Christmas!

Wow, we had a wonderful Christmas. On Christmas Eve we drove around looking at Christmas lights. After we got home, we each opened one gift that had matching PJ's that Andrew and I made. Then set out cookies for Santa that Keagan, Deker and I had made earlier that day.
When the boy's woke up the following morning, they found their Santa gift and looked in their stocking. They both got computers which they have loved playing with. In their stockings were doodle boards, fish & fishing pole (which Andrew and I made) and a few treats.

For breakfast that morning, we made Santa Pancakes which were very yummy. I found the idea last year on Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. Here is how they turned out.

After breakfast we opened the rest of our gifts. The boys each got a toolbox with a toolbelt (that Andrew and I made. I found the idea on Here), books, puzzles, firehat and few other misc. things. After that, we spent the rest of the day, playing with our new toys, relaxing and packing for our trip to Nevada.

The next day, we traveled down to Southern Nevada to spend some time with my Mom and Dad, brothers, sisters and their families (27 people in all plus 2 on the way). I don't have many pictures from this part of our Christmas, but should be getting some soon.

We exchanged our gifts (the adults drew names earlier in the year as did all the cousins). On Sunday we all went to church with my parents then had a very delicious Christmas dinner. The girls then escaped to throw a little baby shower for my sister-in-law Melissa who is due in 2 weeks. Then back for yummy dessert.

Deker was quite taken with the babies (his twin cousins Emmalyn and Brooklyn). Anytime they were in the room, he wanted to hold them. Hopefully that is a good sign and he will be a good big brother when our little one arrives. Keagan had a blast playing with all his cousins and was quite upset to be leaving.

We had a fun time this weekend getting us more in the mood for Christmas. We started off by going on a Sleigh Ride with Santa Claus. It was pulled by 4 strong reindeer (an ATV) and Santa even had christmas music for us to listen to.

Here is us with Santa on our sleigh ride.
Here is what the whole thing looks like (This wasn't taken by me, it was from where we found out about it).

Then on Sunday morning, we decided to have Christmas Tree French Toast which turned out very yummy!

Yummy Peppermint

This time of the year always makes me want peppermint candies and all things peppermint. Around Thanksgiving, Andrew and I bought a package of peppermint oreos and boy were they delicious.

With Andrew gone today (he left Wednesday morning to drive a route to Eastern Idaho and wont get back until this afternoon/evening) my two little helpers and I put on our aprons and got into the kitchen this morning to try our hand a making our very own homemade Peppermint oreos. The boys and I had so much fun mixing, licking the spoons and bowls (the most important job) and rolling all our dough into little balls.

Keagan wanted to roll all his into little snakes and Deker just wanted to do what the rest of us were doing. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of us while we were working but here is a picture of the finished product. They were are so Yummy! I just posted the recipe on Smithalicious, you can check it out by clicking here.

Santa Clause is Comming!

On Monday night we braved the Mall crowd and took Keagan and Deker to see Santa Claus. Deker, of course, didn't want to have anything to do with him. Keagan, on the other hand, surprised me and was very excited to talk to him and see him.

On the drive there, Keagan wanted to know where his Reindeer and sleigh was, so I told him to ask Santa. He did and Santa told him that they are at the north pole eating healthy food to get strong for their journey on Christmas Eve.

Next Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas. Do you think he asked for any kind of toy? No, he wants a green present and in the green present he wants Santa Jammies. This has been his answer for the past couple of weeks. I have no idea where he came up with that.

By the way...Deker is only smiling in this picture because he was walking toward Andrew and noticed that Andrew had the camera.

Yummy Toffee

My talented Sister-in-law, Matti, makes the most delicious Toffee. She has perfected her recipe throughout the past several years. Matti has recently opened an Online Toffee business called Bella Toffee. So, if you are in the market for some delicious Toffee, check out her Website.

Snow!!!!

On Saturday morning, we woke up to snow on the ground. Keagan & Deker were so very excited! So, in honor of the snow, we made Snowman Pancakes.

Here is our family of Snowman Pancakes.
Keagan proudly displaying his Snowman Pancake.

Deker proudly eating his snowman pancakes complete with smearing it all over his face.

After devouring our yummy pancakes. We bundled all up and proceeded outside to shovel our huge driveway.

Needlesss to say, we all had a great time. Unfortunately, about 30 minutes or less after shoveling the driveway, it proceeded to snow again, a lot. So after naps, Keagan and Andrew did it all over again.

Baby #3

As some/most found out from my Halloween costume, we are now anticipating the arrival of Baby #3 to arrive in our family this Spring. My due date is May 23, but because of my history with my two previous boys, I am expecting this one to make its arrival anytime after the end of April.

My first appointment was the end of October and they did an ultrasound and everything looks good so far and they also confirmed that there is just one growing in there (since I now have two sisters that have twins, I was anxious to get that confirmed).

