Encore

A picture of us after Church on Sunday. I need to update our family picture so hopefully next year we'll do it. Just the idea stresses me out...so I put it off. :)

I thought this was so cute of Jared and Lindsey. Jared is such a good uncle.

We were able to go to my cousin Brandon's wedding a few days after Christmas. He married Kyle's cousin, Whitney!!! How funny is that? So we will see them at reunions on both sides of our family. It was good to see a lot of our extended family there.

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Merry Christmas!

We stayed home for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning then took off before lunch for Tri-Cities to Melanie's to have Christmas dinner with them. Dee Ann was there so we got to see her too. It was nice to do Christmas morning with our family. Warning...picture overload. :)

Our Christmas Eve dinner by candlelight. We got new Christmas pajamas, opened a family gift, which was a game (whacamole- too noisey, already returned it!), read the Christmas story and set out treats for Santa- a donut because I didn't have any Christmas cookies. Santa left a note saying he loved it. I'm sure he did.

Christmas Morning! Santa left fun things for the kids. Preston loved this Mac Truck with a Lightening McQueen car inside. (Thanks Jeni! remember it?!)

Kate was so excited to get an "american girl" doll.

Lindsey ripping open/eating her present- new outfit.

At Melanie and Milo's house-

Lindsey getting cuddled by Grandma Dee Ann

Kate and Kathryn playing Polly Pockets and I realized I didn't get any pictures of the boys!

After Christmas dinner we got back in the car and drove another hour to my parent's house. It was a long day! Lots of driving.

My Mom made this car mat for Preston. We grew up with one and so I wanted one for Preston. My Mom even made to sure to include details like their pool and playset by their house, some of my dad's fields, the church and main buildings in town. It is so cute.

My Grandpa Bill reading Preston's new elephant book to him. Marci gave it to him and went over to Grandpa to have him read it to him. I thought it was really cute. Preston used to grab my Grandpa's glasses off his face and now he sits on his lap and lets him read to him.

My Mom made Kate some princess dresses for her new doll. My Mom is an amazing seamstress so all the dresses turned out really cute. I should have taken a picture of them all. There is cinderella, belle, tinkerbell and snow white.

It was a good Christmas!!!

It's Getting Closer!

Countdown Activities we've been doing...

We made gingerbread houses because Kate begged to do so. It was a mess and I think this activity is overrated! Kate loved it so I guess that makes it worth the mess, but I'm still finding little pieces of candy everywhere.

Lindsey smiling- so cute- Kate loves holding her and playing with her.

We made snowflakes. The first one's we made were embarrassingly ugly. I looked online at how to make them and they turned out way better. They look pretty on our window. Kate actually took this picture.

We also have gone out to dinner, shopped for Cousin gifts, sang Christmas songs, watched the Nativity, had a red, green & white breakfast, colored Christmas pictures, had dinner by candlelight and will do more fun things this week (like go look at Christmas lights, take treats to friends, find baby Jesus and watch Tangled- Kate has been wanting to see this movie so she will be excited when she finds out what we are doing that day!). Christmas is almost here!

Christmas Card

Merry Christmas!!!

(Here are the kids before Church today in their new church clothes. My mom made the girl's dresses and Dee Ann bought Preston's outfit. Thanks grandmas! It was interesting trying to get a picture of all of them looking at the same time. I would try to get Lindsey to smile and the other two would look at her and not me.)

Here's an update on us:

Kyle- his job is going well. He likes it and it's nice having him work so close to home. He keeps busy with his honey do lists on Saturday and recently put in a wood laminate floor in our office. He's still helping out in the nursery on Sunday and needs a nap when he gets home. :)

Heidi- I'm staying home, not working anymore, and enjoying it (most of the time). I think of doing crafts or making things, but somehow my time is spent doing other things like laundry, cleaning and shopping (I don't mind this one!). I am teaching the Beehives (12-13 yr old girls) at Church now and it's fun being with the young women.

Kate- she is 5 1/2 and loves Kindergarten. She likes reading, writing sentences, drawing pictures for other people, playing dress-up and LOVES watching the cooking show. She will pretend to have her own cooking show in the kitchen. She's learned a lot of new lingo and food items ("we will saute garlic and add a little bit of lemon...this will taste delicious") it's hilarious to listen to her. She's already planning her next 2 birthdays!

Preston- he is 3 yrs old and goes to preschool 4 days a week. He rides the bus to and from school and loves it. He's learning a lot and sometimes he will tell us things he did at school that day. He really likes his teachers because he always smiles when we mention their names. He's talking a lot more which is so fun to hear. He memorizes books, loves trains, cars, toy story figures and drinking milk. He's a tall, skinny boy and keeps us on our toes.

Lindsey- she's 4 1/2 mo's old and gets all the attention. She rolls around and recently started eating her toes. She drools a lot and tries to fit both of her hands in her mouth. She's grabbing at everything (earrings/necklaces included) and her second Mom is Kate. She's my chubbiest baby so far which I love and she melts us with her smile.

