merry christmas

We are in Utah visiting my family for the holidays this year, and we are having a wonderful time!! It had been so much fun spending time with siblings and their respective families - especially when this is the only time we get to see them each year! 

I will definitely be posting more and more pictures once I get a chance, but I wanted to take the opportunity and express my appreciation for Jesus Christ and his life and ministry. I am grateful that we get to celebrate His birth and the wonderful gift of life He gave to us all. Because of Him, my family can be together forever - a blessing that I thank Heavenly Father for every day. 

And for all of those family members we are not with at this time, here are a few pictures to enjoy. We love you and miss you all - and are truly blessed to have you apart of our lives. 

Merry Christmas!!

Group at Burger King on our way home from exploring through the mountains to find our Christmas tree. Quite the adventure!! 

Helping L learn how to crawl. We laid a path of Gerber puffs out for him to get ... very cute!!  

K and J exercising together - quite the team!! 

My favorite little boy enjoying the snow ... 

Cousin K helping L get used to it. What a sweatheart - already playing 'mom' to him! 

S making fun of us girls who get a little emotional while opening presents. He's opening a ski movie ... I guess it may be appropriate after all. :) 

L playing with his new drum set! 

Brother-in-law J helping J-boy with the dart gun. These were very popular gifts this year ... 

As you can see the adults kind of took over the kids' toys. 

J-boy excavating his dinosaur site with Grandpa B. So cute! 

Sister T with baby A. 

More pictures to come!! 

ridiculous, but true

Do you ever find yourself doing something that you know is absolutely ridiculous, but yet you can't do anything about? You are either in too deep, or can't see any decent, self-respecting way to get out of it?

The other day I was trying to lay L down for a nap. Sleeping for L has been a continuous struggle - sometimes he's amazing and sometimes he's awful. And with the vacation for Thanksgiving, and it almost being time for our vacation for Christmas, there hasn't been a long enough stretch to really fix the issues. So I was nursing him, and he fell asleep in my arms. Perfect. I lay him down and he immediately starts to stir and fight it. This is where it gets ridiculous.

Instead of laying him down and walking out the door, I try to quickly duck under the bumper pad and lay on the ground right next to the crib. I tried to do this before he was able to turn over and lift his head up to see me walk out the door which always creates more drama. As I'm dropping to the floor, I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "This is stupid. It's not going to work." But I did it anyway.

So I'm laying there. Listening to him cry and move around in his crib. He stops crying after a bit, and I can hear him moving around, playing with his pacifier and bear. I see him pulling on the bumper pad, and I am trying to be as flat and close to the crib as possible so he won't be able to see me. The whole while thinking to myself how ridiculous this is.

I start considering my options. Army-crawl to the side of the crib to take a peak at him? No - too risky. He'd definitely see me. Take a nap myself? Tempting - but I'm on the floor without a pillow or blanket, my arm fell asleep after using that as a pillow, and my cheeks are itchy from the carpet. Okay ... stop the nonsense and just walk out the door? I'm too weak - that shows how silly my idea was to begin with. Plus he'd see me and start screaming. Hmmm ...

There I am, contemplating all the dead ends in my plan. Meanwhile, I'm almost positive that L has seen me by now. And I have had not one, but two pacifiers drop on my legs since I laid down. He's beginning to play that dropping game waiting for me to pick them up for him. Oh the madness!

Finally, I start to smell an unpleasant aroma and know that L is the culprit. I give up. I stand up only to find L sitting up in the crib! Sitting! He has never pulled himself to a sitting position before! I take a brief second to marvel at his new ability, and then get back to business. Change his stinky diaper, try nursing him again, and lay him down once more. This time I walked out the door.

Sure enough, he started screaming as he saw me leave. I checked the clock - 45 entire minutes had passed. Did I mention that I knew this was ridiculous from the start? But yet I had started ... and I felt the need to continue. Why?!

I had the monitor with me downstairs when only a few minutes later I hear the mobile turn on. How on earth he reached it is beyond me. His mattress in on the lowest setting and the mobile is really high. But it at least entertained him for a little bit. And I have to give him credit for figuring it out himself. Now if he would only sleep.

I really don't think I'm cut out for this parenting business.

story time

L playing on the ground with toys.L learning to crawl.

L reaching for a red ring.Doing his Superman impressions while reaching for red ring.

Right hand didn't work. Trying to reach red ring with left hand.

Back to right.

