Christmas Fun Part 3 - Provo Living Nativity

We went to the Living Nativity at the Provo Tabernacle. It was a short but sweet little presentation, and it was fun to see all of the animals afterwards.

Christmas Fun Part 4 - Festival of Trees

We went to the festival of trees the first week of December. It was our first time going, and we will definitely go again. It was impressive to see how much money was being raised for Primary Children's Hospital.

The trees were amazing.

So were the gingerbread houses.

Emma got to do some fun activities. She made a couple of ornaments, got her fingernails painted, and talked to an elf on the phone!

preparations for Christmas...

It's a tradition in our family to start decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving! Emma woke up and saw the tree up ready to decorate. She was SO excited!

Thomas was excited too :)

He was a good little helper to his sister :)

FINISHED!!

Next came putting the lights up outside...DON'T ASK!!!

I think every night our Nativity is arranged differently. hmmm..who could be rearranging it?

Emma keeps putting "presents" under the tree. It's so fun to have children to celebrate Christmas with, they just make it even more magical!

Emma's favorites..

Emma loves singing her favorite songs, especially to her little brother. While Thomas was napping, she and I were talking and I was asking her what some of her favorite things were, including her favorite songs to sing. She also loves watching herself while being video taped with the screens flipped to face her. Sorry for cutting her mouth off in the video since I couldn't see where I was aiming. :)

Seattle Part 1

We took our annual trip to the beautiful Seattle to visit my family as well as my dear mission friends (which reminds me, I need some pics from our fun and dandy day).
We love beautiful Seattle, believe it or not it snowed the day we left which made it fun and exciting to drive in to say the least.
Thanks Phairs' for the wonderful time. We love you!

We went to the amazing butterfly house at the childrens museum in Seattle. We went last year but both our video camera and still camera battery were dead. So sad. So we made sure they were fully charged this time.

Thomas had fun trying to touch them

How amazing is this? Getting up close and personally with them. Even though you couldn't touch them, you could get SO close and observe. Emma loved it.

Lucky me, one landed on me.

My niece Ava finding her favorites

We went to a bouncy place near Issaquah. We went with my niece Ava and sister in law Jen. Ava and Emma had fun together.

Emma catching the bubbles

Emma didn't want to leave

My nieces and nephews loved Thomas. Here's Ava holding and feeding him.

We had ourselves a fun night of "Just Dance" on the Wii. We rocked the house.

Emma's cousin Maisy put makeup on Emma. Emma was in heaven.

I love this picture of all of them.

Thomas 6 months.....

...for only 3 more days :)

I have been such a slacker I tell ya.

Thomas' 6 month check up went as follows:
Weight: 17.31 lbs.= about 48%tile
Length: 27.5 in.=85%tile
Head circumference: 17.5= 70%tile

Our growing boy loves life, his parents, and especially his sister.
He is adamant to get a hold of anything he can and stick it right into his mouth. Even if that means nearly falling out of his chair to get a hold of my bread dough.
He is rolling and sitting up for about 10 seconds at a time :)
He hates the vacuum
He loves his solids, especially the fruits :)
He LOVES kicking and splashing in the bath tub which leads to him nearly falling out of his chair in the tub. The boy has very strong kicking legs.
He's getting better at sleeping through the night THANK GOODNESS. He struggled for a couple months.
He can wear 12-18 month old clothes. Wow.
And one day maybe that teething tooth will pop out one of these days :)

These months are FLYING by. Hmm...time to plan for his first birthday! hahahhaha just kidding! (maybe)

We love you Thomas boy!!

did we mention...

that we've MOVED?!! Yes, we moved to Pleasant Grove back in September. It has been incredibly busy with the unpacking (ask me if we're finished), figuring out what goes where (still are), working in the yard; Derek's done some over seeding and fertilizing to get the grass back in some areas, and finding lots and lots of fixer upping that needs to be worked on. All part of getting a house I guess.

This house was a short sale. We put an offer in May and closed the end of August...it was a LONG summer to say the least. But we are grateful we got it!

I will show more images of the inside once we get things more in order. Plan on in the next year. Just kidding. We'll put pictures up room by room when they get some work done.

We love it! We love our ward and our neighbors. It is SUCH a different ball game living in a house then our little 850 sq. foot condo. I'm trying to learn to keep up. :) I may or may not learn. hahhahaha. The kids have adjusted very well. Isn't it interesting how quickly children can adapt to anything? Amazing.