Grandma's Christmas Party

Every year on the Saturday before Christmas, my cute grandma has a big family Christmas party. We eat lunch and hang out, but her favorite part of the party is the program. Each family shows off their talents (things like favorite instruments, or songs). My brother usually takes care of it for our family because he has 3 kids, but because they're gone for Christmas this year, Amy and I had to think of something. Our kids can't do much, Cyrus crawls well and Jaron just kinda sits there, so we thought we'd try a reindeer pulling a sled. Santa was a little too heavy for the reindeer, but it was cute anyway. They were the stars of the show, and Cyrus loved all the attention.

Cyrus also got to open his first present, a Raggedy Andy my grandma made for him. He wasn't quite sure what to think of it. :)

Meeting Santa

As you can see by the picture, Cyrus thought Santa Clause was very interesting. Santa is the first person he's ever met with so much hair! One of the guys who works at the hospital with Jolene dressed up as Santa for the kids, and we decided every kid should meet Santa for their first Christmas, so we stopped in for a visit. My sister brought Jaron to visit. He and Cyrus are becoming good friends as Jaron gets older. He finds Cyrus fascinating, and Cyrus likes to play with him for a bit although his attention span is pretty short. :)
Tom and Jami also came to visit Santa, and it was fun to take pictures with all the kids and Santa.

Busy for the Holidays

Well... this is it! The Christmas season is upon us, which means lots of parties, shopping, wrapping presents, and of course a bunch of extra treats (my favorite part!). But overall it mostly means being extra busy, not leaving much time for blogging. So here are a few pics of some things we've been busy doing.


For Thanksgiving we got to have 2 dinners, one for lunch and one for dinner. Lunch with my family is always fun. We played volleyball and had a lot of pie. Our dinner with Trav's family was a lot better than last year too. We hadn't ever tried a Thanksgiving dinner before, and our first was pretty much a disaster. This year we were better prepared, and it was the best thanksgiving dinner I've ever had. We even let Cyrus in on the food. He got to have turkey and sweet potato baby food. Mmmm. Not my favorite, but he loved it. What ended up in his mouth, that is.




We bundled Cyrus up til you could only see his little eyes and red nose, and headed out one Friday night to Salt Lake to see the lights and have a nice dinner with Travis' family. We had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, which was really fun. We got there late enough that there weren't a ton of people, so the kids could be as loud as they wanted. Cyrus and Bryker even got balloons from the balloon man. Bryker got a sword (maybe not the best choice for a 3-year-old. Travis taught him how to sneak up on people, and the waitresses got a couple of good scares :) and Cyrus got an elephant which he loved. Maybe not as much as Travis though...

Then just a little update on Cyrus... He's loving crawling up on things...

and usually falling,

although he is getting more graceful. He's almost standing without help (he's still a little chicken to let go for long.) If you say "no no" to him, he shakes his head, and if you say "bye bye" now he'll wave back to you. He learned to click his tongue on Thanksgiving, and its an awesome way for me to get his attention because he likes to do it back to you. He and Travis have their own little "clicking" conversations in the car whenever we go anywhere. He loves cheerios and hates mac and cheese. He jabbers like crazy, and even though I have no idea what he's saying, he knows exactly. Every day he's getting bigger and getting his own little personality!

It's Official...

The day has come! I am an official stay at home momma. Today was my last day of work, and I have to say I'm feeling a little torn. I really loved my job. I have to say working in design and helping guide people to achieve that little picture they have in their head (only better!) is my little niche. I also liked that there was a nice balance between design and intellect so I didn't get burned out and was left wanting more of one or the other like I have in past jobs. I really enjoyed most of the people I worked with. There will definitely be a couple of guys I wouldn't mind never seeing again but I think you have to expect that when you try to put a group of people together. Some personalities just don't go well together. :)

I am glad that I was able to work somewhere I enjoyed so much for so long. I made some lasting friendships (right Lauren?!), not even just at work, but was able to become closer to Spencer and Miranda's family because she was such an awesome babysitter that we just couldn't stay away! She's like Cyrus' second mom, and I appreciate so much the time he's been able to be a part of their family. He absolutely adores her girls, and I learned so much from her. Being a first time mom is hard, it's nice to be surrounded by a little experience. And I am so excited for their family to grow from their 4-family to a 6-family!

Anyway, enough rambling. The truth is I'm happy to be home with my sweet little boy. I miss him when I'm away at work! He's learning and growing so quickly, that I don't want to miss even a second of it! It was a hard decision, but I know our little 3-family will be blessed. :)