Our week started out fun. Aaron took Monday and Tuesday off. On Tuesday, I woke up before Arwen to make baby muffins for her birthday breakfast. We got her a little tiny fairy tea set for her gift and thought baby muffins would be fun. When she walked down the stairs when she got up, she gasped and said, "Oh, my tea set!!" She was so excited. She spent the morning pouring milk for us and her fairy friends. She also got a karaoke thing that shows her dancing on the TV while she can sing to the songs. She loves it!! We went in to Portland to the mall. At one of the department stores you can see Santa and they also have this really great little train the kids can ride for free. We didn't see Santa. But she did ride the train 6 or 7 times! It was so fun to watch!! We had a really great day!!
We have also had a really fun Christmas holiday. Aaron and I enjoyed sitting on the stage at church and singing in the ward choir, while a woman in the ward sat with the kids. It was so fun and the choir sounded pretty good I think. It was fun to watch the kids open their presents from everyone! Of course Noah's favorite thing of the day was the screw driver used to put batteries in new toys! Good old Noah!! Arwen has had so much fun playing with her kitchen set. She makes us dinner all the time now!! We had a yummy turkey dinner with some a young couple in our ward. It was lots of fun. Then we played a couple of games with them. Overall, we had a great day! Thanks to everyone for all our great presents!!

Arwenisms: After seeing Santa from the train, Arwen reported that he was a big, red, scary monster.

Noahisms: The little guys runs around screaming and yelling like a wild monkey all day. He has finally found an appetite lately too and eats more than his sister.

Love, NASA

Just thought this one should make it up as well.















Aaron

Hi! We had a really great time in CA for Thanksgivng! The kids had a blast playing with all of Josh's toys and of course with Josh too. The other day we were in the car with some friends and Arwen was telling her friend Jake all about Josh and how he was her friend. IT was pretty cute! She also had a great time playing with her old friend Evan. It was fun seeing M and B too! Thanks to everyone for such a great time!This weekend we went and got out Christmas tree. The kids think it's just great. Arwen has hung lots of Noah's toys up as ornaments. She has even hidden a care bear or two in there to take "naps." She's already broke at least 5 of my decorations too. Way to go Arwen. Every time I look at my Nativity, the sheep are in different spots. That girl!! Noah really likes to play with a little plastic snow globe that has an angel in it. He shakes and it and says, "Ba ba," for baby.
Yesterday we went to the Nature Park to try and take our family picture. I think 2 or 3 may have turned out from the hundreds we took!!
All is well here and we hope everyone has a great week!Arwenisms:
We have been going through each room and finding things we don't need or play with anymore to give to DI. When we were in Ar's room, she kept telling me not to give any of her bears away to the kids. I kept telling her that of course I wouldn't. Then she stops and says, "Mom, you can give me to the kids."
Arwen was bearing her testimony for FHE while standing on the piano bench. She fell off so I told her not to stand up there anymore. Then like 3 minutes later she took a flying leap to land on it right when Aaron was moving it. Instead of her body landing on it, the tip of her nose did. She tore it all up and had a purple ring around it. IT was soooo funny to see though despite the fact she got hurt.

Noahisms:
Noah climbs on top of the VCR and DVD player so he can turn the TV on and off. It drives Arwen crazy. I even caught her spanking him the other day because of it.
Poor baby somehow got knocked down yesterday and was laying on the ground screaming like he was dying (which he does a lot). When I got to him he was all boody. He bit all the way through his lip and now has a fat, purple lip and won't eat anything.

(Grandmas--your Christmas presents will be a while in coming--I've been waiting for a time when the kids are both presentable to get photos of them taken to finish the gifts. As soon as Noah's mouth is better, I'll get on that!!)

Love, NASA

Is it too late for Halloween pictures? I'm so lame that it took me till today to take pictures of the kids in their costumes. That and we finally carved our pumpkin last night!!Anyways, the kids had fun trick or treating! I hate having all this candy in the house. It makes Arwen a monster. She screams all day for candy. Life is normal around here. We've had fun doing some Christmas shopping lately.It has been so rainy and cold around here. It's so pretty too with all the changing leaves. Our grass is finally super green again and our yard looks great! Arwen keeps a cup out on the back porch and collects rain to feed our plants.Arwenisms:Noah was babbling in the car one day and Arwen said, "Mom, Noah is pretendering to talk. That's so cute!!"Noah was babbling again later and it sounded like he said "wet." Arwen said, "No, honey. It's not wet. It's not wet."Whenever Aaron is being silly Arwen shakes her head, sighs, and says, "Mom, what we going to do with him? I know, sell him to the circus. Don't worry Daddy, you'll love the circus!"Noahisms:He's a crawling rash lately becuase he's having a reaction to his MMR or chicken pox vaccine. It makes him look all zitty and gross!We had ravioli's for dinner last night and Noah ate his standard one bite and then took the rest of the greasy, garlicy pieces and rubbed them in his hair! I had just given him his bath too! Ahhhh!!

