Let the Christmas Crafting Begin

This time of year I get to combine two of my favorite things Christmas and crafts, and as a added bonus this year I get to spend time with my son. I am excited to be crafty with him.

Today we spend time making 2 of the traditional Countdown to Christmas, Christmas links and Santa Clause beard. Carson loved making them an gluing for the first time, who knew glue could be so much fun. I am not sure will be more excited to make the crafts or Mom seeing the joy on his face, we shall see.

 Besides doing crafts we look forward spending time together watching Christmas classics, coloring, decorating the tree, and not to be left out learning about our Savior together. 

I found this cool Facebook page that will have 25 days worth of scriptures and devotionals just for Christmas. 

Possible Crafts we are going to be doing throughout the month of December, you will have to check back as I am sure to update on our craft days.

Candy cane finger painting

 Melt Crayon Ornaments

 Cotton Ball Snowmen

Candy Cane PlaDoh 

Tree Feet painting

 Of course making and decorating sugar cookies

 Snow cone Christmas trees

 Candy cane reindeer 

 Beaded candy canes

 Snowflakes are a must

Reindeer puppet 

 Christmas wreath

 Baby Jesus in a manger

Pine cone ornaments

Lace Stockngs

Snowman Fridge

 Puzzle Snowflake

And finally probably the favorite one a candy train. 

As you can see I have lots plan to make this holiday season fun for my little guy!

If you want to do some of these too I have added links to some of the pages I got the ideas from so enjoy. 

And not to be left out I am going to make some cute Christmas barrettes for the little one. 

5 months

Wow, through the stress and happy times in the last fine months I still can't believe it has been five months! But here we are and our little girl is 5 months and growing ever so quickly. 

At 5 months:

• She does a pretty good job at holding the bottle herself, especially when it is smaller 2.5 ounce bottle vs 5 oz bottle. She still seems to prefer the bottle of myself, unless it is to go to sleep at night then it is mom all the way. She is still a pretty light eater maybe that is why she is staying smaller. 

• She loves to give the biggest smiles and sometimes we catch the funny faces as well, such a silly girl. We have yet to hear her really laugh, she seems to be content to just smile rather than laughing. 

•  She loves her big brother, it was hard to get a picture of her staring at the camera when he came around, she loves to just watch him. He has been the closest to getting her to really laugh. It is fun to start seeing them interact more and play with each other. 

•  There's a bright smile that she is been known to give frequently, just can't get enough of them so adorable. 

•  She loves to play with her toes and she is one flexible girl!

• Can sit by herself for a few seconds. 

• She has recently found her tongue we caught a picture in a few post back if you are interested, for sure a Dickens tongue. 
• Is now in size 3 diapers, only because we didn't want to go out and buy any more 2 diapers only to be stuck with them again. She still tiny compared to Carson, which I love. 
• She loves bath time, and loves to splash and squeal
• She is quite the talker if she is in the right mood, which generally is during church or some other quiet activity. 
• She can now pick up toys and put her binky in her mouth if either object is in near proximity to her hands. 
• She is still not a good sleeper, so today we are trying a very strict sleeping routine. So you might not see me out much for a little while. Including to Zumba unfortunately, but I have to take back the nights soon!
• She is slowly getting the idea of rice cereal and the idea of solid foods. In the last month she has started grabbing for our food, so maybe she is ready for some more variety. 
• She is getting stronger and now can pull herself up to sitting position from her bouncer. 
• She still has not really rolled over, due to the fact she loves to be held and does not like to be 

It has been one stressful, but wonderful 5 months with this little princess of ours!

Potty Training

The dreaded potty training has begun in our house. I have finally broke down and allowed him to wear his train underwear for the last couple of days for a few hours and today, for most of the waking hours. I am still not quite sure he is completely ready as he doesn't know when he needs to go to the bathroom until it is too late, but hopefully he will get the hang of it sooner rather than later. 

Today went pretty well we had to accidents and two successful potty runs, so progress yeah!

If we are lucky maybe by the end of the year we will have a boy that is potty trained at least during the waking hours, keeping my fingers crossed because I know boys tend to take a little longer to potty train. 

A very happy boy on one of his successes of the day, one proud Mama too! He is starting to like the idea that he gets potty candy after going, and I have also promissed him a new train once we he has successfully potty trained, he keeps mentioning that, so hopefully the process goes smoothly. My boy is growing up, I love being his number one fan!