Settles for the orange one. All is well.

new trick

We've caught L doing a new trick. Now he can still use both hands to hold other toys. Pretty clever, eh?

christmas goodies

I've had a little fun in the kitchen lately. Maybe I've had a little too much time on my hands - or maybe I just love to eat treats! Either way, I've had a lot of fun! Crunchy peanut clusters, REAL homemade fudge, the famous Buckeye candy, delicious English toffee, white oreo fugde, and homemade oreo cookies. So yummy! Christmas is a great excuse to eat, isn't it? :)

eight months

Recent statistics: 21 lbs. 7 oz. The last two months I have taken him to the doctor's office just to weigh him on his month birthday. Maybe last month he wore heavier clothes? Either that or he lost 3 oz. ... who knows. All I can say is that he's still incredibly heavy. :)

Taking pictures of L was a little more challenging than normal. He just wanted to be moving the whole time! I am definitely going to have a lot of chasing to do once he can actually crawl! This kid was out of control!

Recent favorites:

L has started to give wet kisses. At least I think that's what he's trying to do when he slobbers my entire face! It's so much fun! Except when his kisses turn into bites ... then it's not so fun.

Amazingly awesome hugs!! I cannot even begin to explain how good it feels to get a hug from this little guy - it's perfect! (okay, as of this past week he stopped giving hugs. I try to remind him how to do it but he is much more interested in being out away from Mommy to be able to touch, feel, see, and experience other things ... sadness.)

L now can get up on his knees and rock back and forth. We definitely see him crawling soon!

He loves to laugh at Mommy, and Mommy loves to make ridiculous faces and act all crazy to make him laugh.

L loves watching other kids play - especially cousins C and S. They affectionately refer to him as "Baby L" and played with him all the time at Thanksgiving.

Starting to eat more solid foods and LOVES the independence it offers him. Mom on the other hand needs some therapeutic help because she's already having issues about her baby growing up. I think she'll have a nervous breakdown when he's old enough to go to school - who knows what will happen when he can drive, date, and go to college!

Is a champ on plane rides. He doesn't sleep too well, and definitely needs to be entertained the whole time - but overall people love him and he loves the attention!

"Perpetual motion" is still the best way to describe L. He is constantly moving and wiggling and squirming ... I can hardly keep up with him now!

Has had his first nerf blow-dart war with Daddy. (Thanks Papa G for the Christmas gifts!) Sadly, I think Daddy won ... but L was definitely putting up a good fight.

Is still extremely attached to Mommy. As long as he can keep his eyes on her he's okay ... but watch out if she goes out of sight. It's not a pretty picture.

Loves to dance with Momma.

If there's something out of reach while he's on his belly, he rocks forward almost touching his face to the ground with one arm reaching as far as he can toward the tow. He lifts the opposite foot off the ground, and it looks like he's flying like Superman. It is SO funny, and so cute to watch him work so hard to get what he wants.

Holding back on using consonants while talking ... I'm not sure why but all he ever says is "Ahhh" over and over again really loudly!

L likes to roll onto one side to watch people. It's like he's a model striking a pose or something ... pretty funny if you ask me!

L never holds back. Whatever his emotion is, he shows it full-swing. Some people call that an "intense" personality. I love him for it. :)

joy to everyone

I just received a newsletter from BYU and this was one of the first things highlighted. It is a song that is available as a music video you can download for free. I love it! And I wanted to share it with you all!

Click here to watch it! I hope that the true joy of Christmas will be felt by all.

The song, “Joy to Everyone This Christmas,” was written and produced by Stephen Jones, dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communications, in collaboration with Emmy-award winning composer and producer Sam Cardon and vocalists Jenny Jordan Frogley and David Osmond. The music video features images from university photographer Mark Philbrick.

thanksgiving goodness

We spent Thanksgiving in Colorado this year visiting R's family. His younger brother and sister-in-law could only be there for the weekend before the "real" Thanksgiving, so we crammed an early Thanksgiving and the C-family Christmas into two days. It was SO much fun! We flew in Friday, had Thanksgiving dinner that night. We had each written various notes of what we are thankful for and put them in a bowl. Throughout dinner, Ry's mom read them out loud and we had to guess who wrote them. There were a lot of funny moments and love shared through those notes! I would love to make that a Thanksgiving tradition. We decorated the Christmas tree after dinner, drinking the traditional hot chocolate with peppermint sticks in it (SO good!). I love the memories that are associated with various different ornaments - such a fun way to relive the Christmases long, long ago (name that song ...).

Saturday morning we exchanged presents with each other, and had a lot of fun playing with the grandkids and their new toys. As you can see, L really enjoyed his new toys! And cousin C loved to help L learn how to play with them instead of eating them!