Love, NASA

We had a good enough--pretty much nothing out of the ordinary. We went in to Portland to play on Saturday which was really fun. We met lots of crazies on the Max--lightrail. We bought Noah a little finger puppet. (We had bought Arwen the same one when she was little, which she must have thrown somewhere when we were out so it got lost!) Anyways, when I showed it to Noah, he looked so pleased. He grabbed it and pulled it to his face and gave it a big hug. He just kept smiling and giggling at it. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen! (Of course when we gave it back to him yesterday, he could have cared less!!) We had Noah's big party yesterday. We opened his presents when we woke up. He liked a rock he found of Arwen's about the best--Arwen had a great time playing with his things. She keeps calling them HER toys. After church we had dinner then pulled out Noah's cake. We ! got him a 2 layered chocolate cake with custard filling and whipped cream frosting. He LOVED it. IT took him about 10 minutes to completely destroy it! (We had quite the messy bathtub after his bath!) It was a great day!



Arwenisms:
When we were done with our lunch at the mall, Arwen decided she was still hungry. So she walked up to the ice cream counter by herself and told them that she needed some ice cream. The lady behind the counter smiled and gave her a big scoop on a spoon.

When we were on the MAX Arwen pointed to an old man and said, "That's a scary guy!"

Whenever she gets in trouble she says, "But we're still friends!"

Noahisms:
He can finally crawl like a real baby--on his hands and knees!

He's just one giant tantrum nowadays!

He taught himself how to climb stairs last week. We had to invest in a gate after he fell 14 stairs and the only thing that saved his life was that he got his foot caught in the banister!

Love, NASA

We had a good week. Poor little girl came down with strep throat at the end of the week. She's doing fine now and amazingly none of the rest of us got it! It's been really chilly here and we've enjoyed a fire in our fireplace just about every morning. Noah likes to play right there at the fireplace. We went to choir practice yesterday at some peoples house who live out in the country. They have horse in their back pasture. Arwen was really excited about them and kept trying to give them leaves to eat. She really wanted to feed them and was sad when we had to leave.

Arwenisms:
We were at the library and as we came out she saw a man with really bad acne scars. She pointed to him and said, "Why that man got scarpies on his face?" I ignored her and kept walking hoping the guy didn't hear but she kept asking. Silly girl--anything yucky or that feels weird is a scarpy lately.
Arwen picked out some bright pink chapstick this week when we were getting her medicine at the store. All night she kept applying and reapplying her "lips." We'd be playing and she'd say, "Wait, I need more lips." We finally threw it away yesterday because we found to much "lips" on furniture.


Noahisms:
Noah can now do sign language for more. He does it all the time especially for candy, which he calls, "Can-can." He also said "sissy" this morning when he saw Arwen and he sometimes says "thank you."
His favorite place to be is on top of Arwens old pink glitter girl car. He plays with toys on it and drops them on purpose and says, "uh-oh" until I get them or he falls off trying to get them.
He's got lots of bruises on his head (a big one from just a while ago) because he likes to climb on furniture.

Have a great week!
Love, NASA

Hello!
We had a busy week. Just about every day someone asked me to watch their kids. Arwen loved it--she loves to play! I had book club on Tuesday. We chose the book, "The five people you meet in Heaven." It's pretty good. Friday night some friends came over and we played two new games called Ticket to Ride and Bohnanza. They were pretty fun. We've done okay at potty training Arwen. But lately she just pees in her underwear. So now she's in a diaper again. The big problem is now she hates being wet and demands a new diaper every time she pees. Ahhhhh!!!

Conference was fun, we listened on the internet. I look forward to downloading the mp3’s so I can listen on the way to work. I worked on some leaf boxes during conference as well as making a video for Arwen and Noah and I noticed how green and nice our grass was in some of the pictures. It’s started raining this weekend, hopefully our grass will come back. Sarah pinched a nerve in her back, I told Arwen and Noah to let her take it easy, we’ll see how that goes. Poor Sarah.

Arwenisms:
Arwen was singing into a cup one night at dinner. Aaron started to do it too. Arwen put her cup down and said, "Stop Dad. That's a poopy song."
She's made up a new word--at least she thinks it's a new word--Donkey. She says, "Oh Donkey Noah." and "You're a donkey." And she yells it when she's mad. I can't tell if it's a bad word or not--I think it's a very versatile word! This morning she was squeezing Noah's cheeks and she said, "Squeaky Donkey No's!"

