Lights

One of the best times to live downtown is in December! It's so nice to be able to walk to the lights. Of course December is always a busy month, so we haven't been able to go as much as we would like. William loved pointing out all the stars and was such a good sport about staying so bundled. I think one of my favorite parts every year are the luminaries. They always remind me of my Grandma Tyler. Every year before our big Christmas Eve party at her house, some of us grandkids got to go set up the luminaries in front of her house, leading up to the front door. It always looked so magical when we pulled up later that evening.

 We have such a hard time getting William to look at the camera, and when he does he rarely gives a good smile. Too busy looking at everything else. But this time, right as the nice lady was about to take the picture, he yelled "CHEESE!" and gave her a big cheesy grin!

 We can't believe Christmas is over (even though it never really feels over until New Years). We are glad the lights are up for this week as well!

from the mouth of William

Today William was being particularly wiggly and goofy, but desperately needed his fingernails clipped. So what do I do? I turned Cars on. William climbs up on to the couch with me and excitedly watches the opening THX sound advertisement. He's seen it enough to know what is coming. But this time, when the Disney castle comes on to the screen, William gets unusually excited, points and says "Temple!"

He might love Lightning McQueen, but at least it's not the only thing on his mind!

babies and big brothers

Last week we got to go to our cute nephew Dallin's baby blessing. He is such a sweet boy! Andrea humors me and lets me take pictures of him. I can't get enough of his sweet little face.

In the last few days William has taken quite the liking to babies. We were over playing with Andrea, Thomas, and Dallin yesterday, and William could not get enough of him either. I was holding Dallin, and William came running up to me, trying to get to Dallin. I told him he could hold him if he sat down on the couch by me. He's never attempted to hold a baby before, so I was surprised by his sudden interest! I held Dallin in his lap and William sweetly wrapped his arms around him, too. It lasted about 20 seconds and he wanted to get down and play, but every couple of minutes after that he'd come sit by me, open his arms and say "hold!" Every time I lowered Dallin into William's lap, William took on the calmest, most tender disposition I have ever seen.

Then today while we were over visiting Candace and cute baby Rosemary, he did the same thing. He just wanted to hold Rosie. She wasn't all too thrilled about it, but he sure was! He was saying her name the rest of the day.

It was so sweet to see a glimpse of what a sweet big brother he'll be! I know he won't be like that all the time, and I know it'll be a huge adjustment for him, but I can't wait to see that tenderness in his eyes when he holds his own baby sister!

Essential Swimwear

I don't know how many people actually read this, but just in case you do I thought I'd pass on a great deal. My friend Brittney has her own business, designing and selling swimwear. They are really cute swimsuits, and they are all on sale right now(65% off) to make room for next year's line. The swimsuits and bottoms are really cute and modest! You should check it out. Here is the website: essentialswimwear.com

Christmas trees!

As is tradition, the weekend of Thanksgiving we went up to cut down our Christmas tree! In the past we've been able to go up with the Tylers one day and the Youngs the other, but because of conflicting schedules we were only able to go once. We left early in the morning, and drove up to the usual Young spot. It was FREEZING. But we bundled and hiked up. William and I ended up spending part of the time in the car because it was so cold, he couldn't hike, and it was too hard for me to carry him through the snow (he wouldn't ride in the backpack and Danny was in charge of carrying the tree back down, so he couldn't carry him either). But Danny found a perfect tree, and by the time everyone had hiked back down with their trees it hard warmed up enough that William and Thomas had fun playing in the snow.

 Here we all are with our trees. Danny's cousins are on the left, with Mel and Joan's tree in the middle, then Spencer and Andrea's, then ours.

It's always the debate if Mel found one under the 20' limit!

Luckily, William has been really good with our tree at home! We tell him to be soft with it, so he always pets the branches and gives it kisses. He loves having the lights on while he's playing, and will often take his stuffed animals, turn their heads towards the tree and say "wow!" What a goof. It sure is nice to have the tree up! 

painting the shower

We got a new laptop and I am loving it. It’s amazing the difference between our old one and this new one. I think I might actually post regularly now that it won’t take up all of my naptime break to post anything! It’s so much faster! Anyway, has anyone used Windows Live Writer? I’m not quite sure what it is, but I’m trying it. It claims to make blog posting easier. We’ll see how it turns out…here’s a test post.

I don’t know how many of you have seen something similar to this on pinterest:

but William and I decided to try it. It’s tub paint. Well, shower paint for us. It took me a few colors to figure out what was the easiest way to go about doing it, but it is a hit! I went to Smiths and got some of the cheapest shaving cream I could find, and some that wouldn’t smell too bad (I didn’t want to smell like a man all day). The method for mixing the shaving cream and food coloring that worked best was just putting one side in the hand mixer, putting shaving cream in a cup and fluffing it up with the mixer, and then mixing in the food coloring. Then use a spatula to put it into the cup. We had the whole try in just a few minutes.

It was a hit. We decided the shower would be better than the tub, because then he couldn’t get it all over the bath tub, and also because the shower is less slippery than the tub floor (even though once he started painting the floor he had to sit down because it did get a little slippery)

The shower also made clean up easy. He loves taking showers, and then he could just use the wet paint brush and “unpaint” the walls. He was easily in there for an hour before we turned on the shower water. (note to self: make sure you wash off his hands before turning on the shower. He went to rub the water off his eyes and filled them with shaving cream. Ouch.)

He did try to taste it at one point, but quickly decided the flavor wasn’t for him!

Lightning McQueen even got in on the action!

