This Week

One thing Atlas talks about all the time is cupcakes. He always wants to make them. He loves to choose what color the frosting will be, and he loves to lick off the frosting from the tops and then throw the rest of the cupcake away. We make cupcakes about every other week cause he loves it so much.

On Wednesday we went to the Providence Children's Museum. Atlas has been there once before and really likes it. We are planning on going on a day trip to go to the Boston Children's Museum soon because it is supposedly one of the best is the country. Maybe we will be spontaneous and go tomorrow since we finally got my car fixed.

Atlas really liked these little shell costumes that they had there. He tried them all on and then would march up to people and say "look, I'm a skunk(/turtle/ladybug etc)!"

He had lots of fun and was very sad when it was time to leave, but once we got home he started saying he didn't want to go back to the Useum (as he calls it). He kept saying it and we kept asking why until we found out it is because of the "scary chair." He talked about the scary chair for a few days and how he didn't want to sit on it. Here is the scary chair.

It finally snowed here on Friday. I didn't think Atlas was ever going to get to use his snow gear, but we ended up having two pretty big storms this weekend. On Friday afternoon it was sunny and we went out to play in our little shared backyard. We only have knit mittens for Atlas and all the snow was clinging to them and making him very frustrated cause he couldn't throw snow balls very easily that way.

Nick and Atlas had snow races. It was funny to watch Atlas try to move around in all his bundles and layers.

We can see a river from our backyard, which is cool I guess.

Making his first snow angel.

Helping Dad clean off my car.

Overall it's been a pretty slow week, but we had a few highlights that made it fun. Nick goes back to school on Wednesday and this semester is going to be a bit more busy than the last was for him. He has some classes that he is really looking forward to, so hopefully they will be as good as he wants them to be. I guess only time will tell.

We haven't been up to much lately. Nick is still out of school, but working hard to get some stuff ready for next semester. He still has a bit of free time, so we have all just been hanging out- playing with Atlas's new and old toys, watching movies, building forts and dancing.

Last night Atlas had fun going to Build A Bear to pick out an outfit for a teddy bear that Aunt Meg and Uncle Landon gave him for Christmas. He has named the bear Willy, which is the most normal name he has ever given anything. Most everything he names we forget what the name is cause he just makes up weird words. Anyways, he picked Willy out some sweet cars pajamas.

Today is Bixler's birthday. He is four years old, which in dog years makes him now older than I am! We made him a "cupcake" out of cheese, carrots and peanut butter. He chomped it down so fast I didn't even have time to get a decent picture. Atlas loves to sing Happy Birthday, so we sang to him then let him have his treat. Bixler is doing really well. We have a new collar on him that tells us how many times he barked while we were away, and the last two times we have gone out he hasn't barked at all. I seriously never thought I would see this day. I can't believe how much more obedient he is. He jumps at the table less, we taught him stay and lay down (two things I never thought he had the capacity for) and he is just generally more laid back. Finally we feel like we can leave the house whenever we need to. Tonight we went to an art exhibit and I wasn't worried at all about leaving him while all the neighbors were home. He still has a few hang ups, like he is scared of other dogs, that we will keep working on with our trainer. Overall I am really happy with him and his progress and it's great to not have all that stress about him anymore.

Everything is already back to normal.

Our Utah Trip

 We arrived in Utah for a Holiday visit late Christmas Eve. Christmas morning we woke up and went to church then came back to open presents with cousins. Atlas loved my mom's music boxes

...and getting presents.

We went to Zoo Lights with my family and it was really fun.

Nick and I especially loved this one of the old drinking fountain.

This is Atlas's favorite slide in the world. He could go on it forever. You have to pry him away from it when it is time to go home.

We went to Boondocks with Nick's family.

This was his favorite game, a Batman whack-a-mole.

He got lost in the top of the play place and adults are not allowed in. I tried to coach him from the bottom on how to get down, but he wasn't listening. Fortunately a cute little girl saw that he was in distress and helped him find his way down.

 He also got to play with his favorite friend, Quinn. They had such a good time together. I wish I would have got some footage of them dancing with this repetitive keyboard beat Atlas kept turning on.

We were also in town for Nick's birthday, so we threw a little party so that he could see some of his friends.

All he wanted to do was have a dance party. We watched a bad movie, took an intermission to dance, and then finished the movie. It was great to see everyone and their sweet dance moves.

After most everyone left Nick, Jaxon, Meg and Jace tried to dance like Beyonce.

And Nick's mom made her famous baked Alaska.

We had a great time and it was really nice to be back around family and friends, even if it was for a short while. I can't wait until we can come back again.