Happy Christmas!

We had our ward Christmas party last night and Santa made an appearance.  I had no idea he was going to be there but I'm so grateful I brought my camera or else I, and a lot of other parents, wouldn't have had their children's pictures taken with the big man.  Our ward did a great job from food to decorations.  I was even able to take a plate home for Kurt who had to work.

Some updates about us:

After having Christmas morning at our house we are driving up to Salt Lake to be with my family and especially my mom who is flying in from Hawaii that morning.  Alia signed her first sign which was "milk" and now uses it constantly for all the right reasons.  She also turned 9 months today.  YAY!  It's so sad how fast they grow!  :(  She's also semi crawling, semi scooting on her belly, but she's so mobile! She can go from her belly into a kneeling position.  She also pulls herself up on everything, including just the wall and she's starting to cruise and get around.  I tell you it doesn't get old!  Drew is on her Christmas break from preschool and every morning she asks if she has school.  She likes being home and playing with her brother but I think she's not as challenged with us and misses her friends.  Brody is just being a boy.  He loves to go out into the snow, cold, you name it, with a beanie, gloves, and boots.  Sometimes a shirt but I have to make him come in to get more clothes on.  He's also talking a lot more and is getting his colors down.  He also tries to read and to recognize letters like his bigger sister whom he loves!  Kurt is liking work and is doing great at it.  He is definitely kept busy juggling his work, family and sleep but he does a great job at it.  I also have been keeping busy with the kids and starting my own business but it as been fun and is so worth the hustle.  We also gave away our family dog, Leonidas.  It was a bitter sweet moment but I know he's doing good with his new family.  That's pretty much us in a nutshell.  This started out as just a post but now it is kind of our family yearly update.  If I don't post again by Christmas we hope every one has a merry one!

Jump!

Check out my Photo blog for more of this!

Failed!

So Alia failed her hearing test.  :(  Both ears this time... hmm...  I'm going to take her to an Ear Nose & Throat Doctor to get some answers because I just don't believe it.  I'll keep you posted!

Baby Tyson

Check out my photo blog for more photos of baby Tyson.

Wish Us Luck!

When Alia was born she failed her hearing test three times in her left ear.  After seeing an Audiologist we found out that she can hear in her left ear, you just have to be speaking loud.  These tests were a lot more involved than yelling in each ear like I'm making it sound.  However, she took these tests when she was weeks old and the ear canal is still flexible at this age, causing an unreliable test.  We go back to the Audiologist tomorrow to get the same test done now that her ear canals are more reliable.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that she'll hold still for the tests and that she'll pass with flying colors!

Update

Yes, we're still alive even though the cow that was in our yard is not.  I haven't blogged in a while so here's to catching up!

Drew's swimming lessons ended and both Drew and Brody are very sad.

Alia is now 8 months and she is getting to be a handful just because no place in the house is safe anymore.  She is scooting/army crawling.  She'll get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth, maybe crawl for a second but she still gets around mostly on her stomach, pulling with her arms and pushing with her toes.  She really is as fun as ever.  She still only has the two teeth but she can still cut your skin if you stick your fingers in there, trying to get out what she just ate off the ground.  She is only bottle fed now and is drinking more than I would've thought possible.  I don't know how much she weighs but since feeding her formula and regular table food she has filled out a little more.

Oh, and she's also pulling herself up on things

It's gotten significantly colder here but that does not deter Brody from going outside naked.  Yup, this is what he wanted to wear outside the other day.  I tried to get him to get dressed but he wouldn't.

On Monday for FHE we went to the college's planetarium.  This is the sunset we saw on our way there.

The planetarium was super fun.  First they had a slide show to inform us about some of the things we could see and then we headed upstairs to actually look through the big telescope.  The kids liked looking at the moon and Jupiter.

Earlier that day I got a nice surprise in the mail.

My business cards!  YAY!

And to end this post, last night Brody came in to show me what he had drawn.  He pointed to it and said Brody!  It was a self portrait.  I LOVE these kinds of drawings.  When he does stuff like this I know he's getting older, bigger and smarter.  He's actually drawing things that look like what he's trying to draw.  And of course Drew's picture is amazing too!  I really love my kids!

