Grant is "TEE-OO"

Grant turned two this month!!  I remember being pregnant with him and being SO excited to meet him, I could hardly stand it!  On the one hand, I can't believe it's already been two years and on the other hand, I can't even remember or imagine what life was like without him!  The craziest thing is to look back just one year and see how much he's grown and changed.  Our life with him so far has been completely awesome!

Grant and my little brother Chase's birthdays are two days apart so my mom had a little combined party for them with Grant's cousins (Chase's nephews and nieces.  Yeah, it's kind of confusing!:)).

Grant and his cousin Brig.

Blowing out the candles at Grandma's House.

 

Thanks Zack, Briggy and Emily (or should we say Mel and Bri?)!

The next evening was Chase's party. Grant got him a firetruck.

Then a few nights later, we had a a party at our house for Grant.  Mike took Grant to my mom's so we could decorate and get everything ready.  It was fun to put everything together with Mike!  He's such a perfectionist, no task is too small.  He made the big Batman logo out of two vinyl tablecloths (with my sewing scissors! Grrr!) because he's awesome and talented like that!  But don't worry, my talent can be seen in the streamers hanging from the ceiling...yeah, I did that! 

At one point, I told him we should just hurry and finish up because the only people who were coming to the party were my parents and they wouldn't care what the house looked like.  Mike was surprised and reminded me the party/decorations was/were for GRANT.

Can you tell these little guys like firetrucks?

 

The Birthday Boy with a cake face!

 Grant had gotten down holding up his little index finger and telling people he was "ONE!" when they asked.  Now when you ask he exclaims "I TEE-OO!" but he can't quite hold up two fingers so his hand just sort of dangles there.  He also yells "HAPPY BIRTDAY???!" very excited like, anytime he sees cake, streamers or a batman logo now.  He is awesome!!

Blessing

I figured since Remi's already going to be THREE MONTHS in less than a week, I'd better get her blessing/two month pictures posted! I can't believe I'm already so behind on so many things I want to be posting and remembering about 2013!  Hopefully I can get caught up this week!

Anyway, at the beginning of the month, we blessed this little lady.  She did great!  She is such a wonderful, perfect addition to our family!  She is so sweet and is the best baby!!

She wore the dress my Grandma Slade had crocheted for me when I was blessed.  My mom made the headband and three of her five grandmas were able to be there.  

Before Remi was born, I had decided I wanted to do her room colorful/dainty/vintage.  (I'll post pics of her room once it's not too cold to set foot in there!) As it started coming together, I told my grandma that I wanted it to reflect all the awesome women in her life she has to look up to.  I'm not a feminist or anything but I thought it would be really awesome if she could see the examples of so many strong, wonderful ladies every time she looked around her room.

Someday we'll take a decent family picture!  For now, this will do.

I can't believe I'm lucky enough to get to look at this beautiful little face every day!  We're SO happy she came to our family!!

The End of 2012

My goodness, I am behind!  Obviously keeping up on my blog was not one of my New Year's Resolutions!  Before I post about those though, I wanted to put up the rest of the pictures I had from the Christmas Calendar.  

Nativity FHE with Grandma Velda

Christmas Cookies!

Hard little workers.

Grant's been wanting to take pictures a lot lately. Usually he just gets his hands or his feet but here he managed to capture a person AND the Christmas Tree!  Go Grant!

Hu-no! That's how Grant says snow.

Usually we have a hard time getting Grant to wear a jacket but that hasn't been the case since the Indiana Jones Jacket came into the picture!  It's really helped out this winter!

Making Nativities.

Remi and Emi (My brother Brian's daughter) are about 5 weeks apart.  They're going to have so much fun together!

Remi looks like a beast in this picture next to little Emilly!

Uncle Cord was in town for a hunt and we're so glad he took the time to stop by and see us!  We also got to see our friend Seth!  It'd been years since we'd last seen him.

Then I saw this picture and she looks tiny again!

 

Hangin' with Aunt Sal.
(The bow was a joke but I think it actually looks kinda cute!)

Sleeping in the living room right before Christmas!

This was Grant's favorite spot throughout the month of December!

Thanks to Sal and her projector, we had not one, but TWO projector nights!  We're excited to use this baby this summer!

Home Alone Projector Night with the Wiltbanks/Gomezes

Muppet's Christmas Carol with the Goodmans-sadly my dad had to work Christmas Eve.

Can you guess what Chase wants to be when he grows up?  Grant's along for the ride.

