The Training of a Boy

We love boys around here, so much so that Willy is getting in on the training early. Trains, balls, cars, legos, dinos; whatever is in reach he goes for it. And boy does he love it. Not so much so for the other boys. They like laughing at him and watching him, until he come close to destroying something. That is how it goes. :)



Oh yeah, our Christmas? It was good. Willy officially started rolling across the room on Christmas day at Granny Gray's house and that has been fun to watch. Caleb and Peter were very excited to open presents and be in the moment of the Christmas magic. Diedre is very thankful for her nice crock pot (thank you!) and Rob really enjoyed going to Steve and Barry's with his Christmas money, who knew you could get so many things of clothes for $25?!? We are doing good and looking forward to the new adventures 2009 will bring. One little guy turning 3 (I already have his birthday party planned. Surprised?), the baby turning 1 (WOW!), and then a 6 year old. Should be fun times. Oh, I forgot to mention that our marriage will be turning 9, it will be a great year! We love you all! -Diedre

Christmas Eve

This is our second Christmas completely on our own. To try and ease the loneliness of not being around family, we got together with some good friends and did all those things we would have done had we been with family. Had dinner (so yummy!). Sat around and talked. And let the kids do the Nativity skit. Kids dressed up doing the story of Christ's birth is always fun.

Jackson as Joseph

Jackson always takes his roles very seriously

Cooper the shepherd

The little girl in the pink dress is Lily. She's an angel bringing Cooper "the shepherd" good tidings of great joy.

The wise men. I cut out the crowns, but the boys decorated them.

Douglas just wandered around the whole time, mostly whining.

The little yellow 'things' on top of baby Jesus are the gifts that Jackson made. He was really getting into this whole thing.

King Jackson

King Cooper

Christmas cookies

Decorating Christmas cookies with the Grays



Let's take a closer look.

Artist: Cooper
Look he was going for: Who knows

Artist: Jackson
Look he was going for: This was his last one of the night. I think the creativity was gone by this point.

Artist: Jackson
Look his was going for: This is Santa. Everyone say hello.

Artist: ?
Look they were going for: I think there was supposed to be some eyes and maybe a smile.

Artist: Cooper
Look he was going for: He and Jackson called this one "the Alien" cookie. He has 4 eyes.

Artist: Jackson
Look he was going for: Superman. Not bad huh?

Artist: Cooper
Look he was going for: Just how many sprinkles can I get on this thing.

Humm, where do we start?

Well, Christmas is upon us and before the festivities begin I will catch you up. The Gray boys in Utah had a Christmas sleepover on Friday (sorry Jackson and Cooper, we missed you. We could have used a Batman and Buzz Lightyear at the party). We had all the fun going on. The three of them played superheros with Peter tagging along and doing whatever Caleb was doing. Caleb was Spiderman, Jonathon was Superman and Jonah was the Sandman (from Spiderman 3) or a statue or a skeleton- basically whatever his mood was. They loved it! Then we made pizza, had banana splits (Caleb was the only one that had a true banana split, J and J only had the ice cream and Peter did not even stick around long enough for the pizza), and then they played more trains and portal jumping games. Jonathon kept running around blasting things and then saying he was going to Minnesota. Random! Oh and there was the miracle of the train! Sounds weird but listen: a long time ago Peter's favorite fire engine train with the remote got treated badly at a party and broken. He was sooo sad. I tried everything to get it to work, even called the company and went through trouble shooting things with the lady on the phone. No good! So, at the sleepover Jonah was playing with the broken fire engine train however, it was somehow working. I asked him what he did and he just picked it up and started playing. Whoa! Peter was so happy, it was working and Jonah did something do fix it. Jonah was so pleased with himself saying, "I always knew that I was a magician." Then we took a drive around the neighborhood to look at the Christmas lights. The boys loved it, I gave them glow sticks and let them ride in the back without seat belts on. Oh the freedom! Then we came home, set up the sleeping bags (Caleb was soooo stoked that he got to sleep in a sleeping bag too), read stories and then amazingly enough they were all out by 10 pm. No joke. The next morning was fill with more superheros, portals, trains and eating a lot of popcorn. Peter and Caleb are doing great and William is growing and so enjoys all of the boy toys we have. He loves to get a hold of the dinosaurs or one of the boys' cars, it is difficult to keep the Lego Star Wars away from him and he loves flashing lights. It is the best. And newest of all, oh we are so happy, he has rolled completely over. We have tried and tried to get him to crawl but every time he is on his tummy he rolls right over and just stays there on his back, happy as a lark. But tonight, for the first time, he rolled onto his back then rolled over again on his tummy. Yeah! Rob is good and busy at work and I, Diedre, a, good and busy with laundry. :) Love you all! Merry Christmas!
Happy belated Thanksgiving!
Scenes from the superhero party! Full of portals, spooky skeletons, a lot of running and fun.
The miracle of the train!
Proof that they did fall asleep, they were up by 6:30ish. UGH!
Yes, the vacuum tree lives on
Don't worry, I do not let them beat up on him too much. The poor kid, what he has to look forward to....
A much better picture of the Willy B. We love you all!

SLMC Christmas Concert

Well, last weekend the Salt Lake Men's Choir had their Christmas concert at the First Baptist Church in SL, and it was a really good concert! Too bad that Mom and Dad were the only ones able to make it. Maybe next time all y'all will come out and listen to a pretty good choir! Anyway, here's a photo from it. Love ya!

Cowboy food

I made stew tonight. So when the boys asked what we're having for dinner, I told them we were eating cowboy food. To help make it more official we put on our cowboy hats, listened to country music and said a lot of 'yeeehaw's during dinner. Maybe we'll make this a tradition. The boys loved it!

First snow

We woke up to our first snow this morning. 2-3 inches of fluffy white stuff. Yes I said fluffy. This is our first snow here, that I can remember, that it didn't sleet right after and turn it into a few inches of solid ice. We don't usually go out and play on Sunday's, but today we made a short exception and let the boys run around for a few mins. It's Douglas' first snow, so we had to document it all. I have to say, he did pretty well. That is until his gloves got nice and wet and then he got mad. Oh, and we also made a snowman!

Christmas Time!

So we both love this time of year. The music, the food, spending time with loved ones... It's the best! We put our tree up just over a week ago and hung up some of the other stuff as well. We thought it would be fun to share.

A view of the house at night. Sorry it's so dark. But we love the lights!

Our mantle. Simple.

O Tannenbaum!

Study For Boards

I'm currently spending my days studying for Part I of my Dental Boards. I've never had so much fun! Unless you count that one time I thought I broke my foot and couldn't walk for a few days and missed playing in State soccer playoffs... That might have been even more fun. Hard to say. Anywho. I thought it would be fun to take a picture of what our dining room table looks like from 8am to 6pm every day while I study (minus me sitting there). My eyes hurt just thinking about it. Ahhhh. Only 12 days until Boards!

Turning 3

Nothing beats sharing cake batter with friends.

Wall-E's the new 'thing'

Jackson was adamant that we use ribbon around a few gifts. Obviously Cooper wasn't as thrilled about it.

All the loot

Excited about the special red birthday plate

Leading us all in song

Excited about the candles. (Cooper crosses his fingers like that whenever he's excited)

That index finger looks alittle unnatural. Someone must have got their dad's fingers.

This was the second time around. The first time he blew out the candles before we could even start singing. :)







Yum, cake please!