I want peanut butter on my face!

Last night I was woken up by Daniel at 3am. I went to his room to see why he was crying. He says to me "I want peanut butter on my face." I thought he was trying to tell me he had peanut butter on his face and I told him his face was clean. He then repeats that he wanted peanut butter on his face and used his hands to pretend he was spreading peanut butter all over his face. I finally convinced him to go back to sleep, but not before I had a good laugh! I'm curious what kind of dream prompted that!

Noah Turns 9 years old

Noah turned 9 last week! We had a little birthday party with family for him. My Dad and Catherine and friend Shweta came up from Olympia to help celebrate. My mom also came for the party.

We had a yummy dinner and lots of birthday pie!

My dad with Emma and Jacob.

Noah got a snap circuit board and has already spent many hours playing with it! He loves things like this!

Emma and Daniel really wanted to help open gifts!

New movie from Mana!

Kendall surprised him with a new bike! He had had his old bike since he was 3 1/2 yrs old and he had out grown it.

Perfect fit!

The next day we had a little break from the rain and he got to spend some time riding around the neighborhood.

You Stole my Pickle!

The other day I was looking through some old pictures and Daniel joined me on the couch. He saw a picture from Oct 2008 when he was just 7 months old. Two pictures caught his eye, one of him sucking on a pickle and then another one of me taking the pickle away from him so he didn't choke. He was crying in the picture of me taking the pickle away and he asked me about it. I told him what was happening in the picture and then he got really mad! He started yelling at me for taking his pickle (2 years ago). He was crying about it all over again and he wanted another pickle! We had no pickles in the house so next time I went to the store I bought pickles. I gave this one to him and he was very excited to have his pickle. But he took one bite of it and said "Yucky!". Turns out he no longer likes pickles. Crazy kid!!

Ringing in the New Year with Potty Training...

Well so far 2011 has been a good year. Kendall took some much needed time off work and it was so nice having him around for 2 whole weeks over the Christmas holiday. We got a lot done around the house while he was home. The house needed a major cleaning and Kendall did a lot of it. Today is his first day back and I know he was not looking forward to getting up early! My biggest goal for the new year was to potty train Daniel. He was long overdue for it! I wanted to do it while Kendall was home for the extra help with the other kids. We started on a Friday and after day two and the 10+ pair of dirty underware I was ready to give up! This was after the 5th or 6th pair of poopy underware! Ugh, it was so gross! But I had promised myself that I would be strong and NOT go back to diapers so we just kept going with it. On Monday (Day 4) he went the whole day without a single accident! He is doing so great and doesn't even need a reminder any more! Happy day, it's done!! The only problem is keeping him in underware! The other day the FedEx man came to deliver a box to us, as I was signing for the box he was giving me a strange look. When I closed the door and look behind me I see Daniel doing a little "boogy dance" in nothing but his little t-shirt. So embarrassing, I wish I could call that man back and explain that we are potty training! So don't be shocked if you come to visit and find Daniel in the nude, you've been warned! It seems Daniel has aged a bit since he is out of diapers! I think he likes being a "big boy" now and likes the new found freedom. I enjoy not having to change his diapers! So now we are down to one in diapers. Happy Day!!

Christmas At The Hepworth's

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas this year. We had a great Christmas and really enjoyed this season!
We always start decorating for Christmas right after Thanksgiving. The kids love putting the tree up and looking at all the ornaments!

Jacob sat and watched this year but next year he will be right in there with us!

Emma got to put the angle on the tree this year!

We decorate Gingerbread houses every year. This one was Noah's. He worked really hard on it and I think it turned out to be the best.

I think Daniel put more candy in his mouth then he did on his house!

I didn't get any pictures of Emma's house, but she sure had fun! It was a fun night and the kids were very hard to get to bed because of all the sugar!

On Christmas Eve we have one of our favorite traditions, the Mary and Joseph dinner (sorry no pictures this year of the dinner). We enjoy eating lamb, figs, dates and olives with bread and olive oil. After dinner the kids got to open their Christmas Eve gifts which were the usual PJ's. This is Emma in her new jammies and also showing off her new scarf my friend Amanda made for her.

The kids "settling down" for bed. It took several tries to get them all looking at the camera and not making silly faces!

They got new toothbrushes in their stockings. Daniel went straight for the chocolate, so that toothbrush with come in handy.

Jacob was so happy this morning and was very content to watch all the excitement!

Noah was so sweet this year and made gifts for everyone. Emma and Daniel got little elves made from little pots and were filled with M&M's. Daniel ate all his really quick!

He painted this pot for us to plant chives in this spring. It's so cute with the little bunny hanging on the side.

Jacob looking at his gift from Noah.

Noah made him 2 bibs. They will come in handy as he is drooling all the time now!

Noah got a new game from my grandmother.

Emma was so excited to get a fishing pole!

