Christmas Tree

When Jen came up to school, her parents gave her a small Christmas tree. All the kids got a tree and so it has become our tree. Here I am trying to decorate the tree.


Katelynn helped organize the ornaments.


"Waz up"



Here's our tree. Our delema this year was where to put the tree. We have to keep Kate in mind while trying to find a place for everyone to see. 

Cookie Monster/Cute Kate

This post needed to be alone because it really didn't fit with the other one's but Kate is so cute and getting so old. We left a cookie out and in the morning Kate, while sitting up on the counter while we made breakfast grabbed that cookie and was eating it. She was quick and ate a good amount before we could distract her.

Also, my mom sent a Christmas dress and coat for Kate, which arrived the day after we left for Thanksgiving. Here is Kate showing off her new coat. Isn't she cute?

Black Friday

I have a post devoted on the day after Thanksgiving because there was so much that happened that day that the standard Thanksgiving post would have been huge and you wouldn't have read the whole thing. First off, it was Anna's birthday. She is three years old now. When is it that babies suddenly grow up. I remember when she was born. Now she is three. They really do grow up too fast.


It was really hard to get a good picture of Anna because she kept her head down. I did take a few great pictures but with Nicole and Dave's camera, hence not here. She got a bunch of cute clothes and some fun toys. And a really fun Curious George book from her favorite Aunt and Uncle. One toy she got was a camera, a fake camera, that said really cheezy things when you took people's picture. It would say things like "Wonderful!" You really have to hear it to understand how funny it was. I would venture that that was her favorite, at least that day.


Part of the day, Greg and I worked at setting up the new speakers and blu-ray DVD player to the system. Poor Greg battled three hours early that morning for these items and had to go to Radio Shack three times for different wires. We watched Spiderman 3 in Blu-ray and it was so awesome.


Sometimes I wish for longer legs.


Kate and Anna were having fun.




Ethan playing Guitar Hero 3. Ethan is pretty good at the Wii games, particularly tennis.


Kate seems to get sick every time we go down to California. Anna was blowing Kate's nose and showing her how to do it.


Katelynn figuring out how to do it.


Here is Anna with her camera.


I was writing a paper over the break and so missed some fun activities (although I did have a good time in between writing sessions). Jen, Kate, and most of the rest of the family went over to the Goldthope's to decorate for Christmas.


Isn't she cute? I think I am the luckiest man in the world. I know other guys may say that, but they are fooling themselves. Truth is truth. Jen is the best wife ever and she is a looker, too.


Dan is a good Christmas tree decorator. Or at least he has fun.


Grandpa Goldthorpe. Isn't he such a happy guy?


Elise making a face. I think she stepped on an ornament. No not really. She did think this was her brother's camera.


Dan was a little Christmas crazy.

Thanksgiving Surprise

So, Jen said to me at 10 PM on Sunday night, "Why don't we drive down to California for Thanksgiving?" I said that it was fine since I had no class Tuesday. She said she wanted to go after my class at 3:30 PM on Monday. The only problem is that leaves only the few short hours before 3:30 to pack since I was at school/work all day. She was fine with that and our plan was put in place. We decided to accept Jen's dad's offer to take Dan's car in fear that our 220,000 mile plus Camry would be risky to come down in. Well that got Dan thinking that he wanted to come down a day early too. So he did, and we were all careful to not let my family know I we were going down and Jen's family that Dan was coming with us.

Through several mishaps, all our scheming surprises were not as surprising as we had hoped. Dan was going to come downstairs Tuesday morning and surprise his parents. Well Greg was gone all day and didn't get back until Dan would have been there anyway and Diane was asking Jen before Dan came home why we stopped in Cedar City and Jen said that Dan needed to use the restroom. Diane was like "Dan?" and that was that.

My parents were not as surprised either. As you can see here. My dad wrote about it too and has a few great pictures of Kate and her funny faces.

During the break, Greg bought a new TV. Ain't she pretty?


Jen's Grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Goldthorpe, at Thanksgiving dinner.


Jen's Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins, the LaPorte family.

Dan the Man.

And one that knows baby sign knows Kate wants Mama.

The family after dinner.

Nap time.

Papa (Greg) is Kate's favorite person, besides her Mama.

Thanksgiving dinner was so good and it was so much fun to try to surprise everyone.

Fore-eyes

In honor of my quarter-century birthday, I received glasses as a present. Now before you go blaming anyone for such a weird present, I asked for it. I needed glasses because I was having trouble seeing in a couple classes and when I got my Utah license, I barely pasted the eye test. My mom got them for me. I really like them. The world is so much clearer now.



Now I spelt fore correctly, as I want to emphasize that I am now FORE-ward thinking with my new glasses. Or that this is a FORE-warning of the signs of old age that I will be subject to. Or that I now can FORE-see a little more clearly.

Eating on her own!

Jen made french toast on my birthday (see I told you she made me feel special) and that is always an adventure with a finger food toddler. Syrup is not a finger friendly food. Well, Kate decided to eat with a fork. Now she was able to take food that was already stabbed by us and put it into her mouth. That she has done for some time. It seems to take more work and time though to feed her that way. No, on my birthday she stabbed and ate the food herself. We are excited.

This picture is taken the next Saturday (Josh's birthday) when I take Katelynn and we watch "show" so mommy can sleep in a little. She takes Kate all week so I can get a few extra minutes of sleep, which I appreciate more than she knows (to my shame). Saturdays though, I don't have a pressing schedule and so I get to let Jen sleep-in for a change. Well, Kate didn't want her high chair that morning or to let me feed her. Jen said I was brave to let her feed herself without the protection of the high chair, but it was necessity. For Jen to sleep, Kate can't freak out. That was not a worthy battle to wake Jen up for. Let the girl wake up. Besides, I put a napkin down. See I am careful.

Just to prove that I did not put the food on her spoon, here she is putting the food on her own spoon.

I thought a video would be better proof.

She also began to drink from a cup on her own. Without spilling much. She has done it before but with wet and messy results.



The only negative to this is that she won't let us help her very well on things she really needs help for.

On the note of growing up, Kate also went to nursery all by herself for the full two hours. I was sick and couldn't go to church and Jen needed to run home to get a Relief Society binder she had forgotten. Left Kate and then left her for the Relief Society hour as well. She did great. Last week wasn't so good with a swollen gums from an incoming molar. Oh the joys.

My 25th Birthday!

I am a quarter century. I feel old now. Do I look old? 

I love pies. I am not a big fan of cake really. So Jen made me a Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie. It really was a Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie. It was really good though.

Jen and Dan had fun.

Wes' birthday was the day before mine and so he got a picture with me. I allowed it. See I can be gracious.

The candles.
The party goers. Wes.
Dan.

Lyss.

I am not too old to blow out my candles. 

Jen really made it a great day. The first half was really busy, I had a ton of reading to do, but Jen really made the whole day and the whole weekend fun and special for me. 

Last warm day of the year!

On the 10th, we went to the park thinking that it was the last warm day for a while. There were several people there at the park thinking the same thing. Katelynn really liked the slides.

Even the big slides.

Wave hello Katelynn.

Katelynn wanted to go on the slides. She would climb up over and over again. But she had this face almost every time. We do not torture our child. She tortures herself it seems though. Should we worry?

We then needed to drag her away from the slides because we frankly were bored. So we played in the leaves.