Merry Christmas Everyone!

 Santa arrived at the Reeve home and brightened the faces of all three children!

Brooklyn received her long awaited "pet" she has wanted for a very long time.  Three guppies: yellow, blue and orange.  Named Goldie, Gus and Nemo.

 Gavin got his remote control race car and Nerf gun, that has a clip for 35 darts (what was Santa thinking?!)

 This is how Noah rolls now, with item in mouth to leave his hands free to crawl and climb all over the place!

 Noah loves his lil' zoomer toy, plenty of lights and noise to keep him giggling!

 One of his fave Aunts Lexi, so cute!

 Some of the gang at Mom's:  Emily, Ry, Whit, Gav, Aunt Patty, Ash, and Alyssa

 The Woods, so glad to have them with us on Christmas:  Dennis, Penny, Emmy & Kelly
missing:  cute little Henry in his Santa suit!

 Alicia & Chris, with some exciting news! Baby on board! July 15th, yay!!!

 Noah doesn't love his santa hat.

Gavin getting REALLY tired after a long Christmas day.

Mom & Dad, still smiling after a hectic Christmas season!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

8 months already...what?!

Another month goes by just as quickly as the last, so what has Noah learned in his eighth month of life?

*first the inchworm/army crawl, then straight to crawling

*pulling himself up to everything including things that are less stable and incurring some battle wounds

*"mama" yes.. "Mama!!!" and "dada" ;)

*picking up his little puffs and putting them in his mouth

*decided he is a daddy-lover and cries every time he walks in the room, until daddy comes to play

*cut his first two bottom teeth

*doesn't know that he really loves Santa the real one and magical one as well ;)

*eats all kinds of baby food, still won't take a bottle

*weighs 19 lbs

*so happy pretty much all the time

*finally sleeping in his crib! YES!

Love this kid so much, such a good baby I can't get enough of his smiles, giggles, and kisses!

Diet soda=teeth brushing unnecessary

Gavin:  "Does diet [soda] have sugar in it?
Me: "no."
Gavin:  "what the...then you don't even have to brush your teeth!"

Then he goes on to tell Brooklyn that she needs to start drinking "diet" because of his new found knowledge.

Nothing Days

I love nothing days...so does Gavin.  In fact he is the one who came up with our new so-called "nothing day."  Even though I am trying to simplify our lives, it is really hard.  Between karate, piano, singing, preschool, homework, FHE, and so on it leaves little time for "nothing days."  Unfortunately there is not one day of the week that we don't have something scheduled on a weekly basis...sad. Today however, was supposed to be a "nothing day" for Gavin.  I told him it was.   He doesn't have preschool because they had their Christmas program yesterday.   Well, when I told him we had to go to Brooklyn's school this afternoon to listen to her Christmas program, he got so mad at me.  He told me he was so sick of going to her school and listening to her.  I asked him when had we been to her school lately to see her perform.  He yells "last year!!"  Silly me, I didn't even realize it had only been a year! So sorry to ruin your day little buddy, but we're going!! :)

Temple Square and a balmy 45 degrees!

It has been a long time since we visited Temple Square to see the lights, mostly because it is so busy during the holidays and Salt Lake is so crazy fighting construction and finding parking! However, we heard it was going to be warm and Spencer wanted to go up, so we did! The weather was sooo nice! This was the first time in a long time I remember being at the lights and it being warm enough to just hang out without trying to keep from freezing!

The Woods came with and Ash & Ty, Ry & Whit, and Mom & Dad & Alyssa!

7 months for Noah

This cute little guy has so much personality! He cracks me up really. He has started this fake laugh thing, Brooklyn used to do it too, so funny how they can have similar mannerisms being so far apart in age. Things to remember at the 7 month mark:

VERY wiggly, loves seeing everything that is going on, constantly turning his head every which way to see WHAT is going on!

Loves to stand at the couch or have us hold his hands

Lunges onto his face from a sitting position, hurting himself most of the time :)

Eats some solid foods! FINALLY! Yay! Doesn't like rice cereal though, only sweet potatoes, squash and most fruit.

Rolls around everywhere

Won't sleep in his crib, either the cradle still or in Mom and Dad's bed (boo!)

Smiles all the time, the photographer that took these pics said he was the easiest baby she'd ever photographed, he smiled the entire time.

Experiencing separation anxiety, loves his momma and daddy :)

No teeth, my first kid to not have teeth at 4 months.

18 lbs( 50th%) and 26 1/2 inches long(5-10th%)

Notes from sister...