Uncle Dallin gave Grant a fish for Christmas. It's already dead.

I saw a lot of people comment on Facebook about how much having kids makes Christmas more exciting.  The same was true in our house.  We were SO excited about these guys' present even though they would've been just as happy with toys from the dollar store.

Mike had the genius idea to wrap the window so he still got something to rip open.

Tampoline! (Grant's pronunciation)  Yeah, we were way more excited than them!  Just in the moment though.  Grant has asked to go jump every single day since Christmas and we try to let him, when it's not 5 degrees outside!

Couldn't resist trying it out Christmas morning even though it was FREEZING!!

It's sort of becoming a tradition of mine to make a Christmas Card and then not send it out.  I's not pure laziness though, I have an issue with it. What is really the purpose of Christmas Cards?  I feel like everyone I'd send it to is now my friend on Facebook so I'm just wasting money, time and resources by actually printing and sending them...can someone give me a good reason to make a better effort next  year?

The more time goes by, the more I am always realizing how blessed we are and have always been!  Hope everyone else had a great Holiday Season too!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

 Despite having a rocky start, the Christmas Calendar has been pretty successful thus far this year!  Please feel free to attend any activities you can!!

We started things off with our Eagar 2nd Ward Christmas Party. My mom hung out at home with Remi so the rest of us could go. Thanks mom!  Chase and Grant thought the most fun part was rolling around on the gym floor...awesome.

Apparently the flash was really bright because my dad couldn't seem to keep his eyes open. We got to listen to him recite a story he memorized for the occasion!  He did a great job!

 

 The next night was the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. Mike got sick so with some help from Sal, the kids and I were still able to go.  I LOVE the Christmas Devotional!  There's nothing better than starting off the Christmas Season with some inspiring words from our prophets and feeling the Christmas Spirit with Mo Tab's music!  If you didn't get to see it, check out the link above.  You won't be sorry!

The next night, my little brother Tanner hosted a bon fire. Mike was still a little sick so we each took a turn going out and visiting with Tan and his only guest, Chad Crosby.  I've known Chad through seeing him at Safeway and going to school and working with some of his siblings but I actually got a chance to visit with him the other night and I'm super impressed with what a great guy he is!  Tanner is lucky to have a loyal friend like him!  I doubt Chad will read this but it was good to get to know him and hang out with him! (Also, the fire got a little out of control, despite Tanner's confidence in it and I'm pretty sure Chad saved our house so we owe him that too! :))


The next several days were a blur with Mike trying to recover while trying to prevent the rest of us from getting sick so I don't have pictures of a few of these days in between.

Thursday, Mike went and played Raquetball with Whitney Wiltbank and Grant, Rems and I watched Arthur Christmas with the uncles.  As you can see, thanks to Uncle Ry and Uncle Tan, we occasionally get a break!


Saturday was a busy, fun-filled day!  In the morning, we woke up and attended Eagar 3rd Ward (Mike's parents' ward)'s Christmas party.  Grant met Santa for the first time and in spite of what we thought was decent preparation, this is what happened:

 Mrs. Claus was nice enough to let me borrow her chair so we could at least get A picture with Santa.

Remi handled her visit with Santa like a champ! Actually, she does look a little scared hu?

After the party, we went and got the Wiltbank Family Christmas Tree! Remi slept like a baby the whole time!

Grant stayed awake long enough to polish off a bag of Cheetos and then he was out too.

It's not the best tree, but we were kind of rushed and had to take what we could get. 

Grant's always wanting to be a helper!

 We got back into town just in time to see the light parade. Mike's family met us there just as it was about to start. Grant loved all the lights! Remi continued to sleep.

 

After the light parade, I got to go out to eat with my sister and our friends Tonna and Jean for Jean's birthday.  We had SO much fun!!  The only pic I got of that was of Tonna and Remi. SO sweet!

 

Meanwhile Mike took Grant on the Light Trail by Becker Lake with his parents and Tristan, which he said was a lot more impressive than he expected. 

I met up with Mike at his parent's house after dinner to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, where Remi found a comfortable spot with Grandma Velda.

As with everything during the holidays, we usually come home from the Calendar activities exhausted and ready to turn in.  Grant was super tired after a long day on Saturday and just wanted to cuddle, which was just fine with me!

Christmas Calendar 2012

We are sadly posting our calendar late this year. But here it is. After moving away from the city it's harder to find a lot of big events but If anyone wants to participate, watch a movie with us, or even change some things around so that they can participate let us know. Hope to see some of you. 

Merry Christmas!