Just Because

I don't have a whole lot going on at the moment, but was looking at some pictures from the last month and felt like posting some of them. I have awesome kids and Im grateful to be able to be home with them all day! Here are some of the fun times from this last month!
Jon is now working in the afternoon and doesn't get home until about 10, so I am stuck to making dinner by myself. By the time dinner comes around, Noah is usually clutching my legs and screaming while Ella runs around and makes a mess of everything and bugs Noah as much as she can. Its just usually a little hectic. But on this particular day, I asked Makella to try to play and help Noah instead of bugging him. She came up with a great idea and it worked! Dinner was made in peace and I got to see a very sweet moment with my kids. She read him stories and after each one, she would tell him to go get another book and he would run off with his silly run and get another book. It was so cute!



There have been some nice days, so we all went outside to play. It was lots of fun! Makella made her own "racing path" and wanted me to take some pictures of her. She would check the camera after each one to make sure i got it right. It took a few shots before she was satisfied.

Noah's favorite thing to do is to read books and get into the kitchen cabinets. Apparently, he realized it would be fun to do both!


We have done a lot of painting, and this time Noah got to join in. He did a pretty good job and didnt get it all over his face! He's just so cute, I can hardly stand it!

Makella is a pretty big perfectionist and so I have a hard time getting her to draw or anything for very long because she gets frustrated and just wont do it. But on this day she decided she was going to paint a picture for dad and she worked so hard! She painted a rainbow and got frustrated a few times and it took awhile, but she stuck with it and it turned out so good! I was so proud! :) Then just this morning she spent half and hour drawing out the whole rapunzel story and writing the words for each picture. When she was done she even said, "well its not perfect, but thats ok!" I loved it!

Other than that, we just hang out and do a lot of giggling and playing! These kids definitely know how to be silly and have fun! I love them both!

Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all! We had a really great christmas this year! I was really excited that we were able to get a real tree this year! We have been using a fake one for the past couple of years, which was fine, but I just love getting a real one. Since we moved, we realized that we had left our box of christmas decorations at his parents house in Utah, so I was bummed to not have my christmas village and stocking and everything else. Luckily I have a really awesome mother in law who helped us make our house and our tree beautiful and christmassy!
I started a tradition last year of doing a christmas countdown thing with Makella and everyday we do some kind of christmas activity. I guess its not really a tradition yet since we have onle done it once, but I would like it to be! Well, it didnt really happen this year. I had a hard time getting into the christmas spirit at first, but I did get around to doing some fun things with the kids! It will be better next year! One day me and Ella went by ourselves to do some christmas shopping while the boys stayed home and did boy things. While we were out we stopped at the mall and Makella was so suprised that Santa was there. Her face was priceless! She was so excited! I wished that Noah could have been there, but it was ok, because I dont think he would really care anyways. It was fun to just be out with my girl! Here is Ella with Santa!

A few days before christmas we were planning on going to our ward christmas party but we didn't end up going. Well, ella was super upset about not going, so we decided to do gingerbread houses instead! Poor Noah ended up just going to bed because he just likes to sleep, so the rest of us stayed up and decorated our house! It was lots of fun!
We have tried to focus a bit more on the Savior this christmas, so for the 12 days before christmas, we read a christ focused story with ella and noah (more just ella) every night. She really loved it. Then on one of the last days, we watched the nativity movie with her. Just the shortened one, and she loved it! She loved being able to See the story instead of just reading about it.



It was a Graff Christmas this year which worked out since Jon had to work on Christmas anyways. Since most of the Graffs live up here in Boise and some of us had to work right around or on christmas, Jon's parents came up here to celebrate! I love getting together with family so it was fun to have them here! They came on Thursday and dropped off all kinds of presents for us and the kids, which was super nice and it was fun to have some presents under our tree! Then on Christmas Eve, we went to Kami's house and spent the evening there. There was awesome food, treats and great company! The little girls dressed up as Mary and an Angel and watched over baby jesus. Malia took her role as Mary very serious. She was so sweet and definetaly had the "meek and mild" thing going on. Makella was more of a silly Angel and just liked the fact that she had everyone's attention on her! I guess its ok for and angel to have a little fun! Jon's dad gave a really great christmas devotional/message. He challenged us to take this next year to really get to know Jesus Christ and become closer to Him. A challenge that I plan on doing!

