Merry Christmas!

We had a very nice Christmas! Savannah told all of the kids "don't even think about presents" when they woke up. But the girls rummaged through quite a few gifts before church. I was amazed at how quickly we managed to get ready! We had a wonderful Sacrament Meeting with some amazing music! The kids were quite anxious to open things afterwards.

Savannah's favorite gift was her American Doll.

Melanie says she loves her purse with accessories.

(And yes, the girls put their pajamas back on, so they could feel like they just got out of bed...definitely Savannah's ideas)
Spencer was happy with the toy cars that Savannah picked out for him...forget the Batcave that Santa brought!

And Owen loved everything! Especially his new chair and books. He was also quite fond of the Batcave box...just his size!

My favorite part was getting to Skype with my sister, Stacy, who is serving a mission in Rexburg, Idaho.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Happy Birthday Dude!

I can hardly believe it, but my cute little dude turned 2 today! His sisters were so excited that it was his birthday. They doted on him all morning and both of them wanted to sit by him at breakfast. Savannah even made him a birthday crown, which surprisingly fit him perfectly. We celebrated by going over to my parent's tonight and having a little BBQ. Spencer's current favorite things are Dora, Diego, Waldo, and Spiderman (or just about any super hero) . So I talked my mom into helping me make a Spiderman cake. It wasn't high class, but we thought that it turned out well for us having no cake decorating skills. Spencer has even improved in his candle blowing skills since last year. He was quite happy to blow out his candles and he did a fairly good job too. We opened presents, which the girls helped a little too much. But they were very excited to give him the gifts that they had picked out specifically for him. Melanie gave him a Where's Waldo book and Savannah gave him a soccer ball. Jon and I got the little dude a Diego Tough Trike. He loved all of it. The kids even took a dip in the pool, even though it was quite cold. In the end, we had a fun time. Happy Birthday Spencer! We love you and couldn't imagine our family without you!

The Beach

At the end of April, Jon ran in his 2nd Ragnar for the year, in LA. I decided that I didn't want to just sit around here at home, while he was out having wild, crazy fun. So I talked my sister into coming with the kids and I to LA. We stayed with some friends from law school, which was so much fun (I know that Jon was jealous that he barely got to see/visit with them). But the highlight of our trip was going to the beach. Savannah was the most excited to go. She ran down to the water right away and started playing. Unfortunately, it was very windy that morning and so it was quite cool. And of course, about her 2nd or 3rd trip down to the water she tripped and got all wet and sandy. This made her upset and she whined for a good long while because she was cold. She did get over it towards the end of our stay though because it started to warm up. Melanie was quite the opposite. She insisted that she wasn't going to get in the water and so she wouldn't even wear her swim suit to the beach. But we'd only been there for about 20 minutes when she decided that she wanted it on and was down playing in the water too. She had a great time and was a good helper on our castle! Spencer loved everything about it...being outside, the water, and the sand. No matter what I did, he was always sticking his face in the sand and he constantly had it in his mouth. We seemed to be continually trying to wipe it off of his tongue. But he loved every minute of it.My sister, Andrea, just wanted to build a sand castle. After a little time in the water, we spent most of our time working on our castle. It was complete with moat and had towers in the corners where the water could go under them. The castle was basically 3 boxes stacked on top of each other. But it took us quite a bit of time to accomplish it. And it was a miracle what we did get done, because we kept running into this little problem...Yeah Spencer, he was all over the place and oh so helpful. Here he is sitting in our moat. But overall we had a great time and can't wait to go back again. Here's our little crew down by the water. Bet you didn't know that my girls are pirates! Arrrr!

What's in a name?

Spencer thinks that his name is Dude. Jon always calls him "Little Dude." And now Spence thinks that's his name. He doesn't say very many words, but here's how our conversation usually goes:

Me: Spencer can you say Dad?
Spencer: Dada (sometimes it's Dad or Dado)
Me: Can you say Mom?
Spence: Mama (sometimes it's Mom)
M: Can you say Savannah?
S: Nana
M: Can you say Melanie?
S: Mel
M: Can you say Spencer?
S: Dude!

Okay, he can't quite say Spencer or Spence, so we'll just settle for Dude for now. And now that we've shown this little conversation to a few people, he knows that it's funny and enjoys giving people a little laugh.

