Christmas & December 2011

Well we finally had time to update about Christmas 2011!  Wow, the month of December sure went quickly!  And we can't believe its well into January already!
Well here are a few of our highlights from the last month
*We talked about the nativity with Avery alot this year.  We wrapped a baby doll up and put in a wicker laundry basket.  Avery would carry it around all day and had to have "baby Jesus" lay by his bed every night. We are glad he is starting to understand things a little.  It makes it alot of fun.
*We went to a Community Christmas Sing-Along were school-age kids sang, everyone sang and Santa came.  Avery wouldn't sit on Santa's lap until he saw Lily sit on his lap.

*Brian's brother Mark and his family came to visit from Nebraska (then they are off to sunny Florida).  We went up to Park City to the Olympic Park as well as went to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights.  We had such a blast with them and a bunch of Brian's other siblings.

*We went to Idaho for 10 whole days over the Holidays!  It sure was a great time to spend with the family and find time to just relax and have fun.
*We first spent a couple of days with Amanda's family.  We went swimming, to the movies (Dolphin Tale, a very good family movie) and having Christmas with the Downs family.  We all got Lagoon Season Tickets, so guess what we will be doing all summer?  Avery got his "button car" (a car with a button to push) from Grandpa & Grandma Downs, and was pretty excited about that.

*We got to go on a helicopter ride with Brian's friend Chris who needs to get his flying hours in.   It was awesome!  Avery was really excited to go on it, but once he was in the helicopter, he wasn't so sure about it (he didn't like looking out the window and didn't like the headphones too much).  As soon as we were on the ground though, one would have thought he had a blast by how much he talked about it.  We got to fly by the Rexburg Idaho Temple and Mesa Falls.  Lily fell asleep for the ride. Amanda had white knuckles from gripping the seat while Brian got to "fly" the helicopter (really Chris was doing it all, it just made Amanda nervous)

*Christmas was wonderful as usual.  Avery woke us up that morning (it was about 7ish).  We sure were blessed with lots of things this year.  Lily got Amanda's old dollhouse that she had growing up.  It still looks like it is in good condition doesn't it?  Avery got a remote control car.

Christmas morning at the Turpin house

Amanda made us all pajamas and hats for Christmas Eve

Avery patiently awaiting for Daddy to open his remote control car.

*We were able to go to church for a very nice Christmas musical program and have Sacrament meeting.  It was really nice (except that we ended up in the back and the kids went wild!).  We loved being able to really remember the birth of our Savior on this special Sunday.
*Then we had the rest of the Turpins over the next day where we got to see most of the cousins (a few were away sick).  It sure gets a house loud and crazy really quick with all those grandkids and adults everywhere.  We were able to get a picture of Brian's siblings (it was a hopeless cause to try and round up all the grandkids).
*Other highlights were that we saw the Downs extended family and the Turpin extended family.  Its always fun to see the grown-up cousins.
*We arrived home and all got sick!  We were going to go back to Idaho for New Years, but since we were all sick, we stayed home.  Brian's sister Candace came for New Years Eve for a little fun party.  We had goodies, played Wii (online with the our extended family) and then watched the ball drop at 10:00pm (we were a little lame, but we were all sick).  Then we went to bed!  Wow, we can't believe it 2012!
Well that is our month in a nutshell!

One on OneOne-OneOne-OneOne!

Lily had a birthday! She turned 1 on 11-11-11!  Wow, it has been an amazing year since we welcomed our little Lily Joy in our lives.
4:49 am 11/11/10 she arrived:

to her birthday one year later, 11/11/11:

We sure do our love our little Lily.  She has brought so much joy into our life.

We spent the day as a family (Brian gets Veteran's Day off, so he will always have her birthday off).  We would have loved to go to the zoo, but since it was cold we went to the Aerospace Museum.  We hung out alot in the discovery center where the kids got to wear pilot suits and sit in cockpits of planes and even "fly" the airplane.  It was really  fun. 

 Then we came home, had naps and then had birthday dinner and celebration.

We had Lily open her presents first:

She absolutely loves dogs.  Her first real word was "da" for dog.  As you can tell she is pretty happy about this present.

Then on to cake.  See how bad of parents we are:

don't worry she is ok, no marks.  But we sure felt bad.  We tried to do a do-over but she was too scared to do it.

She gobbled up the cake.  She takes after her daddy that way. 

Overall, we think Lily had a great birthday.

Some little tid bits about Lily:

*Has started to stand up from sitting in the middle of room

*Can take 1-2 steps, but very wobbly (it won't be long before she walks!)

*Her first word was "da" for dog

*Absolutely loves dogs of any kind

*Loves to suck her thumb and have her soft blanky

*Does like to play with Avery for the most part

*Loves frozen peas (cooked) but hates frozen carrots.  She will just pick them all out and throw them over the side of her booster chair.

*Loves water.  She tries to drink or put her face in water in the bathtub.

*Has awesome red hair (yes, we just stole her from the nursery at the hospital, we aren't exactly sure where she gets the color from, maybe Brian's mom?)

*loves to dance (she does this little hip moving thing whenever she hears music)

*loves eating food off the floor (we think she purposely throws food on the floor at dinner so she has some for later)

We are a Happy Family!

 We finally were able to get some family pictures done.  Its a little hard doing it with the self timer and getting the kids to look at the camera. Thank goodness for photoshop :-)  

A Big Kid Now!

Avery turned 3 years old on Tuesday!  It was such a fun day.  We woke up early (about 7:30 which is actually pretty late for Avery) and did the traditional look for your presents.  Well what did Avery find in the laundry room?  A big kid bike!   We really had no clue what to get him for his birthday, but he has been talking about riding a big kid bike since he rode on his cousins a few weeks ago.  So we got him a bike, and boy does he love it!  He rode it all morning and then wanted to ride it at night too!

  It was Avery's Grandpa Downs birthday on Tuesday too!  And his cousin Kylers five days earlier.  We decided to all go down to the Aquarium in Sandy.  It was so much fun!  We got to touch a manta-ray and see penguins get fed.  Fish are amazing!  We went to Chuckie Cheese for dinner and all Avery wanted to do was ride the truck ride.

 

  Then we came back to our house for cake & ice cream.  Guess what kind of cake?  He has been talking about this for 2 months now:

A "Pink Tiger Cake."   Where he got that idea we have no idea, but that is what he wanted, so we made it for him.  Its a little girly but he loved it all the same.  (he really likes pink lately, but trust us, he is ALL boy in every other way).
 We can't believe Ave is so big!  He seems so much older already- he is growing up too fast!   We sure do love him though!