Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas this year! We just spent it together at home with the four of us and it was really nice. It was especially fun now that Jacob had a better idea of what was going on and was very excited to get his presents. He probably got a little spoiled this year, we even decided to hold back a few gifts until his birthday in March. But the whole Christmas break with Luke being off work was a lot of fun! A few days before Christmas I continued one of my family's traditions of making gingerbread houses. So Jacob and I worked on one together and Jacob did such a good job helping!

Our roof kept falling flat so our little gingerbread house ended up like this, and it had clumps of marshmallow snow covering it, just like our house still had tons of snow outside. Not the prettiest little gingerbread house but Jacob enjoyed eating it :)
So it snowed on Thursday, a few days before Christmas and we still had snow in our yard from the beginning of December, so even though it didn't snow on Christmas day we had a white Christmas!
Jacob loves the snow so much on Christmas Eve morning we decided to take him sledding! It was so fun I'm sure this will become a new tradition for us. Jacob took a few rides down the hill with Luke, and then me, but then just wanted to walk around and explore for a little while.

Finally when we were about ready to go, Jacob decided he wanted to go sledding again, but wanted to do it himself! So we sent him down on the little sled, and as he got to the bottom of the hill he went flying off a little snow ramp, and then almost hit another guy! But he held on tight to his sled and managed to stay on- it was so cute! He loved it and then just wanted to go over and over again! I can't wait to take him sledding again!

Later that night for Christmas Eve dinner, we had some smoked beef brisket along with many other yummy things, and then we let the boys open one present early...
new Christmas pajamas! This is one of Luke's traditions and I think it's kind of fun. And look how excited Jacob was for his new Christmas pj's!
We then read some Christmas stories, had our Christmas Eve pudding (and Jacob won since he found the almond in his pudding), and then put the kids to bed so Santa could make his visit!
This is probably the only year we'll ever be able to get away with favoring one child- practically every present was for Jacob! And if it wasn't for their grandparents providing gifts, Blake might not have gotten any, but luckily he's too young to notice the difference. Either way, we had lots of gifts to go around and it was a really great Christmas!
Here is Blake on his first Christmas morning! And Jacob's eyes got real wide when he came downstairs Christmas morning and saw all the gifts- he ran towards the tree and said "Santa gave me all my presents!" It was fun to see him so excited, he wanted to open everything right away! But I steered him towards his stocking first and he went to town on all the chocolate and candy- he ate nearly all his candy that day!
We had a real nice brunch that morning, opened more presents, went to church at 1, put the kids down for naps, I got to talk with my family to my brother out on his mission, and then when the kids woke up we were finally able to open the last of the presents!
Jacob's two most favorite gifts were his Buzz Lightyear toy and his Thomas the Tank Engine lego set, and we were pretty excited to give them to him. It was fun to see how his eyes would light up when he opened every present and we're glad that he can enjoy and appreciate all his new toys!
We all got some nice gifts this year and thanks to our family who sent gifts to us too! It was a very nice Christmas and I loved spending so much fun time with my three boys! :)

Luke's Birthday= It's Almost Christmas

December is such a busy month, as soon as Thanksgiving was over we suddenly had tons to do. We've been getting ready for Christmas with lots of decorating, shopping, and activities. And this is our first year using an artificial tree and I have to say, I'm pretty happy with it!
So not only have we been building up for Christmas, but Luke's birthday is also 8 days before Christmas, so we celebrated this past weekend with his parents who flew into town. On the morning of Luke's birthday we had our Ward Christmas breakfast and Santa came to visit. Jacob was initially excited but once we finally got through the line to sit in his lap he wasn't too happy anymore. Blake loved checking out his cool beard though.

That night for Luke's birthday dinner we went to Hacienda Colorado, a nice mexican restaurant and we all really liked it.
After dinner, we had a quick little party for Luke with a few presents and an ice cream cake.
The next day at church was another busy one since I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting and Luke and I both had lessons to teach in our classes. I am going to miss the girls in my class that are moving on to young womens next year, but love teaching my primary class and looking forward to a new year. And my boys were dressed so cute in their Christmas clothes, I wanted to share a week early.



It's hard getting these boys to sit still but even the ones that didn't turn out so well are still so cute to me, haha


Later Sunday night, we drove and walked around downtown to see some of the lights and then finished up at Luke's office to grab some hot chocolate. Here is Jacob checking out the lights and saying, "Merry Christmas!" We are very excited for Christmas in a few days, looking forward to Luke having a week off, and spending the time together with just our family!

