Merry Christmas!!!!

Life has been pretty hectic the past few weeks so I'm a little late posting our Christmas stuff.  I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas.  Ours was great to be able to spend it in our own home!!!  Granted, tehre werre still boxes everywhere, but we were moved in =)

Brenna's school did a Christmas program and she got to sing some songs.  Here she is sitting by her best friend, Ellie.  These 2 girls strike the same pose for every picture I ever take of them.   

Since my dad wasn't going to be in town for Christas, we celebrated with him the week before.  The kdis loved opeing their presents from Papa. 

Brenna loves to make jewelry so she got her own bead set.

The thing she was most excited for is her Ninetedo DS.  She has been wanting one for forever so of course she got spoiled by Papa and he got her one, along with a baby game and a Dora game

Ian loved his Cars fold out chair.  He wouldn't let anyone else come near it. 

He even took a nap after the festivities were done. =) 

"Creep Crawlies!!"  My dad got Ian a remote control spider that even climbs on walls and the ceiling. (I know you'll love this, Nana)

He loves this thing!! 

 Now on to our Christmas =)

Sasha even had some fun with presents.  We didn't get her any, just let her play with the paper =)

Ian loved his little cars.  That is his favorite thing, to push cars around the floor and make them go "VROOM!"

He also got a Buzz Lightyear nerf/laser gun.  He had fun shooting mommy with it =)

Brenna got a game for her didj.  I'm kind of miffed with the leapfrog company.  They came out with this new game system, the Leapfrog Didj, and then less than a year after they released it, the quite producing it and you can't find games for it.  It's a good thing when I got the game system it was for 1/3 the original price.  It's a good system that helps kids learn math and spelling while playing games.  They should have kept it up.  Oh well, that's what ebay is for huh?

Ian is always trying to help daddy "fix" stuff so he got his own tools.  Now whenever we get stuff out to hang things or fix things, he runs to get his tools to help.  Love it!

Brenna got a princess lounge chair.  She loves it!  

She also got this cute bed tent, but not even 5 minutes after we put it up, the pockets where the poles go ripped so we took it back.  Boo!!!

Jason got his Back to the Future blue-rays.  He's been wanting these movies for a while.  

All the fun tuckered our poor puppy out.

Ian trying to "fix" things.

He also got a guitar to jam out with.  Yet another thing to make lots of noise =)

We had a pretty fun Christmas.  I was glad that Santa found us at our new house.  We are all moved into our place.  Now we're jsut doing hte finishing touches.  We have our closet in our room and a doorway that needs to be finished still and then we'll be done!  As soon as everything is finished I will post pictures of our new diggs.

Our family is expanding and lives are changing!

Life is great right now!  I am so excited for the next few weeks.  We closed on a house yesterday and get the keys today.  We are doing some work on it before we move in.  We are combing 2 of the bedrooms for a big master bedroom and building a walk-in closet.  We should be moving in by the end of next week, as soon as we get all the painting done.  I will post pics of the new house as soon as I get the keys =)  

Along with a new house we have a new family member!  Her name is Sasha.  She is the cutest little thing!  Ever since we had to get rid of our dog, Harley, we have really wanted a dog.  The apartments we are living in don't allow dogs, so that's why we had to give Harley away.  He was such a sweet dog but I'm glad he has a nice family that took him.  Well, now that we are moving into our own house we got a new dog.  She is a husky mix.  She has one blue eye and one dark eye.  She is such a little cuddle bug, especially loves cuddling at your neck.  She is only 5 weeks old right now.  Her mom was hit by a car and killed when she was only a week old

 She is already saying who's the boss =)  Her favorite chew toys are ears and noses.

 This was only hours after we had her.  Jason took a nap with her. It was so cute.  He is definatley in love with this little puppy.  When he gets home he picks her up and cuddle sher before even giving me a kiss or a hi.

 Ian is still trying to figure out what to do with a puppy.  He loves dogs, but the dogs he's been around have all been big dogs like german shepherds.  He's not used to puppy nibles yet so when she tries to nibble he stands up and says "done!"  He sure loves her though.  

 I have a hard time keeping Brenna from holding her all the time.  I have a feeling that these tow are going to be best friends and Sasha will end up sleeping with Brenna a lot =)

 Ian loves to cuddle her, as long as she doesn't try to climb on him or nibble his nose.

She is such a cutie!  Her personality is starting to come out a little and I have a feeling she's going to be a spunky little thing!  I can't wait until we move in and she can play outside with the kids and we won't have to worry about keeping her quiet.  Right now, we're keeping her in the apartment even though we're not supposed to have a dog.  What's the worst they can do?  Kick us out?  

