Christmas Morning

We woke the kids up at 7 to open presents and had them sit on the steps while we waited for my parents to get here (it was about a minute). I love the delirious faces.

Grace was confused about what she should be doing with the presents. She never really got into the unwrapping.

Evan's new skateboard. His top two requests (of us) were a skateboard and science kit. Luckily we pulled through with both.

Evan has a Leapster but doesn't love to share, so Kyle got his own for Christmas, and his own game. He loves it. He also got a Trio BatCave which has been a hit.

We made the boys ask Santa for matching gifts in an attempt to avoid a repeat of last year. They asked for Nerf Guns and Santa pulled through with awesome ones. Even Daddy and Grandpa love them.

Grace with an awesome cheese face. She got the stroller from Santa, the doll from her brothers, and the outfit from Grandma and Grandpa. She is one very spoiled baby.

Brandon really wanted one of these when he was little I guess, so he convinced Evan that he and Grace should give it to Kyle. All 3 kids (and Brandon) have loved the marble race so I guess it was a good choice.

Evan trying out his skateboard Christmas afternoon. All of the neighborhood kids were out with their new stuff and came running over to see his skateboard. He felt very cool having the coveted gift. This was about all he did on it though.

Sugar Cookies

The boys really wanted to decorate sugar cookies before Christmas, so last night while Brandon was at work I braved it. I love how Kyle has his sprinkles all lined up. He was excited to use all 3, usually on each cookie.

This was the last set, and they were still very happy sprinkling. They seem very focused.

Enjoying the hard work.

Dance Baby Dance

It is kind of hard to hear the music, but the boys wanted to listen to Christmas music and Grace just started "dancing." She did this move the entire time we listened to the song, and we listened to it at least 5 times in a row.

Runny Nose

Grace loves to blow her nose, runny or not. Apparently she was left unattended too long today, because she managed to blow her nose through about 1/4 of the wipes.

Sunday Best

The kids wore Christmas outfits, although not this years official ones, to church today. Amazingly enough when we got home they actually agreed to take pictures. So, here is what our rugrats looked like today. Kyle decided this was the official gift to sit on. He got to go to part of primary (where all the kids 4-12 go) today for the first time to start trying it out. I can't believe he is old enough already.

Grace on one of the rare occasions where the bow is actually in her hair. This outfit was given to us with a hat, but she is our child and has a huge noggin, so the hat was nowhere close to fitting.

Attempting to get a picture of all 3 of them.

If we take Kyle's head off the last one and put it on this one, we might have a decent photo. We will try again next week.

Decorating

Here is a look at our first tree in the new house. It has been very fun putting up our Christmas stuff and figuring out where it all fits, but we have realized in the process that what we don't have nearly as many decorations as we thought.

Kyle decided he wanted to hang up stockings the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and we went along with it.

In our most exciting decorating news, we finally bought curtains for downstairs. We now have these in the family room, over the sliding glass door, and dining room (it is all one wall). They make that wall of the room look pretty well finished which is nice. Now to finish all of the other walls. At least we are making progress.

Here is a close up of the fabric. The circles are kind of green and gold.

Lord I Would Follow Thee

Here's the Stucki boys singing an arrangement by Brian (my musical genius brother) of one of our family favorite hymns. Enjoy!
If you view it on YouTube, the picture is a little better.

Snow Day

This was Grace's first real experience with snow, and she wasn't sure what to think of it. She loves to look at it from inside, but outside she tried to stick to the sidewalks while they were still visible.

This morning they called, at 6 am, to let me know there was no school. The boys were excited and ran out to play as soon as I would let them.

Lucky we bought him new gloves and boots yesterday (size 2, he has huge feet).

I'm not sure why, but Kyle seemed to think this was the best way to walk in the snow. Perhaps this is how his new boots work best.

Still walking funny. It was too frozen to make a snowman so they were just stomping in it.

Finally the funny march stopped. I love how his eyes squint shut when he smiles.

Evan decided a snow angel was in order before coming in. All in all a fun snow day, but if it could melt off of the roads quickly I would appreciate it. We live too far out for the plows to care about our hills.

