Ethan's Preschool Christmas Program

On Wednesday we had a truly wonderful and hilarious experience. Ethan has been in a Spanish-immersion preschool for almost 4 months and we've heard him speak bits and pieces of Spanish at home but this was our first chance to really see his whole class together and hear them. All of the kids are 3 or 4 and it was adorable.
Ethan was easily the most energetic of the bunch (lots and lots of energy) but he was always following the teacher's cues so I can't complain- he was just REALLY excited to sing his songs and do each of the dance moves. He literally had an ear to ear grin the whole time.

These are his cute and wonderful teachers: Pati, Mari, Ethan, Natalie, and Elise.

And for your viewing pleasure (and to appease poor Aunty Jess who couldn't come), here are a few videos of the event.
Ethan was chosen to play Santa Clause in the song "Rudolf the Rednose Reindeer" (Rudolfo el Reno) and his job (apparently since this was all a surprise to us) was to run on stage, take the reins attached to the poor cute blond girl, yell ho, ho, ho, follow her around the stage and then repeat during each chorus. Truly hilarious in person.

Each child was given a very short speaking part. Ethan says "a mi me gusta los regalos de Navidad" (I live the presents at Christmas). I love that he bounces off the stage.

And here's a song for you. Utter chaos but I know for a fact they all know the words. Ethan for one has been singing them in the car to and from preschool every day. Even Isaac tried to join in when they sang Frosty. Taylor had to cover his mouth because he refused to stop. He joins in when we're in the car, why not at the program???

Zoo Lights

Utah's Hogle Zoo puts up Christmas light every year apparently. This is the first year we've been but this will definitely become a yearly tradition for us. Literally the whole zoo is filled with these amazing light displays. Almost all of them move and are really creative. In this one, there's a star that starts with the little bear and gets passed up animal to animal until it gets to the snake who puts it on the top of the tree (you can see the elephant passing it to the monkey).
Both Taylor and his dad were still working so we bundled up Ethan and Isaac and went with Grams (Miles got to stay at the warm office with Taylor and only interrupted one meeting with his cries). Most of the animals were inside because of the cold and we didn't mind joining them. You can't see it because of the flash but there was a crocodile right behind them opening and closing his mouth. Maybe the zoo is better at night, normally the crocodile just lays there and is boring.

You can barely make out Ethan and Isaac at the right of the photo. The displays were huge. Ethan's idea of looking at lights (or zoo animals for that matter) is at full-speed. He stops to look for maybe 1 or 2 seconds and then he's off to the next thing. Isaac is the opposite. He stops and stays long enough to almost study the animals and lights. It was really neat to see how interested he was. He kept touching the lights to try to figure them out.

Too cute in his pom-pom hat!

Here's just one example of the amazing moving lights. I had to get the penguins since Ethan calls them "penguinos" (spanish) and Isaac has started calling them "guin-guin-o's".

Miles' Blessing Weekend

This past weekend was wonderful. My parents flew in Friday night to spend some time with us and be here to help give Miles his name and blessing at church on Sunday.
Miles is at this wonderful age where he's starting to smile and coo. If you sit close to him and talk to him he rewards you with the biggest smiles and most adorable "goos". My mom ate it up. She'll be upset I put all these pictures of her in when her eyes were closed but Miles is so adorable I couldn't resist.
See? How can you resist that face?

Or that one? I could eat him up! While my mom likes to talk to babies, my dad gives "tours". He loves walking babies around the house and showing them things. He's done it with each of my kids and I think it's adorable. Miles was having a "Bugsy" moment with this apple.

And another "Bugsy" moment.

In all seriousness though, this child is an angel. He really doesn't cry that much and when he does, it's more of a fuss than a scream. He'll fuss for a few minutes and then he decides it's not worth his time and just gives up. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that especially when I'm busy doing something for Ethan or Isaac and just can't get to Miles at the moment. It's so nice he doesn't just sit and wail. He's also been a great sleeper. He consistently sleeps from 7:30 or 8pm until past 2am, sometimes even until 4am and then he'll go right back to sleep and not wake up again until after 7:30. So at 2 months I'm only having to get up once a night to feed him. HEAVEN! This weekend we stayed out late at a Jazz game so I fed him at 10:30 when we got home and was very pleasantly surprised (okay I was ecstatic) when I woke up to his "feed me" cries and looked at the clock and found that it said 6:20am. Almost 8 full hours! Knock on wood, lots and lots of wood.

