Tis The Season

I LOVE Christmas time, so now that we are back from Thanksgiving the tree is up! The boys loved setting it up and I love how I actually have kids that are old enough to be excited about Christmas this year!

After church apparel does not always match in our house:)

Levi's "socks"
I had to add this picture I found while uploading my pictures today. This is from before we left Mesa. I wonder where he got this from? Too funny!

Gobble Gobble

For Thanksgiving this year, we went down to the Stevenson's Wednesday night for dinner, down to Orem Thursday through Saturday afternoon, and then back to the Stevenson's for the rest of Saturday. We had some great family time! For Thanksgiving we went to the church and had dinner, played basketball, and Jeni brought her bounce house. The kids had a blast and were very warn out. That night Kells and I hit up Toy R US for black friday. It was quite the experience. Three hours later we headed home! Christmas shopping is pretty much done though!

Saturday at the Burkholder family dinner, we had a talent show. Levi and Zack danced for their talent. It was super cute and Levi loved to be center of attention. Zack just spun in circles and then would stop and shake his bum. I took a video of that and it is way to big to post but, super cute! Happy Thanksgiving!

Before heading down Dan spent some of Saturday doing this:

Before

After...I LOVE it! So much better!
Also, Kellie and McKay stopped by that Saturday night and Levi was beyond excited to hold Mack. All throughout Thanksgiving break he would want to hold him almost every time I was. He would be very soft and be so worried if he cried. He would even talk in baby talk to him. So funny and sweet!
church festivities




Our turkey crew. Lots and lots of turkey hats...my arm was a little sore after:) But, super cute!
Leaves in grandma and grandpa's backyard. Those two boys played in them for quite some time!

No Mom, That Is Me!

Yesterday, while I was in our office unpacking or something, Levi found Dan's scrapbook from when he was little. It has all the school pictures he had taken growing up. Levi sat down and opened it and excitedly said," Look mom! There are pictures of daddy in this book!" I replied with something like, "Yup, that is daddy's special book of pictures of just daddy when he was little." Levi looks at me with this confused look on his face and says, "Nuh-uh mom, look I am in this book too," as he is pointing to a picture of Dan when he was in Kindergarten or First grade. I laughed pretty hard. He was so certain it was him and you could not change his mind. Levi is so much fun and says the funniest things. He is starting to become such a good helper and loves to be big brother. This morning Zack was going down the stairs and Levi was telling him not to go down there. In frustration he says, "Mom! Zack is not listening!" Then he turns to Zack and says, "Zack come up the stairs, you are not listening. That is naughty. One. Two. Three....." I cut him off at that point to explain that he is not mom:) He loves to play with other kids and loves when Zack wants to play with him. I am so glad he is at that age where they will play together. Levi loves to play outside. He loves tackle football with his cousins, and loves to play baseball with us. He loves to ride his bike around our cul-de-sac and the duck pond. Since we moved we have started his reading lessons, sort of. He can again sound out S, M, A, T, and E. He loves to do puzzles now, and of course cars are still a big hit. He has started a chore chart since our move as well, so he can learn to help out. He is practicing making his bed, sets the table every night for dinner, and picks up his toys before bed. I think it has been good for him and he actually enjoys helping out for the time being. He still loves to help me cook. I think it is because he knows he can sneak some sooner. He helped me make fudge last night. He is such a sweet kid and many times throughout the day he will just yell out, "Mom?" which I reply with "Yes Levi?" and he says"I love you mom." It melts my heart every time. He does say it a lot when you walk in on him using the restroom. That makes me laugh every time:) Last night he was scared and came out of his room not wanting to be alone. He peeks around the corner and says, "Mom, will you come snuggle with me for awhile?" How do you say no to that cute face and to the opportunity to snuggle with any chance his busy body will give me. Such a sweet kid and we love our Levi Squivi!

