Christmas

For Christmas we drove out to Utah to see Lee's parents' new house. It's a gorgeous house and I'm so glad we got to spend a week with them for Christmas. While visiting with them we got to see a lot of extended family as well.

Ty loved playing with Grandma Karen's dogs.

 He even took my camera for a while and took pictures of them.

 Ty has always been a good helper and was very happy to stir the syrup for our breakfast.

  

Christmas Eve we opened my family's traditional pjs. 

 

 Even Mommy and Daddy got some.

 Lee and I wanted to exchange a present on Christmas Eve too and Ty decided he would help us open them.

I have been so surprised that Ty's leash has now become his best friend. He has to have bear-san with him constantly.

 Christmas Morning

 Going through his stocking

 Wearing Daddy's and his new hat.

My men with their new fancy hats.

 For his big present this year we bought Ty a tool belt since he loves to play with tools.

 Grandpa and Grandma bought him a bench to go with it.

Ty was excited to help Grandpa build his new bench.

After presents Ty and I went to play in the snow. First Ty helped Grandpa clear the driveway while I inflated his sled.

 here was basically constant snowing while we were there, so it was pretty deep in the backyard.

 

 Grandpa pulled Ty while we looked for a good place to sled.

Ty had a blast sledding, but was very tuckered out by the end.

Lee would have joined us, but unfortunately he was sick for almost the whole holiday. He spent a lot of time resting in our room. Ty made sure to visit and spend time with him.

 

 For Christmas dinner some of Grandma's side came over for dinner. Ty loved having Aunt Leslie to play with.

 With a new house comes plenty of home improvement projects. For one of the projects the supplies came in this super fun box. We cut out the house and taped it together and Ty would go inside, close the roof, then suddenly pop out. He'd also stick his hand out the door and grab things or push things out.

 

 

 It's always so interesting to see the difference between mine and Lee's family and I love spending time with both of them. With Lee's family everything always seems more relaxed and quiet and simple, whereas my family is energetic and loud and crazy. I'm so grateful for having both sides of my family in my life. They are all a blessing to me.

Snow Day

Since we finally got snow we just had to play in it before going on vacation. I had bought Ty snow pants weeks ago and now we finally got to put them to the test.

Taking his first steps into this years snow.

 Putting the arms on his first snowman.

 

 Ty toppled him shortly after.

 Ty's first snow angel.

 Then he ran off for the playground.

 

 

 For some reason Ty was hugging the pole. I think he was trying to climb it. At one point he was pulling and stuck out his tongue. I missed the picture, but it reminded me a my dad's favorite Christmas movie, A Christmas Story.

Swensons

A few months ago we made some new friends at church and they are amazing! We have been hanging out pretty often and Ty loves to play with their little boy who's a year older.They've been better than us about pulling out their Christmas decorations so I couldn't help taking some pictures by the Christmas tree.

 

 

 We also invited them over to decorate cookies, but I somehow managed to not get pictures of them, but here's a cute one of Ty concentrating very hard on putting the sprinkles on.

 These were to cuter cookies that Laura and I made to take to the Ward Christmas party that night. For my first time making sugar cookies and frosting from those recipes I'm very pleased with how they turned out.

Thanksgiving

For our Thanksgiving our plans kept changing as it got closer. In the end we stayed home and cooked our own meal. We also invited Lee's parents to join us since they were busy packing all day long and I wanted them to be able to have a real Thanksgiving meal. Here are our lovely place settings.

 

 Ty colored place mats for everyone.

 Ty and I had fun headbands for the holiday.

 

 

We planned to continue our thankful tree until the end of the month, but ended up stopping after Thanksgiving because we kept forgetting. This is what the end result looked like.

 

During our meal Ty got a hold of my camera and thought we needed some pictures of our food and Grandma and Grandpa.

 

 It was so nice to be able to spend time with family before they moved away. I'm also very glad we did a thankful tree. At the end of each day we took time to think back and find a blessing from that day.