COLOR!

I'm pretty sure I have THE most colorful basement in the world. Which, I think, is pretty fantastic! You would never say that my basement is boring or depressing! It actually has a lot of natural light because of the slope of the house and the large windows. I think it's called a "daylight basement". I love it!

Samantha's bedroom: chartreuse and bubble-gum pink with chair rail.

Samantha's playroom: Custom purple that we now call, "Samantha's purple"

Alex's bedroom: Light blue (leftover paint from a hallway we painted in our last house)

Alex's playroom: Awesome green

Moroni in Paris

Last nights FHE was on the angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith to tell him about the gold plates. Alex recognized the name Moroni from the scriptures we've read and from the statue on the temple. He later told Grammy, "It's the same Moroni who was alive, and now dead, and now he's a gold guy on top of the Eiffel Tower.". I'm quite sure he meant the temple, but I do like the idea of Moroni in Paris.
Thanks for the laughs, dude!

Update

Alex:
Alex is, well, Alex. He's doing well with the learning part of school. He's learning to sound out words and can string together a lot of sounds and read small words. It's very impressive to me! He's a smart little dude. Right now he loves to play with Legos and Bionicle dudes. He loves to watch Spongebob Squarepants and run around and be active. He's quite the good little tumbler and often makes landing pads out of couch cushions and jumps and twirls and flips all over the living room. One of these days I know he's going to break a bone!! We are also having a bit of a struggle with Alex and his behavior. We have taken him to see a psychologist and we hope that some new techniques will help. We may also explore the possibility of him having ADHD and needing medication. We'll see!

Samantha:
Princess Samantha is the star of her class in school! Her teacher just raves about Samantha and how wonderful she is! Samantha is starting to read 2nd grade books and is doing well in every subject! Except sentence construction! That is the one area she struggles with. She's a smart cookie though - she'll get there. Samantha takes a little after-school dance class where she can spaz out with other little girls her age. I really thought something was wrong with her and her dancing abilities until I saw them all dance together.........It is cute though! Samantha is her normal, adorable self most of the time that talks WAY too much and WAY too loud. But with a face like hers, she can get away with it.

Kristi:
I'm writing this post. I have no update. I take care of kids, clean, do laundry, occasionally bake cookies for profit, and teach Young Women in church. I will probably also sign up for an Accounting class at BYU soon. Shoot me!

Andy:
Andy travels. A lot. He is in London right now, then on to Geneva, then Brussels. When he is home he cooks yummy food, plays Legos with Alex (or me!), and reads with Samantha.

Wow, that post was wicked boring! ENJOY!

Oh Alex!!

I know that someday I'll look back on Alex's growing years and laugh.....but I'm not laughing now.
Alex, Dude, you're in a rotten phase! So, like any good mother, I'm going to document it. You know, for posterity's sake and all.

1. You stole the Tic-Tacs out of my car and then lied when I asked you why your tongue was green. For this, you received a 3 hour time-out in the bathroom while we painted your bedroom. You were SO excited to help us paint, so not letting you was the worst thing we could do.

2. You are getting in a bit of trouble at Pre-school! Your teacher has to talk to me about every other day to tell me that you were not obedient to her. Your punishment was to be grounded all day in your bedroom.

3. You left your Ipod in your pants pocket and it got washed. It seems to still work.

4. You spill all of your shampoo into the tub so it is super watery. You also squired soap all over your bathroom mirror. For that, I made you clean your whole bathroom and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing you say, "Yuck! Ew, gross!", while you cleaned your toilet. It's your pee!! Clean it!

5. You spray painted your face in Lowes the other day. Yes, I agree, I should not have let you hold the can of spray paint, but I thought the red security lock would withstand The Alex Test. I was wrong. I really wish I would have taken a picture because you looked hilarious, but at the time I was so concerned about you having paint in your eyes. Thankfully, you did not and I'm sure the worst part for you was me scrubbing your face in the paint aisle with a Wet Wipe.

Oh boy.....you are a challenge little man!!!! But I still love you.

