... it has been too long since we have posted, and so much has happened that hasn't been worth blogging about... but much worth taking pictures of

We took our trip to Sacramento to visit Great Grandpa and Grandma Fuller. Brian came and made fast friends with his Great Grandparents. We had a great time.






Aaron still loves to read, and to be read to. He knows that he gets three stories every night and lately makes attempts to pick some very long stories.








Brian's friendmaking extends to his Grandpa Fuller. They get to spend plenty of quality time together lately. Brian loves when his Grandpa gives him his bottle.






Jen and Brian demonstrating, "the cuddle."









Aaron has been taking "music lessons" lately. Jen is teaching him some beginner piano and he can plunk out the tunes to his favorites songs. He likes to play the rythem instruments that he got for Christmas, especially the cymbals. Dad's harmonica is lots of fun too.







Brian showing off his big open-mouth smile.















Aaron and Brian are doing more and more together. They play together, they occasionally have their contentions. But, even though it drives Jen and I little crazy... in the evening when Brian is crying himself to sleep, Aaron has the cute fake laugh that he does repeatedly until Brian is standing up in his crib looking at Aaron laughing as well. We wish they'd go to sleep... but what are we going to do.

Family Update

It's been alittle while since I blogged anything, mostly because life has just been busy. I'll try to post pictures soon, but I thought I'd really just give a very brief update on life in the Thomas Family.

I just turned 30 on April 18th. Paul has been spoiling me rotten and is giving me a present a day for 30 days. It's so much fun to wait and see what I'll get next!

Brian is mostly weaned from breastfeeding now, and loves his bottle. He can't quite hold it all by himself, but he's working on it. He is crawling now, not fast, and not far, but he definitly can go after something he wants that is out of reach. It's so cute to watch him play and observe his brain in action!

Aaron is being a typical 3yr old. He won't potty train, which is very frustrating to Paul and I (mostly me), but he's still a sweetie. His latest trick is playing the piano. Either on his little toy piano or the big piano, he'll crawl up and with one finger peck out the tune of the first line of some of the church songs that he has heard a hundred times. I don't know what I'm going to do with him, but he amazes me all the time.

The bad news is that right before Paul, Brian and I flew to Sacramento the first weekend of April to visit my grandparents we found out that my father Dad has metastatic bone cancer. He is currently undergoing chemo and is doing well. We try to visit often and help out however we can, but there's not much we can do. It's hard to see him sick, but we hope and pray that the medicine will do its job. Please keep him in your prayers.

Hope everyone is doing well and I will try to post some cute pictures soon. Love ya!

Aaron's Birthday...3 years old!

I know it's cliche, but they really do grow up fast. I just can't believe he's three years old already. He had a great birthday and we thank everyone that called and contributed. Everytime the "Happy Birthday" song was sung he'd point to himself and just beam. He got lots of great presents then went to Chuck E Cheese. He was very sad to leave and I had to promise him that we'd go back again next week! Thanks again for everyone who helped make his birthday memorable. We love ya!

Just a few cute pictures

Here are a few more swingset pictures we took recently and a great one of Brian playing the piano. On a similar note, Aaron played the first line or 2 of his favorite church hymnn on the piano recently. Totally blew me away! He's such a smart kid.

Naughty Aaron

This afternoon Aaron was supposed to be taking a nap, but from the sounds coming from his room I could tell that he wasn't. Brian was asleep in there so I definitely didn't want him waking Brian up. I put on my "mean Mommy face" and went in there prepared to discipline him. I found him sitting in his bed reading the Book of Mormon. How am I supposed to get mad at him for reading scriptures! He's such an angel. Instead I cuddled with him for a few minutes and took the book with me back to his bookcase in the front room. I guess if he's going to goof off in his room and not nap, I'd rather him reading the Book of Mormon than doing anything else.

The latest update!

I can't believe it's been a month since I updated this, but hopefully everyone will enjoy the following pictures and stories!

