Will winter ever end???

Addie sure loves crafts. She keeps me on my toes trying to think of new fun things we can make around the house. She did not used to really like getting her fingers dirty with finger paints, but it is one of her favorite things to do while Devin is having his nap. She has made some beautiful art!
Devin is still working on mastering walking. Today he walked all the way across our living room and stood up by himself for the first time too. He is getting it!!! Crawling is still much easier though! We are all excited....even Addie.

Last week for our FHE snack we made Banana popsicles. They were delicious. I knew Addie would love them but I was not so sure how much of a grown up snack it would be...but they were really, really yummy....you should try them. You cut banana's in half, stick a popsicle stick in one end, and then stick them in the freezer for about 4 hours. When you are ready to eat them, pull them out of the freezer, and melt together some chocolate, peanut butter, and a little margerine. Roll the frozen bananas in the chololate and then top them with nuts or coconut, or sprinkles. Addie did sprinkles and coconut. They were so yummy and fun to eat.

Every child has a picture like this. Devin has recently switched to 1 nap per day and he sometimes has a hard time getting through lunch. Last week he fell asleep eating. It was so darn cute. his favorite food is yogurt, and that was what I was feeding him when he was dozing off....he was falling asleep but kept opening his mouth for more yogurt. I wish I had a video of it...I was feeding a sleeing baby. What a cutie.
My kids would be happy if they could go on the rides every day....we only have a couple more months before Addie won't be able to go for free anymore due to her age, so we will enjoy it while it lasts. They really do love the rides. Devin cries every time he has to get out of the cars.
I think Devin has been learning from his Uncle Craig. He loves the basketball toy we got him for Christmas. So many toys get played with so seldom, that it is awesome to find things that your kids really like. He has such great coordination. It is fun to watch him play.

And then there are the toys they create themselves....Addison has these shoelaces that we braided together for her. She calls it her rescue rope and she goes on adventures rescuing things. She loves to play makebelieve and it is fun to watch her imagination go.

I love getting cuddles from the kids. It is not too often they both sit still for very long like this. Mommies love quiet cuddly times. We are really getting ancy for the spring to be able to play outside and go on walks....I hope our mountains of snow start to melt soon. We can't wait for our run of birthdays to begin!!

Devin's first steps!!!

Ok, don't get too excited, Devin is not running around the house yet, but our family was watching some home videos today of Addie when she was exactly Devin's age and she was taking steps between Justin and I. So tonight before we put the kids to bed we tried it out with Devin and he did amazing. His balance is getting pretty good and we have noticed around the house he will let go of things and stand on his own for a couple good long seconds. So tonight he went back and forth between us for about a half hour. Many attempts were just 1 step or him tipping, but he did 3, 4, and even 5 steps a couple times. We can't remember ever seeing Devin get so excited. Every time he fell he was ready to go again and was having so much fun laughing and loving the attention. So the fun is on!! We loved practicing this with Addie and love it just as much with Dev.

Valentines Love

For Chirstmas Justins's mom gave me a cupcake book. There are some amazing ideas in there from puppies, to slumber parties, to penguins. One of the ideas was to do a little valentines platter and so as a family we decided to bring some around to our friends and Addie's nursery teachers. We had so much fun decorating them...and sampling the candy. Yum yum.

Addie got to wear her valentines dress, which she looked so pretty in.


Devin has been so cuddly lately. We took the kids to the Trilesure Centre in Spruce grove on Family Day. It has a fun kids pool and a big waterslide. Addison had so much fun!! She did the waterslid all by herself. We went up and down so many times!! And Devin cuddled just like this on Justin's shoulder the whole time. And last night he was giving Craig some love for like a half hour. Craig was in heaven!! Cute boys!

Leanna and Kevin Herington

On January 30th Leanna, Justin's oldest sister, was married to Kevin. It was a very nice ceremony and reception. As you can see Leanna looked gorgeous and the reception was a lot of fun. Addison was so excited to finally be wearing her special black and white dress for the wedding. It was great seeing everyone, but as always it went too fast!

Congratulations Leanna and Kevin. We love you.

Stair Bolter

I think it is so funny how babies love to do whatever they know they shouldn't. Devin is a classic case of this. He loves anything breakable and electronic, and really loves disappearing up the stairs when nobody is looking. Good thing he is so cute, because I sure love him to pieces.

