Sinterklas and olliebollen

This year we started the tradition of Sinterklas from My mission.  We've had to modify it a bit, but the kids got out the wooden shoes for the patron saint of children.  We had surprises and made and ate Olliebollen (fried pastries that are similar to doughnuts).  We sang dutch songs and learned a little bit about the dutch culture and people.  It was fun for dad to tell mission stories about Sinterklas and eating warm olliebollen on cold cold holiday night years ago in the Netherlands.

Our best shot

This was our attempt at a sunday morning family picture.  We had some funny faces and a wandering Cole.  We love grandma's outfits!

Our little muscian

Brynn had her first recital with her new teacher.  She did such a good job.  I don't know how they can memorize all those songs with bowing and notes.  She has been practicing hard and we love to hear her play.  

Too cute to leave off the blog

cole and shay spend some time outdoors.  The weather has cooled considerably....we even had a hint of snow.  Even with the cold weather, Shayla won't wear a jacket.  Compared to weather in Ohio, this is nice.

The joys of construction for consumption

Let the Sugar frosting flow.  One piece of candy for the house, one piece for the tummy.  Following a family tradition, we made our gingerbread houses.  As soon as the houses were completed, they had already started nibbling away.   

Brother in tow

Cooper and Cole are now starting to play together.  It is fun to watch them make up games.  Most of the time, cole ends up as the tackling dummy, but they do have fun together.

Daddy's little helpers

Jarom's work truck is now ready to go thanks to the cleaning help of his two little buddies.

Arrrrh matties this be captain one tooth Cole.

Halloween

Will the real tooth fairy please stand up!

Tardy Tooth Fairy

A little background behind these pictures: Brynn finally lost her second tooth. She faithfully put it under her pillow expecting of course, to get some kind of prize. Day one....no tooth fairy. Her parents came up with some lame excuses as to why the tooth fairy hadn't gotten to the tooth, which she accepted. So on day two, she added some demands (See letter 1). She sealed the tooth and her letter in a zip lock bag to make sure the tooth fairy would be sure to see the letter with the tooth. Well......absent minded tooth fairy once again. The Heaton's tooth fairy must be one busy fairy. I hope the fairy is not male because male and fairy don't go well together. Well on day three, Brynn left her note, some money (to help buy the prize of course), and just to be sure, she placed one more note on the floor pointing to her pillow (See note 2). The tooth fairy finally came, with her webkin of course.

Coops got this goalie business DOWN pat.

We asked Cooper if he wanted to be goalie for a little bit because he was out of breath. After a few minutes of trying to figure out how to stop the ball from getting by, his little boy brain came up with this.

Martha, Martha what have we here?

Dad and mom did their best on Coops tractor birthday cake. We are quite proud of ourselves. Please leave us nice comments. We are working on 100% approval ratings here.

coop-a-loop turns four!

Cooper was way excited about his new set of wheels. He had worn the front tire off his big wheel. Now it's bikes and scooters. He is quite the boy.

Holy Scorpions

We are sure loving the nice warm weather, but the bugs sure make you watch your step. We have seen four of these scorpions this week. They sure are ugly. The kids keep asking if we can keep one for a pet....aaah that would be a great big NO. Time to have the bug guys back over.

First Day of School

Brynn and Shayla are off to school. They are now bus riders...I must mention that they don't want to be bus riders. It took them three days to figure out what stop they were supposed to get off on. They love their school and their teachers. They are even finally enjoying the bus ride with all their new friends.

I can't believe she actually gave me doughnuts!

This was Cole's first birthday. We had just dealt with the stress of trying to get into our pee infested home...So instead of a birthday cake we had to settle for birthday doughnuts. Cole was in heaven, and the kids thought is was pretty great as well.

Surprise...It's a fixer upper

 Kristy picked this one out all by herself on the internet...can you tell! We were finally grateful to be heading for our first home. When we got to Texas, there was a sign on the door that read, "Welcome to your new Phouse. Notice there is p in your house. Long story short not only was our yard dead, but the house was full of dog urine. After days of discussion, stress, motel 6, and tears, we got the carpet replaced and began work on our new rented home. We drove around looking for new places, but felt like this was where our family was supposed to be. We are so glad we stayed. We really love the area, our neighbors and the ward.

Chicago trip

Kristy, Cole and I took a surprise visit to chicago just before our move to Texas.  We had such a good time.  Special thanks to Travis and Britt for their help on planning the whole thing.  We had fun shopping, seeing the sites and of course eating the chicago deep dish pizza

Chicago trip

Goodbye to O.H.I.O

The time has finally arrived for us to leave the student status and head for the world of employment. Our family will be heading for Austin Texas next month and even though we never imagined that it would ever happen, we are excited for the new opportunities that await us there. We are however, going to MISS THIS. Ohio has been a welcomed relief from the busy hustle bustle of Los Angeles. We will miss the card clubs, girls night outs, man dates, play dates, and associations with all the young families that live around us. We will miss the summer front yard sits, chatting and watching the kids play. We will certainly miss columbus, ohio. We will miss the green landscape and the beautiful spring, summer and Autumn seasons...notice we didn't say winters...we won't miss those. Most of all, we will miss the many dear friends that we have made here. We hope in someway that this blog will allow us to stay in contact with you all.

We will miss being around the Church history sites. During our Ohio stay, we wer able to see Kirtland, Nauvoo, Palymra, Carthage, Fayette, Hill Cumorah, John Johnson Farm, E.B Grandin's print shop, Sacred Grove, Joseph Smith farm,and the Martin Harris farm,

We will miss being close to some pretty neat places. Here we are at Niagra Falls. We took a little detour on our way to see church history sites and got to see the Falls. We had so much fun.

O.H.I.O. We will miss a lot of things about Ohio, but the cold winters we really wont miss. As you can see from above, we didn't quite get the last "O" because Cooper was oh so cold. We did have fun, however, making a snow fort.