see by the poor quality of pictures. Oh, but what we have, the boys, Brandon, Katie and I, lots of love!

Very behind

Well, I am finally at a point where I can post Christmas pictures. This year we went up to a cabin in the Jemez with the entire Piñon family. This was a great relief to Brandon and I who were very stressed out over the move and work. By going up there were actually able to enjoy the holiday. Here are the kids on Christmas Eve in matching pj's. A tradition from Aunt Marissa's family. Aren't they cute!

All of the kids, except Katie, "slept" in the same room. I think that you know what I mean.

After Santa came the living area was much smaller. What good boys and girls they were this year! One thing was missing, Santa brought my boys bikes and left them at our new house.

Eric exploring his stocking. His favorite gifts were his bike and his books.

Josh and his favorite gift, his Optimus Prime Voice changing helmut.

Katie with her Christmas hair and Grandma

We had a lot of fun. The kids also played in the snow while we were there. It was a great holiday!

Sold

We have been wanting to sell our house for for a while now. It has become to small... 5 people and a dog in 1250 sq ft. But, we have a lot of work to do to make it "sell-able." We were aiming to put it on the market in the spring. In an odd series of events our house has just sold! We are amazed, he took it as is! So we are able to walk away from it. We are very excited. So at this busy holiday season we are going to add one more thing. We are going to be moving on the 21st. We are unsure of where, as we don't have time to find another house to buy, but we are excited to have something bigger. I will update again with where we end up.

Santa

My kids believe in Santa, and hopefully will for sometime to come. Yet they do not like to sit on his lap and ask him for something. This year Santa came to the ward Christmas party and Eric and Josh ignored him. They KNOW that he knows what they want without verbal communication. It makes me sad that they never participate in this Christmas tradition. On the plus side, Katie is too little to know better and was perfectly happy to sit on Santa's lap. Such a cutie!