A Touch Of Tyrell

We are trying really hard to have family home evening every Monday night. We've been pretty successful for about a month now (is that too soon to call success?!) and we are really enjoying it.  So on Monday night we ate pizza and sweet potato fries for dinner while listening to Christmas music via Pandora. Immediately following dinner we iced and ate sugar cookies and decorated the tree.  Everett was in charge of putting on the first ornament.  Once that was done we taught him the awesomeness of seeing your reflection in the ornament! The tree and our living room were a disaster the rest of the night and for almost all of Tuesday... we had Christmas stuff everywhere. But slowly the tree came together and I have to say it's my most favorite Christmas tree yet. It's awesome.  There's something to be said about the special spirit a Christmas tree brings into your home. Playing toys in the light of a Christmas ...

Little boy Everett is 2 1/2 today.  This is what he's like: Sometimes he likes putting on his CHEESE face for the camera... sometimes not.  Sometimes he'll ride his baby 4-wheeler... sometimes not. He was completely 100% pacifier-free about 3 months ago and then he started sleeping terribly... so I found one last pacifier in his drawer that is old and broken and he sleeps tons better now. I don't think he actually uses it all night, I think it's more of a comfort thing.   He is still madly in love with trains and cars. We bought a Thomas train on clearance around Halloween and it came with a poster of the 2011 collection. He studied that thing for weeks. I had to tape it back together because he looked at it so much! He understands colors and can correctly group 90% of his cars correctly by color. He can point out red, blue, pink, yellow, and green correctly about 70-80% of the time. Today, while coloring with cha...

Saturday morning, after our Thanksgiving guests left, we set out to do some 4-wheeling. We had no idea how Everett would take it, but he has to start liking it at some point!  We're new to the AZ desert and weren't sure where to go, so Jake found Aqua Caliente online... about 1.5 hour drive. It turned out to be pretty cool. We had a picnic lunch and then went riding.  Turns out, Everett loved riding. He sat right in front of Jake and held on to the handlebars the whole time. It was pretty awesome.  After riding for a while, Everett and I got in the car and watched Jake do some tricks for us.  :) now you know why we sat in the car! We were so dirty by the time we were through but we're actually loving the desert much more than we thought. We all had such a good time enjoying the winter sunshine and can't wait to go again... although we might have to recruit a riding partner for Jake because my belly is gettin...

Tuesday morning Everett and I played a little dress up while we were waiting for our Thanksgiving guests to arrive.   Our guests got here and then we talked, ate baked potatoes with homemade chili (that I made but really wasn't that great), and then played a few rounds of guesstures. If you ever need a good pick-me-up just ask Jake to act out seesaw or swan. He is hilarious .  The next day we all went grocery shopping and made pies. Pecan, apple, berry, and two pumpkin pies. My personal favorite has always been the pecan :)  I think everyone was getting a little bored so we broke out the rock band.  Thanksgiving day was good; Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic! It was the best Thanksgiving dinner yet. The turkey was perfect and everything else was just as good... mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing with sausage, peas with bacon, broccoli salad, rolls with butter and homemade jam, homemade cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes ...

We put on our best clothes AND faces for church every Sunday... lol!

Everett and I made a blue-eyed "Gratitude Turkey" the other day... He turned out pretty cute!

We took Everett to the aquarium this morning and I'm pretty sure he loves us more because of it.  He had such a good time checking out the sea life.  He even got to touch a star fish. I was so proud at how brave he was! There were a few really cool tanks that you could crawl under and stick your head in. He was a big fan! He really loved showing off his shark teeth! My favorite has always been the jellyfish.  There was a tank full of "Nemos" and "Dorys"   And a super cool hermit crab.... but I only got a picture of his shell.  We had such a good time and it was one of those rare family outings when everyone was happy and content and nobody cried. Lol. Everett didn't even cry or get too upset when we had to put the pink, stuffed sea turtle back on the shelf in the gift shop. He's such a good little kid...