No more training wheels for Caleb!

Last month a training wheel broke on Caleb's bike.  Instead of getting new training wheels I kept trying to convince him to learn to ride without them.  Yesterday he finally got the confidence to try and he picked up on it right away.  He is so excited and proud of himself, I love it! 

Gotta love this smile!


This is a new thing for Kyson this winter as well.  He learned how to ride his bike (with training wheels) and is always asking to go outside to ride it.  Both boys spend a lot of time riding around in front of our condo.  Looking at these pictures makes me realize how big they are getting!


Notice anything unusual about this picture?  Yes, Kyson is missing a shoe.  I'm not sure how he does it but he constantly loses just one shoe.  It never seems to faze him though, he just keeps on going...one shoe on, and one shoe off.  It makes me laugh because he runs around and plays like that all the time and never says a word!  Of course down the road a little bit I found his shoe and put it back on...silly kid!

SNOW!

While we were up in Show Low for Christmas we got to play in the snow and our boys loved it!  Before we got to Show Low it snowed a LOT.  More snow than usual for December in Show Low anyway.  It was actually a great time to visit because there was still a lot of snow on the ground but the weather was much warmer.  Caleb had been asking me to go play in the snow for weeks so we were excited to taking him sledding.  We found a hill in front of my parent's house that I used to sled down that was the perfect size for our kiddos.  

Jared, Amber (my little sister), and Caleb built this snowman as they waited for the rest of us to get dressed for the cold and come outside.  It turned out pretty great!

Ha!  Even at 7 months pregnant I went down the hill one time.  (no worries, it wasn't a very big hill!)  I just had to get in on the fun at least once!

Jared built another small snowman out where we were sledding.  Gotta love the "trees" for arms:)

Christmas Day

This Christmas was the first Christmas we have spent at home as a family. We have always been at my parent's house. Although we missed being there that morning, we enjoyed spending it together as family. I am sad that I didn't get any pictures of my boys that morning (what was I thinking?!?) because I was too busy trying to video tape them. I do love watching the short clips I got though and so do my boys. Kyson is one of the most animated little boys in the world. He will, and did get excited about anything and everything he got. Even the underwear he got in his stocking, he thought they were the greatest:) I know I will always treasure those short video clips of my boys and the way the interact at this age. Next year I will do better about getting both pictures and videos of Christmas morning!


By the way...I tried to upload a couple of the videos and it's just not working. If I figure it out, I'll add them later.

After opening presents we had to jump in the car to head to Show Low.  We wouldn't have been in a rush, but we were trying to make it in time for my parent's ward so we could enjoy church with my family.  We definitely made good time and got there just a couple minutes before the meeting started...whew!!!  After church we enjoyed opening a few more presents from my family, having a yummy Christmas dinner, and visiting and playing games until midnight or later.  

There were many times that day that I stopped and thought about how truly blessed I am.  Being surrounded by family and enjoying being together on Christmas was wonderful to me.  Having both my boys healthy and happy and having fun is such a tremendous blessing.  Plus soon we will be adding a girl to this mix and she is growing and developing just as she should.  It truly was a day to celebrate and thank Jesus Christ for all he has done for us.   

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was also a fun-filled night for us.  We went to dinner with Jared's parents.  We were catering to the kids so we got Taco Bell for them and In N Out for the rest of us.  After dinner we came home and enjoyed a few traditions we have.  First we talked to the boys about the true meaning of Christmas, watched a video from the First Presidency Christmas Devotional about Christ's birth, and tried to get them to understand why this is such a special time of year.  Then we let them open one present before bed, which is always Christmas pj's.  We got them dressed and ready for bed and then attempted to take a few pictures.  It was getting really late and the boys were tired, but here's what we got!

I'm not sure if I ever shared this last year, but Jared drew the elves on their stockings and I made the rest of the them.  I love Jared's talent!

 

It's the most wondeful time of the year!

The Holidays are always my favorite time of the year. This year it was particularly wonderful because Jared finished up his rotation in Show Low and had three whole weeks to spend with us. We really filled our time with so many fun activities. I was so happy to have Jared home and able to do all of these fun things with us. Here are some pictures of the some of the fun things we did. Of course I didn't get pictures of everything, and they are in no particular order...

One night we had dinner with our super great friends and then headed to McCormick train park in Scottsdale to ride the train.  It is a super fun thing to do with little kids and I would highly recommend going.

Another night we went to our ward Christmas party.  They provided a wonderful dinner and then Mrs. Claus came and read a story to all of the kids.

The Friday before Christmas we got together with a couple of Jared's PA school friends.  We had dinner, a white elephant gift exchange for the kids, and they made gingerbread houses.  I didn't have my camera with me so I took a couple pictures of their houses when we got home.

Kyson kept putting candy inside his house instead of decorating it.  Here he is peaking at the goodies he has stashed for later:)

We also had a fun night of going to Sweet Tomatoes with all of Jared's family that lives here in the valley thanks to his Grandpa Gunnell.  After dinner we drove to the LDS temple and looked at the display of Christmas lights.  The kids had so much fun riding in this three seater wagon.  Unfortunately there were SO MANY people at the temple we didn't stay long.  We all had a great time anyway!

I'm sure I'm leaving out a couple of things because our days were filled with fun times, but at least I got this much documented.  Next up...Christmas and New Years!

Hopekids events for Christmas

The first Saturday in December we also got to go to a Hopekids Christmas party.  It is amazing all they do to make this day special for all the kids.  Tons of games, face painting, balloon making, riding ponies, food and more food, and presents for the kids. 

 They even got to meet Santa! 

One of my absolute favorite parts of going to this event was running into some good friends that are also part of Hopekids.  It is great to get caught up and see how all the kids are doing. 

Later in December we got to go to another Hopekids event at Make A Wish. Both our boys got to paint an ornament. I'm pretty sure Jared had the most fun at this even:) He "resurrected" Caleb's ornament and it actually turned out really cute. Kyson's is just a mixture of every color he could think of. I should have taken pictures of them but they are packed away now!  Each of the kids also got a present while we were there and they of course thought that was great! 

Oh Christmas tree!

Our tradition continued this year of getting a real Christmas tree.  Unfortunately we didn't have time to go get it ourselves this year so my parents cut it down for us.  It was a perfect little tree for our little house.
Here's a picture of Caleb hanging up his ornament.  It was given to us by his Aunt Wendy on his first Christmas and it has his name on it.

Kyson also has a special ornament.  I will never forget his first Christmas.  He loved this ornament and would find it and shake it like crazy.  It got deemed Kyson's ornament and so I wrote his name on it.

Our tree is always a mismatch of the ornaments we've collected over the years.  I am perfectly happy with that:)

We all had so much fun putting the tree up.  More than anything the boys were excited for the train we set up around the base of the tree.  They have enjoyed it so much.

Here's the tree at night, all lit up.  There is something magical about having all the lights in the house off except the Christmas tree lights.  It just makes it actually feel like Christmas!