Once There Was A Snowman

This is the best I could get out of him with the camera going. Once the camera comes out, that's all Trev can think about. But we love this song!

Run Thru The Woods

Carin and I did the Run Thru The Woods 5 mile race on Thanksgiving Day. It was a fun way to start the day! David and Trev met us at the finish line. This was the first race I have done since before Trevor was born and Carin's first ever. I think we might have to do it again next year if I can get in shape by then and if Carin doesn't give up running forever after the marathon in June!

Happy Everything

I totally missed the boat on a Thanksgiving post, with traveling home and spending time with the fam, getting settled back into real life, etc. We had a great time in Boise/UT/Colorado and have plenty to be thankful for, especially when it comes to having the best family ever! The only family member from both sides that we did not see in the month of November was Julie, but we are so excited for her to come visit for Christmas.

Taking a month-long trip away from home and my husband taught me a few things:
1. He loves me! Ok, I already knew that, but by day 4 or 5, he was already missing us terribly! On the first Sunday morning we were gone he called my cell like 4 times before 6:00 am. Of course, I screened him the first few calls, but then started to wonder what sort of emergency would require that many early morning phone calls!?! But I really couldn't have survived the trip without our daily chats. And I love him, too!
2. I'm not such a great homemaker! Most nights while I was away I was feeling a little guilty/bad that I had left my poor husband to fend for himself for dinner every night. Poor Davey, eating chicken pot pie or pizza from the freezer again tonight! But since I have been home, we have eaten frozen pizza a few times, chicken pot pie, pancakes for dinner, and pretty much anything that you can heat up really quick in one pot or dish. About the only real meal he has eaten since I've been home is Thanksgiving dinner! Not much different from the diet of a husband-turned-bachelor for a month. So, I guess I'll be working on that.
3. Home is where your heart is. Even though Boise (and now, truly, Utah Valley) will always feel like home and Houston is still feeling a little foreign (76 degrees in December is just weird!), home will always be wherever David is! It's so good to be home with him again and to see Trevor get crazy excited in the evenings when he gets home.

We had a great first Thanksgiving Day in Houston. Carin and I started the day off with Run Through The Woods, a "little" 5 mile race. A good warm up for the marathon in June. But it was lots of fun, my first race since before I had Trevor and Carin's first EVER. Thanksgiving dinner was AMAZING! Carin's turkey was soooo delicious - she brined it this year, which now seems to me the only way to cook turkey. After dinner we spread out all the Black Friday ads and mapped out our shopping destinations. I determined that WalMart would have to be sacrificed for Home Depot for a $50 pre-lit artificial tree (Orig. $200!). Yeah, it was totally worth it! In line outside the store 2 other girls right next to me in line were looking for trees, too. So we banded together and grabbed a cart and helped each other fight for our trees! It is always such a rush! I was lucky that we worked together, otherwise I might not have gotten the tree I wanted. But I did and it's so cute. I seriously cried when I put it up (this is my first-ever Christmas tree), and David thinks I'm totally crazy, but it is so fun and pretty! I made a little tree skirt to go around it. Red w/gold pattern and trim and then just put some gold ribbon around it. Ornaments next year... maybe.

Other Christmas preparations.... Danelle came over and sewed some really cute stockings for her and the fam. They turned out so good and no matter what she says she really did sew all of them and they are great. So, can't wait for everyone to see them soon. Almost all the Jones family will be in Houston for Christmas, so we'll be getting read for everyone to come party. We'll just be missing the Paul Jones family. Sad! But we'll see y'all next year.

So, just in case I don't get around to another post before Christmas and New Year's etc, Happy Everything to you all. Over the years, I really have been lucky to be surrounded by so many great people and I wish you all, wherever you are, all the best!

That's Amore

Trevor is livin it up in Boise, having so much fun with Papa, Lee Lee and Miken (as he says) and Kevin. He's also crazy about his cousins and daily asks when he is going to see them again, oh and his uncle Ryan. Sorry, no love Andrea! He also asks for his Houston cousins and gets so excited when I show him pictures of Evan and Danelle on the blog. Lee Lee made one of his favorite meals - Spaghetti and corn, he rewarded her with lots of loves! Some of you may know that I am often referred to as Crazy Aunt Mel on my side of the family. And I'll admit that it's kind of true - I mean, we do have video footage to prove some of the craziness. But I have to say that I see the craziness more as me being fun-loving and having a strong desire to win over the hearts of my sweet little brothers or nieces and nephews. So, observing my sweet mother with her grandkids, I know where I get it from. So from one crazy lady to another, I love ya mom. You're the best grandma ever!