Lip Update

I don't want everyone still thinking Grace's lip looks disgusting, because it is actually healing really well. We've been amazed how little anybody even notices it. We're hoping that means it will disappear even more as time goes on, and she won't be self-conscious about it forever.The little glob under her lip there is the last of the stitches. It looks like it will come out soon. The rest of the globs are what is left of her dinner.

Much improved from 10 days ago.

Stitches

Tonight at dinner Grace somehow managed to knock the front off of her high chair and take a dive. We are bad parents and never buckle her in because it has a bar so she can't slip out the bottom. We learned our lesson. We think her face hit the tray as she hit the ground....resulting in this.This is her awesome fat lip. It hides the big gash under her lip pretty well, and I think it probably helped slow the bleeding.

Here she is with the gauze soaked in numbing stuff strapped to her face. She hated this at first, but once it numbed up she was good to go (I'm glad I thought to bring the camera with us while I was running around grabbing things).

Wandering the room while she waited for the doctor to come do the stitches. The stitches were less than fun. She screamed the whole time, but as soon as he was done she was out cold.

Here is our sweet girl with her 5 lovely stitches. The doctor seemed to think she would have a scar for a few years but she should out grow it. We're praying for that.

Happy Halloween

Last night was the trunk-or-treat at church (ever one passes out candy from their trunks). The kids cleaned up in a quick 20 minutes and loved it.Kyle decided to be a skeleton pirate again this year, although he was Batman yesterday morning when we went to see my grandparents, and a cat tonight when my parents came over.Evan was a vampire-skeleton-pirate. Basically he couldn't decide what to be, so he wore lots of things he liked. I'm glad I bought the skeleton pirate costume big 3 years ago, because this was the 3rd year in it. Next year I think we will have to spring for a new costume for both boys. He was super excited we did face paint this year.

Grace was an adorable cow, who at this point was super excited we let her have some candy. The boys have been very good about sharing with her.

This years creations. The big one is Brandon's. It had started to mold so it got a really big eye in that spot.

The boys with all of the pumpkins. Kyle refused to stay dressed up tonight, although he has been very enthusiastic about handing out candy. We thought the pumpkins were okay, nothing amazing, but we actually just had someone ask to take pictures of their kids with our pumpkins. Next year we better step it up.

Our attempts at a group shot resulted in a runaway cow.

Pumpkin Carving

The kids got the stomach flu this weekend so we have been house bound. Poor Grace was scary sick for a little while, but she was doing better this afternoon. We were all going crazy being locked in and you can only watch so many movies, so we decided to do what anyone would do with 3 kids with stomach flu....carve pumpkins.

Grace thought the insides were pretty fun, although next she tried to eat them.

This is Kyle "sticking his hand in." He thought the guts were gross and didn't even want to get his spoon too close.

Evan actually got brave and stuck his arm in a few times.
The Results:

Grace was very curious about the entire thing.

See the similarity in the smiles? Grace's bottom teeth came in with the two on the side first, so we gave her pumpkin the same grin (her bottom front teeth have come in now, just not as far).

Kyle opted for a bat this year.

Evan picked what he calls half man, half pumpkin. It will probably be clearer when we put the candle in and light it up.

Our three sickos. Thank goodness our kids are pleasant when they are sick.

Yeah, all three are looking at the camera and kind of smiling!

Pumpkin Patch

For Family Night this week we decided to go to the pumpkin patch. We had perfect weather and as usual, the kids loved it.

Kyle looking for his perfect pumpkin. He found a few he liked that ended up having holes already, but in the end he found one he loved.

Grace loved wandering around and touching all the pumpkins, hay, or whatever else she could find. This girl loves being outside.

Another attempt at getting a good picture of the 3 of them. I've seen so many cute pictures of other people's children at the pumpkin patch, my children however were not feeling so cooperative. They were pleasant, just never all looking at me.

This one is kind of fun. I wish I knew what they were all looking at.

Gotta love a good cut out!