"We Hope It Snows Today!"

Tanner had a very cute program at school today where the kids shared with us what they have learned about winter. Tanner's part was, "We wrote sentences about what color we wanted our mittens to be. My mitten is red." He read it while pointing to the letters...so cute.

After their little program, we got to help them make snowmen out of marshmellows, a york peppermint patty, a whopper, a candy orange slice, mini chocolate chips, pretzels, and fruit rollups. Very cute! Tanner told me to hurray and take a picture so that he could eat his snowman.

The reason I titled this post "We Hope It Snows Today" is because at the end of the program that is what they all said, with Tanner pointing to the words :) and those precious kids will not have to hope any longer. We are in the path of a winter storm that is bringing snow and ice this evening. What a perfect day for a Winter program.

The Zach-Man

Our little Zach-man is growing up so fast. I realized that I have not done an update on him in a while. He is now 10 1/2 months old and weighs a whopping 23 lbs.. He is taking after his older brothers and is just now trying to crawl. I have to remind myself that he was a preemie and will be behind in that type of thing. However, he is already pulling himself up to things. If he needs to get to anything he will roll. If he is headed in the wrong direction he will sit up, turn around, and roll to what he needs. It is very cute.

He is a lover of all things food..ok, not all things, he HATES green vegetables. He will dry heave if they even come near him. He takes after his brothers there also. His favorite foods are graham crackers, eggs, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, not chicken gravy..lol..and he loves Ravioli.

He now has 9 teeth and more making their way out. He loves to bite and scratch, and he would bounce in his bouncer all day if we let him :)

He is just a sweetheart and we love him so much!

One Curious Toddler....

Oh I am so boring!! There has been nothing to post about in the last 2 weeks! All I do is clean house and chase after a 2 year old who insists on emptying anything he can get his hands on :)

Yesterday I found him playing with all our toothbrushes (yuck!) and when I took them back to the bathroom (he was playing with them in the living room) I was met by everything from under the bathroom sink, on the floor. After cleaning the bathroom I walked around the corner and he had managed to get my purse off the counter and empty it on the floor. By this time he had heard, "GAVIN WESLEY!!" about 10 times and I thought he might start to understand that mom was not happy...nope. He just laughed and went on to empty the book case in his room, steal Grandma June's hankerchief (which he thought was hysterically funny..she did not) and dump his lunch on the floor. UGH!!!

So after a very stressful day with a very defiant toddler there was nothing else I could do but love him, because with a face like this.........

It is impossible to stay mad for long :)

Elder Stone X2....and a few Charleston Pictures

For Christmas the boys got suits and my heart melted when they came to show me that they were ready for church today. So sweet!

Also, we took a little 2 day vacation to Charleston. Now that we have been, we are not sure why we waited so long. It was extremely cold for that area but we still had fun. We went to the Aquarium the first day. It is right on the harbor so we were able to see the USS Yorktown across the water. The next time we go down, which will be in March, we are going to go to Patriots Point and see the Yorktown and battleships up close.

We also went to the open market in the historic district of Charleston. The open market is located in the building that used to house the slave trade. It is a beautiful building. The market is full of shops and indivdual people selling wonderful things. I think this was my favorite place.

I think if it had not been so cold, and my children had not been so cranky, I would have taken a lot more pictures :) When we go back in a few months I will take more pictures and we will make it to the historic mansions and Rainbow Row, along with Boone Hall Plantation.

Christmas Joys & Lotsa Toys!!

It always amazes me at Christmas time how busy I get with parties, shopping, service projects, and fun family adventures. December has been filled with all of the above, and more.

Christmas morning dawned with an extremely ornery 5 year old, a overly happy 2 year old, and a 9 month old who had no desire to participate in our festivities.

Nonetheless, we concured present opening without too much drama. Tanner only cared about the gifts with his name on them, as it should be. Gavin only cared about what everyone else was getting and refused to open his own gifts, and Zach just wanted to eat and go back to bed. It was joyous I tell ya, joyous! :)

Here is the proof that Santa arrived and gave my children everything they asked for..except Nana. That was the cause of the ornery 5 year old..Santa did not bring him Nana for Christmas :(

WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD!

Right after Santa left:

Gavin ready for the adventure...Tanner ready for a nap:

Gavin was very happy to get his kitchen:

Ornery!!

A tad bit happier when he finally came out of his room:

Shocked that Santa remembered his black Spiderman costume:

Zach was so tired. He really couldn't have cared less about his presents..lol:

Gavin got a new Blue in his stocking:

Tanner and the Ramen Noodles that were in the toe of his stocking..lol..he loves that stuff!!

Zach eating his book:

This kid has been asking for a snuggie since the commercials started. He was thrilled!

As I said before, Gavin just wanted to play with everyone else's loot. This is Tanner's new belt and Gav just walked around the house pulling the belt behind him..lol:

I was very happy to get the purse I picked out (and wrapped) and my Paula Deen roasting pan (I picked that out also):

Gavin finally got interested in opening his gifts:

One happy dude:

Gavin and Daddy:


Dad and his stash of stuff..well at least a few things:

Spiderman has now moved into our house:

I could be a little upset that the yearly Christmas photo isn't perfect, but this fits their personalities so well! Gavin never stops smiling, Zach is just trying to get through life, and Tanner cannot be bothered with anything nice..lol..you gotta love them!



And to make this day even better..my friend Soon Nyoung had her baby Christmas morning! So exciting! He is adorable and looks just like his 2 big sisters :)

Santa & Sleep

I love Christmas time! I love making goodies, going shopping, reading funny Christmas stories to my kids, and I love having new pictures of my boys with Santa every year.

Also, tonight when Michael went to get Zach out of his bouncer, this is what he found....

HE IS SO PRECIOUS!!!

Let the Catch-up Begin!

My goodness, I am so slow! I cannot believe that it has been 3 weeks since my last post. I have been so busy! I am going to try to do some catching up here.

First, Thanksgiving was wonderful! We had some wonderful friends and the missionaries over for dinner and games. It was really great to enjoy the day with some of our "ward family."

Ever since Thanksgiving I have been busy decorating, helping in Kindergarten, getting Christmas stuff taken care of, participating in Stake Choir and directing the ward choir. The Primary will be putting on a play this weekend at the ward Christmas party so I have also been working on getting the children prepared for that. Most of the time having multiple callings is great...at Christmas time, it is a little stressful.

I also realized that I never added pictures from Gavin's birthday party. What kind of a mother am I? Here is Gavin blowing out his candle on his cake:

These two pictures of Zach are just to cute. I had to share them!

We love having the Missionaries in our home. We have them for dinner every other week and our boys love it. This is Elder Billings the day before he got transfered. He had been in our ward for over 6 months. He had gone to BYU before leaving on his mission so we thought it would be fun to wear our BYU shirts and have him wear Michael's hat. (Zach was taking a nap at the time)

And now for the fun stuff! The Christmas tree is up and decorated. We had it up before Thanksgiving this year just because we had company coming over. Tanner really enjoyed decorating and even Gavin got in on it.

I think the fireplace is my favorite. I love my new reindeer I found at Target. Gavin thinks it is great that he lights up. He pets the thing all the time..hehe

Well, there is the update. As the fun Christmas and birthday stuff happens in the next few weeks, there will be many more posts.

Merry Christmas!!