The night before Christmas...

Can't believe it's already Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas everyone!








Easton decided Santa would rather have a donut and M&M's than cookies.
Hope he's right...

Happy Birthday Easton

Easton turned 3 today. We had a party that was total chaos. I got no pictures of the party, his presents, the cool race track cake I made, or even of the mess my house was after 9 3 year olds ran wild. Hopefully he will remember the fun time he had! And the tantrum he had as well :)
We love you Easton!

Thankful

Some things I am thankful for:

1.Our trip to Utah where my husband and brother-in-law made a meal for 12 people entirely from pre-made frozen food. I am a frozen food snob and it was tasty.




2.These two


3.My mom is here. Yay.

Here's what other people are thankful for...love this.

Halloween

I will start out with a disclaimer regarding the horrible quality photographs in this post...our video camera apparently takes really lame pics...but it's all we got until we head to Utah next week and buy a new camera. Here are our Halloween pics and then-some:


Peter Pan. Everyone saw him at this church activity and said "oh look, it's Robin Hood." Easton didn't know who Robin Hood was but he sure knew he wasn't him...he kept correcting everyone.

Peter gets his groove on.

Mr. Smee. This was the most of his costume that Owen wore...he wasn't feeling so hot so the bandanna and pirate boots stayed on for about 3.2 seconds.


Captain Hook at the ward Trunk or Treat. He actually did look like Captain Hook even if in this picture he looks like a flower power hippie. We had the Peter Pan theme down and unfortunately didn't get any shots of my 'Wendy' costume...sad.


His loot. Easton keeps taking his candy out of his bucket and putting it in again or switching it to a new location...I think we spend a good 1/3 of our days lately reorganizing candy...and it's very technical...I'm not usually allowed to help.

In sadder, non-Halloween news, our neighbors and good friends the Meade's moved back to the states right before Halloween. Easton misses his buddy Wyatt and I miss my buddy Emily.


Hope everyone had a super Halloween...to all our peeps in Utah: we'll be there next week; let's hang out!

Grandpa and Grandma Nancy Visit Ireland

We had a great 2+ weeks with my dad and step-mom Nancy. We went to London the first part of the trip, they traveled South West Ireland, we went to a World Cup qualifying match and Rob and I got to go out a few times thanks to the grandparents watching our boys. Here are the highlights:

Actually this might not be so much a highlight...we did the sightseeing bus in London...it took way longer than we were told, headphones didn't work, babies cried...it was an experience.

Grandpa and Owen at Buckingham Palace.

Us at Trafalgar Square

This nasty pic of me is for my sister, the cupcake lover...red velvet deliciousness.

Rob and I got to go to Les Mis at Piccadilly Circus and we ate lots of McDonald's. At one lunch we were actually seated in what turned out to be a fancier restaurant than we had thought and we walked out and headed to Micky D's. Cheap, obnoxious Americans. We went to the Saturday Portabello Road market which the guys hated (it was impossibly packed with people) but I kind of liked. My dad and I made a last minute stop to Harrod's. Does everyone know that that store has a FLOOR devoted to Christmas? YEAR ROUND? It was sheer glittery, tinsely, candy caney, goodness. I could have spent hours...good thing we only had 1/2 hour. This picture hardly does it justice but...



We headed to the Dublin City Center a few times:


The boys are a bit camera shy...
And thanks to Rob's work we got to go to a World Cup Qualifier Game...Ireland vs. Italy. It was so fun. The Irish are crazy about their national sports teams so the crowd really made the game. They tied but it was a really exciting match. Here we are at Croke park (the same place we saw U2):


And a few more random shots:


Grandma Nancy and Owie.

And the 4 of us pre-church.

Thanks grandparents for making the long trip out...we had a blast.

We lost our camera so pictures could be lagging for a while. We are however heading to London in a few days so hopefully we can figure something out by then. Who's been to London? We went last December and it wasn't the best trip...any tips on what to see?
Also, I said a long time ago that I would post some of our family pictures that Stephen took...so I'll just put them up in the header and change them from time to time.
I will post a photo of our newest family member:

Yep, that elf in the photo is Ben...from Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom on Nick Jr. (the UK version.) Ben has become Easton's best little imaginary buddy. Everything includes Ben...'can Ben come to the store?'...'did you put Ben's jammies on?'...'does Ben have to go into time out too?' It gets a bit exhausting remembering to include Ben all the time (and facing Easton's wrath if I forget) but hey, at least he's got a healthy imagination!

Whoa. It has been a while. We have been busy with trips to California, and London, and just living life here in Dublin. Here is what we have been up to:

The London Temple:

We went on a day trip to the temple in London. We were glad we went but decided never to do a day trip involving airplanes and airport security pretty much anywhere with our kids. It was exhausting. But the temple was beautiful and the kids were fine wandering around temple grounds for a few hours.



Easton actually jumped into this little pond...awesome.

Then we were off to L.A. Rob had to go for work and we all decided to tag along. We were excited to see friends and even our family came out to meet us there. We stayed in a house with a pool that was pretty much in our old neighborhood.