Daniel scored big time with new tractors, and tons of new cars! He spent the whole day occupied with them.

He got an aqua doodle from my mom and I love it!

Noah spent the morning playing with his new Erector set. He loves to build things!

Emma got a new baby doll which she names Zoe. It's a very large doll and she loves carrying it around and dressing it in Jacobs clothes.

Emma got a Tinkerbell dress up costume from my mom. She really enjoys playing dress up so it's perfect for her!

Emma liked putting her baby doll next to Jacob. I have to admit I had to take a second look a couple times today seeing her carry that baby around dressed in Jacob's clothes!

Kendall got Noah a Lego mind storm set and this is the hug he received for it! Noah has talked about building a robot for years and now he can build and program to his hearts content.

Noah spent the afternoon and evening working on his first robot. It looks around and see something and shoots little marbles at whatever it sees. It's pretty cool and the kids were dancing around trying to get it to shoot them.

This is just a cute picture of Jacob sitting on the couch today.

Emma just had to get in the picture with him. Over all it was a wonderful day, and the kids had a great time playing with their new toys.

Leaf Hunting

Wednesday was such a beautiful day! Noah finished all his school work in the morning and the kids have been begging me to take them leaf hunting. I have been wanting to go down to the Seattle Temple for a while now and decided that the best leaves could be found there on the grounds. The kids were so excited, they love going down to the temple.

Noah took this of Jacob and I.

Daniel loves the statues!

Emma and Daniel playing on one of the statues.

Daniel showing off one of his leaves he found.

I'm so glad I took the camera with us. I think this is one of the first pictures with all the kids together.

I really like this one of the kids.

Of course Noah found lots of sticks to play with along with the leaves.

The kids playing amongst the trees.

It was hard to get Daniel to stand still!

Daniel and Noah. The leaf hunting was a huge success and they all filled their bags all the way to the top. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day! I'm so glad that we went!

Happy Halloween

Okay, this post might be a little long, sorry.

The past month or two have been a little busy for me. Tuesday afternoon I realised that we had not carved pumpkins. So I sent Kendall to the store to pick out pumpkins for us. Poor Noah was so upset that he didn't get to go and pick out his own pumpkin. (He had a phone conference with his teacher and couldn't go with Kendall.) Kendall came home with this pumpkin that had all these growths on it. It looked like it had warts growing on it. Noah was happy about that.

Daniel was so excited to carve pumpkins until we told him he had to clean out the guts! Kendall forced his hand in the pumpkin and he was MAD!

Look at that stink eye he's giving Kendall! I love it!

He is totally grossed out by this!

Last year Emma would have nothing to do with cleaning out the pumpkins, but this year she did her own and took pity on Daniel and helped him out.

Noah's never had a problem with cleaning out his pumpkins!

Emma with the face she drew on her pumpkin.

Some of the pumpkins were really tough this year. Kendall broke out the power tools to speed things up. I love Emma in the back ground holding her ears!

Of course we can't carve pumpkins without having carameled apples. Sorry I didn't get any pictures of the finished product...

Friday night Kendall and Noah went to the Museum of Flight's Spooktacular sleepover. They opened up the museum and they got to spend the night inside museum. They had a lot of fun! Noah was a ghost (minus the makeup).

Noah taking his backpack up to the room where they would be sleeping.

Noah showing off his bumper sticker.

Kendall and Noah.

Noah had a wonderful time. He came home with a new t-shirt with a space shuttle on it.

On Saturday night we went to a Halloween party. A guy from our church has a big barn and some property. He decorates the barn and has a carnival and hay ride. This year he invited a lot more people and I heard that they were expecting 700-800 people! After being there I believe that was pretty accurate! All my kids wanted to be ghost this year, how lucky am I! The picture above is Emma and Noah doing the cake walk.

The kids on the hay ride. The driver was not very experience with the tractor and we got stuck, Kendall ended up getting out and pushing. It was very muddy! When the tractor get stuck in the ditch the trailer we were on tilted on it's side a little and Emma kinda freaked out. I have to admit I was a little worried at first that the whole thing was going to tip on its side! This picture was taken before the ride started moving. It was an adventure!

What a sad little ghost! I think she was cold, tired and she didn't' have any ketchup for her corn dog!

They had cotton candy. Noah saw some kid walking around with cotton candy and he thought it was just part of his costume. He asked me what it was and I told him. I went and got some for him to try.

This is the look on his face after the first bite! I love it! He said "Hmmm, that's weird, it's kinda cottony."

They had a band playing music in the barn. It was so loud, I wish they had turned the sound down. My mom got Noah to dance with her. I think he thinks dancing is soooo silly!

Noah took this picture of Kendall and I when we got home. We were a pioneer couple. The kids had a good time. There ghost costumes where no longer white at the end of the evening because of all the mud! I can't believe Halloween is over and now we are planning Thanksgiving and Christmas! Where did this year go???