Thanksgiving in Utah

After 5 years, we finally made it back to Utah for Thanksgiving! We left on Thursday the 24th and came back on Monday the 30th. This was our first adventure flying out from Ohio with the whole family, and it went pretty well. The kids handled the plane ride decently - considering they didn't sleep AT ALL. But there weren't any major meltdowns, so that was good!

It was exciting to get to see Mike's family again. We hadn't seen them since the previous Christmas - meaning they haven't met our little Matthew yet! Grandma and Grandpa definitely were loving on our little chunky monkey! They couldn't get enough of him, and he definitely loved the attention!

We spent most of the week just relaxing, catching up on some sleep, and playing games with the family. Amy had a blast playing with all of aunts and uncles and cousins! She especially loved jumping on Grandma's trampoline (see the forthcoming Christmas post to see the result of that!). The weather really was beautiful, especially on Thanksgiving day! It was bright and sunny - resulting in boys playing football and then a couple rounds of croquet. Thanksgiving lunch of FANTASTIC of course (it's all about the gravy, as Mike's mom would say... and the gravy was fabulous!).

Mike of course took his turn in the kitchen, making some homemade biscuits from scratch to go along with some sausage gravy. Ben was his helper (love the Strawberry Shortcake cup Ben... work it!).

We also got to see Mike's Grandma Laudie on Saturday. We weren't able to make it to her 90th birthday party (because we were in Ohio, of course), so it was fun to see her and let her remeet Amy and meet little Matthew. Mike is not in this picture because he scored some tickets to the BYU - Utah game (his secret reason for wanting to go to Thanksgiving in Utah!) thanks to his Dad and brother Jim, and the game-goers had to take off early to get to their seats! And what a game it was! Go Cougars! The boys of course rushed the field! (sorry for the picture quality - stole these off of Joy's facebook!)

We also got to meet this little bundle joy - Shayla, Jon and Carrie's new baby girl! Matthew and Shayla checked each other out...

...then he attacked her, so they had to be separated!

Amy got some special Grandma / Grandpa time! They made a run down to the corner mart for a soda and treat on day, and then there was some special Grandma M&M cuddle time one morning! You can always count on Grandma's to have candy - even first thing in the morning!

And just as a shout-out to Grandma's new kitchen... can we all say WOW! So nice! What an improvement! I can't believe what a difference a couple feet make! I think we wore Grandma and Grandpa out!
And just because it's cute... here's Matthew napping in the play cradle. What a cutie pie!

Amy's Clever...

Amy's favorite phrase, which she repeats ALL DAY LONG EVERYDAY, is "I'm hungry." A couple days ago she used this phrase on me for the 100th time, and I finally said, "Amy, if you say you're hungry one more time, you're going to time out." She looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "um... I want some food." Clever Amy... very clever.

Cute Kids!

Here are some random pictures of the kids that I just thought were so cute.

Matthew and Amy have become really good friends as he's gotten older. He is 5 months old now and quite proficient at rolling over, smiling, giggling, sitting up with help, grabbing things, etc. He also eats rice cereal now too. We can't believe how big he's getting, although he has stayed much slimer than Amy was at this age! Amy loves having him around and will often ask if I will let him play downstairs with her. I take him down and let him lay on the floor while she plays with her toys around him. It's so cute!

Amy wanted to fish one day, so I put together a makeshift rod and made little fish with paperclips to catch them.

Amy loves to play with Matthew. She perches by his walker a lot!

Matthew loves his walker and has gotten really good at flipping the toys around on it.

Yum! Rice cereal.

He looks so big here!

Best friends!

We were waiting to meet Mike for lunch one day, and he was going to be a little bit, so I let Amy run around in a grass patch in front of his office. She was having so much fun and I got these super cute pictures of her.

I realize this one is blurry, but it's my favorite!

Matthew's favorite movie is the Lion King Sing-Along Songs movie, especially the Lion King songs. However, he is very picky about which songs on the movie he likes. Sometimes he tolerates them all, but a lot of times he does this when The Little Mermaid comes on:

ABC... Amy's Turning 3!

My little girl turned 3 on Monday, November 2nd! Where does the time go? I swear she was just born! Wow. Well, we had a really great day! We spent the morning getting some birthday supplies, and made her birthday cake. She also ate all the halloween candy she could, since we implemented a no limit rule for her birthday. Then we met up with Mike for lunch at Red Robin. After an afternoon of running errands, including picking up her bike without her seeing it! I'm sneaky like that!

When Mike got home that night, we had a dinner of sweet and sour chicken (she loves rice, sauce, and pineapple!), then on to the birthday party! We opened all her presents, which included an animal set from Grandma and Grandpa Laudie, a birthday cake set and lacing set from Grandma and Grandpa Lewis, an electronic alphabet thing, a paint thing that hooks up to the computer, cereal, silly string, and her new bike. She was definitely spoiled!

We did a little singing, a little candle blowing, and a little cake eating to finish the night. Definitely a full day!

The night ended with a reinactment of "The Berenstein Bears: Too Much Birthday," meaning she burst into tears about not getting to keep playing but being so tired but wanting more cake. She was much happier the next day with all her new toys though. She's having a birthday party on Saturday with all her friends, so more pictures will come! Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Happy Birthday Baby!

I Love Coupons!

I had my best coupon shopping trip of my entire life last week! I bought over $100 worth of stuff for $5! Holy Cow! It was awesome! Thank you Kroger!

Daddy's Special Violin

Mike has been amazing about finding an orchestra to play in, no matter where we live. When we were considering moving to Ohio, we googled community orchestras and found the Miami Valley Symphony. What a find! They had their first concert of the season on the 24th-25th of October and it was FANTASTIC! Mike played so well and the group sounded great as a whole! Way to go Mike!