Christmas Time

For Christmas we flew to Canada. The flights were okay. Alan was more hyper on the flight up so it was good that Reed and I flew together. It was kind of an early flight so people were trying to sleep...not Alan. He thought it was fun to slam the window cover up and down, bang the trays up and down and kick the seats as he wiggled from my lap to Reed's. We brought things for him to do so it wasn't that bad but we did get a few glares. Oh well. Then the airline lost one of our bags. Luckily we weren't alone...they lost half the luggage from our flight. An hour later they found it sitting out on the tarmac so it was a happy ending.







We had a wonderful time visiting my family and friends. Alan loved all the extra attention. He learned to say "Granma" a day before we left so that was nice. Alan made a new friend when he met Uncle Drew. He loved to play with "Dew" and when he couldn't see Drew he would always ask "Dew?"

It was nice to be there on Sunday because my Dad gave a talk and Drew was ordained to the Melckezedek priesthood. We also got to visit my Grandma in the hospital. Alan completely freaked out when he saw her though (she was on oxygen). Eventually he calmed down and by the time we left he gave her a hug.









Here are some pictures of Alan in his new Sunday outfit (Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Bassett) We thought he looked very handsome. To bad my cousins triplet girls aren't in our home ward anymore...Alan could have shown off for them!

I don't think Alan really got excited about Christmas until Christmas morning and he saw all the presents. Before that we told him Santa was coming and he just gave us a blank look. We put cookies and milk out for Santa and Alan wanted to eat it right then and there!! Christmas morning we got up and had breakfast. Then we opened our stockings.














Alan loved his stocking. One of his favorite things was a little plastic cell phone. He made quite a few calls on that phone. Another favorite was the candy. He loves chocolate.















After the stocking we moved on to the presents. After Alan opened each present he wanted to open the box and play with it so it took us a while to open our presents.

Alan got a little tool set so he used the drill to open some of the other presents. Before that he kept asking for a knife because he has seen us open packing boxes with a knife. It was pretty funny to see him look at a wrapped present, then look at us and very seriously ask "knife"? We showed him that he could just tear the paper off but then he wanted a knife to get into the boxes!


I thought the picture of Reed, Drew and Alan playing with the race track was pretty cute. I don't know who liked the present the best: Reed, Drew or Alan. They all had fun racing each other, although Alan did seem to get a little nervous when both cars were on the track. He kept trying to take his off.












Other fun things about the trip: Reed and my dad took Alan tobogganing. Reed said he liked it but wasn't super excited. We also took him swimming which he LOVED. He was so daring...he climbed up the big slide and went down all by himself. He probably went down 10 times that day. We took him back the next day but he was much more cautious that time. He mostly just wanted to play in the kiddie pool with the plastic boats. We also went to the live Nativity while we were there. The stakes in the area put on a nativity with real people and animals, with music playing from the Tabernacle choir. Alan liked looking at the donkey. It only lasts about 10 minutes and luckily it wasn't too cold. We also took Alan to the triplet's birthday party (they turned two). I was surprised that he didn't want any cake. He found a little ride-on scooter and played happily until it was time to go.

The flight back wasn't too bad. Alan stayed awake for the first half hour and then he fell asleep. He slept the rest of the way and he even slept through the touch down (it was loud and bumpy). We were both glad to see Reed at the airport (Reed flew home a few days earlier for work). He has been a little bear today but hopefully we will get him back on schedule soon. We hope everyone had a good Christmas.

Out with the old, in with the new

Sunday night is turned pretty cold here. On Monday I tried to start the Corsica and it refused. We have been thinking that this would happen sometime. After all, we blew the head gasket last January and since then we have been thinking it was on its last leg. Its last leg lasted for a while. I was sad to see it go, it has been a wonderful car - hardly any repairs necessary and we put a lot of miles on it.
So we went car shopping and bought a Dodge Grand Caravan. Reed had been eyeing it for a while and the price had just gone down to $5000. It is a 2002 with 97 000 miles. It has a big dent in the bumper but it runs good (so far).