First, the update on Brian. He's almost 7 months old now and sits up very well and can roll from his belly to his back. We give him lots of encouragement and he just beams knowing that he did something right. He's eating some solid food now and loves everything we give him...cereal, vegetables or fruits. We think he's totally cool!







Aaron has finally started to pay attention to Brian and will often go sit next to him on the couch or floor and sometimes in a shopping cart, and will just hold his hand. It's absolutely precious! He loves singing songs and Sunday he was singing the "Hello Song" from primary, but every time he would sing “Hello” it would come out "Hell no! Hell no!" We tried not to laugh, but we couldn't help it!






We recently had a visit from Kathe Thomas, the boys paternal grandmother, and she brought some adorable pajamas for the boys and bought them a great outfit which they wore to the park. Again, I have this compulsion to dress the boys identical!









Everyone is happy and healthy and looking forward to Aaron's 3rd birthday the end of this month. I promise we'll post more pictures when those festivities occur.

Just Brian

Last month I did a post which was mostly Aaron, so this time I'll do one of recent Brian photos. He really is still a very happy, laid back baby, except when his teething is hurting him or if mom hasn't fed him recently. It's very easy to get him to smile, just kiss him and he laughs immensely! He loves his bath and is sitting up very well when propped up. He can only sit by himself for a few seconds and still hasn't made that inital roll yet, but he "almost" gets it all the time! His latest trick is blowing 'raspberries' and while it is adorable, it's not appreciated when he's supposed to be nursing or eating his cereal. I can't believe he'll be 6 months old next week. Time sure does fly!

Matching Outfits

Jen loves to dress the boys up in coordinating outfits. Here are two of the latest pictures she's taken of her obsession!





As you can see, Aaron is a bit of a ham these days and does a fake smile anytime we bring out a camera. Getting 'candids' is getting harder and harder!

Pictures of the Brothers from Sears

My mom and I were at Sears today doing some shopping and when we passed by the photo studio and there was no wait to have their pictures taken right away, and I realized I had never really had their pictures taken yet, I just had to do it. Of course I had to buy new clothes for them right away before we could do it, but it all worked out. To see all the pictures click on this link.

Beautiful Day part 2

As promised here are the pictures from our day at the park!

Everyone loves swinging!

This was actually Brian's first time in a swing.

Aaron later jumped in a puddle and got all wet!

We joke that in 20+ years we'll put this on the wedding announcement!

It really was a beautiful day and a big thanks to Elena who took the pictures and played with them. Photoshop queen!

Beautiful Day

We had a beautiful day here in Katy, Texas. It was clear and about 64 degrees. At about 4pm Aaron, Brian and I went to a local park with another set of friends, Brooklyn (2), Dallin (5 months) and Elena and let our 2 year olds just play and play on the slides and park equipment. Paul and Brandon met us there after work and we played longer then we all went over to the little lake they have and let them chase the ducks. Then Aaron and Brooklyn just played around jumping and holding hands. It was adorable and Elena took some great pictures which I will post when she sends them to me. I just wanted to say what a great day we had and we wish everyone could have been with us!

The screeching eels!

They always grow louder just as they are about to feed on human flesh! (32 seconds)

Brian eats his first rice cereal

This took place on Christmas Day and he actually ate quite a bit. This is the portion Paul videoed while Jen fed Brian. He now eats 2 full tablespoons and holds his mouth open wide wanting it! (28 seconds)

Aaron, what is for Dinner?

29 seconds

Our New Kitchen

Everyone has been anxious to see our kitchen since we "updated" it. We love it and are very pleased with everything. (1 minute 36 seconds)

The latest Brian update

We just got back from Brian's 4 month check-up. We are proud to say that we have a healthy and happy fat little baby! They said that he weighed 18 lbs, 13.5 oz which put him in the 95% for weight.
He was 27 inches tall, therefore in the 97% for height. And his head was 43.5 cm around placing him in the 75%.