Noahisms:
He points like crazy now. It's so cute!
He opens and closes his hand to wave at you now and says, "Hi." in his cute little Noah voice.
His new favorite word is "Uh Oh!" He says it all the time. The other day he threw his pancakes on the floor on purpose and yelled, "uh oh!" What a silly.
He has finally started to pull himself up on furniture.
He tries to stick toys in the VCR.
He threw one of Arwen's play coins down the heater vent today.
Yesterday we caught him trying to stick his fingers in the one socket that doesn't have one of those plastic protectors on it! He's pretty mischievious!!

Have a great week! Love, NASA

Hi! Let's see....Monday, for part of family home evening we got to go to Sweet Tomatoes for free (Thanks Scott!!!) Poor little Noah was sick and wouldn't touch anything but a little blueberry muffin. Tuesday I had enrichment. We did a service exchange. I ended up getting a homemade meal and I gave some hats (the kind you made for us at Christmas Marsha). Everyone loved them and came up to me afterwards amazed that I could knit, (ha ha!!!) and wanting some for their kids. Wednesday Aaron took Arwen to Scouts with him so I had sick little Noah to myself. The poor kid ran a fever of 104 all
week! Thursday I went to a pampered Chef Party (for 30 minutes cause I had sick little boy with me again). It was fun while I was there. I took Arwen to my Young Men’s meeting and she didn’t want to be there so we had to leave early. It was cute though. “Come on Dad let’s go play.” Then we took the kids to the movies because it was bring 3 cans and see a free movie night. I wanted Aaron to see Just Like Heaven (I'd already seen it with a friend and loved it!) but we couldn't cause it was a new movie. So we got our tickets for something else and still went to that movie. Noah was bad yet again, and I spent half the movie in the hall till he fell asleep and saw the end of the movie. Aaron really liked it! Friday, Aaron took the day off and we drove up to Seattle to see Joseph. While waiting to meet Joseph, we went to the Pike Fish Market. It was really fun! Arwen kept whining cause it was so stinky.

We got some strange mushrooms that’ll be fun to cook up, a lobster mushroom and some chanterelles. She got real excited when we stopped at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and she got to pick a treat. A guy working there wanted to give Arwen some caramel he was making, but it was too hot. Then we walked around the space needle area and found Joseph. We went to the top of the space needle and got to look at the city. It was so cool! Noah, who I think was finally over his cold and perfect all day started to scream. Then he started grinding his teeth sooooo loud. It was driving me crazy. Finally I stuck my finget in his mouth to make him stop and guess what I found--his first molar bleeding through. Poor kid! Next we went to the restaurant on top of the space needle. We had seats right by the window. The restaurant slowly spun in a circle while you ate so you eventually got to see the whole city. We were there during sunset. It was beautiful. Don't worry--Noah was still screaming and whining during all of this. WE took turns walking him while we waited for our food (It was a pretty fancy restaurant,
but luckily it was kind of loud, so we didn't bug too many people I think.) Finally Uncle Joseph took Noah and got him to sleep in about 30 seconds. We were then able to enjoy our meal in silence (well minus a screaming baby!) Aaron had some seafood mix thing, I had seared ahi tuna and Joseph got duck. They were all really yummy. Then we had cheese cake and lava cake for dessert. It was so fun! Thanks again Jospeh!!! We had a blast. Sarah mentioned the view was awesome, if you ever go make reservations for an hour or so before sunset like we did, it was clear day and awesome sunset. And the city lights were beautiful. Arwen sure had a great time playing with her uncle Jophes! Saturday we enjoyed another meal at sweet tomatoes (thanks Scott!) and I went to Women's conf. that night. It was great!

Arwenisms:
She loves lipstick and lipgloss. She always says, "Can I have more lips." Then yesterday I gave her a kiss and she gave me a sad look and said, "You kissed my lips off myself." So I had to give her more.
She still crawls into bed with us too much. Last night I said, "Don't kick me tonight Arwen." She said, "Mom, I'm not even touching yourself." She says yourself, myself and his-self all the time and never uses them correctly. It's so funny!

Noahisms:
HE can now sit up by himself and he's starting to pull himself up on toys and stuff.
He loves the bath!!! He freaks out when I try and get him undressed to get him in. He wiggles so much! Then when it’s time to get out, he screams like he's dying a painful death! We gave Noah his first haircut this week. We buzzed it. It's pretty cute, minus the few hairs that we missed! We have a silly little bald again!



