Christmas 2015

We had a lot of fun this Christmas!

We started the holiday with an evening at the temple visitors' center.  I was performing there as part of a choir so Aaron brought the kids and my parents came too.  It was a kind of rainy evening, but it was still so beautiful there and I, of course, had fun singing in the concert.  Because there were two performances, my parents were kind enough to take the kids back to their house after the first show while Aaron stayed with me for the second.  We were able to spend the night back at our house without the kids and finished up packing and loading the car for Christmas at Grandma and Kookoopa's house before heading out first thing in the morning.

So on Christmas Eve we arrived to find our kids having a blast without us and by brother's family had arrived too.  The weather was so nice that we went out for a walk! So much for a white Christmas!  By the end of the day my sister's family had arrived as well.  My other brother wasn't there since he was spending the holiday with his wife's family in Texas.

Christmas morning was lots of fun with so many of us there together.  We all received some great gifts!

And on Boxing Day we got to go see the new Star Wars movie!  That was super fun too.  We all loved it!

It was a really great holiday week.  Merry Christmas!

Ten months

Brandon is ten months old!  In the last month he has made some major physical developments. 

While we were at my parents' house for Thanksgiving, Brandon started clapping! He would just sit in his high chair and clap at us. He looked so proud of himself. 

He can stand up without support! He's been standing up and walking while holding on to furniture for quite a while but now he can stand on his own!  This first happened when we were at church waiting for a meeting to start and Brandon was playing with my keys, standing in front of me. I had my hands under his armpits and I realized that he wasn't actually using me as support so I just let go and he continued standing there. He was so distracted by the keys that he didn't even notice right away what was happening. Since then he has taken a mini step without support, and has even bent over to pick up a toy and was almost able to stand back up on his own. He's a pretty fast crawler though so I'm not sure he'll really start walking until he thinks it's more efficient than crawling, but I think he's almost there!

We've had to make some alterations to Brandon's diet this month because of constipation issues, but he's still a great eater. He loves his finger foods and most of the baby food we give him too. We need to start working with him a little more on mastering the sippy cup, but he does well with it as long as we're helping him. 

We sure love our little guy and love watching him grow.

New things for Brandon this month:

 Standing up without support

Clapping

Waving

9 Months Old

It's strange to think that Brandon has been with us in the world for as long as he was growing in my belly.  I love this kid so much.

This month Brandon had his first Halloween!  I bought his costume a year ago and it's what inspired the whole family costume theme.  He was super cute so people gave us candy "for the baby" even though he was obviously too young to eat it.

He is not a picky eater at all!  We have given him a pretty wide range of foods now (still mostly puree, except for his puffs/wagon wheels/misc snacky foods that he eats regularly) and he does great with everything.  He eats everything we put in front of him.  I went into this with the intention that I would make all of his baby food like I did when Andrew was this age but really, pouches are so easy!  I didn't totally fail though, I have made Brandon several homemade purees but I've also been able to find some amazing deals on baby food pouches so I don't feel quite as bad :)

Brandon got his first haircut!  Aaron had been asking me to do it for a few months and I finally agreed that his hair really was getting in his face.  I was sad to see the cute baby hair go but it really does look better now.  I think we'll still have quite a while between haircuts for a while though- now that it's been evened out it shouldn't get so scraggly as it grows.

He is starting to show interest in a lot more than just whatever toy is closest.  He likes to head over to the play kitchen now and get out either the play food to chew on or the pots and pans to bang together.  He has also adopted the dining room as his personal jungle gym.  Now that I have painted my new kitchen chairs, the dining chairs are back where they go and Brandon has a great time crawling and climbing between the legs of the chairs and table.  One time I even found that he had brought a ball over there and was essentially chasing it around.  He was suspended on the rungs at the bottom of a chair when I found him, reaching for the ball he had swatted just out of reach.

I love seeing his little personality come out as he grows.  He and Andrew are definitely brothers and yet they are totally unique little people.

New things this month:

Halloween

Pouches

First Haircut

Arizona Trip

In October, we took a trip down to Arizona.  This had been set up as a surprise family reunion for Aaron's dad for his birthday, and he sure was surprised!

This was our first time taking kids on a plane ride so I was super nervous about the whole ordeal- everything from going through security to keeping them entertained to dealing with diaper changes... I packed Aaron's bag full of snacks, bought Andrew some new toys for him to carry in his backpack, and made sure we had lots of diapers and an extra outfit for everybody.

