Her Name is Remi

Remi has been given lots of nicknames in her short little life. She's known around here by Remi, Remington E., Betty, Betty Boo, Biz, Bizzy, Bizzy Boo, Bitty Betty, REW, Biz Biz, Liz, Lady and Girl Girl, to name a few. 

Grant, per his demands, is known by Grant. If you EVER try to call him anything else, he will immediately (and usually defiantly) correct you. Even if you tell him he's awesome, he'll whip around and retort, "NO! I'm GRANT!"

The day after he turned three, I called Remi "Biz" in front of him and I guess he'd had enough!

"No Mommy, her name is Remi! Can you say 'Re-mi'??"
"Yes Grant I can. 'Remi'"
"Good job Mommy!"

It hit me how old they're getting! Grant's protecting his sister's namesake and Remi's wearing pigtails! It's so fun and so sad at the same time!

SLACKER!

It seems like October through the first two weeks of January are always crazy around here and I just spend the whole time trying to play catch up!

So, here's what I missed during that time that I was shirking my blogging duties!

October
Our little Remi Girl turned 1 and we had our First Annual Fall Festival in her honor! We had lots of friends and family come to celebrate with us, and although I didn't get too many pictures, we had a lot of fun and learned some lessons about what to do in coming years (like, be prepared when your guests arrive for example!)!

We had a fall craft

Games

Food

And Prizes

Like I said, I didn't get very many pictures but you get the idea...

And here's Mike with the Birthday Girl! I had a cute little outfit for her, but when warmth became more of a necessity, she wore Uncle Chase's sweater.

That night, the kiddos dressed up in these costumes and went Trick-or-Treating:

She's actually supposed to be Lady Sybil from Downton Abbey but we thought just calling her a WWI Nurse would be less confusing!

Mike kept telling Grant he was the "old school Captain America", so Grant went around telling everyone he was "the Old Taptin"

Lady Sybil and I

Grant and Chase and a few of the kids in our ward at our ward party

I think it's safe to say Remi (and the boys) liked her gifts!

Then came Thanksgiving, which I don't even think I got one picture of, but I remember it was good...

Then Christmas!

By the time December rolled around, I felt a lot like Remi looks in this picture! Haha! (There's an explanation, but I'll get to it later!)

But, we still got our annual Christmas Calendar off the ground and enjoyed some fun activities!

Grant got his OWN Christmas tree on our Wiltbank Family Christmas Tree outing!

Whitney was awesome and brought some horses and a pony for the kids to ride!

Writing letters to Santa

River Walk

Baking Christmas Cookies

 Every year since we've moved home, we've been lucky enough to receive some of Sister Hall's Swiss braid bread. Words cannot express how GOOD this bread is!! I walked in one night to find that Remi had gotten a hold of the whole loaf and was toting it around the house snacking on it as she pleased! I guess she just did what we all were wishing we could do ourselves!

There were A LOT more activities with a lot more people involved but I wasn't very good about taking pictures and this post is already really long!  So here's Christmas morning:

I got Mike J.J. Abram's new book S. It's supposed to be really good and was sold out most places I tried to get it. J.J. Abrams is one of Mike's favorite movie directors and the creator of shows like LOST and Alias, in case anyone is wondering!

Mike, his brother Ryan and Ryan's girlfriend Bella worked hard on this puppet house and puppets for Remi, she was STOKED (as you can see!)!!

iPad Mini! How do I wrap my brain around that??

We drew Uncle Ry for Christmas this year, and although we failed epically with our gift-giving, Grant was so excited to give Ryan the Captain America shirt he picked out for him!

Biz got this cute little zebra from her cousin Hallie. She carries it around everywhere! (You did great, Hal!)

Grant had SO much fun with all his cousins here! I'm SUCH a slacker and didn't get any pictures of them together, even though we got to have his cousins Rylee and Trace stay with us! Seeing them all together makes us so sad we don't live closer and can't do more together!

Gage and Grant.  This is about the only picture I got of Grant with one of his cousins.

And finally, the reason the Holidays were a little more stressful, but also a little more special this year!  I'm sure everyone already knows but...

Baby #3 is on the way!!

I found out a few days before Remi's birthday in October.  I thought for a few days about how I wanted to tell Mike, then before I knew it a few weeks had gone by and I still hadn't told anyone, so I decided to see how long I could keep it a secret and it lasted until Christmas! (Granted, it took some effort after a while.  I had some well placed negative pregnancy tests in the "trash" and was sure to express my disappointment and jealousy when we found out several friends were pregnant, etc.)

I'm 18 weeks now and we know we're having a boy! Maybe it's just because I had to suck it up and pretend not to feel awful when I really did in order to keep my secret, but so far, this has pregnancy been pretty good to me!  Don't get me wrong, most of the first trimester was spent laying on the couch watching TMNT with Grant after Remi went down for a nap and Mike went to work, but I've been feeling pretty good and counting my blessings I don't have to deal with morning sickness!

