Christmas time was here

Christmas has come and gone and it was a good one this year. We started off the celebrations by making a gingerbread house with James on the 17th. I think this will now be our new family tradition.

Our Gingerbread House

The following day, Sunday,  we went to Tracy's parents house for their annual Christmas concert. It is always fun to go and see cousins and listen to great music, stories and spiritual thoughts. Then Monday evening we headed down to the Energy Solutions Arena for the Annual Christmas Sing along. This year the guest performer was Alex Boye. He is awesome. 

James at the Sing -Along

On Tuesday James ended up with a fever. It was a great day for cuddling, well, it became a great day for cuddling cause that is all he wanted to do. On Wednesday we did a day long shopping trip. I always want to do shopping early, but it never works out. At least we had an enjoyable day and ended with a dinner at Red Lobster and watching it snow. Then on Friday was my family Christmas Party. We packed up the car for the weekend and headed to the party. First we stopped to get one last gift for James and to give Grandpa Dee (Tracy's step-grandpa) his gift. We enjoyed a short visit with him. We arrived a little late to the party, but just right to still get some food. Food always goes fast at my family parties. We did gift exchange, family pictures and just enjoyed each others company. James and his cousin, who is a few months younger, were very cute playing together.

After the party we headed down to Tracy's parent's house for Christmas eve. We did Christmas at their house on Christmas eve. Ate the traditional breakfast of waffles, watched sports, opened presents and hung out all day in our new pj's. 

Pile of Presents (Pop)

James enjoying his new toys

Eating dinner in his Christmas pj's.
The front of them say "What Santa doesn't bring me grandma will."

Sunday morning we got up early and headed to my mom's for church. It was fun seeing some of the same people that were there when I was growing up. After church we had my mom's yummy breakfast casserole and watched my little siblings open presents. James had a couple he hadn't opened yet as well. They even surprised us with a little gift (a cute picture frame) and James with some hot wheel cars. After opening presents we all took naps then had dinner and we headed home.

We had an enjoyable weekend and felt very lucky to spend it with family. Who knows if next year we'll be close enough to do so. Today I finally got around to finish putting everything away. James has been sick with a cold since Saturday and yesterday, I was feeling sick so things didn't get done till today. Now I just have to decide when I want to take down the Christmas decorations.

Having fun in his room after I got his toys organized.

He really loves his new train set.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. P.S. I'm hoping to get our cards mailed out tomorrow, so don't worry I haven't forgotten anyone.

James' little jig

James is getting better and better at standing every day. He can now stay standing for several seconds and stand up on his own. He loves to do a little dance when he's standing. I finally was able to catch it on video. He's so silly.

Our living room doesn't have very good lighting, 

so the video turned out a bit hard to see. 

Christmas Cards

It is that time of year again for Christmas Cards. Since we cleaned off our computer several months ago, I lost every ones address. Please email me your address and I will send you a Christmas card in return. :)

aliciasuethomson at gmail dot com

Thanks

A Rather Blustery Day!

This is the best video I could find of this with out it being in a different language.

A couple of days ago we had a rather blustery day, well night/morning. I felt a bit like Winnie the Pooh during it and even the pages of his book were being destroyed just like the cities around here. The storm hit really hard in Davis and Weber counties. Though Salt Lake was on the edge of the storm, it sure left some damage here. Luckily not as bad as other cities. I'm talking about wind as strong as a Category 2 Hurricane.

My apartment building, which I manage, took quite the beating. We woke up to part of our fence down on top of a car and shingle every where. After not getting much sleep because of the wind and this horrible banging noise, I just wanted to crawl right back into bed. Tracy actually braved the still very windy morning and found the fence down, garbage flying around the parking lot and the front lawn littered with shingles. Oh, and the horrible noise that kept waking us up was a couple of pieces of siding about to be ripped off the building. They were both still hanging on, but you definitely didn't want to be any where near them if/when they flew off.

Tracy moved pieces of the fence and picked up some trash. Maintenance stopped by shortly after Tracy left for work. He works out 2 other properties besides mine, so he just did a quick look and moved on. Later he came back and cleaned up everything and took down the siding before they came off.

