O Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas tree a little early this year...I just couldn't wait any longer!! I got all new ornaments this year so I was extra excited. :) I just love having my tree all lit up in our house.

Jack was super excited to help put the ornaments on the tree. He loved it!

For some reason Jack looks extra cute to me in this picture. I think it's his chunky cheeks and his cute little hands trying really hard to get that ornament to stay on the tree. We are staying here for Christmas and I am excited to see Jack on Christmas morning. He can't wait for Santa to bring him presents. As long as we don't get sick, like last year, then it will be so fun to see him be so excited! I can't wait. He's old enough this year that I can threaten him that Santa won't bring him anything if he isn't good or doesn't eat his dinner. He gets pretty worried, and I hope it doesn't wear off before Christmas actually comes. We are running out of threats that actually work for him! Sad, huh?

How can that cute little face be so naughty?

This is where Anderson likes to sit and enjoy the tree. I think he likes to look at the lights.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am ecstatic for the holidays to actually begin!! I love this time of year.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Random Cuteness

I was looking my camera and found some recent pictures that I have been wanting to put on here. They aren't from anything special, but I thought they were cute enough to make the blog. :)

Anderson is going to be 8 weeks on Friday!! I cannot believe how fast the time has flown. He is just so cute and sweet and we are loving every second of it... minus night time. That's another story. I came into the family room one day and he was just sitting there hanging out next to Justin. I love how the binkey still takes up half his face!

The other day Jack was hanging out with Anderson on our bed and he asked me if I would take some pictures of them. I actually managed to get one with both of them smiling!!

He loves Anderson so much and is really protective of him. I think it's cute. On Sunday one of my friends was holding him and he went over to her and said, "Can you give my brother back to my mom now?" He gets a little nervous when other people hold Anderson.

Big smiles!

Giving little brother some love...

I don't know what we ever did without these two! It seems like they take up all of our time now and I can't figure out what we ever did all day before we had kids. Sleep maybe?

Last Minute Trip

We found a cheap ticket to Seattle and I jumped on the chance to go see my family at the last minute with the boys. It was so fun...except for the fact that Justin didn't get to come and I had to fly by myself with the kiddos. It was nice to just be there for fun, and not have anything specific that we had to be to. We spent some time out at Scott and Kelli's. Here is my mom and dad trying out some left over Halloween costumes. My family is a bunch of nerds!!

Anderson is just starting to smile and react to people. Tanner was making him smile forever with his big eyes! Tanner thought it was pretty funny.

Having fun at Scott and Kelli's in the racquetball court.

Tanner loves to take care of Anderson. :)

CUTIE!!

Jack and Mom watching "Up!" at Scott and Kelli's.

Jack and Grandma Gorrell.

It's always fun to see all of our grandparents while we are home. I am surprised that Jack can keep most of them straight, we have so many!

We celebrated Stephanie's birthday at a fun new restaurant while we were there. It was fun to see her again so soon. Happy Birthday Steph!

I am loving this little cutie! He did really good on the airplane...he slept the whole time!

I had so much fun with Scott and Kelli! I didn't get to see them very much when I was home for the wedding so it was really fun to be able to hang out and be silly. This night at Angie's we watched You-Tube videos FOREVER and ate way too many doughnuts! We were laughing so hard. Everything from the world's fattest kid to people trying to eat a spoonful of cinnamon. It looked really fun! You should try and eat a spoonful sometime and see what happens. :)

I always enjoy staying at Angie's house and staying up until 3am every night! When you only have a few days together there is no time for sleeping! :)

It was fun to get to see everyone since we won't be going home for any of the holidays. This year we are staying in Cleveland and having our own Christmas. I am so excited to start our own traditions and watch Jack come down Christmas morning to our own tree. Every year I put up my Christmas tree and then leave and we never get to enjoy it. This year we have plenty of time to enjoy it...especially since I put it up today! Hee hee...gotta love it!

Halloween with the Berglind's

We were so lucky to have Stephanie and Hayden come and visit us! We did miss Matt though...he wasn't able to come. :(

The first day after they came, it was 70 degrees, so we took advantage and headed to the park. These little boys were in heaven. That first picture of Jack makes me laugh...he gets himself up there and just yells at me and waits until I come to help him down. It isn't that far of a drop, but apparently he doesn't want to let go. He looks a little worried in this picture.

Trying to climb up the poll. :)

Hayden pushed this car around almost the whole time. It doesn't take much to entertain these two!

That night we went out to dinner at CPK in Legacy Village shopping center. It was super yummy. The weather was nice enough that we were able to walk around for a few minutes after and go see the pumpkins. Jack kept saying, "Hooray! A pumpkin patch!" I'm not sure 10 pumpkins count as a pumpkin patch but they were still excited to see them.

The next day Justin braved watching all three boys for us while Stephanie and I went and got a pedicure. Thanks again for that Steph....it was so nice!! My toes still look perfect. I love it! It was nice to have some time without the kiddos to just sit, relax, and chat. Times without kids are few and far between these days!

Halloween was probably the highlight of the weekend. Jack and Hayden were so cute!! Hayden's giraffe costume was making me laugh. It kept covering his face and he couldn't see where he was going. He sure was cute though.

We took them out Trick-or-Treating around our neighborhood. It was so fun to see them get into it. Jack has been talking about going Trick-or-Treating for a month and was super excited when the time actually came. A lot of people in our neighborhood really get into all of the decorations. It was fun to see all of the different ideas people came up with.

When we got home, we dumped all of their candy out on the floor and let them go at it. After we dumped it Jack said, "Oh my gosh! Look at all this candy!!" He was a little excited.

