Deck the Halls

This month has been so busy but so much fun. We've certainly enjoyed the Christmas season and all the festivities that come along with it. We visited the Mesa Temple christmas lights, attended ward christmas parties, decorated our tree, visited Santa at Bass Pro Shop, played at the riparian preserve with cousin Lucas, enjoyed the relief society progressive dinner, attended an ugly sweater party (which I won the ugliest by the way), had a special stake conference with Elder Cook, laughed through 3 white elephant gift exchanges, bought and wrapped presents for native american children in downtown Phoenix, and of course, we've enjoyed time with family! Oh what fun!

 

 

 And lastly, we improved our curb appeal by painting our door, updating the hardware, painting the doorbell button,sanding and painting the wooden door frame, and adding a stainless steel kickplate. Our entryway was so ugly and i've been wanting to change it since we moved in two years ago.

 It's more of a darker red in real life. This picture makes it look sort of orangy and bright. What do you think?

The Phoenix Zoo

We took advantage of this perfect weather and enjoyed a long morning at the Phoenix Zoo. When we were about to buy our tickets, a lady came running up behind us and said, "Wait, I have 4 zoo passes that expire tomorrow, can you use them?" Woo hoo that worked out so well. We walked, looked at animals, ate our sack lunches, and fed Preston in the zoo's quiet rose garden. It was a lovely day for sure!!

 

November

 

This month was really fun. We're all into a routine now, getting more sleep, and enjoying the beautiful weather outside. Here are some activities we enjoyed during November.

 

1. I joined the young women and young men of the Stapley stake on a 10 mile trek from our stake center to the new Gilbert temple. It was awesome! We started at 6am and it went so well. I walked the first 6 miles, then Sean brought Preston to me, I nursed him, then I kept Preston with me and pushed him in the stroller for the last 4 miles. It was a great experience.

2. We went to a firetruck museum in Phoenix with hundreds of old firetrucks to look at. The best one was the one we were allowed to climb on and take pictures in. Grant loved it.

3. We bought new, warm, fuzzy, Christmas jammies and had to model them a little early.

4. We've been racing cars down our awesome race track. It's a large pool noodle cut in half. It has provided hours of entertainment. Looks like a giant celery stick to me.

5. We've been practicing with our new camera and the boys are patient enough to be my models over and over again.

 Oh how I adore these cheeks and this adorable, chubby chin. Preston is sleeping 9-10 hours a night now, woo hoo. Go Preston.

 And of course, no post would be complete without mentioning that Grant is beyond obsessed with the movie Cars and all of its characters. He loves nothing more than Cars.  =)

 

 

6. Thanksgiving was fabulous this year as always. We spent it with my side of the family. Unfortunately, we were too busy eating to take a picture, I guess.  =)

New Family Pictures

This year, for the first time ever, we took our own family pictures. I wanted to try out my camera on the tripod with the timer. Boy, it was tough to get everyone happy, centered, in focus, and still run and be in the picture myself. Whew, I'm glad we don't have to do that for another year. =) These are some pictures that we took. They aren't amazing but they are good and I'll be glad to have them years from now when kiddos are grown-up.

 

 

Happy Halloween!

 Picking out a pumpkin... 

 

and painting it instead of carving--much easier, much cleaner, and much less dangerous.

And Preston's large cheeks and lips for your viewing pleasure. And he's balding now on the sides and back but the top is still his long, newborn hair. 

Precious boy giggling and showing off his adorable personality.

Can you tell what Grant was for Halloween? (The doggie costume was too hot and too big.) He's a red lego block. It was simple and inexpensive to make and he got so many compliments on it. What a stud.

And my sweet, round pumpkin. The jack-o-lantern part glows in the dark too.

Ruff Ruff

Our friend lent us a doggie costume for Grant. Oh he was excited to try it on. Here's our little doggie (the only one we'll ever have) named Bo Bo.

 

Here's our little Preston at 3 months old on Oct. 2, 2012. He's over 15 pounds now.

 

We finally got a picture of Grant with a genuine, adorable smile. This is the face I'm in love with.

And this is the second face I'm in love with. Preston smiles, coos, and even laughs. How precious he is at 3 months old. I love that we are out of the newborn phase.  =) And guess who finally slept through the night? That's right folks. My little boy is doing better and sleeping longer and all of us are much happier.

Between conference sessions we went to the temple. Grant ran up to the reflecting pools and said, "Mom, take my clothes off so I can go swimming." We had to have a little lesson on how we don't swim at the temple. We then went to the visitors center and he saw this statue and excitedly announced, "Mom, Jesus is here!"

Afternoon Projects

I try to have some type of "arts and crafts" project for Grant every day. Usually it's just coloring, drawing, etc. But last week I got brave and got out the paints and brushes. Grant absolutely loved it and did well at keeping the paint on the paper. Here is our budding artist using a paintbrush... 

 

and then using a cut-up potato as a "stamp"(we saw this idea on tv).

 Later we found the harry potter glasses in our halloween box

 My crafty project for the week was these fabric pumpkins. These were really fun and cheap to  make. (The fluff inside is plastic grocery bags.)

 And while we crafted, Preston held down the fort in his tough-guy camo outfit.

Falling for Fall

I am so excited for fall. It's officially here. The mornings are cool and wonderful. The planning and decorating for halloween has begun. Grant has been practicing saying "trick or treat" for a few days now. He's beyond excited to get candy.

 

 

Preston tried on his pumpkin halloween costume.

Daddy and the boys built a fort while I was at a yw meeting. Grant is eating a lemon inside his fort. I never knew anyone liked to eat lemons plain.

Experimenting with my new DSLR camera. I have a long ways to go but i'm excited to learn.

Enjoying the splash pad one more time before the water gets too chilly.

Just another picture of my sweet boy who still doesn't love to sleep. =)

And guess who got a big boy bed? Yep, we finally transitioned Grant to the bottom bed of the new bunk beds we bought. I really like how they turned out and he's actually doing quite well with the change.

 

Grant loves his stuffed animals and has to sleep with all of them.

Preston's room is finally complete. He is out of the pack-n-play and into the real crib. I'd still like to make a crib skirt sometime--we'll see if that happens. And it's too warm for quilts right now, but as soon as it cools off we'll take that rag quilt off the wall and use it to keep warm. =)

 This is the blank wall I finally filled up. I got the custom vinyl off etsy and added a large version of Preston's baby announcement in the frame. I like how the elephant theme is on the valence, the ottoman, and the wall.