So a couple weekends ago addie accidentally had a nap in the car, and so she wasn't tired at bedtime. Justin and I decided to have a date night with her. Addie and I made candy popcorn, which she loved turning the handle on the popcorn popper!! And Justin rented a movie. We watched High School Musical with her. Her little friend loves it so we wanted to try it out on Addie. She loved it too!! It was so cute to see ow she followed the plot and loved the dancing and singing. Next time you see her, ask her what her HighSchool Musical dance move is. It is so funny. She kind of jumps and does a star with her body! I love it.
She is also really into making crafts. The first one is Craig and the one below is Justin. She designed them. Anything she can glue she loves. We all have pretty big collections of cafts from her and we love them.

winter fun!!

So it is possible to have winter fun! It has warmed up so much outside so we decided to capitalize on it. I just thought I would share some of the pictures I took.


I know, pathetic snowman, right. The snow just would not stick!!!







Devin has started to crawl to anything that moves and walk while pushing it. It won't be long for this little dude. He sure wants to keep up with his sister.

Christmas Holidays and home again

So this is officially my new favorite picture. We don't have a lot of junk food in the house these days, but Craig came grocery shopping with me the other day and we decided to get some fruit loops. A few days later I found these 2 in the pantry with the door closed snacking in secret. Are they starving or bonding??? Pretty cute anyways.
Addie and Devin are really starting to play together. It is so fun to watch. There are often casualties, but they really do love each other and are good friends.



Speaking of good friends....these 2 are buddies to the bone. It is so funny because Devin is obsessed with electronics. Justin is on his laptop lots at home working and it has almost become a problem because now that he can pull himself up to standing Devin will reach with all his might to touch the keys and just yells. It makes it close to impossible for Justin to get anything done. I think it is pretty funny. It just shows how much they have in common....oh, I mean the electronics part, not the annoying yelling thing. haha






So as many of you know, we went to Utah this year for Christmas. The 18 hour drive went sooo much better than we could have ever hoped. We drove to Cardston the first day, and spent the night with Justin's Grandparents. The next morning we got started before the sun and drove, drove, drove all day. We got there around 7:30 and were so happy to see everyone.
Addison Had a blast with her cousins. It is bailey and Taylor in this picture. They built a snow fort with payton and Carter too. They were so great with Addie. She loves all her cousins soooo much.
This si the kids Christmas Eve in their Christmas PJ's. They wouldn't sit still, so this is the best picture I could get.

This is Addie and I Christmas morning waiting on the stairs to go up to see if Santa came. She was really excited this year. It was a lot of fun and she got lots of presents. She even got a doll house from Gand G Hatch. We didnt have room in the car to bring it back set up, so we had to wait until we got home. But she loves it and has had a lot of fun hours palying already.

We did some fun activities as a family. We all went to see the festival of lights, which is a drive through show of Christmas scenes all with Christmas lights, we also went to Temple square in Salt Lake to see the lights of the temple grounds. It was so beautiful. I forgot my camera that night. Woops. I think mine and Addies best memory was singing to Abba. Grandma got the Mamma Mia cd for christmas and Addie can sing the chourus to Mamma Mia and dancing queen. She also has some pretty fancy dance moves up her sleeve. It was so fun. Another fun thing we did was go see Grandpa's horses. Addie loved feeding them hay. Grandma taught her how to keep her fingers safe and she was sooooo brave.



And dirty!!
Even Devin got up close and person with Grandma's favorite horse, tucker. The orse wans't thrilled to have a little guy on his back, so it didn't last long, but it was really fun to see the horses. They were beautiful.


We then got back in the car and drove to Brooks to spend New years with my family. We had a great time looking through photo albums, playing with Tali, and bringing in the new year Addison made it to 11:30 new years eve. I didn't have the ehart to keep her up any longer. I did take some pictures of Addie's first easy bake oven creations, but my camera was cold and you can't hardly see Addie through the fog!!

We came home on the 2nd, and were glad to be back in our house. It was a blast seeing everyone and having a holiday, but it is always nice to have babaies back in their schedules and having routine.

thanks for everything everyone.