Christmas 2010

At the last minute, Eric's aunt had an extra ticket to the David Archuleta and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert and so I was able to go! Eric stayed home with the kids, such a great guy! I got three hours of sleep that night, Henry slept terribly on the vacation and there was a fire alarm that went off at 4 am. So I caught myself drifting off to sleep occasionally, but it was actually a lot of fun and was a great way to get into the Christmas spirit.
We had fabulous seats, nine rows behind the Prophet, right in the middle. I've decided that great seats make a huge difference. It was a neat experience, thanks Kris!

Lillie and Emmett played so well together. We really wish that we lived closer to them. Emmett is so funny, he always winks at the camera and so almost all of our photos of him are one eyed. There was snow about the first half of our vacation but we didn't get pictures of it. Lillie and Eric made a snowman and Lillie already knew what to do. She said he needed rocks for eyes and a carrot for the nose...

The Luke 2 reinactment this year had three Marys. Lisa was pregnant Mary, I was Mary post partum with Henry playing the part of baby Jesus and Lillie decided that she didn't want to be the angel but that she wanted to be Mary too.

Family photo with Tyler's friend Chen Chen. She became Lillie's newest best friend and was so good at playing with the kids. We were glad that she was there.

Eric's cousin brought over his xbox kinect and dance central. Such a FUN game. I want it! Here's my father-in-law showing off his moves.

I love this picture of Henry, he looks so old. I feel like I can get a glimpse of what he'll look like as an adult from this photo.

Lillie and Emmett made a gingerbread house with Uncle Tyler and Chen Chen. Lillie's favorite part was eating all the candy off of it.

I knocked the Christmas tree over on Christmas day while trying to retrieve a present. Stupid tree, I didn't even touch it. I moved a present a quarter of an inch and it fell over. I felt really dumb. Thank goodness no one was under it. Lillie bawled her head off though.

All Henry wanted for Christmas was his two front teeth. And he got one of them. I guess that might have been partly why he slept so poorly. SO GLAD to be home in our own beds, getting full nights of sleep.

We met up at Temple Square with some of our friends who were visiting from N. Carolina. Love them! Some of the funnest and best people I've ever met. We miss them and wish that we were still neighbors.

The temple square lights were so beautiful, too bad it was so cold!

Lillie and Nya quickly became good friends and Lil cried when we parted ways.

Picture of the kids with their "Korean" grandparents.

It was so nice being around family for the Christmas season. I realized this year, a little bit, how much work the holiday season is. Kinda overwhelming. But the kids had fun with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and a cousin.

As fun as it was, I'm glad the Christmas season is over! Bring on 2011!

My Fave

This is my favorite picture taken over Christmas break. Love these two!

Dance Recital

Lillie had her first dance recital today. She danced to "I've Got No Strings" from Pinocchio and did a great job. She even added in a few extra twirls. All week long I tried to get Lillie to wear her tutu around the house to practice for the recital and wouldn't ever put it on, but thank goodness, today she was okay with it. She looked so cute! Anyway, it was a quick three minutes of stage time, but she has loved her dance class.





What's a public outing without a mini meltdown at the end? That's how we know when it's time to go.

My Christmas Elves

6 Month Checkup

Today was Henry's 6 mo checkup. While I was excited to see his height and weight and have his ears checked, I really don't like my kids getting shots and I don't like dealing with their general fussiness the whole rest of the day. Henry's been so whiny, poor kid. So his height was 28 1/2 inches, 95th percentile. And his weight was 18 lbs 8 oz. I know that seems like a lot for a 6 month old but we thought he weighed closer to 20 lbs, so I was surprised. This put him in the like 60th percentile down from the 90th at four months. His growth chart has taken a downward turn. And so I got a lecture from my doctor about his weight. I got in trouble for having an 18 pound, 6 month old. I know, I know, it's all about the curve. He has seemed hungry the last two days. Oh well, we'll work it out.

