Man I wish I had these pictures for "My kids are geniuses" post. Katelyn learned how to do this all by herself. Believe me, no one taught her how. This last one is such a sweet shot that Stephen captured, candle in mid-air as it's on on it's way down to smash a toe or two. Nice.

Go Broncos

Here is our latest family picture taken in Boise State attire. This was one of the pictures that semi-turned out with the kids semi-smiling. Gotta love picture day.

Katelyn and Preston

This was taken the day after Christmas. It's a little blurry, but too cute. Preston is almost bigger than Katelyn. Won't be long.

My Boys

This picture is just super cute. As you can tell, Preston is growing fast. He is officially 2 months old now. He weighs in at a whopping 14 pounds. He is in the 93% for weight and 43% for height. Weigh (pun intended) to go fat boy! Stephen weighs more than that, but we don't know his percentiles. We love you both.

Preston's new swing!

We got Preston a new swing because my old one broke already. This is right after Stephen set it up. Preston also really enjoys it.

My Kids are freakin' smart

Okay, Katelyn really is smart, but I have to joke a little bit about recent events. First let me say in her defense, she just turned 2 in August and can do the following.

-Sing her ABC's
-Count to 10 very well and to 20 semi-well
-Speak in complete sentences and they make sense, we can understand 95% of what she says
-Count to 10 in Spanish
-Knows her shapes, and colors for the most part. Can identify the numbers 5,8,6,2 and occasionally others.
-Says her prayers all by herself. A couple of days ago she prayed for the Bronco's. We got her trained.
-Can recite all the nursery rhymes on demand.
-Can sing in tune with most of the words over 20 songs.

Now for the funny stories.

-Apparently Preston is a prodigy. He speaks when we leave the room. Just the other day while Stephen was showering and I was in bed, he told Katelyn that he wanted her to get him out of the car seat and drop him on the floor. She told me, "Preston said Katelyn hold you." Right, I am sure he did.

-It has been very snowy here. We were leaving the library when Katelyn said she was eating snow. Okay, I thought. I look back and she is licking the snow off the bottom of her shoe. I freaked out and told her that was disgusting. Next thing I know, "This is disgusting," she says as she licks the bottom of her own shoe. Nice.

We love to clean! (Well..some of us do.)

Apparently, Katelyn's bored herself with making messes around the house and has moved onto cleaning up messes. Once Kendra taught her how to use a sponge there was no stopping her. Even after I got home from work she was finishing up the bathtub, spent a little time working on the floor and then polished off the toilet (for the second or third time). We're still working on her technique, but at least the desire is there. And it IS a free cleaning.

We even offered to pay her, though she wouldn't take our money. No, we didn't ask twice, and no, we're not going to twist her arm.

New hair do!

I got my hair cut and this picture doesn't do it justice! I don't even remember what the cut looks like because the style was so huge. It looked like a beehive from the 50's on top with the sides flipped out. I couldn't see because my bangs were in my face, but I figured it looks good enough to clean toilets, cause that's what I'm doin' today. And I don't have any make up on so please don't comment on my face. :)

Christmas Party with Santa

Katelyn has been talking for weeks about sitting on Santa's lap. She was the last child there to do it after some coaxing. For Christmas, she told Santa she wants "presents."

Take my picture

Thank you Grandma Mary for the beautiful dress.

So we must be doing too many blog posts, everytime we see an opportunity now we take a picture for the blog. Katelyn was catching on because we got her dressed on Sunday and commented on how cute she was and she said, "Okay, take my picture." Ha and Yikes at the same time.

Who's who?

Obviously the one with the pink bow is Katelyn, but seriously I think my kids do look alike at this age. Everyone says they look different, now yes, but when she was his age, I think they look very similar.

I've got a good man

Stephen came home from work early tonight and surprised me with flowers. Just because. I am so lucky to have such a great husband who is also such a great father. Kudo's to you Stephen. We love you.

We finally put up the tree!

We have been procrastinating putting up our Christmas decorations. For some reason, it doesn't feel like Christmas time. I knew I would regret it if we didn't decorate so finally we put up the tree last night. Katelyn's already taken down more ornaments (sometimes the same one over and over again) then we've put up. We reconsidered our decorating plan and moved all ornaments to the upper third of the tree. This worked well for about 30 minutes until Katelyn realized she can climb up on the arm of the couch and get any ornament she wants.

I've got to feed him...

Every night Stephen tackles Katelyn for bed and I am with Preston. Lately I've heard Katelyn say, "I've got to feed him!" This is her response to Stephen telling her she needs to get in bed. Well, a couple of nights ago Stephen took a picture of what she was doing. Ha. No idea where she may have picked that up.

The Best of Us

Apparently, we've been under-displaying the prettier side of our family in these blog entries. We'd hate to force readers to be subjected to too many pictures of one second-class family member. This entry is thus dedicated to the wonderful pictures of our family that don't include a smiley-faced, squinty-eyed dad trying to hold down one or both of the kids. Don't worry, he's still around, just holding the camera more and fake-smiling less.

Katelyn can have fun even doing nothing at all. All you have to do is ask her. This is her happy face.

It's hard to believe it took 6 shots to get this one right. They're all so pretty. After the Boise State game, Katelyn wouldn't talk about anything other then the fact that the "Broncos Won!" Even later that night, trying to get her to say prayers, all I got out of her was "Dear Heavenly Father, thankful for this day, bless Mom and Dad and Grandmas Grandpas and Ju-Ju. Bless Boise State Broncos..The End!" Hey, at least her prayers are longer then some of ours.
At four weeks old we're not sure how Preston had already learned to mimic Mom's smile for a picture, but there it is.

