W-I-N-D-Y!

Yesterday was such a windy day, it was pretty crazy.

It all started at about 3 am when we could hear the loud loud wind blowing and our neighbor's tree fell over in our back yard.
Around 7: 30 B went to work and we recieved a call that Jane's preschool was canceled due to wind. Then at 9:00 our power went out, so we did preschool things here for a while, colored, played, watched things on our portable DVD player, took naps, etc... Around 3:00 our house was in the 50's and B came home to turn on our gas fireplace. That helped, but I still took Kate and Bruce to some friends for a while. At 5:00 the power came back on and all is well.
Jane was so cute when the power went off she said, "Mom the lights just tuned off and I didn't do anything," they all did great. I heard that Lake Erie was up 10 feet and downtown was a mess. Luckily we didn't have flooding, or any damage to our home. Our power is back on, and we're happy!
Here's a picture of the tree in our yard.

Here's Jane and Bruce all cozy in Bruce's bed watching a movie, life is good .

WELCOME HOME PETER!

B's youngest brother Peter returned home from his mission today.
He served in the Riverside, CA Spanish speaking mission.
Although we haven't seen or talked to him yet, we're sure glad he's home.
We love you Pete!

This is a picture of Bruce with Pete just before he left.

Here's Bruce now (what? his hair always looks like this :) )

Here's Jane in her beautiful new Sunday dress

This is our new baby Kate (being eaten by daddy)
and she can't wait to meet you!

"We Thank Thee of God for a Prophet"

My younger brother Jeff called us last night to tell us the sad new that our prophet Gordon B Hinckley had passed away. I remember seeing him speak at BYU upon a few occasions and being there with him was a great strength to my testimony. Here is a wonderful article about him:

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/
One of my favorite quotes of him that has helped me is simple, but I love it:
"We have nothing to fear and everything to gain. God is at the helm. "

201

I just got a score of 201 playing B at Ticket to Ride. Try to beat that Douglas!

Cheesy Smile

Our sweet Kate has gotten so good at smiling all the time that she has now created a kind of fake, cheesy smile, that she gives everyone who will look at her (i.e. moms at Jane's preschool, cute old man in Target, checkout girl at Wegmans, etc...) What do you think- it does show off her 3 teeth pretty well.

This morning she had just woken up after sleeping straight through the night from 9:30-7:30!

She is also continuing to improve her crawling and will go from sitting to crawling stance pretty quick.

Such cute toes!

Pay it Forward

I just got this "Pay it Forward" package from my sister Melissa- it works!

You all know the concept behind “Pay it forward”, right? I think it is a really neat idea Anyway, my sister Melissa had this on her blog. I don’t know where it started, but I wanted to be a part of it. What you do is pay it forward with other fellow bloggers. I will send a handmade gift to the first three people who add a comment and want to participate- then those three people have to send a handmade gift to three people. Make sense? I think that the handmade gift can be anything from a couple recipes compiled or a handmade craft or I think chocolate would count too (at least it would for me!) I think you can do anything as long as it fits in the mail. Then if you are the person who participates, you have to put it on your blog and try to get three others to pay it forward. Would you like to try it??

Bruce the Photographer

Here are some great shots I found while I uploaded pictures on my computer today.

Apparently Bruce got my camera and felt like snapping a few:

( There were about 40 more not posted.) Nice job little man !

Kate & Bruce's stats

Oh, it was a fun morning at the doctor's today.

Kate is 6 months and she weighs 16 lbs 2 oz and is 26 inches.

Bruce is 3 and weighs 33 lbs and is 39 inches.

Jane can't wait until she turns five in a month or so.

Kate is the winner with 5 shots today and she really is such an angel baby that she didn't complain about getting shots until the last one.
After the doctor we went to Open Gym, which is always so fun to run around inside while it's freezing outside, and then went to Music with Mar, which is a great little music class we discovered today through some friends.

Crawling Kate, almost ...

Our sweet girl has become such a mover over this last week.
(Here's the cherry dress picture for you Jo.)
She's close to crawling (knees and hands) she just kind of pulls herself where she wants to go with her arms. It's really cute:

Did you watch it?

Oh, my fabulous husband fixed our dish on Saturday night allowing me to watch the new Persuasion on Sunday night. NOT AS GOOD- in my opinion

*I think the actress who plays Anne is much better in the older one (1995) than the new one.
*Frederick was a hottie in the new one, but I missed seeing them all wear their navel hats.
* It was fine, they followed the story- a little- , but the ending in the old one is SOOOOO much better and in this one, they totally ruined her reading the letter.
* The new movie is a lot more artsy, and sometimes they had Anne looking right at the camera (reminded me a little of the Office.)
* I did like Lady Russell, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Clay better in this new one.
* Mary really bugged me.

