A Tiger on the Mountain

Today Jon took Alex skiing for his first time. Jon went skiing two weeks ago, and Alex tried to stowaway, so he was very excited to be officially invited this time.Alex looked great in all of his ski attire, and picked up the basics in a flash.Brighton's kinder ski group helped Alex learn the ropes. After his first lesson, he was well on his way to becoming a Little Ripper.

He enjoyed riding the lift on a sunny, warm day.
And he did a great job skiing! He can't wait to go again to practice his pizza and french fry moves.

Thanks to ski school, Jon was able to rise above the bunny hills to catch this great view of Mt. Timpanogos and the surrounding scenery.

I have to admit that I may have enjoyed their ski day as much as they did: I was able to nap with Aidan catch up on my Twilight reading. Aidan and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and had a relaxing day enjoying the warm weather. I'm glad the boys were able to take advantage of Jon's passes before the snow melts away.

Let YOUR Sham Rock!

Happy St. Patty's Day, everyone!

He's a grownin'!

I can't believe my sweet little Aidan is 9 months old! Right around Christmas time, he started sitting up by himself. This was a great time - he would sit on a blanket and play with toys - keeping himself busy, but staying in one place - heaven for me. I had to include both of these pictures because his smile is so cute and playful in the first, but he looks like a 12 year-old posing in the second.

About a month or 6 weeks later, he started scooting himself backwards. Getting around a little bit, but also finding himself stuck in a few situations - like between these 2 foot rests.

Not long after that, a new scene greeted me when I went to get Aidan up from his crib. He started standing up by himself!

Now he can pull himself up on everything he finds around the house: the footrests, boxes, and even the wall.
The day before we went to the Draper open house with the Gus's, he started crawling forward! He's really getting around now - and thinks it's especially funny to make a dash for the stairs. Luckily, I'm still faster than he is (but I do need to get a gate). He also sticks his tongue out quite a bit - often curling it so much it resembles the shape of a Tostidos Scoop.

I sure love my little Aidan and I can't believe he's growing up so fast. He's even able to rock the spikey harido!

Snow Fun

Alex has been LOVING the snow this winter - every time it snows he can't wait to go out and play in it. He stays outside for hours until it's dark and we force him to come in. He has enjoyed snowball fights, and sledding down the neighbor's driveway (it's not that steep - but it provides plenty of fun for a 5 year-old).My friend gave me the idea of putting food coloring in spray bottles - so we put some green, blue and pink color in bottles and let Alex go at it. He loved it! This started out as a snowman - but Alex enjoyed coloring it too much - and turned it into a volcano.We got another good snow a week and a half ago or so, so Alex and I worked on a snowman while Aidan napped. He turned out really tall - although the shape is off as I grew up in California and never learned how to properly build a snowman. Alex figured it out later, but I didn't get a picture of it before it got demolished by the neighborhood kids. I hope Alex enjoys playing outside this summer as much as he has this winter!

Christmas Day

Christmas morning Alex and Aidan woke up around the same time - they slept in a little bit due to our fun/late activities Christmas Eve. Aidan got a little Pluto stuffed animal in his stocking and some balls that make different sounds.

Alex couldn't wait to see what Santa had brought. Santa left a little pile of presents for Alex by his stocking - but Alex didn't realize they were all for him and was confused that there weren't any tags on them. He said, "How do we know who they're for?" We told him all the ones by his stocking were for him and he got pretty excited. The number one toy he wanted from Santa this year was RC - the Remote Control car from Toy Story.

Aidan sat in his bouncy and enjoyed his new Elmo rattle (from Nana and Papa) and the balls that Santa brought him whilie the rest of us opened presents.

Santa also brought Alex a sled and some new gloves - since Alex lost his after playing in the snow one night. Here he is trying out his sled with the new travel pillow we got him.

Alex couldn't wait to go sledding, so Jon took him to a nearby park and he got to try out his new sled. He had a great time.
Look at him go!

We were supposed to get together with Jon's family on Christmas day, but there was supposed to be a big snow storm, so we postponed it until the Sunday after. We were initially quite disappointed, but ended out having such a relaxing day, that I think we all enjoyed the way it worked out. Plus, we got to extend the Christmas celebrations a little longer. Grandma and Grandpa Gus were so nice to give all the grandkids gift certificates to Wal-Mart - Alex used his (and Aidan's - shhh, don't tell) to get a cool nerf blaster. They also gave Alex a mug that he uses for his hot cocoa. What a fun time.

Christmas Eve

We had a great holiday season (even though I'm blogging it rather late). Christmas Eve, Jon got off work around 2 pm and came home and we all headed to my folks. Before we left, Alex took the last opportunity possible to write a wish list to Santa. He was so cute - insisting on writing the whole thing himself. I told him how to spell each word, and he wrote the entire letter himself. We dropped the letter off at Macy's, as the line for Santa was like 2 1/2 hours long (I should've known not to wait until then - but I thought it could go either way with either being super busy or everyone having their own parties and it not being too crowded). We took one last pre-Christmas picture of our tree before we left.

We had a delicious turkey and ham dinner at my folks, and then enjoyed opening some presents. Sherrine gave Alex a much loved Buzz jacket (Buzz is his absolute favorite).

Aidan was so cute - and as you can see - he quite enjoyed the night. He had several presents to open (see the green elephant on the left side), but he enjoyed the goings-on and people watching as much as anything.
Nana and Papa gave Alex a light saber (or "life saver" as he likes to call it - we're still working on the pronunciation). You can see he was thrilled.

Alex enjoyed playing with his cousin, Isaac.

Jon got his perfunctory work shirt. He is hard to buy for because he doesn't give us many ideas, but he always needs shirts.

Nana and Papa were nice to host all of us and definitely spoiled the kids. We had such a great time.

We arrived home just in time to go to bed and wait for Santa to come.

Our New Camera

We are way behind on the blogging, but I thought I better do a quick post just to get the ball rolling again. For my birthday/having a new baby/our anniversary - we got a new camera! So we of course had to take some pics with it. Here are just some Christmas time pics of us with our sweet Alex. I love this picture of Alex - it shows how spirited and fun he is. This is "his" tree behind him - I took him to the dollar store to pick out some ornaments for it and he got to decorate however he wanted - and he loved it!Jon is wearing his Christmas tie he got for Christmas a year ago - I thought he could wear it the whole month of December to "be in the Christmas Spirit" - but he will still only wear it once a year. And I just couldn't resist this pic of Aidan - WASSSSSSUPPPPP!!!!