Christmas in North Dakota

This is what Christmas was like this year with the folks up in North Dakota. We got a record setting 10+ inches on Christmas Day.

You can see Allen's car peeking out above.

The bump on the right is Allen's car and the bump on the left is my car.

This is the driveway to our neighbor's house.

Here's the road, complete with a stranded car.

Another neighbor's house

Here's the Heit's house from the road with all five cars parked in the driveway. Can you spot them all?

Facing the road, it doesn't look like there's much snow on our car, but the previous picture would dispel that notion.

Allen got lots of snow too, while Randy got practically nothing.

The snow piled up on the side of the house, so it was hard to see outside.

Some of the drifts in the backyard, but to the left are even higher drifts.

It was hard to get in and out of the house.

An inside view.

The whole door.

Merry Christmas! We won't be going anywhere for a while.

Fun in the Park, Trees and other Playtime Activities

Welsey went to the park last week when the weather was nice. He got to do many fun things all on his own, like swing and go down the slide:

He didn't like the slide so much and threw up shortly after swinging. Exciting! Following tradition, we put up the Christmas tree during the weekend after Thanksgiving. Wesley was such a good helper. He ended up with sparkles all over his hands and face and clothes. We couldn't help but wonder if he was a vampire.

So far he's only broken the reindeer made out of popsicle sticks as seen in the second picture.

Wesley's favorite activity in the world is listening to music, but only if it involves electric guitars, especially because music means colors! Every time he hears a song, he immediately tries to look at the TV to find the colors, even if it's coming from a computer. Everyday he wants to walk over and turn on the PS3 so he can pick a song. Then he gets all excited and dances and squeals when the swirling colors appear. We finally got around to filming him in his show of intelligence even though the volume is a bit low. He also didn't squeal in delight this time since he's camera shy.


Of course, just listening to music wasn't good enough. He wanted to play along to it as well. He knows there's a correlation to plastic instruments and music and colors appearing on the TV, so he had to try it out himself.

All tuckered out after a long day.

Holiday News and Other Boring Junk

Some people complained that Wesley's post wasn't very informative. Jerks. Here's some more news about the going ons around this place. First of all, we celebrated Wesley's first Halloween. We didn't want to rot his teeth out before they even came in, so we didn't go trick-or-treating. Instead we went to the Mollers and had homemade Chinese food (courtesy of them) and pumpkin pie (courtesy of us) and watched some of Batman Returns (which can't compare with the 1960's Batman film) until Wesley was so sleepy his eyes were glued open. We also carved a pig pumpkin that showcases Amanda's amazing skills:

For lunch we had tuna spook sandwiches and worms and mud:

Not on Halloween and to celebrate the two year anniversary of our first date, we decided to try our hand at making a stuffed-crust pizza. It was pretty scrumptious if I say so myself and turned out way better than the burnt crust, salty sauce pizza I made on our first date.

In other news, it's been getting colder out so Wesley's been wearing some of his winter duds to and from school. He has trouble keeping his pants on though.

Here are the festive outfits designed to humiliate Wesley when he's older:

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Christmas Also, Wesley has become quite adept at rolling himself over. One day he was laying in the middle of the floor while I was doing homework, then when I looked a few minutes later, he was in the hallway with his blanket wrapped all around him with his toys jammed against his back. Speaking of toys, he grabs everything in sight now, especially mommy's bowl of oatmeal and cups. He's been practicing with a sippy cup for the future even. Hopefully he'll be a pro come the long ride to North Dakota. Since he's more mobile now, he also works harder to get himself comfy for sleep and at times even insists on putting himself to sleep. Here's a special slideshow of the many ways Wesley has slept since birth:

He also has learned how to throw temper tantrums. He always wants help walking around the house and tries to get to the PS3 games to pull them all over the floor, but his mean mom won't let him so he gets mad. Then when we were both eating ice cream in front of him, he tried to get Amanda's bowl and put up a big fuss when she wouldn't give it to him. He wouldn't even settle for his own empty bowl. Silly boy! So to end this massive boredom you're experiencign reading this, we have three special videos for you. The first records his very first moment playing with dominos. Last time we tried them, he completely ignored them, but not this time! He then just wanted to eat them all and make a mess, but forgot about them when he saw us eating real food.

The next video is fairly old. It was one of the first times he rolled over to his tummy. He then grabbed his mallet and played a few notes on the xylophone. Unfortunately this was with the soundless camera so you can't here his amazing skills, and most of his playing was already done. Now he mainly just tries to eat the mallet instead of play.

The last video is a special occasion from today! For the first time, he sat up all alone for over a minute. By the time we started recording, he had found a toy so he was leaning forward, but believe you me, he was sitting up nice and straight just before it!

