Random December Phone Pics

Two spoons are way better than one.

After Christmas we decided to let Boston ride forward facing in his car seat.
He is a big fan of the switch!

Meet the newest member of the family!
After spending weeks in the shop for a recall, we realized our old car needed more work than she was worth.
So we got a new one, that hopefully won't need any work for a long time!

Boston decided it was time to clean out Riley's side of the closet.

Silly baby

Cookie Monster strikes again!I made a bunch of cookies to take to neighbors this year and had them stacked in neat piles on the counter. Boston was going crazy for a cookie, so I gave him an unfrosted sugar cookie. A minute later I see him eating a chocolate chip cookie, and notice just one cookie missing from a stack near the edge of the counter- as usual, higher than I thought he could reach!

The Christmas fun with my family wore Boston out.
He was so tired he let me snuggle him while he was sleeping!

We were in my bedroom and I kept hearing Boston say "ah oh." When I turned around, he would be in the doorway behind me smiling. So I thought he was just being silly. When we came downstairs, I realized he had been dropping my socks down from the loft, one by one. He would then say "ah oh" as he was running back to get another pair. Such a cute little stinker!

Isn't this what the toy box is for?

Christmas 2013!

I was pretty excited about Christmas this year, so I put the decorations up as soon as we got home after Thanksgiving. Boston started out really well. I didn't put out anything extremely fragile or breakable and tried to make sure he couldn't do any serious damage. He was super worried about the garland at first (didn't even want me to go near it :)) and he left the Christmas tree alone for the first few weeks. After that he would take off the sparkly ornaments and bring them to me and say "Ooooo." He would also randomly point at the lights around the house and say "Ooooo."

Because he was so cute about the lights, we took him to see the holiday display at Ethel M Cactus Garden. It was a night full of Oooos and aahhhs and he loved following and holding hands with our friend's kids. And it all ends with free chocolate - a win for everyone (Boston shoved the whole piece in his mouth and ate it in one bite).

We also took Boston to see santa at the Bass Pro Shop. The line was really long, so Riley and I took turns walking around the store with him. He loved the animals and the fish, again, lots of Oooos. Santa on the other hand, he wasn't a big fan of, which kind of makes me like the pictures even more :).

For the actual holiday, we headed to Riley's parent's house in E-Town. Riley's sister was also there with her kids and it was awesome! Boston thought playing with, chasing and watching her girls was way more fun than anything santa could bring. I agree with him on that one, Christmas is way more fun with little kids. Seeing them get so excited was a lot fun.

Christmas Jammies!

Even though he probably would have had just as much fun watching the other kids open their gifts, Boston also got spoiled. He was a bit timid about opening his presents, but he got the hang of it and had lots of fun playing with his new toys.

Opening Presents!

After Boston found food in his stocking,
he had to take a snack break.

Time to play with these new toys!

Boston got a new basketball hoop.

I'm not sure who had more fun with it- Boston, Riley, or Great-Grandpa Phelps :).

(This was taken after we got home)

My mother-in-law also got a bunch of Nerf Guns for "the kids." These may not be the kids she had in mind, but they had lots of fun :).

The day after Christmas, we headed up to Brigham City to exchange gifts with my family. Even though I forgot to take pictures, we had a lot of fun!

Then we were going to head back to Vegas for New Years. But about halfway home, Boston and I decided we were sick of the car. We were able to convince my in-laws to come get us in Cedar City, so Boston and I went back to Enterprise. Riley came home to work for a day, then came back to spend New Years playing games with his family.

It was a great trip and holiday season. We feel so lucky to have been able to spend it with our great families!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we headed to northern Utah to spend some time with my family. Our trip got off to a rough start, thanks to a broken dryer and a recall on our car (two+ weeks in the shop!). But we were able to stay with Riley’s sister on the way up, and that made up for the trouble we started out with. It was fun to see them and always amazes me how much their kids change and grow in just a few weeks!

We then had a few days to hang out with my family and see some of my extended family that we hadn’t seen in several years (there were 60+ people at my grandma’s house for Thanksgiving dinner!). We also had my aunt take some family pics, and participated in some of the craziest Thanksgiving-crashing-black-Friday shopping I have ever been involved in (it was like a rock concert with the crowd trying to rush the stage, inside Walmart).

