Getting in the Spirit

Christmas fun is in full-swing around here even though we're using our cheap, fake tree this year.  I think it looks a little Charlie Brownish.  Spencer thinks it's the most beautiful tree in the world.

One of our neighboring stakes puts on an amazing nativity display every year.  In addition to collecting and displaying hundreds of nativity sets, they have musical performances, rooms decorated with scenes from Christ's life with live actors, and a fun children's room.  Every room is decorated to the rafters.  I can't imagine the number of hours that goes into such a production and it is a wonderful service to our community.  I wish I had taken more pictures just to show you how awesome it is.

Thanksgiving Tradition

Since Thanksgiving day isn't a very relaxing day for us anymore, we decided to continue our tradition of heading to the beach for a couple of days after Thanksgiving.  This was our fourth year staying in Lincoln City Thanksgiving weekend.  We are SO blessed to have a lovely, free beach house to stay in occasionally.  Thank you Darwin and Debbie!

We did a little black Friday shopping at the outlet mall, but spent most of the two days we were there playing games and watching tv.  It was heavenly.  We also went to a lighthouse we hadn't seen before.  It was a neat one, but stopping there was a spontaneous decision and I didn't have my camera. 

On Saturday evening we went down to the beach to see some tide pools, but the tide didn't get low enough for us to see a whole lot.  It turned out to be a gorgeous evening though and we saw the most beautiful sunset.  Pictures really don't do it justice.  I'm so thankful for my beautiful life and the two guys that fill our home with love.

Turkeython

Uberthons hosted their 2nd annual Turkeython on Thanksgiving day.  It was their final race of the season, so Alan and his dad worked REALLY hard to make it a good race.  It paid off with 1,200 runners - one of their biggest races ever!  They had all kinds of fun things going on: a choir performance, warm-ups with a personal trainer, a costume contest, pictures with Santa, great music, an AWESOME announcer named Alicia, a yummy fruit bar, and free massages at the end. 

It's hard for me to help much at the races because someone has to take car of Spencer.  I don't think we'd be able to find a babysitter at 4 am on Saturdays!  But, Spencer and I did go to this race because we were both running in it.  I ran my first race in over a year and Spencer and I both ran the kid's race.  It's always fun to run bigger races - the excitement in the atmosphere is contagious.  I probably overdid it a little with my knee, but it was worth it.  It felt so good to be able to run outside again.  Spencer had to wait around for a long time for his race, but he did great too. 

My handsome boys:

The photographers - sisters Teri and Debbie:

Alan mans the timing computer from inside their trailer now.  It keeps the equipment dry and cuts down on set-up time.  Alicia was a huge help with this race and really was a great announcer.  Too bad she lives in Utah or she'd be hired!

Spencer didn't want to see Santa until he found out that Santa had a treat for all the kids who sat on his lap.  He wasn't very happy about it and didn't say a word to Santa, but he did sit there. :)

The race took up a big chunk of our Thanksgiving, but we did have a nice dinner with Alan's parents, Alicia and Grandma and Grandpa Larsen in the evening.  Afterward, Darwin took a well-deserved nap, Alan posted race pictures, Spencer played on Alicia's ipad, and the girls read and watched a cheesy, Hallmark Christmas movie.  It was a good Thanksgiving.  I have an incredible amount of things to be grateful for but right now, I'm mostly thankful that I'll have a husband again for a couple of months while Uberthons takes a winter break.

Fall and Friends

Andrew has been Spencer's best buddy since we moved to Sherwood 2 1/2 years ago.  He has lived across the street from us and even though their personalities are very different, they have been a perfect match.  They have gone to each others house's once or twice a week nearly every week since they were two.  The boys have learned to play so well together that I have said that Andrew is Spencer's babysitter.  When Andrew is here, they entertain each other so well that I hardly see them for hours. 

I think they originally bonded over Thomas the Train, but they also love to ride bikes together and play "Car's eye guys," "fighting legos," power rangers, Avengers, and camping in the spare room.  Andrew is a lot more outgoing than Spencer is and has been a good influence in learning to ride his balance bike and in being more independent in dressing himself.  Andrew also has a little brother and it's been good for Spencer to learn to be patient and share with a little guy.

After spending over 7 hours here today for one last hurrah, Andrew's family is moving tomorrow.  Annie and Dan, Andrew's parents, have been wonderful neighbors and friends and I will miss them a lot, but my heart is aching for Spencer.  Andrew has almost been the brother Spencer doesn't have.  It has been SO good for him to have a buddy to play with.  At least they are moving to Arizona, so we might be able to see them occasionally when we visit my family.  Thanks for being such awesome friends guys!  We will miss you and wish you the best!