Hayden has the cheesiest smile...I love it! So cute!

The rest of the time they were here, we just took it easy and enjoyed each other's company. Stephanie was a huge help with Jack and Anderson and even did my dishes for me multiple times. It was nice to have her come and just relax the whole time instead of trying to fit in a million things to do. It really was perfect. Now we just need to get Matt out here next! We did try to go and see an exhibit at the Kirtland visitor's center. It was a collection of paintings depicting stories from the Book of Mormon. When we got there, they said this was the first day that they started closing earlier for the winter. Since they had let us in though, we asked if we could run up and see the paintings. They told us that they had packed them all up that very morning and they were being shipped to Nauvoo. Talk about being a day late and a dollar short! We were so sad! So we just went out to dinner instead.

Jack and Hayden got along for the most part. Hayden learned the word "mine" which probably came from Jack and they had a few struggles with who was going to play with what car at what time. Other than that, they had a lot of fun together. It is fun to see them play get to know each other. I am glad they are so close in age, it makes it fun for Stephanie and I.

Thanks for taking the time to come and see us Steph!! I always love getting together and laughing about old times and old friends. I can always count on a good laugh!! Thank you for all of your help with Jack and Anderson. It was so great!!

And the best part is, we get to see them again on our surprise, last minute trip to Washington. We leave in the morning!! Hooray! It always makes the goodbyes so much easier. :)

More fun with family and some randoms

It has been so fun to have both of our parents come to see Anderson. Bob came out the same time as Denise, but had to go home after only a few days. We were so sad!! Thanks for coming out though Bob...it was so fun to see you!! We sure did miss you the rest of the time Denise was here...

This little guy has been growing by the second!! It kills me that he is going to be four weeks old on Friday. I hate it. It seems like he changes every day. I wish that he would stay teeny tiny for a lot longer. He has been a great baby so far besides waking up too much at night. The lack of sleep is catching up to me. Last night he only woke up at 1, 4 and 7. Maybe this will be the start of better nights to come! ...I hope.

Jack is loving being a big brother. He is very nice and careful with Anderson. I wish he was that nice to Justin and me. :) I just need to remind myself that he is only 2. I asked my mom if she thought he was a devil child after his horrible week he had when they were here. Her response went something like this... "I think the difference between him and some other kids his age is that they just cry and scream when they get mad, but Jack knows how to tell you off...and he does." Oh, my sweet little Jack.

On a different note, he has been super excited about Halloween this year. He is going as Batman, and has already tried out his costume at a couple different Halloween parties. My mom and Justin's Grandma Diamond both recently got him a Batman cape. Now that he has two he is SUPER excited about having friends over to play Batman. It's so funny because he really has no idea who he really is, but he LOVES to pretend that he does. He will do anything that we tell him Batman does, including eating carrots or other vegetables we have for dinner. We always tell him, "You should eat your broccoli. Batman eats it and it will make you strong just like him!" So far, it seems to be working.

While Denise was here, of course, we went to Patterson's. Even though it was not very warm and slightly windy, as you can see from this picture, we still had fun.

Jack was brave enough to try out the tire swing for the first time. He doesn't like swings very much so I am surprised he liked it.

Back in the trees at the farm... I love all the leaves on the ground and the pretty trees.

Denise was such a huge help while she was here. I don't know what to do now that I have to do my own laundry, take care of Jack and cook my own meals! She made my life extremely easy which made it so nice to be able to focus on Anderson. Thank you so much Denise!! It is definitely a different story now that all of our help has left. It took me three hours on Friday to get everyone ready and actually out the door to Target. Three hours! You might be thinking that is impossible, but it's not. I'm not sure why it took us that long, but it did. On Sunday, Justin has meetings at 8 and I was lucky enough to not have to go this Sunday (we usually go early with him because we only have one car). I looked at the clock and we had 45 minutes until we needed to leave. I felt at that moment that that was more than enough time and we would for sure make it to church before nine. Well, we got there ten minutes late. I don't know how people do it with multiple children. This is definitely something I am going to have to get used to.

So far Anderson loves the bath. The past few times we have put him in there he just looks around and hangs out. I love to see his skinny little body and his long frog legs. He is just so stinking cute!!! At least we think so.

Nice and clean!

I am super in love with this guy. He just makes me smile every time I look at him, even if it is 2 o'clock in the morning. He is a pretty noisy baby though. He makes lots of weird noises including one that sounds like a mixture of a grunt and a machine gun. It's really funny! I'm not sure why he does it but it makes me laugh. I just cannot believe he is going to be a month old!!! It is going by so fast, and I am not happy about it. Before I know it he will be telling me off, just like his cutie pie older brother.

P.S. This is the view from my driveway right now, looking down my street. Did I ever mention that I LOVE Ohio?! It doesn't get much prettier than that.

Anderson's Blessing

Both of our parent's overlapped their trip for one day so we wanted to take advantage of them being here and bless Anderson. Justin did such a great job and Anderson was quiet through the whole blessing even though he was hungry. I'm so glad that we decided to bless him even though he was only 9 days old! It just wouldn't have been the same without family here. We are so happy that they were all able to come.

My parents...

Justin's parents...

Anderson was a little too small for the outfits we had. This was the smaller of the two. He still looked so cute even though his pants went up to his armpits! You can't tell with his little shirt on, thank goodness. :)

It is so weird that we have two kids!! Things have gone good so far but we have had a lot of help. We will see when everyone leaves how we are able to manage having 2.

Jack did not want to hold Anderson in these pictures. He kept saying that he is too heavy. They are still pretty cute though. I guess it is a good thing that Jack doesn't really want to hold him and touch him all the time. Less that I have to worry. :)