Decorating the Christmas Tree

Last year it took awhile for me to get up some energy to decorate the tree.  We tried really hard this year to do it right after Thanksgiving.  Tyson was also very helpful this year.  He actually put most of the ornaments on the tree.  I tried to help him spread out the ornaments but he wasn’t really listening to me.  I thought I would just take a picture of how he did it and then spread them out.  However, once I saw how adorable it was I decided to leave them right where they were.  What a fun memory to have Tyson help for the first time.  He is getting so excited for Christmas these days.

He is so proud of himself!

 

Ah, love how close the ornaments are to each other :)

And here are the ornaments they got for Christmas 2011

Thanksgiving 2011

We spent the holiday with Brian’s family and it was wonderful.  Since Brian had most of Wednesday off we headed up a day early.  Mom helped me decide the dessert to make.  I ended up making the banana cake with cream cheese frosting.  Love that cake.  Anyway, Brian and I went on a little date for about an hour and half to get ice cream and talk.  We don’t go on dates enough.  It’s a problem we need to fix. 

Thanksgiving game around and I was in charge of the mashed potatoes.  I tried peeling them with an older type of peeler I wasn’t familiar with and it was taking me a long time so I got put on chopping the potatoes duty.  I even had trouble with that.  After that I pretty much didn’t do anything else.  I had a Relief Society incident where I brought mashed potatoes but they were so incredibly salty it was bad, really bad.  I didn’t dare touch the Thanksgiving mashed potatoes and ruin it for everyone :)  Wendy’s family, Aaron’s family, Jenny’s family and our family were there along with Brian’s parents.  Everything tasted delicious.  Before the feast I thought that we should take some pictures of Andrew in his cute Thanksgiving shirt before he spit up on it or something.  As I was moving him to hold him up for the picture he spit up.  Yeah, I knew it would happen.  We hurried and cleaned him up and then took some quick shots.  Here they are!

           

First Thanksgiving feast!!!

This is a picture Grandma took of Andrew.  I think he was doing this while we were gone on our little date. :)

I went Black Friday shopping with Jenny and Carlos.  We had a good time.  My favorite thing about Black Friday is going out to breakfast.  I feel like I am getting too old for the early morning though.  Every year it gets harder and harder to recover from.  Brian had to work so I missed him that morning.  He told me he would try to get that day off next Thanksgiving. 

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Black Friday

Hey everyone.  So I try to keep my comments about Usborne Books to a minimum but it is a part of me and sometimes I just can’t help myself, especially when I am really excited about it.  I wanted to let all of you know about the Black Friday weekend sale that will happen at www.readwithashley.com.  A lot of titles will be discounted and some up to 50% off!  Simple and quick way to get a lot of your Christmas shopping done!!!

Now, with that being said if you want to earn FREE books for your own family you can host an online show. All you do is email and call your friends and family and let them know about your show and the Black Friday weekend sale.  You can earn free books by telling them all about the killer deals and letting them shop!  Easy, easy.  Let me know if you are interested in this and we’ll get you set up right away!

Alright, thanks everyone for listening to me about the FABULOUS sale!

Andrew is 9 months and family update!

So cliché and completely over used but it is how I feel.  I can’t believe he is 9 months old.  That has gone by way too fast!

Last week I took Andrew in for his check up.  I knew he was small but when I laid him on the scale and they took down his weight my heart dropped into my stomach.  15 pounds and 5 oz, not much of an improvement from his 6 month check up.  Around 7 months I decided to stop nursing so obviously it couldn’t be from me running out of milk (that’s what happened with Tyson.  At his 6 month appointment he didn’t gain any weight from his 4 month appointment so we knew it was me).  I haven’t been the best at feeding him baby food so I asked the Dr if it was me and he told me that the calories don’t come from baby good.  We’re not really sure what is going on.  He knew he was really sick a few months ago for 10 days and that for sure pushed him off of his original growth curve but he isn’t back on a growth curve at all.  The Dr. didn’t seem too concerned and calmed my nervous right now.  I think Dr. Arnold is the best pediatrician out there :)  Anyway, I was told to fed him yogurt, cottage cheese, macaroni and cheese, graham crackers, etc.  Basically fatty foods to kind of beef him up.  I give him mac n’ cheese and he instantly spits it out.  I’m thinking it might be the slimy texture?  He has been loving graham crackers and tonight he was eating goldfish like a champ! 

Oh how we love this little boy.  He is doing an easier method of an army crawl now.  I posted a video of his funny, funny crawl awhile ago but it has improved since then.  I also asked the Dr. about his crawling and the fact that he has no interest in standing.  He told me that if it hasn’t really improved by the time he turns one he’ll send a therapist out to check on him.  I wasn’t really worried about it.  Kids tend to do things on their own timetable.  Not ours!  He is sitting up great now which is good.

