Merry Christmas!!

I feel horrible I didn't get Christmas cards out this year...with everyone sick it just didn't happen. We received so many wonderful Christmas cards and we love keeping in touch. SO...here are a few pics we had taken this Christmas of the two children that would have been on our Christmas card. Noah was not very happy because he was so tired, so we really didn't get any smiles from him, and it was near IMPOSSIBLE taking a picture of them together. Maybe next time we will have better luck!

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

I'm sure, like everyone else, we have lots of fun Christmas pictures to share soon! We had a wonderful Christmas together with just our small little family here in Texas and we really enjoyed every minute of it! (except for the fact that little Noah is sick AGAIN poor little guy).

Pen Pals and Cookies!

I just thought I'd share Tayla's letter from Santa this year! She was THRILLED to get a letter from Santa! A group of people were trying to raise money for a women's shelter so we paid 3 dollars to have a letter sent from Santa! I gave them lots of info about Tayla, so it was all really personalized, which made it really fun.

And here is Tayla's letter to Santa! I said, "OK, what do you want it to say?" and she said, "Merry Christmas!" And that was it, so she kept it short and simple. Here is all the things she said she wanted for Christmas..puzzle, books, movies, and a kitchen.

Her envelope is all ready to go! I bought this really cute 'North Pole Express' stamp back in Utah that is for letters to Santa, and it turned out SO cute!

Tayla and I getting ready to make Christmas sugar cookies! She helped me mix all the colors into the frosting. She really wanted purple frosting, so we had a lesson on color mixing...which she loves to do. She likes this book we checked out from the library on color mixing and what colors they make, and I'm surprised how well she understood it! (We are sporting Michaels aprons because I used to work in framing at Michaels)

And here are her sugar cookies! She really spent a lot of time on them...but mostly because she would eat most of the frosting and sprinkles off, then put more on again. Nothing quite like a Yuletide sugar high right before bedtime to help the bedtime process go smoothly for all parties involved. Although the sugary Christmas activities have been fun this year the extra sugar has definitely empowered Tayla to defy bedtime with extra strength and passion.

Noah! Aren't you a little too young to be kissing girls!! He really enjoyed sucking on the baby's cheek...Tayla got a kick out of this..and so did Mommy obviously!

Baby it's cold outside!

Tis' the Season

We have had a great and busy holiday season so far this year! I know this is a mega post with lots of pictures, but I guess it's my blog and I can post away to my pleasure!

Our Humble home (literally, we live in Humble, TX) all lit up for Christmas! Nate did a great job on his first Christmas lights. Of course, if it were up to me, the roof would have been lit up also, but I cut him some slack this year...only because the first set of lights he put up were blue looking and I didn't like them, so I made him take them down. So remember, when putting up lights, the first thing to do is plug them in and make sure they are what you want. Nate agreed with my taste for lights so he wasn't too sad he had to do them again (he hadn't put up too many of the lights we didn't like, so he didn't have to re-due to much).

And our Christmas tree. I just love seeing pics of other peoples Christmas trees so I thought I'd post a picture of ours. There is one thing I would like to add to the tree, but can't find it in Texas. If we lived in Logan, I'd know just where to get it...

Whenever something goes missing, I turn to our Christmas tree. Tayla thinks it is fun to hide stuff in the tree. I don't really have to worry about her messing with the ornaments, I just find random things that she has stuffed in the tree...and for some reason I am always finding her sippy cups in the tree (the pic has a sippy cup and a Mr. potato head).
"You better not cry, you better not pout"......ya, that's Tay. Poor little thing is TERRIFIED of Santa this year. I have no idea why! Actually, we watched Shrek the Halls and I think there was a Santa that scared her so now she is totally freaked. She loves to talk about him and sing about him, and even gets excited to see him in books and see little Santa figurines, but she doesn't want to get near a live Santa. This is her when she sat (sorta) on Santa's lap at school. The only reason she did it was to get the "lollipop". I don't blame her though, look at the Santa, he's totally freaky looking. I would have cried too if I had to sit on his lap!

