3 cooks in the kitchen

Is it wrong to love your kitchen island? I am loving having this much useable work space. When the kids heard I was going to make some cookies, I had 2 very eager little helpers. After putting on their aprons, both kiddos pushed their chairs up to the island and were ready to help with the Christmas baking. Some of you might have noticed that Reid is wearing Ava's apron. Actually they are both her aprons, he doesn't care which one he gets as long as she gave him one.

Reid and I come from the same pod. He loves anything chocolate and anything sweet. Once the cookies were done, I gave one to each kid. After giving the cookie a few test licks, Reid took the cookie and shoved the entire thing in his mouth! It took a bit, but the kid was able to get it all down.

After dinner we took a few plates of cookies around to our new neighbors. Some of them were not home and Ava responded, "Do we get to eat their cookies now?!!!" I think we might need to work a little more on the idea that giving is better than receiving :)

This has nothing to do with making cookies, but I thought this was pretty funny. Sometime this afternoon Reid came over and stole my phone out of my pocket. He likes turning it on and off and pretending to call Nana. A few hours later I realized my phone wasn't in my pocket and went looking for it. I couldn't find the thing anywhere. Then I remembered my little boy had been playing with it, so I turned to him and asked if he knew where my phone was. He responded with a grunt (in Reidy language that means yes). He then took me over to the window and pointed at the plantation shutters. I open the shutters to find that Reid had stuck my phone between the shutters and the window. He was so proud that he remembered where it was.

Had a few minutes before church

Surprisingly, I had a few spare minutes before racing off to church to get a quick picture of the kids together. Aren't they the cutest things you ever saw?


Just this past week Reid has started to say cheese whenever I pull out the camera. I think that's the best Christmas present Reid could of ever given me!

It was cold, but totally worth it

Last Thursday the kiddos and I decided to take a trip to the city for a night of family fun. We stopped by Josh's work, then went out to dinner (Ava just loves when we get to eat at an actual restaurant), stopped by and saw Santa, and then ended the night with viewing the lights at Temple Square. That was the plan until we hit traffic on the way to see the lights. After driving around for at least 45 minutes, we decided to give up and go home. Total heartbreak. Come to find out that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert featuring David Archuleta started on Thursday. So with all the people attending that and everyone else who just wanted to see the lights, parking was impossible. Still wanting to see the lights, we drove up the next day at 4:45 pm (we were not messing around this time!). Found a parking spot within a block of Temple Square within minutes of arriving. After getting everyone bundled up, the sun had set and we were off.

Lucky. Too bad there wasn't enough room for me to sit there too. He looks so nice and warm in his cozy blanket.

Since Reid has been born Ava has only got to ride in a stroller one prior time. When given the option to walk or ride in the stroller, it was a pretty easy decision for Ava bug. Wouldn't you have done the same thing?

Ava loved getting to see the huge nativity on the temple grounds and also getting to see the statue of Jesus inside the Visitor's Center. It was just a really special night we got to spend with the kids walking around the grounds. This will definitely become a yearly tradition.

Awwww. How cute are we? Just a sidenote, since moving to Utah County Josh has been getting a lot of flack for wearing his BYU pride. Even Santa had a few words to say about it. Santa's a Ute's fan! Speechless. I guess he does like to wear red.

A jolly visit to the jolly St. Nick

I promise that there was no photoshopping done to alter this picture. She really is smiling and sitting on Santa's lap.

Here is Ava chatting it up with Santa. I think I might of even heard a few giggles coming from Ava. Wow. What a difference a year makes. (For those of you who don't remember Ava's previous visits with Santa, click here)

Ava made huge strides this year, but Reid was a different story. He regressed. He didn't even want to look at Santa's general direction. We decided to not force him to sit on Santa's lap this year. Mostly because there were little kids behind us in line that were also a little nervous to see Mr. Claus. I just thought a child screaming at the top of his lungs would not help to calm their nerves.

A good little girl and boy

Santa, we have one very good little girl...

...and a good little boy.

This past week the kiddos got to write their letters to Santa Claus. Reid even got into the letter writing process!

I was hoping that by 19 months old Reid would of gotten over putting everything in his mouth. Sadly, this habit is still going strong.

The finished project. Ava helped me write the letter this year and even wrote her own name.

Next up: the Santa visit. Will Ava sit happily on Santa's lap this year? You will have to wait and see.

We are definitely not in CA anymore

The last time it snowed we were in the midst of packing and getting ready to move. So sadly I didn't have time to take the kids out to play. Ava has been patiently waiting for it to snow again. It just so happened to snow last week and Ava got her chance to fulfill all her snow playing dreams.

