Downtown and Spaghetti Factory

Another tradition in my family is to go to the Spaghetti Factory in Downtown Salt Lake at Trolley Square, eat and then go to temple square and look at the lights! Since we weren't able to go back to Utah for Christmas this year, we decided that we would do just this with our friends here! We got a few families to join in on the fun, and we ventured to downtown and had a wonderful evening! The spaghetti factory is amazing, the lights- not quite compared to Temple Square- but it did the job! Thanks guys for helping me to not be so sad about missing out on traditions at Christmas time!


The Dix Family

The Wessler Family, Cole and Sweet baby boy

The Lehtinen Family

The East Family, and Lincoln
My favorite part of the night was when our waiter came around and asked us if we needed anything else, and cute Owen East (the smiley one up front) raised his had so sweetly and said "More Spaghetti Please!" The poor waiter didn't know what to think, and we all had a good chuckle! Jana (from Sweden) couldn't BELIEVE how much we all ate! Owen out ate her and her whole family by himself!


Lincoln and Warren playing on the WTC sign...they LOVED the lights there!

The "Menfolk" making fun of the fact that we wanted to take a picture of them all together.

Of course, some of the womenfolk. Steph Dix, Me and Steph Wessler

The fam- notice my nice little shelf for Lincoln to perch himself upon! Not much longer!

Christmas Activities

Christmas time- as you all probably know by now- is my favorite time of the year! Seriously, Cole gets a little bit (okay, maybe aLOT) annoyed about how much I love it, and how much I like to do! But my whole life has been filled with Christmas memories galore, and I am having so much fun recreating lots of those with my children! One of my most favorite memories of growing up was "The Box". Let me explain. Each day- starting December 1st, my mother would hide a box in our house somewhere and inside of the box was just a little something for us to have/do/play with on that day. Most of the time it was really nothing- a pencil, a piece of chocolate for each of us, a pez dispenser, etc. But some days, it was something really fun and exciting! Like the first of December it would be our Advent Calendar that we could hang up. The day after that it would be all the ornaments for the tree and we would put the tree up that night. The day after that it would be the Christmas books and we would all curl up on the couch and devour all of our Christmas books. It might have been the Gingerbread house stuff to make Gingerbread houses that day. We all absolutely LOVED (and maybe still do!) finding the box. That was the funnest part about it, so I was so excited to recreate a few of these memories with my boys. BOY did they love it! They had so much fun finding it every day, and of course, so did Cole! Lincoln and payton would NOT find the box until Cole was home from work and could help them find it. SO fun! So here are a few of the things that the boys found in the box and they were able to do.


Coloring our "Santa's Beard" Advent calendars. Each day they got to put a cotton ball on Santa's beard to complete the ensemble!


Decorating Sugar Cookies (cookie cutters and frosting stuff found in box)

YEAH for cookies! Didn't get much frosting on the cookie, but sure ate alot! :)

Intent on his cookie- can't look up mom...sorry!

Painting ornaments...wow these ones turned out great! :)

Such concentration!

I LOVE the box, and Payton still asks to find it every day! Next year buddy, next year. Don't worry, I can't wait either!

Decorating the tree

We had so much fun finding and decorating our tree this year! I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE decorating a Christmas tree, but it is not Cole's favorite thing to do- most especially since I make him put the lights on! He doesn't love that. But he certainly does a good job, so that is why he gets hired year after year to do it! :) Thanks babe! Anyways, the boys had so much fun running around through the "forest" at the tree place, and couldn't WAIT to get home to put the decorations on! I was a bit worried about Payton this year, because he literally is into EVERYTHING, but he has done surprisingly well! I have only found a few of the ornaments off the tree a couple of times, but that was for a good cause- apparently. They just HAD to play swords with my heart shaped ornaments! Well delivered boys, well delivered. :) So here are a few pictures of them decorating the tree.

NEW BUNKS!!!

Amongst all of the Christmas chaos that has been going on lately what with trying to get all of our projects done and whatnot- we decided to just take an entire Saturday and devote it to moving the boys into their room together so that we can have room for baby girl who is coming in a few weeks! So, we took out the old toddler bed (which is now being successfully used as a fort- much like everything else!) and moved in the bunk beds! WOW do the boys love them! They seriously spend more time playing on those things then they do sleeping in them! Every time we talk to anyone on the phone, or video chat or anything with anyone, they have to show them their new "bunks" as Lincoln has so affectionately named them. So cute! It is so fun to have them in the room together, and the transition to the big boy bed hasn't been that bad for Payton! Keep in mind he was already crawling out of his crib at about 1 year, and since had learned to open doors, take off child locks, and everything else imaginable to keep him out of bed- so the transition wasn't that bad! Because now Lincoln and Payton have each other, and they absolutely LOVE and ADORE each other, so this is way fun for them. The only problem is Payton falls off his bed a lot, so maybe it's time for me to get some rails for the poor guy! Anyways, they are loving them, and I am loving not having all of the toys in their room anymore! Moved most of those to the playroom so that Payton can nap while Lincoln plays! Yeah for brothers!

Zoo lights!

