Thanksgiving, 2009

This year for Thanksgiving, we decided to do things a little differently. The stage in life we're at, I feel like we're constantly in family mode. I plan things to be easier to do with small children, whether it be a trip to the grocery store, or an outing to the park. However, the vast majority of our family members don't have small children and likewise, aren't in "little people" mode all the time! It's completely understandable, and I don't blame them at all for it!

This year we decided to stay home and plan the day around our schedule. It was wonderful! Raz and Kory came over with their kids, Elise and Cameron, so we had 4 adults and 5 kids ages 6 and under. We had dinner at noon, then took a break for naps and such, then reconvened at 5pm for leftovers and dessert. It was soooo nice. The kids were well behaved since they were eating at their normal times. We were all also able to take naps, which was heavenly! I think we might be on to a new tradition here!

Here are a few fun pics of the lovely holiday...

Adrian had this fun idea to trace every one's hands, then have us all write down what we were thankful for. It was fun going around the table, telling everyone what we wrote down. Thomas then had the distinguished job of attaching the hands to the paper tree Adrian constructed. And this is how it turned out!

Hailey didn't feel well that day. She took one bite of dinner and opted to go to bed. She got up later on, but fell asleep on Daddy shortly thereafter. He didn't seem to mind.

Halloween, 2009

Halloween was actually really fun this year. Thomas is old enough to really get excited about all the events and Hailey thinks she's just as big, so she follows right along!

We made Thomas' Wall-E costume! Although we're both pretty creative, neither Adrian or I score really high on the craftiness scale, so I was impressed we were able to pull it together. We made Wall-E, version 1 and 5 minutes after arriving to Thomas' school Halloween parade, Wall-E broke into 3 pieces! Sad. Thomas took it pretty well. When he got home, I scoured the house for anything that could help poor Wall-E survive and resurrected him! Thankfully he stayed together and we were able to Trick-or-Treat at Adrian's work and around the neighborhood. Yes, we have truck loads of candy.

Hailey was a "Pretty Pink Princess Fairy" this year. That's a direct quote out of her cute, little 2.5 year old mouth! She wouldn't come close to cleaning out the pumpkins with us, but she did her best to be involved with all the fun. She got pretty scared a few times while Trick-or-Treating. Thomas tried to help her be brave, but she went running and screaming from a few houses, despite his best efforts.

Colin was a dinosaur! He was napping while we carved pumpkins and stayed home with Dad while the rest of us were Trick-or-Treating, but I made up for it by letting him lick a Dum Dum a few times. He enjoyed it.

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

Happy First Birthday Colin!

Today is Colin's first birthday! Happy Birthday my sweet boy! Last night I was reflecting a lot on his birth. You can go read the short-version here. It was my first au-naturale delivery and in a nutshell, it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life!! It wasn't easy by any means, but it was very, very worth it! At any rate, he came and we were so glad to have him join our family.

He really is a sweet boy too. He started crawling a while ago but for what seems like a long time he army crawled! Boy was he fast though! I was super excited when he started to crawl normally because the front of his shirts were a lot less dirty! now he's standing up and cruising furniture. He's a climber- he can zoom up the stairs so fast! Makes me nervous. He's now got 3 teeth with two more on the way. He's still a little guy- his next appt isn't for another 2 weeks, but my scale says around 18 lbs. He's got those big brown eyes that just melt your heart. He's going to be a ladies man I can already tell. He certainly knows how to work a crowd and can be such a ham. His newest fascination is roaring like a dinosaur. Everytime he does it we all crack up- it's so cute!

As you can tell by the pics, he tore into his cake like no other! He had fun mashing it for a while, then I finally clued him in to how good it tastes, and well, that was fun too! Here's a video showing you the whole experience!

Overall it was a fun night. And now my baby is ONE!

Our cute Hailey

Sugar and spice and everything nice.....LOLOLOLOL! The individual who wrote that obviously never met my Hailey. She came home from the park today with about 2 lbs of sand in her onesie. The funny thing is, I didn't notice anything, so I sat her up to lunch and she ate without saying anything about it! Afterwards she said "something's itchy" so I started investigating and felt her bottom and swiftly got her outside before my living room became a beach! I unbuttoned it and out came TONS of sand. Crazy girl.

The real reason behind this post is to show you all these cute pictures of how Hailey decided to do her nails all by herself! What a treat, huh?! She came walking down the stairs yesterday morning saying, "Look at my nails, they're so pretty." I immediately knew what she had done and dashed upstairs to survey the damage. I was shocked to find NOTHING. She didn't spill a drop! She was so proud of herself and gladly posed for a few pictures. All the while Mommy was repeating to her, "We don't do our nails without Mommy's help- next time ask for Mommy!"

