counting down

We have started a new tradition. I bought this kit online that has 25 ornaments you paint and put together and each day the family gets to open up an ornament to put on the tree. Each ornament represents what the topic is that day. Each day there is a quote, a picture, a scripture, and sometimes a video. Ty already loves doing it. He gets so excited before we start. The whole thing is called "25 days of Christ" and it focuses solely on Christ and his life. It's been a wonderful thing for us this time of year. I've been able to feel the spirit each time we read about Christ and his life, and it definitely helps us to focus on the true meaning of this season. I'm really excited that this will be something we get to do every year before Christmas day.

It's such a fun time of year with a two and a half year old. We've really been enjoying introducing Ty to our own family traditions.

Ty saw Santa at the mall. Noah was sleeping so he didn't sit with Santa. Ty was pretty quiet on Santa's knee but loved the Candy Cane he got.

 Reading my boys a book before bed.

 Ooo look how big they are getting. 

 All bundled up to go help Daddy shovel outside. 

 He sure loves his Dad. 

 We made sugar cookies the other day. Ty especially liked putting on and eating the sprinkles. He doesn't like eating the cookies (or really any) but he will nibble on some of the icing. 

 Noah watched us decorate the cookies.

 Here is Ty at our ward Christmas party. Michael made Ty's glasses a little more festive. 

 Ty had so much fun running around doing his own thing. It's kind of nice not to have to keep him within arms reach at things like this. 

 hahaha... Here I am trying to teach Ty the chicken dance?? Is that what it's all. nananananana... Ty was not into it, and I just got made fun of for doing it on my own.

Here's the babies. These two are already buds. Noah's always trying to give Nate a slobbery kiss. 

The other day I was cutting my friends hair. We went to the bathroom to have a look at it and when I got back I noticed some hair on the floor. I said "this isn't your hair...." to my friend who has really dark hair. Then I called Ty over and grabbed some of his hair and a bunch was coming out. I guess it was only a matter of time before he cut his own hair after seeing me doing it week after week to friends and family. He actually didn't do too bad of a job. You would probably never notice, but he did take a couple good chunks out on top so we trimmed his hair up because it was getting long anyways. When I was trying to tell him how it was naughty and that I'm the only one allowed to cut hair (and my friend and I are trying not to laugh) Ty was like "I wanna go show Daddy". HAHA! I turned my head away and did my very best to not show him I was laughing.

picture update

This is going to be a picture update! We took Noah swimming for his first time at the waterslides here in town. We forgot his swimsuit so he's just in his swim diaper. Ty is learning to be more brave when in the water, and he loves going to the pool. He always points out the waterslides when we drive past.

 Noah is crawling everywhere. He's not speedy like Ty was right off the bat but he gets around well. He also just started going from crawling to sitting. He also loves to do "downward dog", a yoga pose, although in this picture it shows him coming out of it.

 Ty with one of his favorite toys. Cam got Ty this race car for his 2nd birthday. 

 Last weekend I was able to go to the temple to be with Breanne as she received her endowment, as she is preparing to serve a mission in the new year in Australia. It was something I will always cherish. I cannot express how proud I am of her. She is a strong young woman with a good heart, and I'm excited for this experience she is going to get to go through. 

Grandma came up to go through the temple with Breanne. We were able to get a lot of great visiting in and this was before our "game night" where we played Bonanza for about 4 hours. I love these ladies!

 And here is Ty into probably his first real mess ever. Luckily it was nothing that a shower couldn't fix. 

In other non-picture related news, Ty is getting excited for Christmas. We will be setting up our tree sometime this week. Ty loves seeing the Christmas lights while we drive in the car. I am so excited for this Christmas with the age he is at now.  

Halloween 2013

We met up at the mall with Amy, Brooke, and Dani and all their kids and we did some trick or treating. It's total chaos there! Every time Ty got a candy he would stick his head in his bag to see what it was. Then he would wander around until he either found me or was able to hear me calling his name. He was so distracted by all the kids and adults in costume. I probably called his name 200 times in the hour that we were there. Then we met up with Michael and had some dinner at the mall before heading home. My Mom, Bryan, and Cassandra came over to see the boys in their costumes and then we headed out to go trick or treating in our neighborhood. We got to even Skype with Jody for a minute at Michael's parents (who live 3 doors down from us). Ty was so polite while trick or treating. He would always say thank you. Since we are new in our crescent we decided to introduce ourselves to the neighbors. The older couple that lives across the street invited us in for a couple minutes to chat and on our way out Ty was saying "Happy Halloween. Goodnight. Thank you. I love you" hahaha. We got a good laugh out of that. We let Ty eat all the candy he wanted. He hardly ever gets candy. He ate AT LEAST 15 suckers today. He would never suck on them. As soon as they got into his mouth he was chomping down on them.

