Survey

So lately we have been having a hard time getting Alan to take his afternoon nap. Yesterday he didn't take a nap and today he didn't either. He will stay in his bed and just fool around until 2pm or later and by then I am afraid if he does go to sleep he will sleep too late and it will be hard to put him to bed at night. The only problem is that Alan gets pretty grouchy/emotional by 4 o'clock when he doesn't take a nap. So, my question is what should I do? For all of you with kids: when did your kids stop taking naps? And how did you transition to no naps?

Merry Christmas

I know - it is almost April, not Christmas time but last Monday felt kind of like Christmas. Last Monday we had a very snowy, blowy day here. They actually closed the schools and a lot of businesses closed as well. So to pass the time Alan and I made sugar cookies. When you think about making the dough, cutting out the shapes, cooking the cookies and then frosting them, you are looking at an all day event. In the afternoon Alan went out to play in the snow and then came in to enjoy some hot cocoa and cookies. The fact that the only cookie cutters we have are Christmas ones and that Alan wanted to frost the cookies red and green helped me feel like the Christmas holidays had arrived.

Alan enjoying some hot cocoa and cookies

Alan cutting out some cookies

Mom's little helper

So, peace to all and to all a good night!

Enjoying the Warmth

Last week we had gorgeous weather here so we started to get our yard ready for spring. We have a lot of goat head thorns growing in our backyard so we decided to plant grass seed. First we had to do a lot of raking. The boys were thrilled to spend time outside.

Alan had fun helping me rake and then jumping in the pile.

Even Conner wanted to help.

Conner had never felt grass before. I got such a kick out of watching him touch the grass. Here is a video of him trying to crawl on it.

We got the grass seed planted and then it snowed two days later - hopefully the snow won't hurt it. I am glad we got out to enjoy the good weather while it lasted.

Mini Family Vacation

Reed took last Friday off of work and we decided to go out of town and do some shopping. We packed up when the kids woke up and headed down to the nearest Costco, which was just outside of Denver. We had a rebate check that we wanted to spend. We got a GPS unit for the car, which Reed will use a lot with his job and Elder's quorum visits. I also got some scrap booking binders and some food. Then we went to Loveland (close to Ft. Collins) and checked into our hotel. Reed stayed with the boys while they napped and I took advantage of some kid free time to go shopping at the outlet mall that they have there. I am not a huge fan of shopping but after living somewhere where you do all your clothes shopping at Target I was pretty excited to go shopping. I found a pair of Sunday shoes that I liked, which made the entire trip worth it for me!! After the boys woke up we did a little more shopping and then went out to eat at Johnny Carino's - Yum (for those who don't know it is a really good italian restaurant). Then we went back to the hotel. Conner fell asleep so Reed and I took turns taking Alan down to the swimming pool. It was pretty cold so we didn't do a ton of swimming. It was such a great day, it was just so nice to spend time together. The next morning the boys woke up early (like usual) so we took them both swimming. We spent most of the time playing on the deck and dipping our feet in the water. Here are some pictures:

Chillin' in a deck chair

Alan dipping his feet in the hot tub

Conner enjoying some Daddy time. Conner is 10 months old in this picture and starting to look so big!

Warming our feet up

Look at those teeth (2 on top, 2 on bottom)

They had a pretty good continental breakfast at the hotel so we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. After that we headed to Cheyenne, Wyoming so that I could go to a stake Young Women camp meeting. The boys hung out at the mall while they waited for me. Then we had lunch and did a little more shopping. By then the boys were done with shopping so we headed home (everyone fell asleep on the way home, except me luckily since I was driving) All in all it was a wonderful trip.