Our little horseback rider!

We went to Graham's moms house the other day to celebrate Graham's 30th birthday! Grandma has eleven horses and Jocelyn always LOVES to go see them!! She would have a horse in her bedroom if she was allowed! :) She loves to go say hi to every one of them and give them kisses and she LOVES to feed them! She'll carry hay that is bigger than her, just so she can help out! It's so cute! She also gets to ride the horses. She usually rides Dirty Face b/c that is Grandma's favorite horse and she is good with kids! Anyway, here are some pictures of Jocelyn riding.

Turkey Day and Hide and Seek!

Well, I have been horrible with writing in this!! We have been so busy lately, so I thought I'd sit down while I have the chance and get caught up!

We had a great Thanksgiving Day! We went out to Mom and Dean's house and of course had wonderful food!!! Mom makes the BEST stuffing....yum yum!! Mom and I made this dessert together called Chocolate Wonderful. My aunt always made if for the family on holidays and since I don't get to Tulsa much, we thought we'd give it a try!! A little nerve racking trying to re-create something so good, but it turned out yummy!

After dinner, Jocelyn wanted to play hide and go seek with Mom and I. She LOVES this game! Usually right before bedtime, Graham will go upstairs and hide and Jocelyn and I will go find him. Daddy came up with that idea b/c sometimes it's a battle to get her to go upstairs at bedtime, so with that game, there's no fight! :) Anyway, Mom and Jocelyn went to hide and I was suppose to find them. It was the funniest thing!!! On one side of their house there are three bedrooms and the bathroom all next to each other. I would step in each room and say, "Are you in here?" Soon I heard this little voice saying, "Huh uh!" (meaning no). It was so hard not to laugh! I went in two more rooms, each time asking "are you in here?" and each time getting the sweet little reply, "Huh Uh!" Then I heard Mom laughing so hard! I find them lying on the floor next to the bed and both of them are just shaking, laughing so hard! It was soooo cute! Such a fun memory to tell Jocelyn when she gets older! :)

Jocelyn's new dollhouse!!!

This dollhouse is amazing! Cutest thing I've ever seen! It is three stories tall, has eleven rooms and came with eighty pieces of furniture! The furniture is so cute....it has a treadmill, plasma tv, vacuum, mop, playroom, a grill, bunkbeds, chandelier, ceiling fans, and so on!!! Adorable! Here are some pictures of it....

Birthday pics

Jocelyn is THREE!!!

Wow! I can't believe my baby is three! She has changed so much in three years! She is so smart (I know all parents think their child is!), beautiful, energetic, playful, a goof ball, so sweet and caring. I am so amazed by her! I hope she continues to grow up happy, healthy and with the sweet spirit that she has. Don't get me wrong, she has her moments.....oh boy, does she! She has my temper, that's for sure! I can see glimpses of teenager in her...it's scary! :) But I adore her and she definitely makes up for the frustrating times! She loves to just hang out with Mommy and Daddy and her new thing she loves to do is play games. For her birthday she received Hi Ho Cherry O, Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land and this bean bag toss game. She would play games all day long with us if she could! It's so much fun and she is so smart that she has all the games and rules figured out! :)

Anyway, we had such a blast at her birthday party this year. The theme was Tinkerbell, just b/c she decided that's what she wanted one day. :) She has been watching Peter Pan, but not until after she picked out Tinkerbell. It turned out really cute and she LOVED the fact that the whole day was just about her! Anytime I told her we had to run an errand for her birthday party, she'd say, "why?!?! Because it's my birthday? Is everyone going to sing happy birthday to me?!" It was so cute! Graham and I got her this HUGE dollhouse. I don't even know if I should call it a "dollhouse" b/c it's insanely huge. She really could fit in the thing! It took us over two hours to put together and it won't fit through any doorways, so if we move, we have to take it apart! Oh boy! The cat loves it b/c he can walk through the rooms! It has eleven rooms and 80 pieces of furniture.....I know, insane! She loves it and I know it will get played with for years and years! Her other favorite part of the party was the pinata. They have new pinatas for younger kids where it has probably twenty strings hanging down and everybody takes a turn pulling the strings and one of them opens it and all the candy pours out. It was pretty funny b/c all the kids probably had five turns each before Jocelyn FINALLY pulled on the right string and it poured down all over her! She jumped b/c it surprised her so much! Of course, the cake was what she had been waiting for all day. That girl loves cake! :)

