Dance Recital

Our little princess had her first dance recital last Saturday.  She has really enjoyed her ballet class that she takes through Treasure Valley Ballet Academy every Thursday morning.  She had dress rehearsal Saturday morning and then the recital that evening.  My parents met us there to watch.  All of the dancers did such a great job and McKay had a lot of fun clapping after each dance.  Brooklyn was so adorable and did such a wonderful job.  She smiled, which I was afraid she was going to forget, and really remembered the dance that they had learned in class.  She was so excited when Daddy had flowers for her at the end and she loved the necklace that my parents got for her.  It was so fun to see her excitement and pure joy.  I know this will be the first of many dance recitals that we will spend our Saturday nights at, I just hope I can figure out this whole dance mom thing.

He's 17 months!

January 15, 2018
Size 3 diapers
size 12-18 month clothing
14 teeth

Well our Mr. Magoo may still be sleeping pretty awful, but we did have a big milestone this month.... I can now take him to the gym.  I had tried taking him to the gym a few times here and there but always with a bad outcome, but finally the week before Christmas he decided that it was a fun place to be (well as long as sister is there with him).  The first few times we went he would cry when I dropped him off but would calm down eventually, but now I will drop him off and he will wave goodbye to me and grab his sisters hand and take off for the toys.  Brooklyn really has been the one that has made it possible, she is so good to him when they are in there.  So we now go to the gym the days that she doesn't have school, T/TH/SAT.  It really has been amazing.  This month I also started taking the kids to the grocery store again.  He used to do fine when he fit in the front pack, but since he got too big for that it was just a disaster waiting to happen.  I was that mom walking through the store trying to carry a screaming child and push her cart all at the same time.  So I decided that I was tired of going after bed time and we went during the day and as long as I have enough fruit snacks for him then we are normally good to go.  We still have the occasional meltdown, but it is at least manageable.  Our night might still be bad, but our days have gotten a lot better.

All of his one year molars are through and 2 of his K9's are through and luckily his K9's haven't seemed to bother him a whole lot.  He is absolutely obsessed with garbage cans, garbage trucks, throwing garbage away, etc.  He says "wawa" anytime he is referring to something garbage related.  Anywhere we go to he scopes out the garbage's and will find any trash that he can throw away.  He learned another animal sound, quack, which is the sound he thinks all birds make, but at least birds don't roar anymore.  He has started to fold his arms for prayer and if we ever forget to say a prayer before a meal he will fold his arms and grunt until we remember to pray.  He loves to watch football with his Daddy and anytime the TV gets turned on he says, "boopball" hoping that we are turning a game on.  he will be sorely disappointed once football season is over soon.  His new trick this month is somersaults, he can actually do them by himself and most of the time they are pretty straight.  He has really started to love actually playing with his sister.  They interact so well together, well except for when he is pulling her hair.  Brooklyn does a pretty good job of being able to calm him down when I'm not there and he loves to give her really big hugs, way better hugs then he ever gives me.

I'm not going to lie, I am pretty excited for him to go into nursery at church in a month and I am even more excited that there is hope that he might go without me.  Once we get this kid to start sleeping better at night and I catch up on my sleep, I feel like I will be a whole new person, like a regular mom that runs errands, goes to the gym, and does regular things with her kids instead of doing them all early in the morning or late at night.  all I know is that we are certainly moving in the right direction.  He really is a happy kid for the most part and has the best giggle in the whole world and I love him to pieces.

After our first successful trip to the grocery store with no meltdowns

He loves to help set the table

Happy New Year!

We headed up to McCall for the New Years weekend.  The kids and I headed up on Thursday with my parents, they had rented a cabin for the family.  My sister Sunni came in town from Rexburg and then the rest of us came up from Boise.  We hung out at the cabin Thursday evening with everyone and the cousins all exchanged their Christmas gifts.  The kids and I then headed back to the Moss cabin for bed and then went back first thing in the morning.  A lot of the family headed up skiing, but the kids and I hung out at the cabin with the other babies and then headed to Brundage to meet everyone for lunch.  That afternoon the kids had a lot of fun playing in the snow and we ate some yummy chili for dinner and just enjoyed everyone's company.  Craig then came and picked us up and we all headed back to our cabin to sleep.  Saturday morning we then met up with my family to go sledding.  It hadn't snowed for a while so the snow was really packed and made for some really fast sledding.  The kids loved it no matter what.  My family then all headed back to Boise and Rexburg, but luckily Mark and Paige were in McCall as well and Brooklyn was loving all of the cousin time she was getting.

