Baby Kat at 4 months

Baby Kat at four months became a complete and absolute delight!  My baby that had been a bit of a challenge and needy up until about 2 months found her place in the family and the world and started to show us the happy and sweet little girl that she truly is.

 Despite all of Mommy's efforts to deter her from this habit, Kat is a thumb sucker.  She is my first.  My other kids have sucked hands a lot, but never have preferred their thumb.  I finally resolved myself to it and didn't worry too much about it when I realized that she still was calmed best by her binkie, she just really loved sucking her thumb.

 Kat received the nickname that has stuck the most:  Baby Kat.

 Baby Kat came courtesy of this little girl, Gracie.  Gracie is our neighbor who loves Kat.  She renamed all of her baby dolls after Baby Kat and always has to come say hi whenever she sees us outside or at church.  I think as Kat gets bigger they will become good friends.  Maybe even more because Levi says he wants to marry Gracie in the Logan Temple. :)

 Kat loves belly time and likes watching everyone around her.  She especially loves her big brothers and sister.  I haven't had to get toys for her to play with very often on the floor because far too often she is just as happy to watch her siblings run around her.  Kat is very curious and always wants to see what they are up to.

 Ellen LOVES her baby sister and likes trying to be little mama to her.  She is good at holding her and loves to help her stand and try to move her feet.  Kat has a lot of patience for her big sister and knows that she is capable of helping her if Mommy isn't around.

Kat is a smiley, goofy, playful, giggly, sweet, cuddly, adorable baby.  We sure are glad that she is a part of our family.

Ellen's Christmas Piano Recital

Ellen was able to start piano lessons again this year.  Our neighbor across the street, Stevi, gives lessons and for cheap (which we love) so we have been sending her there.  I worried that she wouldn't like piano lessons if they weren't given by my Aunt Jean who spoiled her rotten, but she has really enjoyed them still.  It could help that Stevi is a pretty good spoiler herself.

Ella was the last to play and in true Ella fashion she didn't have her music ready.  Stevi and she spent a few minutes going through all her papers just to find that they didn't have one page from one of her numbers.  Luckily Stevi had an extra (that is what I get for letting Daddy help her get her things together...he is disorganized too).

   She did beautifully and I was very proud of my baby girl!

FedEx Bowling

Landon's work had a Christmas party this year that they invited families to be a part of.  We went bowling at All-Star Lanes.  We were the only ones who brought our kids so it was a little crazy trying to keep them on task when all the other adults were in the bar drinking and we were waiting for our lane to open up.  We found things to do.

They had an awesome arcade area for the kids with the most fun arcade game I have ever seen.  It was meant to be like a stationary roller-coaster.  The screen moves and it makes you feel like you are on an actual roller coaster.  It has fans that blow wind in your hair and your chair rumbles and moves a little.  Our kids loved it!

They also loved chasing around the lights on the floor and playing with the balls in the ball holders.  Once we got the lane of course they had a blast bowling.  It is one of our favorite activities.

Kat layed on the table and stole EVERYONE'S heart.  She is such a happy baby and will smile for anyone. 

It was a nice to get to meet everyone that Landon always talks about and show off our kids.  Plus, they had a ball! 

Porters and Gingerbread

We had the pleasure of having the Porter family come to play with us during December.  I was very grateful for the company since Landon was gone all the time with peak and the kids definitely loved playing with their cousins.

While Renee, Steve & Kids were with us we were able to go to Temple Square and look at the lights.

We ran into a few people we love and haven't seen a while, or even ever.  This is Landon's cousin Sarah and her husband.  They have lived in the Phillippines since they got married a couple of years ago.  What a surprise it was to me when I literally bumped into Sarah and Airlan.  This was their first day in the United States.  Can you tell Airlan is so cold?

Porter's stayed with us for a couple of days so we were able to do more fun things as well.

We decorated the Christmas tree....

Snuggled with Aunts and Uncles....

...and decorated the Gingerbread House.

Kat also was learning new tricks and we were trying to get her to show it off for the camera.  She wouldn't do it, but in trying to get her to Landon did call her a pretty funny name.  See if you can hear it!

A Christmas Tree Adventure

On the Sunday of Trevor's actual birthday we headed out on an adventure. Christmas tree picking!

Last year we started the tradition of cutting down our own Christmas Tree. We really enjoy it and it is a lot of fun. This year, with Landon being full blown in peak, the only time we could find to go was on a Sunday after church. So, we loaded up and headed out with only the map from BLM to guide us. Dumb...I know.

