Christmas 2011

For Christmas this year we celebrated it with our own little family. I was excited to be the 'mom' in regards to planning and preparing. Little did I know that it is A LOT of work, even with a family of three! But here is our Christmas Eve spread of our favourite appetizers and drinks.

Here we are in front of our little tree on Christmas Eve. I planned a little program and it was such a special time to spend together with the three of us. Colette loved the packages and this was one of the ones she wouldn't leave alone.

Our stockings on Christmas morning!!

Here is our 8 month old little lady all ready for church.

And here she is showing off her Christmas jammies and slippers from Great-grandma Lola. I just can't get enough of how cute those little slippers are! Sorry for her too much egg nog look...

(Time to cut my nappy hair..new year, new do)

Colette with all her stash. She just loved all her little toys!!

So there you have it. Our perfect little first Christmas! Christmas night we went over to some friends house and played games and ate WAY too many treats, but hey, it's Christmas :) But now we are ready for our next holiday with Christmas packed up so we welcome the New Year, which will be spent with me working and Colette sleeping. But 2012 will also bring lots of fun new memories!

8 Months Old

Yesterday Colette officially turned 8 months old!! I can't believe it--no, really, I can't. But she has grown so much and here are some things she loves.

-Solid foods...will try anything we give her. Loves it all! Especially lemons
-Crawls on all four limbs and is getting pretty fast. I have to keep a good eye on her because she can get into anything very fast.
-Pulls herself up on anything she can get her hands on. Couch, ottoman, shelves, bed, safety gate, chairs, me, Nick, toilet...she just LOVES standing.
-CAN OFFICALLY SIT NOW! We were worried for awhile, but on December 24 she just took to sitting like it's no big deal, and now she just sits there like she's been doing it forever.
-Loves her new walker. Doesn't actually walk with it yet, but stands there ready to walk.
-Loves being tossed in the air, playing peek-a-boo, tickled, walking around the house with mom, and when dad comes home.
-Smacks her lips
-Gives open mouth kisses (occasionally)
-Working on waving hi and bye
-Not weary of strangers yet, but I think it will come soon. (Tonight we had the missionaries over and she wouldn't leave one of the elders alone. She just loved him!)
-Sleeps from 7:30pm-7:00am with one 10:30pm feeding...pretty good for me! But she has always been a great sleeper (from what I hear)

So overall she is just great! I love her more and more each day, and the best part of my day is waking up and walking into her room to see her standing there in her crib smiling!

Ward Christmas Party

Here we are at the Ward Christmas party. (above is my friend Cassie. Colette just loves her!!) The picture below is the one that made me decide to dye my hair. So I did. Dark brunette. I have no regrets (as of yet). But the Christmas party was nice. We met new people in the ward, ate tasty food, and just absorbed the Christmas Spirit. It was nice of Nick to share his special day with the rest of us :) I was SO SO tempted to grab the microphone and start the whole ward in a carol of Happy Birthday to Nick, but I didn't to spare him the embarrassment.

December 17th

Nick's 29th birthday started off with him sleeping in a little while Colette and I got his favourite breakfast ready- Waffles! Cole and I set up balloons and Nick's birthday banner, which Colette just loved to play with. Then he opened his presents and, surprise, his friends came an hour early for their fun day activity! Yeah, they were that excited :)

Ned, Nick, and Mike (RI friends who aren't actually from RI)
They all went to the shooting range for the morning and then they treated Nick to 'Hot Weiners' for lunch. (Which are really hot dogs, but that is what they call them in Rhode Island. don't know why.) After that Nick was tired so he took a nap before we headed to the Ward Christmas party!

After that we all came home and he read Colette her bedtime story, which she loves! The next day was Sunday, so I made him his birthday dinner of steak and potatoes, and we had his birthday cake with our friends the Resch family. As you can see in the picture, Colette thought the candles on the cake were pretty much the highlight of her life!