Open For Business

Okay.  So I am the biggest loser but I'm too excited to care that I only have one post and it happens to be my husband and my blog is not up to par.  Check out

NoelleReynoldsPhoto.com

and get the full post of the hottest model alive!

Photography Workshop

Kurt gave me a Canon SLR for my very early birthday and Christmas present. I LOVE it!!! Right before I ordered it my friend Anna, which is also Kurt's cousins wife, emailed me and asked if I wanted to go to a photography workshop with her down in St. George. We had a blast and learned a lot. So here are some of my pictures from the workshop.

Our host, and pro photographer was Kevin Hulett. He was awesome to answer all of our stupid questions and to take the time with everyone that needed technical help with their cameras.

This was my last photo in JPEG. Right after I shot this he told us that if we were shooting in JPEG we needed to STOP NOW! So we all did.

First picture in RAW.

He taught us how to spot meter and how to hold our AE lock when we were shooting in aperture priority. (I cheated and shot in manual) He was cool with it though.

This is Cassidy. A cute girl that was also in the class that had cool orange shoes.

One fun thing about the class is that Kevin hired a model for us to shoot. So we walked a little ways to this art labyrinth place.

This was our model Cassy.

And her mom Christy. I think we had more fun photographing everybody else!

This my good friend Anna, who I went with. I'm so glad she asked me to come!

We seriously had so much fun. Everybody was nice and easy to talk to. Kevin was a great teacher and really put together a good class.

Well, I'm jumping on the photography bandwagon...FINALLY! So look out for more photos coming from moi!

Love Hurts!

This is a story about a little girl and her brother who loves her SO much.

Halloween!

I got a message from my mom saying she was waiting for Halloween pictures. Sorry these are late. I was having fun with photoshop.

Two days before Halloween it snowed. YUCK! It always snows at least once before Halloween and this year was looking really nice like it wasn't going to, but it did. The day after it snowed the weather was warmer and by Halloween it was like it never even happened. It was gorgeous!

Alia was a giraffe

$8 costume at walmart

We went to see Where the Wild Things Are a little bit ago and while Kurt, Drew and I LOVED it Brody could only stand the first 30 min. He especially loved when Max put on his costume and was chasing the dog around the house, the very beginning, and every time they howled. I don't know if Brody knew what he was doing but when he got dressed for Halloween he was literally a wild thing. Growling and being defiant, but oh so cute still!

Brody was Max from Where the Wild Things are

Momade-$10

I'm kind of a mean mom and wouldn't let Drew be lots of things that she had listed she wanted to be months ago. She was already Cinderella two years ago so I wouldn't let her be another princess or fairy this year. I don't know where she got the idea but she had suggested Strawberry Shortcake and I agreed. When I pulled up the picture to show her she looked at Strawberry with disgust. "Not THAT girl! The pretty one!" After some google searching I found out that there has been three different looking Strawberries since I grew up. All becoming... less homely? Well this one that she wanted to be was what I considered a princessy Strawberry Shortcake. You have to check out those tights though. I had to take a stretchy adult sized night shirt and sew it into those tights because we couldn't find any like that anywhere.

Drew was Strawberry Shortcake

Hat:Children's Place-$7

Momade-$7

I pretty much had no idea what I was going to be until the day before Halloween. We went to Walmart and grabbed a bunch of fun things to glue on and fabric to sew a skirt, into what became this. My main point was to stay modest and warm.

I was a gothic school girl

Memade-$12

I have to save the best for last. Kurt didn't think about what he was going to be for Halloween until the night before. Yes, 24 hours till trick or treat time! He found horns at a local store and knew what he had to do to be done in time. From the minute he woke up to the time we were heading out the door he and I were working on his costume. I think Kurt forgets Halloween is for the kids and not for him. Then again you only get one time a year to live out your fantasy right?

Kurt was the guy from Fable

Kurtmade-$30