Like, COME ON! Is there anything cuter? I seriously doubt that. 

Ty being funny, his lion, and a new bed.

Oh Ty boy. This little guy is just growing up so fast. I can't believe how big he is getting. I wanted to write down a couple things that made us laugh. Ty talks a lot now and is becoming a bit bossy. Not in a bad way, he's usually quite polite about it. It definitely comes from me. :) Okay so the two funny things he recently said:

Me: "Ty, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Ty: "A strawberry"*with a big smile on his face.
I honestly cannot think of where that came from.

Me: "Hey hun, finish your dinner please"
Ty: "No, I not hun. I Ty Thomas Mendenhall. *points to me* This is Mommy *points to Michael* This is hun.

I am always calling him hun lately and he's always pointing out to me that he is not hun but "Ty Thomas Mendenhall" and then proceeds to tell me where "hun" is. It's always so funny.

 This is Ty's lion. Ty has to have him every night. He loves this little puppet. I wanted to get a photo of him with "lion". If you go HERE at the end of the post there is a photo of lion when Ty got him for his first Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa Parker.

 Ty's first time carving pumpkins. We were pretty unadventurous with the pumpkin carving but he didn't care. He loved the pumpkin seeds that we toasted in the oven. 

 A big step for Ty. He is now sleeping in a big boy bed. He has done soo well. He even stayed in bed in the morning until I went down to get him. The only bad thing about switching is that he's only napped once in the past 5 days. 

Noah is 6 months

Today Noah is 6 months old. I cannot believe how fast time has gone. It seems only a short time ago I was holding my sweet boy for the first time. As much as I loved having a brand new baby, it's been so fun to see his personality form. Each of us in our family has developed such a strong bond already with him. I truly adore this little boy. He blesses our lives with so much happiness.

 Snuggling up to Dad outside at the Pumpkin Patch

 He has the BEST smiles ^^^^^

 And the most beautiful blue eyes. Love those two bottom teeth. 

Taken today (exactly 6 months old). 

We sure do love you Noah. 

October 2013

The other day we went and swapped taking family photos with the Baldersons. We got a couple gems, but here are a couple I took of the boys. Not professional, I know, but we saved a ton of money. 

Noah is sitting! Despite what this picture shows. It only took him two days to go from sitting for a moment and falling over, to sitting for up to a minute. He's doing great. He's rolling around like crazy and scooting all over the hardwood floors. Up until a week ago he was awake every 2 hours at night, and since then it's been every 4 hours, and last night when he woke up after 4 hours I gave him his soother and he slept another 4 without having a feeding!!!!!! Hallelujah! I'm hoping this is the beginning of something wonderful! I know I say it everytime but this kid is SO dang happy. Smiling and laughing for no reason. He was just laying on the floor yesterday in the living room by himself and started laughing over and over. Noah is also 18 lbs!!!!! What a big boy we have. We love his rolls.

 Ty is the sweetest. He loves Blues Clues, Super Why, and started watching movies. He really likes Cars and Toy Story so far. He loves his puzzles, and being around other kids. He loves the songs Baby Beluga and Wheels on the Bus. When we asking him questions now he often says "prolly" or "kind of". It's so fun having him speak so well. He is very talkative and outgoing. We went on a walk the other day and he was yelling "hello" "hi" to everyone. Telling the dogs "doggy go ruff ruff". Definitely not a shy kid here.

  At the corn maze.

Heading out for a walk! Ty loves being outside. We have so many parks by our house. There's a nice green strip one house down with a park right there (kind of a lame park), but a 5 minute walk away theres a park Ty really likes that we always go to.

We have been insanely busy. We JUST finished all the baseboards upstairs in the house. We will do downstairs most likely in the spring. It was lots of work with us two doing it with the two kids, but the house looks SO good now. I can't wait to show some before and after photos! Just a bit of last minute details and then I need to do a bit of decorating. We still have nothing on our walls. 

I just finished a 5 week boot camp that I went to 3 times a week. It was hard but amazing. I love being outside working out and I'm sad winter is coming. I guess I'll have to get creative inside. I did it with my best friend, Nikki. My goal was to get back to pre pregnancy weight and I did it!! (2 lbs under) Hopefully I can stay there with Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Christmas coming up. Yikes! Michael was a champ!!! He watched the kids every time I went and was so good about it. Can't wait until next spring when I can start back up again. 

I've also been doing a lot of hair recently. I just do it in our dining room. I do cuts and colors and I just LOVE being able to do it. It give me a chance to visit because all my "clients" are so amazing. All of them are either friends or family. If they have kids, they bring them, and Ty gets to play with friends too. I'm so lucky to be able to do it. Someday we hope to turn our laundry room into a little salon. 

