Christmas Eve at G&G Flandro's

Rob's grandparent's have a Christmas Eve tradition of having all their family over and eating a dinner and then singing carols and listening to a family orchestra play. It was a fun night and is always fun to see cousins that we haven't seen in a long time. We always love it when Ryan and Emily come to town!

This is Jack with his 2nd cousin Dallin McKay. Dallin's dad is Rob's cousin. They live in Phoenix and I think this is the first time the boys really met. I know that Jack was just happy to have someone his size there!:)

Rob and his brothers played some Christmas tunes. I don't get to hear Rob play his trumpet very often and so it was a special treat. You can see that Jack just wanted to be part of the action.

Christmas Eve at the Zoo

We decided to go to the zoo when we read in the paper that the zoo was going to be free on Christmas Eve. I was excited because I love the zoo in the winter less crowds and the animals seem more animated, anyway we got to the zoo and were informed that the paper had printed it wrong and that the free day is going to be on New Years Eve, not Christmas Eve. Well we tried to leave but Jack wanted to go, and I wanted to go so we went back and ended up buying a annual pass! It was great though we basically rented the zoo out for ourselves for $50. We only saw a couple of other people and had a lot of fun seeing the animals. I will admit that it is a little creepy to be the only person around when a leopard appears to be staring you down!

The giraffe's were all inside and Jack was a little afraid of them.

It was cold but manageable. We had a lot of fun dancing around! It was a fun way to spend Christmas Eve day.

My Jack

I just have to write a little bit about how much I love my little Jack Jack. Rob and I often point out the fact that Jack is the oldest child of 2 oldest children and with that probably comes a too much of a I'm in charge attitude. One of the nice things that happens is that he is very conscientious of others, not all the time, but he often notices if someone is not there, or he likes to take his younger cousins by the hand and lead them around and take care of them. Tonight Rob was getting out of the car to go into the house and he said, "Daddy be careful, it is icy out there". I mean seriously the kid is 2! Anyway thanks for indulging me in a little I love Jack time!

Gingerbread House

We had a fun night putting together a gingerbread house. Jack loved it as you can tell from these pictures. The pictures are in reverse order, you would think that I would learn how to blog better by now but oh well. Jeni came up and it was fun to have her around.

Here is Jack Jack with his handy work. He just loved putting all the candy on the roof. He also loved to take the candy off and eat it!

This was a fun thing to do, even with a 2 year old. Thanks Grandma Annie for the Gingerbread House kit.

Here Comes Santa Claus

Jack met Santa Claus this last weekend and he was very nervous, but after watching a few other kids sit on his lap he decided that it would be ok. He was nervous the whole time but he is really into talking about Santa Claus. It was a fun morning.

Rob, Jack, and cousin Sam waiting to see Santa. Nice reindeer ears Rob!:)

Jack enjoying a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, and chocolate milk. Delicious!)

Thanksgiving in Eden

The only pictures of food I have from Thanksgiving, is of the pie! We had a pie baking contest in my family and the pie that Rob and I brought was made from scratch, but not by us. It is that pretty pumpkin one in the middle. Needless to say we lost this contest.

Henry and Jack had fun playing in these tubes. When they play nice they have a fun time together, but when they don't nobody has fun.

Jack and Rob spent some time putting together a table and chairs and as always Jack loves to help and to "do it by myself"!

Firehouse

We had a fun playgroup at one of the Bountiful Fire station.

The firemen told us all about the trucks, and even let the kids sit in the captains chair. After the tour, we even stayed to play at the park which is right next to the Fire station.

House for Sale

As many of you know we are building a new house which we are very excited about, but it also means that we are going to be selling our current house in Bountiful which is a little bittersweet. We have only lived here for 2 1/2 years, but it has been a great house with so many memories and I will be sad when the day comes that we are leaving it.
Rob has created a website www.livebountiful.com with info on our house so if you know any one who is looking or interested pass it on.

Halloween FUN

We had a fun week full of Halloween themed events. We started off the week at Gardner Village. It was fun, but I don't think the kids were into it until the very end when Grandma Annie bought them a sucker. Note to self, buy the suckers at the beginning of the outing. I forget how many great shops that Gardner Village has, it made me excited to head out there someday with out Jack in tow.

The next night we had our neighborhood Trunk or Treat. It was a lot of fun and our friend Matt Harrison who organized it all, thanks Matt, made some delicious homemade donuts. I don't think that I have ever eaten homemade donuts but they were delicious. As you can see in the picture above Jack is trying to get away from me. He didn't like my hat with the spiders on them, he kept telling me to "take it off Mommy, take it off!"

