Made a yummy first day of December breakfast-mmm! Decor is all up and I'm LOVING it. Zac took the boys to Home Depot for their first Saturday workshop. Grandpa Newell went too and the boys had a great time. Started our December dailies tradition. So much fun!
Since it's rare that I'm in pictures with my kids, we take a lot of kid + mommy selfies.
Happy birthday to Brenda Ball today {1st}. She is a huge blessing in my life and has adopted me as a surrogate daughter. Love her heart!
Taught sharing time. Christmas devotional and dinner at L&K's. Yummy, great thoughts, and great company.
Boys at Taylor's most Tuesdays & Thursdays. They LOVE all her fun projects. She is a fantastic surrogate mommy.
We took a trip to the library. Both boys went straight for the Disney and Dr. Seuss books. After we read tonight, we watched the Lion King. Grayson's art is all over the kitchen window. Apparently he has a thing for frowny faces right now. Grayson insisted on sleeping in his tent on his bed tonight. I think he liked it!
We wrote letters to Santa tonight. Totally proud of Grayson for writing his entire letter by himself. He only needed me to remind him what a letter looked like twice on a separate sheet of paper. He was so proud + we had some great quality time together.
Grayson has been begging me & my mom for a skunk costume. She found him some black sweats & sewed a white stripe down the sweatshirt + a beanie. He was in HEAVEN! Haha! He thinks it's so hilarious that I love the smell of skunk ever since I was pregnant with him.
Going stir crazy in the car + playing in the garage lots. Being a full time mommy is taxing sometimes, but it is the most rewarding thing too. Maryn came to play! We all love her.
Grayson got some quality time with Grami and they made gingerbread cookies. That is totally his love language, so it made his day.
Lots of wrestling in this house. With Daddy, with Louis, Talon, Grandpa{s}, basically whoever will humor them. We went to the Nite Lite parade in Nyssa. Lou was pretty impressed! (; Afterward, we went to sushi. Our boys ate kids meals in the car first, haha! They were so good at the restaurant and Grayson wrote letters & notes like crazy. Love watching him learn & grow!
Beckham was too old for his binkies, but I kept pushing off getting rid of them. Grayson didn't give them up til his third birthday, so I think I thought we'd do the same with Bex, but he bit holes through all of them and then wouldn't want them. Finally he bit through the last one and was pretty bummed, but we decided it'd be a good time to send them to the binky fairy {9th}, so we did. And we didn't hear or think about it again! Yay!
Lots of time at G&G's house. Always a good time.
Sometimes we have to get REALLY creative as far as finding things to keep us busy. Grayson took the drawer out of the dishwasher and used it as a play place. Oh and the ENTIRE box of goldfish in case he got hungry! Meanwhile Beckham played with his star wars ship at the table. When they're not in each other's faces, they play independently super well.
Lou helps Zac stay sane. For that I'll forever be one of Lou's greatest fans.
Beckham learned a tough lesson. He tore all the pages out of a library book. Of course it had to be the oldest library book in history & had 100+ pages! It cost $20+ to replace {with the exact same copy I paid $6 on amazon for} and he had to take it in and apologize to the library + apologize to them. He promised to never rip books again. Grayson got in trouble too because he saw him doing it and didn't tell us til he was done. They were both sorry. Sheesh!
L&K hosted an ugly sweater party & invited us. It was fun! We ate food, visited, played games, and had a great time. We looked super cute, too! (;
We went to the temple. Love it there. We shopped for families for our secret service. Grayson was awesome and totally into the spirit of giving. Beckham...not so much. He wanted to keep everything & had some meltdowns while in the stores. Sometimes service is a tough one to learn. The boys destroyed their room, but played happily for a couple hours before helping me clean & organize again. Beckham's back met Grayson's wrath-before I could cut his nails. Argh! When Grayson saw what he'd done he realized he had gone too far and sincerely apologized to Beckham. Beckham is the toughest kid! Didn't cry-didn't hold a grudge.
Bailey & Ali came to play for a bit. I went to a cookie exchange at Nikki's house. It was a lot of fun. My pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with cream cheese frosting were a hit.
We went to McCall for a few days. Had a great time, as usual. Everyone except L&K were there and we ate, hot tubbed, played in the snow, and played games. Fun times!
We often have pots & pans symphonies going on around these parts.
Went to check out the house we would be moving into in the spring. Lots of work & projects to be done before then. I was feeling pretty scared about it, but Zac & Lou were hopeful and had great ideas.
Dropped off Christmas to one of our families! They LOVED it and were so sweet! Our boys had a blast and I was so glad Mom & Dad had given us the opportunity. How awesome!
Had Christmas with Cleaver's {22nd} & for the first time ever had it somewhere other than Cleaver's house. We went to Ryan's and it was so nice. The kids love playing with cousins and we ate and chatted and opened gifts. Rosie made the boys these darling wookies that they loved and adopted immediately. Beckham was especially excited-so cute! We gave his parents a framed family heart picture + our Christmas card with a mini picture of our big announcement-a new baby coming next Summer! They were so excited and so was everyone else. It was super cute. Later we found out Em was expecting and we are due just a few days apart! So fun for more cousins to be born together! We are grateful to be able to always celebrate holidays with our families and thankful for their love and support.
Our Christmas surprise card & Letter included in pics.
Julie & kids spoiled the boys with Star Wars lunch boxes and playdoh sets-they were so happy and kept busy for hours!
Grandpa is so hilarious always making the boys laugh. He tried on Grayson's robe and looked so adorable. Christmas Eve was wonderful as usual. Spent it at Pete's place with the Hartley's and had lots of fun. We surprised the Hartley fam by writing letters to them and making them our "service project" for the year-they were touched and it was so fun showing appreciation to some of the biggest influences of my childhood. The boys opened their jammies and one gift that night and were stoked.
Christmas morning at home was laid back and nice. The boys were so excited about all their gifts and had fun opening and sharing. We went to Pete's Place and celebrated there, too. It was fun to announce our pregnancy to them as well-everyone is excited. Beckham was telling Grandpa Farrell all sorts of stories-so adorable! The boys were spoiled and well loved at G&G's, too, and we got bunk beds for them which we were excited about!
{Sidenote: I surprised Zac with the big pregnancy news in early November, but didn't want to blog about it yet since we were waiting til Christmas to announce. However, I had to blog about the experience because it was so hilarious. He almost had a heart attack! I put the announcement in a regular fedEx shipping envelope that he had received earlier in the week. Knowing he wouldn't realize he'd already opened it, I just sealed it and gave it to him nonchalantly. He opened it and was confused and then fell down-gasping-and couldn't breathe! He could NOT believe I had kept it a secret for about five days and was pretty mad {he hates being surprised with big news}, but laughed with me after he could breathe and was so excited. I am too!}
The week after Christmas and Zac's birthday were super casual. He & I worked quite a bit and Diana and kids came to visit and see Lou. We spent a lot of time at Taylor's {she cooked and made delicious smoothies for us which was awesome} and Zac got to have a bit of an xbox party with some of his favorite guys {it didn't turn out quite like planned because Josh got sick and puked several times, so Lou ended up dealing with that more than playing which he was bummed about} while Diana stayed here at the house with me and watched shows. We also celebrated with cake and ice cream at Pete's place with both families which was fun. Zac is the best ever and I am so thankful he was born. Love that guy so much! He is always the best way to celebrate another year ending. We love you, babe!
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