Times are Good

Sisters:

 Talia is crawling all over now. She usually likes to crawl to where I am.

 I was so glad we got this picture on Thanksgiving day. Brothers with their babies. As a side note we went to Warren and Amy's house for dinner. Caleb and Brynn love their house because they have tons of awesome toys. Then we went to Charlie and Diane's house for dessert. One of the teenage girls there painted Brynn's fingernails. We had fun talking to extended family and friends who joined us.

 We had our first snowfall and it was barely enough snow for a snowman but they did it! It's funny to think we even had snow because today it was 55 degrees. On December 6th! Crazy!

 Here's our baby in all her cuteness:

Stories:

• When we asked the kids what we should get Gram and Pop for Christmas Caleb said, "We should get them a vacuum because I've never seen a vacuum at their house before." Brynn said we should get Kami (the cat) a ball to play with.
• Kids were whining about only watching a "short" show, so Derrick said, "I'm short!" Brynn retorted, "No, you're fat." I should add she corrected herself saying he was tall.
• We have 4 family rules: Do it the first time, pick up toys, tell Mom where you're going and be happy. Caleb told me, "I want to keep the commandments but not our rules." 
• Derrick mentioned a hospital and Brynn said, "I don't like hospitals. They poke you in the bum and it really hurts." (from when she was sick a few weeks ago. 
• Caleb has been into Ninjago books (Lego Ninjas). The other day he said, "Are China men the best fighters?" He really wanted a sincere answer but we just told him they are one of the best.
• We were waiting at a meter to get onto the freeway. Caleb said, "I hate meteors."
• Brynn has to memorize letters for preschool. I wrote them on paper and taped them up around the house. On the W paper Caleb wrote the symbol above the W. He then asked Derrick, "What does that mean?" We couldn't believe he had seen the Volks Wagon symbol and remembered it without knowing what it meant.

Halloween Time

We were The Simpson's for Halloween. How could we not be? We decided to do that about 2 days before the ward Halloween party. So, I went to Walmart and bought  the stuff for the costumes. Caleb's stuff I found in the boy section. My outfit and Brynn's are made of Men's active shirts. They were on clearance for $3 each. I had to be creative to make the 2 shirts I bought for my outfit work but it turned out pretty well.

 The funny thing is that for preschool Brynn was going to wear her Rapunzel costume from last year but when we put it on she started crying to take it off because it was too itchy. I told her she could wear her Lisa costume. She was more than happy to do that because she loved the beads and the fabric was super soft. Now, before I go further, we let the kids watch the most kid friendly episode of The Simpson's so they knew who they were dressing up as. When we pulled up to preschool I got Brynn out and explained to Ms. Nicole why Brynn was wearing a Lisa costume (group costume). Brynn told her that she watched that show. Well, it was true but it just sounded wrong. I guess it ended up being a funny story.

Caleb had fun being Bart and going along with all my picture poses:

 Caleb was trying to be silly here but they both have such great smiles:

 We can't forget little Maggie. For Talia's costume we just used an old shirt of Derrick's.

 We can't forget pictures of the pumpkins we made:

  I thought this picture was funny because I feel like Brynn's face matches the pumpkin. Haha...

 At Caleb's school they had a Halloween parade and then a party after where they played games, made crafts and ate cupcakes. I volunteered. It was fun to see and help all the kids.

Fall Time

 Cornbelly's is here again! The kids have been asking for it all year.

Brynn's preschool had a field trip to a family farm. It was a small version of Cornbelly's. Since Brynn is in afternoon preschool Caleb went too. The cutest thing was that Brynn would say hi to a few of her classmates, calling them by name. This is a quality I don't have and I love that she got it. I hope she keeps up her friendliness because I know it will help her in the future.

 Here's her most of her class and Caleb:

  And what would be a blog post without a picture of the cute baby?

I was getting Talia in this video but I'm glad I got Brynn. Here's one funny thing about her. She like to pretend to tie shoes but in the process she really knots them up and makes it hard for us to get them undone.
Talia laughed so hard at this at first but I didn't think to film it until she was almost over it. Oh, and you can see her in her  crawling position. She has actually made a little crawl not too long ago.
Brynn was trying to tell me about something her and Caleb did in the tent when they went camping a few weekends ago. It was funny hearing her explain it.
Stories:

• Brynn started singing a song. I started singing it and she told me to stop. I kept singing. She was coloring a picture at the time. Without looking up, and remaining calm, she said, "Mom, stop singing or I'm going to get really mad."
• I have no idea where it comes from but Brynn is always saying, "I look like a beach dancer." She usually says it after she looks at herself in the mirror.
• While riding her bike, a neighbor told Brynn she was doing a good job. Brynn said, "I know. I'm almost a big kid."
• We went in to get our flu shots/sprays. Under 3 years they have to give a shot, 3 and older you can get the mist in your nose. When we were waiting in the exam room, while the assistant was preparing the shots, I told the kids that they could get the spray but Talia had to get a shot. Caleb kneeled on the ground right then and said a prayer asking for Talia to not hurt or cry when she got her shot. Brynn followed Caleb's example and did the exact same thing. And you know what? Talia cried when she got her shot but calmed down the second I picked her up. I think their prayers were answered.
• Brynn prayed, "I'm thankful Caleb and I both have B's in our names."
• On field trip days the kids wear their red preschool shirts. Brynn put it on and started crying telling me, "it's not pretty."
• The kids are so used to hearing unique names that when Brynn heard the name "Ashley" for the first time she said, "Ashley. That's a pretty name." Also, whenever she plays with dolls, her favorite name to use is Jessica. There's definitely something to those names that made them super popular.

