::our family::

...according to Chloe

goes like this...

Matt

Amy

Chloe

Porter

Cooper

Ava

AVA?!!?

(this is not an announcement, by the way)

She is just completely in love with the idea of a baby sister named Ava (and so am I :) ) She talks about it everyday (everyday!!). Counts "her" in as part of our family, looks at baby girl clothes at the store and says "if we have a Baby Ava, we could get this for her," keeps her clothes/toys she doesn't want anymore in case "Baby Ava" might want them, counts animals/objects in pictures-each one is one of us, and one is also Baby Ava.

Can you believe that?? I swear it not because of me! I'm not quite ready for a "baby Ava" yet. Hopefully a little later, but not yet!! I asked her, what happens if it endes up being a Baby Spencer?? Her face got pretty serious, "well it won't." "We already have 2 boys, now we need another girl so we can have 2 girls."
Makes sense.

::our little late bloomer::

Coopie is 13 1/2 months old, and he doesn't walk. He climbs on EVERYTHING, talks (about 10 or so words), crawls at warp speed, stands all by himself, climbs up and down the stairs all by himself, feeds himself, opens the house doors, turns on the shower ...you get the idea. He's just a stubborn boy! We stand him up and he just sits down. We hold his fingers, and usually he'll walk, but as soon as he doesn't feel like it, he sits down. And it's kinda frustrating. He does just about everything BUT walk!!

...until yesterday!!

He took his first independent steps yesterday! 4 in a row!! From me to Grandma Snowman!! We didn't have the camera ready to get any pictures of the momentous occasion (because who does?), so we tried to just get some of him with the tripod today (on the continuous shooting/al servo), but he was so distracted by the camera shooting (and flashing-cause we had to have a faster shutter) all by itself, that he wouldn't walk. I was kinda bummed that we weren't going to get our shots of him walking all by himself between Matt and I like I had planned, but when I saw them I thought they were hilarious! They make me laugh out loud every time I look at 'em.

I keep telling him he's late. Everyone tells me "he'll walk when he's dang good 'n' ready!!" He would only ever roll over (at first) when I wasn't in the room, and his Auntie Sarah said "you know he gets up and walks around the house when you're not looking." I've been kinda worried about him and his walking and thinking-what if he never walks, but 13 1/2 months is ok, right?

In other news...

I hit a mailbox in the Hahoe today-knocked it right off its post. I looked in the rearview and all I saw was a broken post sticking out of the sidwalk and the mailbox lying on the ground. I backed up and pulled into the people's driveway, picked up the mailbox-laughing the whole time. I rang the doorbell. The guy answered and probably knew immediately what happened when he saw me standing there holding his mailbox. I explained what happened and that I thought I knew him. He asked my name and where we lived. I told him. He invited me in. They are an older couple. His wife was making bread in the kitchen. They said people hit their mailbox all the time. I was fighting back laughter the whole time, (letting it leak out at any mildly funny remark they made) because who does that?? Who hits a mailbox?? So then I pick Chloe up from school a couple of minutes late. It was just her and one other girl standing outside, and she says "Mom what took you so long?" I told her I'd tell her in a minute. As soon as I opened my door, Porter must've already told her, 'cause she says "YOU HIT A MAILBOX????" As you can imagine, Matt hasn't let up on me either. I guess it's payback for my relentless teasing when he broke the mirror backing out of the garage. I think that was way worse than hitting a mailbox though, right?? As for the Hahoe, she's a tank. Just a small dent above the headlight and a little crack in the top of the headlight. Not too bad.

::a late christmas bonus::

Papa Guitar came this last week for a quick visit. He stayed at our house (which is SO fun) for a couple of days.

He played with the kids...

...watched some TV with Portie...

...and he took us out to dinner one night (for some "Utah"-Mex).

We had a little Christmas party with Papa & the Denams at our house.

Papa brought a few gifts :) ...

...and we were excited...

jammies, shoes, boots, clothes, books, some happy kids :)

We had a great dinner (potato soup in bread bowls and salad mmmm!)

Portie, Liam, Chloe, Tristan (Cooper took a nap during dinner)

Time to go...

Liam (being the huntchback-I think)

bye-bye kisses from Papa

We don't get to see Papa for Christmas, so we're so glad he comes out as close to it as he can. We're glad the kids to to see him and give him some little presents too. We had fun with him while he was here. He and I sat up late and just talked Tuesday night and I loved it. We don't really do that a lot, but this time we just kinda talked about stuff and it was precious, and I'll always remember it, and I hope he knows that it meant a lot to me.

Love you, Dad.

In other news...

Chloe and Port went back to school this week after about a 2 week break.

We'd been telling them all weekend that things would be different on Monday and to get ready, so when I woke Chloe up on Monday, so was pretty slow, and she says " here we go, back to our old life. Goodbye new life, hello old life" She was good about it though. She was excited to get back to school to see her friends and her teacher. Same with Port. He got to be snack friend on Tuesday. So he got to bring snacks (Buzz fruit snacks and chocolate milk) and a toy for show and tell. Then on Thursday, they had a special show and tell day for everybody where each kid got to bring a favorite toy to show. He brought his new Buzz wings. He might like Buzz a little :)

::our new years' party::

We had our usual New Years' party at Matt's mom & dad's :)

Here we all are in our awesome 2010 glasses!!

(this is the last year for 10 years that you can make this type of thing 'til 2020-so we had to take advantage)

We had tons of great food...