The day after Thanksgiving Riley and I got to take advantage of some free babysitting and go see Catching Fire. It was really good and I’m super excited for the next one!

Saturday we managed to convince almost my entire family (minus one sister) to go bowling with us. Boston loved it! They had a ramp type-thing, so he could push the ball down the lane all by himself. He was so cute! As soon as he saw the ramp, he knew it was his turn and would take off running for it. Boston even rolled a few strikes. He was clapping and there were hi-fives after every turn! For the record, even with Boston’s help, my parents trashed all of us!

Random Phone Pictures

Boston does lots of silly, cute, little stinker type things. So many that I would be much more than a few months behind if I tried to write about each of them. Instead, I'm just going to post a bunch of pics. Enjoy :)

Getting into trouble, and using everything, including his mom, as a step stool. 

Look who finally has enough hair to have bedhead!!

Chasing birds can be dangerous if you start running too fast and fall on the sidewalk :(.

Cookie Monster!
Boston managed to pull a whole batch of chocolate chip cookies off the counter while they were cooling. He was extremely happy with himself, and sat right in the middle of the mess to taste them. I let him finish a cookie in his high chair while I cleaned up (but didn't think fast enough to get a pic of him on the floor with all of the cookies). *For the record, this was not his first, or his last attempt as a cookie bandit. 

I have cute pictures of Boston as a newborn and at six months with his bear.
When I tried to take one year pictures, he ran away.

Uncle Tyler came down for a surprise visit!
We went to Olive Garden and the boys wanted to know "Where's Aunt Jenn?"  (she works at the OG in Ogden, UT).

Ragnar!

The Las Vegas Ragnar is a team relay race that covers 187 miles in about 30 hours. I’m not sure why I thought this would be fun, but it somehow made it onto my bucket list. Since I had a friend who was putting together a team, I decided to go for it.  Because running a Ragnar is crazy, we decided to add a bit of silly fun and run wearing tutus J. I was also able to (thanks in part to the tutus) convince my aunt Brenda and uncle Jamison to join our team. We were in the second van, so we didn’t start running until about 2 in the afternoon (Van one started at 8:30 up on Mount Charleston). It was possibly the longest morning of my life! Boston did a pretty good job to keep us entertained, but it was really hard to wait around while we were nervous and ready to run.

Ready to Run!!

I was the first runner for my van, and was worried I would have trouble spotting my team’s runner (a friend’s husband) at the exchange, so the fun kicked off with him running his first leg in a tutu (sorry no picture). He started a nice trend and I think most of the guys on my team ran at least one leg in a tutu, which definitely made them much easier to spot!

Silly Ragnar Fun

My first leg/run was 5.5 miles, with a lot more and also steeper hills than I was expecting. But I managed to finish and even ran a bit faster than my expected pace. Then I got to stretch and cheer on my teammates as the rest of my teammates went for their first run.

After a bite to eat and a quick trip home to put my baby to bed, my van was ready for the next round. Because these runs were happening at night, each runner is also allowed to have a support runner. I conned my friend and running buddy Rushelle into running with me. Our run started at Spring Mountain State Park and went down the highway past the small town of Blue Diamond, heading back into Las Vegas. It was just under six miles and a great run that I plan to do again sometime! Thanks to some help from the decline, it was also a quick run. We were able to keep our pace just under 8 minutes a mile (7:45 minutes a mile if you go by Rushelle’s tracker), which was about 30 seconds faster than I was expecting, making it that much more fun J.  Because it was such a good run, and because she is amazing, Rushelle then decided to run with the rest of the ladies in my van. Her grand total for the night was something like 21 miles, like I said- amazing!

After we all checked off our second run, we were able to come home for a quick shower and to sleep for about 2 hours. Followed by a wild awakening when a teammate from van one called to let us know they were about an hour ahead of schedule and we needed to get to the exchange in Henderson- fast! We didn’t even have time to park. As soon as we got to the exchange I jumped out, and was off on my final run.  The adrenaline from the crazy exchange kept me crusin for about the first mile, then the hills got me, again (I definitely should have trained better for them).  Once I made it past the worst of the hills, I was ready to finish strong. As I started the last mile, I was gearing up to pass the only runner I could see before the exchange. I passed him, only to hear footsteps quickly closing in on me a few seconds later.  I really did not want to let him get a head of me, so I picked up my pace, until I realized I wouldn’t make it to the exchange if I had to keep going at that speed. I gave in and let him pass. He must have also realized he couldn’t keep that speed slowed down. I passed him again, and once again soon heard footsteps picking up speed behind me. I was not about to let him get the best of me again, pushing me to sprint to the finish (don’t worry, I beat him). It was a great way to wrap up my part of the race. It also pushed me to some of the fastest miles I was able to run, which was good because I needed them to balance out the slowest miles I ran during the race when those hills hit J.

