Christmas Party Part 2

Jax got to spend a week with my parents. When I went to pick him up from my parents house I got to go to another family Christmas party! We are all about the white elephant parties. That owl had been sitting in our storage room for as long as I could remember. Its creepy eyes would follow you everywhere. Now it is sitting in Uncle Peter's office. Jax had a fun time fighting over toys with his cousins.

 Spencer ended up with the best awful present. Brett ended up getting all the presents he opened stolen. He felt pretty picked on.

 Jax has his Grandpa and Grandpa wrapped around his little finger. They
 call every day since we left telling me how much they miss him. He is such an easy little guy to love!

Hola Mexico

At the beginning of December we had the opportunity to go to Mexico. It was supposed to be a big vacation with all the siblings and nieces and nephews but everybody cancelled so we got some one on one time with Luke's parents. We stayed near Tulum. It was hot compared to the weather we left behind in Wyoming (in the negatives!!). We had a lot of fun in the sun.

Here are the ruins of Tulum. It was a hot, sweaty day. The wind was blowing pretty good and the tide was up so the beach was not great but it was still beautiful. 

 It was Christmas time but didn't look or feel like Christmas so I kept making Luke take pictures in front of Christmas trees.

This place was called Xcaret. There was lots of culture and lots of animals. Luke kept pushing me closer to the parrots. One whipped me in the back of the head with its tail feathers. I tried to stand close to the mariachi band to get a picture and they came right around me for the picture.

 This place was called Xplore. It was my favorite. There were zip lines, swimming in underground rivers and I saw a jaguar!

 It was warm and sunny in Mexico but I think that my skin is immune to tanning! I look as pasty leaving as I did coming :) I made Luke wear lots of sun screen too so he won't get skin cancer.

Jax got to visit with Grandma and Grandpa while we were gone. They were so excited to have him stay. It was way too hard on Momma and will not happen again any time soon. Grandma and Grandpa loved it so much they didn't want to give him back to us!

Happy Thanksmas

This year for Thanksgiving we went to my side of the family for the first time since we got married. Normally we go to Luke's family for Thanksgiving and my family for Christmas. My cousin Drew came from Texas with his new baby that everybody wanted to meet so the whole extended family was pretty much there. It was tons of fun! Luke had the whole week off so we went to Rexburg early to have a mini vacation. We got to have a date night and went out to dinner and went and saw Catching Fire (way better than the Hunger Games!).

Then the family came. We had lots of fun playing games and talking and playing with babies. We also did lots and lots of eating! Yum Yum. The Turkey Bowl family football game helped burn some calories.

I have so much to be thankful for this year!

1. I am thankful for our sweet little Jaxon. He has such a happy spirit. He is an amazing blessing in our lives.

2. Luke. He is an awesome, loving, thoughtful husband. He is an amazing dad to Jax. I LOVE him so much!

3. Family. I have such a great loving family. They always support us and it means so much to me that they love Jax as much as we do!

Since we were already all together we decided to do the Christmas party the same weekend. Jax wasn't really sure what to do with the presents. Mostly he was uninterested while they were wrapped. He was getting lots of love from everybody. Here he is getting snuggles with Aunt Char.

 Kennedy ended up with the Duck Dynasty blanket. She opened it up so only one eye was showing and it scared all of us. Claire was loving the socks her mommy got and Drew was modeling the panda hat/mittens.

 This is my favorite picture. Claire is so petite and Jax is such a tall boy. Cousins are fun!

 

All Things Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love that once a year I can still play dress up! I also love all the pumpkin, apple cider and crunchy leaves. We have had a really weird fall so far. Snow one week and warm the next but we still managed to visit the pumpkin patch and corn maze.



 Pumpkin carving FHE with our friends.

 Jax loves to kiss baby Julian and to try and be a big boy with Emmett.

The finished products!

 Happy Halloween from the Avengers! Bax was not sure he liked being dressed up or that he liked Jax playing with his hammer.

I love Halloween but I do not do scary. My Halloween tradition since college is to watch the movie Clue and pass out candy. We figured Jax was too small to appreciate Trick or Treating so we stayed home and continued the tradition. This is one of my favorite parts from the movie.

The wind was blowing like crazy so we decided to have hot chocolate and cider for all of our Trick or Treating friends who needed a break from the cold. Jax was the center of attention with the big girls and the little kids decided they needed to watch Tangled.

Family Pictures

Family picture time! With the adoption finalized I wanted to take pictures to celebrate us becoming an official family. It is such a stressful thing deciding clothes and who will take them (I should have majored in photography). We got rained out a few times but we finally got a beautiful day. The high school cross country team was practicing in the park so we were taking pictures in between them running laps and Jax decided he was still tired after a two hour nap but I think they turned out great. I have such a great family and not to brag but my baby is pretty much the cutest baby in the world!

Cabin Fever

Luke was sick for about a week and a half and we didn't go anywhere but church. And while I loved having Luke home all day with us (he slept a lot) I was getting cabin fever. If you have never seen Muppet Treasure Island this is exactly how I felt:

So Luke offered to take me on a pine cone hunt since I've been wanting pine cones to make a fall craft. It was a crappy cold and windy/snowy day but we bundled up and went out. Jax's favorite place to be is on top of his daddy's shoulders. He loves his Daddy and loves to be tall! We drove around town and couldn't find any pine cones so we headed up Sinks Canyon. It was cold but pretty so we had to stop and take some pictures. A fun day with my boys! Baxter was loving running around exploring.