My roof is now sporting a nice gaping whole, siding and fence pieces are sitting behind the behind the building. Glad I didn't have to be the one doing the clean up or paying to have the things repaired. Plus, I'm glad it wasn't any worse. Though I do feel very sad for those who had trees fall on their house/car and who are without power. Hope they all can recover from this quickly. They will be in my prayers.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come and gone. We spent Wednesday night at Tracy's parent's house. Had a Thanksgiving dinner that night then did a birthday breakfast on Thursday for his dad. I did laundry while they men watched football. Later we headed to my mom's for another Thanksgiving dinner.  We were pretty much the only ones of the married couples at my mom's. James loved the attention from my little brother and sisters. As we were leaving he started saying "Bye, See you" and now says it over and over again all day long. So cute. Well, that was our Thanksgiving. Nothing too exciting. It always is a great time to reflect over your blessings. I am grateful for many things. Too many to list.

Yesterday we put up the Christmas decorations and now we are in full Christmas mood. Just 28 more days.

Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving.

It's going to happen

We are going to Grad-school, next fall. Well, really Tracy is going to grad-school. He will finally be finishing up his classes during the spring semester. I've talked about grad school before, but things haven't worked out to do it just yet. Paying for school became an issue, but we've been doing it one class at a time. With a wonderful scholarship from the school and a coming tax return, Tracy will finally be able to finish. The stars are aligning just right. I've been working on finding deadlines (most are in January) and requirements for the schools Tracy is going to. Anything I can do to help. Applying is quite the complicated process, maybe they are checking to see how well you can follow directions. Some schools websites are horrible to navigate through. He still hasn't made a final decision what schools he will apply to, so can't tell you yet. ;)

James had a development evaluation this morning. They did all kinds of tests on him. Not the abrasive kind of tests. He probably didn't even know they were testing him. He just got to play with their fun toys. Pretty much confirmed what we already knew that he is behind in the gross motor skills. He tested at the level of a 11 month old, so he will be receiving physical therapy twice a month. Who knows maybe he'll start walking before he even starts therapy and end up not needing it after all.

Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Isn't he cute?

I can't help it but share some pictures of my cute, funny little guy.

Las Vegas Part 3 and Final

Day 5

Last full day in Las Vegas and last full day of conference for Tracy. That morning James and I hit the swimming pool again. There were a couple other young boys swimming and they decided that they needed to entertain James by doing hand stands and other fun tricks. They also wanted us to join them in the hot tub. Though we didn't join them since I knew once James and I went into the hot tub there is no way he's going to want to get back in the cooler pool water. Of course like the day before James lasted about 30 mins and then he said he was "All done." After swimming we played around in the atrium. James has a new fond love of escalators. All the older folks kept commenting on how cute he was. We then had lunch in our room and watched the 2:00 water show (they don't do the laser part when it's too light out to see them). James took a nap and Tracy soon joined us back at the hotel. Once James woke up we headed to the Las Vegas Hilton where they were showing several of the college football games in their theater. James lasted about 15 mins of football watching, so we headed back to our hotel for dinner (microwave soup and pizza from the food court) and spent the rest of the evening watching games and hanging out.  Soon it was bed time.

In front of the water falls.

Being oh so cute.

The atrium from the front

Day 6

Homeward bound we go. We packed up and headed out. On the way home made a couple of stops. One at the Hoover Dam. It was chilly at the dam. The dam is huge and I wish it didn't cost so much to go on a tour of it, but I enjoyed just walking across it and seeing the outside of it for free. After the dam we headed to the Valley of Fire. It is a pretty cool place in the middle of no where. We didn't spend a whole lot of time exploring since we still had a long drive ahead of us. It was still pretty cold, so we had our picnic lunch in the car. Someday I'd like to go back and spend a few days hiking and exploring. As we entered Utah we hit snow and between Cedar and Filmore we drove through a fairly bad snow storm. Several people had pulled off the road to wait it out. We powered through and around 11 made to Grandma's and Grandpa's (aka Tracy's parents) house to pick up our cats and switch back to our car. Grandma had a dinner all ready for us, so that was extremely nice. Sometime around 3 in the morning we finally arrived home. We had a great trip and now we are back into the every day madness. Do you ever feel like you need a recovery vacation after your actual vacation.