We're so excited! Can't wait to meet our new little man on June 12 (or around then)!

A LONG Time Ago...

Has it really been over a month?? I've had this post in draft form for a while and a few more in my head, so I guess I just thought it hadn't been so long!

Anyway, a LONG time ago (really, like last month, but it feels like it was!), Mike had a training in the Valley and we got to go with him. Despite a MISERABLE hotel situation, we had a lot of fun!

She usually wakes up with a much better attitude than Grant!

We were cooped up in the hotel for a few of the days. Luckily, Grant found a killer deal on a "Fishin' Dame" at DI and that made the long days in the hotel go by a little faster.

We also set up a "fort" for Grant so he could be entertained and keep quiet while Remi napped in the same room.  More often than not, it was a disaster, but it went well long enough on one day for me to get a picture.

We went to Bass Pro Shop, which was sort of like going to the zoo for the kids I guess. They really seemed to like it, and they seemed to like recognizing all the animals they saw. Most of them (even though they were dead), were ones they've seen in real life, around our house.

She scares ME because she's fearless!

On one of the days, we got to go to the Children's Museum with three of our favorite friends!

There were things I liked better about the one in Tucson and things I liked better about the one in Phoenix, one of them being that in every room, there was a "baby" area, that was basically a huge playpen you could see from anywhere in the room. It was awesome to stick Remi in there and let her play around and then be able to go play with Grant.

Isn't she TOO CUTE??

Heidi and I were laughing about how it seems like the guys have just as much fun as the kids. Here's Jake putting his engineering skills to work!

 Too bad Mike couldn't come (he had to work). He'd've been right there with them! I think I said in my post about the Tuscon Children's Museum that Mike was the most disappointed and probably close to a meltdown when it was time to leave.

Remi LOVED this cactus! These stuffed owls would go up in on a little conveyer belt and then the eagle's wings would knock them off and they'd go flying at Remi who was sitting nearby in her stroller. Despite getting hit in the face a few times, she though it was SO funny!

 It's a good thing Mike always wants to go by Adam's house whenever we're in the Valley, because even if he didn't, I think Grant would make us go! Every day, he asked if we were going to Adam's house, and when we finally did, he didn't want to leave.

I guess a garage band, pool, jacuzzi and a big screen are a little boy's dream just as much as they are a grown man's!

Grant got pretty into his solo and marched around singing the "Spiderman" theme song like he was on stage.

 While the guys had real guy time and went to a movie, the kids and I went to Chuck-E-Cheese. I was nervous at first (it was late, the kids were tired, and it's not in the best part of town). But we all had a really good time! I LOVE hanging out with Grant and Remi! They are the BEST!

Grant played lots of games but I think his favorite part was when the Ticket Monster chomped up all his tickets.

Time to choose a prize! You'd think he was choosing between prizes on The Price is Right. I guess to a two-year-old, it is like choosing on The Price is Right.

All in all, I think the trip was a success and I'm glad we decided to tag along and not sit at home without Mike all week, that's never fun!

Cabin Trip!

All summer, we'd been trying to figure out when we would get to see all Mike's siblings that live in Utah.  Right before Labor Day, we decided it was kind of a "now or never" situation and decided to just make it happen. Mike and his brother Cord and been talking for a while about doing a cabin trip to Whitney's family cabin, so that's what we did!

We had so much fun! The whole way up, Grant kept talking about seeing his cousins/friends and going to the "tabin".

He and his cousin Gage are only three weeks apart. They got along (and into trouble!) right away, and had fun jumping on the beds and turning on and off all the lights in the place.

They got to go hunting for pretty rocks in the river.

The water was pretty cold. Remi wasn't pleased about that.

Avery and Grant comparing the rocks they found.

On one of the evenings, Jennifer and her family came. It's always like a breath of fresh air when they show up! Her kids are so helpful with all the little ones! Grant had so much fun having his older cousins (Trex and Dax) chase him around on this deck.

Avery-this girl is a GOOF (to say the least!)!

Remi really loved Uncle Nate! She kept getting up in his face and "talking" to him.

The cutest wake-up call Mike's ever had!

We even got to go out on the lake one day. We thought it'd be fun to have all the boys go together to start things off. Turns out, not so much.  But everyone was having fun by the end of the trip and Grant even jumped in for a swim!

Grant and Gage

 I didn't get very many pictures of sweet little Rylee. She's SO cute! She and Remi are buddies!

Meal times were crazy! For some reason, none of the kids ever wanted to eat! Too many other fun things to do I guess!

They had so much fun on these bunk beds!

Which gave me a heart-attack, but I'm sure that's part of what makes it fun!

One final picture of all the kids on the day we all left. Our kids look so brunette!

I took A LOT more pictures but really tried to keep the post to a minimum! Thanks so much for hosting us Whit and Cord and for jumping on board and taking the time off to come hang with us, Emily and Nate! And Jen and Nate and your kids for giving us a break from our crazy kids and letting us crash at your house!  We miss all you guys! Wish we lived closer!!