Merry Christmas!

We have had a great one and we hope you all have too. Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Fisher!

I have more pictures of the day but I wanted to get a little something up while it is still Fisher's birthday.

This year had some ups and downs but we still love you to no end. You are funny and personable, intelligent and energetic, loud and loving and you are 100% little boy. We love you with all our hearts and are so glad you are part of our family!

We cannot wait to see what four has in store for us.

A Birthday and a Half

We now have a six month old...

And in a matter of days we will have a four year old.

Insane.

Bring on Christmas

I still have to do a cousins Thanksgiving post but I thought it was time to take a break for Christmas.This is what things look like around our house.

The boys have been sick and sick and sick for the past six weeks on and off. We were sick before Thanksgiving, during Thanksgiving and we are hoping Christmas will bring some relief. Cooper has slept through the night without coughing spasms about a whopping four times over the past six weeks. Same goes for Fisher. Some speak of choirs of angels around the holidays- we have a choir of coughs and snuffing of snot. Nothing like a good dose of bronchitis during the holidays.

On a good note, though, it is completely tolerable since Todd is on break. I love it! I love having him home and no matter how sick the kids are and how tired we are my heart is still full of holiday cheer.

There are very few things in this world I love more than cuddling on the couch by the Christmas tree at night.

Fisher loves all the Christmas stuff. He has rearranged the ornaments about a gazillion times along with the presents, nativities and anything else he can get his paws on. He loves helping with decorating and wrapping presents.

Helping me cut. Fisher loves using scissors but we have to make sure he is in a good mood when they are in his hand.

Taping his present.

He has surprised us with the self control demonstrated in refraining from opening his presents. He has been wrapping his own "presents" aka his toys or random objects from around the house, so that he has something to open at night. If this helps him out then it is fine by me.

After taping the presents, next comes the ribbon and bow. Cooper disapgrees with the placement of the bows...apparently his mouth is the better destination.

And Fisher would rather cut the bows up into itty bitty little pieces that he later claims his "arms are too hurt" to pick up.

I was so surprised when Fisher told me he wanted to write his own name and he actually did it! I had to give him a little direction on the H and R but everything else was 100% Fisher. I am so used to the temper tantrums over not writing a letter perfect that I must confess I have not been working with him on it.

So props to you pre-school!

The writing does not stop at the name tag.

The finished product.

Cooper chills and watches us while we have wrapping parties.

And he plays with more bows.

The process then repeats itself.

We have also been busy wrapping birthday presents since Fisher's birthday is only a few days before Christmas. His birthday ones are designated by the Transformer & Spiderman paper underneath the TV.

I love Christmas.

The Brothers (More Turkey Day)

Originally, the plan was not to have everyone in Reno for Thanksgiving. Despite the chaos I am so glad that everyone made it. It had been too long since I had seen my brothers and their families. It is nice to get together since we are spread out between Seattle, Las Vegas, Charlotte and Louisville.

My younger brother, Robbie, and his wife Erin.

My SILs made these cute aprons before our family made it out. They were nice enough to make one for me too. Erin does a great job modeling the finished product.

Robbie showing Fisher how to hit a tennis ball. When Robbie was little, he earned the nickname Monster Baby. Let's just say Fisher has similar tendencies.

The uncles and my dad took the kids on rides in the polaris up and down the alley. They loved it.

Steve, the brother right above me in age, spent a lot of time toting the kids around in the bike. This was another activity they loved.

Steve's wife Katrina and my niece & nephew, Emery and Chandler.

Chandler turned three right after Thanksgiving so we had a birthday party. It was a loud and fun time.

My oldest brother, Ken's family. His wife, Alicia, and the two kiddos Abby & Ethan. Ethan is only four days younger than Cooper.

Ken and my boys.

Not only does Abby almost share a birthday with me (only one day off) but she likes to have the same lazy day hair as me :)

Time with Grandma & Grandpa

I absolutely love this picture. I love the mountains in the background that I grew up looking at every day.

I love this one too. It is nice to know after all their years together they still love each other.

We attempted a grandparent shot but given the conditions: the cold, the wind, kids being sick and coughing like crazy, Chandler doing some wiggle dance on and off screen :), the babies not looking at the camera, and three cameras going at the same time attempting to get one good picture...this was the best we could do.

Although this is my personal favorite since it looks like Fisher is about to bring up breakfast... :)

We spent a lot of time bribing kids to eat dinner by letting Grandma give ice cream cones.

