Visit to Santa

Brayden has been asking to go "say hi to Santa". He wants to tell Santa that he wants a Mr. Potato Head for Christmas! We took him to the Christmas Wonderland at Bass Pro Shops today. He was able to see a train, drive remote control race cars and monster trucks, shoot at targets with a toy BB gun and also a nerf bow and arrow!

Brayden and McKenna also got to sit on Santa's lap for a picture! The kids weren't so sure about this Santa (he was a bit grumpy). Neither of them cried and so we considered it successful!

3 months old

McKenna will be 3 months old this week on December 14th!

She weighs in at 13 lbs 5 oz.

She can sit in her Bumbo chair now and enjoys playing on the floor.

She is starting to smile lots more!

Brayden loves playing with her!

Christmas Light Parade

Brayden is fascinated with Christmas lights so we decided that he would enjoy a light parade.

We went over to downtown Pleasanton for the annual parade. It was a beautiful evening, no need for coats! Brayden did so well waiting for the parade to begin. His favorite parts were the bands and all the decorated cars and trucks! McKenna slept through most of the parade...the life of a baby!

Happy Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving at home this year! We had a wonderful day! Brian deep fried a turkey and made homemade apple pie! The kids played, we took a nice walk with the dog, we hung up Christmas lights, and ate a delicious meal together! On Friday, Cindy went shopping while Brian and the kids played at home!!

Blizzard

Brayden

McKenna

Busy making pie

injecting the turkey with marinade, yummy!!!

The frymaster

How did we ever learn to carve turkey's without the internet??

Happy Thanksgiving!!
"Brayden's" Christmas Tree...that's what he calls it!

5th Anniversary

Brian and I celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary on November 20th!

Hard to believe it has been 5 years already!

In 5 years, we have lived in 2 states, Brian has been deployed to Iraq once, and we have 2 beautiful children! God is good and we look forward to many more years and blessings to come!

The beauty about having an anniversary in November (and a husband who's thinking)...you can use the flowers he gives you for your anniversary to decorate for Thanksgiving also!

Love you Brian!

New Rain Boots!!

The rainy season has sort of begun here in California, at least we have had few rainy days!
We decided that we should go get Brayden a pair of rain boots, so he could play outside when it was wet without getting his tennis shoes all wet! He picked out the tractor rain boots! He wants to wear them everywhere!

We also know that they will get plenty of use in Washington!

Visit with the Cousins!!

Uncle Adam, Aunt Katie, Judah, and Levi were flying to Colorado from Michigan for a visit and we didn't want to miss out on Brayden and McKenna having the chance to see all their cousins at once...so, Cindy, Brayden, & McKenna flew out too! It was so much fun to see all 6 kids together playing. It was chaos, but so much JOY! The only thing missing was Brian.
Six cousins, all 2 and under.....

Waiting for our Michigan cousins to arrive!

Eating Breakfast with YaYa

Sure 4 boys can fit in 1 bathtub

Aunt Katie and McKenna

The babies of the family

Trying to take a photo with 4 two year olds and 2 infants!!

Family photo (minus Brian) :(

Levi and Judah Dorband

Brayden and McKenna Rasmussen

Xander and Axl Dorband

The Big Boys

Xander, Brayden, Levi, Judah, McKenna, & Axl

YaYa and ALL her grandkids!

A Balloon war with Xander, Brayden, and YaYa

This snow is neat...we don't have any of this in California!

Great Grandma Meets McKenna

Cindy, Brayden, and McKenna flew to Colorado for a visit with the cousins in November. While we were there, we were
able to visit with Brayden and McKenna's Great Grandma in Denver. She was delighted to see the kids!
Brayden had a great time playing! I managed to get both Brayden and McKenna to look at the camera at the same time,
but no luck with Great Grandma...she was too interested in the kids!

Happy Halloween

We enjoyed a fun Halloween together this year! Brian finds it hard to believe that he has been home for the past 4 Halloweens. Before that he was either in the field training or deployed for almost every single Halloween since he joined the Army!

This year Brayden was Clifford the Big Red Dog. McKenna was a snowman. She did also have a skeleton outfit she wore to a party! We thought the snowman outfit would be too warm for the party!

Brayden really got into his costume. He kept wanting us to say "Come on Clifford, Let's go".

One day we were getting ready to take Blizzard on a walk to the baseball field so she could play ball. Brayden told us that Clifford wanted to go on a walk too and insisted on putting on his costume. So, being the nice parents we are, we let him. He even wanted Clifford to fetch balls with Blizzard at the ball field. He even barked while wearing his Clifford costume! So much fun!

McKenna did a great job being a snowman. She was quiet and sat very still. She did almost melt, being that we are in California and it was quite warm for the end of October! A few people even gave Brayden candy for McKenna and told him he could eat it for her! Thanks!

The community where we live held a Halloween party for the kids this weekend. There were crafts, games, food, costume contests, pumpkin decorating, etc. Brayden make a halloween craft with foam stickers, Brian decorated a pumpkin (for Brayden!), we ate, and enjoyed the company of our neighbors!

Traditions are important...so here are a few of ours....

Pumpkin carving-We went to Safeway and let Brayden pick out some pumpkins.

Then we decided to let Brayden decide what kind of faces he wanted...the kid is an overachiever! He chose Lightning McQueen, Clifford, and Elmo. We talked him out of Elmo and into a plain jack o lantern because Brian didn't want that much work. Turns out we should have talked him out of Lightning McQueen and let him have Elmo! Brayden loved the pumpkins and in the end that was what mattered! We told Brayden he could help carve by cleaning out the gunk from inside the pumpkins! He started to clean the first pumpkin and after two scoops told us "Too hard for Brayden, Mommy do it"

Pizza for dinner-this was a new tradition this year. We went to Papa Murphy's and got one of their Jack o Lantern pizzas. So simple, yet so impressive to a 2 year old!

Trick or Treating-After a long day of playing, Brayden was tired out. He fell asleep watching the World Series! I think he was just warming of for Trick or Treating, he needed some extra energy. After his power nap, he got all transformed into Clifford. Once dressed in his costume, he saw no need to wait and thought we should go now...he had a hard time waiting for mom, dad, and sister to get ready! Brayden loved trick or treating (except at the "loud" houses..those would be the ones that were playing scary music and had lots of scary decorations). He was very polite and told everyone thank you and goodnight! When he got home, we let him have a couple pieces of his candy and then it was time to say goodbye to daddy because he had to leave to go to Reno for the next week for work. After daddy left, we headed to the bath and to bed!

Now we are excited to have YaYa come visit on Thursday!!!

Happy Halloween to everyone!