Here Comes Santa Claus

Last Friday night we took Dillan and Grandma to the Ward/Branch Christmas party. Grandma hadfun seeing old friends who came and Dillan had fun running around and meeting Santa! This isn't his first Christmas. At 1, he loved sitting on Santa's lap but not so much this year. Maybe it will be better next year again. His fear is why I am kneeling right there with him. He did get a sack full of "teats" aka treats from Santa and a leftover sack in Nursery on Sunday. All in all, it was a good night. Thank you to Mom and Dad Haddock for coming and helping with Grandma.

Then, on Saturday and Sunday it snowed all day long. Saturday is my only day to get out of the house and I feel bad, but sometimes I just have to sneak out or I get a guilt trip from Grandma. She had no idea I was gone. Jeremy stayed home while she and Dill slept. I got some Christmas shopping done and even got some things from the storage unit, like stockings for Christmas. You can't have Christmas without a stocking from Santa. It was very nice. I need lots more of that. It is so relaxing doing what I want to do for a change. Everything is always done on Grandma's time table.

Dillan learned a new bath trick on Saturday night. He can now officially be called "Super Dill!" He was took cutetoput his arms up in the air and keep the wash cloth on his back the whole time. Then when it would come off he would hand it back to you and say, "elp! elp!"meaning help me please.

Dill has also discovered a new love inside the house, instead of the basketball hoop outside (which he will never get to since the snow comes to his knees at least). He LOVES to color. We have had a few coloring mishaps, but daddy has cleaned them up. It is nice to have access to professional cleaning whenever you need it....and of course the chemist who developed all the products at your very disposal. The beloved police car no longer has purple crayon all over it. We found this great book that you color on and then a papertowel wipes the coloring right off. I was skeptical when I bought it, but for $1.99 I figured why not? It is the best thing ever! Seagull Book people. They have one for Sesame Street and one for Blues Clues.

And last but not least, Dillan loves to read with his Great Grandma. She thinks it is pretty funny because he gets up gives her a book, flips a couple pages, gets down and grabs another book, and the process starts all over again. Anyone that will hold a book and read to him is his best friend.

USU vs. Montana State-Northern

HRI (Harris Research Inc.) has season tickets to the USU basketball games. I guess they donated some money to the university and they got tickets and parking passes in return. It was the season opener that Jeremy and I got to attend. Thank you to Mom and Dad Haddock for baby/grandma sitting for us.

We got to park in the parking lot at the Spectrum, Jeremy didn't even wear a coat we were so close. Then when we got there we were on the 2nd row right behind the stats table and USU bench. The best seats ever! We had so much fun. There was one other couple from the office and then the CEO and one of his friends. So all 6 of us had a good time. Thank you to Craig, the CEO, for buying everyone drinks, snacks, and popcorn. It was a fabulous night!

Who knew that we were so mean though. I had never been to a basketball game before and even though the team is good, the crowd is ruthless. We ended up winning by over 20 points and we let them know that. I hope that we get another set of tickets before the season is up.

Halloween and the Monkey

For Halloween I took Dillan to Harris Research to go Trick or Treating around to everyone's desks and to see Daddy. I don't do dressing up, but at the office they had a costume contest and Jeremy actually made it to the top ten and won $10. Everyone thought Dillan was the cutest little monkey they had ever seen. I think so too. Plus, you just can't go wrong with a warm, cute, costume that was less than $15.

Then once Jeremy got home we took him to the ward/branch Trunk or Treat at the church. Dillan has this thing about eating snacks out of the "trunk" of his little police car so I am sure that getting candy from everyone's trunks at the church was no big deal. I am sure he thought he was the most normal person there. Side note, he does actually take any snack you give him and put it in the trunk of the foot car and eat it from there. He will promptly throw the wrapper away once the treat is in the trunk before eating too. It is amazing. I don't know where he learned it.