More pumpkins

Spencer was really excited to carve pumpkins this year and was actually a pretty good helper.  He wanted his jack-o-lantern to have a "nice face."  Alan helped him and I turned mine in to a mouse house.  Aren't we so super-creative?!  Ha.

Oh Halloween morning, Spencer said, "I just can't stop thinking about Halloween!"  I'm not sure which part he was so excited about though, because when it came right down to it, he didn't do much trick-or-treating.  Our Halloween dinner this year was chicken chili served in mini-pumpkins.  It was yummy!  Alan and I even dressed up for dinner.  I was a fairy chef - courtesy of my fabulous ex-roomie KT's apron sewing skills.  Alan pulled out the awesome Indian shirt and head band he made as a cub scout  20+ years ago.  It even still fit!  Spencer was wearing a Gap shirt that day so he decided to put on a Gap hat and be a Gap employee for dinner.  Where does he come up with that stuff?!

After dinner, Spencer changed into his real costume - a construction man.  He wore the same hat and tool belt that he wore for Bob the Builder two years ago.  He's not a fan of dressing up so just chose something out of his toy box that he was comfortable with.  Easy for me.

Spencer was the most excited to trick-or-treat at Grandma and Grandpa's house so we went there first.  Alan then tried to take him around the neighborhood.  Spencer only wanted to go to the houses of people he knows really well though, so they went to four more houses then came home.  I had been dreading all of the candy he would get this holiday, but he wound up with hardly any.  I think Spencer had the most fun running to the door to watch for his friends every time the bell rang.  Halloween is such a weird holiday.  It's a good excuse to have fun though.

Giant Pumpkins and 4.5

Spencer had his 4 1/2 birthday a few weeks ago so he and I celebrated by visiting the Giant Pumpkin Regatta while Alan was at a race.  We went to see the pumpkins in the morning and planned to go back for the races with Alan when we got home.  Due to a headache, a BYU football game and the rain, we never made it back. ;)  Good thing we had fun in the morning.

The man in the water was cleaning out his pumpkin.  They use chainsaws to cut a hole in the pumpkins.

They just weighed this pumpkin - around 650 lbs.  The biggest one we saw was over 1,000!

Anna and Nicole joined us for a few minutes.  Spencer wasn't brave enough to get inside this pumpkin and Anna doesn't look quite so sure herself.

Pumpkin golfing.  I tried to help him, but was even worse than he was.

Spencer is at such a fun age right now.  His sense of humor is so funny and silly.  He hides in the same two spots and jumps out shouting, "Boo!" multiple times every day.  We've been playing a lot of games lately, and he still spends a lot of time with his trains and cars.  Spencer is also getting better at building with Legos.  He has gotten quite good on his balance bike and loves to run the Uberthons 1K races.  He still adores Alan and the two of them have a lot of fun tickling, tackling and running around with each other.

My favorite time of the day is story time after lunch.  He still sits on my lap in the glider I've rocked him in since he was a newborn.  We check out 8-10 books from the library every week and those are the ones he usually likes to read.  His favorite this week is one of the original Winnie the Pooh books that has lots of words and just a few pictures.  But, he also still loves to check out board books (aka: baby books).

Spencer is loving preschool again this year.  Snack time and show and tell are his favorite parts.  His reading keeps improving and he's not quite as anti-writing as he used to be.  He also loves swimming lessons and his confidence in the water has improved a ton.

I just bought Spencer some new winter jammies that are super soft and snugly.  He LOVES them and they create kind of a problem when it's time to get dressed in the morning. :)  Before he gets breakfast in his tummy and getting dressed are usually his only unhappy times of the day.  Oh yeah, and dinner time too.  He's has gotten more picky, but I think most of the problem is a control issue.

Spencer likes loves to give hugs and kisses, but wipes off EVERY kiss he receives.  He still tells me, "I love you in the whole wide earth," every night.  Recently, multiple sources have reminded me to cherish this time while Spencer is young and I have really been making an effort to do so.  He brings both Alan and I so much happiness.  We love him so much and will be eternally grateful to have him as part of our family.

2012 Family Pics

Sorry there are so many.  We just got too many good ones this year.  We are REALLY going to miss our good neighbor/friend who has taken our family pictures the last three years.  Mesa is lucky to be getting such a talented lady.

Oh man, it's going to be so hard to choose which ones to print for our walls!

(Mom and Debbie, I numbered them so you can let me know which prints and what sizes you'd like.)

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