Ryder's Binky

Well, we finally decided that Ryder was getting old enough to be done with the binky.

I was nervous and a little sad because it means he's growing up! but we set the day and did it before I could change my mind!

Last moments with the binky. ;) 

He decorated the envelope for the Binky Fairy and put all of them inside. 

Then we set them on the porch for the Binky Fairy to take away. I don't think he really 'got' that they would never come back!

We waited for a little bit and then checked on the porch to see what she left for him!

He is a Curious George enthusiast, so we figured he'd love to have a new snuggle buddy to sleep with. He also got the movie & a book to read before bed.  

He was pretty excited:

We'll see how this goes!!

Update- 1 month later

Going to bed that night was pretty easy. He was so excited to bring George with him.  He did keep asking for his binky but I explained that it was gone and he gets George instead since he is a big boy now. His little face was so sad...but he was strong and just squeezed George extra tight!   He slept really great...until about 5:30. That's when he usually wakes up and I come sing him a song and give him his binky and he falls back asleep until 7ish. For a few weeks we had  a rough adjustment of him waking up early and not going back to sleep. But a month later and he is doing great.  For the first week he would get really sad and ask for his binky, but he was always so cute about it when I told him it was gone. 

We are so proud of our Ryder-guy!!

January Everyday Moments

January passed by so quickly!! 

We spent lots and lots of time inside since outside looked like this:

We worked on lots of art projects and did some canvases together for our art wall.  The boys LOVED these and we had so much fun being creative together:

Jeff is crazy and is taking way too  many credits than any sane person should.  He's working 30+ hours a week at his regular job and then taking 18 credits for his doctorate degree. 

To say it's been hard would be an understatement...but we can do hard things and at least we know the end is in sight! (April, we are counting the days!!!) 

The kiddos are in heaven when they get a minute with Dad:

My good friend, Rachel came over for a playdate. She has a boy to match every one of mine and these two guys are only a few weeks apart, SO FUN!  

Ryder loves climbing in Callen's toy...I find him in here daily. So funny:

This little guy is getting *this* close to crawling. We keep thinking it'll happen any day and he keeps just scooting around!  He gets up on all fours, though, and then usually goes to the plank position. Oh how we love our Callen!

Weston celebrated 100 days of school!  He had to wear a shirt with 100 things on it...so he made a flash shirt.  He's so proud of it!

 These boys.  They sure have my heart.  Tave is mia because he hates pictures lately. But every morning everyone climbs into my bed for hugs and snuggles.  

The boys each got lego hero factory guys for Christmas and they LOOOOOVE them.  They play with these daily for hours and love to take them apart and put them back together. Tave told me that putting it together is the coolest part. ;)  Then, of course, they need a photo shoot!

As much as Tave hates the camera, that's how much Ryder loves it!  He is always saying cheese and telling me to 'take my picture, mom!' He just hit 2 1/2 years and I feel like this 1/2 year step is such a big one. He is talking so much and understands tons. He is starting to listen a little better and has the sweetest, kindest heart.  We love our Ryder!

Jeff's Birthday!!

Jeff's birthday was really fun. So fun that I forgot to take pictures!

This semester has been a crazy one already and I knew Jeff really needed a break. I would have liked to surprise him, but he usually does school work on Sat.  so I let him know ahead of time that we'd be doing something fun. That way he got in all the extra hours during the week. Then,  Shar & Trav watched the boys so we could go on an all-day date.

It was WONDERFUL to have so much time together. We spent the day eating lots of yummy food, shopping for his birthday gifts, and just talking and enjoying the time together.  It was perfect and so much fun!!  

On Sunday we did our family celebration. The boys helped make Jeff's yummy dessert and we decorated. They loved drawing on each balloon for Jeff! 

We just got him one of his favorite study snacks since he had picked out his gift on our date the day before.

We absolutely love Sundays because it is our one day with Jeff all to our selves.  

It was so fun to be able to celebrate him and show him  how much we love him!!

