Where has the year gone? I can't believe there is just one month and a week left! So, what have we been up to these past two weeks? Well, our little ballerina finished off her dance class. We watched her recital a week ago. We were so proud of her! We wondered if she would get nervous dancing in front of the 50-70 people there, but she did great! One of the songs they danced to was "Just a Spoonful of Sugar". She loved the song and loved it even more when we watched Mary Poppins. They also did a little hip-hop dance. You don't have to watch all of the videos, but they are on there mostly for you doting grandparents :).

Elia was so happy dancing! It was fun to see her do something she loves.

The whole group...

Elia is second from the right in the following picture...Speaking of Elia, her personality has totally been changing this past month. She is so enjoyable to be around. She is much more self-directed, is so helpful, and more creative. She still has her moments, of course, but it seems she has more confidence. It's really been fun to see her create actual pictures instead of just smooshes of colors on a piece of paper. She learned how to draw a star last week at church. I stepped her through it and after a few tries was covering her paper with stars.

In the home improvement area, we painted our kitchen... It's only been a year since we first wanted to do it, but couldn't because we had less time after closing and moving in. It was fun. We painted it this yellowy color called "charismatic". (I liked the name too).

Before...

After... It is hard to get the color right with a camera, but I love how cheery the kitchen feels now.
In other news, I took the kids and a friend of Elia's (Amelia) to the Children's Museum. As always, we had a great time. Elia and Amelia get along great... their birthdays are just three days apart, so Amelia missed school this year too.
This is all too often how we find Ethan... "fight". This picture wasn't posed at all. He just is always raring to go!...
Finally, I went with some friends to the Thursday night midnight showing of the New Moon Twilight Saga movie. I'm not like a go-crazy, die-hard Twilight fan, but it was fun to get out and do something that I wouldn't normally do. It was a pretty good flick. I'm still tired from the endeavor, but I had a good time.

Today was stake conference. About 30 minutes from the end I look over and Ethan is sleeping. My friend took this picture. He's sitting on our book bag, but for the first 30 minutes he was actually standing up sleeping on the bench. It was so cute (though not so cute when we got home and wasn't tired enough for a regular nap).

I think that is about it. Eric and I are yet again turning over new leaves this week (in regards to going to bed early, waking up on time, exercising, etc. etc. etc.... (Good thing we have an endless supply of leaves to turn over)... so here's to our good ambitions!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

P.S. Kim T. - if you read this, I can't get in your blog anymore, so send me an e-mail! Please! I really appreciate all your comments and want to check up on what you guys are doing so thanks!

Halloween Pics and Kara turns 3 months!

Halloween and the week prior turned out to be a little crazy to say the least. Elia was sick the Sunday before Halloween, Eric and Ethan got sick on Tuesday and Wednesday and then I started to get sick Thursday night. We took Eric to the airport early Friday morning so he could go through the temple with his nephew who is going on a mission. I was so sick on Friday and then Ethan decided that one sickness wasn't enough and he spiked a 102 degree fever again on Friday. Luckily I got him in to the doctor (I called at 3:30 on Friday afternoon and they were able to see him as the last patient of the day) and my suspicions that he had pneumonia were confirmed. We got him on antibiotics. I had a 103 degree fever on Friday and felt pretty bad still on Saturday, but I still managed to get the kids to the trunk-or-treat. On Sunday I felt better and took the kids to sacrament meeting, though I felt Ethan shouldn't go to nursery still. We picked Eric up from the airport on Sunday afternoon and I told him that he owes me a sick day during Christmas break. I never got the sick treatment since he was gone the whole time... to his credit, he did take care of me Thursday night when I felt the worst even though he wasn't 100 percent better. Considering my condition, I'm lucky I took any pictures of the kids in their costumes, but here they are...Ethan was convinced that spider man wore boots, hence the rain boot addition. Elia went back and forth from a witch to tinkerbell and finally decided to be a ballerina (quite easy considering she had ballet that day). Not to be a party pooper, I pulled out these two M&M costumes for Kara and I.
On Tuesday before Halloween while the boys were sick in bed I took Elia to pick out a pumpkin.I never get very many pictures of her, so I thought I would include this one of my little five-year-old... not so little any more is she?

In other news, our "little red" is getting older too... I took these pictures on Friday for her "three-month" mark. Where does the time go? She is such a wonderful baby. I shouldn't put this out there because I know there are many moms who would be jealous, but she sleeps from 8 p.m. until 7 a.m. every night and is pretty content during the day. It is such a blessing to me that she isn't a needy baby... God must have known I needed to keep my sanity. She will smile at anyone who talks to her and especially loves when Elia does pat-a-cake. Sleepy baby... Kara and her little faux hawk... Well, this week we are getting back on track. We renewed our workout routine a week ago Monday and then Tuesday sickness infiltrated our house and, well, everything went to pot. Here's to a new week and new goals!