Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we headed over to Delta. It was such a fun little trip with lots of family time, too much food, playing with cousins, milking cows, shopping, and welcoming in Christmas.

Sawyer was so, so excited to go back to Kristin's and Papa Steve's. We had to do a sleep countdown (in five more sleeps, four more sleeps, etc.) for this trip. This is him saying hi to a few of the family the day before we left.

Dawson was never in need of attention. As soon as we arrived, Andee swooped him up and he made sure to say hi to all the people (and cars) in his line of sight.

Enjoying a green olive.

Hanging with the big boys.

Taking a breather outside since it was nice and toasty inside with all those bodies.

Some Allie time.

Matching jammies from Grandma Ronna.

I love that the older cousins are so sweet to my boys. Sawyer loves to snuggle with Jaidyn and play games on her phone (and/or steal ice from her cup).

These turkeys (mostly the tiny) woke up so ridiculously early the next morning. Kristin and Mike had to head in early to their store for Black Friday so they nicely loaned us their room to watch a show while we tried not to wake everyone else up (which didn't exactly work out, Dawson was a chipper little bird).

Breakfast pie.

He's not a huge fan of touching, or getting close to, pretty much any animal. He does, however, have a thing for cats (the one animal that Dillon is allergic to) and this kitten was really patient with his almost-three-year-old love.

Dillon's dad is the fire chief for Hinckley and Sawyer sweet talked him into letting him check out the station and the firetrucks while we were there.

Play dough with Allie and Kaylie.

A little posing while trying on shirts.

Playing at the park.

Delta puts up a pretty sweet light display at the city park. Sawyer loved it so much the first time with all the cousins, we had to go back a second time with Dillon since he missed it while he was helping milk the cows at the farm. 

He loved it and ran wild. He asks to go see the teddy bear lights almost every day and gets a little sad when we tell him there isn't a teddy bear in Cedar, it's by Kristin's house.  He tells us, "Teddy bear all gone."

Dawson loved the lights too and wanted to touch every single one within his reach.

The light parade.

He got so excited when he saw Santa on the float.

Snuggling with Mason.

Some serious work at the furniture store.

Living the good life, eating fries while laying on the bean bag.

An early birthday present from all the aunts! Sawyer got a new balance bike and Mason's old helmet to go with it.

He kept pulling this face and saying, "Pretty cool bike!"

Putting up the tree at Mike and Kristin's.

The boys got some early Christmas presents from Kristin and Mike that included these giant stuffed animals and some fun new books. Dawson was all about hugging and laying on his new soft friends.

And Sawyer makes sure to have his elephant with him for bed time now that we're home.

Trying on the helmet.

The last day we were there we killed some time while Dillon took our car to get new tires. I got some quotes in Cedar and the labor costs were seriously outrageous. Steve helped us get some tires through his tire guy instead. 

Movie time with Kristin.

The boys got a little stir crazy while we were waiting for the car. Most of the family had gone back home and the kids were back in school so it was a little rough but we found some stuff to do. Sawyer even got to help mop the floor.

Visitors

Sawyer

Sawyer has started this habit of rubbing food on his face when he eats. Doesn't matter what it is. Rubs it right on his forehead and cheeks. Kids are strange. I'm sure there's logic to it in his mind but I have yet to figure out what it is. 

He likes to flip through books and "read" them to himself now. Sometimes he'll nicely read them to Dawson too. I try to act like I'm not listening so that he'll keep doing it and so I can catch the words of the story he's made up to go along with the pictures.

There's a particular fuzzy brown blanket that we have that Sawyer has now claimed for his. Dillon usually uses it when we're all hanging in the TV room together and one night Sawyer asked to take it with him to bed. Now it's his. He's quite impressed with himself for getting to sleep with "daddy's bown banket".