Our Big Boy

We have been slowly progressing towards potty training Jacob ever since we bought him a little potty on his 2nd birthday. We mostly let him just sit on it when he wanted, usually right after we changed his diaper, but nothing ever happened. Around September we bought him some underwear and he loved it so much we let him start wearing it over his diapers for a few months. Towards the beginning of November we started using a sticker chart and giving him a sticker every time he sat on the potty, even though to this point he had never been successful. A week and half later he started doing underwear "sessions" and just practiced wearing underwear for a few hours at a time, usually only about once, maybe twice a day. Naturally he'd have accidents, but would always jump right up and announce he was wet. After doing this for about a week, and then taking a break when we had family in for Thanksgiving, a few days after my family left, Jacob finally went to the potty all by himself! We gave him a ton of praise and special stickers and treats, and ever since then he's gone several times a day!
After getting two special stickers on his chart, Jacob got a special Christmas tree cake for using the potty all by himself for the first time. He was very proud of himself!
By now, Jacob's sticker chart is all filled out, it didn't take him that long at all since he loves to go potty now! He still got smaller stickers for trying, and would get special shape stickers when he actually went. In the beginning, he would literally want to go potty every 10-30 minutes, so it took up a lot of time! But now that he goes so well and we've finished our sticker chart, he suddenly doesn't need to go so often, but he still goes, just doesn't need all the motivation. We still let him know that we are very proud of him though!

And after using his little potty for a week, we moved the little seat to fit on the big toilet and he uses a stool to get up by himself. And though he could go #2 in his little potty, he has yet to go in the big toilet, he seems a little too scared to do it yet, but I know he'll get there soon enough. Jacob has also exceeded my expectations with nap and nighttime as about half the time when he wakes up from a nap or in the morning he's dry! So he's great at holding it for awhile and is good about getting up out of bed to go potty, even when he's in a diaper. So we are really proud of him and how quickly he picked it all up once we finally got going.

So we've also let him wear underwear when we go out if it's not for very long or we're running easy errands, but diapers still on longer trips. But he has used public restrooms and has done great, no public accidents yet. So he's not fully trained, but very close! We're just about ready to let him wear underwear out all the time, and have trusted him with underwear about half the time for naps, and he's done great!

As a special treat for Jacob learning to use the potty, last weekend we surprised him and took him to see Toy Story on Ice! He loved it and it was a really fun show! Unfortunately I lost my camera right before the show but I took some on Luke's phone, maybe I'll add some later. Either way, we are super proud of Jacob and how quickly he's growing up!

Thanksgiving

So I'm a little behind on blogging, but let me back up to Thanksgiving!

My sister Julia and my brother James and his wife Tammy drove from Rexburg to come visit us on their Thanksgiving break. It was great to see family and hopefully it was worth the long drive for them! It was fun for them to see the kids and meet Blake for the first time!
Both of my boys loved all the attention! We had such beautiful weather on Thanksgiving and the day before that Julia went with me to take the boys to the park. And I can not get over my little blue eyed baby!
We had just got him this new hat and it just looks so cute I had to share a few pics of him too!


And after several tries I was also able to get a few cute pictures of Jacob in our backyard. These are basically the only ones where he was looking and not running away!

The boys together on Thanksgiving

Our family on Thanksgiving

and Julia with the boys

Oh and we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner and all too. Luke smoked our turkey this year and we all helped to make everything else for dinner. At dinner we went around to say what we were thankful for and had Jacob go first. I didn't think he would really understand what we were talking about but I just wanted to see what he would say and he was so cute. First he said church and since he got a big reaction out of that, he went on and said he was grateful for nursery, friends, trains, cars, Blake, Daddy, and Mom. It was really sweet. Later that night we continued our tradition of playing Rook for several hours, it was fun! The next day we checked out Boulder Falls, and it was freezing so we didn't stay too long but it was nice to get out of the house for a bit.

James and Tammy at the falls

me and Julia

cute boysSo we also got a little Black Friday shopping that day, found a couple good deals for the kids, and then Julia, James, and Tammy took off the next day. We had a nice visit with them and were happy they made the trip to come visit with us!

Lately...

we've had lots of cute smiles...
we've looked super cute together all ready for church...

we've been very loud...
we've had warm enough days to play in the leaves...



Jacob has been helpful in getting Blake up from his naps...
Jacob has been nice enough (or bored enough) to play with Blake and his toys...
I cooked pumpkin and made it into puree... which then made me several loaves of pumpkin bread (and raisin nut pumpkin bread)...
and had plenty puree left for Blake's first baby food- he loves pumpkin!
We had a visit from great Grandma Martha for a weekend...

Blake mastered sucking his thumb...
and got his first two teeth!
We had a beautiful day at the zoo with some friends...
we've played with all our cars...
we've gotten clean from our baths...
and all while looking super cute!
Which brings us back to lots of smiles!