Christmas Decorating and Anders being cute as always!

Now that we have had Thanksgiving and a day to recover, we put up the Christmas Decorations! Anders had fun helping! He kept getting this cute look on his face filled with wonder as he looked at the lights being hung and the red and green objects all over the place.

Here is the final result of our tree once it was decorated.


As we were working on the tree, Anders was playing with his toys and ended up spitting up all over himself and so Camrose came to help clean him up.


After we got him cleaned up and dressed, he wanted to play with some of the shiny wrapping paper and was so happy with his 'toy'.


Then... on Sunday, for some reason, the hot water just wasn't hot. Normally it is because of sharing the tank with the neighbors but we had waited what should have been long enough for the water to warm back up in the tank and it didn't. Anders had been about to get in with momma to get clean so daddy thought: "how can I keep him warm?" and the result is Anders in a diaper and hoody.


When he is smiling for momma!


He has also started to do this neat thing when momma tickles him by play biting with her lips, he has started to do it back:


We are so excited for this Christmas season! First Christmas for Anders so we do feel a little pressure to make sure that he knows that Christmas is all about his Savior Jesus Christ. Pretty sure that he won't understand on an intellectual level yet but we are going to make sure that we sing hymns about Christ, point out images of Christ and his birth, and read him scriptures about the birth so that as he grows up, he knows what this time is all about: celebrating the one who made it so we all can live with our Father in Heaven again!

Day of Turkey, Thanks and Giving

This Thanksgiving was our first with a baby! We had a blast. We planned out everything in advance so there was no stress with baking and cooking the Thanksgiving meal for ourselves and David's two brothers: Sam and Adam. We spared no expense with the food, but the decor was definitely lacking. We will have to work on that for next year. It was also Sam's birthday on Thanksgiving day and Adam's is tomorrow, so we opted for a homemade cake, rather than pies.

Here is the table right before we dished up to eat. Not festive, I know!


Here we have corn, croissants, candied yams and turkey. Not pictured are the mashed potatoes that were warming up in the oven.


Next is the salad and the must have jello with fresh whipped cream. We are Mormon and not afraid to admit it!


Last but not least: THE STUFFING. Syd's favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal.


Here are Sam and Adam blowing out the candles on their birthday cake. It was actually quite the adventure to make. I accidentally bought a cake mix for a yellow cake, instead of our favorite butter yellow recipe. So David made the cakes (we like to do a layered cake with our pudding frosting) but he couldn't get them to come out of the pans no matter what he did. When I came into the kitchen to see them, they were literally in pieces. There was absolutely no way I could put together a cake out of the pieces. And so we started over, after David ran to the store. That was the only drama of our Thanksgiving day. Luckily David had made the cake early enough that it really wasn't stressful or a big deal to start over again.


Here is the family shot we had to get on our first Thanksgiving together!


After all the Thanksgiving festivities we decided to do Black Friday shopping for the first time. We went up to the outlets in Park City to get Anders all his new clothes and Syd a new winter jacket. We got such killer deals we were grateful we made the trip. And it worked out well because we started shopping at midnight instead of waiting to go up at six in the morning. Syd was in heaven: she and Anders are the night owls in the family.

Baby Steps

Okay. So Anders isn't walking yet, but he is developing along pretty quickly for us. What is he doing now you may ask? He is able to sit on his own. He can't quite sit up from a laying position, but once he can find leverage to pull himself up (like a finger, or something that keeps his feet down) he can remain sitting and keep himself balanced. We have the proof!

Here he is sitting on his own. It was so funny taking these pictures because he wanted to follow his momma around the room as I was trying to get him to laugh while Daddy was taking the pictures. So he kept falling over because he cannot smile at momma without kicking out one of his legs in excitement. He melts momma's heart!

What's better than Santa coming to town?

AUNTIE JESSICA coming to town. Jessica flew in on Thursday morning to come visit us because they had two days off school due to budget cuts and Veteran's Day. We spent lots of time talking while she ate up the opportunity to hold Anders. I did find it funny though because she would ask to hold Anders and two minutes later I would look over and she had put Anders down (she wasn't used to holding such a heavy baby). haha.

We also ate desserts from THE CHOCOLATE (a dessert cafe). I think we got desserts from there the three nights she was here. Don't judge. Her favorite was ironically "the husband". I am sure it would be my favorite too if I could eat chocolate.

We saw a dollar movie for our night out on the town.

We took family and sister pictures. It was chilly but tons of fun.



















We also made a memento for Jessica to take home with her so she could remember this trip and us every time she looks at it.



And then the time came for us to take her to the airport. It was a teary goodbye for some, and others (Anders) had big smiles (it helped he got a long nap on the way to the airport). He loved getting all the kisses from his momma and his auntie.







The End. Hopefully she will be able to come back and see us again soon!