Grateful for Giggles!

One of the things we are greatful for this Thanksgiving is for Xander's giggle! It is so easy to make him laugh... and he's such a joyful kid (although we are embarking on the terrible 2's a bit). We are so excited to have another one to fill the air with even more giggles next year... I hope everyone remembers the little things this year- HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Decorating the Tree!

We gave into the temptation last Monday and put up our Christmas tree for FHE... It was fun to decorate with Xander for the first time.. he has done well with leaving the ornaments on the tree! Tis the Season!

Yay! All done!

Ooo so pretty!

5 Months

I am 5 months along now.. starting to show all of a sudden. Still been sick but atleast its off and on and now.. hopefully it'll be completely gone soon. I know some women LOVE being pregnant and having a belly but have never been a big fan of pregnancy.. I just want to have the baby already and have my old energy and body back! Maybe if I was one of these women that never got anything worse than just a "nauseas" feeling during the day and never threw up, never got heart burn and could sleep 10 hours striaght at night, it'd be a different story... but nope. To me, being pregnant just sucks the life out of me.. I dress like a frump all day long, I dont have energy to do hardly anything, and lets not comment on how the house cleaning is (not) coming along!

BUT- I am willing to bear through all this because I know God is going to send me a beautiful, happy little boy who I am going to fully enjoy raising and loving and bonding with! I now know that there is NOTHING more satisfying in life than raising a child and seeing him grow and learn. So, 40 weeks? Can you get here tomorrow?? :)

Baby Boy #2

We went and got an ultrasound done yesterday to find out the sex of the baby.. its a Boy! Here are some pictures and a video of him moving around.

Side Profile

Waving Hello!

100% Boy: he kept grabbing himself! haha

Here is a clip of the 15 min video we have: In the beginning is a 3D pic of his little thingy and him trying to cover it up! Then you see a 2D video of him kicking off the side and arching his back.. and then turning to the side.. it was cute to see him moving around so much! He was a wiggler!

If you want to see more pics of the day.. go to my facebook page.

Body Parts

Xander is learning his body parts.. its really cute to see him soaking everything up.. Now if we could only get him to start speaking!

"Here's my teeth!"

Its hilarious how he sticks his finger up his nose when he finds his nose. he doesnt mess around!

Hoover Dam

My little sister, Carly is staying with us during the summer to work until she goes to BYU-I this fall. Its been a HUGE help having her here and we hope she's enjoying herself and isnt too homesick! :) She had never seen the Hoover Dam and was interested to go, so we decided to take a trip down there last Saturday. It was so nice to get outside and enjoy some fresh (hot) air. Afterwards, we went to a not-so-great rocky beach at Lake Mead.. but the water felt great!

Holly's Wedding

Here is our latest "family" pic (where we are actually dressed up). It was at my friend, Holly Schaeffers' wedding. She was one of my bridesmaids. We were roommates when i first moved to Vegas.. I love her to death and am so excited that she's joined the "club" :) Her wedding was BEEutiful.. one of the nicest "cultural hall" weddings I've been to. And the cake.... oh... my... goodness.... sooo moist and yummy! Congratulations Holly! Can't wait for you to start a blog, too now! ;)

27 & Counting... unfortunately :(

So, its happened.. I've crossed the line from early "20s" to almost 30! *SIGH*... but you know what? I am not gonna let it get the best of me! I am going to embrace life and enjoy every piece of it. A friend of mine, at 60, said she was having more fun than ever before in her life- so I am gonna use that as my ray of hope and start looking forward to those later years in my life!

To celebrate, Trav took the day off (which he highly deserves, working 6 days a week for the past several months, plus its a holiday so Come on!) and we went with our friends, Richard & his wife Patricia to a brazilian restaurant called Pampa's. It was soo yummy! They would serve you 7 different kinds of meat Rodizio style.. where they bring them around table to table and slice you off as much as you want. It was pretty yummy having a variety of meat.. MMmmm We love meat over here!

Here are some pics of us at lunch... afterwards we went to the Bellagio. Fun.