We also took him to the Haunted Woods at the TreeHouse museum the week before. He wasn't so keen on that. You really need to be able to sit through several stories at a time before going. They say 2+, but Iwould say more like 4+. He did get candy and we had fun anyway. It was a good chance to get out of the house. He got so hot that he ended up taking off his monkey top. The monkey is an outdoor costume for sure.

The move to Grandma's House

It all happened so fast. We still can't believe that I quit and we are living in Logan permanently. On top of that we can't believe what we got ourselves into sometimes taking care of Grandma Alta. I am happy to say that Dillan was great through the whole thing and it is over and done with. We still have tons of boxes to go through, but in time it will all work out.

For the first month, we were oh so happy to be line drying out laundry in the basement because the house is so old it was never wired for a dryer. Grandma has her laundry done by her daughter who takes it to her house to do it and then brings it back. We weren't so fortunate. But, we finally have a dryer....so allis soft and well now.

Dillan did some exploring and found this great field in the neighbor's backyard. If only that silly red car weren't there...this would be an awesome picture. We still like it though.

Dillan found this rocking horse in Grandma's basement. He thinks it is great fun. We ended up bringing it upstairs for a bit until we got more toys unpacked. Now it is back in the laundry room. It needs to be repaired. After years and years of kids riding it, it is starting to come unattached from the base.

The Bryce Canyon/ Junction Trip

http://courthousevacations.com/

Every year over UEA the my family gets together and goes somewhere for the long weekend. This year we went to a little town about an hour NorthEast of Cedar City called Junction, UT. We rented the Courthouse Inn for the whole family and had a great time. Here are some pictures from the weekend in Bryce.

Tons of family and lots of fun over the weekend. I wish I had taken more pictures. The courthouse was amazing and was a fairly good deal for a lot of people. Plenty of room and a fully stocked kitchen and lots of stuff to do around the house. All we brought was food and ourselves.

These were taken at one of the stops in the park. Dillan loved to get out and walk around doing mini hikes.

This is a picture of the 3 grandkids that were all born within weeks of each other. They are the best of friends. If we had only had Logan in the picture too since he is counted in that group but born a few months later. From left to right you have Eli, Bradley, and Iris.

New Blog!!!

Come one come all to the newest blog on the block! I created a blog for things about Grandma. That way all of you can share in the years that she has left. Check it out. I will have Jeremy update the family blog with a link on the side for easy access for everyone. For now click on the link below.

http://adventuresingrandmasitting.blogspot.com

Wow, crazy times!

Sorry I haven't kept up with the blog lately. We were without internet for just over a month during the move to Logan. We have officially moved in with Jeremy's grandma, Alta. She is 91 and definitely the stereotypical old person who is set in their ways and forgets a lot. It is crazy, but it allows me to stay home with Dillan full time while I care for both of them. Though I do have to say that she takes ten times the effort that Dill does. People say it is like I have 2 kids, but I think it is more like 4 or 5 sometimes.

The house finally sold. We were set to move over thanksgiving weekend so that family could be with Alta while we were gone, but they moved the closing up by 10 days and we ended up having to move in a week which was incredibly hard since I work 24/7 with Alta and Jeremy is working full time too. The family helped out and we managed to get things packed on Friday and moved on Saturday. It was crazy! Now I am sifting through boxes and deciding what can stay in our little space upstairs at her house and what can go to storage. There wasn't time to do that before we packed like I had hoped.

Dillan is amazing and is handling everything in stride. He is the best little boy I think I have ever met. He is so good to stay upstairs playing with toys all by himself several times a day while I go down and help Alta. Sometimes the poor kids plays by himself for an hour before I can get back up there. He is truly a blessing from Heavenly Father, who I am sure knew that one day we would be doing this and wouldn't be able to handle a regular toddler.

I haven't found the converter for the memory card in my phone yet, so I don't have pictures to post quite yet. I hope to find it today and will put some up here from the last month. I will update everyone on the cool things we have done once I get pictures downloaded.