And this was at the Christmas party a few days later. We didn't make her sit on his lap, even though she seemed to be excited until he walked in the room. So we just talked with him (this was at our church/ward party and we are friends with the Santa). I was trying to be so positive and excited about him, but she didn't go for it!

We had a fun time making a gingerbread house! She was being so silly!

Here's Tayla making out with the frosting. We had all the candy out, but soon had to set it aside because she was eating SO much! Every time we'd turn around, we'd catch her sneaking more! She has such a sweet tooth, and she was WIRED that night!

Tayla and Daddy pretending to lick the candy. She was having the time of her life.

Noah wasn't able to help with the gingerbread house this year, but enjoyed watching Tayla act crazy from being hyped up on sugar. Look at those cheeks! LOL

We went to a Christmas party at some friends house this year and this is what we got for the white elephant gift. I opened it up and someone took it, but Nate secretly really wanted it back so I stole it back when I had the chance. It was a pretty hot item. If you can't tell, the antlers have Christmas lights that light up and everything. It's pretty sweet and as you can tell Nate is stoked we came home with it. He thought it would go really great with his Christmas sweater!

Here are some pics of Noah. He is such a sweet baby and almost always giving us smiles!


He's practicing to be a male model.

Our little Christmas penguin! Every couple of days it gets cold (it goes from 80 to 40 degrees in one day) and so this little get-up has kept him nice and cozy!

I thought this was such a cute picture of Tayla with her Daddy. She LOVES to hang out with him and they were on their way to go Christmas shopping for Mommy! :)

She has her bag/purse all ready to go. She is SUCH a girly girl! This is one of my old bags she has taken over and she loves to stuff it full of 'things' she might need when out and about. Doesn't she look so little next to Nate?

It's Raining, It's....Snowing??!!

That's right! SNOW IN TEXAS!! Awesome! It has been really cold today (in the 30s) and it had been raining, but this afternoon it started snowing!! Yay! We are so excited that we are getting a white Christmas and we didn't even have to travel to Utah to get it! Everyone in the neighborhoods were outside with their cameras and they were hurrying to make snowmans with the snow, throwing snow balls, and enjoying the extremely crazy weather! Tayla loved playing in the snow, but she got cold pretty quick.

Noah's first snow!

This is the front of our house.

Our neighbors snowmen
Another neighbors snowman. The teenage boy and girl that did it said it was their first snowman...their first snow! Crazy! I couldn't get Nate out to make our own. I really do want one. I want to wake up, look out the window, and see a snowman...but I'm too lazy to do it all myself, so I guess I'll just look at the neighbors.

On the Mend!

Well, I can happily say that we are all doing better! Noah is not 100 %, but he is getting close! He is all smiles these days and is such a sweet, happy baby. We are just so happy he is not so sick and he can actually breath freely! Tayla is better, and Nate and I aren't sick! So, things around here are going a LOT better!! LOL.
Once again, THANK YOU everyone for helping us out so much. I had SO many people calling, e-mailing or just stopping by to make sure we were ok, or to drop something off to eat, or offering their help. We feel so loved and watched out for!

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Well, it has been quite a long time I've posted scrap pages, so this post will cover the last three weeks! (They were actually all done while Nate was away in Europe for a week and a half!) So here they all are! I am trying to catch up on old photos!

This was a double pager I did of Tay's first birthday! She looks so little! I used mostly Miss Mint products for this one. (Click on Peppermint Creative Gallery link on the side of the blog to find the layout and get correct credits for all layouts using Miss Mint's products.)

This one was done with Miss Mint's Paper and Elements also!

This one was done with Flergs Kaylee’s Kaleidoscope kit

This one was done with a quick page from Lori Barnhurst. All I did was added the 'N' from Flergs Noah Kit! Easy!!! (this page was actually a freebie, but don't remember when and where I got it, sorry)

This layout has just a bunch of random elements from different designers, so if you are interested in knowing exact credits, let me know. I didn't post this one in any galleries.

