Festive Days

Our Christmas was very merry and bright. We had our own little Christmas morning a few days early and then flew to Monterey to be with the Bennions for a week. It was days filled with games, crafts (the girls mostly), chocolate, yummy meals and more chocolate. Claire loved her first Christmas. It was so so very precious to see her giggle and hug her new stuffed animals and dolls and instantly want to play with every new toy she opened. It was very fun to get to play Santa for the first time for your own child! It also caused us to realize that our family Christmas morning traditions differ a little. No biggie, we'll compromise on how Santa displays and wraps (or doesn't wrap) his gifts :) Highlight for me - Kindle Fire for my reading and browsing pleasure and for Christian - hang gliding gift certificate!! He's been dreaming about hang gliding (and flying in general) for ages so it was so fun to see his surprise :) But most importantly, this week allowed us to let the blessing of family, which is centered around our Savior, sink into our hearts. 

 My favorite homemade gift for my bro Matt. Inspiration here.

 Our living room's festive touches

Are all these things for me?!

 The daughter of a dentist needs to start early.

 Hugging her baby

Kissing her baby

Ball from Grandpa Raleigh 

 Kissing (or eating) the head of the baby from Grandma and Grandpa Raleigh

 This pic is for my dad: Thanks for the S&P shakers!

Claire had a little bit of a hard time with all the big boys at Gammy and Pop's place. Lots of new people, places, and things caused her to get a little clingy . She is demonstrating her happy but worried face here. However it wasn't anything seeing their doggy Jens couldn't fix! It looks like doggy is her first word - sounds like either dee, gee, or da. Well, maybe not a full word, but she would point to the back door excitedly and babble her words whenever we'd ask where the doggy was.

The traditional Christmas Eve dinner at the Bennions. Thanks for the lovely week and gifts and love Dave and Lorraine. We love you!

And of course things weren't complete without video chats with my fam in Utah. My bro David is getting home from his mission in April so I will get to spend some quality time with them all soon.

Merry Christmas and Happy 2012!

Playing catch-up

Thanksgiving with the fam was sweet. It was so fun to have them stay with us in our new house. We hiked, ate Thanksgiving Day with cousins in Gilbert, and just enjoyed each other's company for their short visit.

The horrors of Santa

So life has been crazy but I wanted to post a quick update:

Claire's first Christmas is here and it's a terrifying one. Thankfully, she'll forget all about scary Santa once she opens up her awesome Christmas and then birthday presents! Lots of fun things ahead.

ch-ch-ch changes

Our baby keeps changing and getting bigger as evident by the following cell-phone snapshots:

She now holds on to furniture and adult legs with solid footing and steady balance. She moves back and forth and along these ledges and crawls like a mad woman. Now she just needs the courage to stay standing when she lets go and move those little feet! No rush though, she moves enough as it is right now. She claps, kind of points, and likes to turn the pages and lift the flaps of the books we read. She is sweet and quiet and has the cutest shy smile when new people talk to her. She likes to snuggle her teddy bear when she goes to sleep and snuggles with mom and dad too. We love this sweetie!

Other changes include the fact that we moved into a house! We love it and feel very blessed and at home - this is where we're supposed to be. Here's some shots of the house without us moved in. My decorating projects are coming together and I'll show some pics once we're more settled in. 

More pics to come!

Getting better

Last week was a sickly one for us. Claire demonstrated a whole range of symptoms - on and off again fever, decreased appetite, constipation, weird rash on her face - all on different days. Thankfully she never was too uncomfortable and almost each symptom was resolved within 24 hours of first appearing. Of course Christian and I weren't spared and suffered lovely food-poisoning-like illness the night after enjoying our military discount at Olive Garden on Veteran's Day. Dang, I hope my appetite for that place comes back eventually :( Well, Sunday after our icky week we decided to heal in the sun and explore Thunderbird Park which is close by. We hiked and enjoyed the 75 degree, blue sky and sunshine of November (ah, heaven). It was just what we needed.

 View from the top of the "mountain" as they call it.

 I told Christian to get close enough so it looked like she was going to touch it. Ha, thankfully she didn't get poked.

Busy Bees

So last year on my birthday my mom gave me a baby bumblebee costume for next year. Even though it seemed so far away, it's here and we got to dress up our little 9 mo. old bumblebee! Dad and mom of course were her beekeepers :) Also on this birthday weekend Christian took me out to breakfast to "The Good Egg" for some delicious omelettes and pumpkin pancakes. Oh wow it was good.

Unfortunately our little bee was an angry bee. Good thing we had on our gear so she wouldn't sting us.

The angry bee was calmed by some sugar and also by taking off her fleece costume in the 85 degree weather.

And boy does she like that sugar. She's practically inhaling the sucker we gave her.