Ava Seven Months

I know I just officially posted about Ava being six months old but as of today January 13th she is seven months old :( Her sweet and bubbly personality radiates through every room -we all just adore her. She reminds us daily how much fun it is to be a parent. Ok, I realize that might sound horrible given the fact that we have two other children. Let's just say the other two have been testing the waters a lot lately and definitely taking its toll. However, that is a story for another day ;)

Where did everyone go?..............................................There they are!

Yep, this little one has started making her way around the family room! Her crawl needs some improvement but she can pretty much get where she wants to go. If you set her down in one place she will be about 5 -10 feet away from there when you return. She is excellent at moving backwards. Thankfully I got a new vacuum for Christmas because it is being put to use almost daily to ensure that nothing is on the floor that she will put in her mouth. I was trying to capture some videos of her crawling but she wasn't up for it. Doesn't help that she kept getting her little bum stuck under the chair. They still made me laugh so I had to share.

We have been trying all different kinds of veggies for the last few weeks. As you can tell by the video she is not a fan, but her spitting it getting to have quite the range. I usually just take whatever vegetable we are having and blend it well before I add in the butter or any other seasonings for her. Maybe in a few more weeks she'll decide it really isn't too bad.

Ava has been loving playing with toys! Each day the boys pull out new toys for her and she always gets so excited. The other day she sat on the floor in her boppy for just over an hour happily playing. 

I am not sure why she finds this so entertaining. This is her favorite toy.

She is also extremely grabby handed! The boys think it is hilarious -even if she is tearing apart their face.

It is fun to dump out the boys toys especially when they have just cleaned them up. Thankfully they love her so much that they just laugh and clean it up when she is done, just in time for her to dump them again. 

 

All dress are also chew toys.

 

Love these kids so much! I can't believe how fast they are all growing up. I also like that Ava is all dolled up in this picture, the boys are still in their underwear :/ Just another typical day at the MacNair house :)

Snow!

We were so excited to get more snow this week! The boys spent the morning outside before school building a fort with daddy. Then they spent the evening building snowmen...ummm looking good daddy ;) Nothing like wearing shorts and a coat to take care of the snow on the driveway.

The boys are loving the snowman kits they got for Christmas this year! Ian's has the perfect Olaf face (from Disney's Frozen) and Aaron's snowman was just his size! 

We are looking forward to next week! Swimming lessons in the morning and skiing lesson in the afternoon. It is going to be a great winter.

New Years

We decided to brave the crowds and we headed out for dinner on New Year's Eve! Aaron loved sitting and cuddling with Nan while we waited for our dinner, and Ian was having fun beating Papa at tic-tac-toe! At least that is how Ian tells the story ;)

We never usually celebrate New Year's Eve since Tim is always working. Tim was working again this year and we were all pretty tired. The kids went to bed at the normal time 7:30 pm -I know mean mom. Then we stayed up and watched the movie "Dutch." Alright, I can remember watching this movie as a child with my parents and grandparents. It is a great movie -but not suitable for young children :/ We were all a little surprised and I may need to have a conversation with my parents and grandparents about parent supervision warnings. While we were all in bed and asleep by about 10:30 pm we all woke up to the loud banging at midnight. Fireworks were going off everywhere -so the kids sat out on the porch with Nan and watched the fireworks then headed to bed. 

What better way to start the New Year then skiing as a family! It was a beautiful day at Sundance and the boys had a blast skiing. Ian went down the mountain probably 10-12 times and everyone did their best to keep up with him. Aaron also went down the mountain probably 5-7 times. They could not get enough!

Ava and I had fun hanging out in the lodge and talking to people -it was a busy day and Ava attracted a lot of attention. Everyone one would come up and talk about how cute and happy she was -I could only agree and say "thank you" because it was all true :) 

Everyone coming down the mountain...Ian first (orange), Nan to the side (blue), Jim just behind them (red), and Tim with Aaron as the caboose. 

That night everyone was tired so the entire house was asleep by 7pm -with the exception of Ava and I. Too bad for all of them because she was a giggly little thing.