Happy Happy Birthday, Babe.

You know how much I love and appreciate you, so I'll save the mushy stuff for your card.

Love you! 

Here's to being 31!!

Callen: 8 months old!

Callen's Stats:

Height:  28 inches

Weight:  18 lbs

Takes 2- 1.5-2 hour naps most days and sometimes a 3rd. 

Sleeps 12 hours at night

Callen at 8 months

This little man is MOVING!  He still rolls around, but he loves his tummy and has started army crawling/scooting to get where he wants.  He is pretty fast so we have to watch EVERYTHING on the floor now and vacuum every day to keep stuff out of his mouth!  

He chews on everything.  (he discovered his toes and those are a favorite!)

Sucks on his two fingers when he's tired or going to sleep.

Has started taking baths with brothers in the big tub.  I have to hold onto him the entire time since he's not sitting on his own, yet, but he loooves it so it's worth it.

Because he loves being on his tummy so much, I kind of forgot to sit him up often, so he's not sitting on his own yet. We're working on it and he's getting close!

Has tried a lot more foods. He started not liking regular baby food because he just wants finger foods he can feed himself. We've had  a little trouble getting his body to like the foods, though, (pooping has been hard :( poor guy) so we've been going slow with it and have gotten him to eat more runny baby fruits and veggies.

Celebrated his first Christmas!!  Grandpa Dan, Nonny Kare, Uncle Shawn & Uncle Mckenon celebrated with us.  It was so fun to have this sweet, smiley guy for the holidays. He just makes everyone happy!

He loved the Christmas tree and lights and was, of course, fascinated with the ornaments.

He talks and babbles all the time. 

He loves to do this trick where Jeff holds him up by having Callen stand in his hand.  He thinks he's super cool when and gets really excited!

Likes being read books with babies in the pictures.

He loves to jump in his bouncer.  

He really likes music and toys that make music.

He is his brothers biggest fan! The boys can always get him to laugh and smile.

Started giving the sweetest, slobberiest, very best baby kisses.

Likes to watch baby signing time.

Doesn't cry when he wakes up. At all. So we usually just have to keep checking on him every 10-15 minutes around the time he usually wakes up. Because we won't hear him at all. IF he does start crying, it means he's been awake in there for awhile.  Oh this boy is so sweet and content!

Dear Callen,

Your personality is really starting to shine through. You are so interested and curious about everything around you and you just love all of us. You love being in the middle of everything and are happy just to have us near. You definitely like being held and snuggled, also. You are still so sweet and happy and smiley. Truly, much of the joy and peace in our home comes from you.  You love your time with me in the evenings and we just talk and laugh and make silly faces at each other. You like to scrunch up your nose and sniff in and out, it's so funny!  We have so much fun with you, every single day.

You have our hearts, sweet boy, completely.

Love you,

Mom, Dad, and the bros.

Snow Day

We have gotten DUMPED on.  So. Much. Snow. 

It's crazy. And while I really do hate the snow, I can't help but love how happy it makes the boys!  

Jeff took a break from studying to run around outside with the crazy kiddos. 

They loved every minute:

huge, huge icicles!

The snow mound in front of our house...yes it's as tall as West. YIKES!

Another view of the snow mound. They love to climb it.

Our adorable snow baby!! 

Happy New Year!

We had such a fun New Year's.  I finally remembered AHEAD of time, to get stuff for this fun tradition that my friend, Alli, does.  The night of the 30th Jeff and I cleared off the ornaments, blew up the balloons, and decked out our tree...New Year's Eve style!  We went pretty simple. There are coins and tiny little ninja toys inside the balloons and then party hats, party blowers, necklaces, etc all over the tree.  

It was SO fun and the kids were super excited when they saw it in the morning. 

Shar & Trav joined us for some treats and partying. It was great and the kids felt so special. 

Perfect New Year's Eve!!

2012 was good to us and oh so very full. Full of visitors, full of life, full of happy.  

