Trains & Turkey

Wednesday night, we took a ride on the Polar Express. The boys had so much fun! There's a train that runs out of Heber City (about an hour from our house) & around Christmas, they do a ride based on the children's story The Polar Express. There were elves on the train, we got cocoa & cookies, we saw Santa & Mrs. Claus, sang carols, read the story together on the train, and each got a silver bell to take home, just like the story. We've been reading the book at home, so Max already knew the story and he just had the best time.

Thanksgiving day, Tom, Krissa & Teya came to our house. It was a great day of relaxation, delicious food, and most enjoyable company.

Here are some pics from the train:

More Pics

Some more Polar Express pictures:Max has a crazy expression in this one:Max & Ben enjoying their sweet birthday present from Aunt Becca & Uncle Jordan:

And Another Happy Birthday!!

Today is our other little man's first birthday - Happy Birthday Benjamin!! Last year at this time, I was in labor, still pretty sure that it was false labor since we were 4 weeks out from his due date, but what do I know? Here's the little peanut when we finally got to bring him home after spending his first week in the hospital. And here he is this weekend. Andrew pointed out how crazy it would be if we changed as much every year as we do our first year. As you can see, Grandma Jill flew in to visit this weekend. We opened presents and had delicious Coldstone cake with her. (Andrew kind of started cutting the cake before we had a chance to snap a picture.) We went to a very quaint little shopping area called Gardner's Village on Saturday and visited Park City on Sunday. Here are some more pics:Max holding on tightly to his John Deere that our basement contractor gave him for his birthday:

Happy Birthday!!

Our little man is 3 today - Happy Birthday Maxwell!! Here's our little peanut 3 years ago, so sweet:

And here he is now, such a big boy:

Punk

"So Max, do you know how old you're going to be on your birthday?"
"Yes."
"How old?"
"Three."
"And how old is Ben going to be on his birthday?"
"One."
"Do you know how old Mama is?"
"Mm-hmm."
"How old?"
"Old."

Pilgrim Max

Max is a BIG fan of crafts. We did the old feathers on the turkey & pilgrim hat this morning. We had to go with a pink turkey body though because we didn't have any brown construction paper. But once we glued all the feathers on, we really couldn't tell anyways. Gobble, gobble!

Kaleidoscope of Color

We hit the mall this morning & Max got to ride the carousel. He had a blast! Ben just chilled in the stroller.We also changed cell-phone plans (numbers are the same), which I hate doing because it takes forever, but I got a cool new pink Razr phone. Now I just have to figure out how to use the thing - I'm not hip enough for technology. The best part of the mall trip was a woman followed me into a store to find out what kind of jeans I was wearing. How's that for a nice ego boost? (Levi's 545 low boot cut). We ate lunch at the mall by a woman that had 6 kids under the age of 8! Can you imagine?!?! I overheard her telling another woman that stopped to ask about the kids. When you're getting stopped & asked about your kids in Utah, you have a lot of kids. And I think the woman was about 30. Apparently I'm a reproductive slacker.

Andrew & I also got our flu shots this morning. The boys will get theirs later this month.

Andrew also had the neighbor guys help him get his topper back on the truck so he can park in the garage again. The cold weather kind of motivated him to get that handled. It's a tight fit; I think he has about 2 inches to spare in the front & the back. We have several parking guides in place to help. Better than having him drive into the office.

That's it for now~

Happy Halloween!

Happy haunting y'all!

Random Bits...

Last weekend, we had a fun time at Teya's spooky Halloween birthday party. Here are Max & Andrew winding up for a pinata whack: The kids going for the loot: And the kids digging for more loot in a cauldron:Other random thoughts:

I am bummed that this will be the first election I won't vote in. I really have no excuse, but I let the deadline slip by me for registering in Utah.

I also can't believe that Reese Witherspoon & her hubby split! Theirs was a little more surprising than say, J. Lo & fill-in-the-blank or Nick & Jessica.

Well, we'll hit a few houses trick-or-treating tonight. Ben is wearing a hand-me-down pumpkin costume (I figure I'll take advantage of that until he's old enough to care), and Max is a racecar driver (see above photos). I'll get a pic of them later.

Also, New This Week

First, an extreme baby close-up:Ben's version of peekaboo:Max has entered an exciting new world called Pees While Standing. (Sorry, no pics of that!)

