Happy 1/2 Birthday Andi!

My little baby turned 1 1/2 on Christmas. I can't believe she is so grown up. This little girl is such a joy to have in our family. Andi is so content and happy all the time. When she's not, you know something is really wrong. Here's what she is up to at 18 months old:

-Loves nursery

-Finally has three molars coming in

-Can wear her hair in pigtails, and almost a pony tail

-Chatters all the time, though nobody knows what in the world she is saying

-Loves babies and strollers, purses and pearls, and basically all things girly

-LOVES to eat, eat, eat!

-Can point out most of her body parts

-If someone coughs around her she'll imitate them almost every time

-Likes blowing her nose

-Loves to climb on things

-She is a mama's girl

-Still loves her Nuk, though we try to restrict it to only naptime and bedtime

-Has two bedtime buddies: Betty Ballerina and Mooers the cow

-Loves books and "reading" 

-Has started to fake laugh, and it is highly amusing

-Is fearless of anybody or anything; she'll approach almost anybody and any animal in sight

-She quarter pounds it

Carter crackin' me up:

Carter saw an ad for ET and said, "Look, it's a turtle!" I guess he kind of does look like a turtle, come to think of it.

Andi has a beanie that has a two little points and every time she wears it Carter says she looks like Batman. Mind you, Carter has never seen a batman movie/cartoon.

When Carter started recognizing Big Bird from his diapers and a few Sesame Street books that we had, he would call him "Big Duck." Close enough.

Carter dressed his bear up in a snowsuit and said that he was going to go on a spaceship. I thought that was pretty spot on, those snowsuits do look an awful lot like an astronaut's spacesuit. 

I love Portland because:

This caused church to be cancelled:

I took that picture right when I heard the news, because I did not believe it! We live a block away from our church, so it was no worse at the church. I guess it would have been hard for the elderly to make it. It just cracks me up. It's not like snow is new to our city. We have had snow three out of three winters that we have been here, and a lot worse than this. Where I'm from we had to have at least two feet of snow to get a snow day, literally! Jefferson's school was cancelled the next day. Luckily he didn't have any finals that day so it won't affect him. 

We enjoyed our day burrowed into our apartment. We ate snickerdoodles, drank hot chocolate and sparkling cider, and watched Christmas movies. It was rather enjoyable. 

Because we knew it was going to be a winter freeze over the weekend we had to put in little insulation covers over all the foundation vents in our building, about 50 of them. (we get paid extra and when I saw "we" I mean Jefferson) Anyways, of course our building is old and doesn't have standard vents that they make precut covers for, so we had to buy these huge sheets of insulation and individually cut each cover. And not all of our vents are the same size, they are all about 1 or 2 inches different in both height and width. It was quite the process, but Carter and Andi enjoyed our "snow" covered living room:

K-Town

First off, I have to tell my little sister Alli how proud I am of her for living worthy and having the desire to receive her endowments. Now all five of us Stewart children are endowed. It truly is a tribute to what amazing parents we have. 

Carter, Andi, and I made the trek down to Klamath this past weekend so that we could be there when Alli went through the temple for the first time. The session was first thing on Saturday morning. Our family friend Tabatha came over just so she could watch our kids while we went through the temple. The session was amazing. Going through with someone for the first time really made me listen to all the blessings that we are promised a little more closely. As I looked around at family members in the temple there together I had this amazing feeling that allowed me a small glimpse of what the eternities will be like with my family. It was a very spiritual experience (minus the giggling right before the session started). I love going to the temple.

After the session we all went out to lunch at the Olive Garden. It was delicious, of course. The rest of the afternoon we just bummed around and let the cousins play together. Towards the evening they all began to stink. Just toddler, stinky, sweaty, smells. So we plopped all the kids in Grandma and Grandpa's big bathtub. They loved splashing around together. 

We went to sacrament meeting at my parents ward and my kids were angels! They knew that since their dad wasn't there that if they were naughty they would receive a beating. Of course not really, but they were amazingly well behaved. One of the counselors in the bishopric even came up to me afterwards and commented on how quiet and reverant my children were. My kids?! They were fooling everyone. 

That afternoon Ben and Sharon weren't feeling so hot, so they stayed home with the sleeping kiddies while I went to my mom's Esquire Jazz Concert with my dad and Alli. It was so good! I just love that big band, jazz music. I could have sat there all afternoon. My mom sang exceptionally well. She just has the right voice for that kind of music. She's amazing. Check out the clip below. 