Our Thursday evening was filled up with Pumpkin Carving with John, Ally, & Sam. Jack and Sam were not into putting there hands in the pumpkins, but they liked to watch, and had a fun time.

Since Rob was probably about 10 years old he has ALWAYS carved the same pumpkin face, and that is it. Terrifying isn't it!:) It is the perfect pumpkin as Rob likes to call it. Jack wasn't so sure about it, but he decided to make a scary face along with Daddy.

And finally the grand finale, the night to go Trick or Treating!! Jack only made it to a few doors, mostly because I know if he gets the candy that I will end up eating too much of it. He had fun, and was starting to actually say trick or treat at the doors. As you can see in the picture one of the doors that Jack did make it to was Granddad and Nanna's door. Happy Halloween!!

I Almost Forgot About Hawaii

Jeni and Jack watching a show on the plane ride over. Jack was a great boy on the plane, and it didn't hurt that we gave him a bit of Benadryl to help him out.

Rob and Jack at Pearl Harbor shooting some guns.

Rob and Jack outside of the Memorial.

Playing in the sand. Jack just loved being at the beach and since we have been home he has asked me more than once if we can go to the beach.

We went up the trail to Diamond Head, all of us including Jack, it was a great day and we were able to see as far as our eyes would let us.

Cutting Cookies

A few days ago, Jack got together with some of his cousins to decorate cookies. Later that night when we came home he was telling Rob that he had been "cutting cookies" today. It took me a minute to figure it out, but because he was using the knife to frost cookies he thought he was cutting cookies. I just love to see little kids minds work, it is so literal.

Annie Kate enjoying some ghost cookies.

Grandma Annie and the kiddos.

Jack and I frosting cookies.

Such a cutie!

Here it is the newest addition to our computer family!:) Rob completely suprised me by getting the new aluminum MacBook for me. This sort of makes the old computer crashing not as hard to take. Thanks Robby I love you!

Isn't it so pretty!!!

The Blue Screen of Death

I was blogging the other day, uploading pictures, I hit done, go upstairs come back down and there it was........the blue screen telling me that there may be a problem. My computer is totally gone. It has just stopped, has just given up, it is all gone. At least our pictures are on our other computer and we back that one up regularly, but not mine. If you read this blog post send me your address, I lost all of those.

2 Boys 2 Birthdays

This past week was a busy one for our family 2 of the 3 of us celebrated a birthday last week. Rob's birthday was on the 13th, and our little Jack Jack turned 2 on the 15th. We had a great birthday celebration at Nanna & Granddad's house, I think you can see how excited Jack was. He even loved the cake with spiders and ghosts on it, that is Jack flying one of the ghosts around!:)

A great new bike from Nanna & Granddad!

Jack is very into cars right now, not just the show Cars, but ALL cars. It is fun to see him get so excited when he opens presents. He really loved this red race car.

And if you think that only 1 party was enough, you are wrong, my boys were lucky enough to have 2 parties! When we came back from our trip the Clegg family had a cake and some ice cream and sang Happy Birthday. We only had to light the candle a few times so Jack could blow it out again, and again, and again. Aren't birthday's great!
The video below shows one of Jack's presents from Grandma Annie & Papa. I think he was pretty excited.

New House

A view from the front of our new house. It is coming along.

It looks a lot more complete than this now, but you can get a sense for what it looks like. This is our garage and a fun bonus room up above the garage.

Ellie's Baptism

Jack's cousin Ellie was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on October 11th. Jack liked watching Ellie go under the water and wanted her to do it again. Congratulations Ellie!

Pumpkin Patch '08

Jack and I went out to the pumpkin patch with 2 of my good friends Rachael and Jodi and their kids. It was a lot of fun, but super cold and windy. We walked around, picked pumpkins, ran through a hay maze, and just had a great time. A cute quick story for my brother. My brother Garrett's wife is named Rachael, and so when Jack and I were at the pumpkin patch and my friend Rachael arrived I said hey there is Rachael, and then a minute or so later Jack said to me, "Mommy, where is Garrett?" So even though we don't get to see Garrett & Rachael that often Jack still know who you are.

Jack and Luke running around in the hay maze.

Jack checking out all of the pumpkins.

An action shot, these pumpkins are heavy! We picked up a lot of pumpkins and dropped a lot of pumpkins.

Standing on top of the pumpkin. He is smiling now if I can just get him to look at the camera!

This adorable little girl is Lily and she is the oldest daughter of my good friend Rachael. She is so cute and just full of personality.

Jack and Luke, who is Jodi's boy, had fun running around. They both had on the same Halloween shirt such cuties.