Getting to know you Christmas Post

So I got tagged for the first time. Here it goes:

1. Gift wrap or gift bags? Gift wrap definitely. I like to get a paper theme and have all the presents match and with real ribbon. It makes them so pretty. Pulling things out of a bag is just not as fun as unwrapping. I had to explain to Russ that it makes the present more fun to open if it is pretty. That is why I had him wrap my gifts, then I tied the bows on.
2. Real or Fake tree? I say real because it smells good and a huge part of Christmas is picking out a tree. Sure it is messy and you have to take care of it, but that is part of Christmas. But, I do understand and don't judge when others have fake trees.
3. When do you put up your tree? Usually the first Monday after Thanksgiving for FHE.
4. When do you take the tree down? Whenever. This year we actually already took it down before we went to the valley because it was already shedding needles and I didn't want to have to deal with it when we got back.
5. Do you like eggnog? I can drink it but I don't love it. Russ sure does.
6. Favorite gift as a child? I think that would have to be when my mom made me a play wedding dress. I think I want another one. Every year.
7. Hardest person to buy for? Russ. I think guys are hard to buy for. Mostly because he doesn't usually want anything and if he does it is ridiculous or too expensive. He is like a kid and just wants toys, no cloths.
8. Who is the easiest person to shop for? Kids, they are so easy to please!
9. Do you mail or email Christmas cards? Mail definitely. Making a fun Christmas card has been a tradition for me. I have made them since Russ and I were married and they get more complicated every year. I may have to tone it down some.
10. Worst Christmas present? Okay, I can't answer this because I can't think of one and even if I could I wouldn't say it because it was a present and that would just be ungrateful. I would say a crappy white elephant gift like Jennie did except the one I got last year was kinda cool.
11. Favorite Christmas Movie - This year ELF and always White Christmas
12. When do you start shopping for Christmas? There is not a set time I think I started in October, but I still have one more thing to do then I am done. Except I am thinking of adding one more thing. Oh my gosh I am crazy!
13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Well, I got a gift card one year and then bought someone a gift with it the next year. Is that bad?
14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas time. Popcorn cake!
15. Clear or colored lights on the Christmas tree? Clear. And the first year I was married I got these awesome, big, globe lights at walmart and I loved them. Some got broken and I wanted to buy more, but they stopped selling them. What the? They are the coolest!
16. Favorite Christmas song. O Holy Night, especially when my cousin Sara or Josh Groban sings it. Except Josh leaves out a line of the song, anyone else notice that?
17. Travel or Stay home? Since we are in Flagstaff we travel. I think it is important to be around family.
18. Can you name Santa's rein deers? Dasher, Dancer Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph. The real question is, can I spell them?
19. Angel or Star on top of the Tree? I like a star, but angels are good too.
20. Do you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? Christmas morning, but the real questions is do you have to take turns opening them? When we were kids it was a free for all, and it was awesome. Now we take turns, but since I am an adult I can handle it.
21. Most annoying thing about the season. Like Jennie said, traffic and lines. It also bugs me how people forget the real reason for the season and are more concerned with getting instead of giving.
22. Favorite ornament theme or color. I like the red and white and some green (but the tree is green, so, you know.) I also like ornaments that mean something or that are homemade. Those are the ones I like to look at when I go to others homes.
23. What do you want for Christmas this year? For everyone to LOVE their presents from me. Seriously. But the gift I would most like to have is a new, really nice camera. But I know it will not happen (at least not for a looooong time.)

And I am adding a question

24. Does Santa wrap or leave the presents out? He wraps, sometimes there is a present or two sitting out but for the most part, he wraps. And for my kids it is with special paper that is the same every year!
Okay I tag Jacie, Tia, Carolyn, Jenny, and Emelie

Lovely Little Lady

This is Gracie after a bath. She loves her baths and it so cute when you take her out. She smiles so big you think she is going to bust.

I was thinking the other day about how much I love this little girl. I realized I love her more now than I did when she was born. I started thinking about the different stages of love. When she was still inside me I loved her and wondered what she would be like. When I saw her for the first time I cried, and thought she was so beautiful. I loved her sooo much. Now sometimes I feel like there is no way my body can hold the love I have for her.

I decided that I love her more now because I have spent so much time serving her and taking care of her. I love her more now because bits a peices of her personality are seeping out and I love it. She is so fun and sweet. Now I not only love her because she is my baby that I take care of, but because she is who she is and everyday I will love her more and more because of the way she will grow and the things she will learn. My heart is living outside of me and is held in two tinny kids. Joy is the only word I can think of.

