End of a great Year

This was back during the summer where Brenden and I would often go to the local park where a few of his favorite things to do were to chase the ducks, play on the playground and climb a rope swing.

Brenden is a great big brother and loves Skylar so much.  This was him holding him at church.

At the end of summer during my week off in September we took Brenden to the Puyallup fair and he rode several rides.  This swing ride was his favorite and he frequented it at least 4 times throughout the afternoon I think.

We took a day around Seattle during my break in September as well and he wanted to ride a Ferry.  It was actually quite cold, and windy only a few days after the heat from the fair a few days previous.

He loved the strong breeze.

Skylar is growing so fast.  At this point in September we broke out the 18 month- 2T clothes.  Since then he is almost outgrown those and has only just turned one today!

For Halloween Brenden was his favorite Avenger: Captain America!  He loves the Avengers cartoon and picked this out at the party store at the mall on day one of their Halloween supply being stocked and put up in the store.  He was the first kid to get a Captain America costume in this area of Bellevue at least.

We went trick-or-treating at the Bellevue Square Mall since it was cold and raining and Brenden had a blast.  There was candy handed out at every store and people working walking around the mall dressed up as famous characters.  This picture is of one of the workers who had an amazing costume of Brenden's favorite Avenger!

Brenden's favorite thing to do is read.  He has learned to start reading and was excited to get his first chapter book; whether it's to himself or me reading to him.  We started reading How to Train Your Dragon books and are finished with the first two.

Skylar has grown even more now in November and loves to put his feet up.  His favorite pastime, and toy for that matter, seems to be his feet and toes

Brenden riding his favorite ride at the local mall

Grandpa loves watching the boys and often has Skylar fall asleep by him on nights when I'm at school late.

Merry Christmas!  We have made it a tradition on Thanksgiving day to setup and decorate our Christmas tree.  Brenden is such a good helper and helped me decorate it all.

Recently an indoor playground opened up at our local mall at Crossroads and they had a free grand-opening.  Brenden had a blast on all the fun rides, slides, bouncy rooms, balloon rooms, slides and giant Lego blocks.  It sure is good to have an indoor place when during fall, winter, and spring it is constantly raining here.

December was a fun time for Brenden.  Thanks to my sister Amy, we discovered a free program at Lowes called Build and Grow.  Twice a month they have free building projects for the kids and this month Brenden built a wooden airplane based on the movie Rise of The Guardians, and here is showing off the wooden gingerbread house we built.  He really enjoys getting dressed up with work aprons, hammers, and a badge they give you for completing every project.

Here's Brenden at our Ward Christmas party visiting Santa.

Ho, Ho, Ho!!!

Skylar's reaction to Brenden saying Ho, Ho, Ho so enthusiastically.

Skylar's favorite pastime.  It's a wonder his thumb is still there.

Brenden Smash!

Brenden playing with his cousin Issac.

Brenden and his cousins at Grandma and Grandpa Gale's Christmas Eve dinner in Richland.  He had so much fun there he didn't want to come back home.

Christmas!!!

Skylar loves his momma.

Bicycle!  He didn't stop jumping up and down for quite some time when he saw this, and immediately hopped on and put on his hat.  We are going helmet shopping tomorrow.  He said thank you grandpa Finch a dozen times, even though grandpa is in Florida.  He then said he missed grandpa. 

Birthday Boy!  Skylar is one years old today.

Thanks for the toy grandma and grandpa Gale.

Ooooh, what's this?

I think I'll take a shower in this it's so yummy!

Frosting tastes good.

Waiter, I need more frosting on my cupcake, someone's ate it all.

Frosting makes me so excited!

What's chocolate cake?

Chocolate! Mmm...that's good, I think I'll try some more.

I like cupcakes so much!

Some more cake for me...

...some more cake for the floor...it looked hungry.

Fun Stuff

We've been keeping busy and doing some fun stuff the past few months.  Even though I've been pretty busy with school work, we went to Seattle last month and went around Pike's Place Market and checked out some new eateries and pastry shops.  We had fun seeing all sorts of foods and Brenden enjoyed the random cows and pig sculptures along the way.  He liked seeing the cheese shop and the bath tub sized vats they used to make their cheese on location.

One of the things Brenden likes for us to do together is draw his favorite characters from his favorite shows or movies.  A while ago I not only drew some out, but made them into cut out dolls and made backgrounds for them to play in.  He liked it so much we did it for most of our recent drawings when I had the time.  He's also been very proud to have been potty trained for 5 whole months and wanted me to take photos of him on the toilet, so here you go:

And Skylar is any day away from starting to roll over and explore more with his hands and mouth.  He chews his fists, and grabs his toes now and can rock himself.  He is babbling and trying to communicate something to us, but we're not to sure what that is yet at this point.

I love our family so much and couldn't be happier seeing our boys grow up.