Santa

A little over a week ago we went to my work Christmas party. They boys had a great time bowling and eating candy canes. They also got to sit on Santa's lap, they didn't quite know what to think about it and Austin wasn't feeling very well so he is looking very enthusiastic in the pictures. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of them bowling because our camera battery died.

I survived!!

On Monday Aaron packed his bags and left me and the boys.:(

No, we aren't getting divorced. Aaron left on his first ever business trip. It's the first time since his mission and in our married life that we have ever been apart. I know all of you women whose husbands have traveled or travel frequently probably think I'm pathetic, but it was not fun! The days were fine, but once it hit the time of night he usually gets home and doing bed time by myself and then having to sit by myself all night and go to bed alone was horrible. I was quite the pathetic baby, but it's all better now because he got home late last night. :) It has been so nice having him home!! If nothing else I definitely appreciate him more now.

Monday night the boys and I went to our Ward Family Night for Christmas. We go to a barn of one of our ward members and eat yummy soup and then they do a live nativity outside. It's really neat, but it wasn't the most enjoyable thing by myself. It's not the easiest thing trying to get food for 2 little boys and help them eat without high chairs, but we had a good time and I'm glad we went. It's always a great thing to start the holiday season off with and to help my focus be on Christ instead of all of the commercialism. Since it was outside and it snowed all day the boys got to put on all of their winter clothes for the first time. Surprisingly, they thought it was great until they tried to walk in their boots and then they weren't quite as impressed. They had such a hard time walking in them it was hilarious! Here is a picture of all of their cuteness.


Tuesday night Angie came and had a sleep-over and then we got some of our Christmas shopping done Tuesday and Wednesday. Because of Aaron's work schedule, I have had to take the boys with me on all of the shopping I have done. Thank goodness I've done probably 90% online because shopping with 2 boys and being pregnant is not the funnest thing in the world. Luckily they are good boys and have been pretty good shopping buddies, especially when M&M's have been involved. :) Thursday we had a great time hanging out with Malinda, Abby, Elise, and Emily. Finally, Friday came and after cleaning the house all day Aaron came home that night. We were all so excited to see him and have begged him to never leave us again (I know I already admitted to being a baby, what can I say, I like my husband!).

We love you Aaron and are so glad you are home again!!!

Oncology and Cardiology

Yesterday we spent a looooooong day up at Primary's. They scheduled our appointments right during the boy's nap time, not a good thing!

We started the day with Zack's ultrasound and oncology appointment. Everything is still looking the same which is a good thing and the best news of all was that we get to space our appointments from every 3 months to every 6!!!!

The we went down to cardiology for the fetal echocardiogram. Since Austin was born with a heart defect all of our future children will have these done because we are at an increased risk for having a child with a heart defect. Thankfully that will hopefully not be the case with this babe, everything looked great!!

Even though it was a very long day, we are so grateful for all of the good news that we got and we know how blessed and lucky we are!!

Thanksgiving

I have so many things to be grateful for so I thought I would share a few of them, in no particular order.

The gospel and the prophet. I feel so lucky to live this close to the headquarters of the church and to have temples and churches so close to my home. I'm also very grateful for the wonderful ward I live in, everyone is so supportive and thoughtful of others.

My job, as much as I love being at home and dread going to work, I'm so grateful to have a stable job that I love. I don't think I could work in a more rewarding place and it is so flexible which makes it great when you have a family. I can work as little or as much as I want and I can do nights so my kids don't have to go to daycare.

My extended family and friends. We have been very blessed with a great support system and many people that love our kids.

My boys!!! This time of year I can't help but remember December 2006 and realize how incredibly grateful we are to have our kids and to have them be so healthy and thriving! They are without a doubt my joy in life and I love them so much!

Our baby, we can't wait for this little boy to join our family. I love feeling him inside of me and it is such a comfort to me how active this little boy is. I often have overwhelming feelings of love for him and can't wait for when I get to smother him with kisses!!!

Last, but definitely not least, my hubby!!! I'm so grateful that he is willing and able to work full-time to support our family. He also does so much to help around our home and with the boys and I don't think the boys could be more lucky to have him for a dad! He is so patient with me especially right now when I have major pregnancy hormones. I love him so much and I'm so grateful he chose to marry me!!!

