A Christmas Blog

Yes, I know it's not yet Thanksgiving (tomorrow), and I know it's not yet December (next week), but I'm really struggling in the christmas spirit department. Not that I don't have any, but that I have too much too soon! I'm trying to hold off on decorating my house before Dec 1, although I do have a "let it snow" rug on the floor infront of my kitchen sink. But so far that's it. So this is the next best thing to house decorating...blog decorating! I picked out my christmas playlist songs and got a christmas background. ahhh...my christmas outlet. And here i thought I was going to explode waiting for December to get here.

got my camera program to work!

So cute playing with her baby.

"Mom, I'm all ready to go shopping!"

Grilling with Dad outside. Brrr!!

Yummy beater... "mmmm".

Bet you didn't know Courtney had a brown belt, too, did ya?

Little Helper

Alright, now I feel a little guilty for posting a gross story about Courtney, so I'll post a nice one to balance it out.
Courtney is always the cutest little helper. Whenever I'm vaccuming, she patiently waits. As soon as I turn it off, she runs to the outlet and unplugs the cord. She then runs back to me (you really should see her run, it's adorable!) and tries to attach it to the vaccuum as i'm winding up the cord. And today during our sunbeams class, I had the kids make turkeys. Courtney was right there afterwards putting all the crayons back in the bucket. She'd run to the table, grab a fist full of crayons, and run back to Jeremy to put the crayons in the bucket. She was a better helper than my sunbeams were! She's always making messes, but is always willing to help clean up. Such a good little helper. It's also pretty cute how she waves at everyone during sacrament meeting. She stand up and turn around and wave at everyone behind us, then she's lean over Jeremy and wave at everyone to the side of us, then stand on my lap and wave at everyone on the stand... continuously, all through church. Very cute ; )
... Now brace yourself for the poo story...not so cute.

Late to Church

I know it's been a while since I last posted, but I've been having some problems getting pictures on. So here's a picture-less post update. But I'm sure you'll all be glad there's not a picture to go along with this story.
This morning before church I was preparing a crockpot roast in the kitchen while Courtney was playing in the dining room. She is always pulling things out of my purse and stringing them all over the house, and I usually have a few diapers in there. So I look out over the countertop to check on her and she's waving a diaper around. I think, "how cute, she's keeping herself entertained with a diaper from my purse" and I continue slicing potatoes. A few minutes later she's going, "ah ah ah ah eww...mom Mom MOM MOM!" and here she comes running, holding this diaper up to me. I take the diaper from her, and lo and behold, it is chuck filled full of poo. So now I'm thinking, "that's disgusting! where did she get this from?!" I figured she had pulled it out of a garbage can. She now has poo on her legs and feet, so we run upstairs (with her held as far away from me as possible) and I'm scrubbing her down in the sink (since she is currently terrified of the bathtub)...when I notice... she's not wearing a diaper. So she pooed...took off her dirty diaper, and brought it to me. How thoughful, right? So Jeremy hears me saying "Ew Ew Ew Ew Ew Courtney, nooooo, Ew" as I'm trying to hose the girl down, and he comes running. She had it all up the inside of her nightgown. It took two of us several minutes to clean her up, and oh yeah, it stunk. Needless to say we were a bit late for church this morning.

So proud of my hubby!

Last night Jeremy and I had our shotokan belt test. Mine is the white belt (obviously) but those yellow tips represent almost 7 months of hard core karate training. i worked my butt off for those tips, and i'm way proud of them, so i'm posting them! tests are every 4 months, but i started a couple months before the last test so i wasn't able to test then. Last night I actually tested for the yellow belt and passed, but haven't been in there for a full 8 months, so i was only able to receive the tips. Our Sensei said he would test me early for the yellow belt since i'm already on that level. So hopefully here pretty soon, I'll be sporting a nice yellow belt! And Jeremy, holy cow, you guys have to see him to actually believe how amazing he is! He got his brown belt last night. In 4 months he'll get to take off a stripe, then 6 months later take off the second stripe, and a year after that, he'll take off the third stripe and receive his black belt. I am very very proud and amazed at Jeremy, he is super impressive and sooo amazing to watch. My jaw just drops to see the stuff he can do. We'll be starting Courtney in shotokan when she is about 5 years old. We'll both be black belts by then and able to teach others. As our sensei says, "A family that kicks together, sticks together".

What else...another post about Courtney

After shopping with Melina, Mom, and Katy this morning, Jeremy took Courtney and I out to lunch. She is always so happy and such a good eater whenever we go out. She usually ends up eating a good chunk of my lunch as well as Jeremy's.

This is the cutest picture ever. Whenever Courtney is upset, this is how she cries. One hand over the mouth as if to say, "Mom, how could you TREAT me this way?" In this case, it was because i set her down so I could take a picture of her in her new peacoat jacket. It was suppose to be for Christmas, but honestly...it was just too cute to keep bagged up til then!

Happy Halloween!

For Halloween I decided to expose Courtney for the little devil she truly is. That sweet little face can be very deceiving.

Here's Jazzy. She was a very cute Princess Pirate.

And Brigham was Spider Man. Courtney didn't know quite what to think of that.

Melina and I took the kids trick-or-treating at Shane's office. Courtney was excited to get her ice cream bar and candy.

Then we met up with Mom at my house and Katy and Jacob at the mall where we trick-or-treated the stores. It was so cute, Courtney would get so excited when she saw the people standing outside the stores handing out candy, she would go "oooh ooh ooh!!" and try to lean forward to get to them quicker. Then she'd dig through the bucket to find that perfect piece of candy and put it in her spider bucket. Either that, or she'd take a big fistful getting as much as she could.

Here's the little devil taking a rest.

After the mall when Jeremy got home from work we went to his mom's house to trick-or-trick. I love this picture, how she's just resting her chin in her hand. So cute!

Our Halloweeny family pic.

Dawn was wearing this necklace that lights up and flashes...Courtney saw it, decided she wanted it, and 2 seconds later it was around her neck. Told you she was a little devil.

After some time at grandma's, we drove out to Menan to spend some time with my side. Poor Courtney was so tired, she had fallen asleep by the time we got there.

Once we were there and got some pizza in her belly, she was up and ready to go. We watched "The Incredible Hulk", and Courtney found the perfect size chair just for her.

All in all, minus washing melted chocolate off my messy baby every 1/2 hour or so, it was a pretty good Halloween!