Here's our year in review:

January - Celebrated Jeff's 30th, kept plugging on with the doctorate, enjoyed the crazy antics of the boys, Nicole got to have a girl's trip to Texas. 

February - Mom A & Shar came out to visit with K & M, celebrated the day of the book & the rose (Valentines) and had some fun indoor activities to get out the winter crazies, started house hunting.

March - Got to play outside a lot since there wasn't any snow, searched for a leprechaun, and had a fun superhero week with preschool, more house hunting.

April - LOVED our month of visitors!  Enjoyed our Easter with Grandpa & Dean, Uncle Mckenon came for a visit, celebrated Rachel's graduation with Johnny & Rachel, celebrated Shawn's graduation (Valedictorian,yes!) with Shawn, Abby, and my parents, started building a home.

May - Jeff took off the term (we would later regret this, but oh how we enjoyed this time with him),Weston played spring soccer, celebrated Mother's day & Tave's 4th birthday, had our 4th BOY- Callen, Aunt Shar came to help, watched our house get started!

June - Enjoyed the first month with our new baby, got used to life with 4 boys, celebrated Weston's 6th birthday, Weston played T-ball, played outside a TON, had a WONDERFUL visit with Jeff's mom, said goodbye to some of our best friends, attempted to pack (hahahaha), Callen was an angel baby, saw our house get built a little more each day.

July - Had to really pack- it was hard, celebrated Ryder's 2nd birthday, celebrated our 7th anniversary (yay us!), Nicole & Callen went to a family reunion in MO while Jeff moved us to our new home.

August - Started getting used to our new home/neighborhood, boys had swim lessons, welcomed our first visitors to our new home: Guy & Sharon and Grandpa & Dean, had a blast!, Shar & Trav moved back to Utah (YES!) my parents visited and we blessed Callen, celebrated Nic & Shar's 32nd birthday, Weston started kindergarten, missed our old friends.

September - Got to celebrate with K for her 5th birthday, Tave started preschool, went on a hike with some new friends, getting used to life with Jeff back to everything full-full time and a new place, loved having Shar, Trav, & the girls around.

October - Conference weekend is always a fav, had pictures taken as a family of 6, fun zoo trip with our new friends, Uncle Mckenon came to visit from BYU-I, were the Avengers for Halloween.

November - Callen's half birthday, Amanda came to visit (had a blast!), Hosted Thanksgiving with Jeff's parents and Jonathan & Rachel visiting from Texas, did a bunch of fun art projects, had our first blizzard.

December - Had a month full of Christmas traditions and festivities, welcome Jingles the elf to the family, celebrated Christmas with Nicole's parents and brothers, and thoroughly enjoyed Jeff taking off a whole 5 days for Christmas (he probably shouldn't have, but we sure LOVED every second!)

December's Everyday Moments

December was full of treats and parties, play dates, friends, and family. 

We like to soak up every minute of the holiday season....from home. I love being in our home and just enjoying each other. I sure am blessed with these 4 cute boys!

Here are a few of our everyday happenings we caught on camera 

(Tave is MIA in pics because he despises getting his picture taken...I'm going to work harder to get some candid shots of  his cute self next month!):

Callen's tried food for the first time. He wasn't sure at first, but then gobbled it up pretty quickly!

We did lots and lots and LOTS of coloring. These boys are color-holics.  Which I love!  

Ryder usually just scribbles on the page for a sec and is done, but this month he actually started coloring. At 29 months (so almost 2 1/2 years) he is my youngest to be able to color this well. We were all super impressed:

Very first fully 'colored' picture:

This crazy guy loves dress ups:

I made a cupcake hat for my friend's little girl. I LOVE how it turned out!  It was a fun and pretty easy pattern to follow:

Callen discovered his toes. This photo cracks me up:

And of course, the boys in their new Sunday Christmas outfits.  

These boys have every bit of my heart:

Happy 2012!