In our backyard we have a beautiful tree and Michael has recently realized that he can not only store his football and basketball up in the branches but he can also hang from the trees. We did it OVER AND OVER again but it was so cute seeing how happy he was about it as he held on and then let go and landed on his feet. 
We were supposed to drive up to the white mountains for Adam's annual wrestling tournament but my grandpa was in the hospital and really sick so we wanted to stay close to home. The kids wanted to see the snow so badly though that we decided to take a little day trip up to Flagstaff. My mom, the kids and I left Friday morning and hung out in the snow for a few hours and had some lunch then we drove back home. It was a great trip! The kids were easy to handle cause they were in our new mini van with a DVD player! They were in heaven and no trouble at all. :-) Emma was ok with the snow at first but when she realized how cold it was she was not a fan any longer..... she is so her fathers daughter. haha! Michael however takes after me and LOVED every second! We had to drag him away. He threw snow balls, made snow men, snow angels, and ate every bit of snow he could get his hands on! His lips were so blue when we left! It was a great time though and I can't wait to do it again! We were SO grateful to have the cute hats that Grandma Weeden made for the kids. They worked perfectly and kept the kids nice and warm as well as very cute! Thanks Grandma Weeden!! :-)
Emma is getting so big and growing more adorable everyday (already 8 months old)! She smiles at EVERYTHING! She is such a happy girl! She even lets her big brother wrestle with her and throw her around on the couch and she LOVES it! You would think she would be crying but instead she is laughing hysterically and if he puts her down she crawls over to him and pulls his hair until he falls down on top of her, which Michael thinks is so much great! She is crawling and standing on her own. She walks holding on to my hands but hasn't quite nailed down the balance to do it on her own....she is getting closer everyday and we expect her to be an early walker. She has to be in order to keep up with her brother. She is already climbing the stairs (while I have a heart attack!)
(Just hangin' out)
(Christmas dress. Both of us were so sick!)
(Coolin' off in the sink)
(Playin' with a braclet)
At the end of last year Adam's little brother Brandon left for college at BYUI. We are all SO excited for him and proud of him and pray for him often. I know he is having a great time up there but of course we miss him terribly. Michael and Emma just adore him and he was great to come over the day before he left for some special time with Michael and Emma to say goodbye until he comes home for his next break (which for a kid seems like FOREVER). WE MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU BRANDON! GOOD LUCK UP THERE!!! :-)
At Christmas time my family has a tradition of roasting almonds. They are SOOOO good!!! We love to give them away as gifts to people at the holidays. Some of my favorite memories are sitting around the table with my aunts and uncles and slipping the skins off the almonds. We have all perfected the aim of shooting the almonds at one another as they slip out of the skins. We try not to waste too many of the almonds on that but it is a blast and has been known to send us into stitches laughing! This year we tired out Emma and my uncle Devon and they were sound asleep for some cute pictures. :-)
For my Grandpa's birthday we decided to bake him his favorite raisin filled cookies. My mom (affectionately known as 'boompa', cause that's how Michael pronounces "Grandma")stayed the night and we worked on them for hours (truly a labor of love). Michael of course LOVES to help cook so we put him to work. He sat on the counter and was in charge of pouring flour all over the counter (and himself), he helped to roll out the dough, and he was a master of the circle cookie cutter! He had a blast!!! He had the hardest time going to bed but it was so adorable to see him having so much fun.
Not long ago we had a woman/photographer in our ward take some family photos for us. They turned out so beautiful! We have a whole disc full but I thought I would share some of our favorites. 
At the Christmas party they had a professional photographer, which was really neat! Michael was SO excited to see Santa! We waited in a long line and he just couldn't wait!!! Then of course, as expected, once it came time to actually sit on Santa's lap he totally freaked out (as seen in the last photo). Emma however was in heaven. She was thrilled with Santa and loved him even more when she got a candy cane! :-)
Technically we are not supposed to find out the sex of our newest baby until first week of January, but my doctor is really awesome and since we found out that Michael was a boy at 12 weeks and Emma was a girl at 14 weeks, I figured we would be able to see the sex of this baby at my last 14 weeks appointment. I begged my doctor and she of course said "yes"! So she snuck us into an open ultrasound room and took a look. The baby was not being very helpful. It took awhile and two people to see that we are expecting a......
BABY GIRL!
The other day I sat down to do the blog and update all the pictures I had taken since Thanksgiving. My camera was filled with photo's from the very first Thanksgiving I had done. I had tons of help from family! It was great to have my family and Adam's family there in one place. 16 of us all together! We were even blessed enough to have Paul's sister Jan and her husband Kevin join us from New Mexico. On the camera was also pictures from our family trip to the zoo. Michael and Adam had so much fun feeding the sting rays and playing at the petting zoo. The other night my mom came over and we made sugar cookies for Christmas. This was Michael's first time doing the sugar cookies. He stayed up late and sat on the counter. He was in charge of covering the counter with flour and pressing the cookie cutters into the dough. He was having so much fun! The pictures of him and my mom doing the cookies together were priceless. I have never seen a smile that big on his face. He was so proud of himself, all covered in flour! :-) Then he got tired and pushed the cookie cutters aside and laid right down in the flour on the counter top to go to sleep. It was precious. The last pictures I had on there were pictures of Michael at his little photo shoot. A couple of children his age were asked to be a part of a photo shoot for the little gym that he goes to. They had a professional photographer come in and photograph them doing their favorite little gym activities. They got some great pictures of Michael hanging from the rings. Huge joyful smiles! My most heartbreaking video that I lost was of Emma crawling for the first time. She has been crawling for so long now that it's not something I can recreate. Yes, that's right.....I did something to my camera while trying to figure out how to turn the flash off and I ended up deleting every single photo. I am so heartbroken! Sadly...that is life and I will just have to do my best to recreate the memories in the stories I write down in each of the kids little journals that I keep for them of their growing up years. I'm sorry there are no new pictures to show. :-(
The night before Michael's birthday party I had a strange dream. I had taken a pregnancy test and for some reason couldn't figure out what the result said. So I woke up and I had a left over pregnancy test from when I got pregnant with Emma. I figured it was a long shot cause I had no symptoms but I wanted to go get birth control that coming Monday so I thought I might as well make sure.
