My Camryn

I can’t believe my little baby is going to be 3 years old in March! She is such a joy to have around. She has always been much more cuddly than Avery and she always has the sweetest looks on her face so I’m always kissing her cute cheeks!!

Camryn has begun potty training!! And it’s going a little slower than with Avery I think. She can go #1 no problem anytime I tell her to but if I don’t remind her she’ll happily walk around with wet underwear. #2 she is resisting entirely. So we’ll see where we get with that in the next few weeks to come.

I think we are finally starting the “Princess stage” with Camryn:

She’s been surrounded with princess toys since her birth but she’s just starting to prefer princess movies over her traditional favorite (Toy Story). Her favorites right now are Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. 

Camryn is a big talker. She started talking early and can have good conversations with Avery. Some of her favorite things to play are tea parties and taking care of her babies. I guess the Christmas stories really sunk in for the girls because one day I even found them with baby dolls in their shirts. Camryn was “Elizabeth” and her baby was “John the Baptist” and Avery was “Mary” and her baby was “Jesus”. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure if I should stop them or encourage them! Silly girls.

Whenever I have anyone watch Camryn they always tell me how amazed they are at how well she plays on her own. She loves to get a bunch of little people or her family from her dollhouse and just sit with them and play out scenes with  them by herself. She does all the voices and scenarios, it’s really cute. And it’s been so nice to have her entertain herself especially in the mornings when Avery is at school I can get things done.

Back in November I think Avery cut some bangs for Camryn. (I don’t think I blogged about that, but it was no fun let me tell you!) Anyways I had a friend fix them, then I tried to touch them up a little, and then in December I finally took her to a kids haircutting place and they botched them even more. So her bangs haven’t looked too great for a while but I’m hoping in another few weeks we’ll be able to get them straightened out a little!

Well I love my girls! I just had to do some quick posts about them so I could look back and remember how sweet and fun they were at these ages. Especially since Baby #3 is on the way and due in July!! They’re so excited for Mommy to have a baby and Camryn to finally be a big sister!

My Avery

Avery is 4 1/2 now! She’s growing up so much. We love having her around and she is such a good big sister (most of the time!). She loves to role play with Camryn. They play “Dora and Boots” or “Rapunzel and Flynn” or “Aurora and Philip” or even “Emily and Stephen” (their cousins). Guess who is always the boy character? Yep, Cam. (Same thing happened to me all the time with my big sister. I remember playing “Minnie and Mickey” and I always had to be Mickey haha). They will really get into their characters and if I call them their real names they correct me. My bad! :)

Avery also loves to tell Camryn what to say and she’ll say it. Which is cute sometimes. At other times she encourages Camy’s whining so I don’t appreciate that!!

Avery’s been going to 4 year old Kindergarten. Every day she has to bundle up like this:

Hat, gloves, snow pants, boots, scarf, coat. It’s quite the ordeal getting her bundled up every morning in time to get to school. She knows how to put it all on by herself she just doesn’t do it very quickly. :) It’s nice though because her teacher takes their class outside right when they get to school almost every day and they play in the snow. Some days they even go sledding down the hill in back of the school. It’s really cute.

We’ve been trying to keep busy even though we’re stuck indoors all the time now. One fun thing we did recently was a trip to “Pump It Up.” Avery loves these big blow up structures and their big slides. We have quite a few of these type places around (Flabbergast, Monkey Joes, etc.) and they make for good diversions in the winter.

Avery has always been a smart girl and lately she’s been enjoying learning to read some Easy Reader books. She can figure out a lot more words than I thought she would be able to at this age. We still haven’t worked out sounding out words much, just mostly visual recognition but she’s doing well that way so far.

Writing has also been fun for us to teach Avery. She is always asking us how to spell things. Or she’ll get a book and a piece of paper and pen and copy down all the words that are written on the cover. This past weekend we worked on her Valentine’s for her school class (already! I know!). Her teacher had a page with everyone’s name and picture on it from the class. She cut them all out herself, glued them to envelopes, and then wrote “To” and “From: Avery” on all the Valentines. Then we went and bought some candies and she stuffed all the envelopes herself and licked them closed. It was a great project for her and she LOVED it. I told her she could take her time but she kept going. At one point she said she got tired so she was going to go take a nap in her bed. I said that was fine. She went upstairs for 30 seconds and came back down and said she was rested and ready to get back to work! Funny girl.

Avery loves playing “Go Fish” and “War” card games with her Dad. And he has also recently gotten her hooked on some fun games on his iPhone. Mainly this one where she has little kitty cats she adopts and dresses and takes care of.  So funny.