After the party was over, we packed up so we could go get ready for Santa to come! As we went out to the car we looked up and in the sky was a bright slow flashing red light the looked just like rudolph. Im sure it was a plane, but you couldnt see it. Makella couldnt believe it! It was rudolph! She was SO excited she was like shaking! So we ran back in and got Malia so she could see it. She went Racing outside as fast as she could and they were both so excited! It was pretty much the perfect way to end the night! Christmas morning was a different because Jon had to work from 6:30 am to 2:30. So we woke the kids up at five and opened our stockings. I wanted to get a video of the kids getting up and stuff. Makella woke up to the sound of jingling bells and Santa outside her window. She was so cute and her face when she saw the tree and all the gifts was so cute! Noah Loved his stocking! He got a bunch of dinosaurs and cars and a big foam battle ax! Makella got a bunch of girly cute things. After all the stocking stuff I realized that my video camera had stopped recording for some reason! I was so upset! So I have no pictures or video of the morning! It was a bust, but they were both so cute! We waited to open all the gifts when Jon was done with work. So we spent the morning, being lazy, taking naps, and getting ready. Then we headed over to Aaron and Kelly's for a little christmas brunch. It was fun to just relax and be with family. Then we headed back home and opened all our gifts! We all got such great things and we are so grateful to all the grandparents and family that got us and our kids such awesome gifts! We felt so blessed and grateful! After that we went back to Aaron and Kelly's house to spend the evening there. Kelly made an amazing dinner for a large group and we had a really great time! We were one of the last to leave and both the kids managed to do pretty good for staying up so late! We definetaly enjoyed our first christmas here in Idaho! I hope that everyone had a wonderful christmas. This turned out to be an incredible long post, so if you are still reading, Im impressed!

Our little dancer!

Makella has been taking dance classes with Tip tap toes (my sister in law). The dance studio is in our garage, so its pretty convenient! She has loved it though. She got to make some friends and was always excited to go. They had the recital at the beginning of december and she did such a great job. I would sometimes be able to watch her while she was having her dance class and she always seemed more interested in playing with her friends or watching herself in the mirror to really care about the actual dance. We werent sure if she would really even remember the dance once it came time for the recital. I wont go so far as to say that she will be a dancer when she grows up, but she did so good! I think she remembered pretty much all of it and all the little 3 year olds were so cute! She loved being on stage and wasnt scared or nervous at all. Im excited for her to do dance again starting in January! Here are some (alot) of pictures of her all dolled up in her dance costume! Enjoy!

Other happenings

We have been having a good time living up here and Idaho. I dont know if Im really used to it yet, but its been good so far. Jon has a really great schedule right now and is able to be home every afternoon and evening, plus he has sunday and monday off. So its really great! Makella is taking dance right now and Loves it! Plus, its in our garage, so it doesnt really get more convenient than that. *For those that dont know, there is a dance studio in the garage that my sister in law runs* There will be a recital in december and she will be super cute! She is also taking an amazing athletes class and learns how to play hockey, football, volleyball and everything else. She has had a lot of fun so far! Im trying to put in her as much stuff as I can right now instead of doing preschool because she already knows pretty much everything they learn in preschool and she has a whole other year and a half til kindergarten, so we will do preschool next year! Here she is in her little dance outfit!


They have a neat discovery kids museum down here and right now they are doing a free friday thing, so I decided to take the kids to it. It was just me and the kids, so it was a little crazy, but it was fun! Noah wished he could be out of the stroller a bit more, but there was a lot of people and he runs a little too fast for me. They had a green screen that you could play around with and makella thought it was pretty cool to see her body disappear! Her other favorite thing was a little pulley system that they sit on and then pull themselves up. She kept putting her hands up and pretending it was a roller coaster. It was pretty funny. She thought she was pretty strong when she pulled up herself and Noah at the same time.




