Christmas and New Year

Okay, so I wasn't kidding about how "my" time is quite a bit longer than most. I am so behind on milestone blog posts (holidays, birthdays, important moments, etc). I don't think I will ever even attempt to do funny random posts like most of my amazing blogger friends.

So here's the rundown on Christmas...

Oh, wait, gotta back up. Right before Christmas Kyle and I went to Hawaii ALONE! Meaning sans children. I can't believe we did it. We owe it all to wonderful grandparents that our boys were thrilled to spend time with. They stayed with Kyle's parents for the first couple days and then my parents flew in from Utah and kept them for a couple days. By the time we got home, our kids thought that a day without going to the park at least twice was totally unacceptable. Needless to say, they LOVED having their time with mimi and papa and grandma and grandpa.
As for us, it was such bliss to sleep in, be as loud as we wanted as late as we wanted without worrying about waking anyone up, go out to breakfast without chasing anyone around the restaurant or cleaning up the contents of an entire salt shaker off the table, go to the pool without packing up swim diapers, floaties, swim shirts, sunscreen, drinks, snacks, blankets, binkies, etc. We loved it but did miss the boys a lot. And we didn't take many pics. I am not used to taking pictures of us. Since the boys came along the camera has transformed to only recognize shorties. :)




Brigg hates Santa. Gage got a bike from him. He loves riding it. And he loves his brain, so he's great about wearing his helmet. He also got a play kitchen (that earned us many disapproving comments from people who think kitchens are girl toys). But our boy is destined to become a great and innovative chef. He makes us dinner every night. Tonight I got pizza and a bacon salad. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'm a vegetarian. :) And Kyle got a waffle-hamburger with a french fry salad.
My brother and sis in law came for Christmas breakfast and brought Gage some window paints. That's been lots of fun to clean up.
We loved Christmas this year. It was so fun to have so many friends and family visit and add to our celebrations.

Halloween & Thanksgiving

Happy Holidays. It's been a short while since I last blogged. How do you moms with several young children find the time to blog??? I just can't seem to make it happen despite the many requests from out of town grandparents and friends for updated pics of our rapidly growing little men. So since there's absolutely no way I am going to go back and make a post for each holiday, this will be a quick recap of Halloween and Thanksgiving...

Halloween...we could NOT believe that Gage wore this costume. Those of you who know Gage know that he does not wear things on his head or face or hands or feet. But he loved this costume and loved being a tiger and loved all of the attention he got when he wore it. He wanted to wear it around the house all day. This pic is at the ward Trunk or Treat. Since I didn't let Gage have sugar until he was 2, this was his first time trick or treating after finding out that candy is GOOD. This bit of enlightenment makes a big difference in the motivation to trick or treat. :)



Grampa Pasko helped Gage carve his first ever jack-o-lantern.

Gage's birthmom and her son, Jacob went trick or treating with us on Halloween.

Thanksgiving...We went to California for Thanksgiving with Kyle's dad. The trip there was very eventful. The highlights were...running out of gas, getting a flat tire, finding out that the caliper (or something like that) had fallen off the brake, a couple hours at the gas station waiting for the tow truck while our very tired children were crying and running amuck, a very interesting and carseat-less ride in the primitive tow truck to the next town nearly an hour away while the aforementioned children screamed for the first 30 minutes, an hour long wait at the mechanic shop that by some miracle stayed open past 10pm on a holiday weekend to save people like us, and then a nice quiet drive the rest of the way to Steve's house in Sierra Madre. We have never been so happy to arrive somewhere in our life. But it was so fun hanging out with Grampa Pasko that the trip from h--- was soon forgotten by all. :)

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, casual and fun (clothing optional...for Gage at least)


Sierra Madre has a really fun little festival right after Thanksgiving in their town square where they make a big man-made snow hill for sledding, live music plays, Santa comes on the fire engine and vendors sell warm cinnamon roasted almonds and hot chocolate around the huge town Christmas tree. I am not a fan of living in California, but if I could live in Sierra Madre I would be there in a minute.

By the way, the scrunched face with closed eyes is actually Gage's new "smile" for pictures. We haven't figured out how to get him to keep his eyes open unless we want him to look very surprised (as in the pumpkin carving photo). I love this age. He is so incredibly entertaining without ever trying to be.

Christmas and New Year's posts coming soon...(well, soon in Ashley time... which is probably a long time from now:)