3...2..1....Happy Birthday Will

Today is Will's first birthday. It's so amazing how fast this year has blown by. As I was looking through the pictures of the year it truly is amazing at how fast this little guy has grown. Will is an amazing little guy and really puts the joy in boy. Will is fully walking and has now mastered bending down to pick something up and standing from a seated position. He loves all things boy like including chasing his sisters around just to hear them scream. Will has grown faster than his sisters and is getting bigger each day. He has a total of 10 teeth including two back molars needless to say he's on the fast track of weening and he is drinking milk from a sippy cup like a champ. I've been trying to get a picture of it but when you ask Will how old he is he'll hold up one little finger. I'll keep trying to get it but it really is so stinking cute. Anyhow happy new year to you all and happy birthday to our little buddy.
Will started out at 7.5 lbs. He was born just before 2 and came out screaming.

Will a couple of days after he was born. Check out that dark hair. I forgot how dark it was.
Will at 4 weeks. I don't know if I should be posting these it's making me miss my baby.

Will is still such a cute little sleeper. He's a really good sleeper still.
Will on his blessing day at just over 3 months.

Will at 4 months posing like a pro.
Ahhh the thumb sucker. Will has since sucked his thumb hard enough to cause blisters but I think he's weening himself I rarely see him with his thumb in his mouth.

Will around when he started taking his first steps. 9 months.



What a cute little boy. It's so fun to be a part of his life. I wonder what the next year will bring.

Christmas

A very Merry Christmas hit our house pretty hard. The best of all was the gift Santa left me. A Nikon D60! I can now stop coveting people with fancy pants cameras and stop cursing my old camera. I have over 350 pictures that I took just over the weekend. I am so in love with it. I have so much to learn. The kids had a great Christmas and thankfully are really easy to please. I'll have more post later on our adventures in the land of winter a.k.a. Cache Valley. Till then enjoy these from our Christmas morning.

This is Abby's Sleeping Beauty Barbie. She has since not let go of it. It is now her constant companion. It's so cute.

Lizzie was excited that Santa left her presents this year and have every day promised to be good so he'll come again next year.
Lizzie got her Roller Skates and is just dying to get outside to try them out. Too bad there's just mountains of snow all over our sidewalks.

Will was so excited to get some boy toys. Our house tends to be in the princess department so when he started gathering trucks and trains for Christmas he was way excited. (Total truck count when all was said and done 10!) This really sums up how Will felt about Christmas.
Look a picture of Abby actually looking at the camera! A Christmas Miracle.
This is Lizzie's Christmas Dress. I think I was more excited to give these to the girls but they looked so cute at Church in them.
Posing like a pro.

Abby wouldn't let me take a picture of her in her dress but she looks so pretty in it. I love girls in fancy dresses.



This is my own attempt at a self portrait. I'll get the hang of this whole picture thing eventually. If any of you have tips please leave me a comment. Merry Christmas.

One Last Please

Lizzie said tonight that she had something she wanted to say to Santa Claus and asked if I would put it on our blog so that he could see it. I'm just glad that I have it so when she's 13 and starts being all bratty teenage like I'll pull this out and remind her that this is what she said. Sorry it's turned sideways I can't figure how to get it right ways. She wrote the whole note out phonetically it's pretty cute. Anyhow Santa I hope you hear her and will officially take her off the naughty list. Enjoy.