I found this on the bathroom counter this morning. Brooklyn apparently is disgusted with the way Gavin is doing his teeth brushing. Even with the "touch and brush" he isn't clean enough! So, she had his toothbrush on the counter with a note that read: "Gavin, I put toothpaste on your toothbrush for you, because you make a mess!" I was laughing pretty good this morning. I guess some of my cleanliness is rubbing off on her! And here I thought I was the only one annoyed with the toothpaste mess, guess I'm not alone...

LIfe is so precious

Today we lost a person that had been close to our family. He'd spent vacations and trips to Grandma's with us, Sunday afternoons and helped Lexi baby-sit my kids. It just breaks my heart, he was so young and my kids adored him. You never know when your time on earth will end or anyone else's either. I've been thinking a lot today about my own family unit. Sometimes I think that I focus too much on everything that needs to be done, opposed to things that really matter. My kids are the happiest when I actually watch a movie with them, not just send them upstairs to watch it on their own, or play UNO or Old Maid with them. Yesterday I played Candyland with Gav and he was thrilled! Sometimes I want to do all these big elaborate things with my kids, but I really think what matters most is the little things and giving them your time and attention. Hold your little ones close and give them lots of hugs and kisses, because life is so precious.

There's no place like home...:)

I love dressing up in themes, very rarely do Spencer and I dress up, but our kids are at an age now where they want us to dress up, so this year was really fun.

Spencer was a real trooper this year being scarecrow, he doesn't like face paint especially, but he's such a great dad to humor his kids, they loved it!

My cute munchkins...love these kids

The cutest cowardly lion EVER!!

Manila Mini-marathon

In September, Brooklyn's school Manila Elementary had their fundraiser and this year they did a mini-marathon 2.62 miles. I thought it was a great idea I love anything fitness related and especially getting kids excited about it. They had a t-shirt design contest for the shirts and I think they turned out pretty darn cute.

When the race started Brooklyn wanted to run, so I told Spencer I was running with her and he would stay with Noah and Gavin. Well only maybe a couple of hundred feet later, Gav shows up by my side. He wanted to run too. Assuming ( and we all know that isn't good to do, right?) Spencer saw him with me, the race had just barely started, the three of us took off. And by three I really mean two, because seriously my kids are fast!! It was so great to see them doing so good and passing up all these people, while I tried to keep up :) Gavin in fact ran an entire mile before Spencer found us in a total panic because he thought he lost Gavin. I felt so bad, he had been running back and forth along the route trying to find us. Scolding ensued and Gavin started to cry...Great. Spencer took the boys to the truck while Brooklyn and I finished it was a lot of fun, even with the drama.

DIYer stuff

I have many ambitions, ultimately I would like to be able to completely take care of my family on my own. I am studying much and learning new things, so that maybe someday I'll be able to do this. For now, I'm doing small projects such as this:

I've had this glider for seven years and it was time for a new cover, pretty bold, it was called "Foxy" something or other and I like it!

Half a year!

Half a year already! This little guy:

sits up really well

learned the "drop the toy, let mom pick it up, repeat!" game

says: "baabaabaabaa" very dramatically and loud!

giggles and smiles a lot

picks up toys well and puts it all in his mouth

not tolerating solids yet, but reflux is improving :)

sleeps well and loves his cradle still, but I think its time to move him into his room into the crib:(

started with the separation anxiety thing and cried for the grandparents for 2 hours straight, to which Gavin commented " I don't know why he doesn't like you guys, I sure think you're nice!"Ha!

He loves the evening walks with daddy outside in the yard, and rocking with mom before bedtime.

Morning madness

Me: "Brooklyn did you eat breakfast?"

Brooklyn: "No"

Me: "Why not? What have you been doing?"

Brooklyn: (completely serious)"Going the bathroom and doing the hokey pokey."

Noah {hearts} feet

Noah LOVES his feet, he is constantly grabbing them and trying to suck on them,

it is so stinking cute I can't get enough of it.

Labor Day Weekend in Fairview

Labor day weekend we finally made it out with our friends the Larson's.

We stayed at their family cabin up at Fairview, lots of fun.

Grandma Linda was great to my kids helping them make endless designs with the perler beads,

Noah really enjoyed his first hike in the kelty, as you can see.

I ran the furthest I ran since the baby, thanks to Melissa and Dennis's persuasion...5.6miles :)

and the kids got to shoot the BB gun as well, what more could you ask for?