growing up.

chet was at a birthday party this afternoon, and matt went to his office to prepare a lesson, so it was just holden and i for a couple hours.
we went to target (because i want to soak in every last moment i can in that beauty of a store before it leaves canada forever).
and then we went on a date.
to tim horton's.
we ordered 2 donuts with sprinkles. and a diet coke.
we talked a bit about donuts, how crunchy sprinkles are, and about penguins.
but, other then that, we just sat quietly - holden eating his donut and me watching him.
and honestly, he. is. so. cute.
i know i am his mom, but i just can't get over how sweet his little face is.
i love watching him. i love his mannerisms. i love his gremlin voice.
he has grown into such a lovely little guy.

he has such a nice personality. he is such a happy boy.

he is smiley, he has the patience to figure things out on his own, he is coordinated - at everything from throwing a ball to building with tiny little lego pieces, he is great at sharing with his brother (who sucks at sharing), and he is always up for a good, long hug.

oh, and like every other 2 year old on the planet, he knows how to be a little terd at times too.

as for chet, he is a sweet boy too. and very handsome, as well.
and he is less then 7 weeks from his 5th birthday.

i am freaking out!

5 YEARS OLD.

i feel like once he turns 5 he won't be a little boy anymore - he will be a full fledged boy.

and i'm just not sure i'm ready for that.

i start doubting myself: have i done a good enough job raising him so far?
now that he is going to be 5, and heading off to school, he is going to be so much more influenced by others.
have i set an example of all the traits i want him to have - kindness, honesty, patience, hard work, faith, etc?
have i set a good enough example of those things that they will naturally be the way he acts, when faced with tricky situations at school?
i hope so.
because, if not, what have i been doing all these years?!
lucky for us, chet is a a very good boy at heart.

i have been working on getting chet registered for kindergarten lately.

we live in a new neighborhood, where schools haven't been built yet, so his designated school is a pretty long bus ride away.
and i don't really like that. so we have been creative with our school registration.
we are on a few lists now - including one at a french immersion school! - and will have to wait and see what happens over the next several months.
chet is so excited for school, so i probably shouldn't be stressing.
no matter what school he goes to, he is gonna love it!

proven wrong.

welp, that's the last time i write a post about how holden is the only one in our family gets sick...

since writing my previous post, a flu of death has welcomed itself into our home and ruined our lives!

it's like the blog gods were out to prove me wrong or something.

up until this past week, our boys have never had a sickness that has made them throw up.

and, my goodness, i have a whole new appreciation for parents who have had to endure that before!

it is sad, and gross, and so. much. work. to clean up.

but now, after mountains of laundry, and oodles of lysol, and 1 ambulance call we are all one big happy, healthy family again.

matt somehow managed to escape the wrath of the flu, and was therefore given the not-so-fun job of tending to all of us sickos.

my word, that boy is the sweetest one i know. oh i love him.

another really ironic thing that happened this week is that our dresser tipped over. on chet!

and it could have ended so badly. but thank goodness, it didn't.

the ironic part is that i honestly just had the impression to check if our dresser could tip over.

and i did check it. and it didn't tip.

i pulled out all 6 drawers and braced for it to fall on me, but it never did.

so i reported my findings to matt, and felt confident that it was not a concern.

but the very next day, sure enough, the whole dang thing tipped right on little mr. chet.

it was so scary!

and matt was away. and i was stricken with the flu of death. and that dresser is dang heavy.

thankfully, chet escaped without even a bruise. and we are beyond grateful.

consider yourself warned: dressers tip!

sicko.

holden has been sick this past week.

poor boy.

i feel like holden gets sick way more then chet.

which is super weird because they practically go everywhere together.

part of me wants to blame the snow and the cold weather for his misfortune.

heck, our last few park dates have looked like this:

and this:

(this just goes to show how desperate we are to get out of the house these days! can winter be over yet?)

but, since both of our boys play at the snowy park, it doesn't really make sense that only holden would get sick.

so i guess i will have to keep brainstorming other reasons why.

aside from not getting sick together, chet and holden honestly do everything together.

they are best buddies.

matt and i have so much fun watching them together - their relationship is adorable.

of course, they get on each others nerves at times. but 97% of the time things are great.

they would be lost without the other.

lately, the love having sleepovers.

i love sneaking in and seeing them asleep in the same little bed together.

i love those little turkeys.

sister pictures.

we got family pictures at the gilbert temple with my parents, april's family, and my family.

the photographer was very nice and i think the pictures turned out really great.

but i swear she was always putting me in such awkward positions!

for example:

haha i understand that it doesn't look that odd, but it felt so unnatural. and dorky!

but, despite how uncomfortable i was feeling, i was very obedient.

i just did what i was told to do, with a big smile on my face.

that was... until april and i were set up in our sister pose.

april had both her hands in her pockets and i had both my hands on her shoulder, and our legs were turned all over the place... and it was just so much more then we could handle!

we were laughing so hard it hurt.

and the photographer captured that moment perfectly.

looking at these pictures makes me laugh all over again!

and then we got ourselves together.

i love my sister!

more family pictures to come.

a looOng post about christmas.

oh, hello blog.

sorry for neglecting you this past month.

but i suppose we both should have seen that coming - i always fall behind when christmas rolls around.

but christmas is over, and i am back. so here we go!

we spent christmas in arizona this year.

my parents recently moved to gilbert, so we spent our holidays at their new house.

my sister, and her family, drove over from texas to join the party.

it was fun to have all of us together. it doesn't happen very often.

something else that doesn't happen very often (or ever?) is having matt off work for two solid weeks.

it was so fun spending all our time together as a family. we were spoiled.

i am a little sad that real life has started again.

since i have so much to post about, i am going to list some of the other highlights of our trip in point form.

