Laughter is the best medicine

Laila has turned into quite a giggly little thing and I never get tired of it. Neither do the kids. Even James will act like a complete goof ball just to get her laughing. Sorry you can't really see her whole face though. I was holding her and recording so I had no idea how much of her I was actually getting.

Nov 25th 2011

I never ever buy the pictures the kids take at school. I think they are over priced and look like the kids have been running around school all day. I would much rather spend that money to take the kids to a studio where I can supervise what their hair looks like or even better have someone take some nice pictures for me outside.

It has been time for our yearly pictures for a while now, but I've been debating on what to do since Laila is so little still. In the end I decided to wait until spring to have my friend take nice pictures for us, but since I still want updated pictures of the kids for our frames I decided to play photographer myself.

And considering I have absolutely no clue how to use my camera still other than put it on auto and the sun was going down quickly, the wind was blowing, and Laila was not happy about our little outing, I'm happy with the few good ones that we got.

This was Macy's idea of a silly pose.

James was being a goober and kept giving me his goofy smile, but that is him, so I'll take it

We did this one just for uncle Keith!

This one says it all, although after we were done all of them said "That was so fun! Can we do it again?"

I didn't even have to tell Samm what to do. She came up with all her own poses.

This one is my favorite because it really shows how much they love each other. I didn't even tell James to hug them, I just said scooch in close and he reached around and pulled them to him.

And we had to throw Laila in for a couple so we could get a Christmas card photo. She wasn't too thrilled about the whole photo shoot thing though so we only got a few with her.

King James is 7!

When James was around 2 and we lived in Oklahoma, the young men in our ward absolutely LOVED him. They all called him King James and would make him give them first pumps as he walked down the hall. In fact, they loved him so much that one day I went to pick him up from nursery, but he wasn't there, so I went to find Josh, assuming that he had already grabbed him. What I found out though was that the young men had gone in and got him and taken him to class with them.

He may not be my little king James anymore, but he's still my most favorite boy in the whole world!

No, the cupcake doesn't smell bad. He's trying not to accidentally blow out the candles while we sing

We already have about a million light sabers at our house...

but none of them light up and make sounds like a real Jedi light saber, so now we have one million and one!

Samm the scarecrow

*I don't like hanging onto a lot of the kids school work, but this little story made me laugh so I decided to type it up here so Samm could read it again some day*

Dear Farmer Dawn,

I am your scarecrow and I don't like it on my pole. Here it's boring, crows peck me, and your wheat cutting machine hurts my ears. Wait, I don't have ears. Well I can still hear. I want to go to the fair and win 1st prize at the scarecrow contest. I also want to live my own life. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but this pole is really cold sometimes. I just don't like it. So I was hoping you could take me down and I can do some of the things I want to do. Please keep me off my pole! Please!

Sincerely, Scarecrow Samm

Making the world a safer place

Don't worry about me. I have my own personal super hero squad!

Heaven help us but this girl can drool

When Samm was a baby she didn't get her first tooth until she was almost 10 months old, so I was in complete shock when James popped his first little white tooth at 3 months and had a whole mouth full by 6 months.

My little Laila bug is just about 3 months old now, and the signs are there. She foams at the mouth like she has rabies and gnaws on her fist like she hasn't eaten in days and her hand is a turkey leg. That little white bump isn't too far away.  It makes me a little bit sad and a little bit scared. Nursing plus teeth is never fun!

She also smiles and laughs at me all day long, but of course the second the camera came out she did everything possible to not even acknowledge I was there.

It's no secret that Laila and I have had some ups and downs these past few months, but I already can't imagine our family without her. She is my little sweet heart!

Macy's Quote of the day

"Dad, you need a haircut on your boobies!"

Teach your kids how to walk school?

I was tired of the screaming every time the brush came out

So this morning I finally did something about it!

Cartoons are a must for haircutting.

As is nudity!

She was looking pretty sweet afterwards...

So we decided to get a little sassy!

Someone LU-UVES their new haircut!

Halloween

This year we had a cowboy ninja (he got the boots on Saturday and hasn't taken them off since) A Minni mouse who was supposed to be a bumble bee but when it came time to trick or treat she pulled the minni mouse dress off the dress up rack and wanted to wear that in stead, and a Barbie princess wearing a Roman crown thus making her a Roman princess.