My second appointment was this past Friday where we heard the heartbeat which is always exciting to me. At my next appointment is just over a month, we will have our big ultrasound and hopefully find out if we will be having a boy or a girl. After which I am excited to be able to start sewing and getting things ready for our new arrival.

Thanksgiving

I know this is a few weeks late, but I decided better late than never. For Thanksgiving this year, we hosted all of Andrew's family and my Mom & Dad and my brother Neal at our house. There was a lot of people, but it was a lot of fun. I kept forgetting to get out my camera, so I don't have a lot of pictures from it. But here is a sampling of what I got.
Olivia seemed quite taken with my Dad.

She also seemed quite taken with my brother Neal even though he couldn't get down and rough house as much as he usually does (he wrecked on his 4-wheeler the Friday before which resulted in a broken collar bone among other things).

Even Aubrey sat down with Neal for a few stories.

Halloween!

Last night was our ward's Trunk or Treat. It started off with a yummy Soup and Pie cook-off (we won the prize for the best pie...Recipe coming soon to Smithalicious). After eating, everyone went outside to Trick or treat at each car. We all had a great time. Here are the pictures of our costumes. If you look closely at my costume you will see the announcement we made last night.

Here is Deker as our cute little White Tiger. He wasn't a huge fan of the hood and kept taking it off.
Here is Keagan as "Mr. Giraffe". Last night, we put Keagan's costume on and then I said "Keagan, go upstairs and get some socks". He said "I'm Mr. Giraffe". I then had to say "Mr. Giraffe, go upstairs and get some socks". To which he then said "O.K." It was like that with everything.

Here is Andrew all dressed up as Spaghetti & Meatballs and ready to give out Candy to the Trunk or Treater's.

Here is a picture of the whole family.

All in a Day

Today we had the privilege of having Daddy home all morning and afternoon (he had to go into work tonight at 7:00 to drive truck all night). First thing this morning Andrew went out and mowed our lawn. We bundled Keagan up with his coat, hat & gloves, but since Deker has a little cold, we decided it best if he stayed inside. He sat in our window seat and watched Daddy out the window the ENTIRE time he was out there. At one point I even tried to get him dressed but he went straight from the window in our room to the window in the dinning room. Then when Andrew went to the front lawn, he was pretty sad until I opened the front window blinds and showed him where Daddy was.
Keagan has loved to "play" the piano for quite some time. He puts his songbook up on the piano, turns pages and plays and sings songs. He even sometimes makes up his own songs. Deker has recently discovered the joy the playing the piano as well. Usually, he would just stand on one side of the bench and play, this afternoon he insisted on getting up on the bench with Keagan. It was a cute moment that I just had to capture.

Deker

Cleaning
Deker has decided that he likes to clean the floor. In the past week or so, I have seen him using anything from his socks to rags. Tonight after dinner, I was cleaning up the kitchen and wiping down the countertops. I put my rag down for a minute to put something away and when I went to grab it again, I couldn't find it. I started looking around and Deker had taken off the counter and was wiping the floors. He then spent the next 10 minutes or so, going to different places and "wiping" the floor.

Deker's First Haircut

The boys have been needing their hair cut for a while now, so tonight we actually got around to it. This normally would be anything blog worthy, but today was Deker's first haircut so I wanted to make sure it was documented. He didn't think to much of it, but we got it done in the end.

Trip to Salt Lake

Two weekends ago, we went to Salt Lake to be with my sister, Jeanette & her husband Jeff for the blessing of their twin girls. We had a great time visiting with my family that weekend. On Saturday, we went to Wheeler Farm and fun feeding the ducks, looking at all the animals, going on a tractor pulled hay ride, went throughout the corn/hay maze (much better for kids than adults) and we each picked a pumpkin.

That that my sister-in-law Matti threw an amazing Fall party. She had pumpkin shaped bread bowls, yummy soup and homemade rootbeer. After eating, we ate doughnuts from a string and bobbed for apples. The night was completed with yummy dessert and singing Happy Birthday to Andrew because his birthday was in a couple of days.

We had a great time visiting with family and Keagan and Deker really enjoyed playing with their cousins.

Giveaway on Smithalicious

What to win an AMAZING prize? Head on over to Smithalicious to enter to win. Hurry over because the giveaway ends on Friday at Noon!

Preschool!

Keagan started Preschool last week and LOVES it. We are doing a co-op preschool this year where each of the Mom's take turns teaching. On Monday we were ready to go about 10 minutes too early (I just had to walk him down the street a few houses) and he kept saying to me "Now I go to preschool Mom" over and over. I am glad that he gets to go, but Deker and I miss him while he's gone. When I tell Deker it is time to go get Keagan, he gets very excited.