So there you have it. Nick had a pretty great birthday and he has gracefully entered the last year of his 20's. He better make it a good one :)

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas! This morning we have been getting ready for tonight and Colette just can't leave the presents alone...I bet she is excited :) Oh, and Netflix has a Fireplace show that just shows a burning fireplace for an hour. That has been playing and she loves it. Hope you all have a great Christmas as well.

aaaaahhhhh

She is just the cutest thing ever! And she is feeling awesome now that she is on antibiotics. Makes me so happy to have her healthy again.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to my wonderful husband, friend, and father! I am so lucky to have found you and Colette is so lucky to have you as her dad!! We love you-

AAHHHH

I am sick of this!!! Last night I felt like someone punched me in my face because my cheek was hurting so bad and has continued to hurt even until right now. So I was talking to Nick, and my friend Melissa, and they said I have a sinus infection. Never had one before, but it was really hurting! So I went to the doctor today and turns out I do. He put me on antibiotics (first time in my life) and hopefully I will feel better by Sunday. You know that book, the Secret?, well, I'm putting out in the universe that I want to get better and hopefully it comes back to me. hahaha

Crawling and Standing

Colette is a baby on the go! Only 7 months old and she loves to crawl on all fours and pulls herself up to stand on everything she can get her hands on. Her favourite are my pant legs when I am cooking in the kitchen.

Colette Playing with Toys

This little sheep Colette got at her baby shower from the Hargreaves family and she just loves it so much!!

Ugly Sweater Paaaarty

We were invited to an Ugly Christmas Sweater party and boy oh boy there were some nuggets of beauty at this party. You can't really see in the picture, but my favourite was my friend Cassie's husband's, Chris. He wore a ladies red turtleneck, with a green sweater vest. It was so funny! Since Nick and I don't have any ugly Christmas sweaters (Thank you Grandma's for never purchasing us one) I made a felt scene on one of Nick's sweaters. It was funny! We also played a white elephant game where we walked away with a sweet score of games and toilet paper :) Tonight we will be playing Checkers...(And Colette slept the whole time)

Setting up Christmas

Cute nativity my mom sent me! OH, and I also got out the felt nativity that my mom made when I was a baby...family members may know what I'm talking about...anyways, I set it on a shelf that Colette can pull herself up to, and I think she has a crush on baby Jesus because she is always grabbing him out of the manger and playing with him way more than anyone else. hehe

We officially have all our Christmas decorations up. Well, we only have a handful due to all the moves we have had in our three years of marriage. But when we got our Christmas tree out, Colette was very interested in it. She crawled over, inspected the tree (with her mouth), then got on her knees to feel the lights. Now she does this every morning when we get up. She also loves the bows on the packages and tries to grab ornaments, but I made sure to put those out of her grasp.
So I guess you can say we are all ready for Christmas! But first we have to prepare for Nick's 29th Birthday on Saturday!!!!! We are very excited for that around these parts :)

Sick, sick, sick

It has been a rough 2 weeks for Colette and I. So as you read, I got sick at Thanksgiving...I've been sick since and I have passed it along to Colette. I never get sick, no, really. NEVER. I told Nick that is must be a whole different set of colds out in the East and my ultra strong immune system can't hack them. He had no comment...But what makes me so sad is that Colette is sick because of me. I lost my voice, she did too- I am coughing up a storm, so is she. I called into work last night sick, and today I have decided that we are going to get 100% better!!! No more of this nonsense! So we have stayed in for two whole days napping, drinking fluids, breathing in a humidifier, and Colette even tried an orange for the first time! (I thought that Vitamin C might help her...)
Outcome thus far? Still sick...but that boogie syringe they give you at the hospital has worked like a charm! (For her, not me.) Let's hope we start to feel better tomorrow.
P.S. Nick's finals are Monday so we don't see him everyday from 7:00am-8:00pm. We really miss him around these parts.