I Stand Corrected

This is going to be a long post...bear with me! So I thought it was a heckuva week when Andrew had the stomach flu. I had no idea what was in store for us. As most of you know, the virus that he had was a particularly nasty little creature that decided that simply making my hubby sick to his stomach wasn't enough; it wanted to attack some more of his body, namely his heart. Andrew spent a weekend in the ICU with myocarditis (don't look it up on the internet, it will scare the pants off you). He then was off work for a week. On Monday, he saw the cardiologist, who is pleased with the progress. The virus weakened Andrew's heart a little, so he has a little less energy & he still has some minor muscle pain from the ordeal, but is otherwise OK - thankfully!! Hopefully he'll eventually have a full recovery. He's on heart medications & will continue to follow up with the cardiologist. The good news is his back doesn't hurt anymore. Thank you all for your calls, e-mails, thoughts & prayers. They mean a lot to us!

The contractors continue to make awesome progress in our basement. Yesterday Ben napped through jackhammering & a smoke alarm being set off by their soldering. Amazing.

The boys & I have been on our own this week because Andrew flew to Dallas Monday night for the second (and final) part of his training for his job here. He returns tonight.

Here are some pics from Tuesday, when I took the boys to Red Butte Garden (SLC's botanic gardens). They currently have a dinosaur exhibition going on, so Max enjoyed finding the dinos peeking out of the plants. Ben just rode along in the wagon (I don't mean to be a bad Mom & not have any pics of Ben at the gardens). I'll include a picture of Ben on his 11-month b-day so you can see him too. We enjoyed gorgeous weather at the botanic gardens, yesterday it snowed, and now it's warming up again.

And one of my thoughts for the week: Rush Limbaugh is just a rotten excuse for a human being.

What a week...

...and it's only Thursday. I can't believe I last blogged Monday - it seems like much longer ago than that. Tuesday night about 11:00, Andrew got sick. Unmentionables violently shot out of all openings in his body until Wednesday afternoon. Today he started easing back into food and life. When someone in the family gets sick, it seems like the world just halts and the days drag by. Max also had a pretty good cough Wednesday & Ben was still fighting a runny nose (translation, everyone was sick except Mom). We all seem to be getting back to normal today & I am crawling out from under the mountain of "sick laundry". Thank goodness!! And the boys & I seem to have dodged whatever Andrew had, whether it was a bug or something he ate. Double yeah for that. You take good health for granted until it goes on hiatus for a few days.

I took the boys to the pumpkin patch today. What a fun afternoon! We'll probably carve them tomorrow.

We also decided this week that we're going to finish the basement. I know, I know, I've preached it myself: you lose money when you finish a basement. However, Utah has its own set of rules. After talking to our realtor and some of Andrew's co-workers, it seems that having a 5 bed, 4 bath house in Utah actually is more valuable than a 4 bed, 3 bath house, so a basement finish here is not such a loser. Plus, we'd love love love the extra space for a toy room & guest suite. So we have a contractor all lined up. Should be done around Dec 1 (so hopefully by next summer in contractor-time :) ).

That's it for now.

Colorado Trip

All the Shiers are back in Utah after our trip to Colorado. The two-legged ones arrived yesterday afternoon and the four-legged one made her return from the doggie hotel this morning. We had a really great trip, despite the fact the both boys got colds & had very runny noses. We had a fun time just hanging out with the family. Max and Ben entertained everyone with the new tricks they've learned since they last saw them.

Whenever we are at Grandma Jill's & Grandpa Jim's Max likes to sit on the farm equipment several times a day:

Uncle Jody and Aunt Whitney came down on Saturday to see us: On another note, our builder is supposed to plant trees in our yard, lining the streets. While we were gone, the builder planted the trees along one side of our yard, so we were so excited to see the trees when we got home! (We are on a corner, so the other street hasn't been planted yet.) That's it in a nutshell...

Oktoberfest

I went to my first Oktoberfest celebration this weekend. And it was in Utah. Oktoberfest? In Utah? Yep, you read that right. Pretty funny, huh? We had a really great time, enjoying the gorgeous fall colors and hanging out with Tom, Krissa & Teya. There were lots of kids activities, overpriced (but yummy) German food, polka, lederhosen, and, oh yeah, lots of beer. ("Danke bitte," anyone?) A very fun afternoon. And the truly awesome part was that Oktoberfest was at a ski area called Snowbird. When we pulled into our driveway, our trip-meter read 40 miles. That's ROUNDTRIP.

Out & About

Here are some pics from our afternoon today. The weather has been absolutely perfect this week, so we've been trying to spend as much time as possible outside. This park is about 5 blocks away, by the neighborhood splash pool. The equipment here is toddler-size, so we like this one:
This park is only 1 block away. The equipment is full-size, so Max can only really use the slide, but he is a big fan of this one too. I'm sure he'll be scaling the climbing wall sooner than we think!
I think the Wasatch Front mountains (these are the mountains on the east side of the Salt Lake valley) are pretty drop-dead gorgeous. The view from the park: