Parade of Gingerbread Homes

This spent this past weekend up in Cache Valley with Seth's family.  Seth took Friday off of work so we headed up early in the day.  After unloading our car full of gear...Phin got his first taste at Grandma Jo's castle building blocks.  

Seth built a few towers and Phin was right there to knock them down.

We enjoyed lunch at my favorite Mexican place in Logan and then came back to watch a couple of Redbox movies.

Later that evening we headed to Downtown Logan for the Parade of Gingerbread Homes.  We bundled Phin up in his coat and blankets.

There were some pretty spectacular gingerbread homes.

This one had some Swedish fish ice fishing going on.  I loved the bridge and the cobblestone details.

This one was made completely of fondant and had a few mermaids.

There was also a Wizard of Oz themed house complete with an Emerald City.

This theater gingerbread house was pretty cool.

We stopped for a photo in front of City Hall.

Then we found my favorite... a Victorian House.

We even walked by the creche next to the tabernacle.  I seem to remember a much older creche the last time I was in Logan.  I think they must have replaced it recently.

A huge castle was next up...

...followed by a barn...

followed by a few minions.

We had a great time on this Parade of Homes and hope to make it a holiday tradition.

Christmas Lights

On Monday night we headed down to see the lights on temple square.  We bundled Phin up in his winter jacket and hat.  He looked a little like Randy from A Christmas Story all bundled up.

Our first stop of the night was the North Visitors Center to see the Christus Statue.  Phin had pretty big eyes the entire time.  

Then we headed out to see the lights.  Some of my favorite lights are in the area between the Assembly Hall and the Tabernacle.  

Seth brought some 3-D glasses that turn all of the lights into snowmen.  They were pretty trippy.

As you can tell in the picture below Phin was pretty enchanted by all of the lights.

Here is a picture of Phin looking a little more like Ralphie when we put the 3D glasses on him.

We were lucky enough to convince my brother Scott to join us.  We also just happened to run into Beth, Philip and Eliza down there as well.

Seth also took Phin on a little 3-Wheeling adventure on the snow in front of the temple.

It was a delightful night and I am extremely grateful for a husband that will venture out in the cold with me just for the sake of  "tradition."

Thanksgiving '13

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.  It was so nice to have Seth home for a few extra days.  We had Thanksgiving dinner at Bart and Collette's place.  I was in charge of the pies this year...which is one of my favorite jobs.  I made a banana cream, pineapple paradise and good old pecan.  I also bought a chocolate peanut butter and lemon meringue from the store...they were just $2.99 and I figured I couldn't make them for that price.  Sadly I forgot to take a picture of any of the pies...or of any of the yummy dinner food...but I did get my camera out in time to catch a picture of my sweet nephew Benny pretty much licking the pie tin clean.  He doesn't look like he is enjoying it...but he did.

On Black Friday I got up at a fairly reasonable time and headed down to Smith's Marketplace to buy some pajamas and socks for Phin...I know pretty exciting right.  That was the extent of our Black Friday shopping this year.  We headed over to lunch at Beth's and Phin got to spend a little tummy time with his cousin Eliza.

Aunt Tawnya was sweet enough to entertain Phin while we played a couple of games.

The fun continued that evening as we headed to a cousin dinner.  My cousin Rachelle was up from New Mexico.  She emailed a group of us hoping to get together and my Aunt Harriet was sweet enough to reserve her ward building and arrange for a pizza dinner.  We had a wonderful time catching up...and wish that New Mexico was just a little closer.  Here is a picture of Phin with Rachelle's two youngest children, Griffin (16/17 months) and Brynna.

Rachelle was sure to get hugs from all of the new babies.  Here she is loving on James.

After dinner a small group of us got together to play Small World.

My mom was sweet enough to hold Phin while we played.

 We had a wonderful time and were reminded throughout the weekend how grateful we are for our family.

6 MONTHS

Phin turned 6 months earlier this week. We were a little late getting his picture so he was a few days past his half birthday for the photos below.  He had his 6 month check up this week and he weighs 19 pounds 2 ounces and is 28 inches long.  That puts him in the 79th percentile for weight and the 92nd percentile for height.  We think he would have weighed more...but he is just getting over his first cold and his lower weight was likely due to his lack of appetite...and the large amounts of milk he threw up all over his mama multiple times a day.

He is still wearing size 3 diapers.  He is sporting mostly 9 and 12 month clothes these days...although he still fits in some 6 month bottoms.  He has become quite the talker and will often chatter before he falls asleep.  He is babbling...mostly reduplicated with /d/...which means he is saying dada.  My mom swears that he has said "Nona" and I think I may have heard "Mama" a time or two.  One of his nicknames this month was ARCHIE because he has perfected arching his back...usually when you don't want him too.  He has become quite a bit more mobile and can maneuver all over to get where he wants to.

His mobility is also making it a little bit harder to get his pictures as demonstrated below.

He is still a pretty good sleeper...except when he was sick.  There were a couple of nights where he was waking up each time that he coughed...which was ever half hour to hour.  It was miserable...and made us realize how lucky we have been to have him sleeping through the night since he was 6 weeks old.  The past two nights he has been back to his normal self...and we are very grateful.

Phin loves music.  He loves when I sing to him...even though I don't have a great singing voice.  He also loves to listen to music with his daddy and getting pretty good with his dance moves.

We started introducing solid foods again.  He doesn't seem to mind rice cereal mixed with breast milk.  We have started to add mix a little bit of other foods into that and he is starting to adjust.

But what he likes even more than food is the taste of his bib.  At almost every meal he manages to get it up in his mouth to chew on.  When I am not feeding him fast enough he puts his face down on his bib and licks up the food that didn't quite make it in his mouth.

He also likes to bend over and chew right on his booster seat chair.

He is drooling quite a bit and if we don't put a bib on him he gets the fronts of his shirts very wet.  We thought this might mean teeth were on the way...but not yet.

He has gotten to that stage where he prefers to be down on the floor rolling around rather than in our arms.

He has discovered his toes this past month and can often be found playing with them...

or playing with toys with them.
..

We couldn't resist buying him a flannel shirt and a hat just like Seth's.

Santa came a little early for Phin.  He got a jump-a-roo and he loves it.  Below are two pictures from his first venture.  It took him a few minutes to acclimate but he is in love.  If we are holding him and he sees his jump-a-roo he looks at it very longingly...like please let me play with my toys.  He looks like an Irish dancer the way he pushes off with his toes.

Phin continues to find very interesting ways to sleep. Our favorite moments are when he falls asleep on our shoulders.

He is getting pretty good with his hands and likes to play with his toys when he is in his car seat.

We got a few fun pictures of him around Thanksgiving.   I had a grand vision of getting a turkey that weighed the same amount as Phin.  It took quite a bit of perseverance...apparently there was a shortage of large turkeys this year.   I finally found this 20 pound Butterball at Costco.  Phin weighed pretty close to 20 pounds before he got his cold.  So here is a shot of our two Butterballs.

Don't those drumsticks look delicious.

Seth thinks Phin looks like a body builder in the picture below.  It cracks us up when he flexes all of his muscles this way.

We put up our Christmas tree last Saturday.  Phin loves to look at the lights.  Most nights we can be found gathered around the Christmas tree watching the lights and listening to Christmas music.  We are pretty blessed.