By the time we were ready for bed, it was around ten oclock. I know, I'm a bad mom. :) She was sooooo overtired that I told her she could come lay in bed with me. (Daddy had to go to work). The minute her head hit the pillow, she sprung up and said, "Okay Mommy! Let's talk about my day!" It was soooo funny! She talked about EVERYTHING for TWO HOURS!!! It's hilarious b/c that's how I was when I was younger. I'd be so tired and then I'd go to bed and TALK, TALK, TALK. Right Ashlee? When Ashlee and I would have sleep overs, she'd be falling asleep while I just talked forever! Well, Jocelyn does the same thing! It was hilarious! Finally at 12:30, she wanted to get a drink of water and go in her bed! I will remember that night for a long time...it was so cute! I am going to put pictures up, but the program doesn't want to work right now for me! UHHH!

More pictures

These are the pumpkins Ashlee and I did when they were visiting. She did the harder one! :)

This pumpkin was done by someone in our church. Thought it was pretty funny! :)

Halloween

Well, I guess it's about time to put up Halloween pictures! I've been meaning to and now I'm finally getting around to it! We had a lot of fun this year. We went to our church "trunk or treat" party. Everyone decorates the trunk of their car and the kids go around the parking lot at church and get candy. Jocelyn LOVES candy and so she is soooo excited when she gets to have her own bag of it! :) She becomes a little bossy when it comes to her candy. This is pretty funny...I tell her she can have ONE piece for the day. Well, she thinks if she finishes a piece of candy, like a sucker, three-fourths of the way then that means she can have a different one!!!! She does this to me all the time! She hands it to me and says, "here mommy, I want something different!" Oh boy, that girl!! Anyway, we decorated our car with spider webs and spiders all over. It was pretty cute! Halloween night we went trick or treating in my neighborhood with Jocelyn's friend, Brianna. Jocelyn dressed up as Lady from the Disney movie "Lady and the Tramp". She's never seen the movie, but she loves dogs, so she was happy. It was funny b/c Jocelyn's costume was so fluffy and poofy so she had a tummy. She didn't know what to do with it b/c it stuck out so much so she'd go around rubbing her "doggy tummy"! It was pretty funny! She is almost three and fit into a 18 month old costume! She's a tiny little thing! Brianna was a cute little pirate. Jocelyn called her a captain instead. :) This was Jocelyn's second year trick or treating, so she really got the hang of it. Here are some pictures from the church party and halloween night....

First haircut!!

Jocelyn is almost three and I've never really given her a haircut. I've trimmed her hair before, but nothing major. So, the other day I got the scissors and decided to take off an inch or so. Well, after I finished getting it straight.......yeah, it's short. :) After I got over the shock, I decided I love it b/c her hair is so fine that it looks cute short. Daddy says he liked it better long. Oh well. Here are some pics. What do you guys think??? :)

We MISS our friends!

I've been meaning to put pictures up here of when Ashlee, Gavin and Tanner were here, but we've all been sick and I haven't! Until now! :)

We had SO much fun with Ashlee and her boys! Gavin and Jocelyn are too cute together and get along so well. Jocelyn will randomly tell Gavin that she loves him! Ashlee and I are hoping those two get married someday! :) Jocelyn adores Tanner too. She says, "Ahhh, Tanner. You are so cute!" Gavin and Jocelyn's favorite thing to do together was to run upstairs, lock one of the bedroom doors and all we would hear was screaming and laughing. I think they were jumping from one bed to another in the guest bedroom. We only had one bumping of the head incident, so that's pretty good. :)

We did so many fun things while they were visiting. We went to Chuck E Cheese....always a favorite for two year olds. :) We attempted to go to the Balloon Fiesta (the whole reason I flew them out here that week), but unfortunately they cancelled the balloons b/c of the wind. It was so disappointing, but after watching the fireworks and hearing Gavin's "oohhhs" and "aahhhs", it put me in a good mood! :) He's adorable.

