Winter Fun

Here's a picture recap of the last several weeks:

For Christmas, my sister got us a gift card to a trampoline park. We went once in January and the kids loved every part. On Fridays, they offer a time where only kids 5 and under are allowed and the entire place is open to them. It was a great time!

Loved jumping on the trampolines.

Building together at Home Depot.

We thoroughly enjoyed having my sister come visit again in January before she left Texas. The kids adore her!

A friend from church gave us a candy sushi making kit for Christmas. For FHE one night, we made it. This is Tanner's face after trying to eat it. I'm guessing it was disgusting but the kids loved making it.

My sister, Ashton, and I went to the Crocodile Encounter place and Ashton loved feeding the turtles and holding all the animals.

Learning to make silly faces with Aunt Trescha.

Ashton and I had one more Mommy/Daughter day in Houston before baby sister arrives and Joe's crazy work schedule begins. She decided to go bowling for our activity.

The bowling place was a family fun center so she had a few extra dollars to play games and win a few prizes.

Another Home Depot workshop. Ashton is getting pretty good at hammering. Tanner loves that he is now old enough to participate.

Our nice neighbor brought some lady bug cakes from the store to the kids. They loved them! Sadly, Ashton now thinks I can buy these at the store every week. Too bad! They are pricey.

We had a busy week watching two of our neighbor's kids while the parents went on a cruise. Ashton shared her room with them and it went really well. We also watched their dog so River had a playmate too. We took the kids to the local aquarium and Ashton could have stayed there all day touching the crabs and asking questions.

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.

Pre-Christmas Festivities in December

We had a lot of fun with family visits, #LightTheWorld, and other Christmas activities this month.

Joseph's parents came to visit a few days before and after a cruise they went on. We went to Home Depot to their builder's workshop.

Put some hooks in the entry way closet and Tanner had to help.

Always decorating the Christmas tree.

My parents arrived about 12 hours after Joseph dropped off his parents at the airport. We spent a few days in town and then all went to my sister's RV/campground about two hours away for a few more days. Ashton enjoyed a sleepover at my parent's hotel and then again at my sister's RV. With my parents, we visited the beach, collected seashells, ate yummy food, went to the sea center in town, and played at the park a lot. At my sister's place, we found a few fun parks, rode our bikes around, and enjoyed playing games with family. We celebrated Christmas between us and had a delicious Christmas dinner as well. Joseph stayed back to work so it was just me and the kiddos.

Took a trip to the children's museum with my parents.

Walking Molly around the RV park.

It snowed in southeast Texas! The last time it snowed here was 2004 so I keep reminding Ashton that this may be the only snow she sees until she moves away. I woke up around 11pm and asked Joseph if it was snowing yet. If it was, I planned to wake Ashton up to experience it as I thought the snow would melt by morning. It wasn't snowing yet so we all went to bed. It was quite surprising to wake up the next morning to about two inches of snow in our backyard. I woke up Ashton around 7am and covered her eyes until she was by the backdoor. Her face was very confused when she saw it as she had little idea what it could be. We spent most of the morning playing outside, coming in to warm up, and then heading back out. We had a snowball fight, slid down the snowy slide, and tried to build a snowman. It is a day I won't forget as I saw snow through a child's eye. Tanner liked it until his hands became too cold. The one downfall of the snow is that it seems to have killed our carrot crop. Good thing carrots are cheap. However, Joseph and I agree; we still don't miss snow. We are very happy with an extra hot summer where we can swim at the beach rather than being stuck in white snow for months on end in the winter.

I love their reaction. They just weren't quite sure what to do.

Playing after lunch time with the little snow that was left. Tanner was over bundling up and preferred to just go out in his diaper.

Each town in our area does a "Christmas in the Park" night and we made it to our town's and one other. Because of the cold temperatures, it wasn't as busy as it normally is, which was great. It meant our kids got more one on one time with Santa. We roasted S'mores and played at the park in about 35 degree weather.

Riding the little train they had.

 Tanner had his post-op appointment in Houston a week before Christmas. It went alright; the doctor is nervous about one aspect so we will see him again in the summer and determine if another surgery is needed. Good thing we will have a baby next year so we'll meet our deductible no matter what! After the appointment, we rode the Hermann Park mini-train, had a picnic lunch, and played at the big park there.

Typical response from the kids: Tanner is saying, "Cheese" and Ashton is giving me the scowl.

We had our neighbor over for dinner one night and she goes all out for our kids! We don't even need to buy them presents after what she purchased for them. Ashton got eight Disney Princess dolls and Tanner got a few fun toys that he loves. We are very fortunate to have a good neighbor and love her interaction with our kids.

We had a few church Christmas parties. At the Spanish one, they always do fun games and a pinata. The kids loved it as always.

A common sight lately. Tanner is thoroughly enjoying coloring with his sister these days.