Snowflakes falling all over town

I love it! William LOVES it. Russ loves it. Gracie is a baby. I know there are some people who agree with me and some people that will think I am crazy, but there is something so magical about the snow. William will play in it for hours and does not seem bothered by the cold. I will play in it for quite awhile. I showed William how to make snow angels and a snow man, but neither are pictured because I never finished the snow man and our unbelievably annoying neighboor girl ruined it trying to "help" make it. William asked me if we ate snow expecting me to say "no". When I said yes he looked at me like I was crazy and then I showed him. After that all he did was eat snow. It is really cute to see him do it. Anyway, we love the snow! I wish we could always live here.

Who knew...

...I would be so sad.



Gracie decided that she is done nursing (Yes, this post is about nursing so if you don't want to hear about it STOP READING NOW). Now it would not have surprised me if she stopped during the move when I would give her bottles every now and then and I was really stressed. The I left her for a day and a half when I went to the concert. If she decided to stop nursing then I would have been bummed, but not surprised. After all that we got home and I worked really hard at getting my milk back up and no bottles and we succeeded. For two or three days there were no bottles! I was so proud. Then out of nowhere for no reason I can find (except maybe a masive growth spurt) I was not produsing enough milk for her so I would have to give her formula and all of a sudden she would not nurse. A I mean that, I would try every position for a long time but she would not even try. She would just scream when I would try. So she had bottles all day long. On Thursday night I realized that it was over, that she was done breastfeeding. I cried. I couldn't believe that after all the problem I had nursing I would be so sad to see it go, but I was. That night I was able to get her to nurse, proabably because she was too tired to notice. Last night I wanted her to nurse so bad and I got her up before I went to be and she nursed! She nursed all night long. Well, not all night long, just for every feeding. I am hoping that I will at least be able to keep the night feedings.

Oh Christmas Tree

Well I got us a christmas tree. I don't think Russ likes it very much because he keeps pointing out all its flaws and saying it looks dead. I, on the other hand, think it is beautiful and it makes the house smell great! You will notice that at first all the ornaments were on the bottom, because it is where William wanted them. We moved them later. It lacks the garland that we will make and I am going to get a new star. In the pictures William is holding a little teddy bear ornament that he adopted as his very own "little baby". It was pretty sweet.

Like Brother, Like Sister

I noticed that Gracie's favorite toy in the saucer was also Williams favorite toy.

The weather outside...

Yesterday morning the first thing William wanted to do was snuggle with Gracie.

Gracie had her 4 month old check up and is now 12 lbs 1 oz. She is growing great and everything looks perfect. She did have to get her shots, but luckily she was able to come home and take a loooong nap with her daddy.

Today when we got up it was kind of snowing outside, but turned to rain before we got out there with the camera. Here is William ready to go outside. He is wearing a beanie I wore in High School, what does that tell you about his head?
We had some earends to run and went to Wal-Mart were they were taking pictures with Santa. When I asked William if he wanted to he said, "I don't like Santa." Well I ended up taking a picture with him and Gracie got one with Santa all by herself. I will post them when my scanner is up and running. We got our tree today, but will be decorating it tomorow.




















Can you tell we are ready for Christmas. This year we are doing a Activity Advent Calendar. This is what is going to go down:
1. Put up Christmas Lights
2. Decorate Christmas tree
3. Put up remaining Christmas decor
4. Make Christmas Cards while watching a christmas movie
5. Same as above
6. Address and mail christmas cards
7. Make a cranberry garland
8. Find Mistletoe, hang it, and kiss under it
9. Go Ice Skating
10. Have a candlelit dinner by the tree
11. Donate Food
12. Make a snowman if weather permits or make paper snowflakes
13. Make goodies for friends
14. Watch and Read the Grinch
15. Throw or attend a christmas party
16. Read the Christmas story from the Book of Mormon
17. Read the Christmas story from the Bible
18. Make a Gingerbread house
19. Make Popcorn cake
20. Watch Elf
21. Drive around and look at christmas lights
22. See a movie
23. Go to the Temple lights
24. Make Santa's treats
25. Open Gifts
I got some of these ideas from another blog, the order can be re-arranged, but it should be a fun packed holiday season. Oh, I need to add sledding if there is enough snow. Let the games begin!

Thanksgiving Weekend

So I already posted about the first part of Thanksgiving weekend, now for the second half. So after we got home we had a low key Thanksgiving dinner at my moms. It was supposed to be low key and simple, but my mother made a full blown Thanksgiving dinner. A lot of my family came over and Jacie and Nick and their kids came and that was fun. William loved playing with them (he asked for them the next morning). The only pictures I got of this evening were these of Aisling and Channing. I could not get over the fact that they love to eat olives (they make me sick, especially since I have been pregnant.)



