A weekend trip to the zoo

What perfect weather we had this past weekend!  We spent a few hours at the zoo on Saturday.  It was quite fun.  All the animals were out and showing their best stuff.  The orangutans were active and doing funny things, and there was a big pelican walking around the kids area.  Grant had a blast!  We really like going to the zoo together.  

Grant eating a gold fish.
A classic Grant face.

Grant & Keith on the carousel.

Love this guy.  He doesn't do much, but I could watch him for a long time.  He looks so interesting.

Grant is getting a little tired of me trying to take his picture all the time with the new camera that I got for Christmas.   He tells me, "no-no, mom!"

The big pelican.

Going down backwards.

"Hi Mom!"

So thrilled to be there.

Orange Drop Cookies

Our heater was broken today.  So in an effort to warm our place up, baking was in order.  It worked!  I made one of my favorite cookies of the season, Orange Drop Cookies.  So great with it being orange season around these parts.  If you have a plentiful of oranges, or even just a few, I highly recommend trying these.  They are amazing!

Orange Drop Cookies

2/3 cup shortening or butter

3/4 cup white sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup orange juice

2 TBS orange zest

2 cups + 4 TBS flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Cream together shortening/butter, sugar, and egg.  Stir in orange juice & zest.  Combine dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients.  Drop rounded spoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets, 2 inches apart.  Bake 8-10 minutes, or until edges are delicately browned.  Let cool.  Frost.

Orange Drop Cookie Frosting

2-3 TBS butter, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix together and add orange juice a little bit at a time 'till it makes a good frosting.  I also like to add orange zest to this too.

Makes about 30 cookies.  Enjoy!

We still have our tree up

We still have our Christmas tree up.  Last year's tree (Home Depot) dried up to a crisp just a week after we brought it home.  This year we got a tree from Costco.  It is still amazing!  We don't have the heart to get rid of it yet, so we're going to cover it in hearts and decorate it for Valentine's Day!  I'm pretty sure it's going to last 'till then just fine.  Have you ever kept your Christmas tree into February?

When I took the Christmas decor off the tree I found this spider web at the top.  Looks like we've had a resident Christmas spider living with us.  I hope it's gone now!

3 months

It's amazing how time has flown by with this little guy.  Here's what this 3 monther is up to lately:

• sucking on his hands like crazy
• smiling a lot
• cooing
• sleeping 12 hours (on a good night)
• weighs in at 13 pounds 12 ounces
• can't take his eyes off mommy
• loves hearing daddy's voice on the phone
• loves his big brother (even when Grant gets a little crazy with him)
• super alert when he's awake
• absolutely LOVES bath time
• does NOT like having his nose wiped (what kid does?)
• still super cuddly

December 2011

A few quick points from December 2011:

• My sister, Ann, had a sweet baby girl named Hazel.
• My other sister, Amber, came to visit us with her husband and their sweet baby girl Ellie.  They stayed with us for 10 days.  It was fun.  And then all our kids got sick.  We enjoyed staying in a lot and tried to catch up on our sleep.
• We had an appetizer dinner with my family and my cousins.  We started this last year and I think we'll do it every year.  We all bring our favorite appetizer and make a dinner out of it.  Yummy!
• Grant hasn't been to nursery at church for over a month because he's had a bad cough.  He was on breathing treatments for a week, which helped a lot.
• Brett went to the doctor 6 times in December, only one visit was for a well check up.  He is currently on breathing treatments.  Not sure if they're helping, but at least he's happy through it all. He had to get shots three days in a row for his antibiotic for an ear infection.
• Brett spits up.  Everything.  A lot.  And there's nothing we can do about it.  And so we are patiently waiting for his little tummy muscle that holds down food to get stronger so that it will, well, hold down his food!  After a couple nurses at the doctors office recommended it, we tried thickening his formula with rice cereal so that it might stay down better.  It worked for about 2 days.  Argh!
• Keith and I celebrated our 6th anniversary.  We went to dinner, the zoo lights, and then to see Breaking Dawn.  The book was not my favorite of the bunch, and I'd say the movie isn't either.  But we really enjoyed being out alone together.  It had been a while.
• We spent Christmas Eve and part of Christmas day with Keith's family.  We had a fun walk with them on Christmas Eve.  We fed the birds at the park.  We also visited the Fire Station to sing to the Firemen (and woman).  They were so nice and so happy that we came.  They even went out of their way to show us the station and show us the HUGE fire trucks.  I knew the trucks were big, but WOW up close they are so much bigger than I thought they were!  Grant was in heaven.
• We needed some fresh air, so we went on a hike the day after Christmas.  It was fun.  Brett slept the whole time.  Grant did good, but wanted me to carry him at the end.  He's still all about having Mom help him.  I'm trying to convince him that Daddy's a good helper too, but he won't have it.
• Oh ya, Grant got a train track for Christmas.  He was thrilled!  We kept it up for a week and then we made a smaller version of the track so that it won't take up the whole family room.
• Brett had a handsome little red Christmas bow tie with penguins on it.  He's such a doll!

Now, let's look at Grant last year vs. this year.  

He's wearing the same tie and the rest of his outfit is pretty much just like last year.  Look at how much of a big boy he's starting to be.  He starts soccer in a couple weeks!

Hope you all have a wonderful new year!

Brett's baby blessing

Brett had his baby blessing this past Sunday.  It was a great time with lots of family.  

My family with my dad's parents and sister and my cousins family at the Temple Christmas Lights

So sweet in his blessing outfit

Brett with his Great Grandpa Stan

Grant and his cousin Jackson were side by side the whole day

My grandparents with our boys.
They came all the way from Colorado!

My beautiful mom with Brett

My cousin took some great pictures of Brett and all of our family on the blessing day.  So you can look forward to more pictures later!  I can't wait to see them myself.