We had a nice Thanksgiving that started with Aaron playing in the turkey bowl. He looks forward to it more than anything the rest of the year. He plays with my brothers, uncles, and cousins. I don't know why they all love it so much because they are usually all sore for at least a week, but I'm glad he has them to play with.
We went to my grandma's for dinner and had wonderful food!! I think I was full for at least a day after all of that good food. Unfortunately I didn't get hardly any pictures because I was enjoying relaxing too much. The only picture I have is of my cousin Mike, he was bragging about how he ate everything there, but we soon started pointing out the many things he had missed so my Uncle Gary made a nice little concoction for him of all of those foods. Here he is with the masterpiece of ice cream, Parmesan cheese (that expired three years ago), bacon bits, whipped cream, mayo, miracle whip, Dijon mustard, whip cream, and many more things that I can't remember. We had to leave shortly after so I didn't get to see if he threw up, darn. :)

Then I ended the night off with working, only 15 more years and I don't have to do any more holidays! :)

How bout them UTES!

Well today was the big game and the Utes are going to the BCS!!!! It was a great game for the Utes and a we had lot of fun at the game. It will be interesting to see if Max Hall ends up getting the Heisman. He really made a case to be MVP of the game for Utah. Anyway, here are some pictures and video from the game.

We knew it was going to be rowdy and cold so we didn't take the boys to the game. Heidi's parents came down to watch them and to see the game as well. Heidi's brother and family as well as her uncle also came to see the game. It was kind of funny because there ended up being seven cougar fans and only two Ute fans (Austin and Zack) at our home watching the game while we were at the game cheering on the Utes. To make them feel welcome, I made sure my Utah flag, mini helmet, Ute blankets and hats were decorating our home. In addition, we really wanted to make them feel at home so we provided an array of crimson culinary goodies.

Twilight

My sisters and I (we missed you Mandy!) went to Twilight at midnight last night and it was so good that I fell asleep during it! Really I did, and during the fight scene at the end. This movie did not do the book justice!! The director changed quite a bit of things from the book and don't get me wrong I know they have to in order to fit a 500 page book in to a 2 hour movie, but I felt like a lot of the things she changed were the little details that didn't need to be changed, like what some of the houses looked like and who said certain lines. I was also not impressed with the acting and the chemistry between Bella and the imposter they called Edward was nonexistent. Regardless of all of that I had fun hanging out with my sisters.

Fall decorations

I don't know if other people are this way, but in the last few years my decorating style and taste have changed a lot. When I was younger and first married I really liked light woods and I liked cutesy decorations. I now love and prefer darker woods and I feel like my decorating taste has become more sophisticated (I'm probably the only one that thinks that, but oh well). It will be interesting to see what I like in 10 years. Here are some of my new favorite fall decorations.

I just made this table runner. I love these napkins, but still haven't found any napkin rings I can afford. Bed Bath and Beyond has some that I love for $3 a piece, does that seem pricey to anyone else? I got all of those cute gourds and pumpkins on clearance at Michael's for $3.



I just bought these fall leaves from Michael's on 75% off clearance, I love good deals. They were $3 for a strand of leaves, I love the pop of color they add to that side of the room. Sorry the pictures are a little blurry, but we have horrible lighting in our front room and our camera sucks.


Now I just need to get some for Christmas that I love!!
Do any of you feel like your tastes have changed or have any decorations that you can't wait to put up?

Jumpin'

I have been wanting to post video of the boys jumping and landing on their bums, but I thought it might be seen as child abuse when they do it on the floor so I thought I'd get some video of them jumping on our bed just before bath time. Also included is proof that Austin bleeds red.

It's official!!

We had our first appointment with perinatology today (they are following me along with my OB since both of our boys were born with birth defects) and so far everything looks good! They were also able to confirm that it's a BOY. We are so excited for this sweet little boy to join our family and he already looks cute as can be! Unfortunately we weren't able to get a picture of the baby's face because he was stretching out as straight as he could so he had his face turned to be able to fit in there. I just hope he doesn't try stretching out like that in a month or so, I don't think it will feel very good then! He weighs 15 oz. right now and is perfectly on target for his due date. We will have a fetal echocardiogram done in about four weeks to make sure that his heart looks okay so keep your fingers crossed until then!:)

Proof he's definitely a boy!
Look at that cute little leg :)

Halloween

Thursday night we carved pumpkins which was an interesting activity with Zack and Austin. After Aaron cut the top off we gave them the spoons to start gutting it and apparently they are already very frugal boys and didn't want to waste the inside so they thought they would eat it instead. When they finally got a little taste of it in their mouths they weren't very impressed, it was pretty funny!