I wasn't excited about buying a van but I knew it would happen eventually. At least now we have a lot more storage room.

Pictures of our house

Here are the promised pictures.
Here is our little home. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It also has a fairly big, fenced backyard, which was a big selling point.
The inside is okay but it has a few problems.
One of my biggest pet peeves is all of the carpet. The entire house is carpeted, including the kitchen, dining room, bathrooms and entry ways. As you can see we put our area rug under our table to try to contain most of Alan's spills.
The kitchen is kind of small but we bought an island so we have more counter space and storage space. The next picture is of Alan's room.
The next picture is of the tiniest bathroom ever. I took the picture standing a couple of feet out of the door. In case you are wondering were the toilet is it is behind the door. It takes some maneuvering if all three of us want to be in the bathroom and we want to close the door.
The last picture is of our family room, downstairs.

We bought a futon to replace our couches...not as comfortable but better than camp chairs.

Visiting Santa

On Friday night we took Alan to the mall to visit Santa. One good thing about living in a small town is that the mall is hardly ever busy...there was no line to visit Santa. This was good because Alan needed some time to get used to the big guy. We stopped about 10 feet from Santa and Santa just started talking to Alan. Then he offered him a candy cane...Alan was tempted but still very cautious. He started to walk toward him and then he looked at us for permission. We told him to go get the candy so he walked up till he was about 3 feet from Santa. Then he planted his feet and leaned over to grab the candy, then he hurriedly retreated. Santa kept talking to him and then he offered another candy cane and this time Alan walked right up to him and took it. Then Santa asked if he wanted to sit on his knee so I helped him up and he sat there while Santa asked him questions
Santa: "What do you want for Christmas?"
Alan: Silence
Santa: "Do you like trucks and trains?"
Alan: "uh-huh"
Santa: "Have you been good this year?"
Alan: "uh-huh"

Then we tried to take a picture. We tried everything to make him smile but he just looked at us very solemnly so we had to settle for that. He was pleased when Santa gave him another candy cane as a reward for sitting on his lap though.

Decorating our Christmas tree

For family home evening we got all of our Christmas decorations out and decorated our Christmas tree. Alan loved putting the decorations on.
The tree is pretty small but that is okay, Alan could reach most of the tree. After we were done it looked pretty good. Alan loved it when we turned the lights on. In fact he wants them on all the time.
One funny thing that happened as we decorated: Alan found a Mrs. Claus and a Santa Claus decoration. He held Santa in one hand and Mrs. Claus in the other and then he made them kiss, complete with kissing noises. It was pretty cute.

Ultrasound Exam

I had my ultrasound exam on Wednesday. It was a lot of fun to look at the baby. They confirmed that my due date is May 10th. Here is one of the pictures of the baby. He stayed curled up on top of the placenta for the whole time, making picture taking very difficult.
For those who are not experienced in ultrasound pictures, the baby's head is on the bottom. He is kind of crunched over with his knees almost touching his head.
The next picture is of the baby's leg.
You can see his knee pointing down and his foot at the top.
The next picture is a 3D picture of the baby. You can't see his face because he is facing the placenta. Also, I think he looks kind of deformed but I think it is just the picture.
Also, we don't know if we are having a boy or girl. We are saying "him" because that is better than saying "it". Also we asked the ultrasound people if they could tell if it was a boy or girl and since the baby stayed all curled up they said no. They did get a shot between his legs and they thought they saw something but they said not to buy anything blue because it was just a guess.

More than one way to open an orange?

A few days ago we bought a bag of oranges to use as snacks. Alan loves them! A couple of days ago he asked for an orange and I gave him one. Then I asked if he wanted me to open it for him. He defiantly said "NO!" so I said fine and I started to clean up the kitchen (keeping an eye on him to see what he would do). He examined the orange from all angles and then started looking around the kitchen. All of a sudden he set the orange on the floor and walked over to my kitchen utensil drawer. He rummaged until he found my can opener and then he walked over to the orange and tried to open it! He even had the right part facing the orange and then he busily began to turn the knob. He did this for a bit and then he examined the orange...no results. At this time his hunger overcame his pride and he let me open it.