The Christmas Tree cutting area was only supposed to be about 25 minutes from Tooele. After driving for about 45 minutes we still hadn't seen a road that looked like we could go on it. We drove back and forth down the same stretch of highway several times, for about 2 hours, looking for the place. Our neighbors, the Bybee's, had just gone out there the day before, but with sporadic cell service I was having a hard time getting a hold of them to have them help us. After the 2 hours we finally stopped and asked for directions from someone who looked local and we also got a hold of Adrienne who told us what we needed to do.

At this point it was almost dark and we weren't sure if we thought we should do it or not, but the reality of the fact that Landon would not have time to go out again until the next Sunday and by then we would be half way through December we decided to move forward in the dark.

We drove out to what we think was the cutting area, we may have stopped a little early and Landon got out and tried scouting for a tree in the dusk. Really all he could see was shapes of trees. We hadn't brought a real flashlight, but luckily Landon's cell phone has a flashlight on it. So, armed with just the flashlight on the cell phone we headed out to cut down what looked like a good shape of a tree.

The kids were soooo excited to finally be out of the car. They loved just running around although we kept having to get after them to stay close because it was so dark.

Ellen ended up with the job of holding the cell phone flashlight for Daddy while he tried to cut down the tree without cutting off his hand.

We were finally able to get it down and keep all of the children and the dog all together. Here is our Daddy hauling out his find.

And here is Kat and I all snuggled up to watch the events. She really liked being out there even though her little nose got cold.

While this years tree cutting trip didn't go as planned it still ended up being fun and a good memory for us. On the bright side, we now know where to go for next year so it should only take us half the time to cut down our tree.

And....Our tree that we picked out in the dark ended up being one of the prettiest trees we have ever gotten.

A Big Boy 5 Year Old

Trevor turned 5 this year. Wow! What a big boy he has become and I can't believe he is 5 years old already.

This year on Trevor's birthday we got to do something different. Tooele was having a Santa Parade the day before his birthday. The parade was on Saturday and so the kids and I loaded up and headed down to see Santa and get some candy.
Levi saying cheese...

There wasn't a lot of candy at the parade, but he kids did have a fun time grabbing what they could and seeing Santa at the end of the parade.

This is how Kat enjoyed her first parade.

That Saturday night we celebrated Trevor's birthday with a party! Last year, his four year old birthday, Trevor wanted a Red party. This year he decided he wanted Green! I could not ask for a better boy to pick party themes. He really does make it easy on a mama.

We had gotten a bunch of green decorations, green plates, green M&M's, and even green juice. The neighbors, the Halls & Bybee's, came over to help us show Trevor just how much we loved him. We played Green Don't Eat Pete and decorated green sugar cookies with green frosting.

Trevor wanted an ice-cream cake, so it wasn't green, but at least he would eat it.

In true Ladwig/Kunz family fashion we let Trevor blow out his candles the first time we sang and then did it again to let all the other kids blow. Avery, our seven year old neighbor boy who has autism, was so excited to blow out the candles but missed the chance to blow the second time.

So we did it again to let Trevor and Avery blow only. This time Avery started talking to his Dad about how we were doing it again and missed blowing again. By now all the parents were laughing hysterically. We ended up having to do it a fourth time so that Avery could get a chance to blow the candles.

Then it was on to presents...

The big present that Trevor had asked for was a fire truck. He was very excited about this one.

Levi testing out some of the presents. Thanks everyone for the presents!!

We are so in love with our Trevor man and couldn't imagine life with out him.

A few things about Trevor:

• Your favorite color is Green.


• You are a very affectionate boy. You love to cuddle and tell us that you love us.


• You like schedules and get upset if your schedule gets interrupted.


• Your favorite show is still Wonder Pets.


• You are proud when you can do something on your own. You like doing dishes and helping clean.


• You have an incredible imagination and are great at making up games.


• You are a great big brother and really, really love your baby sister.


• You like to make Ellen angry and will do things just because you know she will get mad.


• You are a Daddy's boy and can't wait to go fishing and hunting with Daddy.


• You love playing computer games and Wii games.


• Your cousins are your best friends, Braiden may be your favorite.


• You were really sad to move from our White house and even more sad when we couldn't move right into our brown house. You put up with it all well but were very, very happy when we got to finally sleep at our brown house.


• You finally figured out how to peddle and steer a big wheel.


• You know all of your letters and sounds. You have started working on trying to blend them all together.


• You like pirates, trains, cars, puzzles, and coloring.


• You have followed in your Father's footsteps and are an avid movie line quoter often reciting entire scenes from movies to yourself or anyone that wants to listen.

We love you Trevor and can't wait for the next 5 years to come!