Look what I can Do!

Beckett is almost 6 months old!!  Over the past month he has learned to roll over, sit up, eat his toes, and cut two little teeth in the front on the bottom.  He just started eating rice cereal last night and loves it!  Now we just need to work on sleeping through the night.

Seriously, I can't get enough of those big blue eyes!  I just love this little man.  He has such a cute giggle and he loves to yell when he is happy:)  Pictures of eating to come.

He also LOVES his excersaucer!

He bounces around and eats all the toys while the kids play around him.  He loves watching them play and being right in the center of all the action!

Grandma and Auntie came to play!

Garrett's Mom and sister Andrea came to visit last weekend.  They hadn't met Beckett yet and we had never met baby Lauren (Auntie's baby).  Lauren was born almost exactly 2 months after Beckett so they are really close in age.  It was so fun to get them together. 

I love how this picture is mid-tickle and Beckett is totally smiling.  Lauren is like what are you crazy people doing?

These two are going to be good buddies when they grow up!  We're hoping Beckett can protect Lauren when they are at BYU together:)

Rylynn was loving entertaining two babies!  Here she is putting on a little concert and running around in circles playing her "flute" aka really annoying toy whistle!  The babies loved it though!

As you can tell Beckett is used to his silly sister entertaining him.  He is always smiling and laughing at her.  Carter was loving baby Lauren too.  We had such a great time when they visited.  We ate at Ivars and got to take some drives to see the beauty of Coeur D'Alene and the lake.  They also got to see the office which was really fun.  Thanks for coming to visit!!  Come again soon!

Carter's birthday (almost three weeks late)

I feel terrible because I promised myself when Carter was born that his birthday would NOT be neglected even though it was on New Year's Eve, and here I am almost three weeks late, blogging about his birthday!  I have just not been motivated to blog since the whole Christmas hooplah ended.

Anyway, we did have a really fun birthday for our little Carter man.  He really wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese's as a family to celebrate and since his birthday is on New Year's Eve, it is convenient that Daddy doesn't have to work!  So we all headed there for lunch and had a great time.

Rylynn was loving the rides!  We couldn't get her to play many games and I tried to explain to her that you don't win tickets by riding the rides, but she didn't seem to care.

Carter on the other hand loved all the games involving balls.

 Don't worry, we always let Carter cheat on ski ball.

Rylynn loves this helicopter ride!

Beck was loving all the excitement too.  He especially liked watching Carter and Rylynn play the games and see all the flashy lights.

Now that is one happy boy!  Carter found the helicopter ride and was a big fan.

Rylynn loved the princess carriage ride and she especially loved taking little Beck for a ride!

I love this picture!  She is such a great little helper with her baby brother.

Again Carter found a ball game, and yes, again he is cheating:)

This is when we told Carter it was time to open presents!

Carter loved getting more Cars cars!  He got his "nodders" as he calls them.  Snot Rod, DJ, Wingo, and Boost.  We are seriously helping Disney out with this current obsession!

He was one happy boy!

Here he is opening his present from Nana and Papa.  They got him "big jet" from Little Einsteins and "frank" with a track from Cars.

  

This was clearly the highlight of the day.  In fact, after he opened his presents, he pretty much never left the table.  He just sat there and played with his new toys while Garrett and I went and played games to quickly rack up as many tickets as we could so the kids would have enough to buy something.

Rylynn and I enjoyed our pizza while we watched Carter open all his presents.

Rylynn and Daddy going head to head in the water squirter race!  It was intense!  Rylynn does not like losing:)

After Chuck E Cheese we headed home and got the house ready for a little get together for cake and ice cream with some friends.  It started to snow real snow for the first time since we've lived here and the kids were so excited.  So while I was running around getting ready, Rylynn and Daddy were out back making "Maisy" our little snow friend.

Unfortunately, a couple hours before the little party, we had two friends of Carter's cancel so we were down to two families.  However, Garrett's cousin Stacey brought her whole family to support Carter and that made his day.  We also had our good friends the Slacks come over.  We ate this yummy cake, which of course was chocolate since Carter is my little chocolate boy, along with some superman ice cream!

Carter got really shy all of a sudden when we started to sing Happy Birthday to him and ran to Daddy, but then he came back and with Rylynn's help blew out the candles.

Stacey's family got Carter two great books that he LOVES!  One is Library Lion and the other is A tree named Steve.  We read them both that night and they were both so cute.

Then as a joke the Slacks gave Carter a bag of gumballs.  This is a joke because we went to their house for Christmas dinner on Christmas day and their girls had received gumball machines for Christmas and Carter throughout the course of the night ate every single one of their gumballs!!!  We tried to hide them numerous times but every time he came down the stairs he had a new wad of gum in his cheek.  We felt really bad and promised to buy them some new gumballs.  So they ended up buying Carter some for his birthday.  It was really funny to the adults.  Carter did not get it, he was just excited for more gum!  The other funny thing about this gift is that Rylynn HATES gum.  She can't even see someone chewing it without gagging, so when he opened the gumballs she was like "Carter, don't chew those by me, or I'll throw up!"  She's so funny.

We love our little Carter boy!  I just want to remember that he loves to play with his sister and he loves to tackle and be crazy with his Daddy.  He is such a sweet and kind little boy, but he also knows how to be crazy and have so much fun.  We are constantly entertained by him.  He has such a sweet little voice and we love hearing what he has to say.  Even though, it's usually about something from "Cars".  He is learning to like primary and doing better each week.  We are so proud of him since he turned three the DAY before the cutoff for sunbeams.  He loves chocolate and pretty much all food.  He is so not a picky eater, which I really appreciate.  Carter also got tubes put in his ears a couple months ago and it has been night and day for him.  No more constant ear infections, and also he can hear so much better and as a result, talk so much more clearly.  Poor kid couldn't hear cause his ears were always infected.  He is not potty trained yet, but we are working on it.  Hopefully soon!  Happy birthday Cartchie boy!

