Busy month!

We have been keeping pretty busy this December. Here are quite a few pictures from the month :)

 Evie felt like posing for the camera one night. She is so beautiful. Every time I look at her I can't believe how gorgeous she is! Spoken like a true parent :)

 Then later that night we ran to the store and Evie fell and hit her face on the bottom of one of the clothes rack. It got her pretty good. I was surprised that it didn't give her a black eye! Poor little thing. I reminded her later that, that was the exact reason we shouldn't run around!

My parents had their ward Christmas party at the beginning of the month. I'm glad we went because I was sick when our ward had theirs.

 Evie was not super impressed with Santa. She talks the big talk, but when it came down to meeting him - she wasn't feeling it! Can we blame her, really? It's a strange looking man with a crazy beard and long white hair....a stranger. I would probably be scared too! She took her candy cane and booked it out of there :)

 Zayne didn't sit with Santa, but met him briefly :)

I bought a groupon for the aquarium. Lets just say that sea life is not my thing. Nor is it Evie's, as we found out. She wouldn't get close to the sting rays or sharks and wouldn't even consider standing on the step stool to look over them swimming around. And touching them was completely out of the question............for any of us. The sting rays brought back memories of The Bahamas (take me back there, please!!) My sister and I saw a HUGE sting ray while we were para sailing. It was pretty cool :) Back to the story: I was not impressed with the aquarium. Would not pay money to go back again and the staff was far from friendly and it smelled like fish - imagine that ;)

 The girls loved Nemo :) One picture is out of order....it's toward the bottom. Evie got to feed some birds. I went into the netted, closed off area with her and almost had a heart attack. Those birds kept swooshing my head and I didn't care for it AT ALL!! Evie, on the other hand, did really well and held onto her food dish almost the entire time!

 Last Monday, for Family Home Evening, we made a gingerbread house. Here we are making the frosting. Evie insists on wearing her ear muffs when things get loud around here. She thinks it protects her ears. Maybe they do :)

 Daddy built the gingerbread house for us :)

 Zayne was content to sit and watch! Love his sweet, little face! I could kiss it all day long, oh wait, I do :)

 We let the frosting dry a little bit while the kiddos took a bath and then Evie decorated her house !

 I love these two!

 Evie wanted to hold Zayne one morning....and he didn't mind :)

 Evie feeding the bird at the aquarium :)

 Evie and her cousin, Lilly, getting ready for their preschool Christmas party or parvy, as Evie calls it :)

 Silly face picture!

 They each brought a book for a present exchange. Miss Staci read The Gingerbread Man and every time she said "you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man" the kids passed the book they were holding to the right. It was really cute. They sang 2 songs that were really cute!

Here is Mr. Man! This kid has all sorts of nick names around here. Zayners, Zayne -a- roos, Mr. Man, Mr. Mannsers, Zaynertins, Zayne -a- rooskies, Mr. Beautiful, Handsome, Sweet Boy, and I'm probably leaving some out! He had his 6 month check up the middle of the month, even though he is actually 7 months. These were his stats:

Height: 27.5" (64%)
Weight: 19 lb 11 oz (67%)
Head: 45.7 " (84%)

He is growing so fast! He has two bottom teeth and he's working on his top teeth. He still loves to nurse but also loves to eat solids, well, pureed solids :) He isn't too picky. The only thing he doesn't seem crazy about are peas - in Owen's words "who is?" Funny man. He seems more impressed every time I give them to him, so he is working on it! He is so fun and is really starting to move around. If he wants something out of his reach he just goes for it, then face plants it, but it usually doesn't bother him. He seems a lot more active than Evie ever was. I fear he will be getting into a lot of things coming up. We have talked to Evie a lot about not letting Zayne have things he could try and put in his mouth, so now everything that isn't his toy, that he puts in his mouth, Evie will grab it and take it away and say "NO, Zayne! You could choke!" At least she is staying aware! We are getting excited for Christmas coming up! I really love the Christmas season!

Disney on Ice!

We got home from Sun Valley Thursday afternoon and had tickets for Disney on Ice for that evening. We bought the tickets in October and planned on surprising Evie with it! She had seen commercials on TV advertising it and kept saying she wanted to go (good thing!) So this was our way to indtroduce our Elf on the shelf! We told her that he brought the tickets and the tangled dress while we were gone. Boy, was she excited!!

 Photo op fail....... We met at McDonalds before the show. The girls had a blast! Zayne got to stay home with daddy :)

 During intermission.....

 We had really good seats! We were a little far to the right, but we could still see everything really well!

 Luckily Evie had to go potty RIGHT before intermission, so we beat the line AND took advantage of this photo op :)

 Tangled was my favorite. They flew through the air and did all sorts of really cool tricks! Those skaters are talented. I don't know how they danced and did all of that other stuff out there on the ice!

 This was when all of the princesses came out! They only did Princess and the Frog, Cinderella and Tangled during the actual show.

