Christmas 2015

As our kids are getting older, I feel like every holiday just gets better and better, especially Christmas. Jaxon really understood the concept of Santa Claus this year. Well, enough, anyway. He's just so logical. He really needs to understand how every little thing works, that magic is just hard to him to accept. He's our little "Spock". But he believed enough that he was concerned about Santa not saving him any treats we left out for him.

But before the big day, we had our traditional Temple Square trip with the Wendels and Grammy and Pappy. This year we actually started a new tradition to eat at The Lion House before our walk. It was delicious (not to mention convenient)!

Photo courtesy of Jaxon

On Christmas Eve, we spent time with the Talbots where the grandkids played, the adults talked and laughed, and everyone ate and sang SO many Christmas songs. I've gotta get more pictures of Christmas Eve festivities.

Kids playing in the play room.

Christmas morning came and after stockings and orange rolls, we dived into presents.

We met up with the Talbots again later that morning and opened grandparent/sibling rotation presents. Followed by Nintendo where we all felt like kids again. :)

Violet loved reading with Papa.

 

And the boys made graham cracker houses with Mamie.

The best part of the day being able to Skype with my missionary brother, Brigham that afternoon. It was so good to see and talk to him.

That evening, we visited Grammy and Pappy and the Wendels where we did more presents and had yummy dessert. We actually had a visit from Santa when we visited them in November, but I never got around to posting any pics, so here they are:

Jaxon got measuring tape

Violet got a doll and the scare of her life

It was a wonderful Christmas. We're already thinking of new traditions we can start for next year.

Some Holiday Prep

We took out our Christmas decorations a couple days after Thanksgiving this year. The kids were so excited to see and touch everything!

Travis ordered a special Christmas book to add to our collection...

I took a couple floral design classes and was able to add a couple decorations to our home:

This was actually for Thanksgiving- it looked better once the lilies opened up on top

The kids wrote Christmas letters to Santa...

We finished off with a pizza party and waited a couple days to have our Christmas cake, since there was still so much leftover pie from Thanksgiving. We can't wait to celebrate Christmas with these two kiddos.

Halloween 2015

This year we finally let Jaxon be a ceiling fan for Halloween. He's been wanting to be one since he was 2. Violet was a cowgirl.

The costume was fairly easy to make thanks to a blog I found of another mother whose kids wanted to be ceiling fans. It makes me feel a little better that my kid isn't the only one who's ever wanted to be a ceiling fan. Although in hindsight, I should've Velcro-ed the fan diagonally so it make it a little easier for him to walk. I'll do that next year. Since, you know, I'm sure he'll want to be it again. 

We had our traditional Halloween dinner of chili dogs and homemade (dry ice) root-beer, this time at my parents house where we roasted the hot dogs over their fire pit.

Earlier this month we tried to take our annual trip to Pumpkinland with friends, but it was crazy busy with school groups, so we went to Jakers' Pumpkin Patch instead. Although Pumpkinland is fun and a tradition, let's face it, it doesn't compare with corn pits, tunnel slides, mazes, tractor rides, and mountains of hay bales to climb. And it's all free. So, I'm thinking maybe this can be a new tradition?

Huntsville Getaway

We took a much needed family vacation up Ogden Canyon to Huntsville for fall break. We spent our days exploring the area, hot tubbing, playing tennis, foosball, pool, and kayaking at Pineview Reservoir. We didn't take a whole lot of pictures, but we had a lot of fun spending much needed quality time with each other.

Travis out reflecting on life

The fall colors were gorgeous

Can't wait till the next family vacation!

An Imaginary Friend and Language

I feel this topic merits a blog post since it has been going on for several months now. Jaxon has an imaginary friend, named, get ready, "Bic-o-bin". Where that name came from, I'll probably never know for certain. However, one clue might lie in an imaginary language he's also come up with. This language is called "Aught", and I'm not even sure how to spell how it's pronounced. "Auwt" might be better.

Here he is giving some every day words/phrases in Aught (click on the CC to see subtitles, since this is Spanish):

Maybe I should've seen this coming with him being bilingual? Who knows. It'll be fun to tease him about Bic-o-bin and Aught when he's a grown man. :)

Jaxon Starts Preschool

Our little boy is growing up! Jaxon has officially started preschool. Travis gave him a wonderful blessing last night for FHE to prepare him for the school year. It's definitely going to be a fun year for him. I thought it would be fun to have him hold his (current) favorite book every year for his "first day of school" photo since we read so much in our home.

And this little girl felt like she had to make an appearance:

She must be looking forward to some quality mommy-and-me time while her big brother is at school. :)

Wrestling

I love how these two interact with each other. Jaxon is always so patient with Violet and I'll often hear him in another room telling her what to do or not to do. Violet sure loves her big brother and is always patting (hitting with love) his face.

Jaxon Turns 4

Jaxon turned 4! His choice of dinner: "pizza with just cheese and pineapple". Okie-dokey!

This kid is certainly one of a kind. He's a miniature engineer if I ever saw one. If it's mechanical or electrical in any way, has a switch, knob, button that causes any kind of reaction, he's all over it. And it can't be a toy. No toys. It's got to be the REAL DEAL. Here he is playing with his current toy, a syringe and attached tube. He's sucking up water from one glass and shooting it into another glass.

Let me share with you a video that's been running through my mind the last couple of...years; it's one of Travis' favorites.

Jaxon is my little Spanish-speaking, future-engineering, buddy. Constantly asking questions. Constantly keeping me on my toes. A great helper and a wonderful big brother. Te amamos, Jax!

The Redwoods

Continuing along from our last post, we met up with the Andersons in Crescent City; a short drive across the state border from our campsite in Oregon. It was so good to see everyone again, eat (too much) yummy food and engage in good conversation. Of course, we were also able to get out and enjoy our beautiful surroundings with a couple good hikes...

For the first hike, Jaxon spent the morning with Grammy and Pappy at the visitor's center and met up with us later, which I'm actually grateful for because the hike would've been pretty difficult for him with such a rough terrain. Violet was a trooper in her backpack carrier. It was our first chance to see the trees up close and personal!

The second day, we hiked the James Irvine trail. It was so beautiful! Everything was so green and there were huge ferns everywhere. The weather was absolutely perfect and we were never hot nor cold. It ended up being a long hike time-wise because of all the kiddos, but at least the terrain was more flat than the previous hike. Jaxon was a trooper and only had to be carried for about 20 minutes of the whole hike.

Taking a rest

We were rewarded at the end by the beach. At that point, I cared very little of how my kids looked. :)

The Redwoods proved a perfect setting for a family reunion. We've started thinking about where we'd like to do ours when it's our turn to host in a few years!

Camping on the Oregon Coast

Last week was another Anderson reunion, this time in the Redwoods. Our family decided to take advantage of the location and go camping for a couple days along the Oregon coast before we met up with the rest of the clan.

Mapping out our trip

We made the drive to Harris Beach State Park in a day. The kids were so happy to be out of the car!

The next day, the park ranger took all the kids on a tide pool walk along the coast. We got to see lots of marine life.

Starfish

There's a crab hidden deep in this crevice

Jaxon looking at a red crab (it was dead. A moment of silence...)

We came back later that afternoon for a chance to play in the sand. The water was pretty cold, so the kids didn't venture in much.

I tried out a couple new recipes in my dutch oven. Pizza night!

I wish I got more pictures, especially of the campsite. There was a nice playground and trails, blackberries, etc. Wish we had another day or two there. But we were off to see the beautiful Redwoods!