Christmas

Abby's pink car!

A Cinderella tea party in the princess castle!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Abby was a lot of fun because she actually knew what was going on this year. Jeff and I hosted Christmas Eve at our house with both of our families, about 20 people. We had a nice dinner and then did a white elephant gift exchange. Lots of fun and it was great to be able to have both of our families. We spent the morning at home opening and playing with presents. Abby LOVED the Cinderella tea set that Santa Claus brought her and Nathan loved his gumball machine (not real gumballs, but plastic balls). Then we headed over to the Daniels for more presents and some breakfast casserole. Yum! Val got Guitar Hero Aerosmith from the Daniels and is so glad. I was getting tired of the Guitar Hero 3 songs. We then headed out to my parents' house. It was snowing and the roads were pretty bad. Once I hit my parents neighborhood, the snow was deeper than my car and I got completely stuck. One of the neighbor boys had to hook me up to his jeep and tow me up the road. At my mom's, Santa left Abby a pink car, which is the one and only thing she has been asking for Christmas. She was definitely not going to get one until Santa happened to get the very last Barbie Jeep at Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving. What a spoiled little girl. We had a great Christmas and Abby is so sad it's over now. She cried when we took the tree down and kept putting the ornaments back on the tree as I was taking them off. Can't wait for next year!

Nathan's Stats

Our little Nathan is now 16 months old! I can't believe it. We went to the doctor about a month ago for his 15 month check-up. I thought he was going to pass up Abby in weight this time, but he surprised me. He weighed in at 23 lbs. 8.5 oz. and dropped to the 35th percentile. I was shocked but the doctor said it was okay because he is SO active. However, his height is still up in the 70th percentile. He does not say any words yet, stubborn little guy. He grunts and whines a lot to get what he wants. He is just starting to use a couple of signs now, which makes things easier. The doctor says that whenever he points to something we should say this is this. Can you says this? I try to do it, but he usually just screams at me cause he wants me to give him whatever it is. Oh well hopefully someday soon he will start talking. Then I probably won't be able to keep him quiet.

First Santa Visit

I took Abby and Nathan to see Santa this week for their first time. Abby has been so excited all week and she's been telling me exactly what she is going to say and what Santa will say back to her and so on. So we went down to the mall and waited in line. She was so excited she could hardly contain herself. So we get up to Santa and she sits in his lap and says. . .NOTHING! He asked her what she would like for Christmas and she just stared down at the floor. Then he asked her if she would like some toys and she stared down at the floor but said "mmm-hmm". And then that was it, we couldn't get anymore out of her. Nathan, of course was so distracted by everything that we couldn't get him to look at the camera. Then after we left Abby says, "Mom, I want to go back and see Santa. I'm not gonna be shy now." Oh well, I guess we'll try again next year.

Fall...and Winter Fun

Can you believe these pictures were taken within a few days of each other?! The week started out with some nice warm fall days and then less than a week later we were hit with a blizzard. We had TONS of leaves in our backyard. The kicker is that we also do not have any trees in the backyard. However, our neighbors do happen to have lots of trees in their backyards. Abby saw all those leaves and wanted to go out and walk around. I raked up a small pile and she had a ball jumping in them. We went out a few days later and got them raked up. Nathan loved walking through them and hearing the crunching noise they made when he stepped on them. Then the blizzard hit. Abby was so excited for the first snow of the season. As soon as Nathan went down for a nap, we bundled up and went outside. She wanted to make a snowman, but the snow just wasn't sticky enough. She had fun sliding down the slide and into the snow. We made snow angels and Abby loved the footprints we left behind ("look mom I'm making feets in the snow!"). We had a fun time and then when she finally got cold enough, we went in and warmed up with hot chocolate. It was fun but I am glad it has warmed back up for the time being!

Halloween

Aunt Lindsey and Nathan

Nathan and Great Grandma

Abby and Aunt Lindsey

So I finally got around to posting some Halloween pictures. Nathan was the cutest little elephant EVER! His costume was so adorable, it just made me smile every time I looked at him. Abby, of course, was a princess. She loved to be able to wear her beautiful dress outside of the house. We went to visit my grandma in the morning. She lives in assisted living, so there are a lot of other ladies there who oohed and ahhed over her and made her feel special. I took her trick or treating for the first time this year and she loved it. We only went to a handful of houses around the neighborhood, but she still managed to get a ton of candy. Plus the weather was so perfect, we didn't even need jackets. It was a fun Halloween and Abby is already looking forward to next year.

Pumpkin Carving

One of our favorite Halloween traditions is carving pumpkins. We have been getting together with our friends Mike and Stephanie Geist for the last five years to carve pumpkins. It has been more difficult as we've added kids into the mix these last couple years, but still lots of fun. Stephanie has a 2 year old son, Tony. We let Abby and Tony paint their pumpkins while Jeff and Mike played Star Wars Battlefront on the PS2 (that is their favorite tradition!). They had lots of fun mixing paints and making a general mess of things. They insisted on covering every inch of pumpkin with paint. We then had them make Halloween jell-o jigglers. They loved that and we had so much fun watching them. After entertaining the children, we finally got started carving our own pumpkins. Of course by then the children were getting tired so we called it a night and I finished my pumpkin later. So now here it is all finished up and now sitting on our front steps. In case you were wondering, Jeff was trying to match the face on his pumpkin in his picture. Silly guy!

A Day at the Park

This week I took the kids to the park with my friend Stephanie and her son Tony. This was our first time at the West Jordan Park. Abby loved it! When she first saw it she said, "Mom can I play in all the little houses?" She loved running in and out of all the little buildings and swinging on the swings. I think Abby would swing all day long if I let her. Nathan loved having some rough terrain to practice his walking skills. He wore himself out and promptly fell asleep on the way home and took a four hour nap. Maybe we will have to do this more often!