Grandma and Grandpa Chatterton

Shortly after Christmas we enjoyed a visit from Ben's parents. It was so great to have them here! They spent lots of time with Tom Star and gave him lots of toys. Tommy is learning to wave now by extending his arm out to people. He got lots of good practice holding his arm out to Grandma and Grandpa and he smiled every time they waved back to him. We kept them busy and we are so grateful for everything they did for us while they were here. Besides playing with Tommy and chatting with us they fixed our dryer, changed out two of our light fixtures, cut Ben's hair, watched Tommy so that we could go to the temple, cooked us dinner, and made us all happy. We love them very much and we look forward to seeing them again in March!

Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas this year. It was pretty quiet and relaxed since we just stayed at home in Arizona, but we had a good time. The day started off early at 5:30 am when Tommy woke us up. He has been consistently sleeping through the night until about 7:15 am most days, so we blamed the early morning on his innate knowledge that kids must wake their parents up obscenely early on Christmas morning. We brought him into our bed for a few minutes and snuggled and then we went downstairs to see what Santa brought. Tommy got lots of cool toys and loved playing with them all. The video is of Tommy playing with a boat that has a mirror on it. When he sees himself in the mirror he gets excited and talks a lot. We kept him in his jammies all day and let him play all he wanted. Thank you to everyone for the great gifts and for the incredible generosity. In the evening we had a fun dinner with our friends, the Francoms. We loved hanging out with them and Tommy had a good time talking to his little girlfriend, Zoii (she's about 22-months-old).

Thanksgiving 2009

This year for Thanksgiving we drove up to Utah to be with the Wards. It took us about 13 1/2 hours to get there and Tommy was a champ on the drive. It was actually pretty fun to drive and just be together. We stopped about every three hours to feed and change Tommy. On the home stretch I found myself feeding Tommy some cereal in the backseat while Ben drove at 80 mph. We had a great week with my family relaxing, visiting friends, and eating lots of food.

Roadtrip!

Tommy spent long hours strapped into that car seat and stayed pretty happy for most of it
Dad, Crystal, Tommy, and PhyllisWes, Carson, and Ricky

Ben, Crystal, and Tommy on Thanksgiving

Jamie with Tommy, Makayla, and Jarom

My mom and Tommy

Tommy learned how to feed the dog (Sammy) while we were there

Tommy and his new best friend, Alex Jones. Tommy is about 10 days older than Alex. They had fun poking each other in the face.

Walgreens Means More Green

I was so proud of myself this week for my shopping trip to Walgreens that I just had to post it on the blog. As many of you know, I am a couponer. I wouldn't call myself an extreme or advanced couponer, but I usually do okay for myself. This small trip to Walgreens turned out to be pretty productive. I only spent $1.90 and here is what I bought:

4 boxes of Smart Start cereal
2 bottles of Renu contact solution
1 box of Just For Men hair color

Don't worry, nobody is going gray around here just yet, but I ended up MAKING MONEY by purchasing the hair color. Here's how I did it:

I purchased the hair color first for $6.99, but I printed a coupon that brought it down to $4.99. Walgreens has a program called Register Rewards where they print off a coupon good for your next purchase at Walgreens. The hair color printed off a coupon for $7 in Register Rewards that I used for my next transaction. The total for this transaction was $5.61 with tax.

I printed off a coupon for $2 off the Renu here (bringing the price to $7.99) and a coupon for $5 off 4 boxes of Kelloggs cereal here (it's a manufacturer's coupon so you can use it anywhere even though it has the Target logo on it). Walgreens had the cereal on a buy one get one free sale, so it was $4.18 for 4 boxes of cereal. I used the $7 Register Rewards coupon from the hair color and $3 Register Rewards I got last week to bring the total for this transaction to $3.28.

Here's the kicker. There is a rebate for the haircolor that I sent in, so I should be getting a check in the mail for $6.99 PLUS I earned $10 more in Register Rewards for buying the Renu contact solution. In sum, I spent $1.90 for stuff that would normally cost about $39 AND I have $10 in Register Rewards to spend on my next shopping trip to Walgreens. These deals are good until tomorrow (the 12th) so you can do it, too!

Home Plate for the Holidays - Arizona Christmas Par Excellence

Nothing says "Happy Holidays" like a giant inflatable Chuck Norris.

Crystal and Ben and Tommy went to Goodyear Ballpark for the City's "Home Plate for the Holidays" festival, which boasted 40 tons of manufactured snow and Santa arriving by firetruck (the flier had the line break before "engine" and after "fire", so for a brief period Crystal thought Santa was going to appear in a blaze of glory, David Copperfield style).


Also making an appearance were bounce houses. Our favorite:


Yes, I'm pretty sure that's a giant inflatable Chuck Norris in cutoffs.

Also, tables that were selling the requisite knick-knacks, and, apparently, massages. Turns out if you get bored waiting for Santa, and the unflavored sno-cone playpen and inflatable Texas Ranger don't really float your boat, you can have a footrub in front of thousands of total strangers.

More of those Darn Cows

So Tommy has learned to play with this toy in more ways than even Fisher-Price could have imagined. At this rate he'll still be playing with it when he is 19 years old!

The Happiest Pirate

We had a great Halloween with our Tommy. I dressed him up like a pirate a few days before Halloween (he especially loved sucking on his sword). His official Halloween costume was a cute little lion.
We were finally able to catch Tommy laughing on video, so here it is! He has also become a master at grabbing our face and hair.