What a good sport!

Now that Jer's home, I figured I should put him to good use, so what better than to let him be a clown for my preschool class? Yesterday was our class carnival, and Jeremy agreed to be our special clown guest! He was so great! My mom gave him this costume for his birthday (in high school). He had never worn it (not sure why), so I figured it was time to pull it out and let him show off his skills, which he has lots of! He unicycled, AND juggled at the same time. He also made the kids some animal balloons, which he learned how to do with a kit from the dollar store, about 10 minutes earlier. What a good sport! Thanks, Jer! The kids loved it!!!!

Jeremy the clown!

His first debut as a clown was a great success! Anyone need a clown for a birthday party? I'm pretty sure he's planning on turning it into a career!

Jeremy's home!

My little brother, Jeremy, came home from his mission in Hawaii, November, 7. It is so good to have him back! It was great seeing him at the airport. We all wore ski hats (Justin's idea) to honor the ski season that Jer loves. Welcome home Jer, we love you! His homecoming talk is this Sunday, the 23rd if anyone's interested!

We're ready!

There were about 15 other missionaries coming home at the same time, a lot Polynesians, hence the crowd!



Jayci, waiting to welcome home her uncle she'd never seen!

There he is!!!

Looking good!

I think he and my mom hugged for half an hour (okay, not quite)

a cell phone?

My brother, Justin, made this awesome sign for the driveway. Everyone looked as they drove by.

Now that she's one...

Jayci is very mischievous now that she's one! She loves to get into things she shouldn't, make messes, climb up onto everything, and just be a one year old! I'm sure many of you are thinking, it's only the beginning! The other day she took my keys and headed for the bathroom. I thought, "uh oh! I hope the toilet seat is down, but before I could get there I heard a little ker-plop. I have to admit that I love her at this stage, though. She is so much happier now that she can walk and does such cute things. She loves to just walk around the house all day, spin in circles, and try to dance and tumble like the little girls do that come to my tumbling classes. I am teaching her some signs to do and it's fun to see her pick those up. Some signs she is really good at is: more, eat, bird, open, and hot. We are working on drink, binky, and some others. It's so fun to watch her communicate. She is very creative about the ways she gets things across to me. She loves her little elephant, Ellie, and likes to make elephant sounds. Yesterday she came into the room with Ellie, made an elephant sound, and gave me a big grin. It was so cute. She LOVES animals! She see's a lot around here, and loves them all. She makes a panting sound when she wants to see our dog, Hank, because he rarely barks, only pants. Another thing she loves these days is having her clothes off. When I take them off at night to put her in her jammies, she jumps up and runs off without her clothes, she loves it!

Jayci got her first big bump on the head the other day when she fell off our neighbor's deck. I didn't actually see it, but I think she just walked off the stairs, luckily there were only two. It made quite a big welt, but now, after a couple of days, it's just a nice bruise.

Busted!


I left her in here for a few minutes while I checked on dinner and I kept calling her name. She usually comes, so when she didn't I figured something was up, and this is what I found when I came back!

She loves to climb up on whatever she can.

Pulling things out of all the drawers and cupboards and shelves is her new favorite thing.

She loves to eat whole tomatoes from our garden

This is my favorite! One day she just did this perfect fish face, it was hilarious! Now when I tell her to do a fishy face she pulls this out. This was the first day she did it and I haven't been able to capture it since. Please excuse the runny nose! Seems like it is always running.

family photos

A few weeks ago my brother, Joel, and his wife, Kalli, came over for Sunday dinner and hung out. It was lots of fun having them here. Kalli brought her camera so we took some pictures of Jayci and our family. As we were about to take them, I remembered that Chad had his hunting beard, and I was so disappointed! Not that he doesn't look good, but it's just not him, and would look a little silly in family photos. But, we took them anyway, and of course had to put our dog, Hank, in. They turned out pretty good, even with the bearded man (even though Jer says he looks like he's 60). Kalli does a great job at photography! It was so nice of her to do these for us. They are just in our front room and out on our front lawn. We had these home grown pumpkins on our porch, grabbed a hay bale (that we feed our goats) from the backyard, and we were ready to go. Even the fifty-year-old wood fence in the background fit with the photos! Thanks, Kalli!

Chad likes this one because Hank looks so "tough" !

This is her little gremlin face

kalli does great photos for a very decent price. Check out her website if you're interested! http://www.kallinasmithphotography.blogspot.com/

Halloween happenings

We had a fun Halloween this year! Last year I just had Jayci about a week before, so I was excited to stay home with her and greet all the trick-or-treaters, but only one small group of teenagers came at about 9:00, so that was disappointing. Chad saw a bunch of trick-or-treaters down town, so we decided to go check it out this year. There were tons of trick-or-treaters who went around to the local businesses who passed out candy outside their stores. We didn't trick-or-treat, Chad just took a few for "Jayci" here and there. Halloween is fun now that we have a baby and can dress her up cute, rather than worrying about dressing up ourselves! We went to our ward's trunk-or-treat, also. Chad said he went there last year to check it out, but since he was all by himself, and no one knew him yet, he thought he probably looked like a child molester, so he went home. After those events, we went to our friends' house and had Papa Murphy's pizza and Halloween cookies! I didn't buy a costume for Jayci this year because I was too cheap, but a nice lady in my ward let me borrow this cute Dalmatian costume. The costume was nice and warm, which she didn't really need this year. :)

down town trick-or-treaters

our little Dalmatian

She did pretty good in her costume, but was most happy when I took it off!

One year old!

I can't believe my baby is one year old! Time flies by, and now that she can walk, she really doesn't seem like a baby anymore. We had a little birthday celebration for Jayci and my sister-in-law, Breanne, the Sunday before Jayci's birthday, and then we had a little party at our house the Sunday after with Chad's family. I decided to try my hand at a cake, a really easy cake. I didn't buy any of the candies and misc. that was supposed to go on the top, so I kind of improvised, but it turned out kind of cute. I forgot to save some white frosting, so I used powdered sugar instead, which made it difficult to put anything on top of it because it wouldn't stick. And the eyes are olives, which she actually really enjoyed. It was fun to watch her dig into her cake. She mostly just ate a bunch of the frosting and left the cake in a big crumbly mess. She had no interest in opening presents, so I just opened them for her, but it was still fun!

Our party guests

my first attempt at a birthday cake - a little sad, I know!

"Happy Birthday to You!"

Jayci, starting in on the goods. She sure enjoyed the frosting.

This is what was left in the end.