counting down the days-3 more!

Well Santa came a little early this year. On saturday we had a piano delivered. I found it on craigslist for free. I'm very excited about having a piano, and I am working to remember my childhood piano lessons. I have found a lot of great help online and I'm going to go find all my old lesson books at my parents house soon. Hopefully soon I will be able to play like I used to.

The girls are loving the piano too. Don't tell them but I think Santa is bringing them a piano that is their size, so we can all practice together :)

The other night Peter and I were getting everything ready for bedtime and the girls were running around playing when it suddenly got very quiet. Peter bet me that they were in the fridge and I bet him that they had found a stash of chocolate. We were both right. I had a bowl of dipping fudge in the fridge and they found it and were enjoying a little sneaky treat! I guess I will have to dip the rest of the fudge in chocolate chips :)

What little stinkers! Well we are really excited for Christmas this year, I think the girls are a great age for Christmas. Violet knows all about Santa and is trying to be so good so he will bring her presents! I think she gets an A for effort.

12 days till Christmas!

So I was sitting down paying some bills the other day, and I realized that it was December 10, 2010. That means that it has been 5 whole years since I graduated from college. It was such a great day, it didn't feel real, school had been such a huge part of my life up until that point and I can't believe it has been so long since I was in school. This is a picture of Peter and I after the ceremony, we had been married for almost 4 months.

Here is me right after I graduated. I didn't know then that I would be using my college degree to run a household and raise two beautiful girls. I think the most important thing I learned while in school was how to learn. I learned how to research topics and take that research and form an opinion. I have used this skill to learn how to do a broad range of things such as how to bake a potato (I'm not joking I didn't know how), how to find a job in a tiny town called Rexburg and how to take care of my kids ( It is in this field that a bulk of my research and study has been ....I'm still working on it). Learning really is a never ending process and just because the subject matter has changed greatly (although I have used my anthropology experience to conduct fascinating observations on the life of a toddler) I am amazed at how much there is to learn everyday. So...It's been 5 years since I left Western but I really consider my education there as just the tip of the iceberg.

In other news we have been having lots of fun this month and we are ready to start celebrating Christmas. First we went to Grandpa Hatch's birthday party. He says 79 is his preferred driving speed not his age. Here he is carrying Claire around singing his song that he sings to all the babies "the streets of loredo".

Here is Claire at our after-Thanksgiving party eating some pumpkin pie.

Here is me and Peter in front of the start of the Christmas tree forest at my parents house...I will have more pictures of this soon. Diana tells me that tree number 8 is up and ready to decorate...it is so pretty.

This is after Thanksgiving dinner. Claire with a holly mustache.

Violet and Grandpa putting together a little foam gingerbread house together. Violet loved it and kept playing with the little gingerbread man.

Violet tried on some of Grandma's Jewelry and was playing in the mirror. Violet loves dress up.

Claire fell asleep all bundled up in the car on the way to Grandma's house.

This is Claire pulling a key out of the wall (not pictured me pulling my hair out!!!). I let the girls leave it in so I could record it, mostly because I knew that no one would believe me if I told them and that someday they will complain about something their kids did and I am going to send them this picture and say it is proof of karma....oh my what must I have been like as a child? Better yet....what was my Mom like as a child? maybe it comes from Dad?

Anyways just the beginning of the holiday season has been so much fun so far and we are really looking forward to the rest of the month. Katie, Darin and Kya are coming to town on Friday and we are so excited to see them.

Have fun getting ready for Christmas! I hope no one else gets a key shoved into their wall!

We've got a few pictures to share, so here we go!

We had a great time in Washington last October. We got to take the kids up to see Grandma Corier. I have a lot of fond memories of her house and it was fun to spend some time with her. Mom and Allion walking around Lattin's Cider Mill. Grandpa played a little rough with Wesley and Sam one night. The boys LOVED this. In fact, I think Grandpa has won Sam's little heart. The other day I asked Sam if he wanted to talk to Grandpa on the phone and he said, "yes, Grandpa is mine best friend."

The boys found some headbands and Sam dressed up in his Indian shirt from preschool and then they ran around shouting, "I am in fashion!"

Allison loves her big brothers.