Around Here

Here's Talia eating solids for the first time. She loves it!

Derrick's family has this thing where they try to keep one eye closed, one eye open. When I looked at a picture I took of Talia, it was so funny to me that she had that face.

 And, the normal picture:

 We took a new picture of Caleb shooting with his bow because he was Star of the Week in his kindergarten class and they had to bring in a few pictures. The last one we took he looked so little. It's amazing how good he's gotten at aiming.

Talia and Daddy:

The kids came running in the house telling me to come look. We saw a full, vivid rainbow. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Stories:

• Brynn came up to me and asked me to take out her pony tail. I said, "Sure, why?" She said, "Because I want to sing Let It Go." In case you don't know, Elsa takes out her hair in that song.
• I made Brynn a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, she took one bite then said, "You're an excellent cook Mom." She also told me at dinner that I made her excellent rice with butter and salt. Why thank you, maybe I'll start a restaurant.
• Brynn is always having her Cinderella, Belle and Rapunzel dolls fight for her Flynn Ryder. Today she took her Belle and told the Cinderella I was playing with, "I'm mad that you married Flynn Rider." I told 'Belle', "You should marry Christoph, he's a nice guy." Brynn says, "No! He's not handsome." For the first time today I tried to explain that we don't just like people for what they look like but also how they act. I said that Christoph was funny and kind. Brynn was nodding her head like she understood. So when I mentioned again about Christoph, she gave me the same "not handsome" response.

Random

Caleb told me to come to him. I came over and he said, "Look I spelled elementary school." I took the picture then he looked at it and replaced the "T" with a "CH". I told him he did a good job. He still thinks he spelled it right, and I'll just let him keep thinking that.

Our community was replacing some grass and they dug up the old dirt first leaving big mounds of dirt. Every kid in the neighborhood played there at one time or another. Everyone was commenting they should just keep the dirt, forget the grass :)

First time Talia was on a swing...yeah, she loved it.

Stories:

• Caleb told us a dream he had. He said him and Boden climbed a tree. At the top there were popsicles.Some of the popsicles had bugs on them but they found ones without bugs to eat. I thought that was such an adorable dream.
• Brynn got hurt on her finger. I kissed her finger and she said, "No. On the elbow." Apparently the joint on your finger is the elbow of your finger :)
• On Labor Day we went to Paul and Lynne's house for a BBQ dinner. We were sitting outside on the grass. At one point Caleb asked if a cup of water was Brynn's. I told him yes and that I thought she was done so he could have it. From here it happened fast and I didn't catch it all: He walked over near Kent. Grandma gave him a look. Caleb dumped the water on the grass. Next thing I heard Grandma was asking Caleb if he was going to dump that on Kent. When I heard him say yes I asked him why he was planning on doing that. His response, "For the ice bucket challenge." Oh man, I laughed out loud, yes, LOL. For future generations, here's a wiki page on what the ice bucket challenge is. It's a little ironic that the first time he saw someone do the ice bucket challenge he said, "I would never do that."
• Caleb saw me cutting with scissors and told me, "You're really good at cutting."

School

Caleb is loving The Ranches Academy, a charter school in Eagle Mountain. he seems to have fun during every part of class. He tells me how he likes the computer lab, library, recess and anything else he does. The pictures above are from the first day of school. I think boys look so cute in these school uniforms.
With school we've found out more about Caleb's personality. Caleb is like Derrick and I, almost to an extreme: fear of getting into trouble (especially while in our youth). Here are a few things Caleb has told me that really show that:

• "I wanted to get a drink at recess so I raised my hand but they never called on me." That one made me a little sad. I explained that you can get a drink without asking.
• "Some kids got a yellow card but mine stayed green."
• "The teacher asked us to do something and I did it but the other kids didn't."
• Almost in tears, "The PE teacher said we had to have running shoes." I don't know exactly what happened but I think the teacher said that generally, not to Caleb specifically. Caleb thought his shoes weren't good enough.

Park City

We had a family reunion at a house in Park City. It had a pool and hot tub, which both were our favorite activities. Caleb grew leaps and bounds when it came to swimming. He was making up all kinds of tricks and fun things to do in the water. I think having goggles helped a ton.

Talia was adorable in her swim suit:

We had some fun with our waterproof camera

 Brynn did great with floaties

We used our panoramic setting to make this cool pic:

Lynne, Paul, Lisa and Kent were so nice to help the rest of us with our kids.

We also went to the Olympic Park. The kids went on the alpine slide and Derrick and I went on the zip line.

 We went on a few walks. On one of them we saw this so we took a picture of the boy cousins:

And what would be a family reunion without some family pictures. Lynne made the shirts with order we came into the Isaacson family.

Stories:

• We were explaining to Caleb that he was Kent's nephew. He asked, "What's an ephew?" Say it out loud if you don't get it :)
• On Sunday we told Caleb we couldn't swim in the pool to keep the Sabbath day holy. He told Grandpa, "It's going to be really hard to not swim on Sunday because swimming is really fun."
• Caleb wanted to sleep in the room with Grandma, Grandpa, Kent and Lisa. He didn't sleep well that night. The next day he wanted to sleep in the room with Brynn again. I asked if he was glad to be back in his little bed. He said, "Yeah, I did not sleep at all last night because they were snoring." (Funny side note is that Jenna stayed with us for a 2 nights and slept in the room with Caleb. He asked her if she snored. I guess he never wants to have a night like that again).