RC Cars

 Rick and Audrey went with us to go play RC cars with our friend Dallas and his family. Cohen and Mathias both got RC cars for Christmas. The boys, big and little, were so excited to play with them. It was pretty cold out but we still had fun.

  

Azlyn had fun playing with her cousin Audrey and her friend Kenzly.

When Mathias' battery died they chased around Cohen's car. His is gas powered and therefore lasts a bit longer.

While the kids were running around I chased Azlyn around to try and get a few fun pictures of her. I love how this one turned out.

Christmas with Mema

Mema was not able to be down here for Christmas but came up today to celebrate with the kiddos. The kiddos absolutely adore their Mema and love it when she comes over.

Mema brought some presents over . Azlyn got a Ariel bath doll, a tutu, princess lip gloss, a bee stuffed animal that when dropped always lands on its bottom and  a remote control dog that barks, walks, and sits. Azlyn was in heaven with all of it.

Mathias got a stuffed turtle that always lands right side up and a HUGE 6 lane race track.  He loves the race track and plays with it all the time. He also had to show Mema his revo and how fast it goes and that he can make it do donuts.

My mom got me a gift card to Quilted Bear and told me that I have to promise to use it on me. She knows me too well and knows I would probably get something for the kiddos so I had to show her what I got with it. She also got us this sign. I absolutely love it and it fits our family perfectly. It was so nice to spend time with her and we all wish she lived closer so we could get together more often!

thumb

Azlyn has sucked her poor little thumb raw! I am not sure how this happened because she usually only sucks on it when she is tired or scared. It doesn't really seem like she is sucking it more lately, but apparently she has been. I am tempted to try the nasty thumb stuff and get her to stop all together but with the baby coming in only a month it is just a battle I don't really want to fight right now. However, I need to figure something out though because her poor little thumb just looks so sore.

Christmas

Here is the tree and stocking the night before. Mathias decided to add the paper airplanes the day before and thought it was pretty cool that we left them all in there.

Apparently we are doomed to have sick kids at Christmas time. We have yet to have a Christmas where the kids aren't sick with at least a cold. Azlyn has yet to wake up Christmas morning in her Christmas jammies she went to bed in the night before. As we were leaving our family Christmas party on Christmas Eve, Azlyn threw up. She also threw up up in the car on the way home. She had not been acting sick at all and so it took us all by surprise. Mathias surprised us by throwing up all over his bed and floor in the middle of the night. To say it was a long night is an understatement!

This is is how our morning started. Mathias was still not feeling good and laid on the couch for a while being pretty lethargic. I think Azlyn was still tired and a bit overwhelmed at what was going so we snuggled for a bit. Then she spotted her new baby dolls and that was all it took.

 Azlyn opening her stocking. She got a couple of baby dolls, some bracelets, hair clips, chapstick, a book, and some goodies. She of course loved it all. I couldn't really find any stocking this year that I absolutely loved so she used her "1st Christmas" one from last year.

Poor Mathias, I felt so bad for him. He got hit a lot harder by this stomach thing than Azlyn did. He was really not feeling well, but of course really wanted to open his presents. He dumped out his stocking then his stomach started hurting so he tried to lie down for a minute but ended up in the bathroom.

 I love that my husband who always gets after me for taking way too many pictures of everything insisted on taking pictures of Mathias throwing up "for posterity's sick".

Some pictures of Azlyn opening her presents. She definitely has figured it out a bit more since last year. I love the picture of her putting her chap-stick on her chin and the one of her smiling huge because she likes hearing the little kid voice on her new toy cell phone.

Mathias opening up some of his presents. Poor guy opened some of them up while laying down because he was just so miserable. I love some of the facial expressions he does when he opens up some of them.

Finally the BIG present he has been hoping and asking for! We were so excited to see his reaction when he opened it. It didn't disappoint. He got the radio-controlled Revo car that he has wanted for a while. He wanted to play with it right away! He was so excited. So was Dev; in fact, I don't know who was more excited about it. 

The kids with their haul.

We don't usually get much or sometimes anything for each other but I wanted to get a few small things for Dev. I got him a couple of t-shirts, a digital picture frame for his desk at work, a ratcheting screw driver, and some more woolly buggers (slippers). Somehow he lost one slipper of his last pair; how someone loses one slipper when they are never taken outside I'll never understand. I got this amazing picture of the St. George Temple. I love pictures of  temples that are not your common pictures. The St. George temple is my favorite and is where I received my endowment.