We went to a pumpkin patch, which was lots of fun. The kids rode this "cow" train ride. I thought Jocelyn would be okay with it b/c Gavin was with her. Well....they took the kids around a big building and when they came back, Jocelyn had tears running down her cheeks. I look at Gavin and he tells me, "I didn't like that!" Well, I can imagine with someone crying in your ear, it wouldn't be too enjoyable. Sorry Gav!! :) We all rode the hayride, which was fun. They drop you off in the middle of the pumpkin patch and you get to pick your own pumpkin. It was quite the experience. I didn't realize how many vines were all over the place until Jocelyn and Gavin tripped probably twenty times each!! Their little legs would get all wrapped up in vines and down they'd go! Poor things! No tears, though, so they must have thought it was fun! :) Anyway, we had lots of fun that day. The kids feed the goats, saw the bunnies, played in a sand box filled with corn and lots of other fun things!

We also went to the zoo, carved pumpkins (the kids decorated theirs with stickers), played air hockey. Jocelyn and Gavin surprised us with how good they are at air hockey. They would get going and hit it back and forth a lot. The puck would get stuck in the middle occaisonally, but for the most part, they were hitting it.

It makes it so hard to not live close to Ashlee and her boys! We all have so much fun together. I am blessed with the best friend! Ashlee and I have been friends since we were 12 years old. It's so nice to have someone in your life who knows so much about you and you don't have to explain your life history...they were there for it. I've found it's hard to make really close friends the older you get b/c life just gets so busy, so I am especially grateful that Ashlee and I are still so close. I admire her strength and her attitude towards life. She is such a wonderful mother too. She's just the best!!!! :)

Here are some pictures from her visit out here!

Jocelyn, Gavin and Tanner on the slide at Chuck E Cheese.

At the pumkin patch

The picture above makes me laugh. We were at the zoo looking at the elephants and Gavin is falling here, grabbing ahold of Jocelyn! No one was hurt in the making of this picture. :)

I'll put more pictures up in a minute. This is getting out of hand! :)

Two things....

Jocelyn keeps giving me funny things to write about. She is our never ending entertainment! :)

One, anyone who is willing to fund Jocelyn's Christmas list, feel free...this is her humble wish list...
1) "A horse, a black one"
2) "A dollhouse"
3) "A Purple motorcycle!".....daddy loved that one!

Yeah, we'll think about number two, other than that...this child is OUT OF LUCK! ha ha.

Second, I now know how she feels when I change her stinky diaper. She decided her baby doll was poopy today and told me she had to change her. She got the diaper and wipes and started the process. Then SHE STARTED GAGGING!!! She told the baby that she stinks! I was laughing soooo hard! Anyone who knows me well, knows I can harly stand smelly stuff and I gag! My poor baby girl. Good thing we're potty training now. It's so much more tolerable than diapers! :)

Nothing gets by her!!

So I have another funny little story about Jocelyn. Usually Graham will ask me, "Is it time for b-e-d?" Or "Are we doing a b-a-t-h tonight?". We thought we were so sly by spelling things out, like Jocelyn didn't know what we were talking about. Well, she proved us wrong this weekend. Ashlee and her boys were visiting and we were all upstairs getting ready for bed. We gave them all baths and put their p.j.'s on, then I asked Jocelyn to tell Daddy it's time for bed and stories. She goes out into the hall and yells downstairs..."Daddy! It's time for E-B-D!" It was SO CUTE!! She had us all laughing! I wonder what else she knows how to spell....sort of! :)

She's a funny one!! :)

This weekend is General Conference for our church. You can watch it on t.v on Saturday and Sunday, which is what we usually do. Each day, there is two sessions. I was talking to John inbetween sessions today and of course, Jocelyn wanted to talk to him and asked him what he was doing. Since John lives in SLC, he gets to attend the afternoon session today, so he told Jocelyn he was getting ready for church. Well, this is what my cute little girl had to say about that...."CHURCH ON SATURDAY!! THAT SOUNDS SERIOUS, UNCLE JOHN!!!!!!" Ahh, I love her so much! :)

