Happy New Year!!

We decided to visit my sister in Colorado to bring in 2010. We had so much fun! We visited Denver and stood on the "Mile High" step at the capitol building then went to Casa Bonita for dinner. If any of you are familiar with a certain South Park episode, this may sound familiar. Basically the food is atrocious, but it really is a once in a life time experience for the atmosphere. Whoever determined the menu there should be fired and put in time-out to reconsider their lives. The next day we went swimming, made bread bowls and yummy soup, played games, then pigged out on an orange chocolate bread braid. We visited Old Town Fort Collins, and I have officially decided that The Cupboard is my new favorite kitchen store. We also went to Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. Dev and I highly recommend both films.

New Years Eve we ate Chicken stir fry, Martinelli's, Key lime pie, egg rolls, and a yummy cheese ball. Devin performed a puppet show for the kids (He truly channels another spirit when he has a puppet on his hand...) then we popped balloons filled with confetti and fortunes. We had to say our favorite memory of 2009 and have a goal for 2010.

Devin: 2009 held a lot of great things for us. We got into BYU MBA school, sold our home, had a baby, and moved into my parents basement. Our goal for 2010 is to get an incredible internship for the summer which will basically determine our future altogether.

Heidi: One favorite memory was singing through an entire Christmas songbook late one night with my husband, in the kitchen. My goal for 2010 is to be as healthy as possible!

Tyson: When asked what his favorite thing was last year, he replied, "My life."

Holly: Hopes to crawl.

Afterward, we brought in the New Year stomping on bubble wrap and blowing cheap whistles for about 5 minutes. Thanks Hansens, for letting us come! We literally had a blast!!

This is how Tyson entertained himself during the Denver Capitol building tour. Dead man walking, anyone?

The puppet show. "Hoppie Moo Yee-ah!!"

Emily, Holly, Mara, and Hayley. The girl cousins.

Jeff, Mark, and Tyson

The candy bar game. By the end, Tyson figured out that he could just make the dice be doubles rather than rolling them. It was pretty funny.

No comment... Oh wait, by saying "no comment" does that mean I made a comment?

"Take me sledding mommy!"

Sisters

This was taken just before a very funny crash. Devin was a little over-confident on his sledding skills, when he tried to get a running start and jump onto his sled on his knees. He ended up sliding down the mountain like a belly-down star fish and his knee is still paying for it.

Devin tried to send her down the hill in her car seat. I said no. :)

Holly helped us drive out there for a while. :)

Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas!! This year was the first year for Tyson to truly believe in Santa, which made it very exciting for all of us. Santa came to our ward party and Tyson was so excited to ask for something he was about to jump through the roof while we were waiting in line. Well, Santa came through and not only got a scooter for Tyson, but he got one for Devin as well. You can catch them scootering around the neighborhood with their snow clothes on.

Devin's Aunt Cindy bought the little girl cousins matching Christmas dresses. Thank you Cindy! They are so adorable!

Jon, Jonah, and Tyson at the Spann house on CHristmas Eve.

Christmas morning! It's always tradition to take a picture on the stairs before we run to the Christmas tree and see what Santa brought us. That is the new cat that lives with us. His name is Gimli.

(These are a little out of order)
This is our annual attempt at the Nativity story at the Hemmert household. Someday I have a feeling we will get past the first two verses of Luke....

Yup, He's 30!!

Devin turned 30 on December 7th. We were going to go to Pirate Island, but it was a million dollars to have a big party there, so I just threw some "congrats, you're 30" streamers around the house and got him the coolest Sponge bob cake ever. Thanks to everyone who could come!! I love you Babe!!

Happy Birthday Tyson!

Tyson turned three years old today. We celebrated with my family yesterday and he opened a bunch of awesome books, and some really cool Word World toys. (Jaime, I have to tell you, he's been pretending to "build a word" all day today. He lines up the animal letters on the table, sings the song, does a little dance around the table and then puts the letters together. He LOVES them!)

Today, he's been walking around all day with three fingers in the air and telling everyone it's his birthday. I made him pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse for breakfast and then he helped me make his birthday cake. I kind of went crazy on the cake because I found some awesome cake molds in my mom's garage that hadn't even been opened yet. So I made a Devil's food chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling and homemade butter cream frosting. all in the shape of a baseball with red licorice stitches. It was really fun and tasted awesome. He was so excited about the baseball cake, he couldn't sleep for his nap. I told him we couldn't eat it until daddy got home from school, so he wrapped himself up in a blanket and waited for Devin on the front porch as long as a 2-year old...excuse me...3-year old possibly could until boredom kicked in. Grandma and Grandpa Spann hopped over for a bite of dinner, some cake, and some presents (BYU sporting goods, an invitation to Pirate Island, Peter Rabbit, and The Tales of Beatrix Potter on DVD) then they came bowling with us.