Trevor has learned a few new words since we left TX and in general is just talking more and more. He learned a few really important words on a walk with the girls. Treasure and Echo. Maddie is totally into pirate treasure and she took us on a treasure hunt up behind the house. Once we were up on the hill the girls taught Trevor about echoes. For a few days after that, he shouted echo whenever he saw the mountains, whether he was outside, in the car, or in the house. But I think he's figuring it out now....

The Three Muskateers - Maddie is totally the ring leader. She's enjoying the fact that Trevor goes along with almost whatever she wants with little or no resistance, which she gets from Mia.

Setting off on the treasure hunt. Maddie and Mia are on a mission, Trevor's still figuring things out.

Setting out on our little hike. He's catching on to this pirate treasure hunt.

Blowing Bubbles with Lee Lee

Boise

A few pictures from our stay so far in Boise. We are missing David sooo much but having a great time. I did talk David into joining us here for a few days, so we are excited to see him later this week.

Cousins

Here are the fun pictures of Trevor playing with his cousins in Utah. We had so much fun being there for baby Autumn's blessing and playing with everyone.

GRAND Parents in GRAND Junction

Trevor and I spent a few fun days in Grand Junction with Grandpa and Grandma Jones. We arrived on the day that they had their boxes delivered to their new home. Trevor and I had a great time, and he had some time to warm up to them and have some fun playing with his cars and being silly with Grandpa. On the first night we were there we went to Olive Garden. Trevor was exhausted from running up and down the ramp and playing with the cars and fell asleep at the table while eating his breadsticks and spaghetti.

We helped Grandma unpack a few boxes and had fun reading lots of David's old mission letters. I wasn't as helpful as David would have have been if he was there, but I did save the day by finding the satelite reciever when the DirecTV guy was there. So, I guess we earned our keep!

On Halloween we helped hand out candy to a few trick or treaters. Trevor picked up the routine and holds out his little chubbs and says trick or treat.

I just took a couple pics for David to see the place where his parents live.

Happy Halloween!

Trevor and I are heading off to Utah, Colorado, and Idaho this week, so we got our Halloween festivities in a little early thanks to our fun little ward party.

The Scarecrow Tried to get a picture of us together, but Trevor was all about the candy.

All aboard! for some fall fun at the Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we went to the Pumpkin Patch with the Straws. A plot of dirty grass with piles of pumpkins, a few bales of hay, and a train and hay ride can really excite an almost two year old! Trevor and Evan had lots of fun on their little outing. Trevor is very expressive these days, as you will see in the video. He gets really excited about what's going on around him. He's also getting into the phase where he likes to throw little tantrums. So I'm glad for times like these where it's fun to see the world through the eyes of a two year old little guy.



The Choo choo!



The Straw Fam




Trev and Ev on the big turkey made of hay.

Evan just being his smiley, sweet little self!

Bringing out the kid in David (I knew it was in there somewhere....)

Evan and Danelle dominating Trev and me in the duck races.

The choo choo ride!

Dozin'

Trevor plays hard all morning and a couple of times at lunch has fallen asleep while eating.

City Slickers

We headed up to Fort Worth on Thursday afternoon for a quick weekend trip and to catch the Alumni tailgate and the big TCU/BYU game. I felt much pride in seeing Trevor get such a thrill over seeing our Cougars out on the field, but the actual football game was horrible! I felt so bad for David having to sit through such a sad defeat. We stunk!

But moving on to the fun parts of the trip.....




This is Trev cheering on the Cougs with the BYU faithful at the tailgate. See how much he loves those cougs?? When we entered the stadium, we walked over to where he could see onto the field - his wide eyes could not get enough of that field and the "boo-ball" players. He chanted B-Y-U all the way to our seats. Of course, after a quarter or two he had completely lost interest and I chased/wrestled him all around the stadium. My arms were literally shaking with exhaustion by the end of the night. But at least it kept me from having to watch our breakdown play for play. After the game we got to the hotel and put Trevor into his pack-n-play. He wiggled around for a good 5-10 minutes trying to fall asleep. We sat there in the dark waiting for him to finally doze off. From his little crib came one last BYU, BYU and a few wiggles later, he was sound asleep. I'm sure he was just revelling in the excitement and fun that he had seeing the game. I love that boy!


Raising up the next generation of COUGAR.



Friday morning we headed out to the Stockyards in Fort Worth. Each day they have a cattle drive down the main street where the Live Stock Exchange building, Cowboy Hall of Fame and other little shops and historic buildings are located.

A longhorn up close and personal.