We have also been enjoying the Great fall weather by playing in our leaves! Noah thought it was pretty great that we got to jump right in a huge pile of leaves! Makella did a great job of covering Jon too. He had to lay there for quite a long time til he was TOTALLY covered. Ive got such cute kids! its wonderful! I really really love this time of year, I wish it was like it all time! If it went straight from fall to spring and then back again...that would be ideal!








If you havent already noticed in my last posts, I dyed my hair! I have been wanting it to be darker for a long time, so I finally just gave in and did it! I really love it and am glad I did it! I went from this..(dont look too long at the really ugly picture):

To this:

Halloween!

Halloween was a lot of fun this year! We went to out ward Halloween thing on Friday and it wasn't that great for us, but makella had a good time and I guess that's all that matters! Then on Sunday we went and hung out with Aaron and Kelly. We had chili and cornbread and then did a little trick or treating down their street. Yeah we are probably bad for going on Sunday, but that's just how it worked out. Makella loved it and probably would have gone all night if we had let her. I really liked their costumes! We didn't really come up with them until the middle of the week (we are super indecisive), but they turned out really cute! Makella was a fairy, or a garden fairy as she had to point out to everyone, and Noah was a little biker boy! I made him a little leather vest and some leather chaps! It was so cute and easy! These pictures don't do it any justice though. I put a cool studded skull on his back and a couple tattoos on his arms...it was pretty cool! My camera was pretty messed up, so these are all I got on my camera. My sister in law has a lot more on hers, so Ill have to get those. It was just a fun family night and everyone had a great time and ate lots of candy! Happy Halloween!

Noahs Birthday!

Yeah I know…it was a month ago. I’ve had all kinds of things on my list and blogging was at the very bottom! But I finally have some time and I thought I would start off with my little boy! He is oh so wonderful! He turned one on the first and we had a little monster party! Noah has been such a wonderful part of our family. He is nothing like I thought he would be, but everything I wanted! He has white hair and blue eyes! I never thought I would get a blue eyed baby, so I was happily surprised! He is so happy and easy going! Since he was born he has always been able to make me smile! On bad days or in the middle of the night when he wouldn’t sleep and I was exhausted…I just had to look at him and it always made me feel better. He had little droopy cheeks that I loved and now he has this goofy grin and a goofy little walk and I just cant get enough of him! I just want him to stay little forever! He doesn’t really say any words yet, but he is so quick to figure things out! It doesn’t take him long to figure things out. Some of his favorite things are:

His bottle…He loves this thing and demands it regularly…I know he probably shouldn’t have it anymore, but Im a little stuck on how to do it. He seriously loves it!

His doggy…This was a stuffed animal that Makella got from Uncle Aaron and Aunt Kelly, but when Noah was really little, he saw it and immediately grabbed it and hugged it and loved it. From then on it was his and he sleeps with it every night! There are so many night when we check on him and he is snuggling with it. Its seriously cute!

He loves to climb…His biggest frustration is when he cant get up on something. He is forever finding ways to get on the table or the top of the couch, Im pretty sure it will only get worse as he gets older! Im a little scared!

He loves to be outside…Now that he has kinda gotten over the habit of eating rocks, I let him outside a bit more and he will wander around out there for as long as Ill let him.

Balls…we have a really big purple ball and he loves to grab it and carry it around. He also likes to try to lay on top of it. He hasn’t really been too successful with that, but trying is all the fun!

He loves me! Since this is my blog, I can write what I want and I totally know he loves me best! J He’s a momma’s boy and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Here are a few pictures from his first year! Love this boy to death!

Love you Noah! And just in case you didn’t think I put enough pictures in this post….here are just a few from his birthday party! Then I will be done, I promise :)