Dear Santa,

Dear Santa,
I'm so sorry but I'm afraid I've been more than likely put on the naughty list this year and I would like to at least have the opportunity to plead my case. You see today started out as any normal Thursday would. Breakfast for the kids on the table minor debates of which cereal really has the most sugar in it versus which cereal the kids will actually eat. Small compromises were made and both sides felt satisfied. We hurried along our morning to prepare our house for visiting friends and fellow yoga-goers. Lizzie was especially excited for the opportunity to play with other kids. You know how much she loves other children. When the guests arrived along with the small army of children we were more than grateful for the basement and the toys to keep them entertained while we the "mommys" worked on getting our non-mommy bodies back. The hour seemed to flit by seamlessly so much so that when time was up and a plea from Lizzie to prolong her playing time at a friends house with the mother's approval was unavoidable. I took the opportunity of quiet time to catch up on my latest read and play a little more with Abby. Will was slumbering quite peacefully and would be doing so for at least another couple of hours. I know I should have been cleaning, putting up the rest of the Christmas decorations and tidying up my finances but all those things didn't seem nearly as pertinent as reading and mothering my child. I guess now seeing what was to happen I should have listend to my mother's advice of work then play. My hour of relaxation was suddenly whipped to an abrupt hault by a phone call placed by one of my fellow mommy yoga-goers. It seems that while we were trying so desperatly to cut our weight upstairs Lizzie had found a way to cut things much faster down in the basement. It appears that Lizzie in attempts to appease everyone had stolen a pair of scissors from the craft box (set on top of the fridge) and some paper to make snowflakes with everyone. No one was interested in making snowflakes so what is a 5 year old girl with a pair of scissors to do? Well they started with the stuffed animals. After apropiately trimming as many pets as she could it was time to give a hair cut in her hair cut hut otherwise known as an igloo tent bought from IKEA. She started with her first victim. Lizzie knew she couldn't cut her own hair. We've been down that road before. So Audrey asked for her braided pigtails to be trimmed up a bit. Then I guess Audrey being satisfied with her own trim recommended her little sister (19 months old) to Lizzie the barber. Audrey was pretty sure that something short would be really cute on her. Short and Sassy were her exact words and thus Lizzie took some off the top. Amazingly enough in the hustle and bustle of cleaning up and getting out no one noticed the hair or the scissors or the lack of hair on one adorable 19 month old girl. When the mother called me my relaxed peace melted away into a serious red rage. Thankfully enough the little hairdress would be was at her friend's house. A phone call from me to the mother of said friend's house was placed and a short conversation with Lizzie on the phone revealed the full truth. I knew what needed to be done and the best plan was set in place. I worried dear Santa that use of your image may be considered hanous or even blaphmaous but it needed to be done. When I picked Lizzie up I let her know how disappointed I was in her. She was put in her room for a serious time out. At the end of the time out I told Lizzie I was expecting a call from your office to inform me of her move from the good list to the naughty list. Her pleas were intense and I said if she would throw away the scissors and accept her consequences that I might be able to barter her back on to the good list. She accepted the terms. I then umm "recieved" the phone call and played the conversation easily within hearing range of Lizzie and her little ears. Once again there were pleas when I mentioned the naughty list and a deal was made. Throw away the scissors, no friends for 3 days, and a very very good girl till Christmas day and she would be put back on the Good list. We went and found the scissors and then with so many tears and gnashing of teeth the scissors were thrown in the dumpster outside. More gnashing of teeth and the cursing of your name along with endless screams of what a mean Santa you had become. Again I appolagize. The tantrum continued and then eventually melted into sleep. And here I sit asking for my own forgivness I'm sorry I had to make you into the bad guy. You know sometimes on Christmas morning I feel a little cheated anyhow where as you get so much credit so maybe instead of placing me on your own naughty list we can call it a mutual understanding. If not I guess I'll expect nothing more from you this Christmas other than a toothbrush and underwear. Really I'm okay with it. I need them both.
Respectfully yours,
Andrea


For the rest of you still reading here are a few pix from decorating our Christmas tree.

Abby loved decorating the tree this year. So much so that every day she redecorates the tree.

The closest shot we'll get of all five of us around the tree. Notice the grip Jeremy had to have on Abby to get her to sit for the picture.

It's hard fro me to remember that this is Will's 1st Christmas. It seems like he's been here longer than that. We'll do an update on Will our almost 1 year old later on this month.

Tooth-hurty

Lizzie and I had our bi-annual dental check-up last month and on that check-up they found out that Lizzie and I had matching cavities. Isn't that so cute? Anyhow today we both had them filled. I was so nervous for Lizzie. She's never had a cavity and I was a little worried as to how she would react to things like Novocaine and drills. We scheduled the appointments so Lizzie could watch me first and then I would sit by her side during her turn.
Well, when they finally got me in my room it was 20 minutes late, thus they were running behind. They put the topical on my tooth and then the dentist came in with the Novocaine. Lizzie watched as he stuck me and I hoped that she wasn't freaking out on the inside. Then the dentist said he'd be back in just a minute to take care of me. Lizzie and I were reading books together when the hygienist came in and said they'd get Lizzie's topical on while they were working on me. So they took her to a different room and I could hear Lizzie charming everyone in her path. Before I knew it I had been sitting in the same chair for 30 minutes without the dentist even coming back in. I thought they would have come for me to check on Lizzie but they just left me there. I could hear her chatting it up with everyone. When the dentist and hygienist came in they were talking about how impressed they were with Lizzie and how she didn't even flinch during the shot! I was so mad. I had wanted to be there for her in case she freaked out or something. But I guess I didn't need to be mad she did great. They worked on my tooth for like 5 minutes and I was done. When I went to Lizzie's room she had like 3 hygienist gathered around her and I thought for sure there was something wrong. Then they all started laughing. She was reading them all one of her books. I watched as the dentist talked to her and showed her the drill and then he told her that if anything started to hurt she just needed to put her left hand up. I held my breath as he started the drill just anticipating some sort of scream of agony when she raised her left hand. The dentist pulled back and asked if she was OK and she said yes. Then he started working again and she lifted her hand once more. I started to get concerned then I saw the twinkle in her eye. She was totally messing with them. Just seeing if they really would do what she wanted them to do. Anyhow she let them finish up the work and then we were on our way. I was proud of the brave little girl. And glad to have that particular first under my parenting belt. Anyhow I guess we'll have to work on better brushing ethics so we don't have to do that again. Even though I know she can totally handle it.
It was the far (your left) back molar and ironically enough my cavity was in the same place.

