Catching up

In an effort to continue blogging, and journaling, and psuedo-scrapbooking: We’re going to play catch up.

October-

Sometimes Maggie will help me with the dishes. She likes that she gets to wear an apron. And I like that she likes it because it means she usually isn’t soaking wet by the end. We have a fantastic church. I love the people we get to be around. Our special Nursery leader, Sister White, had to move away.  She is such an amazing woman.  She is thoughtful of everyone, always bringing in gifts for the kids, or providing them with new games to play and songs to sing. These are some of the kids she influenced for the better.Where else should bean bags go, but on your head?My birthday was in there somewhere. (the 19th) We were able to go down and celebrate it with Jon and Jenna.  I made a delicious lemon raspberry cheesecake for myself. Because I’m worth it, dang it! It was fantastic. Jenna is always so good at making you feel special on your birthday. One of the many reasons I love her!And a big thanks to her for taking, and collaging and emailing me these two from my birthday.And you know how we love the park. And how I love to take my camera with us to the park….She’s loving the sand lately. Which is great, as she was not always a fan of it. That does mean she can get over her aversions to some textures!Then we had a couple fantastic Halloween parties around. One at the Jorgensen’s and the other at the Alexander’s.  Such fun to be around friends!! I was a witch and Maggie, my black cat. Brandon was…Ichiro. Yup. He put on a t-shirt….Sigh. Someday our children will MAKE him dress up for Halloween.

We ended up with 3 witches and 3 vampires. It was a good mix. So much fun!!

November –

Apparently all we did (at least that there was pictural evidence of, was go on walks and to the park. But hey, I can’t really complain as it was November. I love taking her outside. We need to get back to doing that more often. the walker toy at the beginning, evolved by the end of the month into her receiving and using her cane!

  

I almost won a Petunia Pickle Bottom Bag and a Bob stroller with this picture for Father’s Day We were beat out by the single dad in the army.  I guess I can concede to him…

December -

Maggie met Santa at our ward party. She wasn’t thrilled, but she didn’t scream her head off like other kids either, so I’m calling it a win.

These are her first french braid piggy tails. They fell out as soon as she laid on the floor, but they were cute while they lasted.

We went to the zoo with my neighbor Monica and her daughter Kim. They’re such fun people!

There are neat little slides and a sand pit, and a petting zoo. Oakland Zoo is a great place!

We also made a trip to the Discovery Center in Sausalito. Here’s more pictures :)

http://maggiesview.blogspot.com/2012/04/free-wednesday.html

We were so happy to be able to make it out to Washington again for Christmas!  We sure love family.  Everyone was together for a little over 24 hours, and we managed to squeeze some fabulous family pictures out of it!

Maggie’s little chuckle:

The boys:

The girls:

And the whole family!

I love this one of us. It’s printed up all big and hanging in our living room!

We were able to get together Christmas Eve, all of us.  Ruth read the Littlest Angel (which always makes me cry)

and Brian read the Christmas story from Luke 2.

Then we opened presents to and from Neil and Karen before the headed over to her family’s for Christmas day.

This is one of my favorite things it the world.  Maggie LOVES to read books, and I love watching Brandon read with her. They are so adorable