lynlee turned 2!

a certain toddler had a birthday on december 20th . . .

one who just might be the cutest thing in the world . . . 

and her name is LYNLEE!!!

yay us, we kept her alive til 2!!!:)

we love this little ball of adorable-ness, life would be so sad without her!

of course we had to get her some balloons, a birthday isn't a birthday without balloons!

a play by play of the candle-lighting ceremony . . .

i'm not sure if you can tell, but i don't think she's super excited about getting her candles lit . . .

nope . . . definitely not excited.  and getting less so by the second . . .

yep, i'd say it's official . . . she hates candles!!!

but she recovered quickly as soon as we let her tear into some ice cream and cupcake!

complete with 35 socks on her right foot . . . ;)

then it was time for presents!  cute little sadie wrapped up her dog to give to lynnles because she'd been playing with it a lot lately . . . so sweet!:)

notice the gummy worm sticking out of her mouth . . . it was seriously making us laugh so hard!!

thanks for the birthday box grandma ruby!:)

she got her very own smart phone!  sesame street style!;)

and baby pinkie pie, which she calls pinkie pie pumpkin . . . seriously the cutest thing EVER!!! 

let me also point out, just in case you didn't notice, that she has graduated from socks on her feet . . . to mittens.  REALLY LYNLEE?!  ha ha!  she's hilarious!!  what's even funnier (NOT!!)  is that we're all wearing mis-matched socks because she's stolen them all and they're all lost, stuffed in random bags or boxes around the house, or heaven knows where . . . i don't think we're going to find most of them!  she's such a nut!

i think she had a good day, and knew that it was special just for her:)  she was a little sick, and we found out a couple days later that she had an ear infection, the poor thing!  she seemed just a little under the weather on her b-day though and was still able to have a fun birthday thank goodness!  we LOVE this little girl so much!  here are some things about our little lynnles at 2:

1.  as we all know, her big thing at the moment is to steal everyone's socks and put them all on her right foot.  i have no idea why, but i've given up trying to stop it . . . it's going to happen no matter how hard i try to curb the appeal!  she loves it!!!

2.  she weighs 26 lbs and is 33 inches tall

3.  she LOVES colton and is so sweet to him!  and also loves her big sister and brother too . . . she watches everything they do so closely and tries to be just like them!

3.  she loves ponies (real or toy)

4.  she would eat macaroni and cheese for every meal and tells me all the time, "ronies, ronies!"  she also loves applesauce, bananas, and cereal. 

5.  she's starting to speak in sentences and says things like, "where sissy go?  daddy work.  baby laugh me.  watch baby genius fishies . . . i could just sit and listen to her all day!  she's so stinkin' cute!  and she says so many things, it blows my mind sometimes!

6.  she hates baths.  she freaks out whenever i pour water on her and it doesn't even matter where.  i could pour a tiny drip on her knees and it would make her freak out!  bath time is tough!  crazy kid!

7.   everyday she asks me to "watch show"  and then either tell me, "baby neenus (genius) fishies, baby einstein, or pony show."  she also likes baby einstein farm and things that go.

8.  she loves balloons, books, doggies, and shoes.  she hates anything that looks like a spider and says "nasty spider".  she hates when sadie tells her no (anybody really, but sadie especially ticks her off, ha ha!!;)

she really is such a joy to have in our little family!  we love our lynnles so much!  this age has been so fun to have her at, she's like a little lynlee tornado and destroys our entire house every day, but she's so dang funny and cute that i can't hardly be mad at her!  she's just the best little thing and there's so many things i love about her at this age:)  we're so proud of our sweet lynlee and love her so much, i hope the terrible two's don't hit too hard;)  but i'm probably not going to hold my breath;)  she does have a little bit of sass to her, and despite what trav would have you believe, she does NOT get it from me!  it's all his fault!;)  go easy on us lynnles, we  need to at least have one mellow girl . . . your eldest sister has already taken the spot as drama queen in the family!;)

christmas activities

along with getting the christmas tree put up, my other favorite tradition is going to see the lights at temple square.  I LOVE IT!!!!  and this year has probably been my favorite year ever because it was like, 50 degrees!!!  last year it was 15!  how is it possible that there could be a 35 degree difference between this year and last?!  OH YAH, WE LIVE IN UTAH!!!  so i'll just try not to think about how weird that is and just remember this beautiful and amazingly warm trip to temple square:)

i love pictures of the temple with the lights all around, they may be my favorite temple pictures!

