Birthday Fun

Andi's Birthday was this weekend, and I feel like we crammed all the usual birthday week fun into two days. So it was just birthday weekend this year. Saturday she had a spy party at our house with 15 of her closest friends and cousins. I know she is probably the only seven year old Girl who would ask for a spy party, but it was fun, and the other little girls enjoyed it too. We made Secret Agent ID's, followed clues to find their spy gear, chased the older cousins who were gracious enough to play the part of the bad guys, and ate cake. Here's the group after finding and donning their disguises.

After the party we had a surprise planned for Andi. A friend Thad works with owns a couple horses and let us bring the kids for a ride. Andi was so excited when we pulled into the stables and she realized she was going to ride a horse.

Sammy had fun too, but he was equally entertained by all the dirt and rocks as he was by the horse riding.

Then we came home and got cleaned up and met Thad's family at Dewar's to celebrate all the January birthdays. Thad even ate a banana split in honor of Tenille's birthday since she wasn't there to celebrate with us. Sunday we had my family over for dinner and cake to celebrate the January birthday's on my side.  Why is January such a busy birthday month!?

Today we are cleaning and recovering from all the festivities. Two separate rounds of cake with little children means my floors need a serious mopping. I am also trying to figure out what on earth to feed Peter. He now seems to be allergic to all three kinds of baby cereal. Ideas anyone?

Snow Day

I think we might make this a tradition. We headed for the snow one day during the Christmas break and the kids had a great time. We only have to drive about an hour to find enough snow to go sledding, and after about 30 minutes the kids are cold enough to be done. So it makes for a nice afternoon trip. Here they are making snow angels.

And eating snow

 And posing with frosty

This is how Peter and I spent the time.

Which is why we have no action shots of them going down the hill. My hands were a little full, and Thad had to be at the top to give them a push.  Afterwards we came home and started working on a little project. After I posted a picture of the new entertainment console I realized how bare a bland that huge wall is. So we are trying to fix that, and here is the first remedy.

We actually had all of those frames, not all black, but I fixed that with a can of spray paint. And we decided to frame a bunch of things that were meaningful to us. Like a picture of the Maeser building with our graduation tassels. Our wedding invitation, the river where Thad goes fly fishing, a beach shot, the kids footprints. It was fun, and definitely helps liven up that wall. Then I talked Thad into another tiny project that has been on the list. Our light fixture on the front porch left much to be desired. Like a whole lot. And since the porch is so small to begin with, I thought a new fixture would make a difference.

Now to decide on a color to paint the door itself.

End of the Year Wrap Up

Where has the year gone?! Christmas is over again, and my kids were almost in tears when they woke up this morning and saw that the tree was gone. It really felt like Christmas snuck up on us this year, maybe because we missed some of our usual holiday events like the lights at CALM and caroling. I didn't even get a Christmas outfits for church picture because Andi & Sammy had Strep and didn't go to Church the Sunday before Christmas. Luckily with a few days of antibiotics under their belts, they were healthy enough to enjoy Christmas Eve at the Bulkeley's. This is the first year Sammy really got into the Santa Letter reading, and thought the parts about him were so funny.
 All the kids with Grandpa while he read the letter.

 Christmas morning was low key. We opened presents and made a big breakfast, and even Peter got to try something special that morning. Rice Cereal. As you can see he loved it.

 Unfortunately he seems to be allergic to it. After a couple days his little cheeks were red and peeling with eczema, and he had a runny nose. So it was back to a bottle for a few days before we tried oatmeal. He hasn't had a reaction to that which is good, but still makes me nervous for all the other new foods to come.
Back to Christmas. After breakfast the kids hit the street with their new scooters for about 2 minutes, when they realized it was much to cold to be running around. But they have been on them every afternoon since. Sammy also decided he could ride his big boy bike with no help now and they have been outside non-stop.

 Here's Peter enjoying the wraping carnage.

And Sammy modeling his new tools. Thad found these and is hoping it will keep Sammy from raiding his toolbox. Yes that's a real hammer, and screw driver. What was he thinking?!

