Botanical Garden Lights and More

First off, Happy 2 and 1/2 to this little man!!!

Dec 13th was his half birthday.

And yes...he is still excited about taking his yellow car outside at the "new house".

And Friday will be Happy 4 months to this little guy!!

(he was born Aug 17th)

In an attempt to do some fun holiday things this Christmas, we went to the Bellevue Botanical Garden Christmas Lights. For all you Utahns, it's like the closest thing we have to the Temple Square Lights - haha!

I say "attempt" to do something festive, because, it was pouring down rain and freezing cold while we were there. I think the kids stayed pretty bundled up and warm, but Will and I were freeeeeeeeeeezing.

These light displays were pretty sweet thought. Normally throughout the year they have flower gardens, but at Christmas time they make gardens out of Christmas lights. They really do put on an impressive display.

All I can say is....I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.

Week 3 Vlog

All He's Been Talking About...

So many of you know that we are searching for a bigger house to move into. Well, Preston has one of those huge race cars that you sit in and can drive around - only we keep it in his room to sit in because we don't want to haul it up and down our flight of 24 stairs (it's HEAVY). So he's actually never been able to drive it outside yet.

Well, the other day, I told him that when we move to the "new house" he'll get to drive his yellow car outside.

For the past 3 days, ALL he has done is push his yellow car around his room and say "Get the yellow car out at da NEW house!!".

He is soooooooooooooo excited. It's very cute. Too bad 2 year olds don't really get the concept of time and he doesn't realize that we probably won't be moving into a new house for a while yet.

In other news, Taylor has discovered his tongue. Pictures to come soon.

Week 2 Weigh In Vlog

What's Up with the Thomas Family?

Our poor neglected family blog.

I would love to be able to look back someday and read about all of the wonderful Christmas experirences the Thomas family had in 2010...if I could only just find the time to blog about them!

So instead, I shall give you a short, condensed version of what we've been up to...

~ Will ~

Job hunting. Painting houses. Scouts. Re-arranging our bedroom into his office. Playing with the boys. Bought a bunch of sweet shoes at a sample sale and resold on eBay and made bank. Bought some old school Nintendo games on eBay. Just got picked to run in the Western States 100 Mile race in June 2011 (superbowl of trail running races). Fixed the alternator in his car all by himself. Helped out with a local 5K race on Thanksgiving.

(Sorry I don't have any recent photos of Will this time)

~ Jenni ~

Taking care of the boys. Accompanying violin students. Performing in a string ensemble for Christmas events. Playing in a symphony for The Messiah. Decorating the house with Christmas decorations. Baking. Exercising. (Those last two shouldn't be side by side). House hunting. Writing (for WTE blog). Making Taylor laugh. Finally saw the 3rd Twilight movie. Has been easily stressed out.

~ Preston ~

Helping Mom put up the Christmas tree (we decided to do a small tree this year since we are short on space right now). Playing with trains. Playing with cars. Playing with the stable and nativity scene that Grandma gave him. Watching Toy Story 3. Going for walks with Mom. Helping Dad empty the garbages. Going to a birthday party for another boy in nursery. Talking a LOT. Enjoying cereal a lot right now. Going poopy on the big boy toilet seat. Going to bed too late and waking up too early.

~ Taylor ~

Busy being cute. Chews on his fingers a lot. Great eye contact. Holding neck up like a pro. Giggles and laughs. Squeals and screams a lot (it is funny). Still wakes up WAY too often during the night to eat, and wakes up WAY too early in the morning. Loves to watch Preston. Is wearing 6 month clothing even though he is only 3.5 months (they are just slightly too big). Is a really good baby and people often say that they have never even heard him cry before.

~ Other Stuff ~

We haven't really been telling people because it's not official yet or anything and we have no idea when or where, but we are looking to move. We've been living at our current residence for over 3 years, and when we originally moved in, it was just Will and I. Since then we have become a little family of four and 2 bedrooms/1 bath is no longer enough.

The boys are not at a stage where they can sleep in the same room together, and so Taylor has been in our room - which is fine because even if we had a lot of bedrooms he would have been with us for the first few months anyway. But it does make it inconvenient for everyone during the day - since he sleeps a lot, it makes the bedroom off limits. Preston often plays right outside the door and wakes him up. Recently Will got frustrated with having his computer in the kitchen and not having the quiet time to concentrate to apply to jobs - so he moved his computer into our bedroom. So now our bedroom is his "office", so Taylor has been kicked out of our room and the bathroom is now his room. So now Taylor and Preston are sharing the same wall and are constantly waking each other up with their noises (Taylor's crying, and Preston's talking).

We are just kind of on top of each other. Nobody is getting very much sleep lately. We are all kind of frustrated and feeling a little cramped. We would also just like our own space with a yard and the freedom to do more.

So we've actually been looking at rental homes up where my parents live on Camano Island. The prices are cheaper - we can basically get twice the house for the price we are paying now. Since Will is not working, we can technically live anywhere. So for the time being it would be fun to live closer to Grandma and Grandpa and pay cheaper rent. And have more space.

We haven't found anything yet, but we've already looked at a couple. We are just waiting for the right home to pop up.

So anyway, it could be as soon as next month if we find something. We will be heading up again this week to look at some more homes.

In other news, we have been having a great Christmas season so far. This past week we went to our stake's Nativity Festival twice - because it was so good. It was at the church building right behind the Seattle Temple. I'd never seen an LDS church decked out so much - they had decorations everywhere. It was impressive how much detail went into that event. It was very spiritual and uplifting - and a really wonderful way to kickstart the Christmas season.