This one goes out to the one I love

Enjoy Nick!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we met up with a couple friends from the ward and each brought a piece of the meal so that we didn't each have to make a meal for our little families. It was great! The food was wonderful, the company was great...just one hiccup- I was sick! With what? I don't know, but it hit me hard and I haven't felt like myself since. Today was the first day where I am starting to feel better.
So that day we had Thanksgiving, then we left early (sad cause I like to play games) but I was about to crash, and when we got home I did. I slept from 5:00-7:00, then woke up and put Colette to sleep. Then I tried my best to get back to sleep, but couldn't, before I had to head into work (at Target). My shift started at 12:45 am and went until 9:15 am. So yes, I was there when all the crazies were there. Yet I didn't see any crazies! From 1-2 there was a rush (46" TV for $398, apparently that is a good deal), and there was an infant with her mom, in a sweatshirt, waiting in the freezing cold line outside, and screaming the whole time inside.. not sure what that mom was thinking! But no shoving, pepper spray, or hair pulling. I did see a man offer $$ to someone for a certain item..but that's it. After 2 am, the store was quiet and slow. I worked in the shoe section, so the slippers were the only thing selling there. But I recovered from lack of sleep over the next couple of days, and realized something very important. Black Friday deals are not that great. I had to do some marketing at Target, and some items were only $3 off, and you don't realize that because the new sign covers the old one!! So there you have it. No need to Black Friday shop at 1:00 am.
Other than that, Thanksgiving was great. Colette just loved mashed potatoes and corn, of which we let her go to town on and we are very thankful for all the blessings we receive, our families, and the gospel in our lives.

Only a mother....

...could love this face covered in food, boogies, and sticky little fingers.

Two little Teeth

They came in great and she loves using them on everything. She even bit my toe once. I guess when we fly to Utah in January, Uncle Reid might have to have a look at them :) Her first dentist appointment.

Just for fun

I haven't uploaded any pictures lately to my computer, so this is the only thing I have to post. Just some fun little clip-its I have found online. I guess you can enjoy these until I get around to uploading new pictures.

Husband

In less than 1 month this great dad to Colette and husband to me, turns 29- the last year of his 20's!! It will be an exciting year for him and I'm sure he will never forget it.

Motherhood

Christmas Crafts

Christmas time is near (and thankfully not here yet) so Christmas crafts are inevitable! I am on the RS committee for Super Saturday and I had to make two crafts that ladies in the ward could choose from. These are the two I chose and I think they turned out pretty good. Colette just loves the little Christmas Story finger puppets, so I'm glad that it's at least a hit with her!

Attempt 1: the army crawl

So Colette now has two bottom teeth in. She is sitting (when we put her in that position) pretty good, but still needs work, and she is learning to army crawl around to get what she wants. When we went to the doctor's last week, she said Colette was perfectly healthy, 14 lbs, and in the 89% for height. Looks like our little string bean is going to take after her daddy!

Parents in Town!

My mom and I went to Newport and looked at a couple of mansions. This first one is Rosecliff. It is where they filmed, The Great Gatsby, True Lies, and Omistad. Pretty cool place to live for 10 weeks a year (!!!) but the owners had a sad story of their life...you'll have to visit to know what it is :)

This is the Cliff Walk in Newport and it goes along the cliff (who'd have guessed) and also by all the castles. Such a beautiful walk!

This is The Breakers. Some cool facts of this castle:
- One room had platinum on the walls. VERY rare back in those days
-The Vanderbilt family owned it...the very Vanderbilt's that also owned Vanderbilt University where Nick was also accepted.
- Mr. Vanderbilt had a solid marble slad bathtub. It had 4 faucents. 2 for hot and cold fresh water, and 2 for hot and cold sea water. They had to fill and empty it several times for the marble to warm up. Craaaazy
- They only lived here 10 weeks a year...
- The National Historic society purchased it in the 80's (?) for $400,000!!! THAT's IT!!

My mom and I thought this little house was the ground/gate keepers house. Nope- it's the children's 'play' house. My brother-in-law Reid needs to step up his play house game, after seeing this!

Providence, RI

Out for fresh caught seafood. You should have seen the TWO LARGE lobsters my dad ordered!

In Salem, Mass. looking for witches

At our Ward Halloween party.

Dad having cider that heated up his glasses! So funny

My parents! and 6 month old Colette

My two favourite ladies