Too much energy

Xander was doing this really funny thing where he would get all intense and clench his fists and bite down on his teeth.. it was hilarious.. and once he saw that it made us laugh.. of course he kept doing it (comedian like his daddy.) It was cracking us up. The end of the video is the best :)

Photo booth

So i tried to take a good picture of me and Xander with the timer setting on the camera.. i figured it'd take a few shots so I set it to take 3 shots at a time. These were the candid shots it caught.. thought they were great! Me and Xander- hangin out! We're pretty much best buds!

Karate chop!

"Mom, pay attention!"

"No- to the camera!"

Best buds!

Toothy smile

Haha I am loving Xander's big front teeth!

Kisses

Xander learned to give kisses- open-mouthed kisses! We're still working on the "puckering up" part :). Its cute cuz I will say, "Gimme a kiss" then after he kisses me I'll say, "that was a good kiss!" and he thinks I'm saying "gimme a kiss" again. He just hears the word "Kiss" and goes for it!

Crazy Kids

Xander loves to play with his cousins.. he had a blast at Lucus and Misty's house when I babysat for them today. Here he is cracking up at Daniel hitting himself in the head! hahah! Kids are so crazy!

Gettin Jiggy

Xander loves to get jiggy-widdit... Me and Trav dance alot so he learns from the best.. (haha). Go Xander! Go Xander! Go! Go! Go Xander!

Picnic at the Park

Last Sunday, we went on a picnic at the park with our friends Aaron, Jen, and Noah Budge. It was a cool park with a duck pond, and a cool playground with a Dinosaur excavating sandbox. here are some pics...

Trav feeding the birds(which we found out we weren't supposed to do.)

Xander looks awesome in this picture..

My boy eats and eats and eats and eats! he downed this whole banana, along with everything else!

Weee! he was so excited being on the playground.

Static hair.

Jen, noah and Aaron budge.

1-2-3 Weee!

The JoKeR

Once again, Trav thought he'd have fun editing pictures.. he thought Xander's raised eyebrow looked like the Joker. So, here he is- as the joker.

Teeth

Xander has 5 teeth.. 3 on top (waiting for the 4th to come in) and 2 on bottom.. makes for a super cute grin :)

Can't get any hansomer than that.. :)

Blocks

Here is Xander having a good time playing with the blocks he got for his birthday. He thought it was hilarious to knock them over! So cute, love his laugh :)

~Xander's Birthday~

Yea, What?? Xander is 1 already?? Holy cow! Ya, it pretty much flew by.. Here are some pictures from the big birthday party we threw for him. We had some friends over to our Apt. Clubhouse for Pizza and kiddie games.. it was alot of fun.. I just wish Xander would have known what was going on.. ;) Happy Birthday Son!

Waiting for cake...

After (he) blew out the candle...

YUM! I finally had to take the cake away from him before he ate the whole thing!

Presents!

Xander and his best friend, Noah!

Walk Like a Man

Xander took his first steps yesterday! It was so exciting! We love seeing these little milestones in our baby's life.. so fun!

Some Christmas Videos

This Christmas was so wonderful- it was sooo nice to be home again and have a white Christmas. Its always so relaxing just to chill at home and enjoy Mom's home-cooking! We had fun sledding, riding 4 wheelers on the frozen lake, watching movies, playing Mario on the Wii and playing other games. I think we played just about every game my mom has! That's one of the many benefits of having a big family- there are always enough people to play games with! I decided to post some videos we took during our Christmas vacation rather than pictures.. I posted a ton of pictures on my Facebook account, so if you want to see them you can go there or add me as a friend. ;)

Our Family had fun playing the Beatles Rock Band.. and Xander had fun dancing to it. :)

I got Travis a box of "Bean Boozle" Jelly beans for his stocking. There were several beans of the same color, but one would be a good tasting bean and the other would be a nasty tasting bean. For example, 1 yellow jelly bean would be Lemon and the other would be Moldy Cheese. Or one would be Skunk Spray and the other Black Licorice. Whoever got the nasty tasting one got, "BEAN BOOZLED!" I definately wasnt brave enough to try.. I took one bite of one and it was Black Pepper- GROSS... So that was the end of my Bean Boozle Adventure :) Watch this video to see who got Bean Boozled!!

XAnder had fun playing with Grandpa Kortas under the kitchen table.. I guess he found a new fort!