Iris is 3, the birthday weekend

Just a few more random pictures of Iris from her birthday weekend.  She has acquired quite a collection of princess dresses, shoes, tiaras, jewelry, etc.  We realized a little girl's obsession with pink and princesses is pretty near impossible to deny, so here's to just embracing it. 
It was also the weekend to convert the crib to the big girl bed.  We figured it was hard to potty train and ask her to get to the toilet if she was trapped in her crib.  I was a little stressed over the move.  Any time I think my sleep schedule might be screwed up I suffer a bit of post traumatic stress disorder.  I think I will forever be haunted by those sleep deprived baby years.  Last night was her first night in the bed.  She popped up three times in the first 20 minutes and I groaned, anticipating a long night, but once she zonked out it was all good until after 8 AM!  One night does not a trend make, so here's hoping we continue with the good nights.
We had a family fun day today up at the Soldier Hollow tubing hill.  It's a bit spendy, but so much fun for all of us.  Driving home they asked if we could go back up after nap :)

Princess pose

Complete with tiara (thanks Aunt Virginia for this amazing dress and all the other fun stuff you got the kids!)

First night in the big girl bed

Only problem...too excited to sleep :)

All geared up and ready to go

Happy Birthday Iris!

Happy 3rd birthday Iris!  I can't believe my baby girl is growing up so quickly.  I keep saying there is no better gauge of the passing of time than having kids.  Every milestone and every birthday is a reminder that good things are happening, but also that time is flying by. 

Some of her favorite things right now:
The color purple, followed closely by the color pink
Princesses
Cats
Horses
Dancing to music
Brother Miles, except for when he makes his scary hissing noises at her!

Some of MY favorite things about her being 3:
She sleeps like a champ
She isn't yet a picky eater
She just had 3 full days of dry undies and successful pooping on the toilet

Happy birthday to my smart, funny, beautiful, sassy, sweet girl!

The birthday girl loves icing!

Princess cake, courtesy of Jeff's coworker Emily

Christmas 2012

I feel like I write the same thing over and over on here, but I suppose saying that we had another happy and relaxing holiday is not a bad thing to be repeating.  We had a white Christmas, which always seems right to me.  Jeff and I got an early present of a powder day together on the 24th while Grandma and Grandpa watched the kids.  It's always fun to chase each other around the mountain like we did in the old days...ride the Sunrise lift at Solitude and think about our first weekends hanging out together back in 1997.  It feels like 50 years ago!
The kids were excited, of course.  We left treats out and Miles swore he heard a thump in the night that must have been Santa!  I always flash back to when I was a kid and what a fun time we all had.  I am thankful for my parents, who are the reason I have so many great memories.

I realized when I looked through the pictures that I need some photography advice from my brothers, who always manage to get amazing pictures of kids.  I took shot after shot and I got moving kids, kids looking away, kids running out of the picture, etc.  Here is the best I got of the kids holding Santa's treats

And the opening begins...

What's in my stocking?!

Breaking in Hungry Hungry Hippos, one of my favorite games when I was little

Santa Claus is coming to town!

Santa made his annual appearance at First Steps.  I was sad I had to miss it, but this way Jeff got to experience the excitement of the man in red appearing before 50 kids!
Iris said she asked Santa for a princess and a toy pony.  Miles asked for Legos.  I'm not looking forward to when they get older and the list gets more complicated and expensive than that :)

Iris, 2 years old

Miles, 5 years old

 

Finally...poop in the potty!

Iris is officially pooping in the toilet now!  This is such a great milestone.  We have been encouraging her for months, but I agree with the people who say you can't force it.  When they are ready it will happen, and it did while we were out on our big date night.  She woke telling me she did it, but I have heard that a hundred times and its never been true, so I was a doubter until Grandpa confirmed the news!  Yesterday she was successful about 5 times throughout the day, so apparently she is digging her new skill. 
Part of our encouraging was telling her that she could go to Target and pick a toy after she figured it out.  We weren't thrilled with intentionally throwing ourselves into the craziness that is Target just a few days before Christmas, but we'd promised for months.  Her pick was Belle the princess.  If anyone picked this for her xmas present already...no worries.  She would be thrilled with two.  She keeps saying Belle needs to marry another princess!  Hmmm...

Loving Belle (or perhaps choking her to death!)

Date Night

Friday night was the Barrick Christmas party, otherwise known as the only night of the entire year that Jeff and I dress up.  We had a really fun night.  It was up at LaCaille, an over the top fancy place here in town.  Dinner, drinks and casino night, which I initially groaned about, but then somehow managed to rock the craps table without having a clue about what I was doing (fake casino money made me brave!).  It was all good until the drive home, when we survived one of the nastiest drives I've ever experienced in Utah.  Kudos to Jeff for safely pulling out of a vicious power slide down the Creek Road hill.  I was excited to get home, kick off my heels and end the night with a soak in the hot tub with the snow falling on us.