It was still early...like 5am. Everyone was sleeping and it was still dark. I went down stairs and took the test. Then while letting it wait it's 3 minutes, I went up stairs and got ready for the day. As an after thought I remembered the test was downstairs and thought I better throw it away before I forgot and people use the guest bathroom at Michael's party....no one wants to go the bathroom with a pee test sitting next to them. haha. I knew it was negative and felt silly for even taking it. I picked up the test and threw it away and then thought to myself "was that two lines?" I picked it back up and sure enough, two lines. Then I dug through the trash for the test box so I could verify what two lines meant. I couldn't believe it. I was literally in shock. I ran upstairs and frantically woke Adam up telling him he needed to go to the store and get me another test...or maybe a few cause it was going to take a lot to convince me I was pregnant.
I took about 3 tests all together...even the expensive tests that actually say "pregnant" or "not pregnant" and yes...they all came out saying that I am pregnant!......again..... haha.
We are very excited but also scared to death. We were not expecting our third child nearly this quickly. I guess it's time for the mini van! :-)
I had my first check up and everything looks great! Baby is due June 10th. Michael will be 2 1/2 years old and Emma will be 13 months. I am desperately trying to get Michael potty trained! He is doing great so far! As long as his diaper is off he will go in his potty every time. Now I just have to get him to tell me when he needs to go. It's a work in progress but so far so good! :-)
This baby is giving me the worst morning sickness I have had yet. It's been a struggle taking care of the little ones and being so sick but I have been given a lot of help from friends and family and I'm very grateful!
This year for Michael's birthday he decided he wanted a Madagascar theme! He has been obsessed with part one and two of that movie for months now! His dad and I can recite pretty much the entire movie line for line of both part one and part two of the Madagascar movies. We are grateful he chose such funny and entertaining movies to be his favorites though. :-)
Michael had so many people come to his birthday. It was so great! Lots of friends and family and plenty of kids for Michael to play with! He had such a great time and we had a great time visiting with everyone.
I can't believe my little boy is already 2!!! It's crazy to think how time goes by so quickly. I didn't' get as many pictures as I would have liked but I was so busy trying to keep everything moving and being hostess that I didn't get as many photo's as I would have liked. However, family and friends brought their cameras and took lots of pictures that I haven't gotten onto my computer yet, so for now here are a few and there will be more to come! Oh...and the reason he has no shirt on is because he spilled his punch down his front and it was sticky and he took it off. :-) Plus....I think he was just trying to show off for the girls. haha :-) Just like his daddy. :-)
Michael had another big accomplishment! A few weeks ago we went to his gym class and his teacher was so proud of him for doing everything she asked him! He does pull ups on the Olympic rings, he hangs on the bars, he walks on his tip toes across the balance beam, he jumps through hoops, he does somersaults, he does bear crawls and army crawls and butt scoots and he finally did a sit up all on his own! That means that he got to pass his gym level and move up to some harder stuff! When his teacher went out to tell the manager, so that Michael could get his ceremony and his medal, they were all shocked because Michael was not even 2 years old yet and the next level up is a class for 3 and 4 year olds! But his teacher said that he needed more challenging stuff cause he did everything in the lower level like a pro and she felt he was mature enough to move up to the older class and said he follows directions better than most of her 3 and 4 year olds. We are SO proud of him!!!! 
For my birthday earlier this month Adam surprised me with a weekend getaway to Sedona! He planned everything! I didn't have to stress at all..... except it was my first time being away from my kids overnight. I left WAY to many typed up directions for my very capable mother in law but she was great about it and everything was just fine at home. :-)
We had such an amazing time! Sedona could not have been more beautiful! We stayed at a resort and spa right up against the red rock mountains. The views from our hotel and the restaurants we ate at were incredible! We took amazing walks down by the creek running through our hotel, and hiked up through the red rocks. I was SO excited to sleep in for the first time in 2 years but sadly my internal clock had other ideas. I woke up on my own during the night when I usually get up to feed Emma and I woke up at the same time I wake up every morning. I guess even when you get away you're still mom. :-)
Adam was so incredible! He isn't one for walking through shops. He prefers the action sport stuff, but he was great about making sure we walked through all the little shops in uptown Sedona, looked through the art galleries and even stopped to listen to the bands that were set up along the street. The pictures don't do the place justice but we had a GREAT time! Thanks Honey!!!
Yesterday I took the kids to the zoo with some friends and their kids. We had a great time! Emma couldn't lay down, she was pulling herself to sit up so she could take it all in. It was so cute! Michael got to ride the carousal and even got to get up close and personal with a giraffe! He got to hold his little hand out and feed it. He was beyond excited because he is so obsessed with Madagascar movie right now and there is a giraffe in the movie. He thought it was the character Melman. We had to do it twice! :-)
