Catching the Gingerbread Man

All year at school, Hunter's class have been trying to catch the Gingerbread Man. They have gotten letters from him from California, Seattle, and other places around the world. They had just read the book "The Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett, and found that to catch the Gingerbread Man you needed to make a Gingerbread House. So I went to Hunter's class and helped him make one. It was so much fun to see how creative all the kids were. The Gingerbread houses looked great! And guess what! They finally caught the Gingerbread Man :) I love that I'm am able to go and share in these kinds of experiences with my kids.
Hunter's Gingerbread looks so good! He was very proud of it, but he just couldn't wait for Dad to get home before he ate it. It was pretty much eaten by the time Dave saw it.:)

The kids started with an empty milk carton, they frosted one side of the graham cracker and stuck it to the milk carton. I thought that this was a very clever idea because I have made gingerbread houses with kids before when I taught school, and we had a heck of a time keeping them standing. With the milk carton, you didn't have crying kids because their house had collapsed.

My Attempt at a Christmas Card

So I have been pushing Dave for the last 2 weeks to take a family Christmas card picture. He totally hates doing this, but I insisted. So the other night we got all ready and took several pictures, of which were not turning out so cute. By the end of the night, I was yelling at everyone. Hunter for not keeping his hands down (he wanted to do a thumbs up, rabbit ears to Dave, or something silly), Mckell either wasn't looking at the camera or she was smiling goofy, and Dave wasn't making sure Lexi's head was turned in the direction of the camera (I'm not sure he could have done much about that, after all how cooperative is a 3 month old, but I was getting frustrated so I yelled at him too :) I also was complaining that in a lot of the pictures I felt I looked fat (still haven't lost the baby weight). I was so frusterated! Finally, Dave said we were done. I'm still trying to convince myself that not sending out a Christmas card this year isn't the end of the world. Dave thinks I'm silly, but with each cute Christmas card I get, I think "Oh maybe we should try taking a picture again" Dave isn't going for it.

Christmas Parade and Lighting Ceremony

Last Saturday we took the kids to the annual Ogden Christmas parade. We'd never been before and thought we'd try it out. The kids' favorite thing about the parade was the "real life Star Wars guys" This is Hunter's favorite picture. He thought he was so cool.

We had mentioned to my family that we were going to the parade, so they decided to join in on the fun.

Before they lit up Christmas Village, they had a little ceremony. We couldn't see it but we could here everything on the PA system. A little girl named Mckell was going to turn on the Christmas village lights, so of course our Mckell thought that they were talking to her. She was so excited. Luckily we were standing by a building that had a button on it. When everyone started the count down, Mckell was ready :) When we got to 1 she pushed the button, and all of the lights turned on. She thought that was the greatest. The whole night she kept telling Hunter that Santa was going to bring her lots of presents because she turned on all the lights for people to see. Isn't she the sweetest!

Dave's Moab Trip

Dave made it back in one piece. Yea! He had a blast. With moving to a new building at work, he had been working several days straight, so he deserved a get-a-way :)

Dave and the guys!

Notice the cliff they are standing on.

The scenery really is beautiful in Moab!

Dave's New Bike

A friend commented why I didn't have a picture of Dave's bike on the blog, so here it is. He is just getting ready to leave with a bunch of friends down to Moab on a bike trip. So here he is with his bike, all in one piece. I just hope he and the bike return that way. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Happy Halloween

Last week was CRAZY with Halloween activities. From fmily parties, to classroom parties, to Trunk or Treats. By the time Halloween actually came my kids already had sackfuls of candy. They had a great time though. I think that they love all the hype of the holidays as much as I do. Hunter was funny. For each party he was something different. He was a Power Ranger, Spiderman, a Storm Trooper, and Obi-one Kinobe. He just couldn't make up his mind of what he wanted to be. It's a good thing his Grandma has about a zillion costumes :) Mckell was Belle.

Like Father Like Son!

We were making camamel apples, but instead of putting the caramel on the apple Mckell put the caramel in her mouth, well at least attempted to :)

No we didn't take Lexi out Trick or Treating, but the kids wanted to show her all of their candy.

Lexi's First Pictures

I received a letter in the mail from my pediatrician congratulating us on Lexi right after she was born. On the congratulations card, it had several adorable pictures of newborn babies. They were so cute that I contacted the photographer to get Lexi's newborn pictures taken. So at 2 1/2 weeks old, Lexi was getting her first perfessional photographs taken.