and my other favorite pictures are ones with all my sweeties!  i noticed that i didn't end up with any with lynnles in them!  she wasn't feeling good and was a total crab, but you can see the handle of her stroller so that's going to have to be the only proof that she was there . . . sorry lynnles!

more beautiful temple pics!

i love this one of aiden and sadie, my darling kiddos!

inside the visitors center:)

all trav's family came down too, the kids were so happy to see each other!

 little colty was such a good boy, he loved going to see the lights!:)

 it was so nice to get to go see the lights, i look forward to it every year!  everyone had such a nice time, especially because the weather was so nice!  the kids got to stay at the hotel and play with all their cousins (and go swimming of course!)  they were so excited and had the weekend of their lives:)

our next bit of christmas fun was the ward christmas party.  i've never heard of a ward christmas party being at 8:00 in the morning and we were late of course, but it ended up being pretty awesome!  visiting santa was first, then breakfast, then the christmas nativity by the primary.  the kids were so excited to see santa:)

 aiden asked for a motorized scooter

sadie asked for a kitten

 colty just wanted more milk so he can keep getting fat

and lynnles . . . 

i'm not sure she was interested in asking santa for anything!  except maybe to never have to sit on his knee again!  she was definitely not a fan!  

after santa and breakfast, the primary acted out the nativity

sadie was part of the angel choir

and aiden was a shepherd (he was so excited to bring lambchop!)

my cute little shepherd and angel:)
the kids were so cute and did a great job acting out the nativity!  it's been so fun to get to do a few christmas things this month, i hope we can still get a few more in!  i love this time of year!

christmas tree

i just have to say that i'm so proud of something . . . we got our christmas tree up in record time this year!  the day after we got back from thanksgiving i had it all gathered up, christmas music list loaded, hot chocolate plans awaiting for after . . . i was ready to make a night of it!  i'm still calling it family home evening even though i ran out of time to plan a lesson and we forgot to say prayer . . . oopsy!  still counts!!;) 

of course the littles were so excited! and i must say that i was too, getting the christmas tree up and decorated is that one thing that really gets you into the christmas spirit!  sure it's a little tedious and with lynlee being the pain in the butt that she is numerous bad things were bound to happen, but it's all part of the experience, right?!  RIGHT!!

.

 it was so fun and the kids did great!  they were so helpful and so far there have only been 3 decoration casualties and that's only because we bought all these decorations in the dark ages when glass ornaments were pretty much your only option and we didn't have a house-full of kids to break them all.  totally regretting that decision now . . .

 even colty had some festive christmas jammies for the occasion!  he was cheering us on as we decorated (or fussing because he was hungry, whatever;)

and there it is!  it's starting to look familiar after about 10 years!;)  i'm using the same decorations every year until they all get busted by the children (which might give us one more year if we're lucky;)  one of my favorite things about the christmas season is getting the tree put up and having the lights on at night.  i love waking up (well, not really but you know . . . if i have to be awake anyway!) and seeing it light up the living room:)  and the most exciting part is that we'll most likely get a full 2 months out of it because it usually takes me a month to get it taken back down, pretty sure last year it was sometime in february . . .

