Arizona Trip

We had wanted to fly to AZ before Tristan turned two and we had to actually pay for him to fly, but it just didn't happen but we decided to go anyways and make it a road trip to visit the Cox's.  We drove to St. George and stayed overnight with Ryan's grandparents.  The next morning we were on our way. We stopped in  Vegas for lunch and then some kind of time warp happened and we just couldn't seem to get out of there!  I won't go into details but some sort of combination of getting off a bad exit for gas, our gps re-routing to avoid traffic thru a national recreation park (Lake Mead) which of course was super busy on a sunny sunday afternoon, stopping at the Hoover Dam, feeding Ivory, another traffic delay, that instead of arriving at Annaliese's house around 4 as we had planned it was more like 7:30 and I don't think we could have handled one more minute in the car.  Luckily that was the only day of our trip that wasn't super fun.

Hoover Dam -  Tristan walked up to the dam and stuck his head in between the railing and roared, that was his reaction to the Hoover Dam.

St. Patrick's Day hike and hanging out at the park.

Thanks to Annaliese offering to babysit we got to go out one night to a really fun with super good food mexican restaurant, it was awesome..... And if you have to have a 3rd wheel on your date this one's about as cute and good natured as they come!

 We went to the train park in Scottsdale and it was really cool! The weather was perfect, and Tristan loved the choo-choos's but the carousel ride there was the biggest hit for him.

THis pic (below) is actually from a different park but I didn't get one of us riding the train at the actual train park. But this park near Annaliese's house was a pretty good one too!

Ivory got her toe nails painted for the first time and it reminded me of when we painted Addie's toenails when she was a baby and that must have been like 5 years ago, man time flies! We also had a fun girl's night going to the AZ museum of art

It might not look like it in this picture but Tristan loved hanging out with his cousins!

 On our way back we stopped in Vegas for a night and it was super fun!  Tristan loved swimming at the hotel pool and we did our usual going to the Bellagio and seeing the Gardens and fountains!

Side-note, I realized on the way to Vegas that about 8 years ago I went with this guy I liked to St. George and Vegas in March during his spring break and I thought that trip was either going to make us or break us and its crazy that 8 years later in March during spring break we were there again, married with our two kids, aww how sweet!:)

 In St. George we went to a new children' s musuem there and it was so cool for kids! Tristan loved the costumes and no one had to tell him what to do with a microphone!

Birthdays and Blessings

This month flew by especially considering it was March, which I feel like is usually a slow month, but this month it was chalk full of  fun goings on.

Starting off with Tristan's 2nd Birthday!  The day of his birthday was pretty chill. We went to our favorite little donut place for breakfast  and then I pretty much let him eat whatever he wanted, watch tv when he wanted and  thereby avoided any possible meltdowns and he took like a 3 1/2 hour nap. I had been planning on doing a fun activity with him, but since he slept the afternoon away he was fresh for his mini little birthday celebration at Chick-fil-a with the family, (Grandma Cindy, Erin & Jake, Penny & Tim) We did not however take into account Monday in Utah Valley (family night) and fund raiser going on at Chick-fil-a, so it was super busy! Tristan got some cool presents, plenty of pop, chicken nuggets, ice cream and a little bit of playing in the play place.  He was extremely wary of the big chick-fil-a cow walking around the restaraunt but other than that I would call it a success.

That saturday Grandma Sue and Uncle Richard and Libby and Elliot were in town and we celebrated Tristans's birthday at Chuck E Cheese. I underestimated the business of that place on Saturday afternoon!  It was very loud and busy so after the kids got to ride as many rides as they wanted we sang Happy Birthday ate a few cupcakes and quickly relocated to a park. The park was so much more fun, I wish I had thought of that from the beginning.  We didn't take a lot of pics, not even of him blowing out his candle, which I am bummed about, but here he is on one of the rides with his cousin and we only have video of him opening up his presents at the park, but its too long to post, and I should have my video editor husband edit it down but I'm afraid if I go downstairs to fetch him I might get sidetracked and not finish this blog I started last week. 

The next morning after Tristan's party was Ivory's blessing.  Ryan gave a great blessing and we had family and friends over for breakfast!

Ivory and her grandmas!

Penny entertained the kids with bubbles!

The group!

All tuckered out later that afternoon!

Tristan is almost 2!!