Then next day we relaxed and hung out around the house and celebrated Christmas again :) Nana and Papa got Aaron some Ninja Turtle weapons and Ninja turtle pillow pet that he loves! Yes, these weapons have also joined the ever growing pile of painful toys on top of the refrigerator. 

Ava discovered that her brothers also have fun toys -and was quite excited to get her hands on this transformer.

After spending a day relaxing nothing more to do then hit the slopes again! This time the whole family did not go -which Aaron was not happy about! The headed to Brighton and to say that Ian had a blast would be an understatement. This boy skied from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm with a small break for lunch. He had a blast in lessons and started doing very well turning with parallel skies -versus snowplowing through turns. 

Everyone arrived home and Aaron had helped set the table for dinner, and was excited everyone was back! We spent most of our day watching clips from Disney's "Frozen." Which we absolutely love! Aaron decided that he wanted to go and see Frozen with everyone so after dinner we all headed out to  the theater! This might possibly be favorite Disney film! We all love it -you can usually hear one of the boys (including Tim) singing the songs at some point throughout the day. We can't wait until it comes out on DVD in March!

Some footage of Ian practicing using his edge to turn. Make sure your sound is turned down so the wind sound doesn't hurt your ears.

That night Ava was a little cuddle bug and was making us all laugh at her squeaky binky! Make sure your sound is turned back on :)

The last day the boys had fun playing playing with Nana and Papa. They played doctor, built forts, and enjoyed laughing with each other.

 Ava also had fun working on her Yoga skills :) Strong little princess!

It has been a wonderful Holiday break -I can't believe that the kids will be starting back to school on Monday. We had a lot of fun times this holiday season. So notable things that happened this week... I gave Tim some new board games for Christmas (it was one of those look what I got for you gifts that was just as much a gift for myself) and we all enjoyed playing games together throughout the week. Let it be know that Blockus should be a game played in silence there is no need to speak during the game ever! Yet, even after everyone conspired against me I still managed to take the win -mwa ha ha ha :)  We also enjoyed playing Qwirkle -Ian caught onto the rules very quickly. JCW's quickly became a favorite! We discovered that a small shake is really an extra large and that Aaron loves Egg nog.  We also learned that when daddy is tired all parenting rules can be disregarded. I witnessed this when Aaron was eating a bowl of ketchup with a spoon. Gross! We have had so much fun being together with family and friends this holiday season and are sad to see it come to an end.

The Aftermath

Many people talk about how much they dislike the day after Christmas. Apparently it is depressing. However, on December 26th we stay in our pjs again all day! Yep -the pajamas we put on for Christmas Eve! Think what you want, we were having a blast relaxing, playing, and enjoying time together as a family! It was like Christmas all week long at our house. The kids kept getting presents from their Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. We also enjoyed building one Lego set after another it is scary how good Ian is at building Legos! We work together to find the Lego pieces and Ian follows the instruction booklet and builds it. Aaron is sometimes allowed to help be the finder. Lately Aaron likes to steal the Lego pieces and hide them. Do you see that picture of his mischievous face below. I just supervise and let the boys know if they need to fix a piece and try to ensure that Aaron doesn't hide the pieces. I am not sure it was a good idea for Santa to bring these boys so many Legos with Ava looking like she is about to take off crawling. We are definitely going to need to enlist some Lego rules.

My family all headed out Thursday afternoon and we had a couple days to wash towels and sheet before Tim's family arrived on Saturday!

Christmas 13'

Ian woke up that night at midnight to us the restroom -Tim was up getting ready to head in to work (he had a six hour shift from 1am to 7am. Ian spotted that some of the stockings had been filled and realized that Santa came and was probably downstairs. He also came to the conclusion that if Santa came that meant he was good this year! I was able to convince him to quickly go back to bed -after a couple hours he managed to settle down and fall back asleep. Only to wake up a couple hour later at 5 am -yes, I did make him go back to bed. After our long night I ended up being awake before both of the boys and was able to enjoy a nice long shower and relax. Then they both came running into the family room around 9 am, just after Tim got home.