We love the pool. And it was HOT there! I was loving it.

Grandma got to come and hang out.
And we got to go to the beach. Twice. It was really fun and Easton especially loved the waves
and sand.

Easton and buddy Josh.
Owen was a good beach baby.

Owen and Anna chowing on watermelon.

And we of course went to Disneyland. Once again, it was HOT. But we powered through and had a good time. I'm kicking myself for not getting more/better pics while we were there. But we did get a few.

Easton in Toontown. Hot.

Easton and Josh having a sword fight with their suckers. Easton proceeded to whack his sucker on the nearby trashcan which, aside from being gross, also attracted the attention of the Disneyland police and we were gently reprimanded...yikes.

The boys waiting for the carousel. Can I just say how much I love these boys (and a few very cute girls that aren't in the pic)? It was so fun to get to see all these kiddos again.



Anna and Owen in the stroller. Owen was a champ riding in the back of the stroller most of the day. We had a blast in California...thanks to all of our friends and family who were able to hang out with us...we miss you guys.
We came back to Dublin to some rockin' weather. We went to a neighborhood b-day party and the kids enjoyed the inflatable pool for the 2nd (and probably last) time this summer. It was probably only 65 degrees, mind you, and the kids had blue lips and were shivering after about 20 minutes but ya gotta take what you can get.


Owen isn't crawling yet...and doesn't seem too close to it either.



And here is Easton conked out. He fell asleep like this after church last Sunday.

We have all been busy but it has been a fun summer. Fall has for sure come to Dublin...time to whip out the coats and the stroller rain cover!

Razor Scooters and Bowling Balls

This last weekend we finally had some down time that we were all looking forward to. And as you would expect, it decided to rain, well it is Ireland you know. So we did what any good family does when it rains....we went bowling. It was Easton's first time, but he did great. The whole two turns unless you knock all the pins down really didn't make much sense to him. Well here are some pics.


Here Easton and I are rolling the ball down the little ramp. About half the time he used the ramp and half the time he wanted to throw it like mommy and daddy.


Here are the present and the future of the bowling world. Ok, maybe that is overstating it some. The best part of the afternoon was the "special" shoes. Easton thought they were so cool and wasn't too excited to take them off.

The Razor Scooter

I just have to say that this picture makes me proud to be a dad. Isn't it just awesome?


Easton is showing off his pads and helmut. He usually doesn't wear them for more than 3 minutes, but we do require that he wear his helmut when he rides his scooter.


This picture for me holds a lot of symbolism. I think it tells a story in itself. Here is our boy, padded up and walking down the long path to find his scooter. Someone should write a poem.

Easton is actually getting pretty good at pushing himself around the house, patio, and the street out front. He is really diligent at looking both ways for cars. Our poor son is going to be so confused when we move back to the States, he is used to looking left, right, left, because the cars drive on the left side here. It will be so tough to look right, left, right. We will just have to cross that street when we come to it...

Paris

We just got back from a 4 day trip to Paris. It was great. We laughed at our guide book's suggestions for "Your Romantic Paris Vacation" because it wasn't exactly romantic with our boys but it was fun. We never set foot in a museum or church but we saw pretty much every big tourist attraction and park and walked miles. Here are some pictures from the trip:

Paris has tons of these public bikes that anyone can just take and ride and then park in a new location...pretty cool.

This was our apartment where we stayed...it was in the Latin Quarter and very nice...except that it ended up having no doors or walls which was a little rough putting the boys to bed but we survived.

We took a cruise on the Seine...Eiffel Tower in the background.


Eating FRENCH onion soup and FRENCH fries...we are lame American tourists.


Owen got in on the FRENCH food too.


We stopped at lots of playgrounds to give the boys a break from the stroller. I love that Paris has playgrounds right in the middle of urban areas.

This was a full on carnival right behind the Louvre. Easton and Rob rode the Ferris wheel.

The Louvre


Notre Dame. There was a massive line to get inside here. No thanks. Maybe someday when our kids are older or Rob and I go without the kids it would be nice to check it out but this time it was cool enough just to see.

Man carrying lots of french bread.

This is how Easton and Owen saw Paris. We got tons of stares and comments on our stroller...from everyone. Have they never seen a double stroller before?

The Jardin du Luxumbourg. This was an awesome park that was beautiful, had a cool pond with toy sailboats that Easton loved, and a sweet playground (that you had to pay to go into, by the way). We lounged on the grass, played by the pond and ate crepes. It was a good time. (This pic came from Rob's camera and doesn't quite do the park justice...and it wasn't quite so dark and scary looking outside!)
It was a really fun trip and we were really thankful that our boys were such good and happy travelers. Rob and I felt like stupid American's a few times for sure. I was buying stuff at the grocery store and the lady told me how much the total was and I had a 20 euro bill and a 5 euro bill in my hand. I handed her the 20 and she gave it back to me and took the 5 from my hand. Righto. I think it inspired Rob to take some French lessons.
We can't wait for our next European vacation!