Christmas 2009 - California and Utah

Christmas was fun, but exhausting this year! So much shopping and so much traveling! We went to Utah and California this year, so 4 days of our vacation was spent simply traveling. It was nice to see everyone, but felt I was rushed here and there. Next year we plan on staying home because not only are we exhausted from traveling every year for Christmas for the past 6 years, but we will have a new addition to our family and feel it would be much more work than it's worth..so in a sense I am kind of excited to expect a change for next year..and actually do our own thing and our own dinner!! On top of that...my bank card number was stolen online...no idea how that happened...and had to make a lot of phone calls to correct things. So this next year is going to have a lot of resolutions including how to shop safer online!! ;) Hope everyone's holidays were wonderful!




Looking mischievous behind the tree!



Delia helping decorate the Tree




Our Downstairs Anasazi tree. It's a real Pinion pine tree form the Colorado desert! We went to a friends house (he has A LOT of property in CO) chose one and Christian sawed it down himself. It was a pain to get in and out of downstairs and putting the lights on was a bit painful, but it sure looked cool!




Our finished upstairs tree!

Delia with Santa Claus. She was so excited to see him, but when it was actually her turn she didn't know what to think!

Delia stylishly sportin' her new softy pull over from the Gap that grandma gave her. She always insisted on putting her hands in the pockets, which made for a few stumbles here and there!

I don't know what is up with that face...(maybe she's disappointed that her pony unicorn, from aunt Alissa, is pink and not purple!) LOL..j/k Silly kiddo. she does really like it though!

Delia giving her baby loves which she got from Aunt Heather.

Delia cleaning away like a mad woman with her new play vacuum from Grandma and Grandpa Anderson...literally right after she opened it!!

At the Jelly Belly Factory for the second time. Her first time she was only 4 months old!

Going for one of her presents at Grandma and Grandpa Brereton's house in Utah

all dressed up in her new dress up stuff! she got 5 pairs of princess shoes. She is wearing her Belle ones and loves them!! Now she will have to abandon mommy's church shoes!

Reading her Tinker bell scratch and sniff book.

Taking pretty pictures with her new princess camera!

Delia with all her goods she got for Christmas! Wow! I always give her so many things! part of it is things I have held off getting until Christmas because I always think I need a "good excuse" to get her something...and this is the result! another thing I realized is missing is her Tinkerbell Table and chairs she got from Grandma and Grandpa Brereton. She got a lot of Tinkerbell things..but only on accident.

Delia with her 2 babies and piggy!!

Belly Shots

So here ya go! I have really grown in the last 4 weeks and will be even bigger when we go to find out what we are having!! So exciting! I didn't show this much at this point with Delia, but I hear that it is typical. I am 17 weeks now and can't believe how fast this is going! i'm almost half way there! Now all the rest of you preggo mommies need to post yours!! ;) Hope everyone is well.

Albuquerque Weekend

Albuquerque Zoo


It was raining when we got there, kind of off and on. Delia really wanted to see the zebras, they are one of here favorite. So we stopped under this overhang to get out of the rain for a bit and I decided to snap a picture of her with them, but by the time she looked at me and smiled all I got were the behinds of the Zebras..wonderful. oh well, at least I got them in time before they completely move elsewhere. if you can still see them.

I don't think I have seen a giraffe up this close. Their space wasn't as big as the Denver zoo, so maybe they didn't have room to roam around, but it was funny to watch them with their big tongues licking up leaves off the rock!!

Delia was pretty speechless throughout her whole zoo experience, but when we went to the aquarium, she was so thrilled to see all that was there! The fishies, sting rays, and turtles, and sharks...wow, she really likes the sea life! they had some great big aquariums, one with just tropical fish and the other with larger marine life.

BYU vs. U of New Mexico

This was a fun game, but much too close. It wasn't as cold as I was expecting it to be and Delia did fairly well. She really got in to the game with her cheering. We were close to the cheer leaders so she was getting a kick out of their cheers. The hotel was really nice. It was a fun weekend.

