4

I can't believe my baby Austin is 4 now! For weeks before his birthday, I told Austin every day, "Please don't turn 4! Stay my tiny 3 year old forever!" And he'd always reply, "Sorry mom, I'm gonna be 4."
Austin has the sweetest disposition of any child I've ever met. He is always smiling and cheerful. He plays happily by himself, is thoughtful of others, and idolizes his big brother. He is definately a daddy's boy. He is goofy and so easy to have around. He hardly eats a thing, but still has limitless energy.He loves loves loves trains, but also loves Toy Story, sharks, books, Mario and Luigi, and writing letters and numbers. We love our Austy!
On his birthday, we went bowling with just our family, and Aunt Kristin came along. Ethan and Austin had recently gone to their cousin Nick's bowling party where Nick got a personalized bowling pin for a gift. They were dying to get one of their own, so we got one for Austin since it was his birthday and one for Ethan so they wouldn't fight over Austin's.

Check out that amazing form!






That weekend we had a big Buzz Lightyear party with both sides of our family. Austin got tons of great stuff and had so much fun.








Austin is scared to death of fire. I don't know where this fear came from, but he's had it for a couple years now. Usually he runs out of the room when it's birthday cake time because he knows there will be candles. This time I grabbed him before he could run. He did fine as long as I stood a little ways from the candles. Ethan and I did the honors of blowing out the candles; Austin would have none of that.

Playing in the Snow

I love snow in December, but come January I am DONE with the stuff. Growing up in Georgia, it was the best day of my life when we got our 3 inches of snow one time each winter. Now living in Utah, snow has lost it's novelty. Probably because I have to shovel my driveway. My kids still love the snow at least!






Adam got me a cool new zoom lens for my camera for Christmas, and it was PERFECT to use for taking sledding pictures. I could stand far away and still get great, close-up pictures of the kids going down the hill.

Catching up... Christmas!

My internet has had some major issues for the past few months. It is FINALLY fixed! So I'll catch up with some of my pictures from the month of December... sorry if this is a bit long, it was such a busy month and I took so many cute pictures!
Every year Adam's relatives get together and make gingerbread houses. They've been doing it since Adam was a little boy. Usually Adam's grandma and grandpa make homemade gingerbread houses for EVERYONE. Well, with all the grandchildren having children of their own, the number of gingerbread houses to be made was insane. So they gave his grandparents a break and bought gingerbread house kits on clearance last Christmas to use for this year's festivities. Everyone brings candy to share, so you have endless types of candy to use on your house. It's such a fun tradition.



Some of Adam's relatives painted this just for the party, so cute.


At Thanksgiving Point they had some real reindeer on display. They also had this big snowflake ice sculpture that they kids thought was cool.


My boys LOVE Toy Story.


And the Christmas season in Utah isn't complete without a trip up to Temple Square to see the lights. I think we picked the coldest night of the year to go.



1st Grade Christmas singing program... they were so cute

Every year at Winn Family Christmas party, Santa makes a visit. Ethan was sooooo excited!


Austin was scared to death for Santa to come. But he got over his fear and sat on his lap, and after that he seems to finally be over his fears about Santa.


Kylee sobbed when she sat in Santa's lap. He handed her a candy cane and she threw her binky into his hand and went to town on it.


Santa gave Kylee a new book, and she LOVED it. She loves all books. She loves to turn the pages and point at the pictures and pretend to read it by saying, "Googly googly gooogly!"


We spent Christmas at home this year. Every year that we've been married we've always spent the night at one of our parent's houses. It's fun to be with everyone, but now that we have so many kids, we thought it'd be fun to start our own traditions by staying at our own house. We loved it.


Seeing the presents for the first time on Christmas morning


Waiting to open stockings


Being a kid on Christmas is THE BEST.


The only thing Austin asked for (and he hardly plays with it)



After finishing at our house, we went to my parent's house for the rest of the day to open more presents and eat dinner.
Me and Kristin


My whole family


My kids (and husband) are obcessed with Angry Birds. Eric and Lara got the boys Angry Birds stuffed animals for Christmas, and the boys LOVED them.


Eric and Lara were able to join us from Colorado, yay!



The day after Christmas we had dinner and another Christmas celebration with Adam's family. Our kids were so spoiled this year.

O Christmas Tree!

I won (AGAIN) the annual real vs fake tree battle in our marriage. I think Adam is maybe starting to like real trees, just a little. The boys had a great time picking the tree, and we all had a great time decorating it.



This is seriously the best I could get of all of them together. What silly kids.

Thanksgiving

A little late for these pictures, but I am trying to catch up.
We spent Thanksgiving with the Winn's. It was a nice, relaxing day. We ate a big dinner and then played Bingo, complete with all sorts of prizes. I won several rounds, and then Ethan won the big blackout Bingo prize at the end. So fun! That evening we went to the Izant's for dessert.