Santa Claus is coming to town

We had our Ward Christmas Party this past weekend at church.  It was awesome.  They did a breakfast this year and I loved that.  It allowed us to be able to take Ken's parents to see the Christmas Lights up at the Washington DC Temple Visitor's Center.  That was a lot of fun.  Anyways, while at the party, a friend in the Ward is a professional photographer and she took pictures of the kids with Santa.  Bryce had absolutely no problem going up to sit with Santa.  Isabella was a little more wary, but she went up there.  Here are the pics of the kids with Santa.

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

I had the opportunity to chaperone a field trip with Isabella's class to the Pumpkin Patch.  While I was not all that impressed with this particular pumpkin patch, the kids had a lot of fun.  Here's a few pictures from the day.

The three I had to keep track of - Isabella, Julia, and Kailyn

Isabella on the big slide - it needed a little help and a lot of air!

Some of the kids with their pumpkins

The whole class

Ken became a warrior

Ken got talked into doing the Warrior Dash in Richmond, VA, this year.  It was a few weeks ago.  For those who don't know what it is, its basically a 5k race with a bunch of muddy obstacles along the course.  Ken said he enjoyed it but he's not sure he would do it again.

Ken all geared up for the race

With the group that he was kinda with - the woman in the white shirt is someone Ken used to work with and she convinced him to do this.

Isabella with her Warrior t-shirt and Ken's warrior helmet

 Bryce with his shirt and Ken's helmet - he wouldn't look at me

Ken after the race

 Ken and the kids after the race.  Isabella wanted nothing to do with muddy Daddy, she looked at him and said, "Don't touch me."

This was as close to Ken as Isabella would get until he cleaned up.

Sick Days

Unfortunately, Isabella's has had a bunch of sick days since school started.  She just isn't used to all the germs.  So in a month of school, she had 4 sick days.  Hopefully we're good for a while.  Here's my little sicky one of the times she was home.

Bryce is 3!

Yup, sure enough Bryce is 3 years old.  We had his birthday party a few weeks ago at Aunt Pam's house.  We had pizza and cake and ice cream and lots of fun.  He was very excited to be the birthday boy.  He asked about his birthday for a couple weeks afterwards.  He's finally not asking about it.  I'll post a few pictures from him party a little further down.  

I think Bryce is enjoying Isabella being in school.  He finally gets a little Mommy-Bryce one-on-one time.  He is excited though when we go get her from school.  The first week or so of school, he was convinced we were going to get her every time we got in the car.  He still thinks that every so often.  

Bryce continues to crack us up.  He loves to sing the alphabet song...at the top of his lungs.  He also counts to 12 or 13 on his own...most of the time.  He loves Dora.  I mean, he really loves Dora!!!  He wants to watch Dora all the time.  

Bryce is huge!  He went in for his well child check-up and he was off the charts for height and weight.  The nurse said it red-flagged when she put in his height and weight.  Otherwise, he is a healthy and happy three year old.

Bryce and Paige cheesing it up

Bryce and his birthday hat

 And noisemaker

He wanted a Dora cake, so I made the "picks" for the cupcakes.

I got lazy (or just too busy) to make his cupcakes, so these were store bought.

 Ken insisted that there be something other than just Dora, so we got some Cars cupcakes too.

Bryce was super excited to blow out his candles shaped like crayons.