Gavin: 18 months

-Gavin is now wearing the clothes Liam was wearing when Gavin was born! How crazy is that!? He's growing up so fast.

-Pretty much the only thing you need to know about Gavin is that his favorite toy is the Hulk. He enjoys jumping off anything, tackling anyone, and smashing everything in sight!

-He is also starting to imitate his brother and sister a lot. Consequently, his most common phrases are "I did it!" and "Me first!"

-He loves balls and playing catch. He can throw his kid-sized football across the room, and catch it! I don't know if that's impressive for an 18 month old, but I'm sure impressed! He'll hold up the ball and say "tatch" until we hold out our hands, then throw it and hold out his hands, saying "tatch" again to indicate he is ready. So stinking cute!

-He'll give me kisses pretty much every time I ask, which I love! But sometimes I think he will hurt Liam on purpose, just so he can say "sorry" with a hug and kiss...

-Gavin and Liam both are very cuddly when they want to be, but hate being messed with otherwise. Our routine torture includes getting dressed, changing diapers, and brushing teeth. Almost every time you'd think we were sawing off his leg! And if he acts like that for me and Paul, you can't even imagine how bad it is for the doctor (a stranger). Oy.

-When he is upset, instead of the lower-lip pout, he sticks out both lips. Besides his big toothy grin, that is my favorite of his faces!

-He says "yeth" for yes, which I also love.

-I think he will probably always be a mama's boy and shy around strangers, but he is becoming much more independent and adventurous. Gavin definitely keeps our hands and our hearts full!

december

-Early this month Paul and Liam went on their first father-son date to see The Good Dinosaur. They both loved it! And I love that my awesome husband makes one-on-one time with his kids a priority.

-Jenna's winter piano recital was later that day. She did amazing and didn't make a single mistake on her solos! Then her teacher had the students play duets. They hadn't really practiced together, so they were playing at almost completely different tempos. It was kind of funny, but still really cute!

-I taught about the letter J for joy school. I really like the "sound box" books, so we made our own J sound box and filled it with things that start with J. I filled the cabinet under our stairs with green streamers and animals so they all could explore the "jungle". Then we made paper jellyfish with streamer tentacles, and did lots and lots of jumping! And since it was so close to Christmas, we read a couple books about Jesus.
We are so lucky to get to hang out with such great kids! Here is our cute little class (I stole this pic from another mom):

CHRISTMAS PREP:

Paul put up hooks last year, so hanging lights this year was super easy!

We opted for just the tiny tree and only a few decorations this year, since we were going out of town and since Gavin is fully into his destructive phase!

 Gingerbread nativity and log cabin:

We went caroling at a retirement home with our ward family for FHE. It was a great experience. I was amazed at the smiles and the spirit in that room!

Of course we took our annual trip to the D.C. Temple lights and children's choir concert. Earlier in the month Jenna told me that going to the temple was her favorite part of Christmas. She was probably singing a different tune Christmas morning, but it still made my heart happy to hear!

Jenna asked if we could celebrate Hanukkah, so we read some stories and on the 8th night we made latkes.

And lots and lots of Christmas cookies! We found a few new favorites, like white chocolate-dipped ginger snaps and hot chocolate cookies. But the kids' favorite is still the traditional orange cut-outs.

Then we made the Great Christmas Trek of 2015!
We drove 12 hours to St. Louis, 14 hours to Houston, 19 hours to South Carolina, and finally 6 hours back home.  All in 11 days.
And it wasn't terrible - we did half of the driving at night, there was only about an hour each leg of the drive that the kids went crazy, we stopped at cracker barrel twice, and we listened to two audiobooks: Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson (Paul's favorite author) and How I Killed Pluto and Why it had it Coming by Mike Brown. Both five-star books in my opinion.
We had no traffic or weather problems, no carsickness, and Paul's mom came with us for the 19 hour trip to her house. Overall, I'd say it was great. And definitely worth it to see all of our family!

