Feliz Navidad

Like most years 2014 seems to have come and gone faster than expected.  We've enjoyed fun times and created great memories throughout the year.  Here are the highlights of 2014 in the Edgel Home!

On Christmas morning of 2013 we learned baby number two would be joining our family!  Gavin was excited about being a big brother, and loves his baby brother Liam, who was born August 28th.

At church Gavin moved up from nursery and became a Sunbeam!  He was so excited to be in primary with the big kids and has given a talk, scripture, and this fall, participated in the primary program.  He was so proud sitting up in front of the whole congregation and recited his lines without hesitation.

In March Jared began working for Summit Engineering Group up in Heber, Utah and is loving his work.  The kids and I have taken a number of trips up the Canyon to visit Daddy for lunch throughout the year!

When Jared was officially hired on long term with Summit Engineering in May, I cut back my work hours at Utah Valley Hospital, and starting in January I will work just one day a week.

In August Gavin started preschool!  He loves his class and teacher, Miss Rebecca.  Although it's hard to get many details out of him, it's fun to hear about what Gavin is learning and the different activities they do each day.

Christmas this year was spent in Mexico visiting my parents at their home. We enjoyed warm weather, fun with Grandparents, exploring, and just relaxing and spending time together!

Wishing each of you a very Merry Christmas this year!

Love, The Edgels

Definite Canadian!

The other week Google Fiber hosted a free ice skating party complete with doughnuts and hot chocolate, so of course we had to go.  We wondered how Gavin would like skating, and I guessed he'd start complaining about the skates being uncomfortable after not too long.  But I was gladly proven wrong and Gavin absolutely loved it!  Clearly his Canadian half came out and he refused to even hold my had most of the time.  If it wasn't for the hot chocolate and doughnuts, I don't know how we would have gotten that kid off the ice!

Liam was content chillin in the stroller, smiling at Daddy!

Holiday Time

For as long as I've lived in the U.S. now, one thing that I still am not used to is how close Thanksgiving is to Christmas!  (Canadian Thanksgiving is celebrated the second Monday of October).  I'm not sure if this is how it feels for everyone else, but as soon Thanksgiving hits I feel as though Christmas time is already here, and I love it!

Once again we set up Christmas this year just before heading down to Vegas for Thanksgiving. Since we're leaving for Mexico on the 15th, this gave us a bit more time to actually enjoy the decorations before taking off.

Gavin couldn't wait to set up the tree. Ornaments were going on before we even spread out the branches or put the lights on. Hence a somewhat awkward looking tree, and if you can't tell, the majority of ornaments are clustered around Gavin's height level.  But Gavin thinks it's the best tree ever, and who can argue with this four year old!

At night Gavin always insists his door stays open so he can see the new star on the tree top

So despite our home looking like this...

We took care of the important stuff - setting up Christmas and making shortbread cookies!

Jared found out his office would be closed on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so we headed down to Vegas a day early and enjoyed good times with family, yummy food, and of course a trip to the Magical Forest to visit Santa Clause.

Sleep over with Grandpa, Daddy, and cousins in the teepee

The week before Thanksgiving we bought a sailboat off KSL!  We towed it down to Vegas to store for the winter, and can't wait to use it once the weather gets warm.  We set it up in the back yard and the kids had fun checking it out.

Go cart rides with Grandpa and cousins

Trips to the community garden

Magical Forest Fun

Trip to Lake Mead

We hoped to go sailing, but the wind was crazy so we fed the carp instead

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Gavin opened some Christmas gifts from Grandma and Grandpa early, and LOVES his light saber

Time has flown by since coming back from Vegas.  We've been busy with Christmas shopping, enjoying the crazy warm weather, and the regular activities of life. We did enjoyed a free night of ice skating at Seven Peaks and a trip up to Temple Square to listen to the Christmas Devotional and enjoy the beautiful Christmas lights!

Cute Kids

The other week as I was driving Gavin to preschool I noticed all the leaves at the park were in a huge pile, so after preschool we ran to the park to play in the leaves before they were all bagged up!

And here are some cute pictures of our Little Liam

'C' is for Cookie

Gavin is absolutely loving preschool and I am so glad we signed him up. Although Liam's nap schedule is still somewhat sporadic, the mornings that he does nap while Gavin is at preschool are priceless! Gavin has enjoyed a fun field trip to the fire station, a Halloween party, and this past Monday they had a preschool style Thanksgiving feast!  Here are a few pictures from their trip to the fire station.  I so wish I could have volunteered and gone along, but it was the same morning Liam was going into the dentist for his lip/tongue tie revision.