After we open Christmas presents, it is tradition for all the family to come over to the Brower's for breakfast omelets and to exchange gifts with the sibling families. This year Scott and family had us. They got Azlyn some baby dolls and Mathias a Cars 2 book and magnet set that he absolutely loved, and they gave us some cheesecake gift certificates. Yum. We had Rick and family this year and we got Audrey a strawberry shortcake doll, rick a little remote control car and Melissa a picture hanger upper thing that she wanted. Also grandma and grandpa Brower get each of the grand kids a gift and each of the families a gift. This year the kids all got slippers and  we got an ice cream maker. We got grandma a new waffle maker. We attempted a picture of all the grand kids again this year, and just like last year Azlyn wanted nothing to do with it. There were three of us taking pictures at the same time so this is the best one I could get.

The kids  were so excited to play with all of their new toys; even Mathias, who was still sick. Poor kid couldn't keep anything down all day but that didn't stop him for playing for a little at a time.

Christmas Eve

Since we were going to have a busy day  we made cookies pretty early on. I just got a quick little mix so it wouldn't take to long. Mathias loved to pour the mix in and add the egg and stir it himself. Azlyn just wanted to eat the chocolate chips. We set everything out just before we went to bed.  Notice how Azlyn is in different jammies than the ones she got tonight. Story about that a bit further down.

It has become tradition to go to Scott and Mel's house (Dev's brother and sis-in-law) with all of our families on our side as well as Mel's family and have fondue and play games and just hang out. Mel and her family does a themed tree every year and every year it is different. Mel had a Disney tree set up upstairs but had the doors shut so that Azlyn would not want to take it apart. It was amazing. Hopefully if you click the picture bigger you can see all the details better. My favorite part was at the very top at the end of the red ribbon they had tinker belle on the end of it like she was wrapping it around the tree. Azlyn found this little nativity scene and played with it for a long time. She also liked to pretend and play the drums with Audrey.

I was so excited for Azlyn to try the chocolate fountain. She is my choco-holic so I figured she would love it. She didn't. I was so surprised. She just wanted to eat all the colored mini marshmallows.  She ate a ton of them!

 The Browers taught us how to play    . It was pretty fun. I didn't play much because Azlyn wanted in on the fun and so I had to try and keep her entertained.

Mathias and Audrey kept our nephew Mitchell busy. Mitchell is amazing with kids and has just as much energy as they do. They just loved playing with him.

Then just before it was time to leave we all gathered in the dining room and opened up our Christmas Eve presents, which of course were jammies. It was kinda fun opening them with all of the other neices and nephews. We sure missed the DeGooyers though. We then attempted a group shot of all the kids wearing there jammies. Azlyn of course was just done and tired by this point. It had been a long busy day and was way past her bed time. Just as Devin was gathering all of our stuff to go, I had Azlyn in my arms when she all of the sudden threw up, out of no where and with absolutely no warning. She had not been acting sick at all. The kids have had a runny nose but that was it. So we took off her jacket and cleaned everything up and were off. She threw up a little bit on the way home as well. I was hoping it was just because she ate a ton of marshmallows. Poor girl She has yet to wake up on Christmas morning wearing the jammies that she got on Christmas Eve. On the way home, when Azlyn threw up again in her car seat, Mathias was trying his best to get the last bit of "good" in before Christmas morning to maximize his presents from Santa so he offered to help clean up Azlyn's mess. It was really sweet of him, even if it was for selfish reasons. All in all, we had a super fun filled day as usual filled with spending time with a lot of family.

Minute to win it

Our friend Dallas' birthday is just before Christmas and they invited us over for a 'Minute to Win It' themed birthday party. It was a way fun party.

Here is Devin and Josh doing the face the cookie challenge. Dev won this challenge handily. Far be it from him to let a cookie fall on the ground!

 Devin doing the hanky panky challange. He lost big time. Cassidy was crazy fast!

Devin doing the get forked challenge. He was actually able to get a quarter in between the fork prongs!

 Devin doing the junk in the trunk challenge. Candice won this one.

Devin and Teresa doing the Christmas in the balance  challenge.

 Dallas and Josh doing the Christmas in the balance.

Candice doing the Chandelier challenge. She didn't get it done in a minute but we were all still really impressed that she got it done.

Temple Square

It is tradition in my family to go see the lights at Temple Square every year. I love this. It is just fun to get out and walk around the grounds and just take in the beauty of it all and to feel the spirit. Sometimes it isn't super fun because it can be freezing but the weather actually wasn't too bad this year.  Here are a few pictures of the kiddos. Azlyn had two blankets on her as well as her coat, hat and mittens. Since she wasn't moving around much I really wanted to make sure she stayed warm. The mittens lasted all of two seconds and she kept trying to suck her thumb so her hands froze but other than that I think she was fine.

  A few pictures of the beautiful Temple Square. It started snowing part way through and acutally just added to the amazing feeling there. It was just absolutely beautiful!

 Some pictures of our family. We had a really nice guy offer to take a picture for us then he would look at it to make sure it was a good one. He ended up taking a few for us. It was very nice of him to do that with out us even asking him to. I love my little family so much and love coming here and taking in everything with them.

gingerbread house

I love doing this tradition of decorating a gingerbread house with the kids. Mathias really loves doing it. 

