Sprinkler fun with cousins

My brother Jamen is currently serving in Afghanistan. He left in April and will be back in January. While he is away Krista and the 3 boys moved in with my parents. They only live 10 minutes away from us! They have always lived atleast 3 hours away so we are loving it! Especially Spencer. He is constantly talking about Ander (Aner) and Toren (Towen) and Kai (he acutally says Kai's name perfectly) He loves going over to play with his cousins and always asking if he can go play with them. Here of some pictures and of him playing in the sprinklers over there.

BFF's and BBF's (best brothers forever)

Went to Logan in February. First thing I did was meet up with 2 of my best friends. Maranea (Ricard) Johnson and Lynsdi (Walker) Frandsen. We went out to eat with Spencer and Lyndsi's little baby, Charlotte, and had a blast. I hadn't seen either of the girls in almost 3 years but it was like no time had pasted at all. That's what I love about good friends you can go years without seeing eachother but it only takes seconds for everything to come back. Love you girls.

After eating with girls we went over to Jace and Scott's place and spent some time with them. They were kind enough to watch Spencer while we went to the Logan Temple. Spencer had so much fun with them he totally zonked out the second we got in the car to head back to our hotel. We were going to take him swimming in the pool but we were all so tired we never made it off our bed. The next day we headed to Saratoga Springs and spent that Saturday and Sunday with Steve's mom and sister (which is always fun)

Christmas 2011 video

Spencer got a Sesame Street MP3 play (well a toddler version anyway) from his Great Grandma and Grandpa Oliver. He loves it! It plays 3 songs and his favorite is Elmo's rock and roll song. He walks around boppin his head to it. At the end of the song Elmo says "Yeah baby!" and without fail Spencer always says "Baby!" right afterwards.

Christmas 2011!

Christmas with the Olivers!

We had a delicious brunch on Christmas Eve day at Tim and Paula's house with all the siblings and cousins.

Grandpa and Grandma gave Spencer some snowman pajamas and an alphabet game.

Steve spending some time with his new niece Sadie.



We spent Christmas morning at Robin's house with David and Jessica. Spencer went straight for the candy in his stocking. (notice the new pj's from Grandma Paula)

I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast (from a tube) I was feeling somewhat domestic but not enough to make them from scratch.

Robin crocheted us some awesome pillows. She had some extra yarn so she also made Steve a beard to keep his face warm.

Grandma Woodstock gives all the grandkids ornaments each year. Spencer liked his so much he immediately went to the tree to put it on.

I surprised Steve with a SUU zip up hoodie. We weren't going to get anything for each other because the camera I took all these pictures with was supposed to be our combined present to each other. But he had been wearing his very thin jacket all winter because he never wanted to wear his heavy winter coat. He loved it and wore it almost everyday the rest of the semester.

Spencer was going through a dinosaur phase so Amber's family (who had us this year) gave us bunch of dinosaurs and a dinosaur book. Spencer loved it and has made us read it to him at least a 100 times.

Spencer hanging out with Uncle David after church.

Here is the lion pillow Grandma Oliver made for Spencer.

It's hard to see the cool designs on the brown pillows that Robin made but they are super cute and go perfectly with our living room.

Spencer's 2nd birthday

We didn't do a big hoo-rah for Spencer's birthday. We made him a rice-crispy cake (his favorite at the time) and just did a small celebration with our little family and my  mom and dad. Here's the play by play:

Lighting the candles

Singing Happy Birthday (he was a little confused)

Blowing out the candles

Looking at his cool gift bag (we had to show him that the real cool stuff was in the bag)

He got PJ's

G&G Woodstock gave him a cool electric tooth brush that he wanted to try right away.

He also got a Curious George matching game. It's hard to tell becuase his head is down but he was very excited about this one. He doesn't get the game but loves going through and looking at all the pictures on the cards.

Oliver and Woodstock family photos

November 2011

Our wonderful sister-in-law Krista took our family photos this year. The other families turned out great! My family and the big family one however weren't the best. Not because of Krista-but because of our almost 2-yr-old Spencer. He did NOT want to have his picture taken. He was screaming and crying and running off the entire photo shoot. Finally Jamen had to pick him up for our big family one. He held still long enough for us to take the picture but was still pointing to something in the distant. It would have been nice if he had looked like he was our child but I was just so grateful he was in the picture at all I won't complain. The only smile we could get out of him was when he was riding the merry-go-round and I was in the background pretending to fall down(he loves slap-stick comedy). Despite the stress of the day-I did LOVE the picture of me and Steve!

Shadow!

"Of course, I knew it was your shadow the minute I saw it. And I said to myself, “I’ll put it away for him until he comes back. He’s sure to come back”. And you did, didn’t you? After all, one can’t leave his shadow lying about… and not miss it sooner or later, don’t you agree?"
-Wendy from Peter pan

Spencer discovered shadows last night. I was putting him to bed and standing in the hall waiting for him to give Steve a kiss in the living room. The light from Spencer's room made my shadow on the living room wall. Spencer walked by and then suddenly stopped in his tracks and whirled around to look at the wall. He got all excited and yelled "Mommy!" pointing to my shadow. "Yep that's mommy shadow. Look there's Spencer's shadow." And I moved him in position so his shadow would show up on the wall. He was fascinated. He was waving and moving his head from side to side and trying to touch it and follow it. It was so cute. So this morning when he woke up and discovered his shadow was still on the wall he was very excited.