I still sometimes have a hard time getting out of Gavin what they did in preschool each day, but the other day Gavin came home and asked me if I knew about the flower ship.  I wasn't sure what he was talking about until he started explaining: "You know, the flower ship, with the pilgrims that had to go to the church and didn't want to so they went on the boat to China with the Indians?"  So he may have been slightly off, but I got what he was talking about and said we needed to Skype with Grandpa Ducky to find out about one of his relatives that came over on the Mayflower. Grandpa Ducky taught him the joke, "If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?  ...Pilgrims!"

Gavin's known all his letters and what sounds they make for a long time now, but since starting preschool, he is now beginning to pick those sounds out in words.  He'll be saying something, and randomly stop mid sentence, repeat a word a few times, then tell me, "That word begins with 'Th', or that word ends with a 'D'".  Just today we were in the kitchen looking at his listening calendar (he's had some problems with listening well in preschool so we set up a calendar where he puts a sad or happy face on each preschool day depending on how well he listens) and he was looking at the word December and trying to figure it out.  He kept sounding out the word and asked how it could be the word December, if it had no 'S' in it?  Again I know I'm slightly bias, but he's one sharp kid!  I tried to explain how the 'CE' made the 'S' sound, but that was too confusing.

Here's more pictures of Fall preschool fun!  Miss Rebecca is awesome, and I'm glad she takes pictures of the fun activities they do at preschool!

Making and eating cookies!

Apple Investigator

Counting seeds while enjoying a snack

What sticks to magnets?

M&M colour and counting chart

Thanksgiving Feast and Fun!

When we were first looking at preschools there were two options that we really liked.  They both seemed great, but because I wanted one in the mornings, we went with Miss Rebecca's preschool.  I think the other one would have been great too, but the fact that this preschool is just a three minute drive away, makes it so nice and convenient for me.  One day while it was still warm out I dropped Gavin's bike off at preschool with him, then instead of driving back over to pick him up, I jogged over with Liam in the stroller, and we jogged home while Gavin rode his bike.  It ended up being a bit too long of a bike ride for Gavin, but it was worth trying at least once!

On our way to pick Gavin up

Of course we had to take a break at the park on our way home!

Each of the kids in Gavin's class get to bring cup cakes or a treat to celebrate their Birthday, but since Gavin's is during the summer, he gets to bring a treat next week to celebrate his half Birthday!

Grandma's Comin' to Town!

A few weeks ago our ward had it's primary program.  And not like I'm a bias Mom of the cutest four year old alive or anything... but Gavin pretty much was the cutest kid there! I think Grandma would agree, and of course she came up to Provo for a visit to see Gavin in the primary program, and to celebrate Jared's Birthday as well. After we finished hiking the Y Saturday afternoon, we made it back home right as Grandma was arriving and headed out for dinner together at Sizzler's.

I love this kid's smiles! And now he is laughing so much too!

Grandma and Gavin had all sorts of fun with different activities.  They made Olaf from a toilet paper role, and a balloon rocket to shoot across Gavin's bedroom!  Gavin was so excited to show Daddy the balloon rocket when he got home from work, so we finally did it again with Gavin a few days later across the whole front room.

The night before Daddy's Birthday Gavin helped me wrap up his presents and was so excited to surprise Daddy!  I was impressed that he didn't tell Daddy what was inside any of the packages. While Jared was at work we cut out birthday hearts and wrote messages on them and taped them to the window, and blew up Happy Birthday balloons as well.  Eve was over playing with Gavin while we were making the hearts, so Jared even got some birthday hearts from Eve. That night instead of cake we attempted to make a soda slushy with our "new" ice cream maker. 

Jared is supposed to get his Birthday off at work, but because Tuesday was going to be a busy day, his boss gave him Friday off instead.  So Tuesday we did his birthday at home with us and Grandma, Wednesday we went out for dinner and celebrated his birthday with his good friend Lincoln, and on the Saturday we celebrated with the usual tradition of Burger Supreme, Sherley's cinnamon rolls, and the Nickel Cade!  A few weeks later we used Jared's free Tucano's Birthday meal card for some extended celebration fun!