Hip Hip Ho-ray as Mickey says!

Who has more Fun?

 In the words of Robert "This is quite possibly the most epic train track I have built to date. Sometimes I think dad has even more fun than Carson putting the tracks together. But in the end, I am certain Carson far out-enjoys dad in playing with the trains on the awe-inspiring tracks."

These train tracks have been well worth the purchase, and they were pretty inexpensive at IKEA(one of the only purchases we have made at IKEA, really don't like that store.) Endless possibilities and endless hours of fun!

New Firsts

This week their has been a few new first for Sydni, from sitting up while taking a bath, to finding her tongue, to trying out banana, to finally sitting up in full sitting position from her bouncy 

She loves her baths, and if almost getting to big for her infant tub.

A Dickens' tongue it is! It is always so cool when babies start having recognizable traits and this is one for our kids, long Dickens' tongues. 

Not sure why I didn't know about these little mesh fresh feeders with Carson, but it is a pretty cool tool. I gave her an ice cube to suck on and she was content for quick some time. Next I tried banana, though she liked it, not sure I like cleaning banana, still trying to get it all out. I am sure there will be many more foods that we will try in our feeder, but for now we are slowly moving into solid foods including rice cereal. 

Love her many faces, specially trying new foods, pictures of the ice cube as well as the banana. 

She may not be able to roll over yet, but she sure loves to pull herself up to sitting position and she is pretty quick at it too!

 We just can't help but smile when you see this bright smile of hers. 

Finally just some fun pictures of her playing, she is getting pretty good an holding toys. It has been fun to watch Carson give her toys lately, he is wanting to play with her more, melts a mothers heart. 

We just love this girl!

Spanish Fork Playground Fun

On Tuesday we spent a good few hours hanging out with the cousins and a few of Robert's sisters, it might just be the last beautiful weather day we have in awhile. 

At one point Carson started dumping wood chips on his head while 3 of his cousins Abbie, Ella, and Grace joined in to help him. When we changed Carson's diaper awhile later we found a nice pile of wood chips that had made their way into is shirt and into his onesie, if we had to estimate he probably had a good cup full, I am sure it was not comfortable but he sure had a fun time. 

He was not too happy that I wanted to take his picture, but I just had to capture the moment. 

FHE

Where our little family became a forever family.

As of late Carson is loving to pull down his temple board book and look at all the temples, so we thought a perfect Family Home Evening (FHE) trip would be to go so the Provo temple. Additionally from loving to look at his temple book and point all the temples he always points out the temples as we pass them or see them in the distance. A Funny story from yesterday as we traveled to my the baby blessing of my cousin's baby yesterday, as some of you may know Northern Utah has lots of large white grain silos, well you might have guessed Carson calls them temples as well. 

If you don't know what a grain Silo is here is a picture.  You might now understand why he might think this is a temple too. 

We feel it is important to show and to talk to our children about the temple and the purposes of the temple from a very young age. President Thomas S Monson stated, "  You parents of young children, may I share with you some sage advice from President Spencer W. Kimball. Said he: It would be a fine thing if ... parents would have in every bedroom in their house a picture of the temple so [their children] from the time [they are] infant(s) could look at the picture every day [until] it becomes a part of [their lives.] When [they reach] the age that [they need] to make [the] very important decision [concerning going to the temple], it will have already been made." So even though out children are small they know the temple is important to a certain degree and as they grow older will gain a better understanding why our temples are so important to us. Our temples help us gain the necessary ordinances, including being sealed for all times and eternity to our families to return to live with our Heavenly Father. 

One of my favorite Children's Songs from my primary days is 

 I love to see the temple, I'm going there someday. To feel the Holy Spirit to listen and to pray. For the temple is a house of God. A place of love and beauty. I'll prepare myself while I am young; this is my sacred duty. 

I love to see the temple. I'll go inside someday. I'll conv'nant with my Father; I'll promise to obey. For the temple is a holy place where we are sealed together. As a child of God I've learned this truth. A family is forever. 

Our little family visiting the Provo, UT temple. 

I am grateful that I made the choices to be married to a wonderful husband for time and all eternity and that I am sealed to my little family and extended family forever as long as I live up to the promises I made in the temple. I love the feeling that I get each time I am able to go to the temple and help those who have passed on receive those ordinances and blessings that only the temple brings, and in so doing I am greatly blessed myself. 

I DO love to see the temple!