Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was fun to see Andy really start to understand things this time around and to get excited. Some of the fun things we did included going to the Zoolights at Hogle Zoo (Andy liked the sea lion and the black-footed cat best; that's about all we could see in the dark), taking the whole family to the movies (I love hearing Andy remember it: "We see Check-it Ralph and eat popcorn and drink barkly!", Jonathan slept through it), doing a nativity scene with cousins at Grandma and Grandpa Rees' house, the traditional Christmas morning, of course, and then playing in the snow. It's a good thing we all got some snow things under the tree, because it has snowed more in the past few days than I think it did all last season. All in all we had a great time. It's always over too fast!

Hogle Zoo. It was packed, but we still had a good time looking for the animals and enjoying the light displays.

Jonathan got to be the Baby Jesus in the family nativity.

Andy took his time unloading his stocking goodies.

Jonathan checking out his new ornament.

This is his smile. He really is happy.

Andy insisted on wearing his new helmet half the time. And those jelly beans he's dumping out? Yeah. Those were his breakfast.

Showing off his new shovel and snow duds!

Helping Daddy shovel the walk.

Smile, Andy!

This is just under the eave of our front porch. Once he walked out a little ways, the snow was up to Andy's thighs. It was cute to watch him tromp through it!

Tasting the snow. Maybe we should bring out the sno-cone syrup Uncle Tim and Aunt Cami got us...

Jonathan stayed toasty warm by staying inside. Isn't he getting so big?!

 Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, too!

Piece Number Four!

 A whole pound smaller than Andy! And I was convinced he would be 9 pounds...

The newest addition to our family has finally arrived! I was getting very anxious and had finally set an induction date because I was pretty sure this little guy was not going to come on his own.  He apparently was waiting for the most unexpected day to make his arrival- on his dad's birthday! I was in denial that I was actually contracting until it was bad enough that I called Lance and he convinced me to have his mom drive me to the hospital. It was so nice to show up knowing I had such wonderful people to take care of me! It went pretty fast after that. I arrived about 3:30pm, Lance showed up about an hour later, and at 5:51pm, Jonathan Roger Rees made his official entrance into the world! What a birthday present for Lance :) Of course our birthday dinner plans went down the drain, but at least I did make the cake in time...

We are still battling with some jaundice, but other than that Jonathan is doing fine. Andy doesn't seem to mind his little brother yet, and is very much enjoying having "Mog Fife" here to visit. Hopefully we will have some more pictures up soon!

Happy Halloween!

This year, Andy actually started to understand Halloween. At least, he understands candy! We couldn't decide what to dress him up as... until we saw this costume online.  Remember Andy's favorite part of the state fair? (See the summer post.) He was pretty excited about being a lemur... especially if it meant he got candy out of it! In fact, he wouldn't even put on his "lemur suit" until Lance told him that if he did, people would give him candy. Then he couldn't get into it fast enough! He is certainly the cutest lemur I have ever seen! We had a great time as a lemur family for Erin's annual Halloween party (ok, so Lance and I aren't so cute, and you can't see the excellent tails I made, but just for reference this is what we were aiming for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lemur_catta_001.jpg ). We also had a lot of fun Trick-or-Treating, although what we heard most of the night was, "Open this!" Andy probably could have gone all night, but fortunately he fell asleep in record time after we got home. Here are some pictures of our adventures:

All in all, I think Halloween was a great hit with Andy. And now that it and Andy's birthday is over... baby brother can officially arrive! If only he would... that should be our next post!

Andy's Birthday!

 Can you believe our little boy is two years old already? He is extremely active and loves running, climbing, getting thrown up in the sky by Daddy, eating suckers, and playing outside, among other things. We made monster cupcakes for our sweet little monster and celebrated at Grandma and Grandpa Rees' house. We all had a good time. Happy Birthday, Andy!

 Andy spilled some unknown spices on the purple one as I tried to frost them. He didn't seem to mind having to eat that one... especially as all he ate were the suckers anyway.

He's a speedy blur thanks to Grandma and Grampa Fife's present!

We love our little man!

Summer Recap

 Now that it is fall and I need to post about Andy's birthday and Halloween, I guess I had better put some pictures up from the summer. Among other things, we had a blast in NC for the Fife Family Reunion, celebrating the summer holidays, the Annual Rees Family Lagoon Day, and topping it all off with a visit to the Utah State Fair (Andy's favorite were the lemurs.... you'll want to remember that).

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Memorial Day

Memorial Day brought the annual Rees Family Reunion in Morgan.  For once the weather was just right and we all had a good time. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so instead of being wordy, I'll be... picture-y. We start with the traditional trip to the Morgan Cemetery, then we head to the family Ranch for lunch and games.  Andy got to play plinko, go "fishing", taste cotton candy for the first time, and try out the bounce house (which was a huge hit). I think we all had too much sugar and too much sun, but we sure had fun.

One family reunion down, one more to go this summer!