White Christmas!!!

It snowed last night, it was so pretty!!This year has been different for our little family, but we've had a lot of fun!

Last week we made ginger bread houses with Mike and Jon's families. It was fun, I think it was the second or third time I've made a gingerbread house. We didn't bring ours home, but it was fun making them. Avery just wanted to eat the candy...he didn't eat dinner very well that night!!

top: all of our gingerbread houses
bottom: Mike and Andy were the last to finish their houses, they were REALLY into it!

On Christmas Eve we had a gift exchange and lunch with some of Andy's siblings, it was a lot of fun. We played some fun games too. Then we came home and spent the evening in our matching pajama pants (that I made!), eating snack food, playing games and watching White Christmas.

We also set up our web camera and had my brother set his up in Missouri so we could sort of be a part of the festivities at my parents house. It was so fun being able to see everyone over there, it was my first Christmas ever away from my parents and siblings, so it was a little hard, but at least we got to see a bunch of them over the web. How great is the internet?!


After Avery went to bed we brought down all the wrapped presents and set them up around the tree. We also put together an awesome car we found for him! I love it! (so does he, thank goodness!) Then we put out the other unwrapped gifts that we got for him so he'd be able to see it all when he got up in the morning.
When Andy and I went to bed we both had a hard time sleeping all night, we kept waking up and tossing and turning. I think we both know it was because we were excited for presents with Avery in the morning...though neither of us said it out loud! :)

When we brought Avery down this morning he saw his new car and it was love at first sight! He pretty much sat in it most of the day!
He loved opening the presents and eating the "nacks" in his stocking! (that would be snacks, fyi) He was SPOILED this year, he got some great books and little cars and all sorts of other fun little toys.
now I need to go through all his toys and put some away and take some to D.I.

He loves his cars and new town mat thing...and of course his new spider man slippers!

Avery sporting his new zipper tie!

Andy and I got lots of great things too, we have way too much fun shopping for each other's gifts. We got some great new movies, some fun books and I got a splash guard for my Kitchen aid!

Christmas was so fun for me this year, with Avery everything is so much more exciting. I love listening to him talk about the Christmas Tree, the Snow and Santa. He's getting so big, I can't believe he's 18 months old!!!

Our OCD baby...

Can it start this early!?

Avery is a funny boy. He does several things that make us laugh every time he does it. I noticed it a couple weeks ago when I was in the kitchen and left a drawer partially open. He promptly walked up to it, closed it, said "thank you" and walked away. So I tried it a few more times with more drawers, cupboard doors, the pantry door, our entertainment center...pretty much anything that opens.
If he sees that it's open he'll stop whatever he's doing and close it. And of course he always says "thank you". The only time it's a problem is when he tried to close something while I have my hand in it. Like the fridge. Yesterday he was pushing the door so hard to shut it while I was getting something out I had to jump out of the way!
Other things he does -
If he steps on a crumb (which never happens because I'm an impeccable homemaker!), he will sit down and hold his foot up and wipe it off until the offending article is removed. he does the same things with his hands, sometimes it takes quite a while for him to eat lunch! He just doesn't like foreign objects on his hands/feet

The other night he was walking around with Andy's gloves on, after a while of struggling to finally getting them on he noticed a piece of lint on one of the gloves. So of course he took both gloves off to get the lint off one of them, then struggled to get them back on.
He also loves to throw things away. Which is great most of the time. He'll find little treasures in the couch or on the floor and run for the trash. Sometimes he'll try and take things from us to toss before we're done with it.

He ALWAYS says "thank you" when he does one of these things. It's so funny. I can tell when something is bothering him too. Who knew something like an open drawer would bother an 18 month old!
He just likes things put away and tidy I guess...except for his toys!

It's so fun to watch Avery grow up and become a little person. He talks so much now, he can make lots of animal noises and loves to talk about Christmas lights. I have so much fun playing with him, he loves to play patty cake and itsy bisty spider and can do most of the hand things for them and some of the words too. He loves reading books, we went to the library and got him some fun books, we read them all...twice when we got home.
He learns some new trick or word every day. My favorite is when I tell him I love him and he says it back. I don't think he knows fully what it means, but it mealts my heart! He's growing up so fast!
Alright, that's enough for now. I just think he's so cute. I could talk about him all day!

Christmas lights and Santa

Last night we drove around a neighborhood here in town that has HUGE houses and most of them are decked out with Christmas lights. I don't know what I like more, the houses or the lights!
There's one house that looks like it could be in Pride and Prejudice, Andy and I just call it Pemberly. I want to live there...or just walk through it!