* In high school I was told that I kind of looked like Amanda Root and that's what got me to watch the movies in the first place, and it's my favorite.

Anne( Amanda Root) in the old Persuasion

We got a package!

Oh I can't tell you enough how much we LOVE packages!

This one came from Grandma Damstedt. Bruce left his bear Beam in Utah and he returned safely, along with new Birthday clothes and a cool circular saw with safety glasses.

Here's Bruce with his cool new Spider man training center that he bought at Target with the $5 grandma gave him for Christmas. It came with this funny mat, inflatable thing to punch, and DVD to show you the moves- sweet!
We were at Target buying a new DVD/VCR player since ours finally broke. When Brad took it all apart, he found a little piece from the game Parcheesi, hmmm, how did that get in there? Luckily we received a great gift card from my brother Derik & Kim for Christmas to help us buy a new one, and my sanity is coming back.
* As a side note, our Dish is broken, from a wind storm, and they are coming to fix it on Monday, but so SAD that I'll miss the new Persuasion movie (the old one is my all time favorite movie!)
http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/story/249703.html
so if any of you want to record it for me and I'll come watch it later sometime :)

We love Sophs!

Here is a fun picture of me with my kids and niece Sophie.
She is my buddy and it was so fun to play with her again.

Happy Birthday Brucey Guy!

Bruce turns 3 today!

(Bowling ball cake)
We have had such a fun day so far. This morning we had preschool here and then we went to Transit Lanes for Bruce's bowling party.

He had a lot of little friends come and it was so fun. It was really funny because all the kids took turns bowling and it was pretty slow going. We bowled (on 2 lanes) for about an hour and a half (plus ate food & opened presents) and only got to the 6th round.

The bowling ally game him a real bowling pin and everyone got to sign it.

Bruce got so many wonderful things!
(Cars that make noises, thanks, an umbrella, Pez, really cool books, the snow sled he's sitting on, a helicopter, a rocket backpack, Cars desk set, crayons & book, and the real bowling pin w/ balloons.

Tonight we'll party again with daddy and open presents from Jane (a big T-rex) and Kate (FP Jump Start computer thing.)

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME, CALLED, or SENT A CARD!!!!!

Baby Kate loves Rice!

Oh, rice cereal is so fun!Kate could totally advertise for this, she's way cuter than those other babies.

She received cereal, a bib, and spoons for Christmas this year and at first she wasn't so sure about how to eat it, and kept spitting it out, but now she's got it down and loves it.

I found Jane feeding her this morning after I went to check on Bruce, they were both having a great time getting it everywhere!

Christmas Pictures & Highlights

Now that I have lots of new pictures on my computer....

Here are some of the fun happenings on our trip:

Kate's 1st Christmas

(she got some books, toys, a bib & rice cereal-yum!)

Flying - they all mostly slept the whole way!

(arrived really late in SLC- thanks Jeff for coming to get us!)
*We had a fun dinner with Brad's friends from BYU + families, but no picture sorry, it was great to see you all though!

Christmas Morning

Bruce loved setting up "guys" and then ran them over with remote control Lightening McQueen

Jane loved reading with Grandma

Grandpa Damsted's B-day & Elder Pete's + we got to talk to him

Bruce took this one of G&G

Visiting Grandma& Grandpa Great

2nd Christmas at Grandma & Grandpa Miller's- Thank you for everything!

Santa Baby Kate with grandpa & Jacob

Cousins at the animal museum (followed by lunch and Jamba Juice!)
Kate (with fun bib) and Grandma
Jane at IKEA

Doug and the "blessed" baby Lily

Happy New Year 2008!
~note the closed eyes~
We stayed up playing games (We LOVE Ticket to Ride) and eating great food before watching the ball drop
*Thank you to all of our friends who let us stop by and see you and sorry to the one's we missed, we hope to see you soon, or you can always come visit us!

My Haircut

Two weeks ago my sisters and I all hit the salon.

They cut 11 inches off!
It was all donated to Locks of Love. The stylist was so shocked to cut it off, but I told her that I'd done it lots before. I usually cut it short when my babies hit about 6 months, when they really start to get interested in pulling hair.
Here are some pictures:
Before-lookin sooo good -ha
From the Back
After with my 2 sisters