The Holidays

Thanksgiving this year was a fun week. I took the whole week off from work and relaxed. However a relaxing week turned into a rush to get our kitchen made-over. We began a while ago by re-facing/painting our cabinets. The daunting task of stripping the wallpaper fueled our procrastination. We buckled down and got to work last week and spent somewhere between 8 - 12 hours stripping wallpaper and repairing the drywall underneath. It was dirty and exhausting. It made celebrating Thanksgiving and our 4th anniversary that much better as we refused to work on the kitchen on those days.

Jennifer did a fantastic job with Thanksgiving, I'd like to report. Her parents, whom we would normally have spent Thanksgiving with, were out of town to a wedding, so we spent our first holiday alone as a family. But Jen masterfully multi-tasked her way through the kitchen ensuring that everything was cooked and ready at the designated eating time.

This week has been spent painting and are we are excited for the new floor to come. We will be very happy when it is done. We love working on our house, but with two kids, and all the distractions of life, projects are just tough.

Of course there are stresses that come with the joys of celebrating Christmas, but those don't amount to much for us, so we thought crippling our kitchen and working on it every other night would make up for it.

We do love Christmas, this year is going to be especially fun. Aaron loves to sing, so we are having a LOT of fun listening to and singing Christmas music. The fun also includes introducing Aaron to traditional Christmas lore. Santa will be visiting the Thomas house. He is catching the Christmas magic. I am sure that if you listened carefully during the day you can hear Aaron sing Joy to the World to himself. He even sang in the Primary Talent Show... all 4 verses of I am a Child of God. Aaron was really brave to stand up in front of all the people and sing. Jen has been called back to our ward nursery and loves it; so do the kids, and their parents. And that gives Brian and I a chance to spend a couple of hours together at church each Sunday. Mostly he sleeps, but really does provide a great excuse for not paying close attention.

I have mixed feeling to report that I am a newly trained Assistant Scoutmaster. As much as I like the outdoors, generally approve of the BSA organization and it's core objectives, and have a lot of fun serving this capacity... it takes an awful lot of time and will likely consume some valuable vacation days next year. As long as that word assistant is there, it shouldn't be too bad.

Aaron amazes us pretty much each day. Last night at dinner we told him that he had two choices... 1. he could eat a few bites and be excused or 2. he could wait for mommy and daddy to finished eating and then he could be excused. A few minutes later was talking about THREE choices. We asked him what his three choices were. He answered as such: 1. he could eat a few bites and then be excused, 2. wait for mommy and daddy to be finished, or 3. go play with his toys. It was nearly impossible to hold in the laughter. Eventually Jen and I finished eating and we all went and played with toys.

Brian... so cute. Yes, he still eats and sleeps (he has slept through the night three of the last four nights - WHOO - HOO!)
But, add to his resume, smiling in response to our smiles, having massive drumstick legs, talking. Yes, we talk. We talk to him and he talks back. Such happy noises. He cries some, he still grunts a bit. But generally is a very pleasant and happy little baby.

Marcia's Visit

Jen's sister Marcia was in town last weekend visiting the family. We had a great time and miss her already.

While she was here we all went to Justin and Julie Anderson's Halloween party and dressed up in costumes as seen below. Aaron was afraid of Grandma and wouldn't look at her all night.
Aunt Sissy had a lot of fun playing with both the boys and even babysat for them when Jen and Paul both had appointments to go to.
I think Aunt Sissy really came in town to hold Brian for the first time, but don't tell Mom and Dad Fuller that!

Here's another shot of Brian giving his awesome smiles. He's ticklish on his cheeks and head and smiles whenever we tickle him. He also is cooing more and more and smiling just at our smiles as well.
I know we have posted a similar picture before, but they just keep growing up and look so cute together. Aaron has taken to kissing Brian on his belly a lot. It's so cute to see him love his little brother!

And lastly, we have a picture Grandma and Grandpa Fuller's new pool boy! He's very helpful!