Thanksgiving 2014

On this, Luke's very first Thanksgiving, we actually had two Thanksgivings. My parents were in Utah on company business and I begged them to come to Boise and so they did and we decided we'd have our own, small Thanksgiving. I don't get to see my parents often, though this year has most definitely been an above average count for visits with them. I'll take every minute I can get! It's always fun to have them in our home. I was very excited to cook my first turkey ever. Our pre-Thanksgiving actually landed on a Friday. On Thursday we went shopping for everything we'd need the next day. My mom put her part of the meal together that night. We were also able to take them to see The Village at Meridian, which has such a nice ambiance. The next day I slaved away in the kitchen making turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes and gravy. It sounded pretty simple beforehand but it was a lot of work. I will always appreciate the work that goes in to Thanksgiving from now on. My dad made all his pie crusts from scratch. He made a pie with pumpkin pie filling and another he made from real pumpkins so we could compare tastes. The homemade pie definitely won out but it was so, so much work I'm not sure he'll make the endeavor again.

Luke really enjoyed these sweet potatoes-- my mom's classic recipe.

He got a bath immediately following this picture.

On Friday we mostly relaxed before my parents had to get their flight back to Maryland. We gave them their Christmas presents and they gave Luke his birthday present early. It was a V Tech Sit to Stand Learning Walker. He loves it-- the way is lights up and makes noises and all the different things there are to do. It was so fun to see him playing with it for the first time.

He can also push it around from the back but mostly enjoys the front.

"Playing" with Callie.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa. Luke was so smiley all weekend but when it came time for them to go he wouldn't smile for a picture. I'm guessing this is because he was very sad to see them go, as were we. We had such a good time with them!

The next week we packed up our car and drove down to Utah for actual Thanksgiving. This year we had it at Shelley's house rather than at Bryan's mom's house.

Whitney cousins enjoying some play time together before dinner.

Bryan heading up the turkey fryer with a little help from Grandpa Vern and Dustin.

Bryan fried the turkey and it was delectable-- as was the rest of the meal. Though, I do have to say that I'm ready for a break from turkey for a while after this. Bryan's mom asked me to be in charge of decorating the table this year and it was so fun to do. We had a simple centerpiece-- a wooden bowl with candles and fall berries. I even made a table runner from burlap and used my Silhouette Cameo to make leaf stencils and spray painted those on. I used my Cameo again to make place cards, though they can't really be seen. We also made place mats from art paper with the words "I am thankful for:" on them.

Here is the table setting all together.

Of course to finish the evening off we had some delicious pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

Dessert for Luke.

We had some other festivities as well but they will follow in a coming blog post. We had a fun Thanksgiving and now we are so excited to bust out all the Christmas decorations and music we want. This won't be Luke's first Christmas but he'll be able to be more a part of the traditions this time (and I won't be so out of it!). I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving as well!

Halloween 2014

This is the Halloween I've been waiting for for many years-- the first one I have with my own child. Of course, Luke is a little young for most of the festivities but we were still able to start some of our traditions-- going to a pumpkin patch, carving pumpkins, getting excited about costumes and even a ward trunk or treat. I love Halloween-- I'd say it ranks second in my favorite holidays list (next to Christmas, of course). I love the excitement in the air and I, of course, love the season in which it falls (seriously, no pun intended). I love the decorations and the preparations. I've been planning this Halloween since before I was pregnant. I knew that if I had a boy that I would dress him up as Link, from Bryan's favorite and beloved childhood video game The Legend of Zelda. I like doing things that are special to Bryan-- Luke's dinosaur nursery was also in homage to Bryan's childhood. Now we're just hoping for our next to be a girl so we can dress them up as Luke and Leia. :)

First things first, we went to a pumpkin patch in the earlier part of the month. Apparently some of my pictures are automatically being made into GIFs, so I thought I'd post some of those. You can see from below that Luke and Dada were having a lot of fun!

Classic shot of baby at the pumpkin patch.

On the Saturday before Halloween, we were able to participate in our very first ward Trunk or Treat. We ate chili and all the little kids from our ward made the rounds getting their candy. We got to show off our costumes for the first time, though we had to explain it to most people.

