{She's giving more away!!}

Head on over to The Vintage Pearl for a chance to win a necklace!!

Church and churchery

*clothes laid out for church (it's our ward christmas program so it's an important day)--check

*up at 6AM to try and look nice without kids pulling on me--check

*smokey eyes--check and wink, wink. it looks pretty dang good

*hair curled (yep, took me an hour)--double check

*cinnamon rolls made for choir-check

**church cancelled--check

cookie decorating

this was a FUN afternoon!

Just when I was feeling bad...

1 elliptical mile: 6:41

O, Christmas Tree

the cub scouts were doing a fundraiser, so we opted to get a REAL tree for the first time in our married life! It's GORGEOUS!! and GINORMOUS! Notice that the ornaments only go down to a certain level. Lance laughed at that, but what choice to I have??

Winter

Marykaye, recognize the "pool"?? It's really a sand bucket that we filled with water to splash in over the summer. Somehow it didn't quite get emptied...OOPS!

Another Giveaway

April Showers Giveaway

April Showers Blog Design is having a HUGE giveaway and celebrating her OPEN waiting list that starts January 1st! April not only does blogs - but also invitations, announcements, calendars, cards, business cards, custom illustrations, and so much more! Just by pasting this paragraph on my blog I'm a winner! www.aprilshowersblogdesign.com

worth a try, right??

Fun Giveways

That's right!

It's finally time for our BIG Holiday Giveaway!

There will be a ton of new giveaways each day until Thursday.

Each giveaway will be open for one week from posting.

There are several ways to get entries, for a better chance, enter several times!

some new pics

these girls are so fun!!! And now we have them all dressing alike! Just kidding, we had to fight Gracie tooth and nail to get her to take off her clothes so we could take these pictures....and then we had to trick them all into looking out the window....and threaten them to stop playing with each other (read: beating the crap out of each other). We really do enjoy them, and we think they like each other, just a little too much sometimes.

The turkey we cooked! This is a Giada recipe that we love. You stuff the bird with oranges and lemons and junk, and then throw it in the oven...easiest bird I ever cooked! (Thanks Em) I really did nothing but enjoy it on thursday night, and friday lunch, and friday dinner, and friday breakfast come to think of it, and two times today. I guess I am a bit of a turkey freak.

And this is our other turkey, Sydney. She will be four months old in five days, but she has already rolled over a couple of times, loves to talk, hang out with mom, and sleep from 9 at night until 10 in the morning. We moved her into the crib last week, thus moving Kami to the big-girl bed (which is a story for another time), and she is still sleeping like a champ.

ok gotta go, have to write talk for church, get up early for choir, prepare a lesson, and get done some home teaching visits, when will sunday go back to relaxing and naps?

Need I say more?

missing wife

dear hallmark channel,

Can you please not play sappy love stories set in the west, modeled after little house on the prairie? I would like my wife back. . . .

Lance

Halloween 2009

Sydney the lobster. She was a little mad. But warm.

this is Kami, our own little Oregon duck. ( and Brittany)

quack, Quack QUack QUAck QUACk QUACK!

Abagayle and Gracie (tinkerbell). Why she does this face, I do not know, but she looks silly.

check out that homegrown ingenuity (well copied, but all homemade)

this guy kept giving candy as long as she stood there, so she kept standing there.

This is part of the crew that we were rolling with for trick-or-treating. You can see Kami and part of Gracie's wing. I had to unload the girls' bags twice, just so they could carry their pumpkins around around. They scored!

make it and love it

Is having a spectacular giveaway! this is where I got the tutorial on the tinkerbell costume. She's great!!

Halloween Preview

The dynamic duo: Super Girl and Tinkerbell

The girls got to wear their costumes to preschool. More to come after tomorrow, but I promised my mom I would post a pic of G's costume. Lance says I found a hidden talent. I sewed, yes, that is right. I, Emali Mollenhauer did sew an entire Halloween costume, and get this, WITHOUT a pattern! I followed a blog tutorial that showed me how to outline a swimsuit and make a pattern...kinda hard, but not at the same time. It took days to do, but I am pretty proud of my work. Now I'm just wondering, am I going to have to do this EVERY year now?

Too Early

This girl is proving to be more and more like her sisters. She gets little to no floor time, and yet before 3 months old is movin' and groovin'. They never cease to amaze me.

Date to Disney

Gracie and I had our first Mommy/Daughter (double) date and we had a BLAST. Thanks Heather and Abagayle for coming! I just may have enjoyed it just as much as she did, the only difference was I was squealing on the inside. I LOVE this girl!

Our Princesses (don't worry, there were very few girls NOT dressed up!)

A few of the Disney friends we saw: (for Heather)

I think they were a bit pooped afterwards, ya think?

Halloween Baking

witches' hats and fingers

thanks, Alexa for the help!

** by popular demand here are the recipes:

witches fingers (shortbread cookies) and mousse filled witches hats

First Field Trip

To the Pumpkin Patch. It was also her first time to ride a school bus, and man was she excited. I had to buy her a lunchbox so she could take a sack lunch. When did she grow up? I'm going to blink and it's going to be us following her school bus to sports tournaments and such.

Her class. It is taught by the local H.S.'s students. There are more H.S. students than preschoolers!

Did I mention Alexa is here visiting during her Fall Break?

The Fantastic Duo: Grace and Abagayle. We LOVE this girl!

Benefits of Lance taking the split: he's home TONS more. So not only do I get a dish washer and trash man, he gets to come with us on fun stuff like this.

This was the face I got when G thought she had to go back home with us. She was fine about 3 seconds later when I explained that she was going back on the bus, and had an hour of school left before she had to come home. (the "teacher" in the background was in a fit of laughter about the situation)

I think I'm going to like having a kid in school.

In case you missed it

Special thanks to the very talented: KC Photography for the pictures and Cousin, Erin for designing!

Seattle

This is called a vacation without a camera:

thanks for Lance's phone which at least records that we were there, although quite blurry!

Proof lance was actually on the vacation with us...

this is what you get for letting a 3 year-old take your picture with a phone

the cute 3 year-old photographer on the space needle

getting better look of the clouds

"rachel" the Pike place market mascot. We got yummy donuts, confesional cheesecake, fresh pressed milk cheese, and many other goodies at the market.

one of the donuts was bigger than G's head! It was called the Texas donut, duh.

Outside the hotel. we walked everywhere so we would have to pay more than our $30/day parking at the hotel. and No, i had no idea that's how much they charged until AFTER I booked the non-changeable, non-refundable hotel room.

Morning walk with Dad and the two girls. We stayed right on the water so they got some to see lots of boats up close, including a cruise ship.

G's Fav

Probably the highlight of the trip was a spontaneous stop to eat at a place we walked a mile in the rain to get to and ate there only because we didn't want to walk anymore. The waitress was AWESOME, helping us make decisions on what to order so we would all be satisfied but not spend a bundle.

these two pics show that they cover your table with paper and literally dump your order in the middle of the table and we all have mallets and cutting boards to delve into the crab with.

Clam Chowder, and 3 types of crab. Lance was in heaven. so much so that he said he would never eat at red lobster again! (YAHOO!--it made me sick once when I was pregnant)

Long walk down the pier.

Good times and glad to be home.