The St. Louis cousins:

Sadly, Gavin had an ear infection while we were in St. Louis, so he was extra clingy to me and wasn't sleeping well at night. We basically just played with cousins and aunt and uncles, and relaxed together. On the night before we left, everyone over age 10 had a secret Santa gift exchange which turned out to be really fun!

Making birthday cards for Grandma!

We were sad to leave, but really excited to get to Houston for Christmas Eve and to meet our newest little niece!

It was so fun to play and visit in a house full of little kids! That night we put out cookies for Santa and Uncle Nick read us all the Christmas Story.

So, Christmas morning... Paul and I grew up in very different households. He and his siblings had to be told a time (insanely early) that they were allowed to come out on Christmas. My family are all night owls, and consequently like to sleep in. Paul couldn't believe it when we were with my family for our first Christmas together and everyone slept until at least 9.
Poor Paul. He is so excited (still) for Christmas morning, and wants to share that with his kids so bad! He's got Jenna on his side, but not the boys yet. I reluctantly let him wake them (I think it was 7), and this is what happened 10 minutes later:

...Gavin was just laying on Paul and had absolutely no interest in his stocking. I think next year we'll let them wake up on their own!

Presents from Santa: The Hot Wheels track was a major hit in the house full of boys! And Jenna has been wishing for an American Girl doll for months!

And Jenna got cute matching dresses from her aunts:

And, finally, the reason for the trip - Maddie's Blessing Day!

That night we put the kids to bed super early so they would be guaranteed at least some good sleep. We put everyone in the car and left at midnight, traveled all day, then slept at Grandma's house. The 6 hour drive home the next day seemed like nothing in comparison!
Oh, and somewhere in there Paul and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary!  I sure love this family that we've built together!

november

-This fall has been so warm! Being outside is the best, and we have loved having so many leaves to play with.

This is my favorite: Paul vs the kids!

-Paul took Jenna out to a UVA Women's Volleyball game and then for some ice cream. She is always so excited to go out with her daddy. You can't really see it in the picture, but she made a sign to support the team. These two are so stinking cute!

-One day the boys had been upstairs for quite a while, when we realized that they were quiet. A little too quiet. Paul snuck up to see what they were up to, and found that they had opened all the board games and scattered all the pieces. Everywhere. We had to invent a new game called Sort All The Games.

 -For Jenna's second grade performance "Who's the strongest?", she got to play the house. She had to run across the stage with her house costume and declare the wind stronger than a house. In the end, I believe an ant was declared strongest of all.
She was most definitely the cutest house I ever did see!

-Jenna was invited to a birthday party in a small town 45 minutes away, where Walmart was the only place to go while we waited. Luckily, I've got these cute boys who make everything fun.

-Thanksgiving this year was super low-key, just the five of us. It was delicious, relaxing and easy.

family pictures

This was the first time that we've ever had professional pictures of our family taken, and I was so excited for it! And I love the results!
Of course, not everything went according to "plan":

-I had plans to get us all new outfits for the day, but once I realized how much that would cost I opted to work with the clothes we already have (except for Jenna's dress). And I'm so happy I did, I like how it turned out.

-There were nonstop thunderstorms on the day we scheduled our outdoor shoot. Our photographer was only in town for about a week, and Paul was in the middle of his busy season at work. Luckily we found a time on Sunday, but we had to go right after church. I hoped that the kids' patience wouldn't be used up already.

-The day before the shoot, Paul's mom was visiting and I was telling her how Gavin is so good on the stairs and has never taken a tumble. I must have jinxed it, because not 5 minutes later he fell on the bottom few steps and really scraped up his little nose! Our poor photographer had to edit that out of every shot he was it! Oops!

-Gavin only smiled for about 2 pictures, but we expected that. What I wasn't expecting was Liam! He wasn't really being bad, just very silly! He was smiling and laughing, but wouldn't sit still for a second! For our standing pictures, he kept falling to his knees and thought it was hilarious. And our photographer just barely got an individual shot of him. It all turned out fine; Paul and I were just at a loss for what to do, because he's usually a better listener than he was that day.

Overall, though, it was a great experience! I love our pictures from Hoins Photography: