life

The past few weeks we have been keeping VERY busy. 

Last Thursday the circus was in town and they have a free "lunch with the Elephants" activity. We met up with some of our friends and all ate lunch while we watched the Elephants eat lunch. The boys both loved it. 

I have also had several extra kids lately and the one thing I now know is I need a bigger house before we have our 4th child. So in order to keep a little bit of my sanity I have been trying to take them to do some fun things. We have been to the Aquarium (several times),

the sonic playground, the Mcdonalds playground and some really great parks.

It has taken 18 months but these two boys are finally best friends. These past few weeks they have been inseparable. It has been so much fun and made life so much easier now that they spend the days playing together. 

One day after I put Ethan down for his nap I looked out to see Caleb just standing there. I asked him what he was doing and he said waiting for baby to get up. It broke my heart to see him so sad and lonely. It was also another great reminder of how important Ethan is in our little family and how much Caleb needed him.

It's hard to believe in just a few more weeks our little girl will be here. We are excited but also scared to death about entering the world of 3 children.

Sunday night we made our own little camp fire. The night before, at the bowling party Nathan won a prize which consisted of all the treats needed for a campfire. Nathan thought it would be fun to create a little fire pit in our backyard and let the boys roast hot dogs and marshmallows. I will be honest and say that based on Nathan's last "fire experience" I was a little nervous. It ended up being really fun and the boys loved roasting hot dogs. Even more then roasting hot dogs they loved eating the marshmallows and chocolate for the smores. It was a great way to spend a Sunday evening and we will probably do it again.

 

 

rec club

One of the things we have really loved about Flint Hills is the rec club. We pay $4.00 a month to be a part of the rec club and in return they plan activities and events all throughout the year for the rec club families. Some are adult only activities like the Casino night but a big chunk of them are family friendly activities. Last night they did a bowling night. The boys loved it. It was so hard to try and get a picture with the chaos and bad lighting. They had such a good time eating  treats and bowling. Because we didn't pay and we were the only ones on our lane there was no rush and no pressure so we just took our sweet time and let them do their thing. The rec club is certainly one of the little perks of Nathan's job we will miss if we ever move.

 

 

One of our favorite things about our new church time (9:00am) is that now we can spend the Sunday afternoons on walks and exploring. We recently discovered a new walking/hiking trail off of Oso creek bay. Today was the second time we have been there and low and behold we ran right into this guy (see picture below). Lucky for us he was already dead when we got there. If not, it would  have been one scary experience.

 

potty training already???

I am not ready to potty train Caleb. Life is just to crazy right now between Nathan working and going to school and my calling at church and prepping for a new baby along with all the extra children I have had and will continue to have running around my house. Anyways, Caleb has decided to potty train himself and I will be the first to tell you this is not effective. We will see how long he is interested in if it goes anywhere, if not in less then two months we will have 3 kids in diapers. Now that is going to be one big bill every month.

 

Seattle

This morning I was trying to make some room on my camera and I realized I never wrote about our trip to Seattle this summer. In August we headed out to Seattle for a week. We had such a great time visiting our family and it was our first trip to Nathan's parents new house.

 

We took some family pictures. It's hard to believe in just two short months these both will be outdated.

 

 

If you know Caleb you know he has a love for trains. He inherited this from his Anderson side. Before we headed out we looked up some info about an old steam engine that you can ride outside of Seattle. The ride is about an hour and it takes you to Snoqualmie falls. The train ride turned out to be so fun and Caleb was beyond excited when he saw the train.

Apparently the rules don't apply when you are with Grandpa Wilcoxson because he had no problem helping Caleb over the "do not enter" gate and letting him play with this train engine.

 

We continued with our tradition of heading to downtown Seattle to feed the Seagulls and eat Thai food.

One of the days we were able to take the boys on a hike with Mychal and Scott. It was so nice to be hiking and surrounded by so many beautiful trees.

 

We also spent some time swimming with our cousins and out on Grandpas boat. We have been so lucky because both of our boys love the water as much as Nathan and I do.

Overall we had a really great trip and are excited for our next one out there. Granted it might be awhile now that we will be outnumbered. The idea of traveling and a 5 hour flight with 3 little kids is slightly stressful.

Utah/Idaho

A little over a week ago we took a LONG road trip to Utah and Idaho. We were really blessed because both of our kids are really great travelers. We had a very easy drive (I am pretty sure the DVD player and overload of snacks helped.)

 

We made a stop in Rexburg, Idaho to see Nathan's brother Scott and his wife Mychal. We also wanted to just see how things have changed over the last few years. While we were in a book store Caleb climbed into the middle of this stake of books. We all have no idea how he got in there without knocking over a single book.

We were lucky enough to stay with our good friends Lynette and Anthony. We had such a great time and Caleb and Benson played so well together. One of our biggest concerns was the snow and cold weather but Caleb loved it.

 

We also were able to see both of my brothers and sister. It was so much fun to see my family! One of the nights we took the boys bowling for the first time. We were surprised at how much they liked it. Jon also loaded Caleb up with a card full of money to play arcade games. That was also his first intro into arcade games and I think he is a fan.

 On one of the last days we stopped by Nathan's aunt and uncles house. Nathan took the boys out on a 4wheeler and drove around. Ethan was a little scared when he first got on but after a few minutes he refused to get off. It was really fun and great but.... Nathan had a pocket full of cash and while he was riding around it all flew out of his pocket. He had no idea until we got back to bountiful. Later that night we headed back and luckily we found all the cash frozen scattered all over the backyard.

 

 

The biggest reason we headed out to Utah was for Melanie's wedding. I am not how sure why this picture turned out so blurry but the wedding was wonderful and beautiful.

 

Ethan acquired his first baby doll on our trip.

 

Do you see that trip timer??? Proof that in 9 days we spent almost 63 hours in car.

Overall it was such a great trip and we had a really good time. We were both so glad we made the drive out there and we were able to see so many friends and family members.

Christmas festivities from my phone...

December was a busy and fun month. Here are a few of the many things we did;

 

created Christmas crafts with friends,

welcomed in cold weather,

made some last minute decorations for the ward party,

sat on Santa's lap at the local library,

painted,

made and received lots of Christmas goodies,

attended the ward party,

looked at lights,

sat on Santa's lap at the Flint Hills Christmas party,

 

played in the bounce houses at the Flint Hills party,

fell asleep in the shopping cart from the Christmas shopping exhaustion,

attended a Christmas party with our friends at the local Methodist church,

looked at more lights,

ate all of mom's Lindor truffles from her friend while she wasn't watching,

 

 went to Sea World,

 

 

 

 rode on the train at Sea World,

 

and ate and ate and ate some more really great food. December was such a fun and busy month for us. Well minus the one week we were all deathly ill (besides Caleb who is never ill and has the most amazing immune system.)