Christmas!

Look at me, getting Christmas pictures up before Valentine's day! It's a true Christmas miracle. The holidays were a blur. In a matter of 33 days, we have Savannah's birthday, Christmas, Dan's birthday, our anniversary, and Owen's birthday. Talk about a logistical nightmare for the birthday/Christmas gift giver (me!) Mostly this year's insanity just made me realize that it will get worse as the kids get older and I have to make sure they all get the same amount of gifts, etc. BUT we survived and even managed to enjoy ourselves.

The season started with a visit to Santa. He rides on a firetruck through every street in our city with a police escort. It's totally awesome to walk outside and wave at Santa and pretty sure Owen loved seeing the firetruck and police cars just as much as Santa. Then we headed to the city hall for treats and games and some one-on-one time with Santa. It's totally awesome. And little baldy (Savannah) was tired (but still cute!)

The next 2 pics make it look like the kids were helping decorate the tree. They were actually helping un-decorate the tree! But whatever it takes to entertain them while Dan and I try to listen to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.

Nothing cuter than munchkins enjoying each other. Even if you have to
give them technology to do it.

The family moved the Christmas Bus to a later date just for us! We were lucky enough to have Pres. Nelson come to our stake conference. It was amazing and especially neat now that he is the prophet. Anyway, the Christmas Bus is kind of the best tradition ever and I pity the fool who doesn't get to participate. Grandma Great and Lisa and Dave even made it down this year, which was awesome. And with Mel coming we made an entire day of it! Nothing like Grandpa's giant pancakes for breakfast in the morning.

Round 2 of "The Triplets." Savannah is the oldest. And the smallest.

Siblings! We are so.old. Remember how "Bubs" just turned 30?

hoorah for family!

Sibling selfie. This needs to happen more often (the getting together part,
not necessarily the selfie part).

Trying to get a good nap in before the Christmas bus.
We had to wake him up to go and this is how we found him.

Pretty soon we're going to need 2 buses!

Owen's hat had lights in it. Which was helpful when walking
through the Temple Square crowds.

Savannah was stoked to not be in a car seat.

Savannah is wearing Lydia's snow suit. So she was there in spirit!

Owen watches the MoTab each week (he loves music) so he was super excited
to see where the choir sings.

 I vaguely remember how both kids were up multiple times on Christmas eve night. Savannah had pooped (of course) but I was congested and couldn't smell it. Since she won't sleep with a messy diaper (I don't blame her) it took 4 times of me going in before I thought to check her. By then the night was basically ruined. And I don't know what Owen's deal was, although I think he was just super excited for Christmas. By 5:30am when it was obvious he would not be getting anymore sleep, I gave him my phone and told him to watch Sesame Street until I came to get him. He was stoked and it will probably go down as his favorite Christmas ever because of it! (Too bad he won't remember.)

Christmas morning was awesome! Savannah was still in the hospital last year, so Christmas basically didn't happen, which made this year's extra special. We definitely enjoyed being in our own home and having the morning to ourselves. We started upstairs with the stockings and Owen would have been overjoyed if we had stopped there. He was stoked when we made it downstairs to open presents. It was awesome.

Owen still talks about Uncle Josh's light sabers. He's never
seen Star Wars but he knows it's awesome.

Somehow I never got a cute pic of Savannah in her adorable Christmas dress (thanks Aunt April!) But here she is in her dress loving on the Morgan's dog.

We had Ditto family pictures (they turned out SO cute!) and here's a funny shot of all the grandkids after the fact. 

  We spent the entire Christmas break following Savannah up and down the stairs. She is OBSESSED with stairs but it took her forever to learn how to turn herself around at the top. Bless all the aunts and grandparents who followed her around to make sure she didn't fall.

The end!

Croup, Poop, and a Birthday

I've had every good intention of getting a new post up here weeks ago, but between dealing with croup (both kids) and lots of poop (also from both kids) and getting ready for the holidays as well as Savannah's birthday, life has been crazy.

Thanksgiving Day. Savannah has pink cheeks from the steroids.

Playing with cousins

Savannah had the croup before Thanksgiving. We caught it early and she handled it great. Owen's didn't show up for another week. The croup itself never got too bad but the steroids they gave us made him CRAZY. He hardly slept for 2 days and the melt downs were comical. Fingers crossed we won't see more of that one ever again.

Jammies at noon. Sick kids is the worst.

Poop. Oh the poop. Owen was doing great and then regressed and started making "messes" whenever I couldn't keep a watchful eye on him (like when we were out visiting some friends from St. Louis or at the pool with dad). And in between those times he would hold it for days (we call him the bum of steel). Of course this was going on in the middle of croupiness so we were all a hot mess.

I've always told Dan we could get a pet if he could find something that doesn't shed and doesn't poop. So far he hasn't found a candidate that fits the bill. BUT if buying a 14 cent gold fish will help motivate my non-pooper, I will welcome it with open arms! Owen picked out the black goldfish (who knew there was such a thing) and the black rocks to put inside the bowl. (He's on a black kick. It's hilarious.) He gets to feed Dorothy after taking care of his business in the toilet. (Dorothy is the name of Elmo's fish, in case you were wondering.)

This kid has clocked SO MANY hours sitting on the toilet.
So glad he's got it figured out now.

After a diet of fiber and laxatives we got things moving again and now he's doing great. Savannah decided that Owen couldn't get all the attention for the #2's, so she learned how to let loose in the bathtub. Even if I waited until she had messed her diaper before putting her in the tub she still managed to produce some floaters. I was cleaning up poop so often that one on particular occasion I couldn't remember if I had washed my hands afterward or not. Gross. Let's just say we're all grateful to have that messy month behind us.


