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!