Another funny thing about Alan and oranges - he loves to sniff them. When I first start to peel an orange he will take it and then take deep, noisy sniffs. Its pretty cute.






I had my first prenatal visit last week. It went well but they said I am measuring small so they scheduled an ultrasound for next week to determine my due date. That should be fun.

Also, Reed and I both have callings now. I was called as the Sunday School teacher for the twelve and thirteen year olds. I was surprised...I have never taught teenagers before. There are 5 boys and 1 girl in the class. Reed was called as the 1st counselor in the Young Mens Presidency as well as the Scoutmaster. He is excited and a little overwhelmed. He had his first camp out last Friday and it went well. He had a meeting today and realized that he has a lot of work to do though. This Sunday is stake conference. It is in Cheyenne Wyoming (a two hour drive) so we are going to stay with Uncle Cabot. Neither of us have ever lived so far from a stake building. We keep moving further from the temple too...in Rexburg we were only 1/2 hour away, at Zion Ponderosa we were 1 1/2 hours away, in Belgrade we were 2 hours away and now we are 3 or 4 hours from the Denver temple. Hopefully our next move will take us closer to a temple. Thats it until next time. I will try to send house pictures soon.

Halloween

We had a lot of fun for Halloween. We went to our ward Halloween party but Alan didn't really get what was going on. We took him around to some of the booths and as soon as he got his first piece of candy he was done. He wanted to eat it and go home. We took him to one more booth so that he had a piece of candy in each hand and then took him home. For Halloween Alan dressed up as Superman...if any of you are thinking that the cape looks familar that is because it is one of the capes that Mom made for Russ, Ken and Reed when they were little.

We took Alan to the mall on Halloween night to go trick or treating. After the first few stores Alan got the hang of it. He was pretty cute. Before one of the store owners would give Alan a candy they said "What do you say?" (I think they were hoping he would say trick or treat) Alan looked up at them and said "Please?" They thought that was good enough. Also, some of the store owners were dressed up. One was dressed up in a scary mask and cloak. At first Alan didn't notice him because he was so intent on the candy. Then he happened to glance up and see the scary guy...he let out a wail and took off running toward Dad. We had to walk a few stores down before Alan would stop looking over his shoulder for the scary man.

Here are some pictures of Alan's loot. His favorite are the suckers.



When I first get Alan up in the mornings our conversation always starts like this:
Alan: Candy?
Mom: No, we are going to have breakfast.
pause....
Alan: Sucker?
Mom: No, its too early for suckers.
pause...
Alan: Chocolate?
Mom: No, Alan, we are going to have a good breakfast.
Alan: Oh (very disappointed sounding)

I think if he knew the individual names of the the chocolate bars he would list them in the hopes that one of them would be allowed :)

We had mixed experiences with carving pumpkins. About 2 weeks ago we had dinner in a pumpkin so we were excited to see Alan's reaction to cleaning it out. Reed cut off the top and let Alan look inside...Alan looked inside for a bit then turned to Reed and said "Eewwww, ucky." He refused to touch it.
We resigned ourselves to the fact that Alan would not help us make a jack-o-lantern. However when we cut off the top of the new pumpkin two weeks later Alan happily dug in and helped us get the seeds out!!!! We were very surprised.




Once we got it all cleaned out Alan got bored so he played with Reed while I carved the jack-o-lantern. Alan didn't pay much attention to me except to point out that I was making holes. Then I turned off the light and lit the candle in the pumpkin and told Alan to look. He froze and his eyes got big...then he started to slowly back away while still keeping his eyes on the pumpkin. When he got close to Reed he turned and lunged into his arms and started to whimper. It was pretty cute. The picture below is of him asking me to turn on the lights.

After we turned on the lights we finally convinced him to pose with the pumpkin.


After, when we tried to put him to bed we had to hide the pumpkin because he was still a little worried about it.