He's even fatter than he was before...

We were checking out this picture and Preston's happy face. Kendra made a comment on how "he" (Preston) looked so fat in this picture and, with the picture being a week old, was even fatter now. Stephen pointed out Grandpa was in the room, so she shouldn't be talking about him (Grandpa) like that. We're out of the will and now Preston only frowns. Thank you, Kendra.

Little Drummer Girl

Amidst protests from everyone else, Grandma fished Stephen's old drumset out of the toy closet so Katelyn could make some music. Everyone was finally dancing to the music in Katelyn's head, and it wasn't pretty. Dad was happy as a clam, and Katelyn couldn't figure out why the drumstick wouldn't double as a flute, no matter how hard she blew.

Grandma's Pictures Post

I've been taking heat for not updating this more frequently, and since it's well documented that we love blogs (always have, always will), it was important we get some pictures posted ASAP to show how cool we are, and to give some examples of the fun things we do. It's all fun, all the time. Seriously. Awesome. Fun.

At Grandma and Grandpa Nicolaysen's house, Katelyn loves to ride the four wheeler around the neighborhood. Hey, sometimes she even lets Dad or Grandpa ride along, too. Dad's so happy. She's so kind.

At Grandma Pam's house, Katelyn found her match in a two and a half foot Soldier of Love that doesn't hug back, but can't run away, either.

We got the whole crew together for a Boise State basketball game. When Katelyn wasn't picking her lip, she was shaking her BSU-clad booty up on the table, taunting basketball players like Dad and trying to get in their head during free throws like Grandma. Preston just ate and slept. The above picture was taken during a rare downtime for both of them.

Sabrina saved the day. She came over and took Preston's picture and made the announcements. Thanks to her, we were able to get them out before he was even a week old. You rock Brie.

Notice all the pictures we have of him, his eyes are closed. That's because he sleeps all the time, not that I'm complaining. I love this stage!

Katelyn has done really well with the adjustment. She loves Preston, she always asks, "Where'd baby Preston go?" She's nice to him and mean to us. Seems like she is always crying lately. It breaks my heart.

I'm Dorothy

I had to be in the hospital for Halloween, so I missed out on all of this, but luckily Stephen took Katelyn to our ward's trunk or treat. If you asked Katelyn who she was supposed to be, she would reply, "I'm Dor-fy." Thanks Aunt Lori for the red shoes! Grandma Mary and Grandma Pam made the costume.

Here at Last, Here at Last

We showed up at the hospital at 7:30 am Thursday to be induced and get this baby out of there. After an epidural, several naps and a mind-numbing game of Phase 10, Stephen Preston Nicolaysen was born at 4:25 pm with 10 fingers and 10 toes. He weighed in at 7 lbs 12 oz and measured 20.5 inches long.

Though she did finally warm up to the idea of being a big sister, Katelyn was a little unsure about baby Preston when she realized he was actually going to be sticking around.

Our little Princess

Katelyn was at her friend's house, Hailey and Aubrey and they were playing dress up. My new BFF Sabrina took and edited this adorable picture of her. We love our little princess.

So to my dismay, I am still pregnant. I have tried everything I can think of, this kid just won't come out. So I have an appointment on Thursday to be enduced. Finally an end in sight. I think Stephen will be happy too since I have been hard to live with the last week. Katelyn is excited to meet baby brother!

Baby in My Stomach

So this is like one of the only pictures I have of my belly. I thought it would be fun to have Katelyn have a baby in her tummy, too. I am 36.5 weeks and dilated to a 2.5, the doctor said I will be 2-3 weeks early, so any day now. Someone asked Katelyn where baby brother was today and she said he was in her tummy. Too funny.

Pumpkin smiley face

We have been reading Halloween books and watching Halloween movies so Katelyn was really excited to carve a pumpkin. When asked if she wants a scary face or happy face, she wanted a smiley face. Happy Halloween!

Kendra, Katelyn and baby Cade

Katelyn, Kendra, and cousin Cade. We are lucky he came first so Katelyn could learn what not to do. :) Seriously though, she loves her cousin.

Corn Maize Extravaganza!

Friday night, we were out with the ward and playing with Katelyn and Julia at the Corn Maize in Kuna. They had pony rides, a petting zoo, pumpkin patch, and air trampoline, not to mention the maze, itself. Katelyn dragged us from activity to activity and wouldn't quit for one minute. On the slide, it was every man for himself, and when it was Katelyn's turn to go down, she wasn't stopping for nothing.

In the maze, the girls couldn't keep up with Stephen, who just wanted out of the mud and corn.

Katelyn helped Stephen pick out a couple pumpkins, perfect for painting and cutting. Pictures of that disaster-to-be will be forthcoming.

Katelyn's Birthday Bash

These pictures were taken at Katelyn's second birthday party in August.

Kendra, Katelyn and Dad anxiously waiting to cut the Barney birthday cake.

Katelyn dresses her new Tickle Me Elmo up in a fashionable Boise State cheerleading outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Nicolaysen.

With the party over and friends all gone, Katelyn tries to choose between a grape and orange tootsie pop before she ultimately--in a freakish display of mouth-opening ability--chooses both.