TJ turns 4

For some reason it's not letting me move the pictures around so they are a little out of order, but I thought I would just put a few pics up of TJ's birthday. When I was growing up we got to choose our favorite cereal for our birthday breakfast, so the night before TJ's birthday I took him to the store to pick out whatever cereal he wanted. He chose Cocoa Puffs, and it about killed me to pay full price for a box of cereal, but I figured once a year won't empty my wallet. :-) That night after he went to sleep I put streamers and balloons up all over the house, including in his room and I was so excited for him to wake up on his birthday, but that night he happened to come into our bed in the middle of the night, so after he woke up I had to send him into his room to see it all decorated. It got me so excited for the holidays with kids - I was just so giddy. :-) That night we did the family celebration with the cake, and I made him a cake with music on it since he started taking a music class a few months ago. I don't
think he was super crazy about it (I think he wanted a dragon fly for some reason) but oh well. After cake and ice cream, I let TJ choose if he wanted to take a bath by himself or with Cooper and his response was "Whatever" so we threw them both in. We gave them a bath in our bathroom and the jets in our bathtub made the bubbles go crazy!!! It was really fun, but Matt and I were really hoping that Cooper wouldn't poop in the bathtub (as he has a habit of doing) since there is NO way we would have seen it with all those bubbles. :-) The next day TJ had a joint party with his cousin Seth since they share the same birthday and some of the same friends. There were 13 boys there between the ages of almost 4 and 6 (that was even with 2 not showing up) so it was a little crazy but it was fun. My camera died party way through so I didn't really get too many pictures, but hopefully my sister got a few.
TJ is such a good boy and we love him so much. He has been pretty close to the perfect child, but recently he has started to test his limits a bit more, I guess he is just starting to be "normal". He is such a good brother to Cooper and so loving. He is a very smart boy (according to his pediatrician, not just me) :-) and he LOVES to read books together and count. We feel very blessed to have him as part of our family! We love you TJ!

A few pics

Matt and I in front of the Nauvoo temple. When we were in Chicago a few weeks ago my in-laws watched the boys so we could go down to Nauvoo by ourselves and we had a great time. This picture is a selt-portrait, which I was pretty happy with since I got the temple centered in the picture. :-)

I think we only had 1 nice day of weather while we were in Chicago (most of the time it was rainy and freezing) and so the boys and I were able to go to our old park that day and we had a lot of fun. It was weird but nice being back in our old neighborhood.

Matt and the boys on Halloween. Matt was a really cute Clark Kent, TJ was Batman and Cooper was a dinosaur. We enjoyed finally having trick-or-treaters since we we have always lived in an apartment/condo where we didn't get any.

Things here are going well for us. We have been enjoying the fall and it's starting to feel like winter with the few snow storms we've gotten and the cold weather. We had a wonderful trip to Chicago and were able to see quite a few friends while we were there, although there were a few dear friends we missed due to them being out of town. Last week TJ turned 4 (I need to download those pictures) and he had his first party with friends. It was a little chaotic with 13 kids ages 3-6 (he had a joint party with is cousin Seth since they share a birthday) but it was fun. Matt is still really enjoying his job, and for the most part I love being home with the boys, although today isn't my favorite day of all. :-) Overall we are doing great and have so much to be grateful for. We are looking forward to the holidays and spending a lot of family time.