2.26.2012

Captured: caught red-handed

One week. One picture. One memory. 


Someone finally discovered how fun it is to empty out Mom's entire shoe armoire.

2.19.2012

Captured: sugar fiend

One week. One picture. One memory. 


Taking advantage of Mom's generosity in sharing her Valentine cookie.

2.12.2012

Captured: goofball

One week. One picture. One memory.


Insisting on wearing his snuggly blanket on top of his head, just because he thinks its funny.

2.05.2012

Captured: discovering

One week. One picture. One memory.


Mesmerized by the jelly fish at the Living Planet Aquarium. 


The Living Planet Aquarium

This weekend we took Thompson to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. We weren't really sure how good the aquarium was actually going to be or if he would be freaked out by the fish. The results: he LOVED it. He was completely mesmerized by almost every single tank we saw. Surprisingly, his very favorite was a tank full of salamanders and frogs. He kept pointing to them, and when they opened their mouths, he would. When we told him we had to go, he waved goodbye to his salamander friends, which he rarely even does for humans. Our favorite was when he laughed hysterically when he saw an otter poop in a not so discreet manner right in front of us. How are these things just instinctively funny for boys?








2.04.2012

A Chicago Christmas

Remember that one time Christmas happened and I didn't even put up pictures for our Utah family to see? Yeah, I remember that too. Hopefully the following adorable pictures of Thompson will make up for my negligence.

We shifted Christmas Eve/Christmas back a day because my brother-in-law, Joe, had to work on Christmas. Basically all that meant is we got to eat a lot more food. We had a fake Christmas Eve dinner, fake Christmas morning brunch and dinner, and then did the same thing over again on the 25th. We also didn't have to stress so much on Christmas day with balancing presents & church, because we had opened all ours the day before.

On our Christmas Eve, we kept up our family tradition of reading the Christmas story from the bible. My dad read the story, Ethan and my mom helped illustrate it with felt pictures, and Thompson did his best to distract everyone.



On Christmas morning, Thompson was pretty excited to show us the mountain of presents under the tree.


He was also eager to pull everything out of his stocking, especially since one of the presents in it was a second snuggly bear for him to use when we wash the other one.



He was a little less enthusiastic about opening presents at first, but started getting into it more when he saw what was inside.





The rest of us enjoyed watching the kids open their presents. Ethan enjoyed being goofy while he waited for his turn to open another present. Thompson enjoyed playing with his new presents, especially his books. And we all just really enjoyed being together on Christmas.











A few things we did in the Naperthrill.

This Christmas, we went out to my family's house for Christmas. Trevor stayed for two weeks, and Thompson and I were there for three weeks. Thompson basically forgot he used to live in a small house with only two other people, and got completely accustomed to having constant attention and seemingly endless space to explore. We are now all going through withdrawals after spending so much time together as a family. My little brother says he wishes there could be an earthquake that would somehow move Salt Lake City and Naperville right next to each other. (Or maybe you could just move here J.)

It wasn't too cold while we were there, but we did have to bundle up a little bit more than usual.


My parents waited to get a tree so we could go help them pick it out and decorate it. We helped get the perfect one. J named him George.



We also went to go introduce Thompson to Santa for the first time. We thought it wouldn't be busy because it was near the end of the day, right before the little Santa house in downtown Naperville closed. We were obviously crazy for thinking that. Not only was Thompson exhausted by the time we got to Santa, but while we were in line, he messed his diaper and I forgot to bring diapers/wipes, so we were stuck. The scowl on Santa's face in all the pictures is probably from the smell.

At first Thompson wasn't too sure what he thought of the whole situation.


But he was so tired that he snuggled up and almost fell asleep laying on Santa's beard.



A few days before Christmas we went and stayed in Chicago. We walked along Michigan Avenue and saw the lights, we saw the train at the John Hancock Building, and we went to see the gingerbread village at the Drake.




And we shopped of course. Oh, and while we were out shopping, my family accidentally led a protest. We were walking and as we were crossing the river, they came up right behind us.  We heard chants of, "Hey Ho, Egyptian Generals have got to go!". We turned around and there was a huge crowd with signs and flags right behind us. We couldn't let them pass because the sidewalk on the bridge was too narrow, so for awhile, we were forced into leading the protest.  For the rest of the day, Ethan kept chanting "Hey Ho, Egyptian Generals have got to go!"  At least they successfully converted one person to their cause.


After Christmas, Trevor and I got to go on a childless New Year's Eve date, we played too much Wii bowling and Donkey Kong, and ate way, way too much food.





We also took the kids to Airtastic, a play place with tons of jumpy houses and mazes. Thompson loved it.






And that's about where the fun stopped. I kid. Kind of. A few days after Trevor went back home, Thompson got sick and had a fever. He also couldn't sleep at night, so we became more familiar with the all night shows on Nick Jr. that week than we would ever like. After an urgent care visit, chest x-ray, bad reaction to an antibiotic, and very long flight home, we were finally back home. And then Thompson got stung by a wasp. Not a good week for us. Little T was upset for a few minutes, but he was back to his happy self pretty quickly, even if smiling was a bit more cumbersome.



Besides, why be grumpy when you have a fun new fat lip to play with?