Here's another double layout. I'm so proud for finishing these ones. It is hard to do layouts when you have SO many pictures to choose from and it is such a big, special event. I tend to procrastinate layouts like this (that is why it has taken me so long to do Tayla's 1st b-day layouts..there are just way to many pictures to choose from, it becomes overwhelming!)

Everything for this page is from Ice Storm by Flergs- a DST Gold Member exclusive kit

Needles, ERs and Hospitals

These last few weeks have been crazy. It all started out ok...Monday Noah had a Dr. appointment for his 2 month checkup...

Here is Tayla ready to go to the appointment. No, I didn't suggest the hat and glasses. She insisted on wearing them and thought she looked great in them. (I received lots of smiles at the drs)


Here is Noah after his shots. He did better than Tayla whom received her flu shot. Poor girl was so sad. I told her after her shots we would go get ice cream. So the whole time she was like, "Mommy, I want my shot!" She had no idea what it was, so I just went along with the excitement. She laid down like nothing, but as soon as they poked her she looked really deceived and I felt really bad. I needed a flu shot so I said, "Do you want Mommy to get a shot?" and she replied bluntly and a little harsh, "Yes!!" So I got my flu shot on Monday also. This was just the first of the needles....



On Wed. Nate came home and we were all so happy. Thanksgiving we went out..yes I know, I should have cooked, but I wasn't about to do it all with him gone. So here is Noah ready to go out for a turkey dinner at the Humble City Cafe. The food was really good and we still ate as much as we would have at home!
Me and little Noah, ready for a nap after eating Turkey

Our two sick children..Tayla with two ear infections, and Noah with RSV and Bronchiolitis, (and throw up all over his shirt)

And then the real excitement happens on Friday! No, not really exciting, it's all really sad. So remember how Tayla had been sick and Noah hadn't gotten sick "yet" well he's had his fair share. He started coughing Wed. and then he was congested, and then he started throwing up all his food every time I would feed him. He was pretty sick, but it wasn't until he started acting lethargic and running a fever that we started worrying. I called the Dr. and they said to take him to Texas Children's Hospital ER. So that night, late, we drove downtown and waited forever to check in, then waited even longer, just to find out that we were going to have to wait for a VERY long time...so we drove all the way back home and took him to an emergency room about two minutes away from our house and got him right in. Since he is only 9 weeks old, they did some x-rays of his chest, drew some blood (one more needle, but this one was REALLY sad because she couldn't find his little vein) and then gave him a shot (ya, another one) of some strong antibiotic. We eventually went home. Then next morning we had a follow up appointment with the pediatrician and he tested positive for RSV. Then that night he was coughing really hard, and so congested that he had a really hard time breathing so we took him back to the ER. From there they monitored him and took some more x-rays and found out that RSV had led to Bronchiolitis. So Noah and I took a ride in the ambulance down to Texas Children's Hospital where he was admitted and monitored for 5 or 6 hours to make sure he was getting enough oxygen. They cleared his nose with some tubes, which he wasn't excited about, and then eventually let us come back home. Nate got a drs note to stay home for a week because someone has to be with the baby at all times to make sure he is breathing, so I am glad I have help. I couldn't do it myself that is for sure. We took him again this morning (along with Tayla who has an ear infection in both ears) and he is doing a little better. He is still really congested, and coughing hard, and throwing up his food, but at least he doesn't have as bad of a fever and he isn't so lethargic and out of it. Poor little guy. He gave us such a scare. Sometimes when he cries it sounds so sad, like, "Mommy I'm so miserable!" Nate gave him a blessing right before we went to the ER when he was having a hard time breathing and it really helped. He was doing much better even by the time I got there.

So that is our story for the week. We are all pretty tired around here, but we are so happy he is doing a bit better.


I have great friends here who are always willing to help out in any way and I just want to say thank you. We really do appreciate it! It's hard to take up offers though when you are afraid of spreading something, so if I didn't take up an offer, it's only because I don't want you to have to go through the same thing.