The minute we got to the photo shoot, I was reminded why Mckell did not get any newborn pictures taken. You see, when Hunter was 2 weeks old I took him to get his pictures taken and he cried, no screamed, the entire time. There was not one good shot of him so I swore that I wouldn't go through that again. Well I'd forgotten about that whole incident (must have been a pregnant thing), but Lexi quickly reminded me. She cried the minute we started taking pictures. The binki was not satisfying her, so I had to feed her, even though she just had eaten before we left. It seemed as though she ate for an eternity (could have been because we had a photographer waiting for us), finally she was ready. She did pretty good for a few poses, then started crying again. Oh My Gosh! I was already so embarrassed. I was holding her, trying to calm her down, and what does she do? She pees all over me. I was holding her trying to catch everything so that it wouldn't get on any of the photographers things. So I was standing there sopping wet and even more embarrassed. Honestly, I'm surprised any of the pictures turned out cute, but they did. Here are a few:

My Sweet Mckell

Mckell's been tagged by her cousin Kimi, and I'm supposed to tell 5 things about her. Isn't she the cutest!

1. Mckell is such a girly girl. Her favorite color is pink, she loves anything princess (although her favorite princess is Ariel), she loves to sing (she sings to Lexi whenever Lexi is sad), and she loves to dance. The other night we were watching Dancing With The Stars and Mckell was prancing around the room dancing with the music. Dave and I were cracking up watching her until her moves started looking a bit seductive. It's then that we realized she's going to be a handful when she grows up :)

2. Mckells best friend is Hunter. She thinks that he is the greatest. The other day, Hunter and his friend were wrestling at the bus stop, and Mckell got right up in Hunter's friends face and told him not to hurt her Hunter. He's lucky to have a sister like her.

3. Mckell is my little protector. When Dave gets upset with me (which isn't very often:) ) or he is yelling about something, Mckell will get right up in his face and say, "No Dad you be nice to my mom" Then she'll come over to me and say,"I'm on your team mom, cause we're both girls". It is so cute.

4.Mckell is such a good helper. She wants to help wash the floors, unload the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, bath Lexi, vacuum, and fold and put away laundry. But with all of her help for some reason I can't get her to clean her room. Go figure.

5. Mckell gives the best kisses. She always gives me kisses then says, "I know you just love my kisses" and one of her favorite things to do is chase Hunter around the house trying to kiss him. He doesn't like her kisses :)

I asked Mckell who she wanted to tag (I'm not sure she knew what I was talking about) but she said her sister Gretchen (she thinks all her little friends are her sisters), Ella, and Kaitlyn.

While The Cats Away The Mice Will Play

Dave went up to Idaho last weekend for the deer hunt. Ususally when he goes out for a hunt the kids and I do something fun like go bowling, go to a pizza place, or go see a movie. However since I didn't think Lexi was up for any of those things, we painted pumpkins instead.

Mckell painted her pumpkin (the one on the left) to look like Hunter. Looks just like him don't you think :)

Hunter painted a spiderman pumpkin. One side he has a red spiderman and the other side is a orange spiderman (he swears that there is such a thing as an orange spiderman).

Scary!

As you can see, the weather wasn't the best to hunt in. Dave said that it was freezing and they didn't see any deer when the storm hit because of the snow and the fog. He walked about 16 miles in this weather, and said that he had a good time. I don't know about you, but this doesn't even look fun to me. I guess that's the reason I don't hunt.

The Newest Member Of Our Family

Lexi was born on Thursday, September 18 at 8:18 a.m. She was 5 lbs 11 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. We named her Alexis Ropelato, but as you guessed we will call her Lexi.

We were planning on having Lexi on Sunday the 21st, so we were totally suprised when I went into labor (especially since I've never gone into labor before). At about 3:30 Thursday morning Mckell came upstairs to our room wide awake talking about the baby. I had been having stomach pains for quite some time and just thought that something I'd had eaten wasn't agreeing with me. The thought that I was having contractions never crossed my mind. Well Mckell was wide awake and being a chatter box which was not letting Dave go back to sleep, so I mentioned that my stomache was really killing me (just wanting a little sympathy from him), and he asked if I thought they were contractions. I really didn't have a clue what contractions were supposed to feel like, since with Hunter and Mckell I was so lucky not to have them, so Dave (being the computer guy that he is) went online and looked up contractions. After reading a lot and going through several different signs of contractions, we decided that I was probably having them and should go up to the hospital. It's a good thing Mckell woke up or I would have laid in bed for who knows how long waiting for my stomache pains to pass.

Mckell absolutely loves her little sister. At the hospital she kept telling the nurses that they couldn't take "her" baby. The trick for us at home has been keeping Mckell off of Lexi. Mckell is constantly hugging, kissing, and tounching Lexi. It doesn't matter if she is sleeping, eating, or being held by someone else, Mckell will not leave her alone.

You'd think Dave was the one who just gave birth!

Lexi's first visitors. Yes, they all ended up getting kicked out of the recovery room.

Lexi's head was smaller than Dave's fist. She's just a little sweetie.