And when you ask him how old he is he says two and holds up one finger (Someone asked him how old he was and we were like, oh yea, we've never thought to teach you that, so Ryan taught him how  to say two and put his fingers up but Tristan responded with one finger and Ryan was like Yea, good job, thinking, he got the general idea, (mistake in retrospect) but now we can't undo teaching him that and get him to hold up two fingers, oh well.

I've taken a bunch of funny pictures of him over the last couple months that I thought deserved a blog post especially with an upcoming birthday!

One day I heard some distressed yelling and came downstairs to see this...

We got him a little mini tool box so he could help dad out with projects, which he loves!

He is pretty sweet with Ivory (most of the time)

So, I saw a coupon in the mail for this bouncy house play place and decided to take Tristan there, expecting him to love it, and he did, but just not playing with anything there, he spent the majority of his time going in and out of the door, which was frustrating because I constantly had to keep going to get him as people were trying to get thru the door and Tristan wasn't too happy about that and if I did manage to get him away from the door he spent the remainder of his time begging for the treats that were there, sigh!

The gym class we signed up for was not a success but open gym time was, although its right about when nap time starts so the end can get a little dicey.

He loves cheese.  I got this block of cheese out and cut him off a few pieces like I normally do and then left it sitting on the counter top to nurse Ivory, next thing I know he's somehow got if off the counter and is eating it like an apple!

A play place that was a success for at least half an hour!

One day when Ryan got home from work he took Tristan outside (lots of construction going on in our neighborhood) since we hadn't left the house all day and made all this little boys dreams come true, I'm guessing this is frowned upon by the const co

First time at the disney store

 When daddy does Tristan's hair, haha!

This boy brings so much joy to our lives!  I love that he does his own thing, even though most of the time its not what I want him to do.  He is so wonderfully excited about life! I feel like each week he is changing and getting older, learning new words and becoming more and more of a little boy!

Fun in the snow!

Most of the winter I spend complaining about being cold and cooped up in the house, but we went with some friends to Idaho and spent a fun weekend actually enjoying the snow. We got to do some sledding, snowmobileing and snowshoeing, and equally as fun, hanging out, playing games and eating good food (healthy food since we were on our health challenge)!

Ivory - 2 months

She had her 2 month appointment this week, although she is getting closer to almost 3 months!  I am so sad that it seems like her baby hood is going by way too fast. She is a healthy girl!  She weighs 12 pounds, about 50 % and is in the 60% for height.  Tristan didn't weigh that much until he was almost 4 months old.  The doctor said she should be in a baby contest because of her beautiful eyes, hair and skin, he probably tells all moms these things, but I like to hear it anyways:) She took her shots like a champ, the worst was when I was putting her in her carseat to go home, I poked her in the eye accidentally and that was just one too many hurts for her:(   She's the sweetest baby, pretty smiley, unfortunately she has to learn to entertain herself since she has a pretty attention demanding older brother.  She loves Tristan tho anyways, she always has a smile for him.  Right now she's a mama's girl and since Tristan's a daddy's boy right now it works out.    These are when she's almost 6 weeks old

 (These ones are right before discovering she'd gone poo and it was leaking out her diaper so she has a funny look on her face)

  I need to take more pictures of this girl, here are a few

 All bundled up and ready for church

 So small in this big bed

 haha, looking a little worried here..

Hello 2014

As I review 2013, I realize I completed none of my goals. I know that because I can not even remember what all my goals were.  To rationalize, I did get pregnant, decide to buy a house, move, and have a baby, I should've probably still been able to complete whatever those goals were... but I didn't.  This year, my goal is to make goals every month of what I want to accomplish.  For January, we are starting a health challenge (similar to the ones Annaliese has done) but this one we are on a team, that we pay money to enter, so I'm hoping since we are accountable to other people it will really help us get into better habits and lose weight.  It goes for 2 months so watch for an update... My other goal in January is to get our family room more decorated.  I am hosting a baby shower and Ivory's baby blessing  on the last weekend of Jan. and hoping to get it looking more finished before then.  Oh and last but not least, sleep train Tristan, again, he goes to sleep in his bed so easy at night and then wakes up in the middle of the night and sleeps the rest of the night in our bed.  I never thought I would let my kids sleep in bed with us on a regular basis, but somehow its happened and I want my bed back!