We had the chance to go (a couple of weeks ago- I know I am a little slow) to the Zoo lights here in Denver! We LOVE the zoo lights! They are so much fun, and we couldn't have gone on a more perfect night. We tried to go last year, and the night was perfect-snowing like CRAZY (you realize my fetish for snow with my last grouchy post!) and the boys were all bundled up and ready with their thermos's of hot chocolate in hand only to be turned away at the gate because there was a private party! So this year we were a bit more prepared, and went on a night when we were actually invited to go! We had a blast! The boys were all bundled up in their winter garb because this whas when we were having the arctic temperatures, and we had a great time. Payton still asks to go back to the zoo to see the light animals just about every day! Cute little whippersnapper! Here is some photographic documentary of the evening! Enjoy!



Payton was pretty stoked to be sitting on the big guys lap...mostly because he gave him some candy! Lincoln would have NOTHING to do with him! Mostly because he was walking asleep (poor dude was so tired!) but has made up for it with subsequent Santa sightings.


Probably one of the cutest pictures 2000- who doesn't melt when looking at those three cute little bums!

Lame

here I sit...at my computer and at the moment (11:00 p.m.), it is 37 degrees outside with absolutely NO snow on the ground, and just a SLIGHT HINT of some in the future. I wore a short sleeved shirt to church today (which doesn't mean much because I am always a raging inferno with this baby heater inside of me!) and the boys asked me to take off their Christmas sweaters because they were too hot. To top it off, I think that the high today was 59 degrees or something like that! I LOVE Denver weather, but NOT RIGHT NOW!! I really want it to be a white Christmas, but it just doesn't look like that's going to be in our forecast! I wouldn't mind it not snowing on the day I have the baby in less than 3 weeks, but it will probably be a blizzard...that's the breaks I guess! I'm not bitter at all for having no snow am I? Sheesh! Get this hormonal pregnant lady some chocolate or something geez!

Happy Birthday Payton!!

Payton is TWO! WHAT!!! Where did the last 2 years go! What a little bundle of joy that we have! Probably the most energetic kid ever born, and that is why we love him! He is ALWAYS into something, loves his brother more than anything, and is just quite pleasant all the time! of course, he has his tantrums, and BOY does he have his tantrums, but he is such a sweetheart, and we love him so much!
For his 2nd birthday, we took him to Chuck-E-Cheese, and BOTH boys had an absolute BLAST!! Payton thought sticking money into the games was about the coolest thing ever, and loved to see what would happen when you stuck the money in! He got some fun stuff for his birthday. The big gift was a new TRIKE!! He's not quite sure about it yet, because he can't figure out how to do the pedals, but he watches Lincoln on his bike all of the time, and I am sure will figure it out soon enough. But the highlight/hit was the bag of gummy bears that he got! This kid absolutely LOVES gummy bears! They are the first thing that he asks for every morning when he wakes up. Silly boy! We love you Payton, and can't believe that you are two already! STOP GROWING UP!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

So, better late than never, as I always say, but here is a little travelog of our trip to Utah for Thanksgiving! We had SOOO much fun! The ride was SO nice in our new car, and we (I) was able to spread out a little bit more in the car and it was a little bit more comfortable! PLUS, it got us there faster than the Subaru! Who doesn't love THAT! Anyways, we started the week down at my parents house in Bountiful where my sister was visiting from Las Vegas as well, and that is always a party having all 5 grandkids playing together, and DESTROYING my mother's house! I'm sure she is VERY relieved when we finally clean up and get out of there! But we have a great time in the meantime! We were able to go to the Tree House Museum up in Ogden, and the kids had the most wonderful time! They went hog wild, and didn't want to leave when we were trying to get them to go and have some lunch at 1:30!! Sheesh! We finally had to leave because MY big guts were eating my little guts!


Lincoln and Mylie Jane riding in the FireTruck! They kept those costumes on for quite some time! We finally had to take them back to where they belonged!

While Mylie and Payton and Ruby were at a little story time, Lincoln and Drew explored the LEGO room and had a BLAST with the dinosaurs! Dinosaurs are a huge hit right now with the Smith boys, so they were in HEAVEN! Again, it took lots of convincing to get them to try out another part of the museum!

Payton trying on the DUNCE cap...fits quite nicely! :)

Ruby and Payton checkin things out

This is what the little man was doing MOST of the time, and had all of the museum workers quite concerned! This kid will climb on ANYTHING!!!





We had so much fun in Bountiful, and then it was time for some MORE fun up in Richmond! Probably the highlight of the trip for the boys was for their Grandpa Smith to take them to feed the COWS! What little boy doesn't love THAT! I actually really wanted to go, but figured that all the bumping around might do things to the belly that probably shouldn't happen. :) But both Lincoln and Payton helped Cole feed the cows while Grandpa drove, and they were in HEAVEN! Oh, they are still talking about it for heavens sake!





Of course I don't have any pictures of Thanksgiving, because that would be the RIGHT thing to do was to take pictures of the reason we were in Utah right? Well, I dropped the ball on that one! But we had a fabulous time at Cole's Aunt and Uncle's house in Bountiful (Wayne and Marci Johnson) with lots and lots of Cole's family there! I love Thanksgiving time, because it is just a fun time to all be together and not have to worry about anything but dinner and pie! :)

Of course, by the time the night hit, the boys were BUSHED! This was Paytons first time sleeping in a BIG BOY BED really, because he HATES sleeping in a pack and play, and usually this is where he would end up! He is supposed to be in his bed that is next to the wall, but would usually end up at Lincolns feet snuggling with him to try and keep warm!

I love these boys! Thanks everyone! We had a VERY happy Thanksgiving, and can't wait for next year already!