Sunday morning we blessed him at church. Taylor wanted a small circle so only my dad, brother Jeff, his dad, and the bishopric were in the circle. It was really nice. Afterwards, we all gathered at our house for a warm lunch of soup and salad. Miles spent the whole meal (over an hour) playing on the toymat. He kept punching that blue square guy to the left of him. See he's an angel- he even lets me eat and socialize in peace.

Tragically we didn't get a picture of the whole family after his blessing like we have for the other 2 boys. It started dumping snow just as church was starting and the church was pretty packed so I just figured we'd get pictures at home but we never got everyone together so there's just separate pictures. Taylor's dad and mom.

My family: dad, uncle Ken, mom, Aunt Cindi, and Miles

We did get some great solo shots of him in his little blessing outfit though. He's wearing the same outfit Ethan wore but since it was short-sleeved and shorts we put a onesy underneath.

His little booties were one of the only souvenirs we brought home from Portugal and luckily they were just the right size. And so cute!

I love this one, he looks like such a little man.

It was a wonderful weekend. Miles got lots of "talking" and holding time.

And my parents got lots of baby time.

Ethan and Isaac had a good time with everyone there too. All the cousins call my dad Grandpa Pat. Isaac calls Taylor's dad "pa-pa" as his version of grandpa so he called my dad "pa-pa-pat" all weekend which made us all laugh. We also cut off all his curls if you notice from the Christmas picture we took of the 3 boys. His hair was starting to look too fro-like for me.

Spoiler alert for all the Kitchen cousins!!! (since you'll be getting the same things)

And since my parents were in town and we never get to spend Christmas with them, we decided to open the Christmas presents they brought us. My grandparents sent the kids these really fun springy ornaments. Major hit! Ornaments you can swing around and boing halfway across the room, let's just say those are never going to be left alone on the tree if Isaac is anywhere in the house.

My mom found these adorable sock monkey- non-monkeys. Isaac really did like the present, he only has this annoyed look because I made him stop jumping around with his frog to pose for my picture.

And just as the night was ending we remembered that neither Taylor nor I had taken a picture with Miles in his outfit, so here it is, not our best shot, but at least we took one. We're trying hard to take enough pictures so Miles will never feel like he wasn't just as special to us as the first 2 were.

HATe- U

This is my only comment on the "Max Hall issue" (if you're lost as to what that is, you're blessed- basically BYU played the U of U Thanksgiving weekend in football and the rivalry is a little heated. After BYU won the game, their quarterback Max Hall went off on how much he hates the U- saying he hated everyone and everything associated with it and how all the U fans are classless and how terrible they all are. Needless to say, no one's talking about BYU winning, just about this guys crazy comments. Personally, being a BYU alum, I love the place and I'm glad they one, but really the guy should have kept his mouth closed. Really, you can't hate EVERY fan just because they like a school. The funny thing is now at all the basketball games against the Y, people have been making signs with pictures of President Monson in U of U attire and writing on it "Max Hall hates me!")
ANYWAYS... we got Taylor's brothers and sister U of U sweatshirts for Christmas and I wanted to make sure I'd bought the right size so I enlisted my brother Jeff to try on a sweatshirt and see if it fit well. Of course Taylor whipped out the camera to catch him in U gear (Jeff is currently attending BYU and freaked out refusing to be caught dead in the sweatshirt). Finally I persuaded him to at least try it on inside out. The funny thing was when he did this, UTAH turned into HATe-U. We couldn't resist making this picture. Maybe we'll go into business and make BYU blue sweatshirts that say HATe-U.

Hello from the Woodburys

I just wanted to throw in a Christmas-time hello to all our wonderful friends. Please forgive us for not sending out Christmas cards this year- we got a little busy with the kids/moving/and life in general. But we feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends and wish we lived closer to all of you. Merry Christmas! We hope all is well with you!