Fisher fell in love with Grandpa's dog, Yonder, and loved taking him for walks.
I even took him one day (and I am not a lover of dogs) on a walk to the park. I forgot the whole pooping though until Yonder decided to drop a big one right in the middle of the path. Thankfully it was cold enough that I waited until Fisher was done playing and "they" were nice and frozen so I could kick them off.

My Dad spent a lot of quality time with Cooper. He is a happy little guy and he is not much of a crier. It helped even more that he was so hoarse from being sick that he really couldn't make any sort of noise. A quiet, well behaved baby who loves to smile...it would be hard for anyone to resist! :)

Grandma had a lot of quality time with all her grandchildren but since this is my blog I will show pictures of my kids :) Truth is, I don't have many pictures of them with the other kids since I was normally enjoying my freedom of not having kids around when they were playing with the grandparents.

Fisher attempted tennis.

And he helped decorate the Christmas tree. Normally I decorate the day after Thanksgiving so I convinced my dad we needed to get the tree up before I left to go home. Fisher helped Grandma & Grandpa pick out a tree...first time ever since we do the fake tree thing- although I am not sure why since Todd and I both love real trees.

Cooper spent a lot of time rolling around. He was already rolling from back to stomach and while in Reno figured out from stomach to back. By the end of our stay he was rolling like a log. When hanging out on the bed with us we would have to stop him from rolling off the edge.

Thanks for the good time Mom & Dad!

Next time we'll try not to be sick the whole trip.

Special Memories

I am working on getting all my hundreds of Thanksgiving pictures sorted into blogs. It is a work in progress.

...

I was lucky enough to grow up with Grandparents close by. Although my mom's parents passed away when I was younger, my Grandma & Grandpa Lund always lived within a short distance of us and it was nice to have them there whenever I returned home for visits. My Grandpa Lund passed away a few years ago and although it still can be sad at times not having him around, especially around the holidays, it is so nice to have Grandma there. In fact, she lives with my parents now so there was a lot of opportunity for my kids to spend time with her with this trip. I am grateful for this time and the memories. I am glad my kids know at least one of my grandparents because they are all so special to me and I love them so much. Grandma- I love you and hope you are feeling better!

Template Issues

Playing around with new templates and everything got a little out of control. Hoping to fix soon.

Cross Country Flying

For Thanksgiving we flew out to Reno for the first time since Christmas last year. It was the first time Cooper has flown and the first time we have flown since Fisher turned three. Surprisingly, that is one of the positive things to come out of Fisher's year of three: he was a lot better on the plane than we expected him to be.

We tried not to load Fisher with too much sugar since it makes for a somewhat unstable Fisher but this box of candy canes was his best friend.

After the four hour flight we had a layover in Vegas where Fisher made himself right at home.

About six seats worth of at home.

Cooper was a happy baby as always. He slept and smiled and charmed his way through the days of traveling.

Airport time.

Fisher decided to get intimate with the Las Vegas Airport floor. That poor blanket probably caught a few diseases.

I stayed out with the boys for an extra week while Todd went back for school. Part of the deal of me staying was that my mom was going to fly back with me to help with the kids. I have no shame in this. If you have ever seen Fisher on a bad day you would fear flying with him and Cooper as well. On the way there, there was a moment where Todd had Fisher in the back bathroom and I had Cooper in the front. On the way back Fisher decided he had to go potty and even though we were in the very last row (really helped confine Fisher a little) he decided to RUN up the very front of the airplane and start trying to get into the front cabin...yep...where the pilot is. I, of course, am running after him hitting everyone who dares have even half and inch of body in the path with my birthing hips. Thankfully we had a lot of forgiving people on the plane.

The end of the road. Waiting for all of the passengers to get off the plane. We had the most awesome flight attendants on both flights home. It makes such a difference. Cooper slept about half the time on the way home.

We busted out the sugar the last hour as a last resort to keep Fisher occupied and paid for it. He was a little crazy. Since we were the last people off the plane aside from the attendants, etc. and it was Saturday night, the airport was empty. Fisher had been cooped up all day so it was just destiny when he met the moving walkway. Once he got to the end he broke out in a full sprint heading back in the opposite direction. The boy was booking it. Thankfully the really cool flight attendants we had happened to be getting on at that moment and they blocked him on one end while I ran ahead to get him at the other. I wish I could have gotten a picture but just imagine a boy with the look of pure unbridled joy.

Thank you mom for being crazy enough to fly back with me only to turn around 12 hours later. I love you! I am glad I went out even though my boys were sick the whole time and I may have been just a tiny bit grumpy, worn out and moody :)