Spring

Well, since it's been so long since i updated my blog I figured I'd just add a few photo's.....In march Cody and I went to Nascar

Coen helped me build
rode bikes to the park
I built wall cabinets for my office
Easter in underwear
It's been a great spring. We've had lots of fun....I guess that's why I havent blogged for ages.

January

Well, there hasn't been anything going on worth blogging about, but in an attempt to somewhat keep up with this thing, I'll post some silly pictures I took the other day of the boys. I was backing out of Grandpa's driveway, and the boys wanted to walk home. So I watched them from the side view mirror closely to make sure they didn't get behind the car. Then I thought it would be funny to take pictures of them in the mirror. THey were playing on this little ice patch on the driveway having a great time. By the time i got my camera out they were doing things for attention. Here are a few of the silly shots.

Christmas Celebrations

It was a great Christmas. It always is. And it always goes by WAY too fast. I feel like I work really hard the month of December (or maybe more like the week or two before Christmas) to make and buy presents, wrap them, think about it, did I get/do enough....etc. Then we have one day of pure magic, then it's over...and then Christmas hangover starts in for the next week. After hangover has subsided (generally after the new year), I feel refreshed and ready to accomplish real life again.

We started our festivities by spending Christmas Eve with the Shults'. We act out Christ's birth by Tom reading from the bible and the kids setting up the nativity. This year Since Emily and her family couldn't make a gathering for Christmas day, we exhanged her gifts that night. It was fun.

After that we came home and made cookies for Santa and set them out with Chocolate milk. Asa was CERTAIN that Santa would want chocolate milk.
Of course they got new PJ's
This is before the mayhem started. Santa had come, wrapped some of his presents, and left some out.
yes those are untouched presents under the tree. This was the first year that I attempted to put presents under the tree before Christmas day. It was a success.
Santa ate the cookies and left a nice little note
Their reaction to getting the kitchen that they wanted was priceless. I ran down the stairs before them so I could video their reaction. I thought for sure it would be jumping up and down with excitement. Instead it was a silent pause in disbelief....and the first words Asa spoke was "Santa really did bring me a kitchen". All he could talk about wanting was a play kitchen, with play food for Christmas. Then after the initial shock wore off they were SOOO excited.
They opened all the santa gifts first and then just TORE into everything else. It was total chaos, in a good way.
They were totally spoiled ROTTEN!
After a short while we went over to Grandpa and Grandma's house (no pictures, I don't know what I was thinking) and opened gifts with them and hung out there for a few hours. The boys couldn't hardly believe they got a kitchen, so they wanted to come back home to play with it...and of course I still had christmas sewing to do.....

So later on in the day the Shults' gathered at my place for the unwrappage of presents. Now the pictures below were the highlight of the night in a "you had to be there" kind of way. Nana gave Asa a sock monkey many years ago, and he has totally loved it...so she thought she'd get Coen one. Well Coen's was a little old school with a "mouth on the bum" as coen put it. Here is Coen's pure excitement for getting a sock monkey of his own.
Here he is getting ready to say Hello with the sock monkey's other mouth
And here we are with both of our sock monkey's.
Lexi was all tuckered out too
It wouldn't be christmas with out mom surprising me with a Barbie! I told her months ago that I wanted this barbie and ken set from Toy Story 3. I don't know why I found it so appealing, but I really wanted it....And I made a comment (in more disbelief that no one else had it in stock) that Smiths Marketplace is the only place that still had the set. Mommy surprised me and got it :)
It was a great Christmas day. There is nothing quite like the magic of Christmas day.

Must be Santa, must be santa...

We have had an eventful few days! First was Sunday the boys got see Santa at a family Christmas party. Consistently they are both asking for a play kitchen so they can cook things, but not real food, it's just plastic. (their words)

On Monday was Asa's little school program. He was such a good little boy. He sat patiently waiting for the program to start. He had a small speaking part that was "the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicolas will soon be there". Out of the 20 ish kids that were there he and only about 4 others had their parts memorized. he did such a good job, and spoke perfectly into the little microphone.
They sang fun songs like, Must be Santa, Feliz Navidad, Christmas chopsticks, and a few others I can't think of right off hand. The sun was shining into his little eyes the whole time, so he would mostly look this other way.
After the program he got to sit on santa's lap again and ask for a toy kitchen again :)
Here he is with his cute teacher. He absolutely and completely adores this woman.