I even had a couple of nursery workers at church come tell me how Hailey showed them her pretty fingers!

My Sweet Colin!

I just wanted to do a quick update on Colin. What a little doll he is! He'll be 11 months old next week and is officially everywhere. He's been on the move for a while now, but lately it's stepped up a notch, literally. I walked into the family room this last week to find him on the 3rd stair up! Yikes! Up goes the baby gate. He still does a funny little combination of army-crawl/ real crawl, but don't worry, this doesn't seem to slow him down. Whenever he pulls himself up to something new or turbo-crawls over to a new place he's always so proud of himself! I love his little celebration grins! I absolutely can't believe he'll be a year old in a few weeks. Where does the time go?! In other areas, he's thriving. He babbles on and on and loves to play peek-a-boo. He is a mama's boy and 90% of the time I adore that. {The other 10% of the time I need a break!} He's often my little side-kick though and I love it. Good thing he enjoys grocery shopping! :)

Thomas Started Kindergarten!

I know, I've been a blogging slacker! I apologize! Really, not much has changed until very recently. This last week we had a BIG milestone in our family's life-- Thomas started Kindergarten! Here he is on his big day wearing his new favorite color. Yes, green is the new orange. I decided to have him in afternoon Kindergarten because it's just going to be easier on our schedule. Colin & Hailey nap while Thomas is at school...so maybe I'll actually get a couple hours to myself?! We'll see! His teacher, Mrs. Wells is fantastic and the school is incredible. It looks much different now that it's almost finished, but if you have some spare time, you can go see details on it here. We're excited to have hit this incredible milestone with Thomas! One funny thing. He had to take his assessment test and was beyond excited about it all week. Oh how I love that the word test doesn't have negative connotation...yet!

Our California Vacation!

We've been back for a few weeks now and I finally feel like I'm getting settled! We took a 9-day vacation to California at the end of June, early July. We drove out (sounds scary, but it really wasn't too bad!) to San Jose and spent several days with Adrian's parents, then drove 3 hours north to Auburn, CA for a few days with my family!

In San Jose we swam at the pool a lot, but also took day trips to San Francisco, the beach, and Gilroy Gardens, a really fun children's amusement park. The kids played hard each day but did really well with the added driving, etc. They slept in a tent at Grammie & Papa's house- how fun was that?!

In Auburn, my step-dad, Michael surprised us with a plane ride! Adrian, Thomas I went up and flew all around Auburn for a while. It was SO MUCH FUN! i was a little nervous as my stomach just isn't very tolerant of events like this, but it was so worth the minor queasiness! Thomas loved it. I tell ya, I had so much fun watching him enjoy the ride.

My mom & Michael live in this neat community called the Lake of the Pines. It's a moutain-esque development built around a man made lake. There are beaches everywhere with playgrounds and built-in cabanas. Talk about being spoiled! It was a lot of fun swimming and haning out with my family!

Here are several pics from the trip. If you have a lot of extra time on your hands and want to see more, go here: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbtWLVkzZNWG8.

Williams Update

We're about to leave for vacation so I figured I should post a little update beforehand!

Things are going well! Adrian's settling nicely into his new job and the kids and I are starting to enjoy a nice summer at home! Thomas is officially registered for kindergarten (can you believe it?!) and I'm so thrilled for him- he's beyond excited. He'll be attending a brand new school here in the neighborhood. We haven't found out yet many details as the school is still being built!

Hailey is a little rascal and keeps me on my toes. Just today, while I was making lunch, I glanced up just in time to see her pour a (free sample!) bottle of shampoo on the kitchen table. Sigh. At least it was free, right?! It's a good thing she's so cute. She told me this afternoon that she's going to start preschool soon and that she'll miss me while she's gone. LOL. Creativity is certainly not lacking when it comes to conversations with Hailey! For 2.5, she's amazingly articulate and is really fun to talk to.

Colin is 8.5 months old and just cut his first tooth! Well, teeth really as his bottom two came in at the exact same time. He's rolling and has even gotten up on all 4's...but hasn't started crawling yet. I'm ok with that though- take your time buddy! He is such a cutie, as you can see!

As for me- I'm doing well. Life is busy and as these kids get older, it just keeps getting busier. My blog is doing really well too! I am getting about 1,200 hits a day now and am just having a good time with it. Another local blogger and I share a lot of deals and she recently wrote an article in the Salt Lake Tribune featuring our family! You can read about it here.

We're leaving for California in a couple days- we're all so excited! We haven't gone to CA for a couple years, so we're looking forward to taking the kids to the beach, San Francisco and of course, seeing a lot of family. I'll post about our trip after we return!

Here are a few pics of some recent activities.