Delia's letter to Santa!

These might be a little hard to read, but if you click on it, it will pull the letter up larger! Delia helped me push some buttons, but I think I am more excited about it than she is! ;) After we emailed santa, he wrote her back! So fun!

Halloween 2009

Halloween was really fun this year! Delia was tinkerbell and I couldn't get over how cute she was because she was just this little tiny fairy!! She was the only "tinkerbell" at the Trunk-or-Treat that I saw, which was surprising. There were a lot of great costumes. There was a family that dresses up as characters from the Grinch! I think they won best overall. I will have to be more creative for a family theme next year..we didn't dress up this year and is starting to loose it's excitement for Christian. Our friends Josh and Misty came with us and brought their little girl who was an adorable lady bug! they had fun running around before the dive for the loot began. There were more people this year and many ran out of candy(as did we last year) but this year I was prepared and we had a small bowl left over! Delia did pretty good and it wasn't as cold as we thought it would be. During her trick or treating she insisted on having a treat right away so I gave her a small sucker and she didn't speak a word after. Once again I did the "trick or treating" and that's okay, I just like hearing her voice say it! She now asks for a "Ow-a -ween Tweet" everyday and still calls all the pumpkins 'pumpkin patch" instead of just pumpkin. So cute! She got a perfect amount of goodies. Here are some pictures of the little fairy!

A back pack + tubs + scrubbing pads + Grease = 2 crazy days!!!

So a couple of days ago were some of the craziest and saddest days ever! I was at goodwill looking for a small little book shelf to put delia's books, I didn't find one, however I did find a baby hiking backpack that was in great condition, but dirty. All it needed was a good cleaning and for $6 I couldn't pass up..especially with the new baby coming and all the hiking/outdoor adventures we go on it would be perfect. I brought it home, but waited until Delia was in bed to start washing it. Christian was at choir practice and I set out for the cleaning. I decided to wash it in the tub because...well that is the biggest washing place we have. I used a little bit of tide and that seemed to work great, but of course filled up the tub with a bunch of suds, so I couldn't tell what was happening underneath it all!!! After draining the water I saw the harsh results of washing it in the bath tub. Did I mention that we have a STEEL tub? Who makes steel tubs anymore?!! Well, if you guessed it, there were scratches everywhere!! I was mortified! The first thing I thought was, "Christian is going to kill me" apparently these kind of things only happen to me!! So I go a scrubbing pad and tried scrubbing at it, which most of it was just gray marks, but there were still some significant scratches that were not coming out. so when Christian got home, I asked him to please not be too mad at me. the first thing he thought of was to get some steel wool scrubbing pads and gently buff them out. It worked! But wait..it seems to leave gray patches where you scrubbed, okay back to square one. I tried lightly scrubbing over them to get the marks out but nothing happened. I kept getting poked by all the steel wool. It was not fun. Then Christian pours some baking soda in and finally after 1.5 hours of scrubbing it comes out.

The next day I spend 20 mins, getting a small steel sliver out of my hand! Yikes!

then...