Then I went back to my parents' home, packed up the car, and braved the five hour drive home. We hit some white out snows at the top of the Willamette Pass and then super dense fog from Eugene to Portland. We are lucky we made it home alive between the nasty weather and me trying to feed my kids one handed and changing DVDs all while watching the road and steering. I promise I was safe. 

Congratulations to Alli for joining the "G-club." We are so happy for the decisions that you are making and look forward to having Nic join our family in just a few short weeks!

Thanks everyone for a fun filled weekend and for the laughs! "Speaking of pie holes!"

Gift giving

I made these for all of our residents and am planning on doing a few more for some friends. (sorry if you see this and then get one). Anyways, they are super simple, really inexpensive, and totally cute! Just take a festive piece of 12x12 paper, fold it in half, cut strips about 1/2 inch apart, 3-4 inches long (you don't have to be exact), and then wrap it around your bottle of SPARKLING CIDER using double stick tape. I made these little tags on top that open up to write a little message on top, but most of you probably don't have the 1 3/8 inch hole punch, so you can just use a gift tag you have and attach it with ribbon around the neck of the bottle.  I have to admit that this is not an original idea, I stole it from a magazine, but super cute, right?!

I hate goodbyes!

It's the end of 12th quarter for a few of my favorite chiropractic friends. We have been having a few little going away parties and it is so sad. We have shared a lot of good memories and have all been through a lot. These girls are going to be missed, but we are so excited that they are moving on to bigger and better things. Best of luck to all of you whose husbands are graduating! We love you!

Here we are at Applebee's for Maylin:

And here we are at Maylin's for Christy: 

Thornton's Treeland

We went up to Thornton's Treeland in Vancouver today with our friends Hayley and Logan and some girls from her ward. It was the cutest little Christmas wonderland. There were of course acres of trees that my kids loved tromping through. 

Inside their barn was free hot cocoa, a Christmas gift shop and a huge nativity. (Sidenote: whenever Carter says Jesus, he says "Jesus Christ." It sounds horrible when he says it. I think he says it because at the end of prayers we say "in the name of Jesus Christ." So there was a "baby Jesus Christ" in the nativity, and last week when my parents were here Carter wanted to make a castle for "Jesus Christ" out of legos. We need to cut it down to just "Jesus.") 

Anyways... there was also a hayride that took you through their lot of trees and a petting zoo. There were sheep, goats, llamas, mini horses, bunnies, chicken, geese (who thought those were a good idea in a petting zoo? they bite!!!) and a J-donk or as Carter would say, JC-donk (aka donkey).  

We had such a good time. The weather was perfect. It was clear skies, sunny, and no wind! What a lovely day.

HAIR

I have had a few requests to see my hair. This maybe wasn't my best hair day, but I am loving my new do:

And Andi's hair finally stays in her pigtails... adorable:

I just had to add this picture in of Carter. He seriously played with his cars on this "ramp" for about 45 minutes today:

We watched our friend Logan tonight and he and Andi were sitting in these chairs just flirting with each other. It's a match made in heaven:

Tagged

5 TV Shows I Love to Watch:
1) Fringe
2) The Office
3) Bones
4) SYTYCD
5) House

5 Favorite Restaurants:
1) Cafe Rio
2) Red Robin
3) Roadhouse Grill
4) Pita Pit
5) Vi Thai

5 Things That Happened Yesterday:
1) Had playgroup at Rachel's
2) Went and saw Twilight with Maylin and Rachel
3) Had Direct TV installed
4) Sat and listened to some raunchy, old man named John try to sell me Verizon (I had to listen because he had information for our new resident packages for our complex) ugh.
5) Listened to Christmas music

5 Things I Love About Fall:
1) The colors- I love driving the Historic Columbia Highway and seeing all the beautiful leaves changing
2) The weather- not too hot, not too cold
3) Eating anything and everything with pumpkin
4) Halloween- it's so much fun with kids who get excited about it
5) Thanksgiving

5 Things On My Wishlist:
1) Cuddle bug
2) New sunglasses
3) Wii fit
4) To be pregnant! Really, can it take this long? 
5) A new recipe book (it's really just a photo album so all my notecards fit in... I just need another one because I have outgrown my old one)