Another family tradition we have is carving pumpkins on the Monday before Halloween-- it's one Family Home Evening each year that is a given. Luke only stayed for the beginning. All he wanted to do was push his little pumpkin off this tray. So we snapped a couple of pictures and put him to bed.

I took some pictures with finished pictures the next day. Luke is checking out this weird thing-- we carved his for him as a very classic Halloween Jack O'Lantern. Bryan, in keeping with the Zelda theme, carved a Hyrule crest and I tried to do an owl in honor of Hedwig.

Finally Halloween arrived! Honestly there isn't much to do with a baby but I took him downtown to Dada's work and we went out for lunch. Everyone is the restaurant, including the owner, were oohing and ahhing over my adorable baby. A couple older ladies kept calling him the Jolly Green Giant. I didn't have to heart to correct them. The owner insisted on giving Luke some free ice cream at the end, which was cute. Bryan's coworkers (also software developers and more likely to be aware of video game characters...) were mostly all able to appreciate Luke's costume right off the bat. It was so fun to take him there and show him off. If you want to make a mom feel happy, tell her how adorable her baby is. I live for that when we're out in public. Anyway, that evening we took a little photo shoot to get the full effect of the costumes and then Luke was in bed before most of the trick or treaters were out. We'll see about next year!

He didn't want to keep his hat on.

Bryan isn't really in to the whole dressing up thing and initially all he was going to do was wear his Zelda t-shirt but after playing Hyrule Warriors he really wanted me to make him Link's scarf.

Scarf detailing.

I knew I wanted to do something to go along with Luke but I wanted to be something simple so he'd get most of the attention. There is a very well known little fairy named Navi in one of the games that is a ball of blue light with white wings. She says, "Hey! Listen!" to Link all the time. As his mom, I thought that seemed very fitting.

Spooooky Halloween dinner.

Well, it's sad that Halloween has come and gone but there are plenty of exciting things to come this month and next. They can be very full and slightly stressful months but they are oh so fun! Coming up we have Bryan's birthday, a little pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving with my parents, actual Thanksgiving in Utah, Luke's first birthday (!!!) and of course Christmas. It's time to go blog crazy!

Dillion, Colorado Retreat

This is a blog post that is impossible to write. And by that I don't mean that the content is too sad or mind blowing to discuss. I mean I'm sitting here on the couch with the laptop and my almost 11 month old baby wants to know whats going on. He literally just pulled the screen all the way back and stuck the corner in his mouth. He also likes to reach up and pat the keys whenever he can so any typos or weird things I don't see as I'm editing this that end up posting to the world-- that's him (suuuure). This is the reason I almost never use my laptop or desktop. Thank goodness for smart phones and tablets. Anyway, I must press forward because I've fallen behind on my blogging duties once more.

Well, as I mentioned a couple of blog posts ago, my family had planned a trip out to Colorado this summer which was postponed due to my dad having a heart attack (he's doing much better now, by the way). We were unable to cancel our reservation at the time so we decided to move it to October. So a couple of weeks ago we made our second trip with Luke by air travel. Since the flight was so much shorter I anticipated it going easier than our trip to Maryland in July. In a lot of ways it was (no layover, for one thing) but as he gets older he has a harder time sleeping anywhere but a crib or pack 'n play (my arms). He will do it sometimes... in his room, being rocked with the lights off... On a cramped plane with weird air levels and bright lights and unnecessarily loud people is a lot more difficult of an environment. That made naps hard and if you know me you should know I'm
always think of the naps. They rule my life. I should probably try to be a little more relaxed about them, especially on vacation. I just know that if my little boy doesn't get his naps he will be Cranky. That's right, with a capital C. So anyway, he slept about half an hour at the end of the flight out. On the way back our flight was very late and he fell asleep in my arms in the airport and woke up as soon as we boarded. He stayed awake the whole flight, was crazy and then crashed on the car ride home from the airport. Oh, travel. You're not really my friend. Good thing the trip in between always makes it worth it.

