Cold Weather

The DC area decided to have temps in the 20s last week. THE TWENTIES (which means 16 degrees early in the morning). For some reason (I guess our mild winter last year and my general ineptitude), I forgot it ever got that cold.  But it does. I will always be an Arizona girl at heart and I'm not equipped for what below freezing means. When I throw on shoes with no socks and grab my coat and head to work and realize I need: Socks, a scarf, maybe gloves?? ear muffs? one of those floor length lookin puffy coats??? Who knows. All I know is that people give me weird looks in the office for wearing short sleeves in winter. I don't really OWN long sleeve shirts (or at least not many). sheesh. Anyway. We did get a little snow which of course was fun. And we have time for fun indoor activities when it's cold out.....

 Harrison practices his photog skills

 Built houses for stuffed animals out of Harrison's book collection.

 More picture practice

 kitchen rides

 Kermie is SO photogenic

And played on the mini trampoline harrison got for his birthday. Best gift ever. Sure it takes our living room from "slightly overtaken by kids" to "do adults live here at all?"  But harrison jumps a lot, gets out energy when he can't go outside and play, and it's really too small for both of us to jump on. BAM. Independent play-time, a mother's dream come true :)

Miss Carter

Carter is officially 15 months old! The time certainly goes by faster with the second one.  She is now clearly a toddler with the pre-terrible-twos attitude to go with it:) She is definitely a drama-queen-princess, but also a sweet ball of sunshine who loves to snuggle.  We'll keep her.

 Lately Carter loves:

Eating frozen blueberries, yogurt, cheese, honey wheat pretzel sticks, most bread products, milk, applesauce, and these freeze dried gerber fruit snack things (today she went through a whole bag. Opened and purchased in target and gone by the end of the day..) I can't get her to eat much else and she tends to eat very little at mealtime and carry snacks around all day.  Since she gained hardly any weight between 12 and 15 months we're working on expanding those food horizons.

Talking. Right now she says mama, dada, yea, NO!, mmmmm, yum yum, ball, kitty (sort of), all done, down, truck, hat, night night, ding dong, and signs more, eat, all done, and milk. She nods yes and shakes her head no and points to her hair and nose.  She also gets a tissue, wipes and blows her nose, and throws it away. so stinking adorable.

She loves to play with anything that mommy and daddy are currently using.  She loves to eat our food.  She loves to be chased around by her brother and to pet the kitty. In fact, more then I think anything else the kitty will calm her down and make her happy no matter what.  When she's not eating her dinner she tries really hard to feed it to us.  She is also super into feeding herself with a spoon and/or fork and eats much more this way. She does ok, albeit gets a lot of yogurt in her hair.  I sware it's too early for this kind of toddler hood but that's probably just wishful thinking.  She is a hand holder and a lap sitter.  She loves to turn lights on and off and play with toys that make noise. And dance to music. And have harrison help her jump on the little trampoline we got her for his birthday.  I think 15 months is a rough age generally because we are definitely feeling the frustrated "I can't express myself" phase and sometimes I feel like she's whining all day long, BUT, when she's not she is an absolute darling angel and as cute as can be.

HAPPY FIFTEEN MONTHS CARTER!!!

my. favorite.

Anytime Carter sees a blanket (especially the snuggly fuzzy one we got from uncle Aaron for Christmas) it absolutely must be spread out and she MUST snuggle with it. Immediately.

Since it's practically February

And Carter has basically turned 2, harrison is 4, etc. I better just get these AZ trip pictures out of the way......

 Carter with her favorite uncle wearing a dress I wore when I was a baby.

 Cory and Uncle Aaron (in practically matching cabbie hats) putting together Harrison's lego train set and grandma and grandpa's house.

 me and my bro.

 Random shot of my attempt to get the kids to stay in one seat belt on the plane. They liked it for a minute!

 Amber and Cory on Christmas day. Tired worn out parents. But happy.

 Sideways shot of my mom and Carter on a little hike we all went on. The kids did surprisingly well and the desert scenery is great.

 Harrison visiting the cematery where my dad is buried.

 We went to visit my old friend/roommate Heidi's house where Harrison was happy to boss Rebekah around and jump on their new trampoline (best christmas present ever Heidi!). Here are five of our six kids (baby benjamin was sleeping).  Carter, Harrison, Alex, Kaitlyn, and Rebekah. Who would have thought those 10 + (EEK!!! really??) years ago when we were at BYU?

Carter at the airport. Never stopping (blurry really captures her personality well :)) All set to go home. PS Phx airport with LGO and chelsea's kitchen and other such yummy places beats out Dulles and BWI any day.

what I did on my Christmas vacation: Part One

We had a great time in AZ celebrating Christmas with my family. On Sunday after church we went to an airplane museum and Larry showed us all the cool WWII planes he gets to fly around. Harrison had a blast with Larry's son Kevin's 4 kids. My aunt Kim had just flown in from Idaho and it was wonderful to see her too.  Plus you know that perfect AZ winter weather.  Can't beat that.

 Carter loves grandma. But not as much as she loves grabbing the camera.

 Grandpa told us all about the cool planes.

 And even let us go inside one :)

 This little plane rider was the cause of quite a bit of argument .Of course.

 WOW! Big planes!!

Harrison with his new found BFFs, Jeremy and Ashley