My itty bitty baby turned one! She is still so little that it's hard to remember she's hit that milestone. 16 pounds - a mere 4% on the charts (up from 2% at 9 months). She is letting her personality show which is fun when it's cute, and frustrating when she's showing her independent side. She only uses a binky for naps and bedtime and when she started throwing it on the ground and making me come to give it back to her I decided it was time to be done. I didn't make it 24 hours before I caved. That girl was determined to never sleep again without the bink. So for now we are tying it to her pajamas and maybe when she's 12 or something we'll work on getting rid of it again. ;)

We had way too much fun with the birthday tutu!

 

Pink frosting with crushed candy cane. December birthdays
CAN be fun!

I had a hard time choosing only a few pictures, so I went crazy.

The next picture has nothing to do with Savannah's birthday, but if I suddenly turn up dead in the next few weeks you can blame it on THE BIRDS! They live over by a canal not too far from here, and when winter hits they scour the neighborhoods for food. Our walnut trees provide a feast! This picture doesn't do it justice - there are usually 3 times as many. They sit in the trees and knock down the walnuts, then they will pick up the walnuts in their beaks and fly up high to drop them on the concrete. If they break open on contact, a flock comes running to get a piece of nutty goodness (it's actually kind of cool to watch - crows are smart!) But they are SO LOUD and of course they drive the neighbors crazy. They usually only come for a couple of hours each morning, which meant that we got to pick up anything left over each day after they left. It took about a week of scavenging before they had picked our trees dry. If you have any tricks on keeping crows away, let me know!

Merry Christmas to one and all! If you're lucky I'll do my Christmas post sometime before Valentine's day. :)

Fall Happenings

I was pleasantly surprised with myself when I logged on and saw that I blogged once in the month of October. So here I am posting again a month later and this is good for me! Ha! I should probably just stop blogging, but it's a good way to update my grandma (and the other 4 readers) with our happenings.

Fall in this house means LEAVES! We LOVE our giant walnut trees in the summer because of the shade, but we definitely pay for it in the fall. So.many.leaves. And the birds love to come and eat our walnuts, which is kind of fun until they poop on your head. Maybe when the kids are older and beg to do a lemonade stand I'll make them sell walnuts instead.

We finally got a couple bikes and a bike trailer. Thanks to our warm fall, we've been able to go out on the trails by our house quite a bit. (I love where I live!) Savannah is happy as long as she has a cracker. That girl out-eats her brother every day. I have no idea how she is still so tiny.

Pausing on the bike trail to play with the horses.

Those eyebrows though!

Some friends surprised me with lunch on my birthday. Owen is OBSESSED with birthdays, so he loved it.

Savannah is holding the Strawberry Shortcake doll
from Aunt Lisa. It's just like the one I had as a kid, and
it even has the strawberry scent!

I'm a bad mom. I really need to learn what all the different "tractors" are called. (Ok, I do know that the one in the picture below is a backhoe). But as far as Owen is concerned they are all called "tractors." It works for us. This construction is just down the street and has provided much entertainment.

Playdough letters. This kid is obsessed with letters and numbers and can name them all in any order. We're working on the lower-case letters (why are all letter toys in uppercase only? Someone needs to fix that.)

I caught Owen climbing around the edge of our deck, which is a good 7 feet in the air. Yikes! This kid is a climber for sure and I am just waiting for the big fall that actually does some damage. So far we've been lucky!

We made it to the pumpkin patch with Owen's cute joy school group. He LOVED it.

Playing on a real "tractor."

Savannah got in on the action as well, until she tried to eat the corn.

Last year we moved a week and a half before Halloween. The year before that Owen cut his first tooth on Halloween. To keep up our tradition of having something big happen in October, I potty trained Owen. It went pretty well but man is it exhausting! He trained great with the #1's, but when it comes to the #2's this kid can hold it for DAYS. No amount of bribery, coaxing, threatening, etc etc has helped. But he is slowly figuring it out and it's been 5 days since I had to clean anything up, so I'll call that a win.

Drinking lots and lots and lots of juice. His grin kills me.

Feeding the potty doll.

This is the treat he chose after filling up his sticker chart. Yes, it's a chocolate "tractor" from the dollar store. Gross.

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His beloved Maui hook was the reason for the October potty training. I knew it would be a good motivator (it was!) This kid can quote the entire movie and is obsessed with all things Moana. So it just made sense that he would be Maui. Yes, I made his costume. Don't judge my pathetic sewing skills.

One more picture because I can.

It just made sense that Savannah would be little baby Moana. She was totally doing the hula with her hips when I took this picture.

Here we are at the annual Witchie Poo party. SUCH a great party! Grandma & Grandpa sure do know how to make Halloween awesome. Owen loved it!

  We carved pumpkins with some neighbors. Pumpkin carving is serious business around these parts. Yes, Dan is using a saw to cut into the pumpkin (brilliant!)

This is what Savannah and I looked like trick-or-treating. We lasted about 45 minutes. Owen was in candy heaven and couldn't believe how easy it was to get treats. He would run from house to house yelling, "Cheee whoooo!" (It's a Maui thing.)

 We totally scored the other day at the grocery store. A fire truck pulled up just as I was putting the kids in the car. The firemen were super nice and gave Owen a hat and let him climb inside. I promise he loved it - he was tired (nap time!)

I had a total win at joy school last week. I found this awesome yoga for toddlers and the kids LOVED it. Here they are waving at the sun. So cute! 

 I took my little man on a date last week. Thankfully he pleases easily with ice cream and playing at McDonald's. He loved it!

And we have to end with a Savannah picture. She is the favorite baby at church (even though she's still totally bald - thank goodness for headbands). She already passed her 11-month mark. How is she going to be 1 in less than a month?!