Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas at the Hugs

Every other year we spend Christmas in La Grande with Caleb's family, and every time we do things get alittle crazy (past experiences include, but are not limited to, roasting a goat in a pit and making a turducken). This year was no different. Some highlights include: leaving all 5 grandkids with the grandparents while we went up skiing with Caleb's brothers and spouses, watching Josh stir up a fancy brine for the the goat and then eating the fruits of his labor, and a couple sessions of family pilates (pictures below). This might have to become a Christmas tradition!

Here are some picture highlights

Every year Santa finds it necessary to stop in on Christmas Eve to give all the little kiddos who live in Elgin OR a bag of treats. But don't worry he doesn't tire out his reindeer...he travels via firetruck around the whole town. So naturally, we went out to Elgin to visit Caleb's grandparents and to get some treats from Santa. Hannah didn't want to get her picture taken with Santa, but she did except the bag of treats!


Here I am with my sis-in-laws, Celeste and Elizabeth.


Liz and Kiefer

Great grandma and Peter



Here I am next to all the presents and the Christmas tree. With 17 of us celebrating Christmas together, there's bound to be alot of presents!


Peter and his stalking


Hannah riding around on a horse in her Christmas dress.


Here are the 5 cousins in front of the Christmas tree: Kiefer, Hannah, Peter, Joe and Judah. We took about 30 pictures and this is the one where everyone is looking. :-D


Hannah opening one of her presents.


Hannah and her two favorite presents: a rocking chair and a "puter"


"Slim Jim" riding his horse "Blacky" around the house.

Family Pilates

All of us around the table for Christmas dinner.


Hannah and Grandpa playing with Hannah's new laptop.


Elizabeth giving Judah and Hannah a bath in the sink.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Hannah's Favorite Christmas Carol

Can you tell what it is?




Her new word from the previous post was cinnamon. Kuddos to Mary Beth & Els!

Monday, December 28, 2009

Electric Blanket

So Caleb got me an electric blanket for Christmas. Eventhough I was skeptical at first (remembering the bright pink electric blankets that we owned when I was a kid), this has easily become one of my favorite gifts. For those that don't know, our bed room has heating issues and thus is about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. So now before I brush my teeth, I "pre heat" my bed, and then when I'm ready to actually hop in, my bed is warm! It is also very handy for when I have to get up in the middle of the night (like for small crying children). When I get up I turn the heat back on and then I when I return my bed is still warm. How cool is that!!

(Don't worry, this wasn't my only Christmas present from Caleb :-D)

Friday, December 11, 2009

Can I hear an Amen!

This last Sunday I helped out with the 2 year old child care, so I downloaded the sermon. I was in the kitchen making dinner with Peter and Hannah was playing with Legos in the living room, so I started listening to it. And when the pastor said, "Can I hear an amen?" Low and behold, I heard an amen ring out from my living room. And sure enough when he said it again, Hannah again shouted out amen. Who knew she could say amen? It's not a very hard word, but she doesn't say it after we pray for our food, or after we pray before bedtime, so I just never knew.

It makes me wonder how much she understands. I know she understands everything I say and all the conversation that goes on in our house, but I guess it just never occurred to me that she understands the sermons that I listen too, or the lyrics of the music I listen to. Huh...good thing I listen to good stuff!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Hannah's new word

Can you figure out what she's saying?



I'll give you a hint: it's a spice.

OK, so most of her words are more understandable, but this one is so cute. And just the fact that she's trying is great. :)

Monday, December 7, 2009

Our Christmas Tree

Last weekend we went out and cut down our Christmas tree. We went up with Kim and Ben and found some really nice trees. The weather was sunny and roads were clear. The only bummer was that Hannah was afraid of the snow. She didn't even want to stand on it...so we had to carry her the whole time. But besides that, we had a great time. Here are some pic's.

Here's Kim and Hannah in the Truck.


Here's a scenery shot of our views from the day.


Here's Kim and Ben cutting down their tree.


Hannah and Caleb on the way up to find our tree.


Caleb, Kim and Ben after successfully loading up our trees.


After returning home, we promptly put up our tree and started decorating. Actually, Caleb and Hannah did all the decorating - Peter and I watched.


Hannah decided that it was easiest to hang the ornaments on the lights. She also figured that once she found a good spot, she should hang at least 3 or 4 there. Luckily Caleb was helping to balance out our tree.



Here's the finished product.


This picture is without flash so you can see the lights.

