homecoming Christmas

We celebrated Christmas early at our house before we packed our suitcases full of pj's and warm clothes.

We wanted to make sure the boys got to enjoy their new presents and toys before we loaded them up and took them on an eight hour car ride.

It was a wonderful time full of excitement and "oh wows!".

And I loved the smile on their faces as the opened each gift and welcomed new friends and new toys.

And Santa knew where to find them Christmas morning!

All the way in Grandma and Grandpa's in good ol' Colorado.


It was a wonderful time being back home.

It brought back many memories and excitement from when I would wake up Christmas morning and run down the stairs to see what Santa brought me. It was so fun to share this with my children and my family.

It was a homecoming Christmas. We haven't been together for Christmas in a long time. And as the room filled with family and children and my brother all ready to be Santa for present time, it was the most wonderful feeling of love and togetherness. A feeling I so didn't want to let go.

My niece Emily has grown up so fast. She is such a young women now. So helpful, so loving and so wonderful.

Sabrina sure thought so!

It was just a fun Christmas!

It may be hard to get everyone together. But the times we do get together are times that are just filled with fun, laughter, love and thankfulness. I am so thankful and blessed to have such an amazing family. It was a wonderful trip and I am looking forward to doing this again real soon!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

it's beginning to FEEL like christmas

With the snow falling, the presents all wrapped and less than four days, it's finally starting to feel like Christmas.

And I am finally getting excited.

I am looking forward to piling in our van. Cramped with snow boots, snacks and luggage and head out to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Not too different from the Rockies of Utah, but there, there will be a small household full of lots of little feet running around. It will be full of laughter and chatting and catching up with family I haven't seen in awhile. It will be cozy and cramped and warm.

It's home away from home and I am excited!

And as we get packed and ready, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa, I stop to look at the pictures of my children growing up way too fast.

WAY too fast!

Chase looks like a little boy now. He is losing his baby cheeks. He is so handsome!

Almost two months old now. She is changing and growing so fast.

I can't believe he is almost three.

I am looking forward to this Christmas with these children. I am looking forward to watching their faces light up and enjoy these wonderful moments and times together. I am so looking forward to just being with them and watch them grow.

It will be a blessed Christmas this year for sure.

baby you're a firework

Yes. I know what you are thinking, "did she really just titled this post after a Katy Perry song?"

Yes. Yes I did.

But I have a good reason. Every time I hear the song 'Firework' by Katy Perry, I think of Fisher. It makes me smile. It makes me believe that he is truly a firework just waiting to ignite and shine. It may sound cheesy and corny, but I really think that this little boy has a ton of potential just waiting to get out.

And I love the part of the song where she sings, "maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed so you can open one that leads you to the perfect road".

I like to believe that we are finally getting to open some pretty amazing doors that are going to help Fisher grow and shine even more.

After being on a waiting list for a wonderful school for autistic kids, we finally got the phone call telling us that Fisher was being offered an amazing scholarship!

This school is nationally known for it's amazing program in helping kids who are on the spectrum getting developmentally caught up and integrated back into neo-typical schools. And being offered a scholarship to help him(an us) get into this program was truly one of the best Christmas gifts we could of asked for! This is finally a door we were ready to open. This is finally an answer that we truly needed.

Even though we were offered this wonderful scholarship, we still had to go to the school and meet with their psychologist, social worker and potential teachers to make sure Fisher was a good fit for the program. Kind of like an interview, only longer, and more nerve racking, and there are tears involved. Because we really, really wanted this for our son.

We met with the most amazing psychologist, Dr. Petersen, who just answered so many of our questions and fears and denials we had. I have never met someone who is so welcoming and passionate about helping not only these kids, but the parents as well. When the time came to give us the official diagnosis for Fisher, his eyes filled up with tears. He began by telling us what amazing parents we are, how wonderful Fisher is and that no matter what, our family is going do great and continue to be great.

He told us that Fisher has autism spectrum disorder. He does not have asperger, but that he has high functioning autism. With his limited speech and social skills, we kind of figured this. But it is real now. It's official. And it didn't really hit me until we were meeting with the social worker and she was discussing some great support groups and communities we could look into and I just kind of lost it. I could feel it coming. My eyes began to fill up and I was trying so hard to fight them back, looking away, looking up, till all of a sudden I couldn't stop it. I was bawling and I probably freaked out this social worker because I am pretty sure she didn't know what to do at that point. But she was kind and understanding and just kept talking to us about how amazing Fisher is and is going to be.

He is going to be amazing. He is going to do amazing things. He is going to be one amazing firework when it comes time for him to shine! And I can't wait!

I should also note, that Fisher is already going to a pretty awesome school. They took this quite, non-talking, limited eye contact boy to a boy who will repeat words you say, look you in the eye and sing "twinkle, twinkle little star" with you.

They are pretty amazing teachers. They are just too far away(we are talking 30 minutes one way) and we don't have a scholarship there.

But I wanted to let them know how amazing they are. All 16 of them. So I made these.

Thank you Katie for suggesting her creative friends blog. Seriously, if you need a gift idea you should check it out!

I know 16 sounds like a lot, but these teachers are the best and we just had to let them know that they were. Plus, we are going to miss them and their generosity and love that they had for our son. They do amazing things with kids who are stuck in their own little worlds. They did amazing things for our little Fisher.

Hope your holiday season full of happiness and blessings!

lights

Christmas lights are my favorite.

Seriously. Ever since I was little, my brothers and sister and I would pile in our parent's station wagon and we would just drive around for hours looking at Christmas lights. In fact, even in high school my best friend Jess and I would drive around after our long shift at Target, listening to Hason's Christmas CD(yes, can you believe Hanson has a Christmas CD? And yes we were obsessed with it!) and look at all the decked out houses in our neighborhood.

