Utah!

So for those of you who don't know, we went to Utah in February, for about 10 days.  We had a blast spending time with both sides of our family, and got to see so many different family members.  It was so nice to show off Declan and have Anabelle play with her cousins.  She is now old enough that they can all really play together and she had so much fun!

One day, we went with Hallie and Grady to Kangaroo Zoo in Ogden, which is basically a huge building filled with bounce houses and blow-up slides.  Of course, our little monkey girl loved it.

We did a bunch of other fun things too, but I'll have to get back to you later for all of that.  Enjoy this for now :)

Happenings

This happens a lot :)

 Always the cheese!

 Anabelle took this picture of us

 And this...

 And some of our growing boy. Although these pics don't show it, he is smiling all the time!  He is such a happy boy (when he's fed, awake, and not gassy).  I love him so much!  Also, he's giggling now, and it's so stinkin' adorable. He has also been sucking on his hands for a little while, which is so cute.  I just love having a baby in our family again!

 Anabelle likes to exercise with me.  Here I was doing ab exercises and she wanted to join me, as always.  She also really likes to stretch with me.  I enjoy the company.

 Sleepy bear.  The binky always finds its way out of his mouth.  Luckily, he can sleep without it, unlike his big sister that HAD to have her binky to sleep.

Declan's Baby Blessing

Mike blessed Declan at church today.  It was a very special experience, and the blessing was beautiful.  Declan was able to wear the blessing outfit that Mike and all of his brothers wore as a baby (I added the bowtie, made by my friend Ashley).  He looked so cute!  Here are some photos :)

  

Here's an updated video of our little guy, too :)

 And one of Anabelle, our silly little girl.  This one's a bit longer, but demonstrates how she just keeps going and going and going...

Christmas

Making chocolate covered oreos has become a holiday tradition for us.  Mike LOVES those white chocolate covered ones that are only for sale during the holidays, and it is so much cheaper to make them, so we do.  We usually make some white chocolate and some regular semi-sweet or dark chocolate covered.  As you can see, Anabelle got to help this year.  She loved every minute of it, of course :)

 Another thing we did this Christmas season was visit a light show at a county park here.  They had about 3 miles of lights set up that you can drive through, along with a gift shop, walking paths, eateries, a carousel (which Ani enjoyed), and best of all, a chance to sit on Santa's lap!

 They had this awesome sand sculpture on display.

On Santa's lap, with her cheesy photo grin

Merry Christmas!

 On Christmas Eve, we got together with some good friends here, ate some delicious potato soup and homemade hot chocolate (thanks Katie!), and hung out.  We read the nativity story and dressed the kids up for it.  It was quite the ordeal getting Anabelle into her costume and took 5 times as long to dress the kids than to read the scriptures (but it was worth it).  Anabelle was holding a little nativity figurine of the baby Jesus, since we weren't really comfortable with her holding our little real babies.  Raleigh wanted to hold one to, so he carried the Joseph.

 Trent was a shepherd, always a happy boy!

 Another of Anabelle's horrid habits she has picked up recently.  I hate it.  I'm trying so hard to rid her of it.

 And cute little Wrenley was our angel.  That was fun, and I love the pictures to remember the memories.

 Sweet little boy

His Christmas jammies

Christmas morning:
And yes, her shirt is on backwards.  She dresses herself and when we tell her that her shirt is on backwards (which happens most days) she responds, "No, no, it's fine."

 Anabelle's cool new kitchen set

 You can see part of my awesome new double jogging stroller here!

 Declan's hat (size 0-3 months and it's ENORMOUS on him)

 Food sets from Gma and Gpa Lewis 

 Her first Barbie.  Thanks Uncle Dan and Aunt Kelsey

 Monkey hat from Aunt Jenn and Uncle Ben :)

 And another of our cute boy.  This pic was taken a week ago, and I can already see that he's filled out more.  He's growing like crazy!  He's over 10 pounds now, probably 10 1/2.

 "Hey everybody"

This is also a week old.  Someday I'll catch up ;)