The rest of Christmas Break 2014

One nice thing about having out of town guests is that it is a great excuse to go fun places they haven't been. We decided to take Dwight and Sherrie to Kirtland, Ohio this year to see the temple and church history sites. When we got there we found out that every year they have a huge nativity display with hundreds of nativities to look at for Christmas time! It was so amazing! The small red school house had I think they said over 500 nativities from all around the world. It was so neat!

This was just too funny. Lucy thought it was smart to climb inside the train set box. But then she got stuck. Haha :)

For our 5 year anniversary, my parents gave us their tickets to the Penguins game on New Years Eve. I love sporting events, but I have never been to a hockey game and can't say I expected to ever enjoy watching the sport. But sports in Pittsburgh are ALWAYS fun so I figured it would at least be a fun date night :) And it was! We decided it may just be our favorite sporting event to attend. We had a blast! And we got to go on a date. Alone. Which doesn't happen near enough :) It was great!

We obviously need some practice taking selfies :)

 

Lucy took a picture of Papa and Grandma :)

AND Lucy spent some quality time in the kitchen helping Papa to make steak fries :)

Christmas 2014

For Christmas this year, the whole family was in town. This hasn't happened since the Thanksgiving before my Grandma passed away. Here are some of the fun attempts at getting a picture of all of us together :)

Dwight and Sherrie flew in from Utah to visit us as well. They stayed for about 2 weeks and the kids were just in heaven :) We loved having them visit. They are so good to us and they love the kids with all their hearts, even when they drive Jared and I crazy :)

I made Noah a quilt for Katie and Brad's Christmas present. Even though it ends up requiring late nights and little sleep, I really do love to put a quilt together and see the final product :) Hope he likes it!

We did our own thing Christmas morning (with Dwight and Sherrie, obviously!) and then went to Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Steve's for their Christmas gifts. Timmy was mostly interested in eating all the left over bowls of M&Ms from the Christmas party the night before.

 

Timmy got a train set from Grandma and Grandpa Aitken. Probably the coolest train set ever. We play with it just about every day. Until Samuel makes his way over and destroys it :)

 

Everyone got fantastic gifts this year, we even got passes to the Zoo, Children's Museum, and Aviary which we love. But the best part was having so many people in town and spending all our time with our family. We have one big family, with so many cousins. It really is so fun. And having Dwight and Sherrie in town was so nice. We loved having visitors, they are always welcome :)

December 2014

December was an extra exciting month, as usual. We had our church Christmas party which was fun. The kids got to meet Santa, who was handing out candy canes. Well, mostly they stood as far as they could away while still making it apparent that they wanted a candy cane. It was not a tearful experience but it was funny. Definitely some scared faces conflicted by their desire for candy :)

Sammy has started lifting his little bum up in an effort to REALLY crawl, and not just army crawl.  It is exciting but sad at the same time. I was always so amazed at how fast that boy could army crawl! He always looked so cute and determined. He is our first kid to army crawl, Lucy and Timmy just went straight to plain jane crawling, so it was fun to watch.

 Lucy is still obsessed with dress up clothes. This is her Snow White outfit she got for Halloween from Grandma Sharon this year. This girl LOVES these dresses and basically spends all day in them.

 Literally EVERYONE was in town this Christmas, which was awesome. We obviously have our own place to stay at which is nice, we got to avoid the chaos of a million people in my parents' house especially during nap time and bed time. We spent a ton of time over there, of course, though so that we spend time with everyone. Our kids LOVE playing with their cousins!

Sammy got his leg stuck in the crocodile dentist. How funny is this :)

Timmy has discovered how to take pictures with my phone. Add his pictures to Lucy's pictures and I delete about 1.000 pictures a day off my phone. I hate it, but I always find a few gems to keep so ya know, always a silver lining :)

We got our Christmas decorations out this year. Last year I didn't venture. I was pregnant and they were all the way in the back of our storage closet and we were coming home to PA anyways for 2 weeks so I didn't bother. We got out lots of fun stuff and the kids loved it. And I have to say, it was totally worth it. It really helped me feel like it was Christmas and feel the spirit of Christmas that is just so comforting and exciting. Our kids especially LOVED the Fisher Price Little People manger scene. We practiced naming all the people and the kids loved to play with them. They were really interested in hiding them all in the Christmas tree as oranments one day. Sammy, he mostly just liked to eat them :)

 

A week or so before Christmas we got to go visit my Grandpa and my Aunt and Uncle in New York. I love visiting them. I always realize when I am there how much I miss them. Grandpa always cooks us dinner and Sunday morning Aunt Nancy made us this breakfast casserole that was AMAZING. I have found that I really love driving with Jared and our kids are champs when it comes to road trips so I look forward to making this drive much more often. I am so glad we live close and can visit often now.