- our boys were amazing on our flights - even the one to arizona that we had to wake up at 4am to catch. i am pretty sure kids couldn't be better then ours were on a flight, and that makes traveling a whole lot more fun. given, they've had a whole lot of practice!

- the first night we were there, we went to the mesa temple to see the christmas lights display on the temple grounds. we had done that a couple years ago, and it was just as gorgeous the second time.

- we played in the hot tub almost every day we were there, and even made a few crazy dips in the pool too. our boys loved playing in the water. i think they would have stayed in it all day, if we would've let them. being there made me miss our california days - we had so many pool days there. i love playing outside with our boys. for the record, tank was the first one in the pool. he accidentally walked right over the edge and took the first official dip. we blame this on his peanut-sized brain! now i want a hot tub. and a pool. and, if i'm asking for things i can't have right now, i might as well throw in a range rover.

- christmas eve was low key. i liked it. we all made our own little pizzas for dinner, hung out in the hot tub, and read the nativity story. when the boys headed to bed, matt went outside and rang jingle bells by their window. holden is still a bit too young to care much about santa, and chet seems to be a bit too clever to believe all our lies (or maybe we are bad liars?).. but it was still magical!

- it was my goal to keep christmas simple this year. i told one of my coworkers how much we spent on gifts and gave me heck for being so cheap! haha but honestly, i think going overboard on gifts is silly. chet got the camera he has been wanting for months, and holden got the firetruck he has been coveting from the toy store by our house. they got just what they wanted, and they were thrilled about it!

- we took family photos on the gilbert temple grounds. i was worried it was going to be chaotic with 8 kids (and 2 husbands who vowed to make the process difficult!), but it was actually really easy. and they pictures turned out great. my parents house is super close to that new temple. i could see it every morning when i went on my run. it is a beautiful temple. we drove by the temple often, and our boys were excited every time we did. it made me miss living in rexburg, where we could see the temple almost anywhere we went.  

- speaking of running, my final tally of miles ran in 2014 was 1612. 1612 miles - 2595 kilometers. i am going to try and beat that in 2015, just for kicks.

- despite the late night scorpion hunts with blacklights, we only saw one scorpion on our trip. of course, i was the one to find it. early one morning when i was the only one awake. i'm lucky like that.

- matt and my dad played two rounds of golf on our trip. matt said he hit 4 homes on the first round! haha but he didn't hit any on the second.

- my parents opened their mission call while we were all together. it was a special night. things are a little bit up in the air right now when it comes to where, and when, they go, but i know whey will be exceptional missionaries when they get out in the field.

- matt and i went on three dates over the holidays. woohoo!! our first date, we went out to a movie - the imitation game. our second date, we went out for dinner with ben & april to some trendy taco place.. where the music was obnoxiously loud. our third date, we hiked camelback mountain. it was pretty chilly when we did that hike. and when we got to the top of the mountain, it was too foggy to see anything. on the way back down the mountain we lost the trail and i was certain we were going to die! at the start of the hike there was a sign whose sole purpose was to scare you into staying on the trail, by threatening you with death if you didn't. and it definitely worked on me! but alas, we didn't die and celebrated that with lunch at cafe rio. oh, how we miss cafe rio. i love spending time with my handsome hubby.

- we did another kid-friendly hike on a different day with all the kiddos. it was in ursery state park. there were lots of tall cactuses on that hike.

- we went to a couple indoor play centers to burn up some energy. the first one was entirely filled with bounce houses. (matt might have enjoyed that one more then the kids!) the other place was this crazy arcade/bowling alley/laser tag/amusement park ride/pizza buffet facility. the kids had a lot of fun at both.

- we set off a bunch of fireworks on the eve of new years eve. we weren't all going to be together on new years eve, so we did things a little premature. no one lost any eye balls, so we will call that night a success.

- we went out for sonic drinks and chik-fil-a shakes, went on late night orange tree raids, played games, worked on puzzles, tried out every park in the neighborhood, and enjoyed having absolutely no where we needed to be. it was a perfect little getaway. now let 2015 begin!

chet taking our picture..

this boy has the biggest eyes ever. so i thought it would be funny to take a big eyed picture with him.

a unicorn pony! what are the chances of running into one of those?!

these 2 would make a really cute couple.. if it weren't for the minor detail that they are cousins.

the real family photos will get posted later.. this is just a crappy camera shot.

i'm really good at holding babies!

chet keeps asking if we can trade tank for baby cooper.