Rub a dub dub

I was so happy to actually get a picture of Zack smiling at me. I have not been able to get that in awhile! Given it was in the bath, but he is such a cutie! We have been caved in for a week with nasty nasty colds. I think we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, finally. The boys have taken many baths and we have been in our pjs all day just trying to get better. Zack has changed so much in the last few months and is getting so big so fast. He is not a huge talker but he loves to make the sounds things make like, "vroom" and "choo-choo." When I pull out my camera he says "cheese!" He also says it when you make him smile. He is obsessed with cars right now and cannot pass one with out picking it up. He is regularly seen with arm loads of cars. He loves loves to run and wrestle with his brother Levi. I love it when they play together and laugh together. It makes me so happy to have my two boys so close together. You can tell they love each other too. The other day Levi walked up to Zack and started to laugh right by his face, so Zack leaned over and gave Levi a big kiss. He loves to do actions to songs. We were driving in the car and the song, "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" came on. I see out of the corner of my eye little hands being thrown in the air. I looked back to find Zack in his big coat, sock monkey beanie over his eyes, diligently throwing his hands in the air as high as he could considering he looked like a big ball stuffed in his buckles. It made me laugh pretty hard. He finally got his crib back after 3 months in a pack-n-play. He was so happy! He is such a snuggle bug and I am so glad he is feeling better. Never fun to see the little ones feeling miserable. Love our little Zack attack.

Home Sweet Home

So this past weekend, Friday November 4th, we moved to our new home in Clinton, Utah. We fell in love with a few things about this house.

1) a good size yard

2) a cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborood

3) unfinished basement, room to grow

4) affordable

5) good neighborhood (helps in resale when you buy one of the smaller homes in the neighborhood!)

6) a rambler, 2 floors

7) the amazing pond right outside our cul-de-sac

8) the riding lawn mower we got out of the previous owners:)

We are happy happy owners of our first real home and are so happy to be together in it. We have lots of work to do, but are so happy to do it. There will so many good memories in this house and I am excited for them all! We attended our ward here and love it already. We had our next door neighbors at our house Saturday to welcome us and showed us around the next day at church. The bishops wife came over with food on Sunday and tons of people introduced themselves and offered assistance at church. Now that is a warm welcome! We feel at home and are so excited! So here are some pictures for those of you who can't come visit just yet:)

Big grass area for my active active boys. We still need to plant our peach and pear trees. This is from one corner of the yard on the left side of the house.
and from the other side.
Right side of the house.
Love the pond outside our cul-de-sac. My two turkeys love it too!
If you have good eyes you can see the remote controlled airplane in the sky.
We will never waste bread again since I guarantee we will be feeding those ducks on a regular basis. We will also inherit a fishing pole as you can go fishing in here. It says you can use kayaks, canoes, and paddleboats in here too but we don't plan on buying any of those anytime soon:)
My boys watching the airplane. Levi was devastated when I told him he could not fly it. You can see our house at the very top of the cul-de-sac.
There will be only one inside shot due to the messes everywhere. Still unpacking!!!

Happy Happy Halloween

We had a great day for Halloween. We spent some time at our new house, yes we got a house. We are official owners of a cute house in Clinton, UT. Pictures to come. We cleaned and then bought some trees to plant in the yard. Fruit trees too of course! Then we met grandma and grandpa for lunch on their way back from Logan. That evening we dressed up and headed out. Zack made it to about five houses before he had enough of putting the candy in the bag. He just wanted to eat it. So he went home with Dan. Levi and I continued with the cousins for longer than I thought he would ever make it. We did have to call Dan for a ride back:) He was so timid and quiet at all the doors and then at one house this lady gave him a long laffy taffy. He turned around all excited and yelled, "Mom! I got a big one!!" It made everyone laugh. He did well and they both had a lot of fun! Too much candy and can't wait till next year.

The first picture is the kids watching the parade at the school. Brought back some of my own memories of school on Halloween. So fun!

Harry Potter


lady bugTinker Bell
All the other kids watching my kids wrestle when they were supposed to be looking at the camera! Boys will be boys!
scary dragon!

My silly Nemo. I LOVED his waddle in this outfit with his tail wagging behind him. SO funny and definitely made lots of people smile:)

My trick or treaters:

Geodes and Birthdays

Jake and Sam had their birthday parties this past week. Levi enjoyed all the yummy cake and fun. Happy birthday boys!

The Stevenson kids had learned about Geodes and I fortunately had a dad that took us rock hunting growing up. He had some little ones sitting at his house so we took a few for the super excited kids. They all loved to see what was inside the rocks!