At the dam

They sure had a lot of "Dam" gifts.

So tired of driving.

An arch in Valley of Fire

Having fun in the Valley of Fire

And a beautiful rainbow in a beautiful area.

So pretty.

So that is all folks.

Las Vegas Part 2

Day 3

Once again Tracy headed out to his conference and James and I were left to explore Sam's Town. We located the swimming pool, an ice cream shop and many other restaurants.  We then packed a lunch and got on the shuttle to The Strip to meet Tracy for lunch.  We ate lunch at the Paris then headed off to the M&M factory and exploring The Strip. Afterwards, Tracy headed back to the conference and we headed back to Sam's Town for nap time. Tracy came back after the conference and we had dinner in our room, then went and got some ice cream. Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream any one? Hmm, it was so good. We then got James ready for bed and I took him down to the atrium to watch the water show up close.

Having a good time riding around

New York, New York

Day 4

Morning came and Tracy headed out. This day James and I spent a very relaxing day at the hotel. First we took our time getting ready. Then around 11 we went swimming at the pool. First time James had ever been swimming in a pool. He wouldn't let go of me at all. it was nice since we were the only ones there. About a half hour later James said, "All done." So I guess that meant he was done swimming. We got back in our clothes and I got me a burger at our hotel. After all, got to buy a big greasy meal at least once on your vacation, right? Don't worry I didn't forget about James. I heated up some chicken nuggets, his favorite, I had packed for him. After lunch and nap we headed down to the strip to meet Tracy. We took James to the conservatory at the Bellagio. Wondered around the Bellagio for a bit and then drove to the famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign. I forgot to bring the camera with us so I don't have any pictures. :( Went back to our hotel for an other microwave dinner and just hung around there for the rest of the evening.

The only picture from this day.
James being like daddy and relaxing on the bed.

Las Vegas Part 1

I'm sure you are just waiting to hear about my vacation that you may or may not have  known about. Well, here you go...

Day 1

We drove and drove and drove some more. That was day 1.
Well, in reality it wasn't entirely full of driving, but pretty darn close. We did stop a couple of times. Once in Cedar City and another time in Kolob Canyon. In both places Tracy was in search of some swim tracks he was told about and of course found them. Grandpa Thomson drove down with us and then headed back home on day 2.

Grandpa Thomson helping look for the tracks in Cedar City.

A wonderful hill side in Kolob that has swim tracks,
but Tracy didn't have time to go explore.

Grandpa Thomson has some more pictures from Kolob that even has James and I in them. Though It could be months before I see them.

We arrived in Las Vegas around 5 p.m. and got all settled into the hotel room at Sam's Town. Drove down to the Paris for Tracy to check in to his Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference and pick up his packet. Then we headed back to Sam's Town for a nice buffet dinner and bed time.

Day 2

Tracy headed off early to his day at the conference. Grandpa, James and I located a Wal-Mart and bought a few forgotten things and a microwave (that way we could cook our own food and not spend as much). After the Wal-Mart run, we hung around Sam's Town for a bit before meeting Tracy for lunch. We had lunch in front of the Bellagio's fountain. Tracy headed back to the conference. Grandpa took James and I back to Sam's Town and he headed home. James took a nap and I relaxed for a few hours.

At the conference Tracy had a poster in the poster session that evening. He had submitted his abstract for the Cobert Prize and he was in the running for the prize along with 24 others. The posters get put up in the morning, so people can check them out through out the day and decided which authors they want to actually talk to during the poster session. The judges for the Colbert Prize go through the posters during the day and select from just looking at the posters the authors they want to talk to during the poster session. Tracy was told by one of the judges that he was in the top 5 and that they would contact him before the award ceremony on Saturday if he won. Unfortunately, he didn't win but we think it is pretty neat that he was in the top 5.

After the poster session James and I took the shuttle down to The Strip and met Tracy at the Bellagio's fountain. Watch the fountain show a couple of times then headed to Red Lobster for dinner then headed back to the hotel for their water and laser light show they have each night and bed.

Riding the glass elevator at Sam's Town.
This hotel is pretty awesome.
They have an indoor atrium and some of the rooms face into it.

Grandpa upgraded our room so James could have the perfect view of the atrium
and of their daily Water and Laser Light Show.