Hannah's moving out

Today Hannah told me she was going home. "To mommy and daddy's home?" I asked. "No, MY home," was the reply. And then she said bye-bye and gave me a hug and went to her home. Here's a picture of her in her home.



Here she is coming out of her home.


Hannah has just recently started using her imagination more. She loved to bring me over "toast" or "meat" in the form of a coaster, which I eat graciously, of course. She will also go over to the wall and pick "beebas." And she shares too. She'll give me some beebas and then go and pick some for baby Pete. She also shares with Ug. And then when we are outside she'll cook up some "hot juice" on her little outdoor kitchen and then she'll bring over a plate of "treats." They are so good I always ask for seconds, which she gladly serves. It's fun living with a 2 year old.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

39 lbs of Thanksgiving

That's right folks. Caleb and I brined and cooked up 39 pounds of Turkey on Thanksgiving day and we have no left overs. Can you believe it? We will obviously have to do something different next year. Maybe we'll buy a third turkey and cook it the day after thanksgiving just for the 4 of us. That's worked in the past.

You are probably wondering what kind of folks we had over that would eat so much turkey. Well, that's my family. On Thanksgiving day we had 16 adults, 3 toddlers, and 2 babies converge on our place and fill our house with laughter and fun. Caleb and I set up 3 tables in our living room so that everyone would have a place to dine. Here's a picture of our mega table.



We had a great time hanging out and eating tasty food. And thanks to Lauren's great recipes, the turkey turned out fabulous, as well as the homemade cranberry sauce. (Honestly, I've never really enjoyed cranberry sauce until I had the homemade stuff. Thanks Lauren for the great recipe!)

Here's a picture of Caleb and my self grabbing a breather.


Here's my aunt Christin with Peter.


Here's my dad with Hannah.


And here's Uncle Do, the guy who took most of these pictures. (altho, technically he's my great Uncle Do...which means he's Hannah's great, great Uncle Do. Uncle Do, if you're reading this, we think you are great, great!)


All in All, Thursday was a grand success. But these folks only ate 21 lbs of Turkey. On Friday we took our second Turkey (the 18 pounder) and drove down to the Oregon Coast to get together with some of Caleb's extended family. Here's a picture of that crew.

We had a great time down there catching up with family (or in my case meeting family) and just hanging out. One of the highlights from that trip was our view on Saturday morning. When we looked out our window in the morning, we were surround by about a herd of about 100 Elk. (Caleb and gang must have scared them across the state. :-p) Unfortunately our Camera was in the car, but after they passed by our place we took some pictures. It was pretty darn cool.









And because of that Hannah learned a new phrase, "Elk poop" and "Elk poos." (the second one being the plural of the first) She is a really good spotter...and a loud one too. :-D

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Hannah Reading

So just this week Hannah not only wants to be read to, but she also wants to read to you. Here she is reading one of her favorite books. I came in when she was already mostly done, so you only get to hear the last quarter of the book.

You probably didn't understand what she was saying...that is because the book is in Spanish. :-)

Here she reading another book. It happens to be a personal favorite of mine. The book is called, "My Mom is Excellent." And if you listen to Hannah carefully, you can sorta pick out the phrase "my mom is excellent". She says it at the beginning.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

New things

1. Peter has started eating some solid food. So far I have fed him banana and applesauce. And carrying on in great Hug tradition, he is a super eater!

2. Peter has been rolling over all the time these days. This is cool, except for the fact that he can no longer hang out on tables and I have to vacuum more often.

3. Hannah has been talking alot lately. Every time I as her, "can you say _____", she tries to say it...even grapefruit (altho, honestly, it really didn't sound like grapefruit). Some words include: applesauce, apple seed, Aunt Kim (sounds like "Ah Him"), push me, see, help me, hot juice, treats.
funny story: The other day we were driving and all of sudden Hannah exclaims, "Buhda." And I"m thinking, "why is my daughter getting so excited about Budda?" After about 5 minutes I realize she is pointing out blue cars (boo da's). Now every time we are driving she points out blue cars. And today we were at my sister's house and she pointed out a boo ite (blue light).

4. The other day Caleb we trying to help Peter crawl. He would put his hands against Peters feet and then when Peter stretched out his legs he would move. So then, of course, Hannah wanted to try. She put her hands against Peter and said, "push, push." It was pretty cute. (Side note: I think it will be a while before Peter starts to crawl. That is a lot of body mass for one small baby to move.)