We've been trying to teach Ty what Halloween is. I think he's excited for the candy part (as are Michael and I). This age is SO much fun for holidays. He gets excited for things and we love seeing him have these experiences. 

goodbye summer 2013

Here is the last of our summer adventures. I'm behind!
We have the most awesome friends! The Malmbergs invited us to the cabin at Echo Lake and we went there for an awesome weekend! We swam, went boating, Ty got his first tube ride (no pictures), we shopped, and visited. We had a blast with them, as always.

 On the boat. Ty loved it!

 Best buds! They had so much fun playing and fighting all weekend. haha. They have a love/hate relationship. 

 Coloring in the box.

 This is one of our many trips to Wally's beach this summer. It's so amazing that later in the summer there is all this sand. It's heaven. 

 A beautiful evening!! 

We sure miss summer and can't wait for it next year!

Noah is 5 months

Noah is now 5 months! I can't even believe it. He is growing so fast. We are so in love with the stage he is in right now. He is the most smiley baby we have ever seen. He is SO happy.

Noah
-has his two bottom teeth! It took about 3-4 weeks of teething for them to get here but they are finally in.
-he is a terrible sleeper! Since teething started I have been up with him an average of 7 times in an 8 hour period. He is fussy, and nurses what seems like all night long. I'm at the point where I am too exhausted to sleep train him. Right now it seems like I will never have a good nights sleep again.
-He is always chewing on his hands.
-he giggles ALL the time. He will laugh if you are just looking at him, or at Ty being silly splashing in the tub, or anyone who makes funny faces at him. This is opposite of Ty (who was chill as can be at this age), so it's a fun stage.
-Loves his tummy and is starting to get good at lifting his upper body
-nurses every 4 hours during the day (and every 2 at night...) shouldn't it be the other way around?
-has blonde hair coming in. I think it will be a bit blonder than Ty's is.
-loves going on walks in the chariot.
-so obsessed with Ty. he gets so excited to see him, and will watch him for a long time.
-has the longest eyelashes and the bluest eyes.

 Dreaming of when he can start eating pureed peas.

Our little bundle!

Grandpa Parker

My Dad and stepmom Kristi have been growing their grandchild population at a rapid rate. In the 2 1/2 years of being grandparents they have 7 grandchildren. Within I believe 2 months they got these 3 grand babies. Wren (bottom left-Tycy and Stefans), Noah (bottom right), and Sean (top-Indie and Dans). At the Parker family reunion it was naptime for the babies. Wren went on the parents bed first. Then Noah fell asleep so I added him. My Dad was playing a card game and went to go change his clothes and he said he saw Wren and Noah sleeping and the bed was just calling to him, so he joins them. Then it was Sean's nap time, and that is how we got this lovely photo that I'm sure these kids will look back on.  Photo courtesy of Indie. :)

a million photos of our summer.

I've been seriously neglecting my blogging but we have been so busy enjoying our summer. I've taken lots of photos too, so here they are and I'll just update as I go.

 My 3 boys. I feel like I'm always taking photos of these 3, but honestly, when I see them all together I can't help it. It's my favorite.

 We hiked bears hump with the kids while we were camping in Waterton with Michaels parents and Grandparents. Michael had Ty and I had Noah. Noah was getting a little too big for the moby wrap here so he was pretty much falling out the whole time. Also, it was a bad idea for me to wear a hoodie because it started to get hot out and I couldn't take it off because Noah was napping. Serious sweating!!

 Our little family on the top of Bears hump!

 My boys in bed.

 At the Mendenhall Family Reunion. This was after Grandma and Grandpa's 60th wedding anniversary celebration. This was also the first time Michael's parents and their children and families had been together since we added a new member to the family, Amber (and I guess Noah too). Devin and Amber were able to come up to visit for 2 weeks and we enjoyed spending lots of time with Michael's family. 

Great Grandpa Mendenhall and Ty.

 UMMMMM CUTE! 

 We went to Birds of Prey while Devin, Amber, and Jody were visiting. I was sooo freaked out of holding this bird.

 Michael and birdy.

 Ty got to hold the burrowing owl! SO precious. (Do you think he cared? haha)

 Ty being swarmed and attacked by ducks wanting more food. Not the greatest photo but look at that face. :)

 The classic Cameron Falls picture.

 Bros

 At the park. Despite their expressions (which look identical to me) they enjoyed the swings.

 The morning after we camped at Park Lake with the Malmbergs. This was our 4th camping trip of the summer. 

 Cali and Ty. Silly kids (thats Ty's smile, HA)

 My boys again!!! Look at those perfect faces. Also, Noah looks the same size as Ty.

:):)