Thanksgiving Week

Everyone except for Ryan and Colin, who were taking a nap!

We just got home from a wonderful trip out west for Thanksgiving!! On Monday night we flew into Las Vegas and stayed at my aunt and uncles. Our plane didn't arrive until after midnight our time..you would think that Colin would have slept on the plane, wouldn't you?! Well, he didn't!! He was jumping around like a crazed maniac! He was yelling and screaming, waving to the people behind him, doing somersaults on his chair-- I kid you not! We were very fortunate because it wasn't a full flight and they allowed us to have a whole row, so at least he wasn't bugging people sitting with us! They also upgraded our tickets and gave us free live TV on the airplane which was awesome!! Needless to say we got there in one piece!!

Tuesday we were able to go visit some people we used to work with and check out our old house. A lot has changed out there and it was a ton of fun to be back. We really miss it. Ryan misses the mountains and I miss the palm trees! After hanging out in Vegas until early afternoon, my cousin drove us up to my grandma's house in Utah. We stopped in St. George on the way to see my aunt, uncle, and cousins (and mom, dad, Rach, and Ryan, who had spent the day down there).

Wednesday we hung out at Grandma's. The guys went to play basketball with a bunch of extended family while the girls (and Colin) hung around the house. We went to the playground for a little bit and just relaxed. That night everyone else got to my grandma's house.

All bundled up!


Going down the slide with Uncle Ryan


With Grandma!!


On Thursday grandma prepared a huge feast (with some other helpers)!

Andy, Mike, Josh, and Mitch digging into one of the turkeys!


My mom, dad, Colin, and I went to another park that morning. Colin hurt his ankle going down a slide--at the bottom his foot hit the slide and bent backwards...he hasn't walked on it since. We were able to move it in every direction and it didn't really get bruised or too swollen so we decided to just watch it for a couple days to see what happened.

Icing his foot and playing with grandma's moneys!


Sticking money in between his toes


That aside, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was so much fun to see everyone and spend time with our family. It was actually kind of nice having Colin immobile because I got a ton of cuddle time with him-- the slight downside to that was that he didn't want anybody else so if I needed a little break he wasn't too happy. That night we played a great game of Phase 10-- a staple at grandma's house-- it was hilarious. Definitely some good times. Especially when my cousin, Mitch, had issues counting his cards and asked "how much is a red one worth?"

Cuddling with Aunt Kelly while mommy played Phase 10


Friday afternoon we went back down to Vegas with Kelly and Mitch. We just hung out that morning and enjoyed visiting with people. Before we left we went to check out the "Memory Lane" of Christmas trees they have-- people who live there decorate Christmas trees for family members who have passed away. They had done a tree for both sets of great grandparents on my dad's side. My grandma had us print out pictures of our families to put on the trees- it was really neat.

Dad, Grandma, Jim, Aunt Lucille, and Kelly at the trees


Our fam! (minus Jason who's still in San Jose on his mish!)

Once we were back in Vegas we met my friend, Nicole, and her husband and baby for dinner at our favorite restaurant, BJ's. It was lots of fun and the food was great. Melodie (Nicole's baby) will turn one this week and Colin was so cute with her! When they were sitting next to eachother he wanted to give her a kiss!! Unfortunately we weren't able to get a picture of it but that's okay!!

Horrible picture of me, but cute of the babies!


When we got back to Kelly and Andy's we watched the new Star Trek movie which was really good (except I haven't seen it all because Colin was getting tired so I went to bed with him before the movie ended..oh well!)

We got home last night and decided that since Colin still wasn't walking, we should call his doctor's exchange. They told us to go ahead and take him into the Emergency Room to get X-rays, just to make sure everything was okay. Everything looks good, nothing looks broken so it's just a sprain. They advised us to give him medicine and just keep monitoring him. Hopefully he'll be up running around soon! Until that time, he has reverted back to being an excellent crawler!

Well, that was pretty jam-packed! We had an awesome trip and are so greatful for all the many blessings we have been given; especially our wonderful family. We are so glad we were able to go spend time with everyone and for the bonds that we share! We're very excited about the Christmas season that is upon us!!

Crafty Me

I'm really not crafty at all but sometimes I get these ideas in my head that I just have to do!! Granted, this is definitely probably one of the most simple "crafts" someone can do but I think it's fun anyway!! I decided that it would be really cute to make Colin a turkey shirt for Thanksgiving. Of course I had to make it out of his own hand! I got a shirt at Wal-Mart the other day and we used my mom's paints. Colin was so good! I think he liked it when I was painting his hand all the different colors! He was really good about keeping his fingers straight and not making a fist! After we were done and I was trying to touch up on his turkey, Colin started painting his other hand with the paint brush--he's too cute!!

