Day After Tradition!

Thanksgiving is Colin's favorite holiday! I enjoy it too! All the family gathered, yummy food to eat, and so much to be grateful for! Thanksgiving also means that we celebrate the anniversary of our first date back in 2001. The day after Thanksgiving may be a big shopping day for others and is called, "Black Friday". For OUR FAMILY, the day after Thanksgiving is the day we go to Italian Village and then to see the lights at Temple Square...what we call, "Light Friday!" It is fun to have memories of doing the same thing 8 years in a row and we enjoy now taking Garrett with us for the last two! It may just be my favorite family tradition!

A decade of fun!

We sure love our little buddie, "Wool". His mommy and I have been friends for over a decade now! It was so fun to find out that Lesley was going to have a boy just nine short months after Garrett came. Here are some cute photos of the two of them together! It is fun to see how much they have grown over the past year! One day on the way to Will's house recently, Garrett said, "PLAY, WOOL, YES! Nice boy, share, take turns, TOYS....YES!" Adorable!

November 2008

May 2009

August 2009

October 2009

You think we'll really escape?

NO MORE HUGS, GARRETT!

My favorite picture of these two! Will is teaching Garrett his mad music skills! Look at the difference in the hands! Will is a pro with fingers in position and Garrett is just faking it with his fists! ha ha ha

Nov. 2009
All bundled up for a walk!


Will looks pretty comfy!

"Daddy's Mames!"

If there is one thing that Garrett loves, it is his daddy. If there is another thing that Garrett loves, it's "Daddy's mames!" Like Father, like son! These two sure do enjoy playing games together. Some of their favorites are mini fooseball, cards, the fishing game, and Elefun! One night I got a few cute photos of them playing twister! Too cute!

Farm Photos!

Before the leaves all blew away, I wanted to take some pictures outside. So, we went to Wheeler Farm and had a great time! Colin had not been there since he was a kid to see the animals, so it was a lot of fun. Here are some of my favorite photos of the day! I thought they turned out okay with no professional and using our tripod! Enjoy!

The CAT, the MOUSE and the CHEESE!!!

We had fun dressing up this year for Halloween. Garrett loves animals and his favorite (at this time) was a mouse. We have a mouse book that he just loves and we have many books that have mice hidden on the pages that he enjoys finding. Whenever he finds a mouse hidden, he "squeaks" with delight! So, I wanted to do something for Garrett's costume that he really enjoyed, so a mouse it was! There is no use looking for a mouse costume (unless you are going for Mickey or Minnie) so I decided to make one! It was very brave of me....but good thing I had my mom to help me (or do most of it!) I found a gray fleece sleeper on sale for the main body and then found matching material to make the head piece. It turned out super cute! Then came the ideas for Colin and I! I wanted to do a theme and we figured it out: ME - the cat who chases the mouse (that's what mom's do all day long!!!!) DADDY - the cheese because the mouse loves cheese the most (he is a major daddy's boy!). It wasn't too difficult finding cat ears and a tail for me, but "cheese" was a little more challenging. I didn't know quite what to do and it didn't make it any easier that Colin wasn't too thrilled about the whole idea. We talked to our family in Tillamook, Oregon to see what they had up there in the land of cheese, and we thought about looking on the internet for Green Bay Packer gear. Anyway, I ended up just finding some felt, stapled it together, drew some circles on it and called it good! I thought it all turned out and we were successful for the second year in a row doing a family theme!

"I love candy!"

We enjoyed Colin's first annual cubicle trick-or-treat! It didn't take long for Garrett to get the hang of gathering his candy! The first couple of times he held on tight and said, "mommy, open, candy, mine!" After a brief meltdown after I told him "no", he saw the next bowl full, waiting for him! We finally convinced him if he put his candy in his bag that he could get MORE! He loved every second of it and we have never seen him run so fast!

Two cheesy boys! Bribing with candy to smile really works!

The whole bowl, just for me!

We also had a fun Halloween playgroup. Unfortunately our ward doesn't have a trunk-or-treat or Halloween party for the kids. So, I thought it would be fun to do a little get together and have some fun activities for kids and an excuse to dress up again. Everyone was so willing to help and it turned out great! Hopefully we can do it again next year!

Posing in the photo corner!

Do you need some more sprinkles?!

While Colin had fun with the pumpkin guts, Garrett and I kept it clean and fun with stickers this year! It was perfect for a toddler - mess free! And even better for the mom who doesn't like to clean up messy toddlers!

Fall Festivities

We sure had a fun October celebrating Halloween. I love how exciting the holidays are with kids. We went down to Cornbelly's Corn Maze at Thanksgiving Point. I had heard how great it was and I am so glad that we went. I think we will definitely go back again next year and make it a fun family tradition. There were so many great activities. Garrett's favorite part was the duck races! We spent most of our time there. Just when we found a new activity, he would see the ducks and run back for more! Some of the other fun things were: we rode a horse swing, went through a kiddie maze, watched piggy races, rode a cow train, took a hay ride, watched a chicken show, played in a corn box (like a sandbox filled will kernels of corn instead!), played on the playground, jumped on giant pillows, rode on pedal go-carts, ate yummy food and picked out our pumpkins in the pumpkin patch!

Future Artist!

Garrett's artistic skills started just after he turned one. He liked to use mommy's or daddy's pens to draw on paper. When he got some ink on my clothes one day, I knew that I didn't want that to happen again, so I went to the store in search of some "mess free" supplies! I found the greatest thing ever! It is called and "Aquadoodle Travel N' Doodle". It uses only water and there is no erasing....your creations just magically disappear as it dries!!! It is perfect to fit in a diaper bag and provides hours of fun! If you can't tell, I am a HUGE fan and have loved giving it as gifts to friends and family since I discovered it!


Well, since then we have ventured out to "normal" crayons, colored pencils, paper and even some coloring books too! Garrett LOVES to draw! He will sit down and color for 30 minutes sometimes! When he first got his Aquadoodle, we taught him sign language for "draw". Now, he gets so excited that he says, "paper, crayons, color, mama, YES!" So cute! His favorite thing to draw for Daddy is Maggie and for me is a flower! He loves to trace our hands too! It is adorable to watch him concentrate so hard especially when we ask him to draw something....which is usually an animal. Now he draws things by himself and then tells us what it is! He is great at drawing circles and we are trying to teach him the letter "G"! It is also fun to hear him say all the names of the colors and he uses them too! I am glad that he is enjoying this activity and I look forward to many beautiful creations from our little artist!

Concentration at its best!

Look at that excitement!

Two is always better than one!

Thanks,Mommy! I love to draw!

Clapping for his own masterpiece!

First Haircut!

I know you are probably saying to yourself, "Garrett doesn't have enough hair to cut it!" Well, he does, it is just really fine, and blonde! The most popular comments we have gotten about Garrett in his short 22 months of life have been about his head!, "He doesn't have any hair!" or "He is so cute bald!" or "I think I can see something growing on there!" Although we were hesitant, we knew it was time to cut off Garrett's wings! He had a "skullet" according to my brother. So, we thought after all this endless torment and teasing we would do it mostly so that we could tell people that he has finally had a haircut! ha ha ha It is amazing how he looks so much more like a little boy and not a baby anymore now! Sad! :( But, so handsome!