We made it. Pretty smiles still intact.

Beautiful Day

It's been almost a week and half since I've posted. Seriously I'm not dead and really I haven't been busy, well not any busier than usual. I guess I've just been waiting for the blogging mood to hit me. I guess today did it.
Today was BEAUTIFUL! We had to go outside so we could more fully appreciate the sunshine and warmer weather. We called up a friend and headed out to soak in what vitamin D we could get.


Double Take but really that is Abby looking at the camera and looking quite ducky...
I tried to get pictures of them standing on the steps but the 2 year olds weren't really in the mood.
Climb..Climb..Climb as much as you can You can't keep up with me with a camera in hand.
Whaaa that's right another picture of Abby looking at the camera with a smirk of a smile on. I think Abby would live in a swing if I let her.

Will loved the swings and was happy to get outside and eat some bark and whatever else he could get his hands on.


Seriously such a cute kid.

Twilight

I just recently finished the twilight series. For a more detailed reaction click here.

a fairy good halloween

We had a great Halloween. I took a lot of pictures and have selected the best of our night. Ok so this top picture of Abby... not so great but I guess you can see that she's a fairy. I couldn't get her to hold still for the life of me so any shot of Abby is a miracle. Although this picture reminded me of last years picture.



Snap do you see that??? That is me oh so prego and with short hair. Oh ya and Abby is like a baby not the reigning toddler that she is today.

Lizzie was a stinkin' cute stinkerbell wait check that tinkerbell. I totally had so much fun doing her hair and put enough hairspray in her hair to withstand a hurricane. it was awesome and looked great!


This is my very favorite picture of her though. I honestly feel so blessed to have a little girl that looks so great in lime green. Oh she's a doll.

Abby was a butterfly princess fairy. She really couldn't make up her mind all day and refused to stand still long enough to let me take a solid picture of her but here she is watching Lizzie's halloween parade at preschool. And the spoiler of Bootstrap Will.


Will was an excellent piarate. He was so stinkin cute and made all the sounds a piarate should make. He did pretty good keeping the hat and patch on and his mustache was going to be much smaller and curlier but he moves too much.

This is my favorite Will picture giving you an absolute perfect Rrrrrrrrrr. He even does this cute cross bite thing. Adorable! (I know piarates shouldn't be adorable but well what can you do)

These are a few of the cute things we did. This is a "Roasted Ghost" aka cheesy mashed potatoes and olives. The recipe called for black beans but I hate beans so I thought the olives would taste better.

Cute Jack-o-lantern sandwiches. The honey really makes it look all glowy like. We also made a fun life size skeleton thanks to 8 milk jugs and this website. They had so many fun kid friendly ideas for halloween. I highly recommened it for anyone wanting good holiday ideas. Anyhow it was a great halloween but we're even more excited for the upcoming holidays.

Pumpkin Walk

And thus everyone and their doggies have posted about Pumpkin: walks, patch, carving etc. So I'll toss my pumpkin in the ring, well Lizzie's anyhow. Lizzie's preschool entered a display in the Benson Grist Mill pumpkin walk and we had such a great time seeing everything. Ok check that I was sick and not really in the mood but Jeremy was able to come with us and help ease the stress of 3 kids in an unfamiliar territory around lunch time. Lizzie's class one best school display which was great.

These are Lizzie's car pooling buddies in a hay maze. They are such cute little girls.

Lizzie's pumpkin. It's Cinderella. I'm all about letting Lizzie do her own projects so I let Lizzie go to town on the pumpkin with spray glitter. It worked out so fun we did it to all of our pumpkins this year.

Trying to make the most of feeling yucky. Abby was sick of being lost and insisted on being held and brought out of the maze.