In other news....Have you ever seen a white boy with an Afro? One morning this week, I was in my room getting ready for the day and Keagan came into my bathroom and wanted to comb his hair with my pick. He then insisted on taking a picture of him with the pick in his hair. So, here is a picture of Keagan with his lovely Afro.

To the Zoo

This past Friday, Andrew was driving truck for the company he works for (they are helping him get is CDL so that he can start driving full time). Because he was going to be gone all morning & afternoon, I decided to take the boys to the Zoo. We haven't been in a really long time and both boys really enjoyed it. We walked around for a while, then sat and ate the lunch that we brought with us and then finished seeing all the animals. For the fun of it, we wandered into the gift shop at the end and Keagan kept asking if he could have different stuffed animals. The one that has the hardest to say no to was when he picked up the Penquin and said "This Penquin needs to come home with me!".

We had a lot of fun being outside and looking at all the animals. Because Keagan has been into Giraffe's lately, that was his favorite part. Deker's favorite part was anytime I took him out of the stroller and he could try out his new walking skills. Keagan has so much fun, that on Saturday morning when we asked him what he wanted to do that day, he said "Go to the Zoo!".

I haven't yet figured out how to take pictures when I am on outings with the boys. Any tips on keeping both boys together, getting the camera out and getting them to look at you all at the same time would be greatly appreciated. Here are the few that I got of them looking at the camera.

Update Time

We have really been enjoying our summer and I haven't taken very much time time to post about what is going on with our family. Hopefully this post won't get too lengthy. But, that is the beauty of Blogging, you can just stop reading whenever you want and I will be none the wiser.

Painting

Ever since we moved into our house, I wanted to add more color to our house through accent walls, decorations, curtain, etc. The problem is that is all seemed too everwhelming and expensive. A few months ago, though, I realized that we could do a little here and a little there and it didn't seem too daunting after that. So, I talked with Andrew and we decided to start with painting a few accent walls. After pondering and discussing for a while, we decided to do a light blue accent on the back wall in our living room and a dark red color on the back wall in the kitchen/dining room. I loved how it turned out and can't wait to add more color through curtians and other decorations.

Family in Town

In the middle of August Andrew's sister, Anna got married. All of Andrew's family was in town. We had alot of fun having everybody here. For their wedding, Andrew and I decided to make them a personalized game board complete with personalized checkers. I was very pleased with how it turned out. I got the idea for the present on the website The Thirfty Chick.

The day after the wedding, we all went to Settlers Park which has a really big playground and a splash pad. The kids and some adults had fun getting wet.
Keagan's First Birthday Invitation

This past week, our next door neighbors little boy turned two. Keagan got to attend his very first birthday party by himself. It was a fish theme and Keagan seemed to have a great time. I took a picture of him before he left, but forget to take one when he got home.

A weekend with Daddy
This past weekend was the first weekend in a long time when we had Daddy at home with us for the whole weekend. Boy did we have fun! On Saturday evening, we went to Katherine Albertsons Park, walked around and fed the ducks.

Lots of Bananas
When Andrew came home from work on Thursday, he brought home a box full of bananas. We have been trying to use as much as possible before going they go bad. We've had bananas in our cereal, in shakes and banana splits. Then I went online to look for things to make with bananas. We found a recipe for Strawbana Bread, which turned out really good. The recipe can be found on Smithalicious. We also made regular banana bread that day.

When we were making the Strawbanana Bread Sunday morning, Keagan was watching a cartoon. I asked him if he wanted to come unwrap the sticks of margarine, which he loves to do. He came into the kitchen and said to me "I don't have time to help". But a little later, when it came time to lick the bowl, he had plenty of time to help.

Deker's Hair
For the past month or so, I have started to notice some changes happening to Deker's hair. Usually, after baths and stuff, I would brush Deker's hair down and in the past month or so, I have started noticing it curling in some spots. I finally came to the realization that Deker is starting to have curly hair when one morning after Deker's bath, I combed it down and then once it was dry there were several spots when it curled on its own. So...I guess we now have two curly headed boys.

Time to Walk

A few weeks ago, Deker started taking a couple of steps. It started with me standing him up, backing away a few steps and he would take 2-4 steps and then fall. After experiementing with that for a few weeks, Deker started to test out the walking waters even more. This past Wednesday afternoon (Aug. 26), Andrew was at work and the boys and I were downstairs. Deker was at the coffee table and he walked to the entertainment center, touched it, turned around and walked back to the Coffee table. He did that quite a few times (probably at least 6 or 7 times) and then stopped. Then Friday while we were all home, he started doing the same thing. He did that same route about 5 or 6 times and then started going longer distances. He would go from the coffee table to the piano and back. Then from the coffee table to the kitchen table and back. It was so fun to see him testing it out and realizing that he can do it. Here is a video we took of him this morning out on our driveway.