While we were there we visited my Grandma's grave. I have never been there and right around Thanksgiving this year when we were deciding when to go visit them I kept having this feeling like I needed to go visit her grave. It ended up being perfect. We were there on my Grandma's birthday and her grave is just beautiful. Aunt Nancy keeps a mini flag stand with flags for each season and holiday right next to it and Grandpa bought the Christmas wreath for this year and had it up.

Aunt Nancy and Uncle Tom drove with us to show us where the cemetary was and it was nice to spend some time with them there. It was a really positive experience for me. I wasn't sure if I would feel grief or sadness while there or miss my grandma a LOT by being there, but I didn't. I just felt like this was a good memorial of my grandma and felt a lot of peace knowing that she isn't there, she is in heaven. I know that is true. I could just feel it. It was also a good reminder to me of how much I love my uncle and aunt and how blessed we are to have each other and to share such wonderful memories of such an amazing lady. I love my family. We really are so blessed. And I know my grandma is up in heaven watching out for us and just loving us to death like she always has.

 Lucy's dance class had a mini recital where they let the parents come and see their kids do a Christmas dance they learned to the song Suzy Snowflake. I was super excited to go and my dad wanted to come along with us as well. Jared even ran to the store and bought her some candy and some flowers for after her "performance." Well, as you can see, Lucy is in the back row absolutely REFUSING to dance. What a goof! She is probably the most stubborn person I know. She never really gives a good reason for why she refused to dance, and she has NO problem saying prayers and talking in the microphone at church, but for some reason the attention she got during dance class just was too much for her. What a stinker :)

Christmas Sunday was great! It was just a few days after my birthday so we had everyone over after church and after dinner for apple pie dessert. Other than the fact that some sugar dripped in the oven and caught on fire (we contained it, no biggy!), the pies were delicious and we had fun playing games. My sister Johanna wasn't supposed to come til the day or so after Christmas but she surprised us all (except for my mom, i think) and showed up at our house for the birthday party!

Look at these three handsome boys in their matching Christmas church clothes :) Johanna wasn't here yet, or Conrad would have joined in the fun.

November 2014

We stayed home for the month of November but we really enjoyed ourselves :) Sammy started to crawl (army style) and loves to scoot around finding all the toys his big bro and sis leave on the floor.

I went to some training and have been hired as a substitute water aerobics instructor at the local YMCA. It is nice because it is an as-needed time commitment which I love and we get to use the YMCA at a discounted rate. Lucy and Timmy were SO excited to have a gym with a toy room again that they can play in while I work out. Sammy doesn't seem to mind it either and now that it is cold I am so glad I can exercise indoors instead of running outside in the freezing cold mornings.

Thanksgiving was at Grandma Sharon's and Grandpa Steve's house. We had Rachel's and our family as well as my dad's cousin Marcy's family there. It was awesome. Great people and great food and great games! We brought all the board games and card games we could find and had a blast. I made the mistake of adding a few hours of work that night for holiday pay but will never do that again. I wanted to keep playing games!

Here are some cute pictures for you of our random happenings:

Timothy has become quite the reader. He loves to hide in random places around the house and read books to himself. I love watching him flip through the pages and and make up stories or retell the ones we've read to him.

 

We had our first "snow" this month and the kids insisted on playing out in the snow. They LOVED it.

We had lots of fun playing with play dough one day. Lucy made a birdy (she copied what I did to make a birdy and she did an awesome job!).

Then we made snails!

For Thanksgiving, Ellie and Grace came over to make turkey sugar cookies. I was mostly just adult supervision. I gave them the recipes, they made the dough and icing, and Ellie designed the turkey decorating. They are awesome (and delicious)!

We also had a super crazy windy evening and woke up to find the mailbox on the ground! So we went out to investigate and take pictures for the landlord :)

Last but not least, look how big our baby is!!! Sammy is getting SO long it is so crazy!