A picture of Me and Jeremy! No that was not photo shopped and thank goodness too. I think we would have lasted 10 minutes if Jeremy hadn't come along. Thanks Honey.

progress in action

thought i'd share my last run. just basically to show how the nike+ helps with a run. it totally graphs everything out for you. this was my run from last night and it's a lot more spikey then what it normally looks thanks to the fact that I tried to kill myself by sprinting across the road with on coming traffic and i sprinted the last little bit. but it's oh so cool.

tags galore

K I'm sorry for all of you who have tagged me recently and i haven't held up my end. so here's a tag and hopefully that will do for now.

quirky stuff:
1. I am terrible at chain letters, or anything on the pyramid scheme type thing. we just were "haunted" by an anonymous neighbor and we need to "haunt" 2 more families and I'm afraid it just might not happen. it's not that i don't want to. i'm just lazy.
2. I'm the least organized person in the world. yet by some magical unknown power i know where everything is and can almost always find whatever it is i'm looking for, which is fine for me except when i need help and can't really ask someone else to go find it for me.
3. I remember way too many things such as: people names, i remember most of the people that i served with in LDSSA including those that were not in my committee or people that i went to all my different schools, and weird enough random people that other people mention in conversations. I also have a crazy brain for random information. I also remember all of the phone numbers and names of people that I needed to know for my old job at Northern Title. I used to have to really focus on forgetting people's Social Security numbers when I would have to type them on paperwork. It was really weird to look at a person and think your social security number i s xxx-xx-xxxx. Really I should use my brain for better things like useful things but that stuff doesn't stick for some reason.
4. Before we had caller id I could tell who someone was by their voice but now that we've had caller id I feel lost and when people say "Hey." It takes me almost half of the conversation to remember who they are.
5. I'm not a perfectionist. Never will be and amazingly enough I'm Ok with it. One time a cousin was saying she couldn't do a blog because she would obsesse about it being perfect and what not and I was so happy to realize that I don't have that hindering me from doing the things that I want to.
6. I can't eat Tomatoes or Onions at least in whole form. I love tomato sauces and the flavor that onion can give when your cooking but can't eat them. I know that really it's in my brain and every year I give them a try trying to will myself to eat them but I just can't. I worry more than anything that I'm going to ruin my kids eating experince and I try to encourage them to eat them but they won't.

Anyhow there's some more crazy stuff about me. I'm not going to tag people because well secretly I hope your all lazy like me but if your bored or you don't know what to post just know that I tagged you.

....and wiser too...

So it was my birthday on Monday and I'm just getting to posting about it. It was a fantastic birthday and really as i creep closer to thirty I really can't help but get excited. We celebrated as a family on Sunday night. Monday I ignored nearly all of my "responsibilities" at home (dishes, laundry, cleaning and such) and read "Midnight Sun" online. (Darn that twilight series) Then my dear friend Mindy took our kids and I picked Jeremy up from work and we had an actual date. It was awesome. On my way to get Jeremy I nearly died twice thanks to things flying out of people's trucks but we made it home alive. It was a fantastic day. I really do like my birthdays not that it has to be a big hullabaloo I'm just grateful to be alive and to have the awesome life that I do. Anyhow here's a few pix from the day.

This is Jeremy's idea of a birthday cake. It's a grasshopper cookie. It made me laugh and still makes me smile.

Lizzie actually blew out my candle. I told her that since she blew it out that meant she was the one who turned 28.

This is the best present ever. My face doesn't say really how excited I was. If Jeremy hadn't given this to me on a Sunday night I probably would have left him right there on the spot and gone for a run. On it's maiden voyage we ran 4.66 miles in 45 minutes and burned 468 calories. It was so cool to see all the information and to have the added motivation to get out and run. Thanks again honey! I love it!

When Jeremy and I got back from our date Monday, Mindy and the kids had made this birthday cake for me. It was so cute and so yummy; although I was stuffed to the gills, there's always room for birthday cake. Delicious! (Ps it's a train. Mindy said they had a big debate over the train of Batman)

My Abby girl

So Abby is amazing. And I fear I don't post about her often enough. With Lizzie in preschool 3 out 5 days a week I've been able to really get to know Abby. Which sounds terrible but Abby was just 19 months when Will was born and Lizzie is kind of...well.... let's just say she thrives off of attention.
One day, awhile back, I was watching Abby play with the alphabet magnets on the fridge, when a twinge of guilt hit me, I hadn't taken time with Abby to teach her the alphabet. When Lizzie was 2 I sat down and did Letter flash cards with her until she learned all of the letters. So I decided I would teach Abby the letters, only to discover that Abby already can recognize every single letter in the alphabet, both upper and lower case! Which just blows my mind. So we talk about letters every once in awhile but mostly we just play princesses and dance. She has funny voices. One we refer to as her princess voice which is a high pitch snow white type voice. She uses that voice most of the time but occasionally she lets out her goblin voice which is this deep throaty voice, it's really quite laughable not that she intends for it to be that way. Anyhow I have a video with Abby pointing out and saying each letter in the alphabet but for some reason it won't load so here's a video with her pointing out just a few of the letters. It just amazes me how smart she is just to pick up on something like this.