Pictures

We are a pretty cute family I guess. At least I think we are :)

The Girl is practically famous now. The photographer thought she was so darn cute she put her up as logo for her blog.

She is one stinking cute little lady and oddly photogenic. Its only odd because her parents are so NOT photogenic.

Pep would NOT smile. Like absolutely refused. Most of the picture taking time went like this...
Photographer: "Joseph, can you smile?"
Pep: "No"
Photographer: "Pep! Can you look over here at my pet alligator (a puppet that all the other kids loved) and smile at him?!"
Pep: "I don't want to"
I wish you could have heard his voice. So monotone. No emotion whatsoever.

 until...

We put him on the tractor. At which point we got a few very reserved smiles but smiles none the less. 
Ike however was nothing but smiles. He laughed and giggled and grinned the entire time. I swear this boy really is the best baby ever.

The Naugle cousins

And one of just the boys

The Awesomeness That is Pep

This kid is cool. He is at that age where everything he says is hilarious. He tells the best stories and makes for the best conversationalist. He is creative and quickly (all TOO quickly) changing from baby to little boy.

The other day while driving home from Grandma's house he said to me "Mom? I gonna tell you a tory." of course I was all for this so I told him to go ahead.
"Once upon a time there was a big BIG cary cary cary deer! (Pep for some reason cannot say the "s" sound when it is followed by a consonant. So he can say things like "soap" or "sandwich"  but he cannot say things like "Snake"  or "scary" hence the "carey" deer)
Me: "oh no! a scary deer?!!"
Pep: "Yup! and a long long YAK!"
Me: (laughing now because I have no clue where he even heard the word "yak" or why it was so long) "A Yak?!"
Pep: "uh huh and a MEAN Dinosaur!"
The story continued and eventually the yak met its demise when he got in to a fight with the mean dinosaur and lost. Poor yak.

Meet John...

He proudly named his snake John The Snake. A few days later he was playing a game and said to me "I John."
Me: "You're John?"
Pep: "Yup. Like John the nake. But but but (he also stutters a lot and I think its pretty much the cutest thing ever) I not a nake. I just john."

He loves to wear his "choo choo pants" as you can see. He wears them on a very regular basis. If they are not on him, they are in the wash. Never are they just hanging in the closet. I think the biggest reason he likes them so much is because he can carry his breakfast around in them.... and anything else he can cram in there

We saw this pin on pinterest a while back where you take an old paper towel tube and tape it to the wall and put a bowl under so your kid can drop a puff ball through in to the bowel.
well we took that post and stepped it up a notch...

Take that Pinterest! I love stealing other peoples ideas and making them better.But in all fairness hers is much cuter all wrapped in orange paper as apposed to mine that still have bits of toilet paper hanging off of them. Pep Played with this for days and days. I even left it up while we were showing our house to people. We have kids... deal with it.

Pep also get the award for best little brother. He lets his big sister boss him all over. He will even hold her hand and play along when she makes him be the prince. However being a princess is pushing it too far. Before Halloween I asked him (after we had already decided he was going to be a train conductor) what he was going to be for Halloween. He replied "I not know.. but but but.... I NOT be a princess"

Halloween Time Things

This year we had a princess (of course) a train conductor and a dragon (because the dragon costume was the only one in the hand-me-down bag that fit)

They were adorable and AnDee even got to wear a little make up. This made her incredibly happy. Pep took his train conductor job extremely seriously. That kid has one heck of a poker face. Its pretty incredible actually.
Ike couldnt have cared any less about his costume... except for when we put his hood on it would fall down over his eyes which made him fairly irritated.

AnDee actually got to wear two different costumes this year cause when went to get ready for Dads work party we realized we had left her dress at Grandma's house so we improvised and came up with a ballerina costume.

 (I kept singing the fresh prince song to pep cause he kept flipping his hat up like that. Needless to say he didn't get it)

We carved some pretty sweet pumpkins this year and both boys ended up eating the pumpkins as we did so (weird. I know) but we decided that next year we are going back to old school.... triangle eyes, triangle nose and a mouth with a couple of teeth. You never see just the normal jack-o-lanterns like that anymore. And they are SO much easier!

We got to go door to door trick or treating this year for the first time ever!(for the kids anyway) We always just end up going to some dumb trunk or treat in stead but our ward didn't do one this year so we got to actually take the kids out and knock on doors. It was pretty fun. I'm glad they got the true trick or treating experience.

We played in the leaves a lot this fall. Mom and Dad were pretty lazy on the yard work so the leaves were piled up and left for weeks. The kids loved it. They swung off the swing in to them and jumped off the tramp in to them. Not to mention all the usual burying each other and throwing them at each other until there were leaves in all the places leaves shouldn't be. Its been a fun autumn, even with all the craziness of moving and what not.

 (Yes. Pep is wearing his pajamas. Mind your own business.)

It is Official

We are moving to C town. Well if we are being honest we aren't actually moving TO Chicago. Just to "Chicagoland" as the locals call it. We will be about 45 min outside Chicago. Hopefully in a nice suburb with an actual yard.
Ill admit, city life isnt really our style.... Ok its not our style at all. We love our chickens and our goats and our dogs and our yard and most of all our mountains! Oh how it terrifies me to leave them!
But... Andrew got an awesome job offer and after much prayer and deliberation we have decided its where our family is suppose to be.
Andrew and I went out last month and spent a few days checking out the job, the area and just what it would really mean to move our family there. As far as cities go... I really like this one. Its clean and really quite pretty. The lake is amazing and the feel of the city is so fun! (Not like LA. I HATE LA.)
Any who... we spent most of our time driving around looking at potential neighborhoods to live in but we did venture in to the city a couple of times and we got to eat real life Chicago pizza in downtown Chicago. It was pretty stinking delicious.

We also went to Navy Peer in the freezing cold and got to see the lake and all the fun carnivally stuff they have there.

While in the city we spent most of our time looking up... and up and up. I have never spent any real time in a big city like that. Well... except in Africa but its a little different there. The buildings were overwhelmingly big, the crowds of people were overwhelmingly big and the traffic was overwhelmingly big ;) but it was new and exciting and really just a blast.
 The good news is that while  Chicago itself is big and crazy and crowded, we found areas like this right outside the city...

 Which made Andrew look like this...

I looked high and low for some mountains but I had to settle on some ok sized hills. However, there is TONS of bass fishing, duck hunting and white tail hunting out there plus the amount of geese we saw was scary. Geese are vicious animals and if they got angry and attacked we would all die, Im sure of it. We will just find some new outdoor activities and look forward to our trips to Utah to spend some time in the mountains.

Sadly we had to leave the two older kids behind which was the cause of much anxiety on my part. 3 whole nights without them! It was hard on me but Grandma Pam spoiled them (much to their delight and ultimately my dismay) so they were happy which made being away easier.
Ike however got to join us. He went on his first plane ride, got to sleep in a hotel and swim in the pool and as usual, he was perfect even when he was strapped in his car seat for endless hours. Everyone we talked to was so pleasantly surprised by how happy and content he was.

 I think his favorite part of the trip was at the end of each day when we went back to the hotel and he got to get naked and play on the beds.

Well... there you have it. The Naugle family will be arriving in Illinois the first week of January. Yikes!