Hangin' Around in January

Here's a few shots hanging around our house, which is pretty much what we did in January!
Thad now does this funny squint when you tell him to smile for the camera:

 Dallin can act goofy too:

 Okay, a little more normal. We'll work on smiles before family pictures.

Valentines Day!

I love Valentines Day. And this year I have a preschool class to take valentines to!! Dallin and I embarked on this project I found here. I think they turned out cute..well, one more step to go: tape the coloring heart crayons onto the cards.

I was really proud of Dallin. He cut up the crayons with a huge knife and no accidents! It was a good reminder that he's more capable than I give him credit for sometimes. He dropped the chopped up crayons into the heart-shaped molds. Nice work Dal!

Is it love in the air, or the fact that I'm going to be living with four boys shortly (I'm taking about my baby boy being born in May) that I'm making flower pins and hairclips??! I feel I've gone crazy for flowers lately.

I also got out our annual valentines cards. Boy was that a project, but I enjoyed it! Homemade this year folks, that's right. Don't expect it every year! (and someone please save me one because I had to mail every single one I made). If I missed you for some reason, send me your address and I'll add you to our valentines mailing next year!

I've got a few more things to do before Monday to make sure these boys feel loved! Hopefully a post on that later. In the meantime if someone can tell me why my Canon PowerShot S5 always takes pictures out of focus, I'll save you a valentine treat.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Advent Calendar

I have an advent calendar that I made; each day we open a jar which has a scripture, a name for Christ, and a Christmas activity. I've found this is a great way to really feel like it's Christmas all month long.

This day's activity was to decorate a gingerbread house. We bought the coolest pre-assembled gingerbread house at Costco, that I even got Evan to participate!

Thad discovering his tongue (he managed to eat way more candy than Dallin somehow..)

 The final product!

Yes, it is December and Dallin has his shirt off. This is normal in our house...!

Christmas Open House

This past December we hosted a Christmas open house. I probably had more fun planning and prep than the actual party (more on that later), but we really enjoyed opening up our home that first Friday in December.

 We had a sugar cookie decorating station, brownies, and a hot chocolate bar. Now if only I hadn't been busy playing hostess to actually get pictures of our guests! We were glad the Eyres, McKunes, Madsens, and Stovall families could come.

Just before our last guests were to leave, Dallin vomitted. Big time. We all joked that no party was over until someone puked and our friends went home. Boy did that start the saga of December! Here is Dallin feeling sick.

Dallin was the first to get ill. About 2am, I began. Oh it was sooooo bad. I ended up in Urgent Care with an IV Saturday night and was completely unable to take care of my family for two days. Just thinking about it now makes me feel ill. Friends were so kind to help us. And nice to forgive us that we hosted the party to spread the disease throughout our ward :)

Oops! We've got great friends though!

Our new baby...

I know, I know, I've got to update this blog with a ton of stuff...It just seems a little overwhelming. So today we're talking about boys. Lots of boys.

We just got the results of the ultrasound, and, as you can guess from my previous sentence, we are having our third boy!!

Boys run in Evans family. So far the boys of his family have only made boys. Everyone in the family was sending pink thoughts our way-but alas, as my sister-in-law Kelli says, no one explained to the girls marrying into the family of the "Gilstrap curse." If you want a baby girl, look elsewhere. Of course she's somewhat joking, but so far it has rung true.

Everyone asks "where you hoping for a girl" or "do you think you'll have ANOTHER one?" Just yesterday a friend gave me the book How to Tuck in a Super Hero (written by a mom of five boys).

I love my boys...And I'm excited to have another. I feel like I know a bit what to expect.

I've just got to get really good at cooking in mass quantities :)