Christmas

we had a milestone christmas this year, it's the first one we've had alone with our little family since we moved from st. george!  i believe we only had 2 christmases alone while we lived there, and somehow we've made it home to idaho every christmas since!  which is about 7!!  i sure don't know how we managed that, but somehow we did!  so as i've mentioned in previous posts, we were pretty bummed when we learned that trav would have to work the day before and the day after christmas because we knew that it just wouldn't be possible for us to be in idaho this year.  but we also knew that we couldn't let that ruin christmas for us so we put a smile on our face and thought about the good things instead of the bad:  we've been lucky enough to have spent the vast majority of these last 11 years in idaho with our families for christmas as it is, our little family has grown so much that we can easily keep ourselves busy enough on christmas day to make sure we're not sitting around being sad, and we knew that our own christmas would have to happen eventually.  it ended up being a good day!  mommy even got domestic and made christmas dinner!:)  you really know it's a special day then!;)

looks like santa made it to the 'hood!

oh how i love this studious little boy!  all the stuff he got for christmas, and the first thing he does is crack open his new book:)  i love it:)

there's nothing i love more than a sufficiently littered living room on christmas day!:)

even lynnles was good enough to get some presents from santa!:)  barely . . . ;)

aunt heidi sent the kids this awesome wiggle car, it was the cutest thing!  they all loved it, even lynlee!

this is the part where i slap myself for being a horrible picture-taker.  so the day after christmas, we drove to black-dog to spend the weekend with the rest of the fam.  we ended up staying for like, 6 days!  it was so awesome!  i seriously don't think we've EVER been able to go home for that many days!  we did so much and had such a good time with everyone, and all i have to show for it is a handful of pictures from our first day!  sheesh, somebody seriously slap me! 

the kiddos were so excited to head out to grandma ruby's, not that they aren't always, but they had gotten word that there may have been a present or two waiting for them when they got there . . ;)  and seriously, is that not the cutest little baby you've ever seen, in her fur vest from gr. dick and gr. helen?!  no way is there a cuter one!;)

AAHHHH!!!!  gecko boy!  these were hilarious, they made it so you could see what was behind you.  we were cracking up at aiden wearing them, it was so funny!

sara (and apparently colin too, the little seamstress that he is!;)  made these adorable pillow cases for the kids.  they were so stinking cute!  thanks aunt sara, you are AMAZING!!  i can't even imagine how much work it was to make pillowcases for 18 grandkids!

lynlee's new favorite thing is babies.  she calls them "ba-ba's"  and loves to haul them around the house with her.  there's just something about my baby, calling other babies babies, that just melts my heart.  it's too cute!

still our best christmas present:)

so since these were the first, and last, pics of our trip home, i guess i'll just have to write the rest of what we did.  we had a lot of fun including:

shopping with my bestie, libbie in idaho falls.  SO . . MUCH . . FUN! . . you know me and retail therapy, we go together like peanut butter and jelly!

staying up til 3 in the morning talking to shaila until we both passed out while we waited for trav, trevor, and skyler to play zombies.  those bonebags ended up playing until 430 in the morning!  poor skylar was wrecked for the next 2 days!

trevor and shaila taught me a new game . . . farkle!  it was so fun!
shopping and cafe rio with susan, nikki, and heather
dinner at stockmans with trav and at tommy vaughns with trav, nikki, skyler, trevor, and shaila
getting to visit zac and manami and kylee
and last but not least, the kids got "booted up" with grandpa dick and grandma Helen!

Here were their picks for this year, they were so excited!  Aiden and Sadie both love them and wore them to school on their first day back from Xmas break, and I can't wait to get lynlee's on her!  Aren't they just the cutest little pair of boots ever!?  Thanks grandpa dick and grandma Helen!  You are the best!!:)
And look at what else they found and gave to me, a story in the newspaper about when I turned 1 year old!  How cool is that?!

 Even though they wrote my dad's name as "mike!"  Ha ha!  Randy people, RANDY!!! Oh well, at least they wrote it right in the actual story!;)  it was really cool, I'm so glad they found this article!  Thanks again g-ma helen and g-pa dick!:)
We're so glad that we got to spend a few days with the fam, it's not so often anymore that we get to see everyone!  We love you family, hope we can make it back again soon!:)

our december VIP's

december is turning out to be a pretty eventful month for our little family these days!  not only do we have christmas to look forward to every year, we now have TWO birthdays!  and we decided that this year we were going to have a double birthday party for our december VIP's:)  trav was even able to come home right when the kids got home from school so we could celebrate, it was perfect!