As far as lights this house takes the cake. It's crazy, there are TONS of little light up statues and palm trees and what not!! Would I ever do it to my house? No. But it sure is fun to look at on someone else's house!

We want to drive around some more later in the week and check out other neighborhoods. Avery loves the Christmas lights too, it's so fun hearing him from the back seat talking about the lights and saying "oh wow" and other adorable things.

On to Santa...Avery loves to say "ho ho ho" when he sees santa on tv, in books or on random things in walmart. He'll ho ho ho for us on demand, it's great. He just loves Christmas this year, it makes everything so exciting for us.
We decided to take him to the mall to meet Santa for real! Last year he did great, he wanted to play with Santa's beard and had no problem sitting on his lap. So I thought with him being older and the fact that he seems to love Santa, he would have fun seeing him. Wrong.
He liked him from a distance, but as soon as we put him on Santa's lap his face just crumbled and he started crying as if I'd abandoned him. He stopped crying after a second but still kept looking around worried and every once in a while he would make a really sad face.
Of course I had to snap some pictures! (The mall here lets you take your own pictures if you don't want to pay $15 for one picture!) Santa was good about it all though, I'm sure he gets a lot of screamers!
Avery did like the bells Santa was wearing.

Maybe next year he'll like it a little more!

Merry Christmas! I can't believe there are only a few more days! I'm SOO excited!!

WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!

Yup, that's right, #2 is on his/her way and should be arriving circa July 9th, 2008. According to the ever-so-scientific Chinese gender calendar, we're getting a girl. Also, we dangled Kizzie's wedding ring on a string over the palm of her hand and it told us that we would have a boy (Avery), and then two girls. I think we'll just wait and see what the ultrasound tells us in the next couple months. We're really excited for the arrival of #2.
Since we obviously don't have any pictures of #2, I will instead slake your picture thirst with this lovely picture of NBA great, and my favorite player of all-time, Arvydas Sabonis. If you are unfamiliar with Sabonis, shame on you! --- Andy

Anniversary celebrations

Andy and I will celebrate our 3rd anniversary next Friday (21st). It's really been an exciting 3 years, we moved away from our families and jumped right into poor student living! It hasn't always been easy, but then again, no one ever said it was going to be. I am definitely looking forward to the day when we're done with school and we can settle down somewhere. But I can't imagine going through the adventures of newlywed life with anyone else. After just 3 years of being married to Andy it makes me so excited to spend the rest of our lives (and then some!!) together. I'm excited for all that our future holds together. I can't wait to see what's next!

Here's a wedding picture

This year we did our official anniversary date early. We left poor sick Avery home with Andy's brother Chris and enjoyed our first dinner out alone in a long time! We ate at Outback Steakhouse, it was pretty yummy. I love a good steak! :)

Warning...it was not a good picture day for me. don't be frightened!


We had tickets to the Utah Jazz vs. the Portland Trail Blazers basketball game. Now this may not seem that exciting or special, but the Blazers are one of Andy's beloved teams. They've been on a decent winning streak lately so that's good, but generally Andy seems to pick the crummy teams to worship! :) But, it was our lucky night! The blazers beat the Jazz, it was actually kind of exciting. Maybe some of that had to do with the fact that we were the only ones (at least in our section of the stadium) wearing bright red Blazers t-shirts. The Jazz fans that were surrounding us kept staring at us, pointing, and whispering amongst themselves about us. It was kind of fun. And of course we tried to cheer every time the Blazers scored, though it was probably hard to hear us at times with all the boo's happening also.
It was a fun night though. The only down side...walking up the the VERY top of the stadium to get to our seats! Sheesh, have they not heard of elevators there!?

We were up REALLY high!!

Bad times with sick babies....

Avery has had some sort of stomach thing for about 4 or 5 days now. I noticed that he wasn't eating much then came the puke, and other nastiness that will remain unspoken about.
He and I stayed home from church and haven't really gone anywhere else this week either.
I thought he was doing better yesterday, but he just saved it all up for bed time! He spewed all over our bedroom floor right before we put him to bed! And he had the nerve to puke on my couch this morning! Oh no he di'ent! Sheesh!
He can only sit on the couch if it's covered with a blanket now!
needless to say he's gone through several outfits, and 5 baths in 4 days! When will it end!?
Here are some sad/cute pictures of him lounging on the couch this week. He's usually so active, so it's weird when he just lays there...but cute too!