We headed over to my parents house around noon to do the tree with them and then have a big Christmas dinner. The kids made out like bandits and spent all afternoon running around playing with their new toys. Whack a mole, battleship, and spy costumes were all a huge hit.
This is the first year I've had to truly appreciate the two weeks that are Christmas Break. No getting up early for school. No running off to dance class or swim class. No homework. It's been grand. As much as Andi was not looking forward to no school, she has begun to appreciate sleeping in and spending the entire day playing with Sammy and the neighbors. What a life.
2012 has been an eventful year for us as a family. New house, new baby, new church callings, new to public school, just a lot of new and different. It's been wonderful, but I'm looking forward to a low key 2013.  Happy New Years Eve!

3 days left

 I can't believe Christmas is almost here. December has flown by, and I'm not even sure what has kept us so busy. Before the big day I wanted to post some updates on the kids. Andi has been losing teeth left and right. She's currently missing 3, and the permanent ones are taking their sweet time coming in.

Sammy has been a little jealous of all the teeth Andi has been losing, well, maybe not the teeth part, but the tooth-fairy money part. So he has been trying to trick the tooth-fairy by putting different thing under his pillow each night hoping she'll take the bait and leave him money.  So far she's proven to be too smart for that Sammy, but he keeps trying.

Sammy also has a new favorite phrase. "That hurts my feelings." Anytime I tell him no, whether it's no I'm not buying you that toy at the store, or no you can't have candy for breakfast I get:  "When you tell me no that's bad. That hurts my feelings."  And it's pronounced fee-o-lings. Anytime he doesn't get absolutely exactly what he wants I've hurt his feelings. I'm very close to telling him to man up and get over it, but I don't want to discourage him from talking about his feelings. . . or do I. . .
Peter is 5 months today and the little beast is sporting a 12 month onesie and 9 month pants.

He loves the doorway jumper, and sitting up tall in the bumbo, and laughs at the kids all day long.

Oh, and he's been sucking on his bottom lip like crazy.

He likes to play peekaboo with a blanket. Meaning you cover him with the blanket and then yank it off. Anytime Thad plays this though, the other two think they need to be involved. All Daddy play time must involve them. It's some sort of law I think. So here all three of them are as Thad yanks the blanket off. Bunch of crazies.

3 days left till Christmas, and Les Mis! I'm equally excited about both of these things.

Rollin

Peter has officially rolled over by himself a few times now. The first time it happened there were no witnesses to the event, but we know it happened because I put him down on his back, a few minutes later he started screaming, and we ran in to find him on his stomach. Apparently rolling over feels like the tower of terror to a 4 month old.  Now that the initial shock is over he thinks rolling on to his stomach is pretty cool. Here is a pictorial play by play. Sammy tempting him with Christmas ornaments.

Trying so hard to get that arm out of the way. Not enjoying all the effort it takes.

 Finally!

Thad has been working on lighting/electrical again and this time put in 6 new lights in the dinning room and moved the fan and chandelier.  It's ridiculous the lack of lighting built in to houses.  Here's a diagram of what he did.

Keep in mind he had to crawl around between the 1st & 2nd floor of the house to get this done, and cut an access hole in the floor of his closet to get there. There is nothing he won't do in the name of a good project. My contribution to the whole endeavor was to tell him where to cut holes and to paint the chandelier, which was silver and shiny before. A little spray paint makes a big difference.

Our tree is up and our stockings are hung. I just got Peter's up today because I had to make his and then have his name embroidered. I have been looking for a stocking for him for weeks, but no one had anything even remotely similar to the ones I have found for the other two. Serves me right for not thinking ahead and buying multiples when I found one I liked. But I do like that all three are different yet similar, and think I did a pretty good job winging it with no pattern.

Christmas came early for Thad and I. We went looking for a mattress the day after thanksgiving and ended up getting one, and a bedroom set, and an entertainment console. All of which have now been delivered. The room is a wreck because we still need to get rid of the old bed, so there will be no pictures of that. But our console is in the front room and looks so lovely. It's hard to tell how big it is with this close up, but it's roughly the size of our long couch. It's still funny to me that bigger furniture can actually make the room look bigger.

And looking at this picture made me realize how much work I have to do in that front room still!

Month in Review

November has been a interesting month, and it has gone by very quickly. Before I get to all the events and festivities I must post Peter's 4 month report. He is 16 lbs(69%) and 28 inches long(above 97%) like way above. There is the curve line for 97% and then a space and then Peters dot above it. Definitely our tallest, and the others weren't small!

