Family Pics

My sister Hayley took family pictures for us - I realized we haven't had any real family pictures since Keen was born.  So she took some great pictures of the kids and of our family.  Enjoy!

Candy Day

Candy Day has arrived!  The Saturday after Thanksgiving is always our big candy making day.  The whole family gets together and we work hard and have a great time making delicious treats for the holidays.  This year we used 85 lbs of chocolate and 12 batches of caramel along with much much more to make all our candy.  It was a lot of work - but we had lots of help so it was a great day!

 Liev parked himself by the tray of peanut butter balls that go inside the peanut butter cups.   He thought no one was watching, but I caught him with his hand in the cookie jar!

 The table full of finished candy - ready to put into buckets and deliver to our friends and neighbors.  This is such a fun and delicious tradition for us!  Hope you all enjoyed the treats!



Tonka Truck

Liev's loves his mini Tonka Truck.  He loads it up with his favorite things and then pushes it across the floor - back and forth, back and forth.  Poor kid probably has a backache from leaning over but he doesn't seem to mind.  Santa might need to bring him a big truck this year!

Christmas Tree

We love going to buy our Christmas Tree as soon as Thanksgiving is over.  We don't do anything fancy like chop it down ourselves, we just go to the local tree lot and pick one out.  This year the girls really helped decide which tree was best and this is the one we came up with.

 Josh put the lights on for us and then the kids helped with the ornaments.

 The finished product.  Christmas is in the air!

Future Missionary

Liev put this book on Keen while he was in his swing.  "I hope they call me on a mission" is in my head now.  What a cute future missionary we have!

Little Helper

Liev doesn't talk much but he understands almost anything that anyone says to him or asks him to do.  Lately he has been such a big helper and especially likes to put his dishes in the sink or throw his diapers away.  With the 2 boys in diapers there is always at least one diaper to throw away and pretty often two at a time. 

Such a big help to Mama!

On the Phone

Liev got ahold of one of our old phones and has been doing his best imitation of us talking on the phone.  He is so cute fake laughing and smiling like he's really carrying on a conversation with someone on the other end.  What a cute boy!

Thanksgiving 2012

We had Thanksgiving at Josh's parents' house this year.  Andy and Betsy O were there with us and we had a nice relaxing day with just our small little group.

Dinner was delicious as Thanksgiving dinner usually is.  Of course we had tons of leftovers which is also a great thing!

 Rease and Rhen sat at their own kid table.

 And then we all settled in for a nap.  Everyone except Keen. 

 Later that night I headed out to shop the Black Friday craziness.  I love the thrill of the hunt and finding a great deal.  Hayley, dad, Justin and I all met at Walmart and spent most of the night and the wee hours of the next morning shopping our little hearts out.  This is not a great picture, but it was just before everything got too crazy in the store.  I was standing by the toys and had a plan to be able to get all I wanted.  It was hard work, but I did get it all and then some!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  Hope everyone had a great one and filled up on yummy pumpkin pie!

Cannon Boy Run

This year on Thanksgiving morning we participated in a fund raiser run called the Cannon Boy Run.  Greg's nephew has a disease called Menkes and at age 2 is completely dependant on others to feed him and do everything else.  Greg put on a fun run as a rally of support for this sweet little nephew of his, Cannon.  So we joined them.  We had a great time with the family participating in different competitive activities throughout the morning. 

 This is Cannon and his mom (Greg's sister) Natalie.  They live in Washington and were down for the Thanksgiving weekend.

 Everyone was on a 2 person team for the activities.  Josh and Liev were a team.  Rease and I were a team.

 And Rhen and Jessica (Greg's niece) were on a team.  Some of the activites included somersaults, shooting and arrow through a target, piggy back rides, cartwheels, pictionary, nerf guns shooting, hula hooping, and many others.  2 teams at a time ran through the whole course and the winner went on in the bracket.  So each team got to do the course at least twice and the teams that continued to win did it many more times.  By the end, the winners were tired but we had such a fun day! (The smiley face is one of the pictures Rhen drew during pictionary.)

 After the competition we all wrote well wishes for Cannon and tied them to the end of a balloon.

 Then as a group we let our wishes float away and reach the heavens.

 We love this sweet Cannon Boy and wish him the best!