There is just something magical and wonderful about Christmas lights, and they seem to make the feeling of Christmas that more exciting.

Last night we took our little family downtown to Temple Square to see all of the beautiful lights and Nativity Scenes.

Just walking through this beautiful place, you are just overwhelmed with beauty and magic and just peacefulness. It's an amazing place to be during this time of year.

This place has even more special meaning to Wayne and I. Four years ago this Christmas, Wayne took me here on our first date when I moved to Utah. He understood my obsession love for Christmas lights and took me down to Temple Square to see them. He even drove me all the way to Thanksgiving Point to see their Christmas lights! Talk about light overload!

But I love this place.

And our boys love it too!

Our family photo!

I couldn't bring myself to waking up Sabrina in her warm and very snuggly car seat for this photo. Next year she will be up for it for sure! :)

santa baby

Tis the season...

I am one who is all for Christmas traditions. I grew up with the anticipation of picking out your Christmas ornament for the tree, cracking nutshells, baking cookies and wearing new Christmas pajamas the whole month of December. I loved the traditions my family shared growing up and I am so looking forward to sharing many of these traditions with my children.

Plus, I am so looking forward to starting new traditions.

Like making my cute little Christmas babies take pictures in our Santa hat!

Ah yes, a new tradition of Santa babies. One that I will enjoy looking back at for many many years.

Now it's getting close till Christmas and we have the 12 days of Christmas coming up with a new tradition of Christmas books! I got the idea for it from here. Looking forward to sharing this memory with the little ones.

full of smiles

Sabrina is one happy baby. Full of love and lots of smiles!

She has been smiling for a couple weeks now. She just loves it when she gets attention and she will return the welcome smiles and talks with cute smiles of her own!

Love this little girl!

one month

I can't believe my baby is already one month old.

She is such a loved baby. Her brothers love to watch her and smile at her and just love being near her. They are always close to her side when she is awake and watching them play. I just love watching her grow. She looks so big to me now and she is starting smile. Sabrina is such a good baby. She loves to be held and cuddled and she loves to just lay and watch as the craziness of the household unfolds throughout the day. She is taking after her big brother Chase and is becoming a better sleeper and napper.

We absolutely love this little girl of ours. She is so precious and so amazing and I am just loving her more and more everyday!

our card

I finally got our Christmas Card designed!

I had so much fun designing it and putting our three cute little kid's faces on it. The hardest part was getting all of their pictures for it.

But it's finally done and ready to be mailed and I thought I would share it with you all.

I thought I would also share just some fun pictures from our impromptu photo shoot.

I love these three kids of mine!

Hope you are having a fun holiday so far!!

so thankful

I didn't take nearly enough photos of our Thanksgiving extravaganza.

I wish I took more.

We have so much to be thankful for this year. This year was a roller coaster full of emotions and trials, but it was filled so many great memories and blessings. It was full of laughter and friends. It was full of family, happiness and tears of joy.

It was a year of "the glass is half full".

And for that, I am so very thankful.

We were invited up to Idaho to spend Thanksgiving the way you would spend it if your entire family was there. Our amazing family friends and 'adoptive parents' to Wayne, the Wilsons, invited us over for a Thanksgiving feast. They live on an apple orchard and raise their own turkeys, pigs and chickens for dinners like these. They go all out and Thanksgiving dinner is a big deal here. The house was full of family and friends from all over the country, and the abundance of food and delicious smells made you feel right at home.

It was definitely a dinner to remember and our little family fell right into place. The little ones made quick friends and Wayne enjoyed the company of his wonderful friends.

And what could make this trip even more special? A visit from Uncle Derek!

Sabrina felt right at ease in the comfort of his arms.

Derek is Wayne's youngest brother and is going to college in Ontario, Idaho. It was perfect for him to come down and meet up with us. Wayne enjoyed seeing his brother and we had such a wonderful visit with him. It's nice to have family close by. It makes these moments and trips that much more worth it.

And with the turkey and pumpkin pie leftovers gone, it's on to setting up the tree and decorating it with sparkling lights and red ribbons. It's time to get the Christmas books out and the smell of cinnamon candles burning.

Christmas is almost here and we have so much to get ready for.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

announcing...

I finally got Sabrina's birth announcement done! I loved how it turned out!

Now it's time to get the Christmas card designed and ready to go!

sigh

Ahh... it's been one of those weeks.

Today, there has finally been some piece and quite and a huge sigh of relief.

Fisher got his tubes put into his ears yesterday.

According to his dad, he did great. The procedure went quickly and Fisher came home early yesterday morning full of energy. However, most of the energy was quickly filled with irritability and the frustration of getting ear drops in his ears three times a day. He hates having his ears touched, much having something be put into his ears. He is constantly telling us "all done" when we try get them in and its usually followed by tears. Only two more days of the drops and he should be a little relieved. I am worried about bath time now. How am I going to keep water out of his ears for a whole year? We are going to have to try ear plugs... but this will be a struggle for sure.

But I am so anxious to see if this helps with his speech. Fisher is trying to repeat more and more words we say, and it will be nice to see if he can start pronouncing them correctly. I am looking forward to watching him progress and learn. He is an amazing little boy, teaching me knew things everyday.

And so today, we breath and relax as we get back into our routine again.

Even though the piece and quiet may last for a few minutes... we enjoy the company and smiles this day will bring.

The boys just love their sister.

Absolutely love her.


And I love my little bunny as well!


Hope this day brings you some piece and quiet, and laughter and love!