Christmas Time

We've had loads of Christmas parties this season, the time has really flown. All of a sudden we're here in WA with my family, what I've been excited about for the past 3 months! Unfortunately we already uploaded our pictures from our camera to our computer of our Ward Christmas party, our 3-D five foot tall paper machee-ed snowman, courtyard nut roasting party and other festivities so we can't post any of our pictures with this post. I will pull a few off of our friends blog illegally so you can at least see our Frosty. (Just look at this as free advertising, p-dogg, you're pictures are amazing)


We drove 14 hours from our home to Chris' aunt and uncles in Seaside, OR. Its crazy that during our short one and a half day visit, they get the nastiest snowstorm they've seen ever. In fact the local news gave it a name: Arctic Blast 2008. Sounds like a movie. So now we we think of the beautiful coastal town of Gearhart, we'll picture a snowy beach town covered in ice. We had lots of fun talking and hanging out with Chris' family and cousins. They're sense of humor is very enjoyable and its fun to see Chris looking like the shrimp next to his offensive-line sized cousins.

Now we're enjoying the once-a-year snow fall here in Tacoma with my family. After today, everyone will be home: 12 adults, 1 tween, and 9 grandchildren under 5 years old... including 6 boys between the ages of 2 and 4. Its going to be crazy.... crazy fun.

Blessing Day

Chris gave Charlie a name and a blessing today. It was a bit eventful with our bishopric forgetting about us and with Alec being a handful during the blessing. Lesson learned? Next time we bless a baby, ask someone (a friend, or hopefully a family member) to help with the younger children so I can focus on listening to the blessing. Anyways, from what I heard, Charlie received a wonderful blessing. Three parts that stood out to us said he was blessed with a love for work and service, that he would have compassion and see the needs of those around him and that he'd recognize and magnify his talents. To celebrate this special day, I'll post some recent pictures of Charles smiling. He is so adorable and happy and wonderful. We're lucky to have him in our family. Look forward to an upcoming post about the ward Christmas party and a friend's 30ish kid nativity pageant the boys took part in.

Stroller Happy

Thanks to the generosity of many, we got an amazing double stroller that we love. We are stroller happy. We got the Phil and Ted's sport stroller in Navy earlier this week. I've absolutely loved using it. It rides so smooth and has so many options to fit my current and future needs. Alec loves riding it. While the Phil and Ted's works for me, its fun to think that other kinds work for better for others. I'm glad I live at such a time when we have so many options in life. Enjoy these fun pictures of our first outing to the park using our new stroller.

Brothers

Here are some fun pictures of both Alec and Charlie at the same ages, in roughly the same positions or outfits. I think they look very similar! Please ignore picture quality as I was only focused on choosing similar picture content.

Pictures 1

Pictures 2

Pictures 3

If you want to guess which one is which, go ahead and make your guess. I've posted the answers in the comment section already so click the comments section to see if you're right!

Thanksgiving

We had a fun Thanksgiving here at home. The festivities lasted pretty much all week, ranging from basketball games for Chris, shopping for me, outtings for Alec and food for everyone! We made dinner with a few friends but planned on having it after bedtimes so we could actually sit and enjoy the meal. So, in order to give the kids a fun Thanksgiving we went to the free dinner for Stanford's graduate students at a nearby building. They had a guy dressed up in a turkey suit for the kids. Our friend's boy said, "Whats that monster?" when he first saw the turkey. Yes, it was that scary. Alec had to be looking at the turkey at all times whenever it was in the room with him. He was quite concerned about it.

We contributed rolls, jello, mashed potatoes, gravy, apple and blueberry cream cheese pie to our Thanksgiving dinner. Everybody's everything turned out really good! That might be in large portion due to the fact that we were starving and exhausted by the time 7:45pm rolled around. The house was clean and the company was really fun. After dinner we sang Christmas carols around the piano and talked till late. It was almost like being home with family. I just love the holidays!

favorite things

With a new baby in the house, there are many things that quickly become new favorites. Like a full stack of clean blankets, diapers, wipes and burp rags in every room, or the baby swing to put Charlie to sleep in when I need to play with Alec, or Easy Mac, and canned Costco chicken. The new favorite thing that I really wanted to blog about was my wrap. Ok, actually its my friends wrap, but who cares? This thing is awesome.

I love it for the following reasons. Charlie usually falls asleep whenever he's in it. It keeps my hands free to do things like the dishes or dig in the sand with Alec. Its way more comfortable on my back and shoulders than any other carrier I've used. There are no 'digging in' places, since the wide fabric is evenly dispersed around me. There are many different ways to put babies of any size in it. I like the way it looks on people. It fits Chris just the same as me, no altering straps. However, like most things, there are some draw backs. It does take a little bit more time to put it on, and... and what? That's it. That's the only thing I don't like about it.

Speaking of favorites, a non-baby-related favorite is homemade scones. Growing up, sometimes Chris' mom would make bread and save some dough to make scones for dinner. They put BBQ beef, like a sloppy joe mix, inside some for dinner then jam and honey inside others for dessert. Yum, Yum. We tried making them on our own this past week and they actually turned out pretty good! We'll definitely add them to our list of favorite dinners to make often.

Picture Post