After a long day of working in the yard with the beautiful fall weather, it was dinner time and I needed to start dinner, so Christian stayed outside to finish up while Delia was out there playing also. I had just gotten her up from a nap, put her in clean clothes and sent her outside. Not even 5 mins. later Christian brings her in saying that she got into black grease or something that was on a paper out in the weeds!! What the?? thinking it was lotion..as she does with anything liquid, smears it on her face, in her hair, and on her clothes, and this time it was my turn to clean her up. I really didn't know where to start! It was so tacky and seemed to smear easily. I tried washing with a wet paper towel to see how that worked, but all it did was smear it even worse. I thought I have to just get her out of these clothes and put her in the tub to get her clean..all the while thinking, "I'm sure glad I didn't put her in that nice shirt I thought about!" When she realized I was taking her clothes off, she knew she was going to get a bath and that meant no more playing outside and she FLIPPED OUT!! throwing yet another tantrum and me trying to contain her so she doesn't get grease on me or the carpet!! I know she doesn't quite understand what is going on, but I am now getting frustrated trying to figure out how to clean this stuff off of her while she is screaming and resisting. So I get her in the tub, Christian comes in and can obviously see I am struggling so he holds her hands while I scrub her face! Yes, I used a plastic pot scrubber(clean and new) to scrub it off. it was working, but she was still screaming and I thought she was still just mad at me. Her face was red from the scrubbing, but that was all. After she was clean. Christian left the rest to me and she was still crying, but it was a sad different cry. She kept repeating over and over again in that breathless cry "I..I'm sssorry, mmmammma" Aghhhhh!!! It must have really been traumatic for her! So I snuggled her up in a towel and rocked her. She calmed down and seemed fine after that, but her face was still beat red even after a couple of hours, like a really bad sunburn. I figured it would go away.The grease came out of her clothes easily! Weird. The next morning I was mortified! 2 big scabs on both of her cheeks, still red, and a spot below her ear was completely rubbed away. All I could do was break down and cry thinking that I had inflicted this on my child and that was why she was crying because it hurt!! I still have not forgiven myself. I really didn't scrub that hard, but I just didn't think it was causing her harm other wise I would have been extra gentle! It is still healing and hopefully it will be all better by Halloween. So 2 crazy days in a row. I think I am do for a break for maybe a couple of weeks right?

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Last Friday Delia went to the pumpkin patch with her friend Ava. We had a lot of fun. It was a little crazy because school kids from all over were there on a field trip, so we were trying to dodge around them. Delia was good for most of the time except at the very end when it was time to go the the "baby" pumpkin patch and choose a pumpkin that was included in our admission. Delia threw a TAMTRUM! O my goodness, it was so embarressing! I kept trying to do all that I could to get her excited to choose a pumpkin, I even tried dragging her...litterally dragging her, but with 2 coats, a diaper bag, 3 cobs of dried corn and a screaming child...I gave up. I went to go choose a pumpkin for her and of course she took off in the other direction heading for the corn maze! So I drop all of my stuff, go grab her, take her to the patch, picked out a pumpkin and headed back. Sheesh kid! But then I looked at my watch and it was 12:30 pm..time for lunch! Poor kid..things were taking us much longer to do this time because of all the school kids. It was still fun and Delia was finally happy with her pumpkin when we left. Yep..terrible 2's are definitely here! Makes appriciate the times when she is super sweet!









This one is just my size!!




Enjoying the view

Hmm..that's a funny lookin' people..

Silly Goose!

With my friend Ava.

Well, I guess everyone needs a kiss.

lookin' for the perfect pumpkin..this one seems to be a little heavy.

Hey, another baby pumpkin..this is much easier to pick up!

The Primary Colors are 1, 2, 3....

Over the past couple of weeks Delia has really been getting into coloring. She is not a great artist as of yet, just scribbles, but I am glad she is. We have been trying to work on her colors and then it hit me...if we color everyday, that is an opportunity to teach her all the colors and just today she identified, Brown, pink, green, yellow, and blue on her own!! Yeah. Latley she has been only getting them right 50% of the time, but I think it has reached a little higher and she is getting better and better. I am finding myself all them time using every opportunity to go over her colors. Like, her shirt, or the tree, or the fruit, etc. and it is so exciting to watch her get it right when she does! Some of her peers who are younger than her know so much more and so I am trying really hard to make sure she at least stays on track. Way to go Delia...keep up the good work!

9 weeks and Counting!

So I am 9 weeks pregnant and everything is looking good. The baby is about the size of a grape and their heartbeat is 164 bpm, which at this stage is high for both boys and girls, so I will have to wait another 7-8 weeks to hear it at it's regular rythm. I never had an early ultrasound with Delia so this is kind of exciting to be able to actually "see' it. I am only posting these because this is a first early ultrasound and I thought it was pretty neat. I think the grandparents are also going to like it. I have had a little bit of weight gain, but still not "looking" pregnant. but I will keep everyone updated!