Love, NASA

Hi! Aaron had a great birthday I think. Yes it was great, thanks Sarah! We went to Todai (sushi) and then to see a movie on the actual day. It was fun. Arwen enjoyed singing happy birthday all day practicing for when Aaron got home!Thursday morning we flew out real early to go and visit my parents. We had a great time and did lots of stuff in the short time we were there. We were able to go to the amusement park with my brother and sister while my parents took the kids to a big stake family fair at the church. Riding the rides was fun, but I think being kid free and not have to worry about them was better! Church was fun. I took Arwen to nursery and she wouldn't let me leave. It was fun to watch her in there. She volunteered to say the prayer and said a terrific prayer all by herself. They had a lesson on friends and Arwen told them all about Jesus. She knew all of the songs that they sung during song time. It's nice to know that she really is learning some good things! The nursery leaders sure were impressed (I was impressed with how good they did--our nursery is really lame in comparison!!). Monday we went down to Colorado Springs area and visited a park called Garden of the Gods. It's beautiful. It's full of all these huge red rock formations that would be awesome to rock climb on. Arwen and I hunted and found lots of agates. Noah had fun eating sand and rocks and Aaron took pictures. Next we went to this place called Cave of the Winds. It's this really cool cave found by a couple of kids out playing back in the day. Arwen kept holding me close and saying, "It's okay mom, don't be scared!" Later she found a little boy on the tour her age and went and held his hand so he wouldn't be scared. It was pretty cute. At one point in the cave they have this place where you throw something metal on the pile for good luck. Don't worry, Arwen swiped quite a few coins. What a klepto! IT was fun, but maybe not worth the 16 bucks each!

We were warned not to touch the walls or any formations when we wen't in. "... they feel just like rocks...and the risk isn't worth it, it's a fedral offence..." the guide blabbed. Well we'll all be doing 10-20, I think Arwen will get life if they ever check for fingerprints.

That night we went out to eat at a place called Casa Bonita. They have divers jump from up high into a little pool. It has a scary cave to walk through and ski ball and stuff. Arwen was so pleased when her grandma and grandpa bought her lots of pretty shiny rocks! Aaron and I got to go and see a movie with my brother and sister while my parents watched the kids again. Fun! The next day we drove to Boulder to see a water fall. Thanks to our teriffic luck, the path was closed so we didn't get to see it real close. Oh well, it was still fun!

We stopped down the road by the river and spent some time throwing rocks in the streem (licking the dirt off them in Noah's case). It was fun.

Over all we had lots of fun with my family! Arwen and Noah got lots of new toys and clothes and were so excited to be there!

I got home today to find that some people doing work in the street hit a water and gas line and have had to make calls to come and get my gas turned on and water cleaned out!

I was wondering why the water was cold that morning.

Arwenims:
"Mom your house is bad. Grandma's house is good." she didn't want to leave last night.
"Uncle Milo!!" For some reason Awen called my brother Scott Milo. We have no idea why, but it was so funny!
We asked her if she knew what we did on halloween. She got real quiet and then said, "Toilet." Who knows!
"Where did both my grandmas go?" She still gets confused about saying grandPA.

Noahisms:
Cute as ever!
We are now able to trick him and get him to take his formula when he is sleeping.
He can wave now. It's so cute!!

Love, NASA

Can't rememeber much, except duh, duh, dunnnn.... Noah's 10 month appt. It's not good--poor boy is apparantly not thriving, or so the Dr thinks. Man just cause his weight has dropped a little and he's no longer even on the percent chart anymore. His pin head is in the 5th and of course his height is in the 85th. I have two months to try and fatten him up. I'm not quite sure what will happen if I go in and he's still a runt. I'm to try and give him lots of formula (stupid me for giving away all my free stuff cause it sure is expensive) and make him eat. It's not that I haven't been feeding him, he just doesn't like to eat, or when he does, I find most of the food in his high chair. He's eating apples right now and he chews them and sucks the juice out and then spits out pieces of apple. His tray and bib are covered in spit up apples!! It was also funny at his appt cause he was in just his diaper and he kept scr! atching himself and the Dr got all concerned and said, "Oh no, does he have a rash? Does he always scratch like this." I told him no, cause he's usually not naked. And it looks like he has a rash cause he's been scratching. Oh well, hopefully he gets fatter so I can keep my baby!!

Arwenisms:
She had a telephone cord and wrapped it around her waist and said, "Look, I'm a princess." then she wrappend it on Noah's head and said, "Look, Noah's a sea horse."

Later I called her a princess and Noah a sea horse and she said "No, Noah's not a sea horse, he's a BAD sea horse!!"

I called ARwen a wild wilma and Noah a wild willy. Arwen said, "No, I'm a willy and Noah's a back pack." some imagination huh?

We were at wal mart today and she was standing up in the cart and the checker lady told her to sit down. She looked at me and said, "Why that grandma tell me no?" I told her cause she was being bad then she made a funny face and said in a funny voice, "Little Girl, sit down please." She was mimicing the checker lady. It was so funny!! What a bad girl with an attitude!

Noahisms:
He's just little!!

Love, NASA