Hammin' it Up

Here's some pics from the last couple of days:

We went over to my aunt and uncles on Sunday to celebrate November birthday's. The weather was beautiful and they had their golf cart out. Uncle Brent took Colin for a little ride. He loves golf carts!!


When I was changing Colin's diaper after he woke up yesterday morning he took his pants off and was pointing to his swim shirt saying "pants". I told him it was a shirt and that he couldn't wear it on his legs. We went back upstairs later and he wanted to wear it again so I decided he could put it on over his long sleeved shirt. The swim shirt's a little too small--it's size 12 months-- but he didn't seem to mind! He wore it to Walgreens and over to my parents house until I finally made him take it off because I was afraid he was getting too hot!


Playing around at dinner tonight, Colin was wearing some of my sunglasses! Isn't he so handsome?!


Daddy put noodles on Colin's face!! (It all started after Colin tried to stick one up his nose...)

Our Little Fiasco

Colin and I were getting ready to go over to my parents today because Colin wanted to see Ryan. (When he woke up this morning I asked him if he wanted to go downstairs to see Belle and he said "Ryan". Then, throughout the morning he kept saying "Ryan. Car.") Anyway, he was sitting at the table eating some peaches so I thought I'd take all our bags out to the car. I was seriously in the garage for about 2 seconds. When I walked back to go into the house, the door was locked!! He's NEVER locked a door before, I didn't even think he knew how. I could hear him on the other side "mom" and I kept telling him to unlock the door because mommy couldn't get inside. I didn't have my keys in the garage with me. All I could think was that I could use a credit card from my wallet to try to break in and call my mom with my cell phone. The credit card thing didn't work out for me. I then realized that I thought there was a key to the house in the diaper bag--luckily there was!! I'm not that great with keys though! I was able to get the doorknob unlocked but couldn't get the dead bolt too--the key kept turning but the dead bolt didn't budge. I ran around to the back of the house to see if I had left the back door unlocked when I'd let Belle out earlier--I hadn't. By this time Colin was crying and trying to open the front door. My mom told me to calm down and that I'd be able to get it opened since I had the key. It finally ended up working and I was able to get inside! I guess I learned my lesson--no putting bags in the car before Colin is safely buckled into his seat!

Who'da Thunk It?

It was EIGHTY degrees today!!! Eighty degrees on November 7th! I thought we left this kind of weather in Las Vegas but apparently it followed us here! It was absolutely gorgeous! We wanted to go apple picking but as it turns out, they're out of season now. We decided to go to the park instead and take a picnic (Wendy's). It was so much fun. We ate our lunch at the picnic tables, walked down to the lake and looked at all the geese. (Geese, by the way, scare me a little. These ones seemed to be pretty nice but I have heard horror stories about geese attacks. Walking past them didn't bother me so much as when Colin was sitting at the picnic table eating a chicken nugget and 3 geese were gathered around him SALIVATING...can geese even eat chicken?!?!) Anyway, after we safely got away from the geese we went and played on the awesome playground. It was so much fun!!

Oh the Joys of Motherhood!

We're keeping my mom and dad's dog right now and I have her food and water upstairs. I was putting some dishes in the dishwasher this morning and I heard Colin go upstairs. By the time I got up there he had poored all of Lexi's food in her water and had some on the floor. We went into the bathroom to clean everything up and he dropped a bar of soap into the TOILET, which I had to retrieve with my bare hands because I don't have rubber gloves. Once that was all taken care of we went back downstairs and he dumped the whole box of goldfish onto a pizza plate. He then proceeded to somehow pull some piece of metal off of the fireplace...by that time I was at my wits end! He's lucky he's so stinkin' cute!!

The End of Our Halloween Festivities:

We went to my parents neighborhood to Trick or Treat on Saturday. It was so much fun! Colin was actually excited to put his costume on and go out! He was so stinkin' cute! He spent most of the "walking" time on my dad's shoulders. We'd get him down and give him his pumpkin when we got to someone's door.




Knocking on a door:

Elephant walking

Jack (or Mater) in action! [We brought him over to my parents house since it would be silly to light him when we weren't home to give out candy!]



On Sunday we went over to my aunt and uncles house to see my cousin's costumes and the extended family. Colin dressed up in his elephant one more time to show everyone! We didn't leave it on for too long though because he was burning up!

On the way over: Rock Chalk Jayhawk! (Ryan is trying to teach Colin how to say Jayhawk--he usually just says "hawk")

He likes wearing the bead necklaces!