Us older kids went to go see Twilight in the theater and had a wonderful time just being together. Sunday we went to church and took family pictures outside, and said goodbye to R's younger brother and sister-in-law. The weekend went so fast!!

We still had a few days left with the rest of R's family, and we definitely kept busy! We made the famous home-made gingerbread house which is fabulous and a favorite among R's extended family. We made C's delicious English toffee. We went to the park and enjoyed the beautifully perfect fall weather a couple days in a row. We put Christmas lights up on the house. We decorated the house for Christmas. We watched a couple movies. We played and played and played with the grandkids. We organized C's pictures on her computer (Picasa3 is amazing!). Ry's got in some valuable study time. We got together with some of R's old high school friends and had a blast hanging out with them and eating pizza and cheesy bread and laughing for hours. We celebrated cousin S's 1-year birthday. We took hundreds of pictures (not even kidding ... I took over 450 myself ... it's ridiculous what happens when you have a kid) and lots of video footage. We watched little S take her first steps without holding onto anything. We ate like kings and queens every night. Ry and I went outside at night all bundled up drinking hot chocolate to look at the city lights glittering, and I got to take a bath in C's jetted bath tub. It was amazing.

The personalized mailbox outside the gingerbread house. So cute!!

C taking pictures of S's birthday cupcake - which she ate with only two fingers and hardly made a mess at all! It was a total crack up. :)

Three grandkids watching Little Einsteins. They were best friends from the start. :)

We tried taking pictures of the grandkids in their matching outfits by the tree ... probably a hundred pictures were taken, with very few that actually turned out. But here's some of my favorites!

A perfect Thanksgiving/Christmas celebration. Thank you Papa G & Nonnie!!! We had a wonderful time and miss you already!!

what is this?

Seven months going on ... 16? I am sooo not ready for this.

I definitely did not pose this one. L LOVES phones - in fact, he's so sneaky that he completely destroyed my phone by sucking on it, and I got a new hand-me-down from R's mom. Now my old phone (which was my mom's old phone!) is L's phone. And he is content as can be! Hand-me-downs are great, aren't they? :)

tagged

I was tagged - twice - so I figured I should give in! Thanks cousin S and sister-in-law J!

RULES
1) Post rules on your blog
2) Answer the six "8" items
3) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving them a comment

8 Favorite TV Shows
1. Seinfield (Ryan got me hooked)
2. Jeopardy (another Ryan one)
3. Extreme Makeover Home Edition (I have actually only seen this once - this past Sunday. It was so good I started crying three times in the first ten minutes! looking forward to the next one!)
4. Baby Einstein -- not a tv show, but good just the same!
5. any kind of home decorating/remodeling show
6. movies galore - while you were sleeping, sandlot, cars,
7. anything disney ... looking forward to HSM3 (sad, but true!)
8. sense and sensibility, pride and prejudice, similar movies ...

8 Things I did yesterday
1. took R to a Basic Life Support training
2. went to grocery store - twice
3. went to a local craft bazaar
4. made yummy taco soup in crockpot for dinner
5. went to a baby shower
6. ate leftover pizza for lunch with R after his training
7. played with L
8. took dinner over to a friend's house who just had an adorable baby girl

8 Things I look forward to
1. Seeing lots of family soon!
2. Thanksgiving in Colorado
3. Christmas in Utah
4. Skiing (it's been way too long!)
5. SNOW!!!
6. Christmas caroling
7. Baking lots and lots of treats for the holidays!
8. Not needing to wear a nursing bra anymore (this might be a little personal, but I am SO looking forward to normal bras again! haha!)

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Cafe Rio -- by far the best
2. Macaroni Grill
3. BJ's
4. Chili's
5. Columbus Fish Market
6. Kimo's in Hawaii
7. Happy Teriyaki in Olympia, WA
8. Olive Garden

8 Things on my wishlist
1. new purse
2. student loans paid off
3. a craft room
4. a holiday-baking day full of making yummy treats to give away while caroling
5. children's books
6. to live closer to family
7. run a half marathon in the spring
8. vacation for just R and me


8 People to tag
1. Count yourself lucky ... it's your choice. :)
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

happy birthday nonnie!

To our favorite Nonnie
We love you!
We are excited to give you BIG birthday hugs (and wet kisses ... from L!) in just a week!!

perfect combination

What to do when Mom wants an excuse to take pictures of a short-attention-span-seven-month-old? Go to the park! Wonderful idea ... now all we need are lessons for good action shots of the swing. :)