We are grateful for our blessings and appreciate this time of year to focus on our Savior and remember what He did for us.

With Love, The Lublins

Snowflake Lane

We had such a good time tonight at Snowflake Lane in Bellevue. It's a must-see for your family. It's nightly at 7pm and it's free! Kate said it was her most favorite activity ever (even more then the expensive Santa Train Ride!!!). The atmosphere is so festive and it really is a lot of fun.

Looking down at one side of the street from up above and you can see how decorated it is.

Frosty the Snowman playing with the kids. Preston was mesmerized. They had Rudolph with a blinking red nose, Frosty the snowman, Snow Fairies, Toy Soldiers, Penguins, Princesses, Princes and more. They gave suckers to everyone and would dance and give the kids high fives. It was so interactive and fun for the kids.

Kate and Preston with a beautiful snow princess. I like how Preston is staring at her and wouldn't even look at me! ha ha!

Kate is not shy so she was out dancing with a lot of the characters. They would stop and take her hand and dance with her. She loved it.

They had a marching band play the drums to the music. It was really cool.

A toy soldier on his high stilts.

This is how Preston felt! That sucker lasted the whole night.

This is how Kate felt!

Towards the end, it started "snowing" (fake bubble snow) and the drummers performed to a few more Christmas songs while everyone danced some more.

Kate begged for hot chocolate afterwards (and she's 5 so I guess she gets what she wants, right?! ;0). When we were waiting for her hot chocolate this random girl gave Kate and Preston her balloons from Red Robin so the kids were excited. What's interesting is that when we left our house it was raining really hard. Kyle suggested going a different night, but we went anyway. Then we get on the freeway and there was a lot of traffic so we thought of turning around, but the carpool lane was pretty open. We ended up getting to Bellevue plenty early and the good part...it wasn't even raining there! Good thing we still went!

Christmas Countdown

Preston let Lindsey "play" with his Buzz and Jessie for a few minutes. Lindsey has been so slobbery and tries to fit her entire fists into her mouth. It's funny. She is a social baby and likes to smile at people. I need more pictures of her smiling. She has not been very good at night the last couple of weeks and has been waking up twice through the night. I was used to her only waking up once. I keep telling myself it's a growth spurt and she'll eventually sleep through the night soon. :) She's a lot of fun and Kate likes to be her mommy, which includes picking her up and dancing with her! yikes.

The kids playing. Of course, Preston is crying over something...and wouldn't smile.

A tradition we started this year is we've been doing a 24 days of Christmas Advent Calendar with different activities to do each day. Jeni had a list of activities that she did with her kids last year so I got that list from her and tweeked it for our family. Last year, we did fun things, but with the kids getting older I thought it would be fun to have something for each day. We've decorated, read Christmas Stories, watched the First Presidency Message, made Christmas cookies, watched Frosty the Snowman, picked out Christmas candy, rode the Santa train and more to come. Kate has been so excited to see what we get to do each day (I have the activity written on a piece of paper rolled up and tied to an advent calendar of my Mom's). We did this growing up so it's a tradition I liked and wanted to do with my family.

Train Ride to See Santa

We surprised the kids with a Santa Train Ride last Saturday. They loved it and had a good time even though it was cold and windy. We rode on the train for a few miles, saw Santa, got a gift from Santa (a wood train), ate some cookies and hot chocolate and then rode back on the train. It was fun, minus the long line to see Santa, and the kids are still talking about it so that makes it worth it. Preston loves trains so he was excited to see it, ride on it and hear it blow it's whistle. Seeing him so excited made it all the more fun.

All Aboard!!!

The train cars were all decorated for Christmas. The train guy even had us all sing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

Kate's eyes are amazing in this picture. ha ha. I'm in my lemon drop coat as Kyle calls it and Lindsey was such a good baby. She was out in the cold the whole time so thank goodness for body warmth and a warm blanket.

Preston was in heaven. He was a happy kid on that train.

Santa! Kate was so excited to see him and tell him what she wanted for Christmas. Lindsey sat there like nothing was different and Preston wouldn't touch him. :)

Warming up with hot chocolate and cookies (they were hard and not very good, but we still ate them). Overall, we had a good time. They do a Thomas the Train exhibit in the summertime so maybe we will check that out next year.

Because I Have Been Given Much

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a fun time at my parent's house. Thanksgiving morning I ran a 5k with Marci, my Dad, Jared, Sara and Derek. It was only 15 degrees and for the first 2 miles I thought I was going to die. The last mile was the best. I've only been running for 2 1/2 weeks since having Lindsey so it was a stretch to run this, but I survived and didn't do too bad compared to last year. All the girls went shopping on Friday and we found some good deals and had a good time. It was snowing Saturday morning so the kids were so excited to go out and play in it. They made a snowman and by the afternoon it was almost melted, it warmed up fast.

Marci and Lindsey catching up on some People magazine reading. We thought it was funny how Lindsey was looking so intently at the magazine.