Bye.

Wesley wanted to make an update

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Baby Heads

We took a trip to the Hogle Zoo on the sunniest Saturday left in the year. It also happened to be the busiest Saturday since they had some new attractions. The best ones can be seen below!



The cutest was the baby giraffe who spent most of its time eating some grass in the rocks. This shot compares its height.


The next cutest at the zoo was the baby elephant. This baby girl loved to play in the infant wadding pool where it got delicious drinks of water.

Out of the two the cutest babies, is the one above. He decided he wanted to wear a new hair style.

His mommy got a new hair style too.

The End

Now it's time for more pictures! Hi wow! If you're patient and get to the end, there might even be some videos waiting!

We went to Holli's place one Sunday for her mission farewell since she took our engagement pictures. Because of us, she sprained her ankle, but you can only see the chair her foot is on and not the nasty swollen foot itself. Never ask for pictures with people who are going on missions is the lesson we learned.

Wesley wanted to watch General Conference, but couldn't tell what they were saying. Luckily the Church broadcasted the Baby Babbling translation over the Internet, so he could listen in that way.

One day he wanted to be a big boy with overalls and shoes. Look how tough he looks.

The first person to guess what this cake is wins a prize!

Wesley's one cool guy!


Look how well he holds his head up. Usually he doesn't want to and just smacks the blanket though.

Everyone's been waiting over a month for this exciting ball video. Now you can watch and wonder why you were anticipating it so much!!!

Recently Wesley started experimenting with different voices. This doesn't have his high-pitched scream though.

Wesley had his 4 month doctor visit yesterday and was officially allowed to start eating real man's food! We recorded his first ever rice cereal meal just for the Grandmas to get all teary-eyed and nostalgic with their own kids.

To celebrate his fourth month anniversary, Wesley got a brand new toy! At first he wasn't sure what to do with it.

He was a master in no time. Maybe we won't have to hold him all day long now!

Next time: Wesley joins a motorcycle gang...

More Pictures of the Cutie Baby with the Big Brown Eyes

After discovering that the Internet connection is much more stable in the bedroom, we were finally able to upload all this junk! Yeah baby! So the other week we went to the duck pond for the second time with Wesley. The first time around all he wanted to do was stare at the sky, but this time he stared at ducks. They even got pretty close, but not close enough to bite his foot off.

Two cuties watching ducks.

Two cuties not watching ducks.

We had some bread so the ducks liked us. Wesley was more interested in one that was off to the side in the water.

Lately, Wesley has been discovering lots of exciting toys to pass the time. Good thing, because staring at lights all day can get pretty boring. He is really good at holding things now. His favorite toys are a bracelet, a maraca, and a ball. He also likes to hold drumsticks but doesn't get the chance very often because he tends to smack himself in the head. He loves pens so much that he tries to shove them into the back of his throat, so he doesn't get to play with them very much either. One day we were getting ready to leave the house for something and so while Amanda was off preparing to leave, I stuck a ball on Wesley. After looking at him a few minutes later, he was staring at it intently and cautiously pushing it back and forth with his hands and feet. Now he loves the ball. One time he kicked it off and started crying because he lost his ball. Other times the ball scares him. We had a video, but I forgot to upload it. Oh well, maybe next time.

Here he is with his ball.

Now his bracelet.

Now his keys! Two-handed amazingness!

A video showing off his fun with keys.

This was before he started trying to kill himself with pens.

We were having a competition to see who could make the manliest shout.
Look at that goofy face.

One time he had lots of burps that he didn't want to get out. Because of those burps, he didn't want to sit down. So here he is standing up in his car seat for two minutes! He'll be walking in a few weeks.

Now for an intermission. Mandy never had pudding pops before, so we made some. Since we only have 8 molds, she wanted to put one in a cup. Luckily it made a mess all over her face.

When he's not holding toys, Wesley has discovered that he can hold his hands together. He's so good at it now that he almost never stops. We were watching Wall-E on Blu-Ray and he watched the whole time. Whenever Eve or Wall-E held their hands together, Wesley did the same thing. His first word will be "WaaaAAAlllLLLL-EEeEE."

Oh no! You caught me!

One day Wesley was taking a nap, so we decided to check up on him after a while. Here he was, just chilling out.

He's good at tummy time and sometimes holds his head up for almost a minute. Usually he's too bored to do it though and has more fun licking the blanket.

Wesley's favorite sleeping situation: as a stick. He likes to fall asleep looking at his stars with a silly smile on his face.

Now we end with some tickling excitement. He likes to be ticklish on his cheeks, but usually only if you tickle both at once.