Not the best screen grab, but it shows how fast,
 and slow I ran during my last leg.

My teammates then rocked some beautiful and crazy hard runs to finish out the race. In the end, my van was able to cross the finish-line together (plus I carried Boston, which he loved!).

Cute Sign Riley and Boston Made

In the end, the Las Vegas Ragnar was a great experience and wonderful chance to get to know some amazing people. This post could go on and on with their inspiring stories. But because this is already way too long I will limit myself to just a few more.

Ragnar attracts people from all over, who are running for all kinds of reasons, most of them silly, but some are inspiring. While most of us were struggling to run without carrying anything, this man kept Old Glory flying through the race. Another man did the race from his wheelchair. He hit a bump on the final stretch and lost a wheel, several people jumped in to help him put it back on, and he continued to the finish line.

These two amazing people made me proud to be an American, and also grateful for the chance I had to run the race “Micah Strong”.  Earlier this year my cousin Micah was targeted by an IED while deployed in Afghanistan. The explosion took both of his legs and left him fighting for his life.  He survived and is now working to recover with an outlook and attitude that are truly inspiring. If you need some inspiration in your life, check out this link to learn more of his story- you will not regret it.

Halloween in Full Force

You know those families who have perfect matching costumes each year and look totally awesome on Halloween- we are NOT one of them. I’m just not very good at thinking of, or executing that kind of plan. That being said, I think this year was a touchdown (pun intended), or at least as good as it is likely to get for us.  Boston and Riley were football players and because I couldn’t find them matching jerseys, I was the referee.  Instead of trying to have Boston toddle around the neighborhood to trick-or-treat, we headed to the Trunk-or-Treat our ward was hosting. It didn't take Boston long to figure out that all he had to do was hold his hand out and someone would put a candy in it. For a while he was happy to get the candy then drop it in his bag. Then he decided it was more fun to find people to hand his candy back to. Usually the candy had already been drooled on, so he didn’t find many takers. But it was still cute and nice of Boston to share, since we totally ran out of candy (in my defense, I thought I had bought oodles).

We then headed to Jamba Juice, where they were giving out free smoothies for kids who were dressed up. Silly me, I thought if Boston had his own smoothie, he would leave mine alone. I was very wrong. Even though I had to fight for my drink, this was definitely our favorite part of the night!

Fall Fun

Winter in Las Vegas is great. Spring is nice. Summer is hot, but doable. When Fall hits, I get homesick. I love the changing leaves and the nice fall chill that hits in Northern Utah.  Instead of being bummed out about it, we decided to try some Fall-type activities here in Vegas. In other words, we hit up a few Pumpkin Patches. The first attempt was on a Saturday, and the place was packed. Instead of fighting to get away, Boston wouldn’t let us put him down. The next try was during the week, and not busy at all. That time Boston took off and ran around like he owned the place. It was not quite the fall fun I grew up with, but it took the edge off. And I really do love the warm sunshine.

One Year Old Pictures

My awesome friend took Boston's pictures just after his first birthday. We went out to the little town of Blue Diamond and just walked around finding cute spots. I think they turned out pretty dang cute!

Boston’s 12 Month Stats

At 12 months old Boston weighs 21 pounds, 12 ounces and is 29 inches tall. He has 8 teeth: 4 on top, 4 on bottom, plus his first set of molars are starting to come in on the bottom.

He runs all over the place and loves to empty things out, then try and sit in them (things like the cupboards, toy basket- really any kind of basket).

He says: Mama, Daddy, Hi, Bye, Ball and Duck.

His favorite toys are his push car, a set of silicone Christmas tree cupcake molds, his bear, and any kind of ball.

His favorite books are The Silly Safari Bus, and Playtime Peek-a-Boo.

His favorite food is chocolate chip pancakes.

He uses everything as a phone.

He also loves dogs and thinks swings are awesome!