. . . well, to one side at least. Zander turned six months old on the 7th of this month. I can't believe how quickly time flies. He only weighs 11 pounds and 11 ounces right now. He is in the .03 percentile for his weight. Basically, out of 10,000 babies his age, there are two smaller than him. This is a little concerning, but he is doing great. He is almost sitting alone, loves to suck on his feet, and rolls all around. I can't get enough of his smiles and laughter even though he shares them with us constantly. He is such a joy to have around.Hopefully, he will pick up some weight (these pictures are the chubbiest looking ones I have) and then we will work on sleeping through the night :)

About a week and a half ago, we had a niece get baptized. One of Steve's sister and her family were able to fly down and it was so great to see them. That night, we all went up to Temple Square to see the lights. There was no parking close, so we ended up parking at the library and then we rode trax.Brinton and his cousins loved riding the "train" and seeing the lights. Brinton was mesmerized by the Christus statue. When we walked up the hallway to see the statue, Brinton pointed right at the statue and said, "Jesuh Chrise." He loved it. If you haven't noticed this before, we found that if you walk behind the statue, you will see the reflection move across the curved windows. It's pretty cool. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and SO beautiful.

At the beginning of this week, I decided that I wanted to get my neighbor gifts out of the way. I ended up having a lot of fun with them. I made a little card that said, "May Your Christmas be Merry and 'Sprite'." Then I attached it to a 2-liter bottle of Sprite, of course. It wasn't enough to have the card, so I made little reindeer out of them. It was definitely nothing fancy, but it was so funny to me when they were all grouped together for the different stages.If you are reading this, chances are you probably received one of these gifts. If you are interested in doing this for a gift yourself, there are a few things you should know. First, if you fill your ENTIRE cart up with Sprite bottles at the grocery store, people cannot resist asking you what you are doing or making a comment about how you must really love Sprite. Second, it is required to get an additional, empty cart at the checkout so there are not a million bags piling up at the end of the lane. And third, no matter how you pack these in your car, they will roll at some point. Hopefully they didn't get too shook up :) It was a fun, easy gift to do and I am so glad to have it out of the way. Oh, and I am done shopping and also have my Christmas cards out in the mail already, too. I am so on top of it this year! It's so nice that now I can just enjoy the holiday and not stress about anything. Hopefully, you are all feeling the same way . . . it's wonderful.

Every once in a while, someone will ask me if Brinton is potty training.

He is definately not :) We have a little potty and he loves to play with it. He has asked me to make him popcorn in the white bowl (which I did not do even though he hasn't used it . . . gross), and he loves especially to play with the soft blue ring that he would sit on. It has many uses. It can be a hat, a bracelet, and even a walking prohibitor. At least he's creative!

Last Saturday, Steve went with some of the guys in my family to chop down our Christmas tree. We have had a tradition for several years to get a permit sometime in October and then go together to get our trees. Lately, the men have been doing all the work because of the kids, but they are getting older and some go along. It's pretty funny going up the snowy mountain, shaking off trees to find a good one, and then attempting to drag it back to your car without falling down the mountain. We have also learned that you need to get a smaller tree than you would guess. They are much bigger in your house than they look on the mountain. One year, my parents got a tree that was so heavy, it was hard for six men and me to carry it. We also learned, that you should trek uphill to find the tree and then drag it downhill. Common sense, right? Well, that year, we took the tree up hills and even over some water. At some point, someone typically slides down the mountain (not always on purpose), so you have to be careful. It is a lot of fun and I love having a nice live tree for the holidays.Once we got the tree home, it was too tall, so Steve cut off an extra foot or two and we decorated it that night. It was a perfect jump-start into the Christmas season since Thanksgiving was so late in the month.

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. It is crazy how time flies. We had a wonderful holiday at my parent's house with most of my family. This year, we had all the adults sit at one table and the kids sit at another. It was really nice to sit and talk with everyone after the kids went out to play. We all know they eat in like five minutes when there are so many friends to play with :) We have a lot to be grateful for and try to remember our blessings everyday. Even with our best attempts, it is so easy to forget. We stayed late at my parent's house on Thanksgiving and watched a movie in their theatre. We used to do that often, but haven't for a while with how busy life is, so it was a fun. We would just put Brinton to bed and watch the show which would usually work nicely for us. This time, it was just the same. He slept the whole time. When it was time to go, I went into the bedroom to get Brinton and he woke up right away. He is easy to wake up and is typically good-natured about it. I forgot how sweet he can be during the midnight hours. He just woke up and gave me a hug. He was saying, "bye bye and lubbee" to Grandpa and Nana like he would have any other time. On the way home, he was excited to see lights on houses and do the "wee" (going down a big hill).We let him have a little midnight snack at home before putting him back to bed. He has some good bed-head and a cracker in his mouth, ha ha. It's crazy to me that I forgot how this was typical with him. I don't know many kids that aren't grumpy when you wake them and I am thankful for that. I am so very thankful for my family. We are truly blessed.

So, I was getting sick of my blog design. Here's a Christmas one. If you can't see it all, sorry. I just made it fit to the size of my computer screen and then that was enough for me :)