He sure is good at hamming it up! The picture above and on the right is him showing me how Lightning McQueen sticks out his tongue during the opening race of the movie. We’ve done the shower paint a couple of times and I’m sure we’ll do it a lot more as the weather gets colder!

Thankful

SOMEDAY...

• The kitchen sink won't be full of dishes


• The laundry baskets will be empty, and there won't be a mound of clothes on top of the dryer waiting to be folded


• William's clothes will be in his drawers instead of folded (or not folded) on top of the dryer


• I'll forget about the heartburn that accompanies pregnancy


• I'll finish cutting William's hair


• I'll finish organizing our apartment


• Our kitchen will have more counter space

BUT... until then I have...

• An incredible husband who spoils me and William (and baby girl) rotten. He works so hard and takes such good care of us!


• did I mention that he is a husband who always makes sure his wife gets enough sleep?


• A sweet little goofball who gives his mother as many kisses as she wants. He'll be such a good big brother!


• A precious baby girl coming just months away


• An apartment that smells so good because we put up our Christmas tree


• Fun family and in-laws who make holidays like Thanksgiving so much fun


• A mother who reteaches us daughters how to make pies every year


• A fun apartment just blocks away from Temple Square. Downtown living is the best. (Just a few months until Harmon's opens around the corner! woo hoo!)


• and since the lesson I had to give on Sunday was on Elder Bednar's talk on Family History, might I mention that I have been thinking about some of the amazing ancestors I have who left such incredible examples for me to try and live up to

We had a very fun and very busy Thanksgiving weekend. We have so much to be thankful for here in our little apartment, and it was nice to be able to think about it all week!!

Keeping busy

With the colder weather, William and I have had to be creative in our little apartment. Because he could drive cars around all day, one of our new favorite games is making masking tape towns. Last time we added a few fun twists. First was going up the couch. He loved the houses that were on the side instead of on the flat surface.A second thing we started to add were letters. William has been fascinated by letters lately. One of his favorite books is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and he loves playing Starfall on the iPad. He picks out letters everywhere we go. When walking up to Smith's, he'll point to the big red sign and say "S!" or point to the "P" on the P1 of our parking garage. He notices them everywhere. So our little town had some letters added to the neighborhood. It was fun to watch him drive over the different letters as he'd say each one outloud. He could pick out atleast 2/3 of the alphabet for you. Another common game we've been playing is "let's sort the paper." We love getting the weekend papers, and William loves sorting through it for us when we are done reading. Our front room is usually covered in paper on Monday mornings before we throw it all away. There is just something fun about the crinkly sound it makes...But even with all the cold we are glad to be able to catch the warmer moments and slip outside!There's nothing like going for a walk through the fall leaves!

Binky Free!

William amazes me. Seriously. Everytime I am worried about how he'll handle a new situation, he takes it head on and doesn't look back. Of course there are exceptions, but getting rid of the "gink" was not one of them.
We won't go in to too many details here, but for weeks I'd known this day was coming. He'd been really good about only having it for naps and bed time, but then he got sick and needed it, and then we babysat for 2 weeks, and I was glad he could have that extra comfort during such a crazy time. But then it just became more of a hastle than a help. So I braced myself for a good 3 to 5 days of misery.
I'd really been feeling bad, like he wasn't ready, and maybe I wasn't ready, but we knew with baby girl coming, it needed to happen sooner than later. Well, last Monday, for the first time, I felt strongly that he was ready and that I was ready, so I braced myself and we snipped the tip!
That night when we gave it to William we explained to him that we were so sorry, but that it was "broken". He asked for a different one and we told him they were all broken. We gave him his other bedtime necesities (elephant, sippy cup, and a car) and a kiss goodnight and left a sad little boy crying in bed.
The part that amazes me? He only cried for half an hour. I think the time change helped because he was a little more tired That was the last time he cried for his binky! I helped him fall asleep for his nap the next day, but no tears. There have been times when he's been sad because of something else and says "gink?" but after reminding him that it was broken he stopped asking for it. He just got it.
Then a few days later he happened to open the drawer where I'd stashed the broken binkies, but he didn't even look at them. I asked him if he wanted to put them in the garbage because they were broken, and he took them from me and threw them away himself. Woo hoo! The binky was a HUGE help when we needed it, but it's nice to be moving on!

He is constantly surprising me with what a strong little boy he is. We couldn't feel more blessed to have him and can't wait to see what a good big brother he'll turn out to be!

(Pictures are from a hike in Park City)

Happy Halloween

We had a fun and busy Halloween this year. William the Fireman had fun trick-or-treating at Grandpa Tyler's office (picture to come) on Friday. We were a little late so we missed the parade, but it was fun to help him go to each office door. He totally got the candy thing. He'd walk (run) from bowl to bowl, pick out the most colorful piece, say thank you, stick the candy in his hat (because he wouldn't wear it), and run to the next door. By Monday we got him saying "kick-o-keet." We spent time at Grandma and Grandpa Young's on Saturday and Sunday decorating, hanging out with cousins and eating yummy Japanese food. We went to Danny's office on Monday, and then around our building, and then to Grandma and Grandpa's street for some real trick-or-treating. That went well except that he wanted to go in to all of the doors that opened. Luckily we knew the people!

After visiting Danny's office on Monday we found a tempting pile of leaves in front of Big-O-Tires across the street from our apartment. He loved rolling around, throwing them, and crunching them under his fireman boots. I love his face when he counts to three before he takes off running. He was so cute the way he'd carry around his dalmation like a dutiful fireman!