My parents picked us up from the airport in this huge 10-11 passenger van. Luke was less than pleased to go from one cramped, confined space to his car seat for a two hour trek up into the mountains. By the time we got there it was bedtime for baby and we were able to relax a little. Natalie and her family have since returned to Qatar so those who were there were Mom and Dad, Tammy and her daughter, Stacey and three of her four boys, Hailey and Brian with their three kids, Lindsay and Morgan with their two girls and of course Bryan, Luke and I. I would say it was a full house but this cabin was so large that it easily accommodated all of us. A couple cool things they had were a pool table and a pin ball machine. The older kids seemed to really enjoy that. Luke and his cousins (just 3 months older than him) just toddled around throwing balls and getting into trouble.

That first night my mom gave each family a present. She and Hailey are working together to put all of our family pictures into printed out books. They have blurbs about what happened each year, etc. Anyway, this is our second volume so we had fun laughing at each other's bad perms and retelling old stories (like the time Lindsay had her friends paint birthday messages to Natalie all over our basements walls while my parents were out of town). While there we went swimming at a nearby rec center, strolled around some neat quaint shops in Breckenridge, took walks from our cabin to the gorgeous lake but mostly we just hung out and enjoyed each other, which is what I always find to be the best part of vacations. One night we played a couple of rounds of Tyler's favorite game, Werewolf, which was a total flashback for Bryan and I-- we played it with a group in our singles ward almost every Sunday when the flirting days were going strong. It was a fairly short trip and on Sunday, since we happened to go on this trip during a regional conference for all of Colorado and Wyoming, we had our own little church program and watched a conference talk and Mormon Messages. When everyone had left except us, my parents and the Handleys we all took a nice drive up into the mountains to enjoy the scenery.

Here are some pictures from our trip (of course most of them are of Luke):

Luke and his cousin buddy.

Love it.

I love these sweet girls so much!

Buddies dining together.

Snuggling with Grandma

Our day out at the quaint shops in Breckenridge

I can't believe my 16 year old nephew is already as tall as dad!

All the grandkids who were there except napping babies.

I can't get enough of these buddies!!!

I thought I had walked into a painting.

Skipping stones with dada!

The cabin we stayed at.

On our drive on Sunday.

We found snow! (One little pile pushed to the side in a parking lot...)

On Monday we cleaned up, packed and headed to my sister's house, since she lives nearby the retreat. It was my niece's (her daughter's) birthday and, while we did celebrate with everyone on the trip, it was nice to be there for the actual day. My parents and the Handleys left for the airport in the afternoon but we were able to stay later since our flight was so late and we got to go out to birthday dinner and everything! So nice to be able to be there since we get precious little time with our family.

Here we are at the airport. I do love my sleepy little boy. I miss holding him while he sleeps. The flight back would sure have been much smoother if he had just stayed this way...

He sure is growing up and doing so many things. The first year goes so slowly but also so so quickly. He's less of a baby now and more of a little boy! He can climb stairs, no problem. He has advanced from his funny little army crawling to full on hands and knees fast crawling around the house. He gets into everything, loves to play with cords (eek!) and put things in his mouth. He's a great little eater and gobbles down pretty much everything we put in front of him. He loves string cheese, grapes, blueberries, bread, etc. He pulls up to everything and cruises around. He's seriously going to be walking before I know it. He also is growing at least his 7th and 8th teeth and possibly more than I can't see. We've been trying to teach him to wave but he doesn't do that yet-- he does clap his hands, which is so so adorable. Oftentimes I roll a ball to him, he picks it up and then I put out my hands and say, "Okay, can Mama have it?" And he grins really big and puts it squarely in my hands. He has some pretty grumpy times but I just love my sweet little handsome boy.

Halloween is this Friday and I'm hoping to have another post next week. October-December are such crazy busy months already but now we each have a birthday in them as well! Oh yeah, did I forget to mention I turned 28 a few weeks ago? It was a nice day and night but honestly I'm much more excited for another birthday coming up in just over a month! I can hardly believe it. Hopefully it'll be blog posts galore in the weeks to come.