Thanksgiving 2009

It was wonderful to only have to travel 30 feet this year to get to Thanksgiving dinner, and especially nice that the rest of Taylor's family did the flying and driving instead of us. Here's the final pies I did. They actually turned out amazingly well. I followed my mom's recipe for the pumpkin pies (which I actually don't like so I can't vouch for their being good or terrible). Then I made a super easy peanut-butter pie and then followed a recipe out of the newspaper for how to make a peach pie by Obama's "pie master". Apparently the pastry chef in the White House does amazing things with pies so the Obama's have him make one at least once a week. It turned out perfect so I'll definitely be following it again. (email me if you want the recipes)
In the chaos to get dinner ready for 17 people, the kitchen got pretty crowded. Here's Taylor's sister Barb sneaking some pre-dinner goodness. Don't worry- she clobbered Taylor right after she realized he took this picture of her.

This is Sam, Mack's girlfriend. She made the pumpkin roll and oreo bites so we had to throw in the picture.

Everyone gathered around for last-minute prep. L to R: Mack, Jeff (my brother), Barb, Uncle Ken, Grandpa Servoss, Sam, Aunt Deanna, Sonia.

And just a few more pictures for fun. Taylor's dad had this electric knife for carving the turkey which fascinated both our kids as well as all the guys in the room.

We have so many things to be grateful for this year. I'll just list a few so that this blog doesn't last forever.

1. Taylor graduating, getting a job, passing the BAR, enjoying work, having a great golf graduation trip with his dad, running a succesful moot court competition, and learning to use a scroll saw as well as to make homemade wheat breads.

2. Sarah getting to take a quiet trip alone to interview grandparents, having half the family in our tiny apartment for Easter, having such wonderful friends in DC, having help driving across country with 2 kids, having a not-so-eventful pregnancy, getting to visit at the family reunion, having an easy, quick, and safe delivery of the cutest baby on the planet, having a mother pamper me and my family before and after the baby, living so close to family, living in a wonderful ward that went 150% above and beyond the call of duty in helping us before and after Miles was born, and getting to enjoy the cold Utah fall weather, inside, cuddling a baby,
3. Ethan getting to be a part of joyschool and having such wonderful friends, getting to live next door to his Grams, having a dog he can play with but doesn't have to care for, having a backyard, getting to take swimming lessons and play on a soccer team, learning spanish at his preschool, and getting a new baby brother.

4. Isaac learning to kick a ball, run races with Ethan, and learning to talk- yeah!

5. Miles being born healthy and happy and being surrounded by loving parents, grandparents, and brothers.

My New Best Friends

No, not Miles. He's great and completely adorable and at the top of my list, but my new best friends are:
The Swing
and The Playmat. Seriously. I volunteered to bake all the pies and rolls for Taylor's family's Thanksgiving which includes 17 people. I did this without thinking that maybe that would be hard with a 6 week old not completely in love with long naps. So yesterday when Miles woke up from his morning nap after just 30 minutes and I was in the middle of pumpkin pies, in desperation I threw him in the swing. And amazingly, he sat there staring at me for a while and then went back to sleep... and STAYED asleep another 2 hours. MIRACLE!

and he loves his playmat too. I try not to leave him there very long though for fear his eyes might get stuck in their "wide-eyed" look. I know, you don't believe me, but look- here's 2 more pictures for proof. I took a total of 5 of him on the playmat and I really could have used them all.

You try convincing Taylor to stop calling him Bugsy.

And these are my other 2 best friends: Isabella and Sophia, Taylor's little cousins. They've been in town since Saturday. Isaac loves Isabella and has been following her around like a puppy. He's even started ordering her around "mum" (come). And Ethan loves Sophia. Amazingly they're happy to be with the boys and have been really sweet with them so it's been nice to have friends to entertain them while I bake.

Ethan's Preschool Class Picture

Couldn't resist posting Ethan's cute picture. Next picture day I'll remember to think about which shirt he chooses- oh well, at least his hair got combed beforehand and that's saying a lot these days! All three of his teachers are native Spanish speakers from different countries so that he hears their different accents and doesn't pick up on one in particular. He's pretty cute and often catches us off guard with what he already knows. Isaac is also picking up on a few phrases and now says "guino" instead of penguin (penguino in Spanish) and "dios" for adios. The one word of Ethan's that really cracks me up is gracias. For whatever reason his is SURE- ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY SURE that you say it glacias- not gracias. It's hilarious, especially since no amount of me correcting him will make him change. So glacias for reading our blog! He's also starting to talk about some of his friends by name. He's right behind James, Darwin, and Cassidy which makes me laugh since those are the 3 he's always talking about.