He also uses dude to distinguish between boys and girls. So you are either "a girl" or a "dude" and for some lucky people, they're categorized as monkeys, or "hoo hoo" as Spencer calls them. He usually calls himself a monkey; I guess that he's a Dude Monkey. I usually just call him a naughty monkey.

Growin' Up

Look Mom! I fell asleep within 5 minutes, no pacifier, no crying! It's a miracle! Jon and I have been discussing getting rid of Spencer's pacifier for a little while now. We were going to do it this past weekend, but decided that it would be a dirty trick to leave a baby that just lost his pacifier with a babysitter. We went out last night and were going to get around to getting rid of the pacifier either today or later this week. However, Spencer had a fit for the babysitter and took his teddy and pacifier outback and wouldn't let her bring them back in. Needless to say, he cried himself to sleep and Jon recovered his teddy from the backyard last night. I wasn't able to find his pacifier and figured that it was for the best anyways. So he never fell asleep during his nap time today because he didn't have it. This made for a tired little boy. I put him in bed tonight and didn't hear a peep out of him! It was fabulous. Both of our girls cried forever their first night without their pacifier. So I'm thrilled that tonight went so smoothly. I'm just hoping that the rest of the week goes so well. Got to get Spencer ready for the reality that he's not going to be the baby anymore.

Veteran's Day

Since Savannah didn't have school on Veteran's Day, we thought that we'd try to have a little fun. We took a little trip to the dairy farm that's just around the corner. We had a lot of fun, but man did it get hot pretty quickly! And I thought that it was November. I guess that that doesn't really mean too much here in the valley. We invited both sides of the family to tag along with us and got a small turn out from each. Here's a shot of all of the kids up in one of the tractors. Melanie liked climbing around on some of the tires that they had set up. Of course, Spencer loved that too, mostly because we let him out of the stroller. Here is all of us waiting to go on a little hayride, which is also a tour of the dairy. We were lucky to get both Grandmas to come with us! Here is my mom and the girls, once we finally got on the hayride. We enjoyed seeing all of the cows and learning lots about them. They have about 1000 cows at the dairy. Did you know that each cow gets 4 showers a day? They are given 2 showers before each milking, and they are milked twice a day. The thought may have crossed my mind that those cows were usually cleaner than my kids, but then again, we get a good whiff of them every once in a while over at our house, and they don't smell too clean then. We even got to see 2 little calves that had been born that day. Pretty amazing. The kids all loved feeding and petting some of the other animals. The girls really wanted to pet one of the sheep, but it was much more shy and so we had to settle for the goats. Melanie's favorite was petting the bunny. It just sat so still and let everyone touch it. That's definitely Melanie's kind of animal. To finish up Savannah got her face painted, a unicorn. And of course, we all got free milk. We had fun, despite the heat and the crowd. And hopefully we can go back to the farm some time when Daddy can come too.

Happy Halloween!

We had a nice Halloween! To get into the holiday spirit we went over to Jon's parents' for some pumpkin carving! Melanie had no problem gutting her pumpkin. I thought that it was funny that she didn't mind getting her hands all slimy! Savannah didn't mind the slimy hands either. Jon was good enough to carve both of the girls' pumpkins. Melanie wanted the exact same face as Savannah's pumpkin, so that worked out pretty easy for him. And the pumpkins turned out pretty cute too. We even got to have yummy pumpkin waffles that night! Thanks Auntie! They were really good! We also decided to make a few Halloween goodies. Here are our Tombstone brownies with Nutter Butter ghosts. The girls had fun helping for about 2 minutes and then Jon and I were left to finish them. I think that they turned out cute though. The anticipated night of Trick-or-Treating finally arrived and the girls didn't want to be what they originally planned. So here is my cute little Superman. It was about the only costume that I could come up with that didn't require Spencer to wear something on his head; he absolutely hates that. Savannah was a butterfly again, which she was 2 years ago. And Melanie decided on the Indian costume, which Savannah wore 3 years ago. Melanie insisted that she was the Indian Princess from the Peter Man movie; so there's our cute little Princess Tiger Lily. Jon and I also pulled some costumes together. I found almost all of the needed clothing at Goodwill, so I guess that it was meant to be. Jon went as Handy Manny and I was Kelly the Hardware Store owner. Of course, no one could tell who I was without Jon and even then it was still difficult. Oh well, we still had lots of fun and the kids got mounds of candy.Happy Halloween!