Ready for our big night out

O Christmas Tree

The tree is up!  Funny how just a few years ago before procreating we didn't care whether we had a tree up or not.  Now, it's not really an option.  The kids were so excited to "help" us put it together.  Someday we will get with the times and purchase a pre-lit tree, but for now this one makes us all happy.  Now for the shopping...

Our work in progress

Helping out

Iris was in charge of the lowest 3 feet of the tree :)

They discovered the perfect spot to take a nap

A few of the ornaments we got out of the box really made me smile, and also realize how time flies.

Who are those babies?!

Miles first Christmas

Iris' due date was 1/7/10.  I was thrilled she showed up 10 days early.  And the ornament would have been more accurate if her cone was Coldstone chocolate and cake batter!

Thanksgiving and Zion

We had a nice Thanksgiving this year.  We had family and friends for dinner and it was a good time.  Thanksgiving seems to get a bit overshadowed by Christmas.  Miles was even asking if we could put the tree up on Thanksgiving since that's what his kindergarten teacher does.  So we took a break from the pre-turkey dinner Ninjago and Dora TV marathon and made a Thanksgiving tree.  I saw it on another blog and thought it was a good idea, even if the idea of being thankful stuck with the kids for only a few seconds.

Just in case you can't quite make out the words:
Iris, Mom, Dad, Grandmas, Grandpas, Jobs, House, Health, Pie, Toys, Seasons, Art, Friends and Pets.  And no...I wasn't the one to add pie to the list!  Miles got a taste for pumpkin pie and he's hooked on it!

We headed south to Zion National Park for the remainder of the weekend to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa's 40th anniversary.  It was a treat to be down there for play. I usually shoot down for work then head straight back home without taking any time to get out and explore.  We relaxed and hiked and ate good food. Just wished we'd had another day or two, of course.

Ready for anything with his swords

Upper Emerald Pool

Hiking with Grandpa

Enjoying their hike

King of one really old sand dune

My boys

Virgin River rock chucking

Little legs = free ride when it gets steep

With my babies

Winter Wonderland

Winter is officially upon us.  We got slammed with winter storm Brutus this weekend and it snowed for 48 hours straight.  Jeff did his usual fantastic job of staying on top of the shoveling, and as a bonus he even built us a luge course/sled run in the backyard.  The sun finally made an appearance this afternoon and the valley is amazing.  We pay our dues living here with the nasty inversion, but crisp, clear blue-skied days like today make it so worth it.

Still smiling on round 3 of shoveling

Like father, like son

A video of our awesome sledding hill

Zoom!

Ready or not, here we come!

I might have bribed these icicle lickers with Halloween candy to get this shot :)

Bathtub Aerial got the boot outside and became hot tub Aerial when she started creeping me out by speaking in the middle of the night, asking if we wanted to play with her.  Here you can see her a few hours into the storm.  And below...well, you can see just how much snow we got because Aerial is long gone!

View of the beautiful Wasatch from our closet window

Mama's getaway

My awesome sister hooked me up with a plane ticket to go visit her in Phoenix last weekend.  I flew Thursday after work and got to hang out until Sunday afternoon.  We worked out, ate out, shopped, read books, got a massage and just relaxed together.  It was a huge treat to have the entire weekend be about what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it.  Thanks Jen.  Love you!

My BFF!

Halloween 2012

I finally have a few spare minutes to sit down and update my neglected blog.  First up...Halloween.  Better late than never, right?!  Halloween was a blast again this year.  I think it must just get better as kids get older.  The daycare did their Halloween parade through the building.  Ten pounds of candy later, we headed home for wandering the neighborhood to gather at least ten more! 
We had our annual pumpkin carving party/BBQ the weekend before Halloween and it was a success.  We lucked out and had perfect weather and tons of friends showed up to play.  Unfortunately, I was busy and socializing and bit frazzled and thus didn't get a single picture from that day.  We made sure to have our own family night of carving when things were a bit less crazy.  It was scary to entrust a 5 year old with the knife, but he did great!

First year with knife privileges

Miles' first pumpkin!

Parade stash on a windy afternoon

Getting amped for the parade and ready to dust me with her wand

Last year Spiderman was the costume of choice for half the boys in his class.  This year...ninjas!

Folks in our new neighborhood don't mess around.  Check out that collection of full size candy bars! 

We embellished the street sign by our driveway a bit. Mostly it just made me miss Bella every time I saw it.  RIP baby girl.

You call that a leaf pile?!

After years of bagging insane amounts of leaves every fall, Jeff was a bit giddy that this pile he raked up in 60 seconds was the extent of the leaves to be dealt with at the new house.

With his helper

"Do it again, Dad!"

Fall fun