New Mexico State Fair

We went to the state fair a couple weeks ago with Michelle, Mike and Brianna. The girls had a blast! We saw the bear show, rode the horses, went to "Old McDonalds Farm" and rode some rides. The kids area was really cute. They gave you an apron to put on and a basket, then you had to go pick apples from the "orchard",

ride the tractors, feed the sheep, gather eggs, pick some vegetables and milk the cow. It was a lot of fun! At the end, they give the kids a popsicle for all their hard work!

After we did that, we took the girls to ride the horses. Jocelyn LOVES horses and this was the second year she's ridden them at the fair. Brianna had never ridden a horse before, so we weren't sure if she would like it, but she did! It was so funny b/c she didn't know what to do with her hands so she just folded her arms! Towards the end, she decided to hold on to the saddle. It was so cute!

Girls Just Want to Have Fun!!

Jocelyn has a new friend from church, Brianna. We've been everywhere together...Chuck E. Cheese, the fair, the park, museums, the aquarium, etc. It's been so much fun!! The girls get along great and LOVE to make eachother laugh. I think their favorite thing to do is dance! This picture is at Chuck E Cheese and they are dancing away to the music. I'll have to get a video of them dancing b/c it is the cutest thing! Brianna makes the BEST faces and Michelle and I just sit there and laugh until we hurt! :)

Beware!! She's on the loose and she has a club!!

Well, I was going to try to write in this and keep everyone updated, but so far I haven't been good about it! We have been so busy, so now I have lots of pictures to put up here and lots to tell about!

First of all, we took Jocelyn to Hinckle Family Fun Center a couple weeks ago. She's never played putt putt, but she was very excited about it! At first, we tried to teach her the correct way to hit the golf ball, but soon gave up and let her do it her way! It was so cute! She actually did really well and didn't get frustrated when it took her a few tries! She would tell Graham, "wow Daddy! You did a great job!" It was really funny! We had such a good time together and who knows...maybe she'll be a little golfer!

We'll try this and see!

My best friend, Ashlee, has started a blog and it's been so much fun to read! It's a great way to see what's going on, so I thought I'd start one for us. Plus, I figure even if no one reads it, I'll at least have a journal! :) There are so many things that have happened and that Jocelyn has done that I wish I had written down! So if I remember to write, I'm sure you will be entertained by the things Jocelyn comes up with! We sure are! Well, I guess since I just bragged about how cute Jocelyn is, I should back that up! Last night, Jocelyn and I were studying her alphabet flip book. Each page has a letter and a word that begins with the letter. On the back, it has suggestions for parents to ask, such as "what is the elephants long nose called?" and things like that. We got to the last page and it had a zebra on it. I asked her where zebras live, expecting her to say "the zoo!". Well, she sure surprised me!!! She said, "um, zebras live in Africa!" Graham and I looked at eachother in amazement!! It was so cute and she was so proud of herself! We then called Grandpa in Tulsa to tell him what she had just said. She talked to him for awhile and then asked where Uncle John is. I told her that Uncle John isn't with Grandpa. The next minute, she handed the phone to me and had a very confused look on her face. By then, Dad had called John on three way, so they both were on the phone. I handed the phone back to Jocelyn and told her that Uncle John was on the phone. She started talking to him and then heard Grandpa's voice again too!! Well, we've never done a three way call, so this was just so confusing to her! She said, "Uncle John! I thought you were Grandpa!" I guess they both were talking again and she took the phone away from her ear and gave me this look like, "what the heck is going on!!" It was hilarious! So, you might be thinking she had a total blond moment, but actually she's so smart b/c she knows Grandpa lives in Tulsa and Uncle John lives in Utah, so they couldn't be together! So hearing their voices from the same place was just not making sense!! :) See.....my smart little girl! Isn't she the cutest?!?