The view of fountain in the atrium from our room.
Pretty much the prefect spot to see their show.

The view of the rest of the atrium from our room.

After a wonderful lunch at the Bellagio

Later that evening watching the fountain show.

James couldn't take his eyes off it.

He got a little scared when I sat him on the railing 

and the water shot way up high. 

Sorry, it's a little hard to see because of it being at night.

Almost timed it just right to get the very last note and blast of water.

I think I'll break this up in a few posts, since it would end up being one very, very, very, long post. So check back later for the part 2 and maybe part 3 if it needs that many.

Videos

Just a couple of videos to start the week.

Alphabet

I finished a wonderful set of alphabet magnets for a Christmas gift for James. I think they turned out quite nicely.

I got the idea from this blog. I used fleece instead of felt, cause that is all I had. I also just used the strip of magnets cut to the size I wanted for each letter, instead of the round magnets (a bit cheaper).

• First I printed up my template of letters using word. Typed up the alphabet, found a font I like and sized it up to the sized I wanted, printed and then cut out. 
• Then I traced the letters on the fabric/fleece and cut them out. 2 each of the fabric of choice, making sure to reverse the letters for the 2nd one and just 1 each of the fleece.

Here they are all cut out.

• Layered them with the fleece in between the fabric and sewed the layers up.
• Then used the hot glue gun to secure the magnets on.

All finished and hanging on the fridge!!!

Next project will be this matching game.

Almost November

Wow, where did October go? I can't believe in just a few short or possibly loooong days it will be November. October seemed to just fly on by.

Last week Tracy became an intern at the Natural History Museum of Utah formally known at the Utah Museum of Natural History. So far he's been working on packing up all the specimens in the old museum to be brought up to the new building.

The museum had a special staff/volunteers and family night to preview the new building. It was a nice night of dinner and checking out the new museum. I forgot my camera, so we have no pictures. Though I'm sure we'll be going again once it officially opens.

I only had 1 move out in October and had it sold before it was even ready for move in, so work for me has been pretty low key, except for the occasional maintenance issue and getting a new maintenance guy. Since I have no one moving out by the 31st, November is looking to be even better. We'll see if any one gives their 30 day on the first. In about a week and a half James has another doctors appointment to check on his progress towards walking. Maybe he'll start walking before then.

I think that is about all that has been going on with us. I just keep thinking about all the things I need to get done before November comes, but I still have 4 more days to do it all.

I've got to end with pictures:

"Helping" with dishes

Was looking for something to read, but decided to smile for the camera

We made ghosts yesterday for Halloween
A post about how they were made will be on my
other blog within the next couple of days.

The Meadow Hot Springs

Saturday, we took a little road trip to the Meadow Hot Springs. We did a little swimming around , then lunch and headed back to grandparent's house for dinner with the missionaries.

Standing!

James is standing. Yay! He doesn't do it very often, but he can do it. Even though it may look like he's using his chair for support, he actually has a little gap between it and his legs.

Yesterday, I found him laying on the couch cuddling with his dog, while watching a movie. When I got the camera to get a picture he had grabbed a car off the floor, so he was no longer cuddling with the dog, but he was still being incredibly adorable.

Time for Fall

Fall means cute clothes for cute little boys.

The front says this.

Have I mentioned that James now recognizes the Letter A. He can find the A's on his new football shirt and on the covers of books. He also started saying Pumpkin, Button and so many other words. Pumpkin comes out so cute.

Speaking of Pumpkin. Sometime soon I think I'll try to make pumpkin soup, after all it just screams Fall.

Doesn't this look delicious!

I have a recipe that I got from Sunflower Market. The picture looks even better then this one that I found on the web.

I've just been introduced to this wonderful thing called pinterest. Today, I have found quite a few fall craft ideas on that site. I would love to make some before winter. Though my next crafts to make, now that I've collected a bunch of scraps from my lil sis, is to make ABC magnets and a memory game.

I think I'm finally ready to embrace Fall.

James' Hat Take 2

I finally got around to making James another hat. If you remember the previous hat ended up too small. Now he has a hat that actually fits him. That is till he out grows it. It is reversible with a J on one side and a star on the other. Maybe next hat I'll do different material on each side.