My 2 sweet nerds

As you can imagine, Alex was pretty much in heaven playing NBA Jam with his daddy. Andy said Alex played quite good! Not sure if I should be proud or not, but it was a cute thing for them to do together.

Christmas 2010

I didn't take near enough pictures this Christmas, but I did catch a few.

Here we are opening our presents by the fire! We hauled out couch cushions to sit on to make our present opening experience a bit more comfortable!

All the grandkids waiting for their presents to be handed out - and then to spend 1 minute opening them!

Ready, set, GO!

I just liked this picture of Caleb with Nicole's guitar.

After opening our presents, going to my mom's to open and gorge on nummy food we went home and had a nap! Well, I napped anyways. Then we went to Andy's parents home and had a great dinner and a fun visit.
I received WAY more than I expected, and deserved, and it was just a great Christmas!
Andy has taken half days this whole week and that has been extra nice! I am not ready for that part to be over.....but I am VERY ready for the kids to be back at school!

A few December photos

Samantha and Alex took a karate class at Samantha's school once a week for a few weeks. They then did a little program to show off their skillz. It was hilarious, to say the least!

We FINALLY got the kids - and Andy - to the light at temple square. They were beautiful, and it was a warm night so the place was packed.

Samantha, Andy, and I built a snow-woman yesterday with the amazing, fresh snow. My neighbor across the street came out when we were done to tell me that our snowman was the first ever built in our cul-de-sac!! I told him they must be very boring! Truth is there aren't any kids on our street and so it doesn't surprise me. But he was so happy it was there and HUGE and he said he hoped it would stay forever.
Which won't happen because she is headless at this moment. Stupid rain!

Christmas is coming soon and we are very excited! The first Christmas in a new house is always exciting!
Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Beware Dentists!!!

Last night we were all in the car driving home from picking up our Christmas tree (Home Depot has the best price on fresh trees, FYI) and we were talking about careers. Alex said he wanted to be a policeman. He asked me if I thought was a "good decision". I told him he could do whatever would make him happy, but that I would rather him do something a little less dangerous. He said, "Okay, how about a firefighter". Again, I told him it was a bit dangerous. So then I suggested he be a dentist.
It was at this point that Samantha piped up, "Being a dentist is dangerous too mom!"

???????????

"How is being a dentist dangerous?"

"What if there is a bad guy hiding in the cupboard and the dentists don't see him?"

I guess a career in dentistry is out too.

New Cookie Website

I've been working for a little while on a new website for krandy's sweet co. It's finally finished and I am so happy with it!
Please take a look, enjoy, and order some yummy cookies!!

krandy's sweet co.

Thanksgiving turkey cake

I 100% approve this for Thanksgiving consumption!!

http://www.chow.com/recipes/29029-thanksgiving-turkey-cake

I might cry.....

My baby just lost his first tooth!!! It didn't seem too big of a deal for me with Samantha, but Alex is my youngest and it makes me wanna cry a bit!! The tooth has been loose for a few days now and he was just sitting on the couch playing with it and proudly brought it to me about 10 minutes ago! No weeping and wailing like with Samantha. They sure are different kids. But both equally cute!
Yippeeeeeee Alex!!!

(He came into me just now and said, "Isn't daddy going to be just thrilled??". What 5 year old says that?? Hilarious!)
Sorry you missed it, Andy. Alex's first thought was to email you and tell you.

Halloween 2010

Samantha the "Barbie 3 Musketeer".

Alex, the skeleton.

My parents were over for all of Halloween working on the new bathroom so it was great to be able to take the kids trick-or-treating and have my mom hand out candy. Once the massive storm moved on and we could go out without fear of getting drenched!! We also discovered that our neighborhood is a great place to get candy! Lots of chocolate and 1 house that passed out full size candy bars! Not to mention the Phantom of the Opera show that one house gave! It was a fun night!

Finished bathroom

As you can see, I decided to go with the dark towels, but use a green towel for the hand towel to break up all that brown. I LOVED the coral and green towels, but this set just matched the room so much better (as you can see from the photo, it matches my lovely chair).
Overall, I am SO happy with my new bathroom. My dad is a genius! Merry Christmas to me!