 Peter is thinking about rolling over but not in a hurry to do so. Sammy swears he rolled over by himself the other day, but I did not witness it and Sam was right next to him when I came in the room, so it seems a little suspicious. We've been working on projects again as well. Mostly Thad has been moving lights and pulling wires in the attic, which obviously is the funnest thing in the world. At least the kids think so, and they beg to go up in the attic with Daddy, so one night we let them go up.

We also finished up a little project in the downstairs bathroom. It's not 100% done because I still need to get some decor for those empty squares, but I love that it's different. And since I DO NOT pinterest it was totally an original idea, which makes me proud of it.

 Sammy decided a few weeks ago that he needed a tie like Daddy to wear to church. He was so proud of himself that morning looking like a big boy.

 Thanksgiving was at our house this year, and it was fun to have everyone over. We had 20 people, which actually was a smaller group than usual, and we spent the day eating, playing bocce and croquet, and laughing. I made some little table decorations that turned out super cute.

 And we actually have a picture of all of us together on Thanksgiving thanks to Thad's mom. This is a rare shot indeed.

While we only had one dinner that day, we did still have two thanksgiving dinners this year. The weekend before we got together with my moms family at the institute building, which was the prefect place to do it. The guys played pool and ping pong while the kids had a room with games and crafts and movies to keep them entertained.
 We decided a few days ago that it was time to update our family picture/get a shot to use for Christmas cards. I forgot how hard it is to get a baby to do anything decent for the camera. But here is a sampling of what we got of the kids.

 

Thad kept wanting to Photoshop Andi's tooth in, but she is proud of her missing tooth and wants everyone to know she lost it. 

 The other thing that has kept me pretty busy this month is my new calling as the primary president. I've done Primary before so I know the drill, but I've never been the president and had to choose counselors from a ward full of people I barely know. Oh and the week I was called Thad left town for several days to go back east. His company was/is doing a lot with the clean up of Sandy. So that was huge and stressful. But now that things are underway I'm feeling pretty good about it. And now we are all fending off our yearly sinus infections, but thankfully it's way before Christmas this time so we should all be healthy by then!

Happy Birthday Halloween!

What a week it has been! Saturday was Sammy's birthday party, all about Rocket ships. We shot rockets in the front yard, had a rocket pinata, played ring around the planet(ring toss), and had a cake with a rocket on it. Unfortunately Cotsco does not make a rocket ship cake, so we had to order a plain one and I put a rocket on it. Obviously amateur work, but at least you could tell it was a rocket, and it was green which was the most important thing to Sammy.

 And here he is with his cute little friends. He decided this was a no girls allowed party, except for cousin Ellie who came later.

Once the party was over it was time to carve pumpkins and get to work on Halloween costumes. Sammy decided on a scary face pumpkin and Andi picked out one of those skeleton patterns from the book. Neither of them wanted anything to do with cleaning out the guts.

We kept the giant pumpkin simple, and only put a small bulb in it this time.

Thad brought original Jack back this year and did a surprise inspection at lunch.

 Andi was Dorothy, and I got off really easy with her costume. A friend from church had a Dorothy costume that she borrowed, all I had to do was spray and glitter her old shoes for ruby slippers. Sammy however was a different story. He wanted to be a green airplane. So Thad brought home a huge box from work and crafted a plane which I then painted and finished the morning of Halloween. We tried to make Peter a pirate, and that lasted all of five minutes.

 Poor Sammy woke up Wednesday morning throwing up and continued to do so most of the day.  By dinner time he was well enough to eat a piece of toast and gatorade, and insisted on going to the halloween party at church. One we got there however he changed his mind. All these people in costumes were swarming around Thad to take pictures with Jack and Sammy just stood there in his plane(which he kept saying was heavy) and started crying. So Sammy and Peter and I spent most of the party sitting in the car until the trunk or treating began, at which point Sam put the airplane on for about 15 minutes and filled his treat bag. Then he came back to out car and sat in it the rest of the time till we ran out of candy to pass out. Poor guy did not have a great night, but it's kind of his halloween tradition to be sick. We'll see what illness next year brings.