Picture with Santa 2010

This is the best picture that we got. I guess adding another member to the family makes it exponentially difficult to get a picture where everyone is looking.
We had our ward party last weekend. The day of, I told Lillie about all that would be happening and she got a little nervous when I said Santa would be there. She's been on a ghost kick and thought that he was a ghost. So I tried to explain the fabulous story of Santa Claus, and when I saw that her eyes had glazed over, I gave up and told her that he's just a nice Grandpa. So all that day she kept saying how excited she was to see the nice Grandpa.
It was a good evening, sad to think that this will be our last Christmas in SoCal. I love this time of the year and it's fun seeing Lillie get into the Christmas spirit more this year as she starts to understand. Can't wait to see her face on Christmas morning!

New Hat for Hank

Today's temperature was in the mid-70's but I couldn't resist picking up this hat at H&M. It was $5 and I think it's worth every penny, even if Henry gets a little hot in it. He is the CUTEST little bear!

More from the park

We spent a chilly afternoon at our favorite park last week. It was Henry's first time on the swings and he loved it! Lillie loved it too. We haven't been getting out enough, with Henry's sporadic napping, but he's doing better now so I'm excited to get out again. We finished off the outing looking for fairies in the trees and flowers. Lillie has seen the Tinkerbell movies one too many times.

Outing to the park

SIX MONTHS?!?

My baby is growing up. FAST. Henry turned six months yesterday, and I can't believe how quickly it has gone by. He is such a sweet little guy. We love having him in our family. Here's some of the things he can do: He's usually sleeping through the night, has started to take much better naps, army crawls all over the place, has gone from crawling to sitting a couple times, loves to pull hair, loves to suck on his fingers, likes to have his face nestled into his blanket to sleep, loves to find cords, LOVES his big sister, speaks goo goo, eats baby food and oatmeal and is so ticklish. Since he's started sleeping better during the day, he has gotten a thousand times easier. He's happier when he's awake and I'm able to get more done each day. SO NICE. I'm really looking forward to the next 6 months, to see the many more things he will have accomplished! Happy Half Birthday, Hankster!

Random Thoughts

Eric is at night clinic, which is awful for me (putting kids to bed is not my favorite thing to do, Lillie usually doesn't want to go and I'm exhausted at that point) and so I'm glad he doesn't do it very often. But it does leave me with lots of time to pass tonight before he gets back.
I put on Cinderella for Lillie to watch so that she doesn't make a lot of extra mess this evening, since it's just me to clean it up. Henry is hanging out on the floor, he's SOOO close to crawling, trying to see what's close enough to grab. The computer cord is his favorite thing to chew on. Glad he doesn't have teeth, but its probably not a good habit for him to get into just the same. He gets up on his knees all the time and rocks back and forth before lunging forward at whatever object he wants. I think that it is only going to be days before he figures it out. I am so scared.
We put up our Christmas tree yesterday. It's been cold enough for jackets lately so I guess that's enough justification to pull out the decorations. Lillie had been begging for the last few days. She was actually a big help with decorating the tree. And she plugs in the lights first thing when we come home from running errands or when we wake up. Glad someone else in this family likes Christmas trees as much as I do.
Today the dental clinic was closed and so we went to Disneyland for the last time. Our passes expire in a couple weeks and Disneyland is so busy right now that it isn't really enjoyable to go, so I think that today was it. I want to end our Disneyland experience on a high note, not frustrated with crowds. I've been dreading the idea of being done for quite a while now, but I'm at peace with it. We've had a good ride. Some day we'll visit again, it'll just be interesting to see how long it'll be.
Last Friday "the committee" met to determine where we'll be stationed for the AEGD (advanced education in general dentistry) Eric wants to do next year in the Air Force. My heart races every time I think about it. Right now I am SO ready to move on that I don't really care where they put us, I just want a change. Badly. We should find out in a week or two. Things went really well when Eric interviewed so I hope that means we'll get one of our top choices. Can't wait to find out!

Christmas Cards from Shutterfly

I love the Christmas season and one of my favorite parts are holiday cards and although I haven't sent them every year, I love receiving them. This year I am determined to send cards out and even better, send a photo card! They're always my favorite to receive.

I love Shutterfly, we have been a member of Shutterfly for years and have often used them to print out our photos. I haven't been one to send out Christmas cards, I think we sent out an email last year, kinda lame. This year we had family photos done and I wanted to do Christmas cards. It's been difficult living so far away from family because we don't see each other often. I've missed weddings, reunions, baptisms, etc. So I was thinking that this could be my way of catching all the family up on what we've been doing.