The boys loved opening their stockings. Ian was so excited to see that he got glitter pens and will breakfast was cooking he went right to work coloring and writing. Aaron was very excited about the Monster's shampoo -the bottle is shaped just like Sully. Santa even Grandma and Grandpa some treats in their shoes -just like they do in Germany. Ava was not too thrilled about what was in her stocking -everyone else thought it was funny. 

I think the boys would have been happy the rest of the day had we left it at that. We relaxed and enjoyed eating breakfast and then eventually decided to head downstairs to see if Santa left anything else.

The kids were so excited! Ava was a little confused by everything going on but was loving all the wrapping paper and tags! Aaron opened up a ninja turtle costume from Santa first and was a Ninja turtle the rest of the day. It was hilarious! He also got ninja turtle weapons -which have been placed on top of the refrigerator because they hurt. clothes, Legos, Ninja Turtles, airplanes, games, arts and crafts, Infintiy, these kids are way to loved. 

Andrew was able to get some fun shots of the boys!

I absolute love the look in Ian's face -pure joy!

Just like that Christmas was over! 

The rest of the day we spent hanging out in our pajamas, enjoys a Christmas feast, and laughing with and at each other. The Well's family was able to come down and join us for dinner which was wonderful! We rarely saw the boys the rest of the day -they were always off doing coloring or Legos. We also heard a lot of Chuck Norris jokes that day. I am not sure how Christmas and Chuck Norris relate but leave it to our family to somehow make that work :)

Finally that night we were able to get some pictures of all of us in our Christmas Pajamas. It was no easy task -look what Andrew had to work with ;)

It was a wonderful Christmas and we feel so lucky and blessed to be able to enjoy the day with those that we love! Hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Eve

My family was able to come down a little early so Tim and I could head out on a date the weekend before Christmas! I always love the Sunday before Christmas everyone dresses up extra nice and festival, the choir sings, and the Christmas lessons. 

And then on the way home everyone gets stuck on the mountain side due to the snow and slick roads and practices a few donuts in their driveway :) Wait...you did not do that as well? Maybe that part was just us. However a lot of cars were stuck on the hill side. I think the entire Elders Quorem and Priesthood were outside helping push cars up the hills. Our van was not going anywhere -actually we were sliding backwards. My dad hook the van up to the truck and pulled us up the hill. And we could still barely make it into the driveway. It was then that we discovered new tires were definitely needed!  Summer tires that are bald -do not work well in the snow!

On Monday my grandparents head down to our house and I headed to the doctors office with this little boy! Pink eye :( It was nasty pink eye too! So while we were away everyone at home grabbed some clorox wipes and started wiping down all the light switches, door knobs, everything. We made sure everyone washed their hands a gazillion times and thankfully the only other person that got it was Ian. The nurses at the doctors office loved Aaron. The nurse though he was so cute she just had to bring him in juice and a treat. When we left they asked Aaron if Santa was going to come. Aaron said, "Santa doesn't come for a couple more days." He was right -I am pretty sure we also had the boys convinced that they would be getting coal as well. 

We headed out the The Spagetti Factory that night to celebrate my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary along with our 8th anniversary (just sounds funny when you compare it to 60). Aaron and my mom hung out at home and watched movies.

The next day was Christmas Eve! We relaxed around the house and enjoyed watching one Christmas movie after another...How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Elf, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Prep n' landing. We ended the night in normal fashion setting out the plate of Christmas cookies and milk for Santa, spreading out the food for the Reindeer on the snow, reading the story of the birth of Christ in our scriptures, and ending the evening with The Night Before Christmas. All while sipping on some hot chocolate and wassail.

As you can see from this picture everyone was well entertained with the stories being read...

I will never ever forget the ending Tim read of The Night Before Christmas..."Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. Mwa ha ha ho ho!" Yes everyone paused and listened intently. Apparently Santa had an evil laugh? The boys looked slightly disturbed and confused -until we all busted out laughing. He tried to cover it and did pretty well but what was done was done. That silly daddy :)

Christmas Card 2013

Merry Christmas! It was brought to my attention that some people did not notice the disclaimer inside the envelop. Just in case you missed it or we by chance forgot to send you a card (sorry) here you go! Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!