Long Overdue!

So I am FINALLY getting around to posting pictures of the office as promised.  There are still some finishing touches to be put in place, but for the most part it is all finished!  It is going so well too.  Garrett has been picking up a couple clients every week.  We had a couple slow weeks in December but overall we are so amazed at the blessings that have come from this leap of faith.

This picture is of the lobby and the secretary's desk looking from the hallway.  Don't worry we are not actually using the dinosaur computer monitor.  We just had nowhere to stick that thing in the move and temporarily stored it here.  Garrett is hiring a secretary this week and she will have a macbook, not the dinosaur:)

Lobby from front door.  That is Beckett in his car seat in the hallway being patient while I take a million pictures.

View of the conference room from the corner.  This is the room where Garrett meets with clients and also where we have our weekly family picnics on Friday.  The kids love this little tradition!

Second view of conference room from hallway.  The window in the above picture looks out into the lobby.

View of the hallway.  First door on the left is the conference room, next is Garrett's office, and last is the copy/clerk's office, or in the future associate's or partner's office.

Garrett's office.  We still have some decorating to do in here, but nobody really sees it so it doesn't really matter.

copy room/clerk's office/partner office

bathroom

more bathroom

break room/kitchen area

Front entrance

Road sign.

So that is the grand tour!  If any of you want to see it in person, feel free to pay us a visit:)

Christmas 2009

Christmas Eve was quite the let down at our house this year.  I cooked all morning for our special Holy Land dinner and Garrett and the kids cleaned the house in preparations for all the festivities.  Then as we sat down to start the Holy Land dinner, Rylynn started bawling and saying that she wanted to go to bed because she didn't feel well.  She said she was achy and so tired.  She hadn't slept well the night before so we thought she was just tired, but I took her temp and sure enough she had a low grade fever.  So we got her to force down two bites of bread and then finally just let her go to bed, at 5:15pm!!

Here are some happy pictures, earlier in the evening.  It was so sad because all day she was so excited to do the Nativity and all the fun traditions.

Little Beckett was excited too:)

This is our last attempt to see if we could cheer her up a little and keep her up by letting them exchange sibling gifts.  Doesn't she look thrilled?!

Beckett gave Rylynn and Carter "The Ladybug Game" for Christmas.  The plan was to play it as a family that night, but we ended up just playing with Carter after Rylynn went to bed.

Carter was THRILLED to say the least about his gift from Rylynn.  He is obsessed with all things Disney Cars, and he has really been wanting to add Chick Hicks to his collection, so his loving big sister got it for him!

Rylynn has been wanting Sally from Cars too and Carter surprised her and bought her a Sally for Christmas.  She managed a smile for a minute or two even though she felt awful.

As you can see, it didn't last long and she was begging for bed.  So we sent her to bed and poor Carter had a boring Christmas eve Holy Land dinner with the parents.  Luckily Rylynn sat there while we discussed the importance of the Holy Land dinner before she went off to bed, but we didn't get to do the nativity which was a big disappointment to everyone.  So Rylynn went to bed around 5pm and Carter who had taken a nap refused to go to bed until around 10pm, so the parents were a little frustrated.  Finally he went to bed and we got everything ready for the next morning and were headed up to bed when Rylynn appeared.  So needless to say it was NOT a restful nights sleep.  Carter and I ended up in our bed and Garrett ended up in Rylynn's bed with her.  Luckily, whatever it was that Rylynn had was gone the next morning and Christmas day was a big success!

This picture does not do this dish justice.  I woke up early and made Tyler Florence's ultimate apple, cranberry, pecan upside down french toast!  It was amazing, I highly recommend the recipe!  I also made an egg, potato and bacon casserole.  We ended up having to wake up the kids at 8am since the kids had had such a rough night.  But they popped up right away when we told them that Santa had come.  So we headed downstairs and had them open their first gift from Santa which were plate, bowl and cup sets.  Rylynn got Tinkerbell and Carter got Cars.  So then they were really excited to eat Christmas breakfast on their fancy new dishes!

After way too much yummy food, we started the present opening.  Rylynn got a big pinky-pie pony that has lots of hair accessories so she can do her hair.

She also got "June" from Little Einsteins that sings.  She was so excited for this surprise!

This was "Mac" from Cars and Carter has been wanting him for sooo long!  He was out of his mind when he opened him up.

Carter surrounded by the loot.  Notice he has a lolly pop in his mouth?  He had candy in his mouth from about 8:30am-8pm.  That kid is crazy about candy and Santa must have known cause he sure got a lot in his stocking!

Mom reading the new Fancy Nancy Christmas book to Rylynn.  She LOVES Fancy Nancy!

Carter was happy to help show off Beckett's present from Santa.  These cute Christmas jammies.  I love how Carter is pinching his cheek in this picture.

Our cuddly little Christmas elf!

Love the feeties on these jammies.  After all the presents and playing, Garrett and I got to take Christmas naps and then we went to our really good friend's (the Slacks) house for dinner.  It was so yummy!  We had Christmas ham, rolls, Christmas salad, broccoli, twice baked potatoes, cranberry jello salad, peppermint log roll cake, and white chocolate raspberry cheesecake!  I made half of the food and she made half.  I really enjoyed using my new knives that Santa surprised me with!!  And I have to say,it was really nice splitting up the cooking after three days straight of holiday cooking!  We had a great time and ate way too much.  We have been so blessed this year and have so much to be thankful for.  Most of all, we are so thankful for our little family and the wonderful memories we get to make with them each day.  We are so thankful for our Savior this Holiday season and for His birth into this world.  Merry Christmas!