The Fort Worth Stock Exchange. Where the first indoor rodeo was held, and the first radio broadcast of a rodeo was made. The building was really pretty in it's western way and had a little museum with plenty of old west historical artifacts and information about Fort Worth. Almost made me want to pick up a western novel and get lost in the stories of characters like the Sundance Kid and the wild west.... Almost. :0)

Yee-haw!
City Girl meet Big Jake.

We finished off our little trip with a stop in Waxahachie at The Chisholm Grill in their little town square. It was amazingly delicious - piping hot peach cobbler with ice cream. I'm already trying to think of an excuse to get back to Waxahachie again.....

Singing and such

LOOK AT THOSE LEGS!



I took this the other day to try and get Trevor to talk to his cute cousin Mia. :-) So hope she sees this... I was persistent but couldn't get him to sing the whole song. How about that face/eyebrows at the end? Too funny.

Here we are...

In October, more than six months since we moved to Houston. Wow! I've put up my meager Halloween decor, and though it is not much, it still makes me so happy that this most wonderful time of the year is already upon us. Most of the little decorations that I have are kinda cheesy and maybe tacky, but in my mind that's the best kind of Halloween. I mean, this is a holiday where people let their kids dress in any crazy outfit they want and then go knock on all their friends' and strangers' doors begging for candy, right? So I figure tacky is just part of the whole experience.

But I really do love this time of year and enjoy the fact that there are actually people out and about in the neighborhood now that it's not so unbearable. In fact, just yesterday a lady from down the street was saying how much she enjoys this time of year because it's the one month between the "hot, hot and the cold, cold." Cold, cold? If I ever complain about cold weather while I'm here, someone please reach out and give me a good, hard slap!

My life is living proof that a whole lot of nothing really adds up to something because I have no idea where the last few weeks have gone! I've just been keeping up with Trevor and laughing at all the stuff he's been up to. Oh yes, and we can't forget the bazillions of shows and football gams that I'm now watching since they are back on. How great is this time of year? We're heading up to Fort Worth for the BYU/TCU game and just hoping that we can pull out a win! We'll be at the tailgate party to see cosmo and do all the fun pregame stuff. Trevor is working on the fight song and can at least give a mean Rah! Rah! Goooo Cougars! Any football game that he sees on TV is "BYU" or "Rah!Rah!" So we're training him up right.

Trevor is keeping me fully entertained and usualy in a good way. He's busy learning a lot of new words and running the carpet bare where he races back and forth. I ask him each night if he wants to sing I Am a Child of God or I Love to See the Temple, and he loves them both. He'll ask to sing "Chy Gog" or put his hands together to make a steeple for "Pemple." He has little actions that he does with this, and he sings some of the words (mostly the endings, you know?). He loves to listen to primary songs in the car and is learning some of them. If he hears a song he likes he will ask to hear it over and over again. I am still debating whether this is better than listening to him cry or throw a tantrum in the car.....

When he gets really excited about doing something he will just start saying all the names he knows starting with mama, dada. Then he launches into the names of whoever he thinks might be involved. He can almost say all his cousins' names (we're still working on Jaben, it's tough!) :-)

His obsession with trucks, trains, helicopters, airplanes, cars, etc is still going strong. I tried to teach him that he was driving his train on a choo-choo track. Now he insists that all trucks and trains are a "choo-choo truck." We also get a lot of planes flying over and he loves to go on walks to the park and watch for airplanes and helicopters. The bulk of my day is spent stalling another walk or going bye-bye in the car. He is always on the go, go, go.

The other day Trevor was playing with the ads in the newspaper and found a Toys R Us ad. As he browsed through, he found a Thomas train just like the one he has. He ran and got the train, then came and found me in the kitchen and dragged me over to see what he had found. Thomas! You can see in the picture he looks pretty proud.

The following pictures are after one crazy nap when he woke up with a serious mohawk. The pictures don't do it justice, but the smiley face is a good example of how Trevor wakes up about 99% of the time. He's a good sleeper and such a sweet boy when he wakes up. He goes 0-60 in about 10 seconds. Once he's up hes ready to go.

Move over Thomas... notice Trevor's new best friend Lightning McQueen, or as he would say "A-Queen."

Treasures

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."
-Thomas Wilder

....when our hearts are conscious of our treasures..... and from where they come!

fun at willowbrook

Last Friday we had a little play day with Carin/Madison and Danelle/Evan at the mall. There was plenty of entertainment for the babies.

IKE

Photos from our neighborhood, Carin's neighborhood and surrounding area.

