Every morning,

we watch the school bus leave.  The bus stop is right in front of our house.  The boys always stop playing when they hear it pull up.  I don't think that Mabel has any idea what we are looking at, but she likes to follow her brothers around.

It's crazy too think that Ryan will get on that bus in August!

Gingerbread house and crazy hair

Ryan and his Dad made a cool Gingerbread house on Saturday.  I made some frosting for them and was quite proud of how strong it was.  Thank you allrecipes.com. 

And now that Mabel's hair is getting longer, she has some crazy hair dos after naps.  With our boys, at about this age is when we cut their hair for the first time.  I hear we aren't supposed to do that with girls though.  I have no idea what to do with the awkward mullet stage.  Babies hair seems to grow a lot faster in the back then on the sides.  At least she's super cute!

some holiday cheer

ok, so this isn't a Christmas picture, but isn't she cute?

The boys both were excited to see Santa at the ward Christmas party and jumped right up on his lap.

Ryan was a shepherd for the program.

And here is our Mabel all ready for church.  I love this dress.

It even came with a cute coat!  Thanks Aunt Lindsey!

Letters to Santa

This is Ryan's first time sounding out words by himself.  He usually insists on me telling him how to spell words but he agreed to do it on his own.  I think he did great.  Can you figure out what he asked for?

more time outside the belly..

9 months!!!

The only recent pics I have of Mabel are the family pics we took, so here's some more to enjoy.  Mabel weighs 16 lbs. 11 oz. and is 28 inches long.  She is starting to cruise along furniture and her 2 top teeth are about to poke through!

The Polar Express

Our Thanksgiving this year was spent at home and we feasted with friends from the ward.  Since we weren't driving far to see family, we took a little drip to Durango, CO to ride the Polar Express.

Durango is beautiful and only 3 1/2 hours away so it was the perfect little getaway.  The Polar Express is actually the Durango Silverton Railroad that is done up all cute for the holidays.  The best part of the ride (at least for Spencer and I) was seeing this cool old steam engine roll up.

The ride wasn't until night but we got there early enough to check out the train and museum before it got dark.  Ryan is sometimes too cool for pictures.

The boys loved the trip.  There was hot chocolate and cookies, Christmas carols, and the North Pole where....

This guy got on handing out bells to the kids to which Ryan replied, "This is just what I wanted for Christmas mom!!!"

Oh good, I'll take back all your presents and just buy some more bells. :)

and some more

cute kiddos.