Valentine's Day 2016

We had a very chocolate-y Valentine's Day yesterday. :) We decided to celebrate it a day early since our Sundays are SO CRAZY and we barely see Travis at all.

Since we're still working on Jaxon's reading, yesterday morning I left a note telling him where to find his Valentine's Day treats.

Then after breakfast and our daily list of to-dos, we went to my parents to make chocolate covered strawberries. I think the kids ate more chocolate than strawberries. In this clip (since there's no captions), I ask him how the strawberries taste, and he says "They're very good, thank you!"

As my mom said, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Especially when he just licked the spoon. Thank heavens no one else was using that bowl.

Violet was also able to participate in the sugary mess...

While the strawberries were setting, they enjoyed a Valentine's Day craft with Mamie. I thought this was so cute and so easy!

I had to pre-treat chocolate stains on his shirt during this time, ugh

That evening, we had our traditional lasagna by candlelight dinner followed by chocolate covered strawberries, and our traditional cheesecake which we still haven't made a dent in because we are chalk full of sugar.

I kind of made a new tradition this year. I found this cute door cover of a tree and you put hearts all around it with people's names on it. It's supposed to be for classroom doors, but it worked great for the kitchen. One day after preschool, Jaxon and I sat down and wrote names of people we loved on each heart.

During Valentine's day dinner, we asked Jaxon to point out the people he wrote on his hearts and tell us why he loved him/her. It was a very sweet Valentine's Day! :)

Hunkered down

We're kind of in survival mode this winter. Despite my best efforts of trying to get out of the house with the kids, we're still experiencing some cabin fever. We've mostly just hunkered down till the first signs of spring. Yes, I know we've got a ways to go. So we've tried to keep ourselves busy.

Christmas presents help keep Jaxon busy. He's found a new interest in all things electrical (along with the usual mechanical)... a potentially hazardous hobby to be sure.

Jaxon's work

Playing with his circuit set

And then this is just typical Jaxon...

Violet just keeps herself busy by the usual methods...

We replaced our closet doors so I thought it'd be cool to let them use the old doors as a slide. Perfect indoor activity, right? Although now Violet's scared of it and won't even let me slide down without it causing tears. But she loves to watch Jaxon slide down for some reason...

This is a fun game Jaxon made up. It's called, "Da vezen campan", which is Aught (his made up language) for chase. I love seeing them play together.

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. :)