When Sawyer doesn't appreciate what I've told him (which he never does if the answer is no) he'll now let me know that he hates me. That lovely little phrase, "I hate you", came about thanks to the innocent Pixar film Finding Nemo. I can only take comfort in the fact that Sawyer doesn't really understand what it means yet (I don't think). Although, he clearly understands well enough that he uses it to voice his frustration. I didn't quite think that I'd hear that from one of my kids when they haven't even turned three. So we're trying to squash that one. 

Dawson

Dawson is super obsessed with toilets and toilet brushes lately. Another thing I never had to worry about with Sawyer so it hasn't been childproofed. All Sawyer wanted to do was flush the toilet over and over. But Dawson would love nothing more than to get IN the toilet and play in the water. This should be super interesting when we take on Sawyer's potty training.

Dawson's working on some teeth right now (four to be exact, one of those finally broke through the gum yesterday so now he's up to five visible teeth) and it is making him pretty miserable. I don't understand the connection between teething and messy diapers but there definitely is one. Poor Dawson had a wicked case of diaper rash (we're talking sloughing skin and bleeding) but guess what cleared it up really well? Lanolin. It worked some magic and healed his little bum. Unfortunately about five days later Dawson had some rough diapers again so it's back but that Lanolin seems to work better than Desitin for our little guy.

Dawson loooves all the Christmas decorations and lights. I put up our decorations earlier this week and after looking at everything for awhile Dawson surprised me with his new word "tree" (which sounds like chee). That's the third word for his vocab so far and I think it's so funny that we'll be able to tell him when he's older that one of the first words he learned to say was tree because he loved the Christmas decorations so much.

Dillon

Dillon had another round of laser hair removal on his neck this week. The poor guy has a skin type that causes him to get ingrown hairs really, really easily. And they will often turn into big cyst-like things that he has to go have a steroid shot for. A few years ago Dillon decided to try laser hair removal instead because a few payments for that would definitely be cheaper than having to pay for steroid shots all the time. It has helped his skin so much and this time was more of a touch-up that should have him set for years now. 

DaNae

There have been lots of visits from friends and family this week for me and my family and I loved every bit of it. Larissa and Maddie were both in town at the same time so we all got together for a quick hour with our kids. It was so fun and went by way too fast. We also had a too fast, but definitely enjoyed, surprise visit from the Brito family. How I never manage to document our visits with pictures is beyond me but we were so happy to spend some time with them in between their trip to the temple open house and visiting their family. And last of the visits was my sweet Aunt Shawnee. Thank goodness for social media that allows us to stay in touch with family and friends that are far away but nothing beats a face to face visit. Shawnee flew to Utah for a surprise party for her friend and then she made the rounds to visit everyone. The boys were in total show off mode when she came to our house. Sawyer twirled and ran and screeched and everything he could think of. Dawson gave snuggles and kisses and told Shawnee "hi" about 1.7 million times. There was a lot of love packed in that short visit and we are so glad we got to see her.

I got to spend some more time with Maddie later in the week which was really just good for my soul. We were able to hang out without the kiddos and it was so, so fun. I think I could talk and laugh with Maddie for hours and hours and never run out of things to say. There aren't too many people out there who are totally understanding of my listening to Taylor Swift's new album on repeat for a week (I put my Christmas decorations up while listening to Reputation..not Christmas music..it's fine) but Maddie is one of them. I'm so glad that we're able to visit each other more and look forward to next time.

We take hydration seriously over here.

Mine, Maddie's, and Larissa's kiddos.

Love these ladies and their littles.

I had to document the tree because I thought for sure Dawson would rip it apart but he's been surprisingly gentle with it.

Outside helping clean up leaves (which basically translates into Dillon doing all the work while I chase the kids around).

Downward doggin' it.

Talking to Dillon's friends Todd and John over the XBOX.

He was feeling pretty cool.

Sawyer was impressed with my freshly painted toes and sweetly asked for "shinies" on his toes too. He chose the green and red sparkles. Christmas spirit on point for that little man.