Watching Tyson bowl is one of my favorite things. With a 6 pound ball in his arms he waddles up to the bowling lane. He then heaves the ball as hard as he can and kicks it after it rolls down his leg. It takes about 5 minutes for the ball to reach the pins, but he gets so excited when he knocks some down. He started lying down to watch his ball meander it's way down the lane. If it looks like the ball is stopped in the above picture, it's probably because it is...

We love you Tyson, and keep being the stud that you are!

Our Sunday

We got a call Saturday morning to give talks in church the next day. Despite being nauseated about it, we were actually grateful we didn't have to stress about it all week. :) My parents were kind enough to offer to watch our kids while we sat in the front of the chapel, so I made an extra effort to explain to Tyson that Mommy and Daddy were going to sit in the front, while he could play with Grandma and Grandpa in the back. He nodded and agreed, in fact, almost sounded excited about it. Come Sunday morning (after writing our talks at 11:30 the previous night) we walked into the chapel. Devin and I started walking to the front while my mom tried to keep Tyson entertained. He threw a huge tantrum and burst into tears. We finally just decided it would be easier to have him sit with us behind the pulpit. This made our meeting much more exciting...

The entire sacrament meeting he was waving his sucker around to the audience, kicking the wall that separates the congregation and yelling numbers and letters out. I was so embarrassed, but it was still pretty funny.

That night we went to a one-year-old's birthday party. One of her presents was a baby doll with a toy crib and stroller, etc. After watching how I take care of Holly, Tyson kept pretending to rock the baby to sleep and would put it in the crib. When the One-year-old tried to play with it, he would pick up the crib with the baby and put it where the toddler couldn't reach it. I didn't think about it for the rest of the night until it was time to go. Tyson was holding the doll and was upset because he had to put the doll to sleep. I didn't see the crib anywhere, but Tyson took off so I followed him. He had put the crib in their laundry room and turned on the fan in the room, with the light off. Holly sleeps in our closet with a fan on, so I just thought it was really funny that he had to do it with the doll. I've never seen him play "dolls" like that before.

Maybe it's one of those had to be there things though...

family pics

Thanks to Spencer Hall Photography we were able to get some great shots of our family last Friday night!! Here is just a taste of some of the great shots he got! Thanks Spence, you're the best! I still haven't chosen a family pic yet, so that will be posted soon!


Blowing raspberries at dad:


Devin's quote for this pic, (read in a very haughty voice) "And after I take this shot I'm going down to the yacht club for some tea and biscuits (hubbity hubbity)..."

My favorite... the after pictures shot...

A double victory!

Victory 1:
Our beloved cougars represented despite the horrible odds against them! What a great game against Oklahoma! We are so excited for another season of BYU football.

Victory 2 (and the potty battle of death):
Tyson loves to "make bubbles" in the potty when he goes number 1, but he has refused to sit on the potty to go number 2. I've displayed several fabulous prizes for him if and when he ever decided to even just sit on the potty (it's a basketball... who wouldn't want to sit on a basketball potty!?). One such toy was a cool motorcycle toy. This morning however I thought all was lost. After changing a horrifically disgusting diaper (and gagging a few times...) I finally just said, "That's it Tyson, you are sitting on the potty today!" He screamed about how scared he was and decided just to go number one for me to end the battle (He stands up to do this). I decided to just show him what the cool motorcycle toy did so he knew what he was missing out on, while thinking in the back of my head that he wont do it for another year... I'm sure of it. Well tonight, folks, he grabbed Devin's hand and asked him to take him to the potty so he could play with the motorcycle toy!! He tried to go for a while, but Devin realized there just wasn't anything there, but the poor kid was trying so hard! We praised him for trying and let him play with the toy for a little bit. I talked to him later and he told me in almost a sad voice , "I tried mommy. I tried for the motorcycle toy." I told him how proud I was for trying and gave him a big hug. I'm just so glad he's not scared to sit on it anymore!! Anytime I've tried, he's screamed bloody murder and clung to me for dear life. One battle down... I wonder who's going to win the war...