Trip to the Frozen Tundra

It's been a little cool in Texas lately. Ashton is tired of it. She complains when it's below 60 degrees. When my grandma passed away and I announced that we would be making a trip to Wisconsin, Ashton didn't want to go. "It's too cold," was her reasoning. We had quite the adventure getting to Wisconsin and once there, Ashton decided the snow wasn't so terrible. However, if you ask her now, she has no desire to go back until the snow is gone and it's warmer. My little Texan girl.

My grandmother was an amazing woman. My grandpa passed away in 1995 and my grandma stayed strong and active for so long. She continued living in their home for many years and I have fond memories of visiting her to bake cookies (but she never let me eat the cookie dough), having cream soda, playing on my grandpa's workbench, filling the bird bath, and playing "accountant" in their basement. She loved seeing our kids and I am sad she won't get to meet our baby girl. I was planning to come in the spring so she could meet her.

She passed away on January 12 and the funeral was the following week. Due to Joseph's hectic work schedule and demand right now, I knew it was going to just be the kids and I traveling. We booked our tickets to leave on Tanner's birthday. The day before our flight, weather predictions suggested a terrible ice storm coming to Houston. The airlines allowed us to change our ticket for no change fee. School districts were closing in preparation for this so I decided to go ahead and change our ticket to the next day. In hindsight, I don't think it made a huge difference as Wednesday was even worse in my opinion.

Our flight was at noon so we left the house at 8am. I was up most the night checking weather forecasts, road conditions, flight schedules, etc. to ensure our flight was leaving. For most of the morning, main highways were closed in Houston. We hit icy patches the whole way there and the roads were empty. We arrived at the airport at 10am and the lines were insane! It took us two hours to drop off our bag and make it through security. By the end of that, I had almost run out of snacks and entertainment for the kids as Tanner was just stuck in the stroller and we couldn't leave our spot in line. We were the last ones to board our plane with five minutes to spare before closing the cabin doors. Picture this: me at 32 weeks pregnant pushing Tanner in the stroller and Ashton on my back in our carrier running full speed through the Houston airport. I'm sure everyone laughed as I ran by but we made it. Good thing I work out every day!

Our flight ended up leaving the gate late so we had to run once more at the Chicago airport to make our connection to Wausau. Then we arrived in Wausau only to discover our luggage never left Houston. Ugh! Thankfully, it showed up the next day with my brother's flight just in time to change into church clothes for the funeral.

The kids enjoyed the snow. Tanner lasted a lot less than Ashton when we would go outside. He wasn't a huge fan of climbing up the sledding hill all the time. Ashton loved sledding and riding the snowmobiles around. We played lots with family and enjoyed our few days there. We left Saturday morning and our flights were much smoother on the way home. Although, I don't think I'll be flying with the three kids by myself this fall. It was exhausting!

2 Year Old Tanner

Tanner is two! His birthday celebrations were a little crazy due to our last minute travel plans to Wisconsin. I initially planned our trip to be on his birthday but due to weather delays, we were home for his birthday and flew out the next day. Good thing he's two and didn't notice that we didn't have cake on his actual birthday.

Here's some favorites for our two year old!

Favorite book: Anything Daniel Tiger or football related. For Christmas, he received Daniel Tiger 5 minute bedtime stories and that is a favorite.

Favorite toy: Balls, anything with buttons that makes noise, his bike. Tanner isn't too picky with toys. He'll play with almost everything. His ultimate favorite toy is most likely whatever Ashton is trying to hide from him.

Favorite word: He doesn't really say one word more than others. He does like "dog" and will shout it anytime a dog comes by. "Daddy" is another favorite. He probably says about 50-75 words or more and has started putting two words together. Often the phrase includes the word, "no." He loves singing "Wheels on the Bus" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes."

Favorite show: He really likes Little Baby Bum with the nursery songs. He sings along to most of them.

Favorite Outing: The park. This was Ashton's favorite too. We visit the park almost every day after naps and he loves climbing and running around.

Favorite food: Anything with a sauce to dip it in. Chicken nuggets, salad with ranch, banana in peanut butter, etc.

Favorite activity: Climbing something around the house. He loves when I forget to lock the closets and he finds new things to climb.

Height: 36 inches, which puts him in the 85 percentile. If the predictions are close, he will be about 6 feet tall. He's slightly taller than Ashton was at 2 years old. But he has short legs. He still wears 12-18 month pants that fit and his 2T pants are long.

