Christmas

Our family spent Christmas in Colville, Washington this year. Since I had to work until 1am on Christmas day, we decided to have our own little Christmas first, before flying out to see Blaine's family later in the day. It was so nice not having to pack ALL of our Christmas presents in addition to everything else. Packing for kids is RIDICULOUS! Even though the kids traveled pretty well, Blaine and I both agreed to not fly again anytime in the near future. :)

We all had a fun time in Colville. All of Blaine's siblings were there, except for his brother Phil, who is currently serving a LDS mission in Brazil. We enjoyed seeing family and meeting some of Blaine's high school friends while visiting Washington. Cannon especially enjoyed the SNOW! Utah has had a little bit of snow this winter, but not enough to play in quite yet...I'm definitely okay with this! Blaine and I also celebrated our 4th anniversary while visiting...I can't believe it has been four years already! Love you honey!

Here are some pictures of Cannon on Christmas morning playing with his kitchen from Santa(which he has played with non-stop since Christmas), and some pictures of our trip. FYI: You will notice that Cannon is wearing a head lamp in most of the pictures. Once Blaine opened this gift from his parents, Cannon was all over it and wouldn't take it off!















One week later and still cooking up a storm...

A New Christmas Tradition

Blaine and I talked about starting the "Elf on the Shelf" Christmas tradition before we had kids. We thought we would start this year since Cannon is old enough to understand that the elf is watching his every move and will tell Santa if he has been good or bad. So far, Hermy (the name we have chosen for the elf), has become very helpful in ending Cannon's terrible two tantrums! Cannon has also enjoyed looking for the elf each day, as he moves to a different location every night. If you have never heard of the Elf on the Shelf, google it! It really is the cutest tradition to start with a family of young kids.

Chuck E Cheese?...Yes Please!

Whenever my parents are in town, they like to take Cannon to Chuck E Cheese. Since I had not been there in years, I thought it would be fun to take Cannon there this weekend. We met up with Cannon and Riley's Aunt Haley, who brought Blaine's Aunt Mo's kids with her since she was watching them for the weekend. I think Cannon and his second cousins had a lot of fun! Even though Cannon was much too short to play most of the games there, he sure did love the basketball hoop game and got creative in getting the ball into the hoop...


When not playing the basketball hoop game, Cannon had fun riding the rides by himself and with his cousins, Jack and Cory.





Cannon, after his fun-filled afternoon at Chuck E Cheese's, watching his favorite movie, Mulan (he has been singing the lyrics from the song, "Be a Man", for the passed few weeks now from watching the movie so much). He had a great day!


I also wanted to add a couple pictures of my little three month old. She is growing too fast!

Halloween Costumes and Pumpkins

I was scheduled to work on Halloween but was called off last minute. It was great to be able to be home and go trick or treating with Cannon, while Blaine and Riley stayed home to pass out candy. When we first started trick or treating, Cannon kept telling me, "I'm going to get more candy, more candy!",after walking away from each house. He was so excited! However, after a little over an hour of walking up and down stairs of houses and streets in our neighborhood, Cannon pooped out...he made that point clear the moment he walked up to a house, handed me his pumpkin bucket filled with candy, and sat on the steps instead of walking up them to get more candy. :) Once home, Cannon went straight to his candy, like every kid does, and had fun opening the door to the last of the trick or treaters for the night. I think he enjoyed his first trick or treating experience! Here are some pictures of our little dragon and lady bug:







Blaine wanted to put his old Halloween wig on for fun before I took Cannon out. The funniest part was how scared Cannon was of the wig. He didn't even want to touch it! Cannon kept saying, "I don't like that wig"! I don't think Blaine helped the situation much by talking like Larry the Cable guy while wearing it. :)





Earlier last week we carved the two pumpkins we grew in our backyard. I still can't believe we actually grew them! Here are some pictures (the two middle pumpkins are the ones we grew):

Halloween is Here, Baby!

Since I have to work on Halloween this year and will not be able to watch Cannon go trick or treating for the first time (sad!), I thought it would be fun to dress the kids up in their Halloween costumes for some early Halloween fun. Cannon is going to be a dragon and Riley a ladybug this year. Blaine's aunt Mo was very nice in giving us one of her son's old Halloween costumes, which just happened to be a dragon, and fits Cannon perfectly! Cannon LOVES the dragon costume and wants to wear it all the time. I bought him a Halloween book about a week ago that has a line in it that says, "the fiercest dino in the land"! So, when wearing the dragon costume, Cannon likes to stand up on the ottoman and shout, "I'm the fiercest dino in the land"!...it's pretty cute. And really, dinosaurs are pretty much the same thing as dragons, right?

So anyway, last Friday we took our little dragon and lady bug to Gardner Village to see the witch display. When we told Cannon on Thursday night what we were planning on doing the next day, he could not stop talking about "seeing the witches". This made me really excited to take him and see his reaction to the witches this year, since last year he was afraid of them. Even though this second time around was a little better, it was easy to tell Cannon was still a little scared of the green faced gals and wouldn't stand alone next to one. :)

This week will be filled with more fall fun carving pumpkins, making caramel apples, and getting some pre-Halloween candy at our ward's "trunk or treat" at church. Also, this weekend we are planning on dressing up the kids for the Halloween Spooktacular event at the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. If anyone wants to meet us at the museum this weekend, let me know! It looks like it will be fun!