Well we just love having Avery in our family. She is such a sweet girl and is always willing to help out (if there is a bribe involved, haha.).

A Few Pictures

Our fabulous friend and Ashley’s wedding photographer Dani Christensen posted some pics on her blog. I highly recommend her if you’re doing a wedding in Utah. Here is our family:

This is all of the Haws family (my side):

And here are a few of the happy couple:

Love the pics! Can’t wait to see more!

Christmas in Utah

We left on Friday, December 17th at 3:45pm. Our minivan was packed full and we started the long drive to Utah! Yes, we were a little crazy to drive in the wintertime, but luckily everything turned out well for us. Equipped with 21 hrs of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on CD the time went by quicker than expected. Merrick was a trooper and kept driving until midnight and we made it to Lincoln, Nebraska that night. The hotel stay was not so pleasant because Avery was sick and she woke up crying at 4:30am and was able to go back to sleep but Camryn was wide awake at that point. We checked out of there by 6:30 and were back on the road. 13 hours later we rolled into Merrick’s parents house in Bountiful, Utah. The weather cooperated beautifully and there were only a few spots along the way that had some snow flurries but even then we still were able to cruise along quite well.
Sunday we went to church with the Smith’s and got to enjoy a beautiful Christmas talk by President Henry B. Eyring. Then we drove over to my Grandma Haws’ house to say hi to my whole family who had arrived as well. There we met my sister Ashley’s fiance Andrew Wells! Seemed like a good guy! Then we went back to Merrick’s house for dinner.
The next day was the Bridal Shower for Ashley at my Grandma Haws house. This is a picture of my younger sister Katie and me at the shower! My sisters Britney and Katie and I got there early to make food and set up with my Grandma. There was a great spread of food! And we had a good turnout with fun times. We played a few games and enjoyed great company but whew!  I was sure glad to have that done so I could enjoy myself the rest of the trip! :) That night we enjoyed a wonderful dinner out with my whole immediate family at Macaroni Grill. Yum!
Tuesday was a nice day spent with Merrick’s family. We went with his parents and his sister and brother-in-law to go do family name sealings at the Bountiful Temple. Then we did a family picture and went out for Chinese food at Joy Luck. The kids had a great time playing with Taryn’s dog Calle. Camryn led her around the house on a leash and they were pretty cute.
Wednesday was the big day! Ashley’s wedding! Merrick and I went to the Salt Lake Temple and enjoyed seeing all of my extended family. The sealing went beautifully and Ashley looked amazing.
You’d think a December wedding would be snowy but it was actually a 40 degree rainy day! Luckily the rain held off for most of the outdoor pictures they took. Thanks to Andrew’s sister’s Facebook for these pictures!! :) This is all my family that was at the temple (below) and pretty much the only picture I have of me so far.

We had a wonderful luncheon at the Grand America Hotel and here’s the happy couple enjoying a little rest and meal before the festivities continued:

That night the reception was in Provo at the White Willow. It was a beautiful place! Here are a few more pics I found:


You can kind of see how beautiful the room was in this picture above. This is when she was throwing the bouquet. All 8 bridesmaids wore the red dresses. It was a beautiful night!
Thursday we drove to Midway where my parents had rented a condo for us all to stay in for a few days. My mom and older sister Britney and I all had sore feet from the previous day so we went to Heber for some pedicures! Such a great idea! It felt great! We had a nice rest of the day playing with video games and cousins and relaxing.
Friday was Christmas Eve and we spent the morning in Midway and then drove back up to Bountiful for the night. We had a nice dinner made by Merrick’s siblings and we all dressed up as characters from the nativity. Avery was Mary, as usual, and Camryn was a shepherd girl. She loved her costume up until the program started and then she ripped it off real quick. Oh well. :) Merrick was a wise man and I was an angel. It was fun and the kids enjoyed it.
Christmas Day was a whirlwind of presents with Merrick’s family in the morning and presents with my family in the afternoon and lots of yummy food and great company. Thanks so much to our families for all the fun and your generosity! We had such a great trip.
We left the next morning and drove all the way to Council Bluffs, Iowa and enjoyed a relaxing evening in a hotel there. The kids slept great and at 8:30am I finally woke everyone up so we could get out of  there! It took us 7 hours to get home and the house was freezing and the car was a disaster! But it was nice to be able to stretch out and relax!! And the girls were most excited to finally unpack all their toys and play play play! They’ve been playing ever since!!
I hope your Christmas was nice too. We had such a great time and wish we could have stayed longer! I’ll try to upload more pictures as I get them in. Happy New Year everyone!