"Look Dad!"

"This is my collection." That's what Kendi said when she showed Jared this picture she drew. We were a little baffled by it. Do you ever wonder if your kid is some sort of prodigy and you don't know what to do about it? Kendi is learning to write letters and I think she was copying my grocery list.
Aydri and Aunt Cari have a special relationship. Cari has witnessed a bunch of Aydri's firsts because she takes time to be with her. Cari has taught her some things that we didn't know Aydri was capable of. They sure have fun.

I didn't realize Aydri was so tired. Jared's parents just had new carpet installed and I thought Aydri would have fun crawling around in a big empty room. When I went to check on her a minute later this is what I found.

Kendi begs me all the time to let her feed Aydri. I didn't think Aydri would be patient enough, but they had a fun time. More food ended up on Aydri's shirt than in her mouth.

Kendi also decided to comb her hair. Aydri didn't seem to mind. She is such a patient little sister. Kendi would have never stood for this.

Kendi is also a big helper with the laundry. Which I love!!! She hangs all the shirts on hangers for me. She's been doing this for a long time now.

We made a little turkey for FHE. We each traced our hand and wrote what we were thankful for on the feathers.

Kendi LOVES to cook. I wonder if she will be a master chef someday. Everyday she begs me to make something with her. She goes through the cooking magazines until she finds something we have ingredients for. Sometimes I don't have time so I tell her if she cleans first we'll have time to make something and then she will clean, clean, clean. She had seen a picture of a parfait so we got some random ingredients and threw some together. My family had Thanksgiving last weekend. I didn't get as many great pictures as I wish I had. It always feels awkward to take them and then I wish I'd taken more. Oh well. Here is Aydri eating her Thanksgiving Cheerios.

This is the only picture I have of Cari and Jana. Sorry Jana. Caught you with food in your mouth.

Here is a cute one of Rob and Stac.

The kiddie table with Abby and Kendi. The Mexican culture doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving so we get to have Abby with us every year.

Here are some funny things the girls do a lot. We call this "Aydri Pose." She does it all the time.

She gets up on her hands and feet. Sometimes she will scoot her knees up and sit back on her bum by herself. I've seen her trying to do it, but haven't actually witnessed it yet. This morning I was in the kitchen and I could hear her crawling in. By the time I turned around she had already sat up by herself. Sneaky little thing. She doesn't even crawl normal yet, but she does a lot of other things.

Kendi has a whole drawer just for PJ's, but she prefers to wear her Daddy's shirts. I love it because everyday it seems that Kendi grows a little bigger, but when she puts on Jared's shirts it reminds me of how small she still is.

One of Aydri's favorite places is behind the couch. Kendi goes back there after her bath to get warm. Aydri gets stuck and tries to back out, but then cries so I have to fish her out. Once again, "Aydri Pose."

Its been a crazy couple of weeks and with the holidays I know it will only get more busy. We are also going to be selling prints at a Christmas Gift Show in St. George this weekend at the Dixie Center. Our house is currently overrun with prints and has been neglected except for Kendi's cleaning efforts. The shows are always fun, but I can't wait till its over.

Giveaway

There is a giveaway going on at Organize and Decorate Everything. They are giving away a couple of Jared's Calendars. Head over there now, the giveaway ends Saturday.

Way Out of Character

I'm not the pageant queen type of girl AT ALL, but I have always wanted to dress up my little girls in cute little girlie outfits and have their pictures done. I'm not the kind of person that can put together adorable little outfits so I didn't want to try. Then I saw this modeling contest for Stitcheroos. They custom embroider the most adorable things for kids. I had been following Stitcheroos' blog because of how cute the designs were. They offered free outfits and free photos for the winners of the contest. I couldn't resist. I entered the girls and they won. The shoot was a couple of weeks ago and I've been checking Cheapshots Photography blog every day since for the finished pictures. I was surprised to find them posted on my birthday. What a nice present.

Kendi's legs are on the left.

We had tons of fun!

Too Much Halloween

We had so much fun this year that is was almost too much. I'm glad I was able to enjoy things this year. I've repressed last years memories to the point that I barely remember what Kendi was dressed up as. Thank goodness for blogs to refresh my memory.

Aydri sure loves her vegetables. I got to take part in the pumpkin carving this year and thouroughly enjoyed it.
I ended up cleaning out all the pumpkins guts by myself. This is about as far as Kendi got. Jared was busy drawing the templates for the pumpkins. My mom and I did the carving.

Kendi was Cinderella for Halloween so we helped her carve a princess in her pumpkin.

Aydri wore her teddy bear suit for Halloween. It was cute enough and very warm. Jared saw this picture of Tigger online and thought it was cute enough for Aydri's pumpkin. Sorry for the blur. We only had the point and shoot. Our candle were a little weak so I stuck a bunch of match sticks in the wax to get a really nice, bright flame. They looked great. We left them on the porch and went inside to watch a movie. We got too tired to finish the movie so we all went to bed and completely forgot about the pumpkins. I was mostly worried about them being frozen, but when I went outside to check them in the morning, one of them was charred. Apparently it caught on fire. I'm glad it burned itself out without catching anything else on fire.

Kendi sure was a good helper with the sugar cookies. I got tired of baking them so I let her make the rest of the dough into one big cookie. She thought that was great fun. I love how she insisted on having a pink pumpkin cookie.

Here's what the rest of them looked like. We took some to people Jared home teaches and to a friend that just had surgery.

This is the only good picture I got of the kids on Halloween together. I forgot the camera and the one I keep in the diaper bag died after I took this picture.

Actually, the camera had just enough juice to take a picture of Kendi trick or treating. Aydri was tired so we left her with my parents while we took Kendi to a Trunk or Treat at the church. A lot of people were dressed up really scary at the Trunk or Treat so after about 10 cars Kendi decided she didn't want to be there anymore. We visited Gma Vera. Gma Vera always has her house decorated with lot of "Spooks." We spent the rest of the evening at my parents house. The funnest part of the whole day for Kendi was watching the other trick-or-treaters. She sat outside on the porch swing eating her candy watching them all come and go.

Sometimes Jared messes with the camera and doesn't put the settings back to normal. I don't realize it until after I take a few pictures so these next ones are what I've tried to salvage with Photoshop.

It was so fun to get Kendi all dressed up and put a little makeup on her. Her whole demeanor would change and she would act like a proper little princess. I didn't have to spend any money on Kendi's costume this year. The dress is the one I made from a bridesmaid dress earlier. I found some scrap pieces of fabric to make the sleeves, gloves and details on her dress. We barely had just enough. We used some beads my mom had left over from another project and we made the wand out of whatever we could find. Kendi and I had tons of making it together.

I love this picture. This is Kendi really laughing like she does all the time. I'm glad I caught it. This is after I realized the camera wasn't working right. I told Kendi not to eat too much candy because it would give her night terrors. When we finally got home and I was helping her get ready for bed she was so tired and so sugared up that she couldn't stop sobbing. Finally, she asked me, "Mama, why do we just cry?" I couldn't help but laugh and then I tried to explain what makes us sad and how to try to be happy again. I told her to try to think of different things and then I told her some funny, made up stories and she finally cracked a smile. It was one of those precious moments. That night she had some awful night terrors. She was completely delirious and more Jared tried to help the more she would scream. We're definitely going to ration the candy from here on out.

Every little thing she does it magic.

I know I'm going to miss seeing these little feet peeking through the crip bars when she's asleep.