It was Disney Princesses on Ice. Hence, why the girls were all wearing their princess dresses! They had so much fun - adults included! This last picture was Evie waving as they all skated off stage. So cute! Owen and I are excited to take Evie to Disney Land someday. It would be fun to take her now, but she won't remember it and I fear it would be a lot of work. Maybe in a few years :)

Sun Valley

This past week Owen had a work meeting up in Sun Valley and the spouses were invited to go :) It was just an overnight thing. Just like the one we went to up in Coeur d'Alene. Same company put it on. We left Evie with Grandma and took Zayne with us. I told my mom I would post pictures of our room :) 

 We had to check out our balcony. The last time we had a work meeting we found out AS we were leaving that we had our own hot tub on our balcony. No such luck this time. Boo!

 A view of the mountains from our room.

 They had their own skating rink at the lodge. It was fun to see......Evie probably would have loved it! It's amazing how you view life from a completely different perspective after you have kids :) We were the only ones who brought a baby. I didn't care. Owen didn't care. Luckily the agricultural industry is very family oriented. Every one LOVED Zayne. In fact every one, every where we go, loves him! How could you not, with this sweet little face?

 It's one thing when you, as a parent, thinks your child is adorable - but it's another when complete strangers think so too! I guess they are pretty cute ;)

The drive home was kind of pretty. I had never been to Sun Valley before. Not super impressed. However, I am not into skiing and never plan on it. I'm severely uncoordinated and it could be dangerous for me to put on skis and go down a steep, slippery, slope...yeah, that wouldn't be pretty.We were gone for less than 24 hours, but we still had fun! Thanks mom for watching Ev's :)

Giving Thanks

I have so much to be thankful for this year. We have been blessed with good health, beautiful children, a wonderful marriage, a very nice roof over our heads, food to eat, friends and family in abundance, a great career for Owen and last but most importantly - The Gospel of Jesus Christ. If I were to look back at a post I made in 2010, around Thanksgiving time, I would be surprised to see just how much I have grown. It was around this time that Owen had recently moved to Washington and I joined him a month later. That was a really hard time in my life. I was really angry with my Heavenly Father for answering our prayers in that way. I wanted Owen to find a job, but I wanted him to find one in the area. Little did I know what a huge blessing that move would be for our little family.

 Originally when we moved up there it was so Owen could take over for a field man of ill health. He would get his customers and be all set up. We honestly thought we would be in Washington for at least 5 years. Things never worked out how they were "supposed" to. Owen ended up just helping the guy he was supposed to take over for. And the company he was working for wasn't giving him the go ahead to find his own customers. So we felt like we were at a dead stand still. There was no potential for Owen at this company and we knew it. Once again, I was frustrated with my Heavenly Father. Why weren't we being blessed so that we could better our living situation for our family? We decided it was time to have another baby, with the idea that Owen would get a nice raise and I could quit working at the gym part time (don't get me wrong. I loved working there. It was extra income that wasn't needed and I made all of my best friends as a result of that job) and stay home with the kids with out too much financial stress. It was a slap in the face when Owen received a raise that ended up being $20 more a pay check. We were praying. Praying to find a way to provide for our family. Once again, I couldn't understand why Heavenly Father wasn't blessing us for being obedient to his commandment to have children. We had Zayne on the way and absolutely NO possibilities in the future. As my due date grew closer I was just reminding myself that the Lord would provide all that we needed - no matter the situation. 3 weeks before Zayne's due date Owen's brother had called him to tell him about a possible job opportunity with the company their field rep worked for. With much pressing from me - Owen finally called to inquire. He actually knew the manager because he had sold product to him when he worked for Drexel. They were really interested in him. They asked for his resume the first day they chatted (a Tues. or Wed.) then asked him if he could come down for an interview Saturday. They extended an offer to him Monday morning while I was in the recovery room after having Zayne. They offered him more than enough to make up for what I was making at the gym PLUS he has unlimited potential for customers and commission and incentives (and it's cheaper to live here in Idaho, than in Washington)

The reason I share this story is because I can't believe that for one minute I didn't believe my Heavenly Father had my best interest at heart. The way everything worked, and didn't work, for that matter, was all in the plan for my little family. At the time, it wasn't the way I would have answered my prayer, but I'm grateful that it ended up being answered that way. 

I am so thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who always listens to my prayers and answers them. I'm thankful for all of the big and small ways he blesses my life. I'm thankful for the fact that, as I get older, I realize life is not about how much money you make, how nice and big your house is, what kind of car you drive, what brand of clothes you wear, or how many "things" you have. Life is about how we treat others. Life is about our relationship with Our Heavenly Father and his Son, Jesus Christ and our relationships with others. For this I am grateful :)

These were the only pictures I took on Thanksgiving. We went to Owen's brothers house and had lunch with his Aunt Bonnie and Grandma Beus. We love being able to spend time with them :) We hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving!