Family Pictures

Our very talented friend has been snapping family photos for us.   It is no easy feat photographing a 1 and 3 year old!  Thanks Cindy!

The Nature State

We have made two trips to Arkansas this year.  It's relatively close and the closest "real" mountains around.  

 On our first trip we traveled to Eureka Springs.  It is such a fun little mountain/ boating town.  We had gone about 3 years before and decided it was time again.

We took our 2nd trip 6 weeks later.  We couldn't seem to stay away.  This time we decided to head to Hot Springs.  We met up with our dear friends the Spanns (who lived above us in Utah and now live in Nashville).  Lucky for us, Hot Springs was half way between our houses.  

Austin and Mason are only a few weeks apart and became fast friends.  This first picture was taken while they were being introduced.  They were little buddies the whole trip.

We're already planning on making this a tradition!

 We had a wonderful time exploring Hot Springs.  True to it's name it has a whole row of bath houses that have hot pools inside.  They claim to be America's 1st resort town.  It was neat to check out some of the bathhouses that dated back to the early 1900s.  Next time we go we'll have to go inside.

 There was also an incredible toy store that we visited downtown.  There was a sweet old man there, probably in his mid 80's, who knew about every toy in his store.  He let our 4 crazy kids play with his wooden train track for what seemed like almost an hour.  He also told us that the wooden train has been the single most popular toy for the last 50 years.  (don't quote me on the facts here- my memory isn't as good as his)

 Same time, Same place, Same crowd,  Next year!  

Ringing in the New Year!

This is the obligitory mantle photo.  Mostly it just reminds me what I can do in years to come.  

We rang in the new year with some friends of ours.  We thought we would 'fake' midnight at about 9, but the kids went strong until 12.   That could have something to do with the awesome activities we had planned.  

Here are Austin and his friend Carter playing the Kinect.  

Glow in the dark parties are Austin's favorite!  

 Who am I fooling... they are Andrew's favorite, too.  

 We thought the kids might conk out if we turned on a movie for them, but... 

 it only worked on Tyler who wasn't even watching the movie.  

Christmas 2011

 We had a fantastic Christmas.  I had tons of help getting set up.  I think Tyler spent an hour getting in and out of the ornament bin.  Thank heavens for plastic ornaments because they have been thrown, have small bites out of them, etc.

Austin was excited to help string the lights on the tree (while sporting my boots and undies) and gave Tyler a hard time if he touched any of it.

We made hot chocolate and our famous carmel corn for the neighbors. 

We also made reindeer food (oatmeal mixed with magic glitter) so the reindeer wouldn't forget to drop Santa at our house.  

Can you feel the excitement?

 Santa didn't forget our house and brought us lots of presents.

 Since Christmas was on a Sunday this past year we opened presents in two parts.  We woke up, opened our stockings and then left for Church.
When we came home we opened our presents and then went into our backyard to find one more surprise from Santa... A TRAMPOLINE!  Thank you Santa, I think the boys and I love it equally.  It is wonderful to get them out of the house and rid them of energy AND have them love every minute of it!

Proud

Some call it encouragement... some call it brainwashing. Either way, I'm so proud!

Austin is 3!

Happy Birthday to our favorite 3 year old! Austin had a wonderful Birthday this year! We were lucky enough to spend birthday week with Grandma Marcia! Needless to say Austin was spoiled rotten. His big gift this year was a kitchen. Yes, little boys love kitchens too. (Much to Andrew's dismay.) We threw him a glow in the dark party complete with black lights, glow in the dark play dough, glow sticks, glowing pipe cleaners and more. I wasn't able to get many pictures in the dark, but I have a video I'll try and post later. We love you, Austin!

Thanksgiving in Kiawah

 We went with the Barons to Kiawah this past year for Thanksgiving.  We love going, but just about every other year we miss the chance to go because we're having babies.  (Hopefully that will not be the case this year!) 

Austin and Dad checking out a jelly fish. 
We named him squishy. 
Austin thinks they say BZZZZ ( like an electric shock)
if you touch one.

It was wonderful to relax on the beach after a VERY long drive.  I think we're an official road tripping family.  The boys did amazing (thanks to the DVD players.)  We made a point to only stop at gas stations, and fast food joints with playgrounds.  Thank heavens for chick-fil-a and McDonalds. 

  We had a great time spying alligators, riding bikes, and checking out the local wildlife.  All in all, we had a wonderful time except for the amount of sleep we got.  Tyler was incredibly fussy for most of the trip.  I chalked it up to teething, but Andrew insisted something was wrong.  Honestly, I thought he was just being defensive about our fussy kids, but I humored him and took Tyler to urgent care.  Much to my surprise embarrassment Tyler had a slight ear infection and tonsillitis.  Antibiotics and a few days later he started to act more like himself.   

 Unfortunately, I didn't snap many pictures of us biking, eating, playing games, etc.  We did manage to get a picture of our award winning "Polar Express."  I really can't take much credit for this masterpiece, but I had fun working on a little house.  It's on the "other side of the tracks" so it didn't make the picture.  We won a bag of Kiawah Island goodies and we were the lucky recipients of a stuffed turtle named Terry.