Ike has come and gone, but left too, too much evidence of it's passing. We are feeling really fortunate to all be safe and sound and only have a little damage to our roof (just a few shingles to replace). But it is hard to wrap my mind around the damage that is all around. Mostly the damage to cities along the coast like Galveston and then Houston, and I've only seen pictures and news coverage of that. We have seen the impact that Ike has had in our neighborhood, neighborhoods surrounding us, and on the roads. Luckily our neighborhood doesn't have any tall trees, so it wasn't too messy here other than shingles and other debris to pick up. But in many of the other surrounding areas where there are a lot of tall foresty trees, it's pretty messy. There are trees fallen on houses, cars, power lines, and the streets. Plus flooding on the roads and some neighborhoods, which has mostly gone away.

We had our power restored on Sunday afternoon, but there are still a lot of people (people the next block over from us, so we are lucky!) and businesses without power. Carin and Danelle's families are still waiting for power in their neighborhoods. One of the biggest blessings throughout these last few days is that the weather has been nice and cool. And since there are still many, many people without power, it's helping.

Gas and certain groceries are still hard to come by. We went to the grocery store (where we waited in line to get in because they are trying to keep it controlled) yesterday to try and get Trev some milk, but there is nothing in the refrigerated/frozen section at all. You can get bread and canned goods, but all the shelves are totally picked over. Although, I heard that Carin got some cheese and hot dogs today, so it sounds like things are getting better every day. Lines for gas stations are really long, I saw on the news today that some people were waiting for 5 hours. There have been fights breaking out and I heard this morning that there was a shooting at one.

So, it's still pretty crazy around here, even though we personally are doing just fine and have not been seriously impacted. So we're just hanging in there and feeling very blessed to be safe and sound and have our power back on.

Yum!

I have wanted to get my favorite recipes organized and typed up for a long time, with the hopes that I might get a little more inspiration for dinner and make more delicious meals. While my Mom was here she shared all the recipes that she had typed up, I then added some of my own, and now I finally have them all put together, organized and ready to go! This is the first project I have done in what seems like a long time, and I already have my next one planned out, so I'm gonna keep moving forward with this momentum! Thanks for your help, Mom, I would have never gotten it done with out you!

I heart you.....

Trevor missed his Daddy while he was in NYC. On the night that David came home - Carin got Trev a little hat that has a picture of Thomas - it's so cute! He was content to just lay on the couch and watch a little football on Saturday when we finally had Daddy home for the whole day.

Bafff time!

Trev loves his "baf" time!

 

 

 

 

David in NYC

We had a calm weekend with David back at home and not much going on, other than the football game, of course!

I'm really glad that David got to go to NYC and have some fun with his family and go to the US Open with his mom! What an amazing trip! Since David is pretty much anti-blogging, I will post a little slide show of the great pictures he took while he was in NYC and Philly. Some of the highlights for him on this trip - for starters, the Statue of Liberty. He said it was amazing to read/hear all the stories of people who made journeys full of hardship and in low circumstances to America in order to make a better life for themselves. He also loved going to the Delaware River where George Washington crossed. In Philly they ate cheese steak sandwiches, had a race up the "Rocky" stairs, and saw the Liberty Bell. Back in NYC he also saw Phantom of the Opera, the Met, and, of course, the US Open. So here's a little slide show of some of the stuff he did.

Ride!

Over the past few months that we have been living in Houston, one of the prime bonding activities for Trevor and Madison has been their love of the stroller. Carin and I took the babies on lots of walks. Trevor particularly likes riding in the stroller, while Madison sometimes enjoys riding but mostly prefers pushing.

A few weeks ago while I was hanging out with the Hae Hae kids, I came downstairs to discover that they had put their heads together and found an activity they could both enjoy. Madison pushed Trevor around and around the house while Trev sat back and enjoyed the ride. I tried to butt in and make Trevor push Madison, thinking that was only fair. But neither liked that arrangement as much as the one they had come up with on their own. There you go - a perfect match.

Just Me and My Grandma

Trevor and I had lots of fun with Lee Lee! Since we dropped her off at the airport this morning he has walked around the house a couple of times calling her name. When he woke up from his nap he was especially concerned that she was not there. Life for him is just so boring without her here!

He was initially shy when Grandma and Grandpa came to visit, but could not resist Lee Lee's enticements. He even fell asleep and took a 2 hour nap on her lap, which he would never do for me no matter how hard I have tried! We had too, too much fun going shopping, eating out, taking Trevor swimming, to the splash pad, to the Learning Tree, on the carousel, etc.

Singing into the paper towel tube - he will never tire of this one; we've done it a few times today. Gee, thanks Lee Lee! :0)

Splashing!

Showing off his speed at the play place.


Mom taught Trevor this cute little trick....



We miss Lee Lee already!