They both were really mad that we wouldn't let them hold the knives themselves and they would definitely not go for holding it with us (our independent minded children!) so that made the rest of the carving experience interesting. Austin had a hard time getting past it and cried a lot of the rest of the time. After we were done they decided to try eating the tops of their pumpkins like apples, until they tasted them and then they decided it wasn't that good of an idea.


It was an adventure and will probably be a few years before they can do most of it themselves, but it's a fun tradition that me and Aaron have been doing since we were dating.


This morning we started a new tradition and had pumpkin pancakes with apple cider syrup for breakfast (yum!). Then me and the boys headed outside for a photo shoot, it's not easy trying to get them to smile and take the pictures!

I just had to include this one because Austin was so cute helping me rake the leaves in to place.

Zack
Austin

Here is my little Yoda. Disclaimer: We did not decide to have Austin be Darth Vader because we think he is evil. Those were the two costumes that Aaron liked and Zack was picked to be Yoda because he is smaller and his face was rounder which we thought looked cuter with the Yoda ears plus the Yoda costume drove Austin crazy. In Aaron's words "Darth Vader isn't evil, he just strayed off the right path for a little while. We love our boys equally and think they are both wonderful!!

Our cute Darth Vader


Here is how our boys really felt about the photo shoot. Austin HATED his hat!! I told him I would give him candy if he left it on so most of the pictures are of him with a sad face saying "cany."


Then we had our traditional potato soup in bread bowls for dinner. I love having traditions! My boys getting ready to go trick-or-treating for their first time. They didn't really get it, but I'm sure next year they will be running from house to house. Either way after only about an hour we got more than enough candy!

Park City

On Friday we headed up to Park City for a long weekend with my family. Kirstin Roper met us up there in the afternoon to do our family pictures, she found some great places and I can't wait to get them.
Saturday morning Aaron, my dad, Steve, and Dave all went fishing up at Trial Lake, the rest of us left when the kids woke up to go meet them and play at the lake. While we were getting the kids all loaded in the car Austin threw up so I hurry and ran in the hotel and got some towels to clean him and the car seat up and some extra clothes. After getting him cleaned up we were on our way, we were probably about 1/2 mile from the hotel when in my mom's words "he erupted" so we pulled over in a parking lot and I proceeded to again clean him and his car seat up. At that point we should have definitely just gone back to the hotel, but everybody was riding with us and we had gone to the trouble of moving Neal and Henry's car seats in to our car so I didn't want to ruin everyone's fun and decided to just deal with it. Lucky Angie was sitting in between my boys and got to be the one to catch the throw up two more times and clean him up. We didn't remember how to get there for sure so after a bit of a detour and driving for almost two hours we finally got there. The boys were all packed up and leaving when we pulled up, it was so windy and freezing! After 4 throw ups and 2 hours of being crammed in the car we just turned around and drove back to the hotel where I got to do laundry and wash the car seat. Although thankfully that was the last of the throw ups. We did a lot of relaxing, playing games and swimming up there which is always nice. It does suck though to not be able to hot tub (because of being pregnant) when it's so cold at night!
Sunday we tried to go to church, but for some reason every time we try to go up there it's Stake Conference. We went on a nice long walk with our boys instead and let them throw rocks and have fun playing.

Austin

Zack

Mandy, Michelle, and I made Halloween trick or treating bags for our kids. I don't know why I didn't take pictures of us working on them, but here's how my kids turned out.