"happy birthday princess" and daddy!

trav's not a huge fan of cakes and baked goods, but i do know of one thing that he loves . . cobbler!  so i made him a triple berry cobbler and a pink cake for lynlee:)

lynnies didn't like the fire very much and needed daddy to comfort her . . it just doesn't get any sweeter than that:)

she's so excited!  bring on the cake!

she was a little unsure and it took her a minute, but pretty soon she got the hang of it and dove into her cake!

she didn't even eat that much of it, she mostly just destroyed it and threw it all on the floor.  although she must have eaten some of it, because at midnight she projectile vomited it all over her room!  we had to replace all her sheets, bath her, shampoo her carpet, and throw away her road trip bag because it got so barfed on that it was un-savable!  but it was ok, it was only that one time (luckily!) and she didn't act sick so we didn't worry too much about it.  we just probably won't stuff her full of birthday cake again for awhile!

but anyways, back to trav and lynlee's big night! . . . next was the best part, PRESENTS!!

trav wanted to pick her out something on his way home from work, so he found her these two cute little things - a twinkling star stacker and a singing book.  she loved them!  especially her book, it's the perfect size to drag all over the house:)

lynnie's other present was this adorable dinosaur that has a little trampoline inside and bounces some balls all over while it plays music.  it was even cuter than i expected and she loved it too!  trav got a seahawks sweatshirt and t-shirt because he was the only one of us who didn't have seahawks gear.  and a promised date to see the dead sea scrolls at a museum in salt lake . . as soon as we know that he won't be in seattle again or something!  i was too scared to buy tickets in advance!  so we'll plan for that:)

it turned out to be a really fun evening and i think lynnies knew that it was a special day for her.  and trav too of course!  

is it even possible that she's not the cutest thing on the planet?!  not that i'm biased or anything!;)

here's some things about our little lynnles now:

1.  she weighs 21 lbs and is 28 inches long, which puts her in the 70th percentile for weight and 10th for height . . still our little tootsie roll ;)

2.  she LOVES her blankie.  it is her most prized possession in the world.  she goes along the edges until she finds a corner and then sucks on it. 

3.  she has 7 teeth, and i think working on more as we speak

4.  she is our little "parrot" and repeats all these words:  hi, mama, dada, wow, uh-oh, thank you, and ah-choo.  and somehow she's started to recognize questions and answers, "yah" to every question we ask her.  it's adorable!

5.  she loves garden vegetable baby food and yogurt.  and hates her baby oatmeal.

6.  she won't leave my glasses and earrings alone.  i can't wear earrings at all anymore, and she's popped the lenses out of my poor glasses more times than i can even count!

7.  her two favorite things to do are un-roll the toilet paper roll until it's empty, and rip all the wipes out of her wipe box.  such a little mess-maker!

i'm so grateful for my amazing husband and our sweet baby girl!  i am so blessed to have them!  i know i've said it before, but i have the best husband in the ENTIRE WORLD!!  he amazes me every day with his thoughtfulness towards me and our kiddos.  there is not a more thoughtful husband out there and i SO don't deserve it (but i do very much love it!;)  and our little lynnies has brought so much joy to our family since she joined us a year ago.  i have absolutely loved every moment of having a baby again!  we love this sweet little girl and i don't know what we would do without her!  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRAV AND LYNLEE!  

christmas festivities

we've had the suspicion for awhile that we might not be able to make it to idaho to be with our families for christmas this year.  we've tried not to be too down about it, and instead focus on how lucky we've been to be able to spend almost every other christmas for the last 11 years with them!  i think we might have missed one or 2 when we lived in st. george, but that's it!  so since we can't see everyone for christmas, we were so excited when grandpa dick and grandma helen told us that they wanted to have a get-together at their house to celebrate a little early.

it was so fun to have everyone together again!

i can't believe there's been 3 new babies in the last year, look at these little cuties!

the kids were so excited to see each other again! . . or maybe just to play on everyone's phones?!;)

grandma and grandpa let the kiddos open their christmas presents early.  they were SOOOO excited and got so spoiled!  THANK YOU  G&G!!!:)

aren't these animals the cutest?!  aiden and sadie completely love them and haven't let them out of their sight since they got them.

the fur  on this lamb freaked lynlee out . . . she didn't want to touch it, it was so funny!

she sat with grandpa dick forever!  she kept looking back at him to see who had her and then would turn back around and just chill with him.  it was so cute!

here's grandma and grandpa with all the GREAT-grandkids, i can't believe they have seven!

it was so fun to spend the evening with them.  they went to SOOOO much effort to plan a nice evening for everyone and it turned out perfectly!  we're so happy that they had us over and so grateful for all the effort they put into the evening.  it was so fun!  thanks grandpa dick and grandma helen!  we love you!

while we were home for the weekend, grandma susan treated the kids to a gingerbread house-making party too.  they had so much fun!

we had a great weekend and can't wait to go home again!  even if it has to wait until a day or two after christmas:)