Weight: 31 pounds. Two pounds heavier than Ashton was at this age. He's a big kid. 85 percentile for weight as well.

Tanner is an active little boy. He never stops moving unless he's asleep. He is a great sleeper though, which is helpful. Most nights, he sleeps for 11-12 hours and then naps for 2-3 hours each afternoon. He rarely wakes up at night, which is much appreciated considering another baby on the way. We love our little boy!

He thoroughly enjoyed every visit from my sister over the past few months. It was wonderful to have her in town to celebrate his birthday a few days early too.

Trying so hard to blow the candles out.

Holiday Festivities

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas and New Year's last year. It was pretty cold during the break so we did our best to get outside when we could. This snowy and cold winter has definitely confirmed to us that we enjoy living in the South and have no intentions of moving back to a cold state. I'd take a hot and humid summer over a freezing and snowy winter any day.

Ashton helping wrap my stocking gifts that she came up with

Santa came to our house one night.

The preschool program day. Tanner did great standing in front until he saw us in the audience. I ended up sitting with him in front.

Ashton loved the program and did great!

Ashton knew a little bit more about Santa this year but was still pretty oblivious to it all. She knew he came in the middle of the night but that was all. I even wrapped the Santa gift in different wrapping paper but I don't think she would have realized. If you ask her now, she has no clue what Santa brought her versus what she got from family. I'm glad she's not overly into it as it helps her appreciate who got her gifts instead. Her favorite gift is the little kid sewing machine and sewing kit that my parents sent.

Singing Christmas songs together

Tanner loved Christmas morning and was much more into playing with each present than opening them. This appalled Ashton as she was determined to open every present before playing with them. Tanner has really enjoyed the magnatiles that the kids got together and Ashton's scooter.

We went to church Christmas Eve and then laid low that day. We did our traditional movie night with the mattress in the living room. The kids actually laid down/rested for most of the movie. Last year, Ashton was still all over the place during the movie so it was nice to enjoy it this year.

In preparation for Christmas Day dinner at our house, I planned to make a blueberry cheesecake on Christmas Eve. I started it in the afternoon and did a water bath for the first time. I also used a different recipe than my normal "go-to" one. Well, the water bath failed miserably and water got into the pan (despite the multiple layers of foil to keep it out), which made the crust soggy. The rest of the cheesecake was perfect. I was out of cream cheese and it was Sunday night. I knew I wouldn't have enough time on Christmas Day to get it baked and cooled in time for dinner as the stores that were open on Christmas Day didn't open until late morning. I found a few friends who had extra cream cheese and we piled into the van around 8pm to go get them. I set out to make another cream cheese that night but this time, I used my trusty recipe. This recipe requires about 3+ hours of baking. The cheesecake finished right before midnight and the last step of the recipe is to turn up the oven to 500 degrees and bake it for 5-8 minutes just to brown it a little. So I did that like I always do. Well, five minutes in and something on the bottom of the oven started to burn and fill the house with smoke. Smoke alarms starting going off and woke up Joseph and Ashton (Ashton was sleeping in our room already for some random reason). It took us 15 minutes to get the smoke out and the alarms to stop going off. Miraculously, Tanner slept through the whole thing despite the smoke alarm in his room going off too. It was a yummy cheesecake on Christmas day.

The finished cheesecake

Christmas morning was filled with presents and eating crepes. We had a few families over for dinner that night, which was fun. The kids played well and we enjoyed some adult conversation at the dinner table.

Always a satisfaction when your rolls do just what you want them to.

The week between Christmas and New Years was more laid back. I took my gestational diabetes test and passed! Although, I am still anemic so they increased my iron intake for the third time this pregnancy. Ugh... I also was able to go with the church youth to San Antonio for a day. We planned this trip to go to the temple there because the Houston temple is closed for several months due to flooding. It was a long day of lots of driving but well worth it in the end.

The pizza slices where we had lunch with the youth.

For New Year's, we got together with a few families and did a countdown to 7pm. The kids had a blast playing PieFace and some other games. The entire family was asleep well before midnight and I woke up to the fireworks in our neighborhood to remind me that it was the new year.

We're getting back into the swing of things now. BYU-Idaho started this week as well as the kids going back to preschool. Just 6-8 more weeks until our life turns upside down again with baby girl's arrival. I asked the doctor if he would intervene in any way after 39 weeks as Joseph's mom is coming at that point. He laughed and said I won't be making it to 39 weeks given my first two deliveries. We'll see about that.