Here are the kids all bundled up and ready to play.

The first thing Ava did was make a whole family of snow angels. This girl has done a total 180 since last year. When she was 2 she just wanted to walk around in the snow with her hands in her pockets and she would only last around 10-15 minutes. This year I had to drag her inside with promises we would go back outside later.

Ava helped me make her very first snowman. Once inside she would periodically check on Snowie to make sure he was alright. But sadly, the sun came out later that afternoon and Snowie just couldn't survive and broke in half.

I saw some miniature snow shovels at a local grocery store and knew I had to pick some up for the kids. Most of Ava's time playing in the snow was spent towards shoveling. She was very determined to help daddy out with the backyard. Since he only had time to shovel the front driveway that morning.

Reid is obsessed with brooms. So of course this was a big hit.

Here's our very own snow bunny.

I just love beanie hats on little boys.

Since then the snow has all melted away. Every morning the first thing Ava does when she wakes up is open her blinds and see if it snowed during the night.

We were thankful for Thanksgiving!

I could not not post the pictures from Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful time getting to spend the holiday with my side of the family. We were hoping to have everyone over at our new house. Didn't happen. But thankfully Josh's parents graciously welcomed my parents and my sister's family into their home. And we were able to celebrate it together. It just so happened that 2 days after everyone left we finally closed on our house. Bummer that it wasn't one week earlier. Now that things are getting a little more settled, I have some time to update our blog. So with less than a week before Christmas, here are our Thanksgiving pics :)

Here is the whole gang getting ready to fill their bellies. The food was so good. I am very grateful that my sister and mom gave such a helping hand. There is no way I could of pulled this whole thing off without them.

Ava even helped with the big feast. She made little turkeys for the place settings.

My parents took Ava to go see Tangled. Ava loved the whole thing except anytime the mean witch would appear. Here she is pretending to be Rapunzel.

Most people I talk to think we're crazy, but I love this tradition. If it happens to not be my family's turn for Christmas, we exchange the gifts we are giving each other for Christmas during Thanksgiving. For reals. That way my parents can see the grandkids open the presents they got for them. I personally think it's great. I get half of my Christmas shopping done early. And the kids don't get everything all at once on Christmas day.

The boys are at such a fun stage right now. My mom even got into playing with all the boy toys. To Jared's dismay, Cole even enjoyed getting to play with Ava's girlie necklaces. Which is also a favorite of Reid's.

Both of the boys have just started to really get into books. Here is Grandma reading a book to Cole and Reid.

Here are the happy grandparents soaking in every minute with their grandkids.

Here are 2 little buddies.

We had such a wonderful time getting to see everyone!

A night of disappointments for Ava

After dinner we decided to take our little family on a drive to look at Christmas lights...again. Yeah, so we like looking at Christmas lights. But if you saw our neighborhood, you'd be going out a few times too. The people around us spent some major time and effort getting their houses ALL decked out. And boy, we sure are enjoying it. After getting our fill of the lights we decided to drive over by the temple so the kids could see it all lit up. On our way out of the parking lot a very tramatic event happened (just so you don't get all freaked out, it wasn't a car accident, just a funny conversation)

As Josh starts to drive out of the parking lot Ava has a complete meltdown. She was so upset that Josh had to pull the car over until we were able to get her to calm down enough to tell us what was wrong.

Ava: (while fighting back tears she is able to muster out) I wanted to go inside!

Doesn't that just break your heart? Josh and I tried to explain that she needs to be a bit older before she can go inside the temple, but she still was pretty upset. So I asked her if she would like to get out and walk over to the huge nativity scene they have on the temple grounds. She responds with the following...

Ava: That's why I was crying too. I wanted to see Jesus.

So Ava and I get out, while Josh and Reid wait in the car. Ava was literally bouncing all the way over to the nativity. After arriving, she checks out the nativity for a few seconds, then informs me she is cold and wants to go back to the car. Okay, I thought she'd enjoy it a bit more. Especially since the nativity was practically life sized. Once back in the car, this little conversation goes on.

Josh: How was the nativity?

Ava: (in a disappointing tone) It was fake.

How disappointing would that be, to think you were really going to see baby Jesus, only to find a statue. And to top it off you think you are going to get to go inside the temple, only to find out you get to look at it from the car. Hopefully she was able to enjoy some of our trip tonight :)

Am I dreaming?

Last night we got the keys to our new house! Josh and I couldn't be more thrilled and quite frankly, shocked that we actually have the keys in our possession. Bring on the moving truck!