More Wedding Pictures

Picture taken with "Flat Lindsey" (my sister is on a mission). These are the matching blouses my mom made for us, and it happened to cover my pregnant belly relatively well.
Clayton & Kara with all their nephews and niece.

Being reverent at the temple while Kara and Clayton got married

Our handsome boys with Princess Sam

Utah Vacation

We were in Utah for the week of Thanksgiving in order to celebrate the marriage of this cute couple!

Here's everything we did:


On some outings, I forgot my camera, and other times the camera wouldn't work (it has issues if it is cold outside....maybe Santa will bring me a new one for Christmas ;o), so these pictures don't cover the whole week. I'll post some more of the wedding and reception at a later date.

Although it was a hectic week, I always have a blast with my family. Whenever we get together, it involves late nights of game-playing and talking, and then early mornings getting up with the kids. We rented a condo just outside of Salt Lake City up in the mountains, and because we flew this time, we also rented some cars to get around. (I think Matt and I have officially broken our vacation budget this year with a cruise in March--which we probably wouldn't have done had we known what else the year would hold, family vacation in June, impromtu vacation to Utah in July for my grandpa's funeral, and now this vacation! I'm definitely not sick of my family yet, so that's a good sign.)

On Saturday night, we got to meet Kara for the first time. I think she'll fit in great as we continue to get to know her better. There aren't any grandchildren/nieces or nephews on her side of the family, so I'm afraid our family might be a little overwhelming with three rambunctious boys and one sweet little angel. I'm really looking forward to some photography tips in the future as that's what she's majoring in at BYU.

Sunday night it snowed, so Monday we cancelled all other plans in order to take the kids sledding. Caleb was not exactly thrilled with the snow, but soon warmed up to it.

Tuesday we spent in Provo doing errands, visiting BYU campus and the new Hinckley center, and Matt and I were able to catch up with some dear friends who just moved to Provo 3 months ago. The girls attended a bridal shower that night for Kara.

Thursday was not our traditional Thanksgiving because we lacked my mom's yummy homemade cooking. We ordered out a dinner at a local grocery store. It was nice that we could have a relaxing day without having to prep all morning for dinner.

Friday, Nov. 27, Clayton and Kara were married for time and all eternity in the Draper temple. It was windy and cold, so the pictures afterwards were not fun. My mom made Kari, Ariane, and I matching white silk blouses, which turned out wonderfully. The reception was a few hours after the wedding. Having not had a nap, Caleb was wired all through the reception, and Matt and I pretty much took turns chasing down our son and trying to keep him out of trouble. Later that night, we went to Temple Square to see the lights.

It's good to be back home and back to our normal routine (although Matt's not excited to be back at work). Congratulations Clayton and Kara and thanks for letting us be a part of your special day!

Preschool Field Trip

We took a field trip to a botanical garden for preschool last week. Caleb and Dallin enjoyed all the beautiful flowers and butterflies that we saw. We talked about colors, smells, and staying on the path. They had a lot of fun.

Caleb looking for fish in the pond

Our one attempt at a picture together. Caleb wasn't being very cooperative.

Halfway Point

I was positively convinced I knew I was having a girl this time, just like I felt like Caleb was a boy. I already had a name picked out and everything (Matt doesn't start doing the name brainstorming until about 2 weeks before I'm due--lame). Therefore I was really shocked at the ultrasound yesterday when the nurse announced it was a boy. (Apparently the baby wanted it to be very obvious as he kept showing "the goods" whenever the nurse was trying to get other measurements done.) So much for my "women's intuition". It will be fun to have two boys together so they can be good friends. Now the nerves are starting though that I might not have a girl... :o)

20 weeks

Lucky Day

The other week Matt called in on a radio show and won some football tickets. It was his first time to win anything off the radio! Last Thursday, he was driving into work at 6:30 in the morning and came across some other opportunities to win on the radio. The first was a country station that was giving away a Carrie Underwood CD as well as having your name entered into a drawing to win a trip to see Carrie Underwood live--all expenses paid for. He thought, why not give it a try? So he calls and wins this CD. (I've really enjoyed listening to it!)

He flips over to another station, classic country, and they are giving away 4 tickets to a nutcracker festival to the 10th caller. Thinking he has the calling strategy figured out, he calls again, and is caller number 10.

The last win on an oldies station was the best win...a $50 gift card! He claims that he's figured out the perfect strategy of when to call after the radio announces to start calling. It could also be that not as many people are driving to work/listening to the radio at 6:30 am, but either way, I'd say he had a pretty lucky morning :o). 3 for 3 in one hour!

Preschool Fun

Starting in October, we started a new curriculum for the boys. (My sister and I teach preschool together for our boys who are 6 months apart.) We are using the book, The Toddler Calendar, and we are liking it a lot better than the curriculum we were using off the internet. Some of the activities are a little advanced still for our boys, but it gives us great ideas for projects/skills we can work on. We meet twice a week for an hour and 30 minutes that includes stories, songs, as well as a craft or activity from the following areas: math, science, social studies, taste, listening, and smell. (The stories cover our language area.) It's been difficult to persevere some days when one or both are in grumpy moods and don't want to do the activities we have planned, but we've seen great improvement in them both.

Some of Caleb's projects that he has done.

For most of the activities, Ariane and I do the prep work of the project, and the kids just do the gluing and/or coloring.

One of our science activities today involved experimenting with what happens to the texture of flour when you add water. They had a fun time.

Trick or Treat

This Halloween was a lot more fun for Caleb because he understood things a little better than last year. We had practiced saying words like "ghost", "pumpkin", and most importantly "trick or treat", so he was all prepped. The costume I bought for him, Caleb refused to wear, so we settled for clothes we already had as a baseball player (it was the cheaper route anyway). Unfortunately our ward didn't do a Trunk or Treat, which I was really bummed about, but Caleb went out that night with his cousins (I went with Caleb and Matt stayed home passing out candy). Caleb can be very timid and shy in new situations, so having his older cousin, Drew, there helped a lot. It doesn't take long to catch on that this is the coolest holiday of the year...going to stranger's doors, saying 3 little words, and getting free candy! He said "trick or treat" and "thank you" at pretty much every door, and his "trick or treat" is adorable if I do say so myself :o). We didn't record it on video camera, but I'll do a post soon of new words Caleb can say so I have a record of how he used to say them.

Caleb and Drew/Optimus Prime

Dallin the Pirate, Drew, & Caleb