Turkey Day

What a great Thanksgiving we had! The whole Woods family was able to celebrate together this year. Ty's parents and Leslie's family came from Page and Andrea's family came from Lehi, Utah. Our house was full of lots of kids, lots of laughs, and lots of food.

Andrea and me making the traditional Woods family rolls

Papa carving the turkey. How lucky am I to have this guy as a father-in-law??

Thanksgiving dinner: Cody and JoEllen hosted and did a great job of making the house look fun and festive. Jack looked so big sitting at the kids' table.

Brothers

The women and their pies: Lois, JoEllen, Me, Andrea, and Leslie

Jack and his girls: Kenna, Josie, and Savannah

Today we went on a South Mountain hike and the weather was a perfect 80 degrees. This is why we endure Phoenix summers!

All the cute grandkids

It's Cold!

Jack must be an Arizona boy because this morning while watching a show he had me bundle him up in a blanket. He kept telling me it was "too cold." Keep in mind that our weather is still in the 70's...

Kitchen Makeover

Projects, projects, projects! I feel like that has been the motto for our family this year. It's good, though. We knew when we bought our house that there were going to be lots of little projects. Anyway, this past week has been a "kitchen" week. Ty had Veteran's Day off and decided the night before that it would be a good day to start refinishing our kitchen cabinets! I took these "before" pictures awhile ago, but you'll get the jist of it:

And the "after" pictures:

The pictures are a little dark (we finished at 9:45 last night), but I'm sure you can tell it's a huge difference. We used a gel stain that was very forgiving and easy to work with and added beautiful new hardware. We're so happy with it. The kitchen was a disaster for a week, but it was so worth it!

Big Boy, Big Changes

This has been a big week for Jack. For the first time, he got out of his crib. Actually, he fell out. And landed on his head. And scared his mother half to death. So, Jack now sleeps in a toddler bed! He lovingly calls it "new bed" and asks to play in it all day.

I'm not going to sugar coat things: the first night was awful. He woke up at 1am and kept coming into our room and trying to get in bed with us. We put him back in his bed over and over again. By 2am, we decided to lock his door, but it didn't take long for him to figure it out. By 3am, a very frustrated daddy flipped on all the lights and pulled his tools out so he could switch the doorknob around, while Jack wailed in the background. It was actually kind of funny--I should have pulled out the video camera. By this time, Jack was so upset that he couldn't calm down, so Ty had to lay on the ground next to him and hold his hand. By 4am, Jack was asleep again. Since his doorknob now locks from the hallway, things have been much better and I think he finally understands that even though he can get out of bed, he shouldn't.

The second big change for Jack this week has been potty-training! Monday was a "trial run" and since he went potty every time I stuck him on the toilet, I figured it was time we train him. Even though he hasn't gone #2 on the toilet yet, he hasn't had any #1 accidents in the last two days. Hooray!

He looks pretty cute up there, don't you think?