My cousin and friend Chris also came from Idaho and brought along his lovely wife Darcey and their beautiful daughter Penelope. It was so fun to see them again. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of their cute little girl. She is seriously a doll.
Friday we spent the day at a family Reunion with Russ' family. It was in honor and celebration of his Mothers parents. His aunts, uncles, and a lot of his cousins were there. It was a lot of fun to visit with family and it was really fun for me to learn more about Russ Grandparents. They were really neat people and I am pleased to be part of such an amazing family. We were not able to attend the reunion festivities on Saturday because my brother got married!

My brother Mark married Miss Ashley Dahl.
Now to be honest, I was not sure how I felt about him coming home from his mission and marrying so fast, but after talking with him I realized that there are probably no circumstances in which I would be ecstatic about him getting married. It is just hard (for me anyway) to except my brothers getting married and believe that there is anyone good enough for them. After talking with him and seeing how happy he is, I am happy that they got married. Ashley is a great girl and most importantly Mark loves her and she makes him happy. Congratulations guys!
The wedding was beautiful, I loved everything! The reception was a lot of fun because we got to see a lot of friends and family. William loved the party. Especially running with his cousins.







All the little girls in their little dresses my mom made

Funny Faces!

My happy little girl

Giving me kisses, isn't she sweet?

Two definite highlights of the evening were
1. my dad dancing to The Twist. Connie and I danced with him and I was getting tired, but could not stop until he did.
2. William caught the garter!
Of course I do not have pictures of either of these, but the photographer did so maybe I will have some soon.
Could this weekend have been any busier? I think not.

What the?

I don't know why, but posting the videos below has cut off my title picture,or whatever you call it. Hopefully this will go away.

Concert videos

I love this song because I LOVE to sing and I always imagined he wrote this for me. Good thing I have a good imagination.

Concert Video

This is a song he wrote when he found out he was going to be a father. He called it My Eyes because he thought it was a nice name and his son did end up having his eyes. I could only tape a little of this song because I actually started to cry. Maybe it's because I have a precious little girl who had my eyes and a strappign young boy who has Russ' eyes. I love this song.

Take me to the Show

Warning:This could possibly be the longest post ever.

So Wednesday we (Connie, Alexis, Russ, and I) got up bright and early to drive to LA to see our favorite band, Travis in concert. Yes, this was the day before Thanksgiving and yes, the first time I have left my kids overnight (with the exception of leaving William while I was having Gracie) and yes, I did cry (but only a little). We drove all day and it was nice to be able to just sit and talk, and talk, and talk. I have been to see all my favorite band in concert, most of them more than once, but never Travis. So this was very exciting.


We got there in time to enjoy some Rosco's Chicken and Waffles.


Poor Connie, they brought us all our food except for her, she had to wait. Then Russ and I were able to meet up with this little cutie and she showed us her stompin' ground. Russ' brother and sister in law reside in LA so we got to meet up with them and talk for awhile. It was fun, but somehow only Harper made it onto my camera. She is just too cute, Brett and Natasha - you guys are cute too!





















While we were doing that Connie and Alexis ran into these guys
In fact, they met the whole band. Connie called me all flustered and soooo excited to tell me all about it and I told her to take her picture to a 1 hour photo so she could get it signed after the show. They both did this and after the show both Fran and Dougie said, "I am wearing the exact same thing" when they saw the picture. But you have to imagine them saying it with adorable scotish accents. Now for the slide show of the show, I put a lot of pictures in there and for those who don't care so much, they will most likely all look the same.

I will be posting a few video clips soon.

After the show we waited FOREVER outside and it got pretty cold.


Finally they came out and it was great to meet them. They are just about the nicest guys. I think that Dougie may have been a little tipsy. We got to thank them for their music and performance and chat with Fran about my kids and his boy. I told him that Williams favorite songs are Closer and My Eyes.

I know this is quite possibly the worst picture of both Russ and I, but I don't really care because I was and am so happy just to see them.


Russ had Fran sign his arms like he did with Ben Folds.


After that we got in the car and started to drive home. I was asleep in the back and Russ was driving. After a few hours he got tired and pulle dover and we all slept in the car until I woke up and my nose was cold so I told them we either needed to drive or get a hotel. So we drove the rest of the way. This is Russ "watching" Gracie after we got home.
My kids didn't hate me when I got home and seemed to do fine without me. All in all it was an AWESOME trip and I can't wait to go again.