Lights at Temple Square

This past week we drove up to Salt Lake with Jon and Jacque to see the lights at Temple Square. They were really pretty, as usual. I loved all different colored lights, my favorite were the orange ones. You might think they'd look Halloweeny, but they were really pretty!
Avery loved all the lights too, I think that's his favorite thing about the season, maybe it's the only thing he really understands. He's always excited to see lights! It's so funny!

Introducing the newest member of our family...

and my new best friend! The full size portable dishwasher!! I absolutely LOVE it!! We upgraded from our counter top one, I was tired of doing a lot of the dishes by hand still...I just had to get something bigger. This is great. it took us a few days to find the right faucet adapter, but now everything is great. It may not be very pretty, but it gets the job done and I don't have to do it!!

We've been elfed!

My uncle elfed his family on our family website, so I did one for us too!! I wish I could actually post the video thingy on here, but here's the link. I love the picture I found of Avery for it, he looks like he's having so much fun!! :)

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1181264688

Christmas decorations

With Avery it's a little hard to have the house decorated for Christmas...he loves all lights and christmas decor. He walks around saying "see, lights" or "oh wow" and wants to touch everything. And of course as soon as I ask him not to touch it he rips the lights off the tree, or the stocking from the rail, etc. My favorite is the Willow Tree Nativity that Andy got me. He bought the basic set for me a couple years ago and then this year he got me the shepherd and more animals. I absolutely love it!! (and Avery cannot reach it!!)
So you can thank Avery for how our tree is decorated... some day my house will look pretty! :)

Here are some of our decorations

My nativity, I LOVE this!!

Notice all the ornaments are at the top, I didn't even bother to actually put all our ornaments on this year.

Our stockings are hung on our railing with care.... : )

This is the advent calendar that Andy's sister made for us. This is the first year we get to use it. I'll take a picture of it when all the pieces are up.

Let it snow!

We had our first real snow over night, it looks so pretty and fresh...and fun! After breakfast we bundled Avery up in his new snow suit and went out to play in the snow!! He looked so cute in his snow suit, but he did have a little bit of a hard time keeping his balance. It was fun to watch!
I think he enjoyed the snow more than he did last year, considering he was so little he couldn't move in it last year!
This morning he had fun carrying around snow balls we made, he kept saying "ball, ball" while he was trying to keep his balance. then every time he fell he'd say uh-oh until we made him a new ball. He's just too cute sometimes!!
Here are some pictures -

Last Year

And now...

Trying to get up after one of his spills
Carrying a snow ball around

Magnets!!

I saw people talking about the marble magnets on MC, and I had to try them. They're SO easy, and cute!!
So...if any of my friends or family see this act surprised if you get them for Christmas! :)

Thanksgiving week recap...

So much happened the week of Thanksgiving, it'd take too much time and space to write about it all. And chances are no one would make it through the whole post! So I'll make it short!

Andy's parents and his older sister and her family came out for the festivities, they were here for about a week. Andy only worked 2 1/2 days all week! It was so great! Thank goodness for his job with paid holidays!! :)
We pretty much got together for dinner and games every night, it was a lot of fun. But very busy.
We had Thanksgiving at my brother in laws house, it was really great. The food was so good and of course I ate way too much! But it was worth it! It was a lot of fun to have some family in town for the holidays.
I'm so used to huge family gatherings that sometimes it's weird to me when there are only 10 or so people getting together for things. So it was fun to have so many here this week. (fyi, my parents had over 40 people, and multipal turkeys at their house for Thanksgiving this year!!!)
On saturday we went to Andy's brother Jon's for the baby blessing of their newest little girl. After the blessing we had a yummy breakfast that they had prepared for everyone. I love bagels...!
we also went and looked at the Christmas lights at Thanksgiving point, they were alright.
I look forward to driving around some of the ritzy neighborhoods here in town this year.
Anyway, Avery LOVED the lights! He kept saying "oh wow" "lights" and "see?", it was adorable! He's just getting so big!!

I can't remember what else we did. It was fun though, we (well, not so much me) played lots of games. And the guys had fun watching lots (almost too many!) of sporting events.

Avery also discovered the toilet. Not fun! 3 times in 2 days!! YUCK!

Here are some pictures of our week.

Some of the bunch playing a game.
Heather slaving away in the kitchen, and her pretty place settings

Avery's first real Thanksgiving meal! He liked it, last year he didn't even have teeth!

He took to Andy's prents right away, he's such a social little guy!he loves wearing hats, however, when he was done with this one he threw it in the toilet! Punk!

Isn't he cute!?

We took Avery to get his pictures taken a couple weeks ago, we think they turned out pretty cute! I just like looking at them! Here are some of the proofs