We are planning to have an FHE tomorrow on Christmas to teach Preston about it. He knows that Christmas is Jesus's birthday and that is why we give presents. But that is about all he knows so far. I suppose this will probably be the last year of Christmas before he starts asking for presents and knows about Santa, etc. So we should probably enjoy this while it lasts :)

We are planning to go to Will's family's house for Christmas this year. Hopefully the roads will be forgiving, and our kids will last the 14+ our car ride. I'm really not looking forward to that part at all. We will be looking to borrow a DVD player for our car :)

Vlog - Week 1 Weigh In

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Here is my Week 1 Weigh-in...

Hopefully I'll get a chance soon to do some blogs about the fam. This time of year is always very busy as a musician. I have 3 performances this week, a 4 hour dress rehearsal on Saturday, and have already had 3 rehearsals in the last 2 days. Can't...wait...until...Christmas. :)

Jenni's Video Blog - Starting My Journey

So for those in the dark, I've been trying to shed some post pregnancy pounds for the past 2 and 1/2 months with very little success. I will do good for a week...and then gain it back. And the cycle happens a lot.

Part of it is this time of year! I love, love, LOVE to bake around the holidays. And Will can tell how small my self control is when there are goodies in the house.

I might be doing great at working out every day so far, but controlling my cravings for anything pumpkin flavored this time of year? Nah...hasn't happened so much.

So I've been trying to find a way to keep myself motivated and accountable. I've been logging my calories on loseit.com for the past month and a half, but the excitement about that site has started to wear itself thin. I've looked into plenty of other websites from Jillian Michaels, Weight Watchers, to The Biggest Loser Club. It's not that I'm looking for a diet, but I'm just looking for a support group. I don't want to do this alone, because alone, I tend to fall off the wagon.

Well yesterday I found myself on faintstarlite's blog and reading about her successful weight loss journey on WW, and thoroughly enjoyed watching her vlog (video blog) about her journey. She did weekly weigh-ins and vlogged about them.

I couldn't stop thinking about her brilliant idea. All night long I thought about it, and then this morning I thought about it. And I knew that this is what I needed to do. It would keep me accountable, it would help me be able to see myself on camera to remember WHY I need to do this and it would also allow me to go back and see my progress.

So without further adieu, here is my first post, or "VLOG", on my weight loss journey. I'll be doing this weekly.

Preston Funny ~ Snow

Today is Tuesday.

Sunday night, I told Preston that "Tomorrow we get to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house! So you need to be a good sleeper tonight so when you wake up in the morning we can go to G&G's house, okay?"

Sunday night it started to snow, and by Monday morning Seattle was getting a few inches of snow.

When Preston woke up Monday morning, the first thing he said was, "Go to Bramma's house? Go to Bramma's house?" (he said this many, many times...I'm beginning to learn that Preston can now recall things that I tell him the night before, which didn't used to be the case...but he's growing up and retaining more memory!).

Due to the snowstorm, Will and I decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to chance driving in it up to Grandma's house. So I had to tell Preston that we couldn't go to G&G's house because of the snow.

Preston has been very excited about the snow and has already played in it a few times, and so he didn't quite understand why the fun snow would prevent us from going to G&G's house.

So I told him, "We can't go to Grandma's house because the snow is very slippery and it will make our car go CRASH!"

And then he understood.

Later that afternoon, Will needed to go to the post office and asked Preston if he wanted to go with him. Preston looked very confused and worried, and Will told him, "Oh! No, see we're just going to drive a little ways. Don't worry the car won't crash - we're just going a little ways.". The entire time Will was giving me this "look", as if he was concerned that I now planted this insane idea in our 2 year old's head that snow = crashed cars.

Later, after Will and Preston had been gone for quite some time, I decided I should probably call them just to make sure that they were okay.

Will answered the phone and I could tell that they were outside walking.

"Where are you?", I asked curiously.

"We had to park our car up by the Moreland's house because the hill was too slippery and we couldn't make it up, so we're walking home." Will replied.

I watched out the window for them and a few minutes later they came walking down the driveway. Preston was up on Will's shoulders with his mitten covered hands covering Will's ears to keep them warm (Will asked Preston to put his hands over Will's ears).

When they got to the top of the stairs, this is what I found as they walked through the door...

I was trying to take a photo of Preston on Will's shoulders, but instead got a crying Preston because he got snow on his head.

After he settled down, I asked Preston, "What happened? Did you go to the post office with Papa?"

He just looked at me and didn't reply.

So I said, "Did you get to walk in the snow?"

And he said "And then da car go crash!"

I laughed and looked up at Will and he was starting to laugh as well, considering that just a couple of hours ago he was trying to convince Preston that driving in the snow did NOT mean that your car was going to crash.

"So you crashed our car eh?" I asked Will.

"No, I just parked it".

And then Preston kept saying that Papa crashed the car. Haha it was pretty funny.

What We've Been Up To ~ A Picture Blog

Here's what the Thomas Family has been up to lately...

Taylor

Within a week of being put in Command Central Station, he has already been holding his head/neck up stronger, and starting to kick off from his legs, AND been grabbing for the objects/toys on it.

Preston

...has obviously been busy being a boy.

...and making messes of course.

...and learning to go poo-poo on the toilet seat. Tonight in his prayers, he said "Bless car, bless sippy cup, and bless my poopies". LOL that kid cracks us up...

Seattle got a few snowflakes...

Will

...He's been busy being the best Dad in the world to these two boys.

Jenni

I made a nice dinner for my parents and our family. It was our "Thanksgiving" dinner, since we won't be joining them in Oregon.

and I was bored and took a bajillion self portraits with our camera. How fun is that.

The End.