Yummy Thanksgiving food and my Mom had nice new placemats and a pretty centerpiece to make it look so good. We sang the hymn "Because I Have Been Given Much" and we shared what we were thankful for.

The kid table

Making a snowman

What a good looking snowman!

Fountain of Youth

Kate lost another bottom tooth last night. She was SO excited about losing it and getting another dollar from the tooth fairy. She showed me how loose it was so I worked at it and tried pulling it out with holding onto a kleenex, wrapping floss around it and then just with my bare fingers, but it wouldn't budge. She would kind of cry and say it hurt, but then she wanted it out because it hurt to bite down on it. So finally, I wiggled it and basically had to bend it forward enough to pull it out of there. Seeing the little tooth made me sad because now she'll get big teeth there and those little teeth are adorable and it means she is growing up. I love her spacey teeth.

A couple weeks ago, I got a new calling at Church. Kyle and I were released as Activities Co-Chairs and I got called into the Young Women as a Beehive Advisor. I'll teach the 12 and 13 yr old girls at Church. I'm excited and nervous. I haven't served in Young Women's before but it should be fun. The other leaders I get to work with are fun and the Young Women are great. I taught the lesson today and learned that the girls are the only members of the Church in their school from their ward (they all go to different schools). It made me appreciate the examples they are to their friends. I grew up with lots of youth and good youth at that. I had a great time growing up and realize what a blessing that was for me. It will be fun to spend more time with the youth and get to know them more. Tonight, I went to a fireside for the youth and all the Stake Young Men and Young Women's presidencies spoke on courage. It was a great night and I came away uplifted and wanting to have more courage.

Out With the Old and In With the New...Carpet That Is

The cheap carpet our house came with could only last so long...it was gross and would show stains like none other. This picture turned upside down, but it shows the gross carpet before (granted I didn't clean the carpets for a while because I knew we were getting new stuff so it's even worse).

The carpet installation company called on Monday afternoon seeing if we wanted to get our carpet installed Tuesday afternoon or the following week. Well, we still needed to put down a wood section by the front door and then rip out our carpet and move everything. But we figured we'd rather bust it out in one night and get it over with then have to wait longer. It took a long time to get all the carpet, padding, staples and tack strips up. My knees were killing me! Kyle got the wood entrance done and we got to bed around midnight.

All the stuff pushed into the kitchen (sound familiar?...from when we put wood flooring down in the office. We need a break from home projects!). Preston was sick so he stayed home from preschool today. It was kind of nice that he was sick because he stayed in one spot and didn't come and get into my paint when I was repainting the baseboards and walls before the carpet installers came. Normally, he'd be all over the place and I wouldn't have gotten as much done. But I hope he gets better soon. He's just not himself and has no appetite. Poor kid.

Here's the room with new carpet. We rearranged the furniture and the entertainment center. You can see the section of wood flooring and the darker carpet compared to the old carpet on the stairs. The new carpet is a carmel/tan color. The name is Capuccino by Martha Stewart and it's a shaggier carpet. We love it.

The chair doesn't really fit well since we rearranged so we might need some different furniture. I want to redecorate the walls in the room and so I have to figure that out too. The installers put the transition strip going into the kitchen on crooked so I had to call them back to have them come fix it. It's better now so I'm glad it got fixed because I knew that it would bug me with it being so crooked. It took us hours to get the room prepped last night and when the installers came today, there were two of them, they did it all in 35 minutes!!! I told them we spent hours taking up everything they just put back down. Ha! Overall, we really like it!

Leaves Anyone?

I LOVE FALL!

I love all the colors that come with fall. Driving over the mountain pass on a sunny fall day to my parent's house is breathtaking. I think October is my favorite month for all the fall colors- green, red, orange, yellow- combined with the blue sky and crisp air and you can't forget football. Love it. Washington is beautiful!

Kate has wanted to jump into a pile of leaves, but we don't have very many leaves on our lawn. When we pulled up to my parent's house and saw the mass amounts of leaves we knew Kate would have plenty of leaves to jump into.

Oh to experience the simple things in life.

Grandpa Bill's 80th!

My Grandpa Bill turned 80 in November so my Mom planned a big party for him (it's her Dad). He loved it and enjoyed talking to all his friends and family that were there.

My Mom made all the food and it was scrumptious. She did an amazing job! A lot of it was my Grandpa's favorite foods or snacks.

Me with Grandpa Bill

The kids eating...they looked so cute sitting at the table all by themselves. They quickly found the nursery with all the toys and made a huge mess, but at least they were entertained.

Kyle, Jared and Kevin. They were sitting around talking and laughing and it was a good picture moment, but once they saw me they started doing silly stuff.

Both my Grandpa's- Grandpa Bill on the left and Grandpa Paul on the right. They are such good Grandpa's too. I remember them coming to a lot of my sporting events and pretty much all of my birthday dinners. They are so supportive and I'm lucky to have been raised with my grandparents living so close. I want that for my kids too.