Rease the Indian

Rease came home from school today and was so excited to show us her costume.  They had a Thanksgiving Feast at school and half the class dressed as indians and the other half as pilgrims.  They got to decorate their own clothes and Rease drew some super cute pictures on her Indian cloak.  What a cute little Indian she was!

Mrs. Dunn asked each of the kids how they would cook their Thanksgiving turkey.  Here is Rease's recipe for the perfect turkey.

After 40 hours of cooking it's gotta be perfect!

Sharing

Canyon and Liev have a good time hanging out together.  We had Canyon at our house the other day and he and Liev were going to town sharing their Kix.  So fun that these cousins live so close and get to hang out!

3 months old

Well my baby is growing up.  Keen is such a big baby and looks like he's 3 months old, but it's hard to believe it's been that long.  He is so good at holding his head up and sitting in his little bumbo chair.  He doesn't love tummy time but is content to do it for a few minutes.  I was taking pictures of him on his tummy and caught his first roll on camera - he is mid-roll here! 

He is such a sweet, calm little boy amid the craziness that is the Beutler home.  We love this guy!

Snow Day

So it's November and we've officially had our first big winter storm.  We took the kids up the Suncrest the day after the snowstorm to just play around and have fun in the snow. 

That lasted all of about 2 minutes.  Literally right after we took this picture, Liev fell and his gloves got stuck in the snow and his hands got cold.  So that started him crying.

Then we got this quick picture with all the kids.

Then Rhen started crying because Josh threw a snowball at her and she didn't want to get all snowy.  So much for us playing in the snow.

 I put the boys back in the car to warm up and let Rease and Rhen try and get Josh back with snowballs of their own.

 They made some great snow angels. 

 After our 5 minute trip to Suncrest we decided to head back home.  But we couldn't waste the day and the good snow so Josh got the kids to help him make a snowman.  This is what our snowman turned into.

 A snow guy with a big top hat and large lips.  Perfect for kissing! 

Rease was the last one outside helping dad.  The rest of the kids take after their mom and don't like being cold.  In the end, the snow day was a success!

Shopping

This stroller is one of Liev's favorite toys.  Josh hates that he is always pushing it around - but I don't really mind.  I don't think it's that he really likes a pink stroller, it's more that he likes something to help him carry the goods.  So when he wants to go shopping in our storage room, it's more of a shopping cart than a stroller.  Just something to help him get his food back to the dinner table.  I don't blame him one bit. 

Silent Destructor

Liev has been my challenge lately.  He has always been my sweet little boy but lately he has turned into a destructive menace.  He does most of his damage with markers.  On himself...

 Or anywhere else.   

The problem is that he is still quiet as can be - barely makes a sound.  So I don't know that things are getting ruined until after the fact.  We have banned markers, crayons, pens and any other writing utensil from being downstairs.  The girls have strict instructions to remove any of these items from Liev's hands if they find them.  Hopefully we can stop this habit of his before he ruins any more furniture.  Still sweet as can be, but we've been introduced to his destructive side!

Keen's Hair

So Keen was born with this really long patch of hair on the right side of his head.  It wasn't too noticeable at first because he had so much dark hair.  But as the rest of his hair has started to fall out, this one little curl remains.  It turns out that there is a really light mole on his head right where this hair has grown.  That must be the reason that it has grown differently and hasn't fallen out like the rest.  Josh keeps trying to get me to cut it off - I'm sure we will eventually will.  But for now here is a picture of Keen's curly-cue.

Sleeping in the crib

We just did some sleeping rearrangements in our home.  Sad to say, Liev has been sleeping in the bathroom downstairs since he was a baby.  We turned that bathroom into a second bedroom by putting up a pack and play in there and not using it as a bathroom.  That has been Liev's bedroom his whole life.  Well now that Keen is moving out of our bedroom we had to have a place for him to go.  So Liev moved into the crib in the girls room and now the 3 of them share a bedroom and Keen has taken over the bathroom pack and play.  It all worked out and everyone is sleeping great!  Liev is just excited to be with the girls and thinks that bedtime is a party.  And Keen sleeps like a rock in the pitch blackness of the bathroom.  And Josh and I sleep great without a baby near us.  All in all - its a win win for everyone! 

Liev happy as a clown to be in the big kids room!