Stats at 9 months:

Length: 26 3/4 in---10%

Weight: 15 lbs 5 oz—under 3%

Head Circumference:  45 1/2 cm 50%

Not much has happened the last few weeks.  I’ve just been super busy with Usborne and my ballet classes and Brian has been picking up overtime hours at Fidelity.

Tyson is still loving preschool.  He loves going to Jump On It with his friends now that it is cold outside.  He says some of the funniest things I have ever heard in my life.  He is a complete handful and the other day I started crying in the car because some days I have NO idea how to be his mother.  He does have a very caring spirit for me or Andrew when we are sad.  He is such a wonderful big brother and most days loves, loves, loves trying to get Andrew to laugh at him.  He’s such a ham, I tell ya!

I only have these pictures of Andrew’s first graham cracker experience.  :)

Fall Pictures

We got family pictures done a week ago and I love them.  Everything came together for some fabulous pictures.  I am happy to have them and to be able to hang them up in my home.  Plus, now I can put Andrew on our wall.  He is almost 9 months old and I hadn’t done that yet.

Thank you Nikki with Sweet Lilac Photography!

    

Halloween Parties

We had 3 Halloween parties to go to on Friday and Saturday.  Tyson loved them all because that meant he got to dress up as Mickey Mouse all 3 times.  He loves his costume.  Andrew was an adorable dragon.  He was the sweetest dragon there has ever been :)

On Friday Tyson had his preschool program.  I kept asking him the last few weeks if he was going to sing songs at the school Halloween party.  He kept telling me no, but I knew that wasn’t true.  Brian had this whole week off of work (the 2nd week of his paternity leave) and he was able to come.  We had our video camera ready and Tyson did not sing one single bit.  He did the clapping motion on one song, that’s it.  I was a bit sad but this weekend he has been singing me one whole song from the program.  I’m not sure if his costume was in the way, especially the gloves, and felt like he couldn’t do it.  Perhaps he was overwhelmed with all the parents in the stands to look at?  He did start waving to people in the audience at the end.  That was pretty funny.  Anyway, we are proud of him and love how much he enjoys preschool.  After the program they had a blow up slide, and games to play for candy.  Here are a few pictures from that.

Waiting for the program to start.

 

Some games…

  

He is sad in this picture because he tried to climb through the “O'” in the sign and I yelled at him :/  I guess he thought it was another activity.  Anyway, here he is.

 

Then later in the afternoon we ended to Brian’s work Halloween party.  It was cute and Tyson liked it but I think he was overwhelmed with everything.  People in crazy costumes, dark rooms, etc.  He did enjoy getting the candy though.

These two pictures make me laugh.  I love the Mickey ears. 

All dressed up and ready for Daddy’s work!

 

Then on Saturday we headed back to Cornbelly’s but with Joe and Heather for a few hours.

Don’t be fooled by this picture.  He went into the mini maze with Dallin laughing but he came out following Dallin crying.  He got scared and Dallin went in to go get him and lead him out.  Dallin is almost an entire year younger than Tyson :) 

Saturday night we had our ward Halloween Party.  I love our ward.  I love how everyone likes to participate.  Most families dressed up (including adults).  The dinner was super yum and then the kids went around “trick or treating”. 

 

Mickey Mouse, BYU Ballerina and a Dragon.  Looked more like I was in sweats but it was fun to be me 7 years ago!

Tyson was so sad when it was over.  Here he is pouting.  I think it is so funny how he hung his pumpkin bucket.

I think that is all we will do for Halloween this year.  We feel like Tyson has gotten enough candy and our neighborhood doesn’t really do trick or treating.

Carving Pumpkins

We can be pretty lame sometimes.  For 2 years (2008 and 2010) we have gone to a pumpkin patch and got pumpkins to carve.  We never got around to carving so I said I’d use the pumpkins for something else.  Well, that never happened either.  This year Brian was bound and determined to make it happen.  I am so glad he took the reins to get it done.  We never got to the pumpkin patch but the grocery store worked fine this year.  I actually have never carved a pumpkin completely by myself.  I think the first time was in college for an FHE activity.  Anyway, Brian carved Tyson’s and his and I did mine and Andrew’s.  Tyson was really excited until he saw the insides of the pumpkins and chickened out.  He ran to the couch and watched from there.  When Brian almost finished doing his own pumpkin Tyson finally warmed up to it all.  Silly kid.  Here are our finished products.  We’re pretty proud of ourselves :)

 

Andrew’s silly eyes, Tyson’s bat, Ashley’s ghost and Brian’s skull