 Dev put the icing on the roof and the kids decorated it.

Azlyn was obviously too young to do it last year and really wanted to participate this year. However, her way of participating was to taste test all of the candy that came in the kit. She did put the snow on the front of the house though. We ended up giving her her own graham crackers so she could decorate/eat them.

Mathias was so excited to put the frosting on the gingerbread men all by himself and decorate everything else. He was so proud of his end results. 

Sunday Christmas outfits

 Another Christmas season tradition for our family is to get the kids some nice new Christmas church clothes. We wore them the Sunday before Christmas because we are not going to go to church on Christmas morning. I attempted to take the kids' pictures as we were heading out the door to church. Neither one of them really wanted to cooperate so these are the best that we got.

I just had to include this one. I just thought that it was hilarious that we are all pulling a funny face because it sure wasn't planned. Gotta love trying to get everyone looking and smiling at the camera at the same time. I don't know how people do it.

kindergarten Christmas program

Today was Mathias' school Christmas program. He was so excited. He has been practicing and singing the songs for weeks now. It was so weird for me to go to the school and watch him sing. He just seemed so big all of the sudden.

ornaments

As per holiday tradition, the kids got new Christmas tree ornaments this year. Mathias is still very much into the movies Cars and Cars 2 so this one was perfect for him. Its lights turn on when you push a button. You can kinda see that they're on in the  bottom picture. This year Azlyn got two. I had to get her the Ariel one because I love that she has red hair like Azlyn. Then I found the crown  for super cheap at target and had to get it because she is our little princess. There have been a few years were Mathias has gotten more than one ornament as well.

32 weeks w/baby #3

Here we are at 32 weeks with baby #3. I am definitely feeling huge and am getting afraid that this guy is going to be huge. I went in for a doctors appointment last week and gained 3 pounds in 3 weeks! Holy cow! I am also getting super anxious to meet this little guy and to see what he looks like. I wonder if he will look like Mathias or be his own little person. I wonder if he will have red hair like the other two and what color his eyes will be. Mathias has brown eyes and Azlyn has blue. So curious!

He moves around a ton around lunch time and late at night otherwise. I love feeling him move and watching my tummy go crazy. I could do with out the heartburn but really that is the only downside right now so I can't really complain too much. I have fairly easy pregnancies otherwise.

20 months

Azlyn is 20 Months! Here are a few things about her at 20 months.

• Favorite books are

The B Book

Put Me In The Zoo

I'm A Big Sister

• Favorite songs

Ring Around The Rosies. She learned this in nursery at church and came home saying ashes ashes, fall down. Took us a second to figure it out but we got it and she now asks to sing it all the time

ABC's She can now sing this the entire way through all by herself! I am working on getting it on video but she gets shy when she is being filmed and just wants to see herself.

Row Your Boat

Little House in the Middle of the Woods. She learned this one from her grandparents.

Once There Was a Snowman. She also learned this in Nursery and came home singing it. She seriously loves songs and picks them up super easy. 

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Wheels On The Bus

• Favorite shows

Dora

Olivia

Little Einsteins

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

• She talks a ton and will pretty much try to say everything. She is starting to talk in sentences. Some that she like to use a lot lately are

I get it.

I want it.

I try it.

• She still takes a 2-3 hour nap a day. She usually still goes down between 12 and 1.

• She still goes to bed at 8 and sleeps till about 8, though it depends on if Mathias wakes her up in the mornings.

•  She is still wearing size 12-18 month clothes with some 18-24 month clothes.

• Still in a size three diaper. Poor girl has a non-existent bum!

• Her favorite things to play with is probably still her baby dolls.

•  She has become quite the little mommy lately. I am excited to see her with the new baby.

• Her hair is finally starting to really grow.

• She loves kids! It seems she is fascinated by big kids.

• She is starting to throw major tantrums. It seems like she only really throws them though when she doesn't understand something or when she is really tired.  She is generally still a really happy little girl most of the time though.

• She loves to snuggle!

• She would live on go-gurts and colby jack cheese sticks if we let her, and sometimes we do since that is the only thing she will eat on some days.

decorating the tree

When we first started to get the tree and decorations out, Azlyn started crying. I think she was overwhelmed and she also has a cold. However, once she saw the candy canes and figured out that they were good to eat she perked right up. Here she is with her first taste of a candy cane.

As to be expected, Azlyn mostly just wanted to play with the ornaments instead of putting them on the tree. 

Mathias is so funny when it comes to decorating the tree. He gets so excited to see all of his old ornaments. Like he has pretty much always done, he wanted to put all of his ornaments basically in the same spot all grouped together. We kept telling him to spread them out but he didn't do that very well. I had to go back later and spread them all out a bit. I twas fun to watch  both kids decorate the tree this year.