At the airport, Andrew was super excited to look out the windows at our gate, watching the planes that were sitting right there.  He even got a wave from the pilots of the plane leaving our gate before our flight and he loved it.

Our flight there went pretty well, thanks in part to my overpreparedness and Aaron's ability to get Brandon to sleep in public.  We had a quick stop in Austin (Hi Austin!) before we got on the second leg of our flight.

We got to Phoenix mid-afternoon and met up with one of Aaron's brothers, who was bringing carseats for us to use.  We couldn't check in to our hotel yet so Justin left to pick up Brent from a different airport and we headed to a Verizon store to deal with Aaron's phone, which had annoyingly stopped working sometime before we even left BWI.

After all that was dealt with we got to spend the rest of the day hanging out at the hotel pool with two of Aaron's brothers (plus wife and kids, of course).  Dan and Karen weren't due to arrive at the hotel until later that evening.  Once they arrived and got settled in their room, we all gathered around their door and knocked.  Dan answered and had such a happy surprised look on his face.  Success!  Unfortunately we found out that Steve wasn't going to make it, but everyone else was there or en route.

The next morning we headed out right after breakfast for the house where we would all be staying in Strawberry.  It was a great house, but unfortunately we moms had to spend some time making the house safe for (and from) the kids- we probably moved over half of the decor and closed off the carpeted dining room, which had been set for us with real china, silver, and crystal. Eek.

We spent the next few days having a great time hanging out with everyone.  We don't get to see Aaron's brothers that often since everyone is spread out around the country, so this was a rare treat.  The last time we were all together was at our wedding!  Fortunately we made plans to have more regular reunions from here on out.

We got family pics done (I haven't seen the official ones yet, but a few of us were taking our own as well), hiked the Tonto Natural Bridge, went geocaching, played games, ate lots of food, and saw several elk (the owner of the house was a little crazy about the elk- the lights in the house even turned off automatically whenever they showed up).  I even got to braid some hair, which was great since I obviously don't style my boys' hair...

We spent another night at the hotel in Scottsdale before we flew home, so we had time to stop for a picnic at a park partway back, again with Justin and his family, and spend another afternoon at the pool and we went to this awesome pizza place for dinner called Organ Stop Pizza.  The pizza was fine but the organ playing was amazing!

The flight home wasn't quite as smooth- we were all tired, plus both kids had diaper disasters that required new outfits (Aaron deserves an award for dealing with both in the tiny airplane lavatory)- but the last leg was actually pretty nice since all four of us (I think) got some sleep.

Sorry for the photo overload but there's a lot to remember about this trip.  We had a great time, and we're looking forward to the next Kimbler reunion!

Halloween 2015

This year we decided to be Ninja Turtles for Halloween!

I actually kind of decided this a year ago when I found the cute Ninja Turtle sleeper (with cape!) on sale the day after Halloween.  I immediately bought it in the size I predicted Brandon would be for his first Halloween.  So it wasn't too much of a leap to decide we would represent the whole gang.  I actually had originally planned to be April.  But then I looked at what she wears...  Yellow, low cut jumpsuit?  No way.  I'll be Donatello, thanks.

I was nervous that Andrew would refuse to dress up since he just doesn't do a lot of costumes here at home.  But we talked up the ninja turtles for months before Halloween so he was ready to go!  He loved it!

We went out with our good friends and got so much candy around my neighborhood that we parents had to help carry the goods.  It was pretty great and Andrew and Addie were so cute- they would knock on the doors and yell, "Trick or treating!"  Brandon was exhausted by the end of the night since it was well past his bedtime but I was glad we took him out so we could all trick-or-treat together.

For other Halloween festivities, we carved pumpkins and roasted the seeds.  Andrew "helped" a lot... meaning he played in the bowl of pumpkin guts and washed his hands (repeat x10).  Oh and he ate a bunch of the roasted seeds too.  My parents also came a couple of days before (to help with the basement again) and we made some fun cookies that Andrew got to help decorate.

I didn't buy any clearance costumes this year, so I have no idea what we'll be next year!

Andrew's First Science Project- Growing Robot

When I was buying little toys to take on the airplane with us for our Arizona trip, I found this cute little robot that grows in water.  Andrew is a pretty typical little boy who gets excited about stuff like robots and monsters and trucks and trains, so I knew he would like this.

We put it in a huge container of water and left it alone for a day at a time.  Andrew loved checking on his robot every day.

Once I thought it had reached full size we left it out of the water and kept checking on it every day until it had shrunk back to original size.  He now keeps the robot in his room.

I need to come up with more simple projects for Andrew to do since he loved this so much!