Kid Christmas Photo Shoot

So this year I asked my sister-in-law to take pics for our Christmas card. Curtis didn't want a family pic, so the kids were the next best thing and seriously- they make the card cuter without Curtis and I :)

Taking pictures is always a STRESS!! But thanks for a few awesome friends, the kids outfits turned out better than I could have hoped.

The kids did awesome and I couldn't have asked for a better shoot. Don't get me wrong, getting any 3 kids to all look and smile at the same time, is always a difficult feat. But we got a few.

This is cute-but they're looking at me who was desperately trying to get a real smile out of them.

Okay so I tried too hard and went for a tickle-but it still is cute

Curtis jokes that we should have used this as our Christmas card-Cambree's smile and Ridge's weird look...

These all turned out awesome and of course Cambree was full of her own poses.

Brecklynn is so stink'n cute. And look at her eye color. I hope it never changes.

Ridge was quite the poser too. He wanted to get down on the box with his knee up.

And the one good shot of all the kids.

Thanksgiving

Uh- I am just slacking lately on blogging. I feel like I am going a mile a minute with no breather. But, I wanted to get these couple posts done so that I really focus on the next thing on my checklist.

Last Wednesday, we had our preschool Thanksgiving party. Though it was simple-it still wiped me out :) The kids enjoyed the feast we had and the silly hats.

Thursday-well I was a loser and never got pics at the Allen Thanksgiving. It was quite a site too. Everyone in the Allen crew was there. About 60 people were eating on these long tables and kids were literally everywhere. It was so nice to be able to watch the cousins enjoying each other and of course the brothers and their conversations.

Friday we got up and headed to my parents to visit with my Uncle Mark and Aunt Angie for a bit since they were in town. It was a really fast trip, but fun too. We took family pictures the next morning and then headed home.

Here's cousin Olivia with Cambree

I cannot believe that it is already done with and Christmas is right around the corner. I hope I can sit back and really enjoy it. Here's to the holiday season!!

Cowboy Ridge

For awhile now, Ridge has been wanting some boots. Well after he started to wear some 'boots' that were Cambree's, Curtis decided to go get him some boots of him own. Now mind you- Curtis has a soft spot for his little boy. I would have gone to Walmart and bought him some $13 boots. That was expensive enough for me. :) Not for Curtis, he couldn't settle for fake. He went and got him real cowboy boots. Whatever :)

But Ridge LOVED them immediately. He wanted everyone to see him with his boots and we got down a cowboy hat that he's had but had no interest in it till now. Now its all he cares about. He's had them for about 2 weeks now and he wears them EVERYWHERE, even to bed. It cracks me up. He even call himself Cowboy Curtis.

Admiring his boots

This was him going out at night in his pjs- hat and boots and all.

Its cute. I'm glad he loves them. I just worry when he grows out of them and wants more...I'm not going to get him real ones again ;) But he is a cute cowboy.

Basement Framed and We've got STAIRS!!

This past week has been some great progress in the basement. All the wall were formed up downstairs and the stairs were put in with all the dirt back-filled against the basement. It is so cool to start to truly visualize the layout of things. The basement is HUGE!!

We took the kids over yesterday and the kids LOVED the stairs and loved running room to room and ontop of the basement.

Here's Ninja Cowboy Ridge.

Cambree showing off the new stairs

Curtis is at the base of the stairs here and to the left is a large room where the toy room will be.

Here's on top of the basement with the new floor covering on. The kids loved the sound it made when they would run on it.

Brecklynn climbing the stairs.

There's some more going on today and they should start getting the upstairs framed up in the next week or so. So cool!!

Halloween

I'm finally posting our Halloween fun. I already wrote about the preschool party Friday. Saturday was a lazy day for the most part. However about 5 we got the kids in their costumes. They were so excited. They had seriously been waiting and asking about it ALL day. We finally put Brecklynn in her costume too. She made a super cute little pumpkin.

We first stopped by Nana's to say hi before heading to our trunk-or-treat. Brecklynn eyed the candy immediately and kept reaching for it. It was cute to watch her.

We then attempted to find our ward's trunk-or-treat. For some reason we couldn't find it. So we went back to the church and crashed that trunk-or-treat. It was so crazy there. Every room in the church had some kind of game going on and it was like sardines in the hall. The kids were oblivious to the whole thing though. They loved every game.

At one point Ridge got to do the cake walk and won a cupcake. He wouldn't let me hold for nothing. He insisted on holding it in one hand and his pumpkin in the other. Even doing trick-or-treat, he wouldn't break from his cupcake. He ate his cupcake as he walked. It was interesting to watch. The kids made out awesome in the candy department. We didn't do any real trick-or-treating with it being on Sunday this year, but they didn't need to anyways.

After finishing there, we went to Tesia's for a bit to show off the costumes and she had a little something for them. That little something was a large bag of M&M's for EACH kid. They wanted to eat it right then too. Ridge was already on a sugar high, but man it got so much worse.

Here's the best picture of all of them.

So Halloween was great this year. It will be fun next year to have it on a Monday and enjoy all the joys of Halloween but it was still fun.

Also, as many know, we announced our pregnancy (finally) on Sunday. There have been several questions that I figured I would just go ahead and answer.

First I am about 3 months.

No we aren't finding out the gender.

Yes I have been VERY sick this time around. More than I have ever been. Its literally knocked me off my feet. But I am hoping to get better soon.

No its not twins. We checked :)

Yes of course we are excited. We are officially DONE after this one. I will have 4, 5 and under and that's enough for me. 4 is enough for me and Curtis. So I hope to get to a point where I can enjoy this 'last' pregnancy.

We'll keep everyone updated. Thanks for all the congratulations and well wishes. I really appreciate it.

Kid update with sweet ending!!