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

november random

as it usually does, time seems to be getting away from me this month!  i can't believe november is over and we're already well into december, it's just CRAZY!!

and the other thing i can't believe is how big my baby is!  he'll be 5 months soon and i can hardly believe it.  i have loved snuggling this sweet face these last few months, i'm convinced there's not a more perfect baby out there and i could just kiss his adorable, chubby cheeks all day!

sleeping babies are angels . . .

he loves to lay on his play-mat and watch the lights flash:)

it's all i can do to keep lynlee from looking homeless these days because her bangs are getting so long, but we've made it this far, i don't want to cut them now!  i just keep thinking that one of these days they'll learn to behave themselves and move over to a side or something?!  ah!!

i found her stacking some presents on coltons swing, poor baby!  i hate to think what might've happened if i hadn't-a walked in the living room in time to see this before there was an avalanche . . . if only colton knew the danger he was in at the hands of his big sister . . . as usual;)  she means well, but all i can say is that this little man will grow up to be a tough one . . . he's going to have to be if he's going to make it through these first couple years! . . . ;)

the cute thing is that she really does love him so much, she doesn't mean to try to kill him, she just wants to share things that are awesome! . . . like lucky charms and giant soup cans!  and that one time that she drug him halfway across the living room by his arm wasn't her fault, she just wanted to show him something . . . ;)

the cuteness is almost too much . . .

i love my 2 littlest littles!:)

and big-little-number-two had a big milestone recently, she lost a couple teeth!  well, technically she had them pulled at the dentist (no drama spared including crying in a ball in the corner of the office and refusing to get in the chair for 10 minutes while i was unsuccessfully trying to keep lynlee from visiting strangers in other dentist chairs and colton from screaming his lungs out because he needed to be fed NOW! . . . ;)  but once we coaxed her into the chair and got shrek and some happy gas going, she was good as new and her 2 bottom teeth were out in a jif!  and now she has informed me that she hopes none of her teeth fall out on their own, she just wants to get them all pulled from now on;)  crazy kid!

changing table tummy time!  don't worry, no need to call cps . . . i didn't leave him there;)

we had just enough of a snowstorm for the kids to build some little snow-men.  i thought this one was pretty much the cutest thing i'd ever seen!  even if it does look like it's having an accident on my porch . . . ;)

daddy letting lynlee feed colton . . . so cute:)

facebook post of the day:  "remind me not to give lynlee any more honey nut cheerios . . . apparently she's not the one eating them . . ."  i really don't know how long those were in there, i hadn't even given her any that day!!  i wonder how long she'd been feeding the dinosaur her cheerios!!?  ha ha!!

lynlee always wants to sit by colty.  or hold him.  for 2 seconds until she tries to drop him . . .;)  this day was making me laugh really hard because she wouldn't close her mouth!  i took like, 6 pictures and in every one of them she insisted on having her mouth open like this!:)

 i totally failed on getting any pictures on thanksgiving, but we were able to go home to idaho from wednesday night to sunday and it was so great!!  we got to see everyone and have thanksgiving at gr. ruby's and gr. susan's, we felt so spoiled!  and so grateful for our wonderful families, we wish we could see them so much more!

we even got to visit gr. dick and gr. helen, it was great to see them!  colty loved hanging out with them:)

aiden had fun playing with diesel the dumbest dog ever, he's such a nice dog but a total dummy!  but it's ok, we love him anyway!:)

 gr. susan  got a new horse!  her name's tilly and she's so very nice:)  the kids all got to ride her and i'm not sure that i've ever seen them so happy!  i wish we had more opportunity for them to spend time with the horses, they love them so much!

lynnles and sadie had the biggest smiles!  lynlee wasn't even scared and was in little girl heaven up there with her big sister:)

 hangin' out with aunt jen!:)  he loves his auntie!:)

cute chubby boy that i love so much!  

wow, did it seem like that was a long post of super random pictures??  it did to me!  ha ha!  oh well, i guess it's a little glimpse into our daily life of crazy kids, destroyed house, ridiculous antics, and all that goes in to keeping up with a house of 6! . . . 9 if you count the birds and fish;)  never a dull moment, but i sure do love this crazy bunch!