Saturday evening we headed up to the mountain for the fireworks.  We got up there a little too early and the kids got a little antsy while we were waiting for the festivities to get going.  Once it finally got dark they did a torch parade with skiers and then the kids participated in a little kids light parade.  After that was all done they did the fireworks.  We started off a little too close to the fireworks and the noise was bothering the kids.  We gradually made our way to the car and finished watching from there.  McKay did think that they were pretty cool.  It was pretty fun, but next time we will know to not go so early.

Sunday, New Year's Eve, we headed to church and then just hung low for most of the day, we went for a walk downtown and the kids played in the snow for a little  while.  The kids were so excited for the count down and for drinking the sparkling cider, so we decided to have our midnight be at 7:00pm.  The kids loved counting down and doing "cheers".  One of these days we will actually make to midnight, but this year was definitely not it.  Monday we went to Pancake House before we cleaned up and headed back home.  It was a fun weekend, especially fun to be surrounded by so much family the whole time.  I sure am grateful that my kids get to spend so much time with their cousins.  2017 was a great year and we are looking forward to another wonderful year in 2018.  I love watching the kids grow and learn and I can't wait to see what 2018 brings.

Merry Christmas

We had such a fun Christmas with the kids.  Since Christmas Eve was on Sunday we did some activities on Saturday.  We watched a movie and ate Chinese food at my parents house and hung out there that evening.  We went to church Sunday morning and then went to Mark and Paige's house for Christmas Eve dinner with Craig's brother's families. Mark and Paige cooked up a super yummy prime rib and the rest of us brought side dishes.  After dinner we read through the nativity while the kids acted it out.  It was fun to have the kids be old enough to be able to start doing that.  Brooklyn was so proud to be an angel and to hold the star.  When we got home we got the kids in their Christmas jammies and set out the cookies for Santa and got them to bed.

Christmas morning McKay was up fairly early and we did our best to hold him off, once he got too antsy Craig went and woke Brooklyn up.  She was just fine waking up once she remembered it was Christmas morning.  She was so excited running down the stairs. Santa filled everyone's stockings (including mommy and daddy's since Santa forgot theirs last year), he also brought McKay and Brooklyn a play kitchen.  They had so much fun opening up presents, Brooklyn especially loved that she got to help McKay open his.  After opening up presents we played for a while and then headed over to my parent's house for brunch and then to talk to my brother Tucker who is serving a mission in Arizona.  I would say that overall we had a wonderful Christmas, we are truly blessed.

Christmas Festivities

We had a lot of fun this year with our pre-Christmas festivities.  We tried to do as much as possible to get into the Christmas spirit.  Brooklyn is at such a fun age to do these types of things and McKay seemed to really enjoy them as well.  We started off by Brooklyn and I going to the Nutcracker Jr. and Clara's Tea Party with our friends Kaylie and Hallie.  We went last year as well and Brooklyn couldn't wait to go again.  The girls had such a blast.

The next day Brooklyn had her preschool Christmas Program.  She did such a great job singing all of her songs.  They were all so cute.

Then on Saturday we had breakfast with Santa at the Banbury Golf Club.  Tiffany and her kids, Missy and baby Brinley, my mom and Grandma LeAnn all went to visit Santa.  We ate a yummy pancake breakfast and then sat on Santa's lap.  Brooklyn couldn't wait to give Santa her Christmas list, McKay on the hand couldn't run away from him fast enough.  Brooklyn even sang a few Christmas songs with a few kids at the breakfast.  After we hung out with Santa for awhile we headed back to my parents house to decorate sugar cookies.

The next week we headed out to Caldwell to check out the lights.  We had heard that they were good, but they were really good and free which makes it even better.  The weather was perfect, not too cold and McKay insisted on walking the whole way but both kids loved it.  We will definitely be going back next year.  We also went to the tree lighting ceremony in downtown Eagle.

We finished our pre-Christmas festivities with Craig and I going to the Nutcracker and Brooklyn and I making cookies for Santa.  It was so fun seeing the kids eyes light up as we did these different activities, I just hope that we also did enough for them to remember the true meaning of Christmas.