So, I ran my first half marathon yesterday. I'd have to say it was probablly the WORST race in my entire life. But, I did finish. I am anxious to run another one because I know I can do much better. This is me "wogging" (walk/jogging) across the finish line. Halloween was really fun this year. Wesley was an airport worker guy (you know the one with the orange sticks that guides planes to the gate), Sam was a knight, and Allison was a bee.
We had some pretty spooky pumpkins this year. I think next year we will carve them a little closer to Halloween. . .
My handsone little knight, Sam.

Allison our buzzing little bee. She's practicing her flying here.

Things are going pretty well here in Texas. I talked my whole family today and they all had snow. . . we have our air conditioner on.

Hope you all are doing well too.

The Wood family

just time for some new pictures

It's just plain time for some new pictures. Here is V trying to stop the flash from flashing.

Here is claire wearing a necklace that I got from my Great Grandma Coy, the girls have been having fun wearing it this week. Claire is actually also sitting in grandma's pink rocker. So that would be her Great Great Grandmother.

Violet started preschool this week. She has really love it. She goes to a nearby elementary school that also does a preschool program. She goes 4 days a week and will even start riding the preschool bus soon. We are really glad that she was able to get into this program. She wakes up every morning ready to go to preschool. Claire is also loving being the only kid home for a few hours every day.

enough pictures lets go!

Claire fell asleep mid bite the other day. She usually gives definite cues to when she is tired so this doesn't happen too often. it was so cute and so sweet.

Speaking of cute, there we are!

Claire had some chocolate in the car.

Peter and his girls

here are two videos...I hope they work. One is of a new noise that Claire has learned to make and the other is of her just being noisy, she has gotten quite good at just shouting!

blog

Hey I was messing around on the blog and realized I was the only one with Admin privileges and that Katie wasn't an author at all. So I've sent an invite to katie to be an author and when she is I will give her admin privileges, and I've given the rest of you admin privileges as well. :)

idea

Maybe we should have all the granddaughters dress along the same theme for Halloween. We can probably still get away with picking their costumes for them for another year :)

Halloween etc.

Well here are some of the last pictures from the wood family visit. We were all so happy to get to visit with the kids and especially happy to meet little Allison.

On Sunday night before the Woods left, grandpa blew up some helium balloons and let the kids play. They had a great night. We miss you guys already and can't wait to see you this summer.

Grandpa learned how to play wii :)
The next weekend Peter and I took the girls out to the Corn maze with the Cleggs. It was fun. Violet was bossing us around the whole time, she is such a little toddler!

Violet has fallen asleep in some funny positions this week. the other night she was having a hard time going to sleep so we left her in our room and when we went to check on her she had rearranged all the pillows so she had like 5 of them strategically placed. what a little diva.

Then the next night she fell asleep right away but she was totally straight as a board. what a funny kid.

This last Friday and Saturday I was able to go to Spokane and Pullman to be with Bill and Michele as they went to the Spokane temple to be sealed. It was a really nice weekend, I got to sleep on John's couch (which was surprisingly comfortable) and spend some time with my Siblings while Peter held down the fort at home with the girls. The sealing was beautiful and I am really thankful to have been able to be there.
The Spokane temple is a mini temple and our large family was a little overwhelming in such a small space but it was really fun to all be together.

After the temple we all went to Olive Garden in down town spokane for lunch.

On Sunday we took the girls trick or treating with Wylie. It was so much fun and the kids are really starting to get the hang of trick or treating. They got quite a bit of candy too!

Violet the witch clutching her candy in the car. We got to stop at both grandparents house for a visit. G and G Corier only got like 10 trick or treaters and G and G Wright got like 4 ( I think most people are going to the neighborhoods with sidewalks and streetlights) I was talking to my friend about this and she said we used to go hard core trick or treating (our neighborhood has large lots, long wooded driveways) todays trick or treaters don't know how much work we used to put into getting that candy!

Violet making her last stop of the evening at grandma's. Aunt Diana decorated the porch for them while we were in spokane, it looked so cute.

Doesn't Claire look adorable as Minnie Mouse? Diana got the costume on her last trip to disney land.

Trigger wanted to be Minnie Mouse as well!

I hope everyone had a great halloween. The girls and I were planning to head to Idaho this weekend for a wedding but we are all sick with a chest cold so we are staying home instead.