Shutterfly has a huge selection of holiday cards to choose from, over 800. As I was looking through them, I was looking for holiday cards that are fun, but that still have the words "Merry Christmas" on it. Since my kids are young, I like the cards that are playful, too. This year, I want Lillie to pick the card that she wants to send out, makes them more special for her and for us.

There are so many great Christmas photo cards that Shutterfly has to offer, but I was still able to come up with my 3 faves:


I love the snowflakes and it would be a good layout for a big family photo






I am leaning toward doing a collage so that I get to use more photos. This one was cute and it had Merry Christmas on it.



Another classy collage.
Choosing one is going to be hard.

And of course Lillie approved of all of these.

Go and Get Yours!

Henry 5 Months

Better Late Than Never

Henry is 5 months old! He is such a funny boy. It's amazing that there are already so many things about him that are different than Lillie as a baby. I guess I just assumed that they would be pretty much the same until a year old or something.
*He is super ticklish and Lillie was not. I barely touch the tabs of his diaper to change it and he's laughing hysterically.
*He loves to be held and rocked by his momma and Lillie did not. He doesn't do this to fall asleep but would do it all the rest of the time and never wiggle or make a peep, if I let him. And I do let him a lot more than I want to or should.
*He is so close to crawling, it's scary. We think it'll happen in the next couple weeks. I love watching him explore the world around him and can tell that he's dying to do more of it once he crawls.
*Henry loves to look at himself in the mirror. I guess he's vain.
*He's still super huge, although a lot less chubby than he used to be. I am shocked every time I pick him up about how heavy he is. My right arm is really buff.
*He's back to taking super short naps, sometimes only 20 mins. Killing me. Literally. I guess I'm really just that awesome of a Mom that he can't stand to be away from me... ever. But seriously, having two kids that don't nap is REALLY killing me. My house is a wreck all the time. I am lucky if I can ever get a meal in without a baby in my arms, let a lone a shower.
*He still adores his older sister and thinks she's hilarious. Can't wait for a few months when he'll be more mobile and they'll be the same size. Lillie will be in trouble. Ha!
*We started rice cereal a week ago and he totally digs the stuff. It makes me sad to think that my baby is so much less of a baby now that he eats off a spoon.

Love ya, Chunk!

Pretty in Pink

Lillie wanted me to take a picture of her before dance class yesterday. She is transformed once the leotard and tutu are put on. She dances, leaps and twirls everywhere she goes. Only four more weeks of class and then its recital time. Can't wait.

Birthday, Brother and the Beach

This week has been a fun and yet crazy one. My brother and his family came down to SoCal for the week and so we met them on Tuesday at Disneyland. Tuesday was also my 27th birthday and there is no better place to celebrate it than there. It was a fun and hot day. The ride lines were short which makes a huge difference, we were able to do a lot of things without a lot of stress. We came home that evening and had the best cheesecake on the planet from Cheesecake Factory. It's the Reeses Peanut Butter Cup and it is the most delicious thing ever made.
We went down to Anaheim on Thursday to play in their hotel pool. Lillie loved it, especially all the time spent with her cousins. My brother has two daughters, the younger one being a couple weeks older than Lillie and so it was fun to see them play together.
Then on Saturday, we met my brother and his family at a beach in Malibu. The girls loved the tidepools, we found a seal, starfish, crabs, and anenomies. Fun times.
Lastly, today we went to Universal Studios. We got to see the new King Kong 3D attraction and it was really cool. Then we did a couple more kid friendly rides and things and called it a day. By the way, we saw Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) at the park today. He was with family and wasn't recognized by many people so we didn't want to bother him. Eric was in the bathroom with him (Ha!) at one point. So that was our celebrity sighting number 2.
Anyway, it was an eventful week but a really good one. We always love seeing family. It made me really homesick after they left. I love seeing Lillie interacting with cousins. Cousins are and were such a big part of my life growing up and so I want that same experience for Lillie and I feel like sometimes we miss out on great family experiences. Baptisms, birthdays, talks or singing in church, baby blessings, etc. I love my family and can't wait for the day when I can live nearby.

Even though it was a great week, I'd still be happy if this one was a little less busy.