Both of these garden pics were taken on the same day. We've had a very cool, unusually wet June here in Utah. Thankfully, my garden doesn't seem to mind. Still, very weird to take pics from a freak hail storm, then turn around and show how my tomatoes are doing!

My sweet Colin.

On a whim, we drove 30 minutes to Ogden to see the Disney Train Tour one evening. What a flop of an event! When we arrived, there was a 4 hour wait to just get in to see the train. No thanks! We walked around and took some pics then left. (Note: if the train comes to a city near you, just pass on this free event!)

We had a woman offer to take our picture. We agreed and said- yeah, we're trying to take a pic of our family in front of the water tower! Family- check. Water tower, well, not-so-much. LOL.

Vote for me!

I've been nominated for a blog award! It's an award to be nominated, really, but now it's up to voters to decide the winners. So, if you have a moment, with every spare email address that you have, email:

contest@utahbabyguide.com

And vote for my blog- utahdealdiva.com!

Thank you!!!

Graduation {from Preschool that is!}

Thomas graduated from Preschool yesterday! He's been going to Miss Charity's preschool (that's just next door!) since September of last year and his last day is next week! I can't believe my baby's going to SCHOOL! i'm so excited for him though- he's beyond ready! He's been reading for a while now and I'm just astonished at how well he writes! He's just going to love kindergarten! The school he will be attending is still being built, but should be completed by Fall. I think it will be fun for him to go to a brand new school!

Here he is with his friends eating ice cream after the little ceremony.

I loved how none of the kids quite knew what to do with their graduation hats!

Posing with Dad...

and Mom!

And just for fun, I had to throw these in! I've been giving Colin baths in the sink since he was born! He's getting WAY too big for that now, so I finally dug out this mesh bather and he loved it. He won't be using it for long as he's sitting up now, but he was tired and enjoyed louging in the bath just kicking around.

This isn't the most eventful video, but I still thought it was cute.

Adrian is now EMPLOYED!!!

I just wanted to give an awesome update: Adrian is employed!

The job he interviewed for 1.5 weeks ago called him back on Monday. He went in Tuesday for another first interview with a different group leader. That interview ended and they asked him if he could stick around and meet the Unit Leader! Two hours later he was finally on his way home- that's some interview!! As he was leaving they told him they wouldn't be making a decision until early the following week. Although, I guess they must have liked him because a few hours later they called him back and offered him a job!!!!

The company is great! It's called Westech Engineering. You can read more about it here. Adrian will be doing Project Management again, which he is very excited about. The job requires an Engineering background, so he'll fit right in! He starts Monday and boy are we excited about that!

We just want to thank everyone for all your thoughts, prayers and concern on our behalf. It has been an interesting last few months, to say the least! We feel incredibly blessed though. There are many, many others in similar situations who are doing far worse that we are. I am truly grateful for the many outreached hands that have been there for us to support us in a variety of ways. We love you and we'll keep you posted on how things go at his new job. We hope it's a very enriching and rewarding experience for Adrian and our family!

Hailey, Colin & the Carrots

This is what happens when mom gets Colin's dinner all ready, then leaves for a moment to answer the door...

BTW- whose idea was it to make white bibs?! White. Really?

Just admit it...

You see a slight resemblance too...

Tee hee! I love my little Colin and his sweet hairdo!

46 pounds and GROWING, apparently...

At least he's GOT to be, being as lately he's eating us out of house and home! I'm talking about Thomas in case you haven't guessed. My 5 1/2 year old. It's been going on for a while now, but in the last couple of weeks Thomas' appetite has increased exponentially. It's CRAZY. Now, I know I'm from a family of all girls, skinny girls nonetheless, but trust me, we can eat. Really, I'm not joking! But whoa, I really had no idea.

Here's a typical food consumption day for Thomas:

First Breakfast, 7:30am: 2-3 bowls of cereal. Good cereal too like Raisin Bran or Shredded Mini Wheats.

Second Breakfast 9am: A piece of toast w/jam, or a banana, or a few pancakes- essentially whatever I get up and make myself, he wants some of.

By 10:30 am he's asking if it's lunch time yet. I stare at him in disbelief and ask, "HONESTLY?!" Then I give him a banana or a thing of yogurt.

Lunch, noon: I give him one of those plastic, sectioned plates- each section is full and I pile stuff on top. A PB&J sandwich, string cheese, several apple slices, strawberries, graham crackers, and another container of yogurt. I stare when he asks Hailey, "You gonna eat that?"

3pm- snack time again. I shake my head and tell him to go drink a very big cup of water.

6pm- dinner. He eats a normal sized portion. For a 28 year old man. LOL. Seriously, he eats about the same amount as Adrian eats. And of course, he wants a treat afterwards because he's still hungry Mom!!

For anyone who has seen my other blog, this is why I use coupons.