So Excited for Christmas!

Lindsie doesn't quite understand, but she's very excited for Santa and presents!

Making Christmas cookies for Santa

Colin's cute face just looks excited :)

Merry Christmas!  Hope you all have a wonderful holiday and enjoy time with family as we will!

Christmas Card

Merry Christmas to all my blog buddies! Hope you have a wonderful and safe holiday!

Arizona Thanksgiving

This year we drove to Arizona to be with Chris' parents and family for Thanksgiving.  Although I was not looking forward to 13+ hours in the car with 3 kids, they did surprisingly well and we had a great time in the warm sunny weather.  Pops and Grandma were more than accomodating letting us stay at their home and even in their own room.  Thank you!! 

Reading Books with Grandma & Pops on the night we arrived

Whitney posing in the warm weather.  She was facinated with all the palm trees and cactus. :)

Lindsie and Cousin Gabrielle watching a movie in Grandma's office.

Pops and Colin - Thanksgiving Day

Grandma had Whitney help with a "project" for Thanksgiving dinner...

Cut and stick labels to each person's cup that read "I am Thankful for"

At dinner we passed around markers and wrote what we were thankful for on our cups.

Lindsie (left) is thankful for MOM. 

Whitney (right) is thankful for family and school and friends and everything.

Lindsie getting out some energy after dinner.  We stayed outside in the 70 degree weather all afternoon and evening. It was SO nice! This picture also shows how cute Lindsie started out the day.  The next two are how she ended up with water near by. :)

Whitney playing her new "scrabble apple" game with Adam, Paola, and Dad

Lindsie LOVED her "big girl bed" on the floor at Grandma's!  Once we got home she didn't want to sleep in her crib.  We had to take off a side and turn it into a toddler bed. She is loving it!  Makes me sad to think she is growing up so fast! :(

Game night at Adam and Paola's house.  They were so sweet to have us over for dinner and then fun with the wii.  The girls are hoping Santa will bring them the fun "rabbit game" they played. 

Paola & Colin

Ready to get on the road toward home...or St George.  We stayed the night in St George and headed home the next morning, hoping it might help with the long drive.?!  It was a good thing we did too!  The drive home was not ideal and has many moments I someday hope to forget...including my heafty speeding ticket on the Indian Reservation!  Uggh!

Thank you Grandma and Pops for a great Thanksgiving!!

We will forever have fond memories of our time with you and the family, as well as our own fun (and not so fun) memories as a family of five. :)

Holiday Gift Show

This year Whitney became a member of the "Mini Company" at Elite Dance Productions.  She has classes on Wednesdays for 2 and 1/2 hours and will compete with her team in 5 dance competitions this spring.  She is learning a lot and is becoming a great dancer.  She and her team had the opportunity to dance at the Holiday Gift Show at the South Towne Expo Center in November before Thanksgiving.  This was great stage practice for them and we loved having the opportunity to see Whitney dance. 
We look forward to more at the Christmas Recital on December 21st at Bountiful High School...
(She's the cute blonde in the middle, and of course the best one in the class!)

4 months

Yep, time is flying by...Colin is 4 months!  He is such a cute little stinker!  He's finally learning to like laying on his back to play with his toys, enjoys sitting in the Bumbo to watch both his sisters play, and he sucks on his fingers and hands till they are slobbery and sometimes raw. 
Today we tackled Colin's 4 month check up with Lindsie's 2 year.  Yikes!  Makes me tired again just thinking about it.  :)  Luckily my Mom agreed to come with me to help...things could have been a whole lot crazier!  Thanks Mom! 

Here are Colin's stats for 4 months...
Height 25 inches.....54%
Weight 13 lbs 9 oz.....23%
Head size 16 ".....16%

Lil' Rock Star

Whitney loves playing photographer and posing Colin for pictures

Look Who's TWO

Today is Lindsie’s birthday! We began the celebrations yesterday evening with presents, Elmo cake, and ice cream. Today we took her to her favorite lunch spot…Arctic Circle. She loves to have a hamburger and fries, play on the slide and then have her mini ice cream cone.

Lindsie is so fun to watch at this age.  She is energetic, curious, playful, willful, sweet and loving among many other things.  She has great verbal skills, can count to 10 or more, knows all her colors (especially pink), loves to sing and dance, and she is already learning to use the potty!  Not very consistently, but she loves to try and we are so proud of her.  She mimics everything her big sister Whitney does and is learning to be a good big sister to Colin as well. 

We love you Lindsie!  Happy 2nd Birthday!!

