A Merry Little Christmas

We had the most wonderful Christmas at our home this year.  The entire season has been filled with celebrations and the last few days have been no different.  We have baked cookies, visited friends & family, eaten our fair share of delicious food & treats, and opened lots and lots of presents.  Our family was extremely kind to us, and our kids obviously were good this year with all the presents they received.  Out house is filled with stuffed animals, train tracks, books, and tools.  Levi has been fixing everything in the house.  It is adorable.

We spent Christmas Eve with Aaron's family.  We shared lunch and presents and later that night we returned to take part in the Christmas Eve service at Shiloh.  It was one of my favorite part of the holidays.  Aaron & I were kind of excited that Christmas was on Sunday this year because it gave us the opportunity to really put our focus on Christ.  We woke Sunday morning, enjoyed breakfast and headed to Sunday service.  After church we went and visited some friends.  We then returned home, shared lunch with Aaron's parents and sister, and then our kids opened their gifts from us.  We spent the evening with my family for dinner, presents, and games.   We definitely have felt very blessed this year and we hope you all felt the love of Christ and his blessings this Christmas as much as we did.  Below are some pictures from all our celebrating.  Enjoy!

I'm Married to a PE!

Today we found out that Aaron PASSED his PE (Professional Engineer) exam!!!!!!  This is a huge deal for him and I couldn't be more proud of his accomplishments!!!  Congratulations Babe!  You deserve it!

The Christmas Season

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. I love the hope it brings and the opportunity to remember our Savior who came to save the world. We make an effort every year to celebrate Christmas all season long. Anything we can do make the holidays special and put the focus on Christ we try to do it. We have decorated, baked, watched movies, played games, and everything in between.  This year has been lots of fun so far. Here is what we have been up to...

Right after Thanksgiving we we got our Christmas tree.  Aaron was in Prospect's Christmas drama again this year portraying Christ, so we wanted to get a tree early knowing that if we didn't we wouldn't have time until mid-December.  So we got a tree, some poinsettias, and a few extra decorations and got our house decked out early for the season.  Levi loved decorating this year, and besides the ornaments on the tree, most of the house decorations have somehow made their way to his room.

Levi had fun decorating the tree, and most of the ornaments all ended up in the same spot.

To continue or celebrating we went out to the square to participate in the lighting of the courthouse.  The square is beautiful this time of year with all the lights and decorations.  The lighting was lots of fun.  We saw many friends and heard some great music to get us in the holiday spirit.  That weekend we went to the Christmas Parade on the square.  It was lots of fun and Aunt Lou even came with us!  Levi's favorite part were all the horses at the end.  

 My favorite part of the Christmas season so far was the dedication of Naomi.  Aaron & I take our role as parents very seriously, and dedicating our children to the Lord is a big deal.  We feel so blessed to have been given Naomi and she is such a special part of our family.  She has challenged us and brought us so much joy in her first year.  We are so excited to watch her grow and see how the Lord is going to use her.  The dedication was so wonderful and I'm hoping to blog about it in a separate post so be on the look out for it.

 Just this past Sunday we attended our church's Happy Birthday Jesus Party!  We got to do a craft and make our own special birthday cake to bring home.  We got cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday for the celebration!  It was lots of fun.  Then we got to watch the kids put on the nativity story in a play.  It was chaotic, but super cute.  We ended the night with a few Christmas carols.  After the party we headed over to a neighboring church to watch a live nativity.  It was really fun and the kids loved all the real animals in the show.

We hope you have been enjoying the season as much as we have.  We hope as you celebrate this week with family and friends that the love of Christ fills your hearts and your homes.

Merry Christmas!

Today I am so thankful for all of my many blessings. A handsome and loving husband, beautiful children, a loving and supportive family, a place to call home, a car, delicious food, Aaron's job, amazing friends, music, memories, new discoveries and opportunities, love, forgiveness, and the list goes on. Above all I am thankful for a Heavenly Father who loves me and sent His son to die for me. For love that knows no limit. I am truly blessed and thankful.

Happy Halloween

For Halloween this year Levi decided he wanted to dress up like Woody from Toy Story. I figured everyone would expect Naomi to be Jessie, but I wanted to do something different, so I made her Woody's horse, Bull's Eye. I made both their costumes with some help from my mom, and had a great time doing it. My favorite part is Naomi's mane. I think they were pretty cute, but I'm biased for sure. We got lots of use out of our costumes attending the Trunk or Treat at our church and Aaron's parents church as well as the festival at my parent's church. Levi's favorite part by far was the hayride and all the candy. Here are some photos from our weekend.

Bull's Eye (Woody didn't want his photo taken)

Woody!

Family fun on the hayride.

Heaven Is For Real

If you want to be blessed and give your faith an extra boost, I seriously suggest you read this book.

9 Months

I cannot believe Naomi is already 9 months old! I'm sure I started her 6 month post off the same way. It seems that time is flying by and before I know it we are going to be celebrating her 1st birthday, then her 16th! Here are a few things she's been loving.

• She is finally crawling and pulling up on everything! Now that she is mobile, she is much more content to be left alone to play that she was before.
• She is talking tons. She says bye bye, mama, and sometimes papa.
• She has 4 teeth. 2 on the bottom and 2 on top. She has a big gap between her top teeth and when she smiles she looks like an old granny! I love it!
• Her hair is filling in and lightening up even though it is not quite a blonde as Levi's was at this age.
• She still love her pacifier.
• She eats Stage 2 foods. I've tried introducing her to some 2 1/2 foods, but she doesn't like textures just yet. However, she will eat crackers and nilla wafers.
• She nurses 3 times a day and eats solids 2 times a day.
• We were having trouble with her sleeping through the night, so just last week we moved her into her own room and have been letting her "cry it out." So far so good. She still wakes up most nights, but she is quickly learning to soothe herself back to sleep.
• She loves playing with Levi's toys and playing with him. Right now her favorite toy is whatever he is playing with.
• She loves to be outside.
• She takes 1 nap during the day and a few catnaps in the car when we run our morning errands (gym, grocery store, etc.)
• She loves jewelry and I usually can't wear any for her pulling at it constantly.
• She wears size 3 diapers.
• She is ticklish on her tummy, thighs, and neck.
• She sleeps on her tummy.
• She wears size 9-12 month clothes.
• She absolutely LOVES bath time!

Stats:

Birth: 8 lbs. 15 oz., 20 1/4 in.
4 Days (1/4/11): 8 lbs. 5.5 oz., 20 1/4 in.
2 weeks (1/18/11): 9 lbs. 7.5 oz. (97%), 21 1/4 in. (90%)
2 months (3/3/11): 12 lbs. 15 oz. (95%), 23 1/2 in. (90%)
4 months (5/3/11): 15 lbs. 9 oz. (90%), 24 3/4 in. (75%)

6 months (7/6/11): 17 lbs. 13.5 oz. (85%), 28 in. (90-95%)

9 months (10/10/11): 19 lbs. 6 oz. (75%), 28 3/4 in. (85%)