...played a few games...

...then headed outside for some midnight firecrackers

Matt, George, & Jordan (Amberlee in the background)

New Years' is just fun. We usually do it up pretty mellow. We're not big party animals. We play games, talk, eat, and just enjoy being together with all the family. The kids didn't make it 'til midnight. The all fell asleep at some point before midnight. We're glad for the close family we have, and that we enjoy being together so much. We're looking forward to the new year and and all the new and exciting things that will come with it.

Happy New Year!!

::spontaneous::

It was the 26th (the day after Christmas, aka "play play play all day day"), and we were talking about how we were kinda sad about how Matt's mom and dad were down on the golf trip and we weren't (by we I mostly mean Matt). So we kinda said "ok, let's go!" So we did, and the next morning, we headed South.

The kids did awesome in the car! It's about a 5 hour drive, and the DVD player wasn't working for about the first 2 hours! I thought we were going to have to stop and get a new one on the way down, but it suddenly started working (thank goodness!!).

We got to the hotel...

...and played on these things (like always).

We at at the buffet (not my fave, but Matt loves it).

looking at a big fish tank

The next day while the guys were all golfing, the girls headed into St. George to do some shopping. The kids and I went here...

We saw lots of animals. We were a little scared of some of them, but it was fun. There were even thunderstorms going on inside there with lightening and everything.

Port was a little nervous about the alligator, he wouldn't take his eyes off it.

a different kind of buffalo than we're used to

Coop pushed his stroller a lot

lots of bears-we saw a grizzly from AK that was over 7' tall!

gettin' a closer look



the playroom

the bugroom (we didn't stay in there too long)

The next day we all went to see The Princess & the Frog, and we LOVED it!! What a cute movie! I loved the music and the story and everything! The shadow man was a bit scary (even for Port!), but it was ok. I want to go see it again! I can't wait 'til it comes out on DVD!!

We got home Tuesday. The kids did great on the way home too-even when we all had too pee so bad we thought we weren't going to make it to the next city. Matt kept saying "we're almost there" and we told the kids we're going to stop at the gas station to go potty. Portie said that when we got there he was just going to pee on the gas station. When we got there we were getting our shoes on, Chloe and I walked around the car to help Porter out, and by the time we got him out and zipped up our coats, we turned around and saw a little bare butt. He was peeing right there in the snow where you pump your gas!! Matt and I kinda looked at eachother and laughed. I just said "well I guess I don't have to take him in with me." I guess when ya gotta go, ya gotta go!!

It was a pretty fun trip. We're glad we went. Matt had lots of fun golfin, and he did pretty well-which makes it even better :)

Thanks Grandma, Papa, & Jennie for puttin' up with us and lettin' us crash your party!!

Love y'all!

::Christmas is here!!::

We went to bed around 3:30 in the morning (after getting all of our stuff done). Then Chloe came up at 4 to tell us that Santa came 'cause our stockings had been filled and set on the floor (since we don't have a fireplace, they hang on the garland and then he sets them on the floor once they're filled 'cause they get kinda heavy). So we made her go back to sleep with us 'til about 7:30. She says she watched "that Christmas movie" (Christmas Story) twice. So we don't think she actually went to sleep-poor kid! I bet the suspense just about killed her!

Finally, some presents!! And Santa was good to us...

for Chloe: hair salon kit, princess castle, Ariel v-smile game, my size barbie doll, princess loofas, princess bubble bath, princess umberella, lip gloss, sparkly lotion, princess coloring book...

for Porter: BUZZ!!, buzz blanket with a stuffed Buzz, buzz loofas, bubble bath, woody figures, v-smile cyber pocket, Toy Story v-smile game, coloring book, basketball goal...

for Cooper: lots of clothes, tadoodles coloring stuff, leapfrog magnetic truck thing, trucks, musical globe, a big boy toothbrush (to go with his new teeth)...

all the kids got some playdough, a few games, and some mega bloks

me in my snuggie (I have the same feelings about snuggies as Sarah) :) (Matt & I got some other things too-thanks Santa ;) )

It was a fun Christmas morning. We had our usual cinnamon rolls-another tradition of ours (it was tough too-very time consuming! I thought of Matt's Grandma Halling a lot while I was making those. The whole time I just felt like "why do people do this, just go buy the ones in the tube!!), opened lots of presents, played a bit, had some visitors (Matt's mom & dad and J & Sae (which we LOVE-we love that they all come visit on Christmas morning!!).

After that, we got ready and headed down to my parents' house for more fun and some dinner.

They spoiled us too, as usual...

Buzz wings, buzz & princess dishes, bouncy ride-on thing (for Coop), sticker books, legos, easy bake stuff, bathtime ariel, notebooks.....and lots of fun stuff for the grown ups too.

We had a Swedish Christmas dinner this year-the Denams were in charge of the theme.

Mom did such a great job with the food and the decorations! We had mostly traditional Swedish Christmas dishes. They were different from what we're used to for Christmas dinner, but that's what makes this tradition fun! It's fun to try new things and learn how to cook new things. We ate on mom's fancy dishes and drank out of the fancy glasses-she even had plastic goblets for the kids :)

We had such a great Christmas this year. We do every year, and we're so thankful for that. We're thankful for good health, home, job, and eachother. We're glad we understand the true meaning of Christmas and giving gifts, and we're going to try to remember that meaning throughout the year.

We love you all and hope you all had a Merry Christmas too.