Happy Merry Thanksmas!

This week was a long one. Last weekend, we traveled to Idaho Falls to see my Grandpa who has been in the hospital now with pnemonia for over 2 weeks. We stayed for 3 days and drove home just in time for a very unseasonal snowstorm to hit. This was good and bad. Wednesday, Grandma and Grandpa Dyer came from Atlanta to celebrate Thanksgiving with us and also Christmas since we won't see them again until next year. This was the good thing about the snow - it truly was like a white Christmas for them with Thanksgiving dinner somewhere in the middle. Thanksgiving was bittersweet for me - I miss my family knowing that my Grandpa wasn't able to celebrate it like he would want. I was glad I was able to see him beforehand, however. Currently, he is getting better and hopefully will be moved out of ICU within the next couple of days.

Sloane isn't allowed to touch the ornaments so she gets around this by kissing them :)

We did celebrate Christmas early with the Dyers, which was fun for Sloane to get to open some of her presents early!

Sloane's new chair!

We also went the festival of trees and watched lots of football and made cookies!
Grandmas are much more patient with sugar cookies and their mess tolerance level is extremely high.)

Porter watching football with Grandpa DyerAt the Festival of TreesMaking sugar cookies!I think Sloane ate more frosting than what actually went on the cookies

Finally, with all of the great snow, Phil and Sloane made their very first snowman! It was so cute to see them playing together out in the snow. This was a long week but we're sad that it's over. Bring on the holidays!!

Sloane giving her new snowman a hug. "I love you snowman!"

Mischeif and other cute pics...

Porter sitting in his bumbo just looking cute

I Love Mom

That's a pretty big fish Grandma!

What Grandpas do best.

A rare tender moment

Sloane has fallen asleep lately in some pretty weird places:

The floor (yes she sleeps in this position sometimes)

Her highchair

On Daddy

GO BIG BLUE!

Sloane has been getting into some mischief lately, too

Fun with toilet paper

Not playing with those blocks anytime again soon

Should have been napping...

Atlanta!

It just so happened this year that a big aviation event that Phil goes to every year was in Atlanta. This is great for us because it allows us to kill 2 birds and go as a family to see Phil's mom and pops. Trekking across the country with 2 children under 2 is no easy task, so this year we decided to divide and conquer. Phil took Sloane 2 days before and I followed with Porter. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Sloane got to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Dyer for a whole week and Phil and JJ got to stay in the swanky W hotel where someone else made the bed for us every day. It was nice.

Sloane on the airplane with Dumbo.Porter hanging out on the big, fluffy W Hotel bed

One of the cool things we did there this year was visit the Georgia aquarium which is one of the largest aquariums in the world. Sloane was awestruck (me too) at how big the place was and at all of the huge displays.

JJ also got to experience a Waffle House for the first time, along with the Varsity Drive in.

We also had some family pictures done at Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, but that's another blog. Grandma and Grandpa Dyer had a small party with their friends that we attended also and celebrated Sloane's birthday there, too.

Sloane having spaghetti at MaggianosNordstorm!

Coming home was the worst part. Delayed on the ramp for 2 hours with a mechanical issue, 4 hours in the air, 1 missed connection in Salt Lake, another 3 hour wait for another flight and getting home at midnight was rough but Sloane was a champ and gave us all she could. Troopers.

Sloane's birthday!

Can you believe that Sloane turned 2 this year? We had a great party for her. Now I know what you might be thinking - 2 year olds don't really get birthday parties and some consider it tacky to have a birthday party for a 2 year old HOWEVER, it happened to be a big BSU game that day and we love to have parties for the broncos and party with our friends any excuse we get, so..... it just worked out. Our friends are good sports and showed up in full Bronco gear! We will never tell Sloane that her 2nd birthday party was actually a BSU party - with a Little Einsteins theme, of course.

Halloween!

Oh boy. It's already december and I see that the last blog was of the Trailing of the Sheep Festival in Sun Valley. That means that I have LOTS to catch up on between then and now. Including a trip to Atlanta, Halloween, Sloane's birthday, family photo shoots, Thanksgiving, etc etc. Better get started!

One of Sloane's favorite shows in the whole world is The Little Einsteins. If you don't know who the Little Eintsteins are, I'll give you a brief synopsis: 4 geeky kids fly around in a red rocket on adventures and each episode features a different piece or style of art and artist and a different classical composer and piece. A picture:

Of course, we knew exactly what to be this year! Porter was a pilot (what else would he be?!)