Entertainment on a snowy Saturday???

In DC, the snow itself would have been the entertainment and of course there would have been no point in venturing out to a store since every gallon of milk and loaf of bread would have been gone days before. In Utah, it's just another day apparently- even the local high school played their football game through the snow storm.
Since I'm always cold, we chose a warmer form of entertainment- bowling! We really missed our friends the Aunas since they were always our bowling friends in DC and it was sad that Ethan didn't have Elise to dance and play with.
Have you ever seen these things? I never had. Apparently there are enough small children in Utah that come to bowl but can't pick up a ball (6 pounds is a lot for a 22 month old). So instead an adult can set the ball up on this ramp thingy and then the kid can just push it down. Isaac LOVED it! Of course he tried almost every time to pick up his own ball and carried it a few times (freaked me out that he'd drop it on his toe).
Of course Grams was a good helper. Isaac would roll the ball off the ramp and then hold onto the bars and jump up and down. Tragically he got bored after just 3 frames and decided that the snow outside was more interesting as well as all the other places to discover in a bowling alley.

Ethan is actually getting pretty good- he even bowled a strike once. I will admit though that this picture makes him look more perfect than he really is. Usually he more dropped/rolled the ball than actually throwing it.

And this is how Miles enjoyed bowling. I wish I had a carseat and blankets like that for me! All in all a good day.

Yesterday...

...while I was frosting birthday cupcakes, I sent the boys outside to play with Oscar. Ethan has recently become fascinated with raking leaves so I gave him a rake and let him go. He ended up throwing the ball to Oscar for a while and then when Oscar was tired, he sat down like he normally does (with his ball) and refused to get up.

When I looked outside to check on them, this is what I found. Ethan thought he might be cold. Isn't that sweet. Oscar is so good to put up with the boys and they love him for it! Thank goodness we don't live close to the beach!

Bugsy

In naming Miles, I tried to pick a name that would easily lend itself to a decent nickname. Milo was my hope but it doesn't seem to be sticking. Maybe later it will. Tragically for our boys, we seem to settle on rather bad nicknames that last a long time. Ethan is still Boozer a lot and Isaac still gets called Squeaker sometimes. Miles it seems is following in the same pattern.
Anyone seen the movie Bedtime Stories? You'll understand if you have. For whatever reason, Miles seems to always have VERY wide open eyes. Not just in bright light- almost always. It's become nearly impossible for us to get pictures of him without his eyes looking crazy. I took 6 of the above picture before getting a decent one.

And I took 4 of him like this last night without getting a single one with normal eyes. They're not abnormally BIG eyes for a baby, just abnormally wide open all the time. So Taylor had started calling him Bugsy. Let's hope it doesn't stick!

Metting Elder Scott

So the picture has absolutely nothing to do with the story, but it was too cute NOT to post. Miles has recovered from last week and we're settling in nicely. Still working on the sleeping thing though so we stay in pajamas a lot these days.
Taylor's parents were out of town this weekend so we inherited their University of Utah football tickets. Ethan is a great spectator and gets into all the cheers and chants. Isaac usually doesn't care at all but this time he surprised us by watching most of the game. It helped that he had an almost endless supply of cheetos. Miles mostly slept so we had a great time and Utah had a high scoring game so it was fun to watch.
On the way out of the stadium, we ended up in the same elevator with Elder Scott. Taylor couldn't resist shaking his hand and he kindly turned and shook mine, then Ethan's, then Isaac's. What was great was that he seemed to care more about shaking the boys hands than ours. He asked Ethan if he wanted to learn a new "fisherman's" handshake and he proceeded to shake his hand back and forth like a swimming fish. Ethan just seemed confused. Then he put out his hand to shake with Isaac. Being the good 2 year old that he was, he had another bag of Cheetos in his hand so when Elder Scott stuck out his hand for him to shake, he looked at him very confused and after a few seconds handed him his bag of Cheetos. He laughed, handed them back and tried to shake his hand again. Again, Isaac handed him his Cheetos. He did it a third time before Isaac understood. We all had a good laugh. Someday they'll appreciate living in Utah and having these experiences- for now their parents are enjoying them for them.