Julie, I got the rug and matching towels at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Jenny, OF COURSE the "this is how we roll" print is still up.....it's just by the toilet now!

Our first fall

I love being in a new home and experiencing the seasons for the first time. My favorite thing about fall in this house is NOT the massive quantity of leaves that have fallen, but the ivy that we kept above the garages that has now turned a brilliant shade of red! It just makes me happy every time I drive home.

HELP!

I need your help people! Which set of towels and bath mat should I go for in my new bathroom.

Number 1 or number 2?
Number 2 matches the room to which the bathroom is attached and is just pretty, but number 1 is light and airy and beautiful. Hmmmmmmm, which one??

Number 1

Number 2

Babysitting

We owed Richele and Greg a night of babysitting and so a couple of weeks ago they left their cute kids with us for a night. We took the kids to get pizza and play at a park before we brought them home, got them washed up and ready for a movie before bed.

Sweet Caleb face.

Samantha and Nicole snuggling on the couch.

The 4 kiddos together.

The next morning we had a yummy breakfast together before embarking on some yard work and hanging out together before the babes had to go back home. Richele and Greg were able to go to dinner, a play, have a night in a hotel (insert dirty music here), and then spend the morning playing at Boondocks. I think they had a nice time and their kids are RIDICULOUSLY easy to babysit, so it worked out well for all!!

Fall Break

For Fall Break this year Andy took Friday off of work and we joined the rest of the state of Utah at Gardner Village. We had never been there before but heard great things - especially about the happenings at Halloween time. We arrived and decided to have a bit of an early lunch to avoid the growing crowds. We ate there at Archibalds and it was quite tasty.

Alex grabbed my camera out of my purse and proceeded to take about 100 pictures. I saved 2. This one of Samantha drinking.....

And this very creepy one of Andy eating.

It was a super sunny, warm day. Quite lovely except for picture taking by a witch.

Ready to go home after wandering, eating, completing the "Where's the Witch" game and getting cookies for a quarter.
We plan on going back around Christmas time to see the place all decked out in holiday decorations!

Pumpkin pickin'

Every year Richele's terrific in-laws invite our family to go to their farm and pick pumpkins. We enjoy being together, roasting hot dogs by the fire, and swatting mosquitoes. This year it was incredibly warm which made it even more fun.

Alex with his chosen pumpkin.

Shell-bell helping Samantha pick one (or Samantha helping Richele, I'm not sure which!).

I just ADORE Caleb in his boots, hat, and pumpkin shirt walking around kicking the dirt. TO DIE FOR!

Beautiful sunset and a crowd of Cooks!

Samantha got a quick ride with Uncle Greg and Caleb before we headed home.

October 2010

We had the family over for big breakfast the Sunday of Conference weekend. Grammy and Grampy put together cute little packets for the kids to complete while the grown-ups attempted to listen. Here they are playing BINGO.

And the boys "watching" Conference.

Baby Abby was wearing a dress that Kami wore when she was a baby and so we had a little photo shoot in my bedroom. She is just too cute - if you ask me!!!

My cousin has hosted a little boutique at her home for the past couple of years and it worked out for us to join in this year.

Kami selling her adorable jewelry, cards, and other crafty-crap.

Richele selling her amazing temple photos.

And my table full of fatty, cookie delight!

I'm not sure if any of us really made any money, but it was a great day together and a good way to sharpen up on our selling techniques!

Bathroom Project Update

Here is the bathroom all stripped and spackled, ready for paint.

Bathroom all painted and the pedestal for the sink sitting. See that little piece of green molding on the floor? Yup, I'm painting my baseboards green to match the library to which the bathroom is connected!! I know you don't see colorful baseboards with white walls too often, but you do in the Higham house!

We discovered that the previous owners of the home left 2 large boxes of leftover flooring that we are going to use here and save some money! My sink arrived in perfect condition and my faucet should arrive next week. I can't wait!