Just Hanging Around

Yesterday evening we were headed out. Spencer is usually the first one to dash into the garage, if someone will open the door for him. Savannah was kind enough to let him out and then she went out and climbed into the car. I was right behind them and opened the garage door as I came out. Spencer is quite fascinated by the garage door and how it magically opens, so I don't usually worry about him taking off and running out into the street. So I opened the front door of the car and threw my diaper bag into the passenger seat. I turned around in time to see Spencer hanging from the garage door just as it was about to reach the top! It scared me half to death and I dashed over there. Luckily, I got there just as he lost his grip and came falling down. I didn't totally catch him, but I snagged his arms just as his feet were hitting the ground. So I minimized the impact and kept him from falling over. It scared him enough to make him cry a little bit, but otherwise I think that he might have enjoyed it. I was also kind of impressed that he hung on for as long as he did. I'm curious if he learned his lesson or if he'd try it again if the opportunity presents itself. Ah, the joy of raising a little boy!

October Break

So the girls loved Disneyland so much that we decided to go back for October Break (along with about half of Arizona). It was certainly a little more crowded than we had hoped for, but we still had a fun time. Of course we took just a bunch of pictures, but what else do you do when you spend 4 days at the happiest place on earth? So I tried to narrow it down to just some of our favorite and least favorite moments.

Savannah's favorites: Seeing all of the characters. There were so many out, we probably did pictures with less than half of them. Princess Aurora is one of Savannah's absolute favorites.Since it was Halloween time, then they had a bunch of villains out too. She also got a picture with the Old Hag from Snow White. Melanie's favorites: Her absolute favorite ride was It's a Small World. We went on it 5 times! She really just loved it! We went to Mickey's Trick-or-Treat Party on Friday night. Melanie loved that she got to sit in the stroller and people gave her handfuls of candy. Her absolute favorite part was getting to see Cinderella that night. We looked for her all week and finally found her at 11 pm on Friday night. Melanie was so happy that she couldn't even take her eyes off of Cinderella. Melanie also does an excellent job of picking out exactly what she wants at Disneyland. She picked out a Minnie Mouse Polly-Pocket kind of doll. She absolutely loves it and was so happy that I let her play with it that night while we were waiting to watch the fireworks, that we ended up not staying around for.My favorite parts: I love Snow White. I was totally happy to actually get a picture with her this time. My only complaint, I think that we saw her 3 or 4 times, because they just released her movie. And of course I loved when Spencer finally fell asleep on our first day there. Yeah, he didn't take a nap and was awful for the last 4-5 hours or so.And you have to be totally impressed that we managed to get Spencer to sleep on the 2nd day while we waited in line. Unfortunately, this was a short lived victory. He woke up the second I tried to put him in the stroller.Jon's favorites: Getting into the main park an hour early for one Magic Morning. You can't really tell, but they were the only ones on this ride! It was nice to be able to go on about 5 rides in 25 minutes! Everyone's favorites: Hanging out with old law school friends and their girls that we don't get to see nearly enough. We were so happy that they would let us stay with them and then come and go with us to the park a few of the days! We all loved the parades. Got to love that Pixar Parade. Where else are you going to see flames coming out of a baby's head and think that it's totally cool?Jon also commented that he thought that the army guys were pretty cool. Then the Celebration Parade at the Main Park put Mickey and Minnie right in front of us. Definitely a nice way to see them up close and personal. And the parade was so interactive that Savannah loved it. Melanie was kind of scared to death, but she was that way a lot on this trip. I ended up holding her during the parade because the characters were a little to close for her comfort.
Our least favorite parts: Standing in line! It's always such a pain and Spencer always ups the level of difficulty.Oh yeah, did I mention that we went on It's a Small World 5 times? Some of us were a little sick of it by the last time or even 3 times before that. We also hated taking sleeping children back into California Adventure for the Trick-or-Treat party. Yes, we were the ones taking sleeping kids back into the park. Yeah it was fun, but Melanie slept almost the whole time and refused to go on any of the rides. Thankfully, Spencer stayed with our friends and was asleep the entire time we were gone!And Melanie claims that she was excited to see Aurora again, but it was just too funny, because look at her little face. She's thinking: "Aurora, get out of the way. Cinderella is standing right over there!"

It was such a tiring and fun trip. We were glad that the kids pretty much done with the colds that they had the week before, so we could enjoy everything. I think that this is the only picture of all of us together. We had a good time, but I think that it will be a while before we venture back again.