Monday we went swimming (we swam everyday) and then Matt and Aaron went and played tennis while me and Michelle finished the bags. Then we went to the outlets and headed home. We had a fun weekend, but wish we could have stayed longer.
The boys loved swimming or in Zack's words finning and one of there favorite activities for the trip was doing bubbles with Grandma. She has been nicknamed Grandma Bubbles and if I say her name at all Zack will come up to me saying bubbles. Neal and Henry shared some germ love so our boys came home with colds, but so far I've only had to do one breathing treatment so hopefully it won't turn in to any thing worse. I also started having a lot of Braxton Hick's contractions up there which makes both of us a little nervous, how early did any of you women start having them? Is it normal for me to already be having them, they started when I was about 18 1/2 weeks. Thanks Mom and Dad for a fun trip!!

Austin, Zack, and Neal playing in the tub after swimming
They have these carts for bringing your luggage in and out, our boys loved them! Every time we walked past one the boys would immediately go and sit on it hoping for a ride.

Bonding time with my dad.

How worried should I be?

Aaron has been a little stressed with work and last Wednesday as soon as he got off work I left with Angie to take her to get a pedicure for watching my kids (I thought it would be a good idea to tag along). As soon as I got home we put the boys in the bath tub to get ready for bed and the next thing I know Aaron was in there with them, I think the stress of work has gotten to him a little bit, do you think? The boys had a great time playing with dad, I guess as long as they are happy.

Happy Birthday Mom

I'm a little behind on my posts so here starts my catch up. The 22nd was my mom's birthday, she had taken the day off work to relax, but I got a call the night before and she offered to come down and watch my boys for part of the day so I could sleep after I got off work. That is how my mom quite frequently is, we can pretty much always count on her to put down whatever she's doing to help any of us out in anyway. My kids love her and not just for her bubble blowing skills, they always get excited and ask for maman (that's how they say grandma). I hope you had a happy birthday mom! We love you and appreciate you all of the time, even when we aren't good at showing it!

Fun, Fun, and more Fun!

We started our two days of fun yesterday with my cousin Kealie and her cute kids Jordyn and Jackson. They came down and we went to the park and had a picnic. I have always considered her to be one of my best friends, but it seems like we never get a chance to hang out anymore. We had a great time talking for a good 4 hours while our kids ran around and played.

Jackson was so funny and went and sat on Austin's lap and then decided to take him out; Austin decided he prefers to be the aggresive one!


The boys had a great time riding the dinosaur for a couple of seconds.


Then that evening we went with Nate, Malinda, and their kids to the Dinosaur Park. We had a great time with them and I'm glad we went, but for the money and the amount of stuff you could see in the dark I don't think we'll go again. By total coincidence we both picked Star Wars themes for Halloween costumes so they all looked really cool together. The boys loved the dinosaurs, especially Austin- he kept saying wow and oohing and aahing. I love my boys!


Aaron and I were duds and didn't dress up, but here is our cute Darth Vader and Yoda.


The boys loved these glow sticks that they got there; and there is cute Abby sitting with them and Elise behind them. We got hot chocolate and scones at the end and the funniest part of the night for me was when Elise threw a tantrum because there was slobber on the straw, she is quite the character!


Today we went to the Ute game (8-0 now, GO UTES!). It was hot and during the boys nap time, but they like football so they did great. They've even learned to say football this week and it's so cute because they put a really strong pronunciation on foot. Michelle bored Zack right to sleep which was amazing because they will never fall asleep anywhere but their beds.


Austin wouldn't stop trying to kick and hit poor Uncle Matt, I think because he looks so much like his dad and they love to wrestle with their dad. The highlight of the game was when Austin sneezed after a candy corn had been in his mouth for a good 15+ minutes. There was so much drool that came out with that sneeze that it went all over in Michelle's hair who was sitting in front of us and all over Aaron and Austin. That kid is so funny with how long he will keep food in his mouth!


Then we went to Pack's Pumpkin Patch to find our perfect pumpkins. Aaron and I have been going there since we moved to Farmington and I've been so excited for when we had kids to take there. It wasn't exactly how I had pictured it. I think being in the sun all day, not getting naps and tripping on all of the vines to fall in to pokey things was a bad combination. We didn't stay there long at all because the boys were not having fun!




So we came home and played outside for awhile and the boys found the apple bucket (they are the best apples I've ever had, thanks mom and dad!) in the garage so they helped themselves. They are very independent now, but I couldn't get over how cute they looked eating an apple like that. Austin kept saying apple juice and Zack would take a bite and you could hear him sucking up as much juice as he could, yum!



I love the fall!!