Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails: Happy New Year!

Wow, where has the last couple of weeks gone? We had a wonderful Christmas and were even lucky enough to have my oldest sister, Stephanie, and her family here with us, as well as my sister, Melissa, with her husband and son. While everyone was here, we played in the snow, went to temple square, had sleepovers with cousins, ate yummy food (which did a total number on Aiden's belly and skin), opened lots of presents, went to Kangaroo Zoo, and had Aiden's baby blessing. All the cousins played so well together, but especially Dylan and Taj, who are just a couple months apart in age. Don't get me wrong, all 3 year olds have challenges getting along, but they loved being around each other. Taj is so loving and so many times would just hug or kiss Dylan and say, "Dylan, you are my buddy." Also, Oliver and Luke were 2 peas in a pod-- we love having cousins close in age!!! It couldn't have been a better holiday season!

I absolutely love, love, love having family here and it's so hard when they leave and tears inevitably ensue, but it's also difficult cause we are only home for a few minutes at a time unless we're sleeping. Hence, our front room still looks like a bomb went off in it and laundry has been piling up. But I've also been lucky enough to have Jared home from work the last couple of days, which is such a treat, and he's been an amazing lifesaver and help. And Aiden was totally spoiled being held 24/7 by family that now he's used to sleeping in arms and on bodies and struggles when he's put down--lovely. But I definitely won't complain with all the help I had and I loved being able to have my sisters and their boys take turns holding him.

Hmmm, let's see. It's New Year's Eve and we are at my parents house trying out our new Wii, playing games, dancing to Just Dance 2, eating pizza, and having good times! I haven't decided if we wanna let the 3 older boys stay up till midnight--I don't know about you other moms out there, but have you ever let your kiddos stay up late but they still wake up at the same time? Yah, not sure 7:30 am sounds good to me, but it's about making memories, right?! :)

So here's a couple funny stories and quotes I want to write about for memories sake. The other day Aiden was crying cause he was hungry. I picked him up, gave him kisses, and asked him if he wanted some "num 'n numms"--my version of deliciousness. Oliver turned to me and asked, "why are you asking him if he wants M & M's mom, he's a baby?" I laughed and then explained what I was really saying. Oliver is so good at making us laugh--he's such a sweetheart! Here's another one: we were all driving in the car the other day and Conner said he wanted to get some magnets like I had gotten for Primary (when I was Pres.). Jared explained that they came in a pack of 50 and he didn't need that many. But Conner insisted he wanted that many and Jared tried to give him an analogy he would understand. "Conner, it's like shoes...you wouldn't go buy 8 pairs of shoes at one time, you'd really only need or wear one--it's just like the magnets. You don't need that many." Oliver quickly replied, "unless you were an octopus, dad. They'd need 8 shoes." Right, just like an octopus....way to take the wind out of your dad's sail and make his point null and void--funny kid. I turned to Jared and went, "pbllllllt" (for those of you who didn't know, that was a fart sound I made with my mouth). Oh, our kids are always keeping us on our toes. Gotta love it--them.

Ok, I'm gonna try to post some pics of our last couple weeks. Sorry if there's too many. It's just so hard to choose which ones, I love them all!