The BIG cheese!

We finally caught on camera Spencer's big cheese. He was quite full of them today and would do it on demand. Maybe it was because we let him have chocolate as you can see all over his chin. He can be so cute!

Hannah actually took this picture and I cropped it so Spencer was in the middle. Hannah loves to take pictures. I thought it turned out good. Spencer was very cooperate for a few pictures today. Amazing!

Spencer

Lately Spencer has been doing this thing where he comes up to Chad or I and stretches out his arms to give us the biggest hug ever. He gets a smile on his face and in a really cute tone of voice says "mama or daddy." It's very affectionate. We are finding it very enjoyable.

Hannah and her pupil

Hannah and Spencer were out in the living room playing by themselves while I got ready this morning. When I was finished I walked down the hallway and heard them talking. I stepped into the bathroom where they couldn't see me but I could see them in the mirror and hear them. I quickly realized that Hannah was helping Spencer say a prayer. She was saying things like "say bless Jesus, say bless Heavenly Father, say bless mom to have her birthday" etc. She would repeat the phrase until Spencer had said it. She ended the prayer correctly and made sure Spencer did too. Then she says "Good job Bud!" Spencer got a huge smile on his face. It was very cute to listen to and watch. It was also quite refreshing to catch Hannah doing something nice and positive to her brother instead of beating him up like usual!

Temple Square lights

Mom and Dad Kohler and Jaylyn came for a few days the first part of this week. We went up to Temple Square to see the lights. Hannah and Spencer really enjoyed it. It was a bit chilly, but we bundled up and had a great time. Hannah was quite disappointed that we didn't let her go on the carriage rides around the city. It only cost $45 for 30 minutes!!!! If only I had a money tree.....

Hannah and Grandpa.

They had nativities set up from around the world. That is the first time I had seen them. They were pretty cool I thought.

Tragedy turned Milestone

We had a tragedy while we were up the canyon over Thanksgiving weekend. We were doing a little hiking before going home and I realized that Spencer did not have his binky in his mouth. I asked Chad if he had it and the answer was no. I immediately began looking for it and discovered it as I looked over the edge of the bridge we were by. There it sat in the dried brush under the depths of the bridge with no way to retrieve it safely. Since we had been talking about weening Spencer from the binky but not wanting to face the difficulty of it, we decided the opportunity had arrived. When Spencer asked for his binky, we told him it was lost and all gone. It was bye-bye forever. Spencer fussed and cried some for it everytime we told him that, but he has actually done really well. It was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be especially since he loved his binky so much. He didn't even ask for it as much as I thought he would. We have been binky free for 8 plus days! I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed having it gone and not having to search for it all of the time. So our little tragedy has turned into a milestone for Spencer. Yeah Spencer!!!

Spencer continues to be a little talker. He will try to say anything you ask him to. He is also putting two words together sometimes. I love that he can communicate!!

Thanksgiving weekend

Over Thanksgiving weekend we went up American Fork Canyon and did some family pictures and a little hiking. It was quite chilly but we mostly had fun. Spencer is at a really challenging age for pictures especially since we did it by ourselves. Oh well. It's done. We did get some cute pictures and I thought I'd share a few.


I really liked this picture of Hannah. She was clenching her fists telling us how cold she was.
I won't tell you what I was doing in the background to get him to smile!
 

Oregon Trip: Conclusion

I am officially done posting about our Oregon trip. I am sure you have all seen more then you cared to see. I took like 300 pictures so I figured I would share bits from most everything. Sorry if you got bored. Even though we went out and did quite a few things, we actually did have quite a bit of relaxing down time with mom and dad. Dad also did a lot of babysitting while mom and I did some shopping. Thanks dad! Thanks everyone for putting up with us for so long. We really enjoyed our trip and are glad we got to go. We have lots of happy memories now!!

Oregon Trip: Spencer

Here are also a few random pictures of Spencer from the trip.

Mom has a container to hold all of her magazines. Spencer quite enjoying dumping it.
Chad and Jim helped dad put up some pull down stairs from the attic in the garage. Spencer wanted to be in on the fun too!
At the beach. 

Oregon Trip: Hannah

These were just a couple of random pictures of Hannah on our trip that I thought were cute.

These was at a little play area at the mall.
The kids and I went with Jaylyn to University of Oregon and looked around campus a little. Hannah posed with Jaylyn for a picture.
Hannah and Spencer went with Mom and dad to their ward Halloween party while Chad and I had a date night (dinner and movie-very nice!) Hannah wore this hat which she quite enjoyed. She even won the cupcake walk she did and got a cupcake to eat. 

Oregon Trip: Portland Temple

Before leaving Portland, we also took advantage of the temple being close and stopped quick. Hannah always loves to go to the temples and walk around. Several of the trees were just beautiful with the changing leaves like the one pictured below. Spencer loved all of the water fountains. He could have cared less about anything else. He was either very excited to be looking at the water (it was so hard to keep him out of it) or else he was screaming because we were making him walk somewhere else. It was quite chilly so our visit was pretty short.