Picture time!!

I got the kid's pictures taken the other day.  For the most part they turned out cute.  I can't complain since I only had to pay $4.  Last year when we went to get pictures we had to wait over a hour and then reschedule so I complained and they sent me a voucher for 6 free sheets, plus when I went in I had a coupon for a free 8x10 and $3.99 sheets so I only bought one sheet.  Not too bad.  But our photographer was a bit of a disappointment.  She was doing good at coming up with some cute poses, but when the kids were standing she wouldn't have her camera ready.  Wouldn't you think that if you are taking pictures of kids you should let the parents make them smile and be ready to fire away with shots, hoping to catch some good ones?  If she would have had her camera ready we would have got some awesome ones.  Oh well, these turned out cute.  Don't mind the quality, I don't have a scanner so I took a picture with my camera and then loaded them on.  There is nothing on their copyright statement about taking a picture of the picture =)

 Ian was getting antsy by the time we were taking pictures of them together so we weren't able to get very many shots, but I guess these work.

 I don't think Brenna knows how to take a bad picture.  Every single one of her was so cute!!!

 We got this one while he was squealing from throwing a football.

I love my cute munchkins!!!!  It's a good thing they're so cute.  They are growing up way too fast!!!!

Could you resist if the devil were this cute?

 How many souls do you think these cuties could get?  i know or Halloween you're supposed to dress as something you want to be or whatnot, but I decided this year to let out true natures come out.

I never get a picture of Jason smiling! Okay, so he's cheesing it, but I'll take what I can get.  Ian kept wanting to run and play in the grass so Jason had to hold him back.  Two out of 3 smiling isn't bad.

Love the grumpy face.  Totally suites him in his costume/ =)

Me and my favorite girl!

 Me and my favorite guy!

Here's my cute girl strutting her stuff in her Halloween parade at school.

Here is Brena with a bunch of her friends at her kindergarten party.

 Of course Ian had to be a helper at the party.  He  whole time and was a stinker the whole time and kept trying to get into everything.

 Love this picture of the 2 best men (boys) in my life.  

We went to a carnival and they were doing a cakewalk and Ian wanted to "dance."  so cute!!  He was entertaining everyone with his mad dancing skills, but sadly I don't think he'll ever make it on "So You Think You Can Dance."

Here is Brenna doing her cake walk.  She won a strawberry zinger.  yum!

 The true nature of us =)  I guess Jason has his hands full....but he has a devilish nature of his ow so I think he can deal with it.

I don't know what it was but the kids seemed to be embracing their costumes a little too much this week and were being little devils.  It was either the rainy weather or the costumes.  Hopefully now they'll be back to normal.  We had a fun Halloween this year.  I kept the kids busy this week with all sorts of Halloween stuff.  We went to a w trunk-or-treats, but 2 of them were lame because everyone brought their kids but nobody brought any candy to share.  I at least brought a few bags, they ran out quick, because of all the kids, but I at least contributed something.  One thing that irks me is when people just bring their kids without dressing up.  I'm not saying go and buy a costume, but at least do something. Wrap them in tinfoil and call them a leftover, let them dress up in your clothes and they can pretend to be mom or dad, how hard is that, but at least do something.  I love Halloween, but it seems to me that people are getting lamer.  It used to be about what kinds of costumes you could come up with, how much fun you could have, and just pretending to be someone else or a day. Now it's and excuse for girls to dress like a $2 hooker and get away with it and for kids to mooch of everyone they can.  I love dressing my kids up and spending time having fun with them, but I'm not sure how much longer Halloween will be a fun holiday to celebrate.  But at least we had fun =)

Paintin' punkins'

One of my favorite things about Halloween is the pumpkins!  Brenna picked out a pumpkin when we were at Black Island Farms and the i bought a bunch of little mini pumpkins to paint.

 Ian wasn't originally going to paint, but he grabbed a pumpkin and started painting. 

Look at him concentrating so hard.

Brenna was concentrating pretty hard to decorate her masterpiece.  Brenna said her pumpkin was a girl vampire.  Such an active imagination.

Good think that paint is washable!  I love the look on his face like "uh-oh, I'm caught!"

A few nights later my niece and nephew came over ad we carved some pumpkins.  Of course Ian had to stick  his hand in and feel the ooey-gooey stuff =)

These kids are so much fun!  I love having them around.  They are so awesome with Brenna and Ian.   They always help me out.  I'm so glad that they live close to us now!