Thomas Family Vacation Part 2

Our vacation is almost over, we leave to go back to Houston early tomorrow morning and we are trying to pack everything up, but we wanted to post one more blog describing everything we've done in the past week. It has been a blast!

We went up to Park City, Utah for 3 days. Here's a great picture of Brian with his cousin Lucy. She is about 5 months older than he is, but they played together well and would crawl around together, bang on the walls and windows together, and just stare at each other in their strollers and point at each other. It was totally cute!



While in Park City, we participated in the Thomas Family Invitational, an 11 event tournament which included games of yatzee, shut the box, poker, battle (rock, paper, scissors), radio game, uno, mini golf, a human maze, egyptian rats crew, trivial pursuit, and a 400 meter run. Our 8 year old niece Kate came in first, Jen got second and Paul made his showing at 10th out of 11 participants. Here are some pictures from the tournament. Note: there was some handicapping of the scores to allow the younger, or more out of shape participants to compete.


Shut-the-Box


Egtyptian Rats Crew




The Human Maze


Poker

Sunday, of course, was Fathers Day and it was also Paul's sister Sara's mission farwell. As a Fathers Day gift for Grandpa Thomas David (that's what Aaron calls him now) we took a picture of all the grandkids together and framed it nicely. Here's the shot we ended up using.


Saturday we went to the church history museum with the "cousins" as Aaron refers to them. Here's a picture of Aaron in the kids section, but it looks like he's infront of the tabernacle choir. We weren't there long and look forward to going back because there is so much fun stuff to look at there!


And here's a picture of the whole family together after Sara's farewell.


Sara was set apart as a missionary last night and it was one of the most spiritual meetings I've ever attended. Everyone in the family bore their testimony and the spirit present was just amazing. We are all very proud of Sara for going on a mission and will do our best to write her often and send her cute packages.

Well, that's about all I have for now. We look forward to being home again tomorrow, but have had a great time in Utah visiting family, friends, and being with loved ones.

Thomas Family Vacation Part 1

We are still in the middle of our vacation, but we had to start posting some of the exciting things we've done so far.

We started off coming out here earlier than anticipated because of Grandma Cole's passing. We miss her a lot, but it was a wonderful funeral service and we are glad she is wth Grandpa again. Paul flew back to Houston for a week while Jen, Aaron and Brian stayed in Utah with the Thomas'. We've had a great time visiting cousins, extended family and friends.

Aaron and Brian are totally enjoying being around their cousins and playing with them. Here's some pictures from our trip so far. We've got Aaron with his cousin Kate.



And Brian with Kate as well.



Aaron got a haircut! Here are some before



during



and after shots.



While we were here Kate got baptised and it was beautiful.





Today we went to the Zoo and it was a blast! Here's just a few shots showing how much fun we had.







We're headed up to Park City tomorrow for the Thomas Family Vacation and we will try to post more after that and maybe even more after Sara (Paul's sister) has her mission farwell on Sunday.

... 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.