This year she is really catching on to what birthday's and presents are all about.  Our Christmas gifts may NOT be safe under the tree this year.  :) 

Dora doll from Gma & Pops

Halloween 2009

We had a great Halloween with the kids.  The girls were excited to dress up and wear their costumes two nights in a row.  First for the ward party, and then Halloween night.  Whitney chose her own costume this year...a vampiress.  She said she wanted to be something more "scarey" this year.  I had a difficult time deciding what to dress Lindsie as this year.  My mom found this old 70's dress of mine in her basement and brought it for Lindsie to play dress up.  When I saw it on her I just knew she needed to be Little Bo Peep.  I found a plastic candy cane at Wal Mart and covered it with ribbon for her staff.  She loved to carry it around and it became a weapon for her as well. :)  I would have loved to find a sheep costume for Colin, but couldn't justify it.  We had a perfectly good Cow costume from when Whit was a baby.  He looked adorable!  Whitney taught Lindsie to say..."Little Bo Peep who lost her cow."  It was funny to hear her say it. 
Halloween night Nana and Papa came for dinner and helped pass out treats.  Whitney was thrilled to go trick or treating with her friend Brooke around the neighborhood "all by themselves"!  Chris took Lindsie down the street and back and she really seemed to like it.  She came back with quite a lot of candy (for such a short distance) and a couple of rocks she picked up along the way. :)

Posing with our carved pumpkins

Little Bo Lindsie

Vampiress Whitney

Lindsie and Colin

Kiddos

Family @ Ward Party

Pickin' Punkin's

As Lindsie says..."pick a punkin".  This is one of my favorite fall activities with the kids.  I know it's nothing major, but I love to watch them try to find what they think is the "perfect pumpkin".  For the last few years we have gone to Patch's farm in west Farmington.  They have a huge patch where you can go out in the field and pick them right off the vine.  It's dirty, but fun. 
This year most of the pumpkins were green?  Chris loved the shape and size of two bigger green pumpkins and we did get some orange ones as well.  As we were paying (for our whopping 95 pounds of pumpkins) the kid working at the patch told us that the seeds were planted late this year and that the pumpkins were not quite ripe.  He assured us that they would still turn orange in time.  He was right!  We have some very cool splotchy orange/green pumpkins on our porch this year for Halloween. :)

Tongue Tied

About 4 or 5 weeks ago I noticed that Colin could not stick out his tongue or move it very well.  Chris and I talked about it and decided that I should mention it to the doctor at his 4 month check up.  Well, I couldn't wait that long.  It was driving me crazy!  I felt frustrated for the poor kid.  He was tongue tied!  All sorts of thoughts went through my head about him not learning to talk and speak correctly, lick an ice cream cone, etc.  Was this the reason that he wouldn't suck a binki well or sleep through the night???  I started researching on the internet and found this definition and picture.  "The medical term for the condition known as tongue-tie is "ankyloglossia". It results when the frenulum (the band of tissue that connects the bottom of the tongue to the floor of the mouth) is too short and tight, causing the movement of the tongue to be restricted."

"To tell if your baby is tongue-tied, look at him and stick out your tongue. Even tiny babies will imitate you. If he is unable to extend his tongue fully, or if it has a heart shaped appearance on the tip, then you should have him evaluated by his doctor."
This totally described Colin's tongue!!  I called his pediatrician the next day and they referred me to an ENT. 
At the appointment (Oct 14th) the doctor began the visit by explaining the condition to me and telling me that most of the time nothing needs to be done.  He said he usually gives parents the option to clip the frenulum or to leave it and see if it will correct itself over time.  After taking a look at Colin's tongue, he said it was attached at the very end of his tongue and that the frenulum was quite thick.  No choice necessary...it needed to be clipped!!  The doctor made the comment that he had not seen a tongue this attached in a long time and that he was surprised he was latching on to nurse as well as he had been.  I was surprised as well, especially with all that I had read online about tongue tied babies and all their troubles with nursing. 

So, after a quick clip with the scissors (and lots of bleeding and crying) Colin's tongue was free.  The doctor had me apply some pressure for a few minutes and then left the room so that I could nurse him to clot the bleeding and calm him down.  The doctor checked it again one last time before we left to make sure it looked good and gave me instructions on what to watch for during the healing process. 

Wow! Mouth sores heal fast! It looked like this for 2-3 days and then totally normal. 

His tongue is free!!  But, it will take him some time to learn how to use it and stick it out. :) 

It's now a little more than a week later...he is sucking his binki MUCH better (we don't have to hold it in anymore), he is moving his tongue around and smiling like crazy, and I can definately tell a difference in his latching on and nursing abilities.  Wish we would have discovered it earlier, but still...Life is good!! :)

Colin with his "My Mom ROCKS" binki

Colin's Blessing

I know I'm almost 3 weeks late, but I'm finally finding time to post about Colin's blessing. 
Colin Christopher Fry was blessed on Sunday, September 27th, 2009 by his dad.  Chris did a wonderful job and I was so happy that Colin didn't cry during the blessing.  The chapel and both overflows were full...not for us...but because we also got a new bishopric that day.  We did however have lots of family and friends there to support Colin, and then we had everyone over to our house for lunch.  A big THANKS to everyone for being there and for your contributions to our yummy lunch!  Love you all...
Here are some pictures from that day, plus some I had taken of Colin and the girls too in their white dresses.  Never again will I have a child baptized and one blessed in the same year, so I just had to document it with pictures. 

Thanks to Heather Allen for the beautiful photos. http://www.heatherallenphotography.com/