O Christmas tree O christmas tree....

We've always had an artificial tree, so I thought it would be fun to change it up this year and get a real tree. I knew heading to the mountains to chop our own would be out of the question, but I really wanted that experience. So I found a happy medium in Alpine. There is a tree farm up there, and it was a great deal. We walked all around looking at a ton of trees till we finally just said...okay that one's good.

We got the guy who cuts it down and hauls it to our ride with a 4-wheeler.
Daddy straps it in while the boys get excited :)
We bring it home, set it up and....Uh...oh.....It's WAY to tall.
So Daddy cuts of about 2.5 feet

After the trimming, it was still rubbing the ceiling. WHich is why we have no star on top.

Getting a real tree was a lot of fun this year. There were multiple trips to walmart because we didn't have a stand, then not enough lights, then not enough ornaments. But it was fun and I'm glad we did it.

Big 5 years

I can't believe Asa turned 5 this year. He decided he wanted a Spiderman Birthday. I found a bunch of Spiderman paraphanelia at Partyland and the house was decked out!

I even attempted a spider web cake! It turned out pretty cute I thought. And it was delicious. The best cake I think I've EVER made!

I figured 5 was a good age to have a friends party. So we invited several friends over. We played pin the spider on the web, and spider spider who has the spider (button button who has the button)
He had a great time with his friends. It was a great birthday

Halloween

We had the luxury of spending Halloween in St. George this year. The weather was PERFECT! We spent the day Saturday at a fun Halloween party and then the evening trick or treating. Coen decided he wanted to be a "bampire bat" and Asa Spiderman. Luckily my Mom had already made the bat costume, so I didn't have to :) We had a great time!

Itty Bitty Football

i decided to put the boys in the itty bitty football program for something to do. It's only for 3-4 year olds...and for this month only, I have one of each :) They are on the same team and they love it. This is Asa's second time doing it.

Preschool

Asa started Preschool on the 7th. He was so excited! He loves to go and asks me when he gets to go back! I hope he keeps that up so school isn't a fight as he gets older!

He was striking a pose for me when I was trying to get a cute one at the door. Such a funny kid.
Here he is with his teacher Miss Suzee. He tells everyone she has a big huge dog. Since we have a big dog. THat only means that a big huge dog would be a great dane!
He gets to go to school with two of the neighbor kids. One of which is another red headed boy. Asa told me that red headed boys have to stick together! so funny.

Big Birthday Boy

It is so amazing how time flies. 3 years ago I was laying in the hospital recovering from a c-section admiring my sweet newborn baby, deciding on a middle name. Now I have another mouth that tells me he loves me (amongst other things) gives me hugs and kisses and makes me laugh.

We celebrated his birthday on Sunday. We had a Lego themed party (after we fell in love with legos in Legoland) I dug my cricut out of the corner, blew the dust off of it, and made this stinking cute banner for Coen.

Here is a close up of it. Luckily I had purchased a super sweet software program when I was big into the cricut. I can use any font I want to. I had a font already on there that was a Lego font. So away I went. Here is a close up...
Here is Coen with his presents. I don't know why, but when I asked him to smile, he wouldn't. So this is the best I could get.
This is the first year for him that Asa hasn't opened all his presents. You can see that Asa is admiring his gifts though as he opens them. In fact, Asa has been telling me they are all his.
Playing with the goods.
Here is the cake. If you can't tell, it's an orange Lego block! Coen said he wanted Red frosting...but I vetoed that and compromised with Orange.
There's a smile. He gave me another flat face when I asked for a smile...so this is what I got. I'll take it.
Meema had to help him blow out the candles.
He ended up with 5 sets of Legos, Pj's, transformers, carhauler truck, books, little dump truck thing, monster trucks, race car.

A few things about Coen at this age:

He loves to quietly pester his brother so he cries

He still has a special blanket

He can count to ten

He can spell his name( but doesn't recognize his letters)

knows all the colors

knows lots of shapes

loves anything Asa loves

he loves to sing

He loves to brush his teeth and smear tooth paste all over the sink when I'm not looking

gets mad at legos and breaks whatever i've built for him

he is a very sweet boy, and tons of loyalty for Asa. If Asa is crying about something Coen often times will too.

Happy Birthday Coen Meister