5. Hannah is always wanting to be helpful. Every day, sometimes twice a day, we'll have this conversation.
H: "BBP applesauce"
K: "you think BBP wants applesauce?" or "I don't know if baby Pete wants applesauce"
At this point Hannah runs over to Peter and says,
H: gibberish, gibberish, "applesauce?"
Hannah runs back to me
H: "yeah"

She'll sometimes do this with other things too. Where she will ask him if he wants something. It's pretty cute.

6. Hannah can be convinced very easily to say yes. All you have to do is be very excited about what you are asking her to do. "Hannah, do you know what would be really fun? Let's wear overalls today!" To which she will reply, "Yeah!" Or "Hannah do you want to learn how to reboot the router?" "Yeah!" (although she's not very good at doing that by herself yet)

7. Peter has become pretty interactive these days. He laughs when you kiss him on his belly or on his cheeks and he smiles whenever you look at him. He can also follow me with his eyes across the room, or follow a piece of string cheese from your hand to your mouth (repeatedly). He is very good at grabbing things and putting them in his mouth. In general, he's super cute...just like Hannah. :-D

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Peter's Dedication

Two weeks ago at church we had Peter dedicated Lord. It was really cool. It was much more of a personal experience than I expected. That week they were dedicating 2 babies; Peter and his cousin Keifer (Josh and Celeste's son who is 9 days younger than Peter). They called up both families. First they held up Keifer for the whole congregation to see and then they prayed for him for a while and then they prayed for Josh and Celeste for a while. Both the head pastor and the kid's pastor prayed a loud and several of the other pastors surrounded them and prayed for them as well. Then they switched to Peter. They held him up for everyone to see and they they prayed for him and us. It was pretty special.

It was also neat because Caleb's parents were able to make it up for the weekend to watch their grandsons get dedicated. So Caleb's parents were there, as well as my parents, Kim & Ben, Larry & Christin, and Melissa & Ryan. Thankyou all for coming. It was really special having you there!

Afterwards we had everyone over for a BBQ at our place.

Here's Peter in his cute little sweater-vest that we got him for the occasion.


Here he is getting prayed for...



Here he is being held up for everyone to see.


Here's Caleb holding the two dedicated cousins: Keifer and Peter.



Here's Hannah in the cute dress we bought her for the dedication.






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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Hannah Singing

Hannah and I like to sing. Her favorite songs are The Itsy Bitsy Spider, The Wheels on the Bus, and The Hokey Pokey. Often times she will do the hand motions in order to get me to start singing. Here are some video clips of her. Note: it's hard to catch her on video, but you get the idea.

The Hokey Pokey:



The Wheels on the Bus



The Itsy, Bitsy Spider


One more cute video - I thought I was taking a picture but it was really on video. :-p

Monday, October 19, 2009

E-I

This weekend Caleb's brother, Levi, came over to visit us. We had a great time chatting and hanging out with him. Hannah, too, had fun with Levi. However she has trouble with L's so she called him E-I. So here are some pictures of Uncle E-I with the kiddos.

Here's Peter and Levi


Levi with Kiefer, Peter and Hannah


Levi with Kiefer and Peter


And here are some bonus pictures of the 3 cousins taken Friday night.

Kiefer and Peter are only 9 days apart. They were holding hands for a little bit but I wasn't fast enough with the camera.





Hannah and Peter holding hands.


More family tummy time. As you guessed, it was Hannah's idea. :-D


Here's Kiefer enjoying his first swing experience. He liked it!

Friday, October 16, 2009

For Noah

The other day I was looking at Lauren's blog and Hannah came in and got all excited about seeing pictures of Noah. She kept saying, "more Noah, more Noah". Noah was Hannah's best friend in Boston. I'm not sure if it was because we hung out with his parents alot, or if it is because his name is easy to say... probably a little bit of both...and the obvious fact that Noah is cool. :-D

Anyhow, we went through several old blog posts on Lauren's blog looking at pictures of Noah. After going all the way back to the beginning of August, I convinced her that Noah would want to see pictures of her. Hannah has become quite clever about pictures. She knows she's cute and that taking pictures of her is a "privilege" so she will hardly ever pose for pictures these days. But by telling her that Noah would want to see her I was actually able to get her to stand still and look at the camera. So here are some pictures for Noah. :-D (And Lauren, I would like you to know that Hannah correctly identified you as "Noah Mommy" in the train picture)

You can see that even this picture where she is "looking" at the camera, she is still not very still.


Here's Hannah holding Peter's hand.