91 More Days!!

Disney World, Here We Come!!

If you didn't get it from the title of the blog, we're going to DISNEY WORLD! I have really been wanting to take Spencer for a while since he's never been, but the flights from Salt Lake City to Orlando have been SO high (like $600 per person). So when the flights dropped to less than $200 per person, we jumped on the chance to book our flights. We'll be going at the end of May through the first week of April, which is one of the best times to go since it won't be too crowded yet. And as anyone who knows our family can tell you, we're all BIG Disney fans. Little Maddie will be coming with us which adds to the excitement because i'll get to share the experience with my own child. Yes, she'll only be 11 months old, but it'll still be very magical nonetheless, especially for Spencer and I as we watch Maddie's reactions to rides, etc. To help us out with Maddie, my mom will be flying out to be with us and my sister who lives in Ft. Lauderdale will be coming up as well. This way, Spencer and I can still ride the fun, non-kid rides--we'll just do "baby swapping" (a cool feature of Disney which allows parties with children to "swap" rides, meaning one person goes while the other watches the kids and then gets to go RIGHT on rather than have to wait in line again). And Julie--if you're reading--you can come down and join the party too! :) We'd LOVE to have you there with us, if you can!

To get excited about the trip, our family will be counting down the days until we go. For family night tonight, we made a "countdown chain" that we put in our kitchen:

The sign says "We're going to Disney World In..." and the chains each have the number of days left. Currently, we have 92 days left! Yeah it's a bit away, but we're very much looking forward to this trip...if you can't already tell. And from now until then, we plan on introducing Maddie to as many Disney characters as possible by watching the plethora of Disney DVD's we have. :) We'll keep you posted on the countdown!! :) Zipidee Do Da!

Family Night

Happy Martin Luther King day! :) Spencer enjoyed the day off of school today, but I unfortunately had to work--not a paid holiday for the apartment business. Our small little family was sick over the weekend, and I had two days of sick leave on Thursday and Friday. Although it wasn't optimal to be at home sick, I secretly enjoyed it because I got to spend time with my baby girl. Needless to say, it was sad going back today. But I got through the work day with a few coughs and a runny nose, and was super glad to be home.

Tonight we had our family night as we do every Monday. I put together a scripture treasure hunt & picked out scriptures which mentioned "household items." For example, Mark 4:38 talks about Christ being on a ship resting his head on a "pillow"--which is where the next clue was hidden and so on. It was really fun--obviously I was the one who hid the clues, so I wasn't allowed to participate which left Spencer to be the treasure hunter. Once we have more kids, I think it'd be fun to watch our little ones racing around the house to try and find the clues--so i'm saving all of our family night ideas and compiling a "family binder". Afterwards, we had homemade ice cream sandwiches and played Rock Band! :) It's been a fun night--the funnest way to spend the day, that's for sure!

And Maddie is FINALLY getting over her little cold, thank heavens. She has starting rolling consistently now. Before it was hit and miss, but now she seems to understand the mechanics of the rolling process--we're trying to encourage her movement even though i'm sure once she's crawling we'll wish for her to be stationary again. :)

Well, off to bed so we can be ready for another day! Luvs!

Hustle and Bustle

So the holidays are over, but in the hustle and bustle of things, I have completely neglected my blog!! So much has happened in such a short amount of time that this MIGHT be a long post. :) We thoroughly enjoyed our holiday season, and made sure to do something "festive" almost everyday in December including looking at lights around the city, making Christmas treats, delivering Christmas treats, going to Live Nativities, and so on. It was so much fun, especially since we had little Maddie to share it with. We were able to go down to Vegas for Christmas which was so much fun. After looking through our pictures, i realized that most of our Christmas moments are on our DVD camcorder and not on our actual camera--so the photos I can upload are slim pickings. About a week before Christmas, Spencer's extended family (uncles, cousins, etc.) had a Christmas party and since Maddie was the ONLY small baby, she got to help in the Nativity by being the Baby Jesus. (of course that meant taking off her dress and bow). It was really fun--and I think i went a little crazy with the camera, so i'll just post some of the best ones:

As I said earlier, we spent Christmas in Vegas. A few days before we left to go down, it snowed in VEGAS! Apparently they got 5-6 inches of snow. It had already melted by the time we got there, but it was still pretty chilly for Vegas. We really enjoyed family company and had a blast helping Maddie with all of her presents! She made out like a bandit this year--Santa must really like her! :) Now that she's sitting up and more interactive, she needed a lot of developmental toys and some other essentials like--a new baby bath. Maddie has now outgrown her small bathtub, so "Santa" got her a chair for the BIG bathtub. Makes a BIG difference, too--a lot less mess and a whole lot more room:

Maddie Enjoying her NEW bathtub chair

That's about all we have for photos--everything else has been recorded. So if you wanna see, come on over! :) And since Christmas, lots has been happening with Maddie--her first two teeth are breaking through and they are SHARP!! No pictures quite yet since they are still in the process of breaking through. Once they show up on camera, you bet i'll post them! And Maddie has been making strides to start the crawling process. She shows real desire to move, but hasn't quite mastered it. She'll move her arms and then fall on her tummy. But she's trying! Here's a question for all you mothers out there---when did YOUR babies start crawling?!? I've heard from some that their babies started as early as 5 months and then others don't start until 10 months--i've even heard that some skip crawling altogether and walk instead. Crazy how different every baby is, but we're trying to help her learn the process. That's basically what's been happening with our little family! :) We are so blessed to have such a beautiful baby girl. She is so sweet and loving--she loves to cuddle with her mommy and daddy and LOVES to play. We can't wait to see what other surprises she has up her sleeves!

Our Little Reindeer

Maddie's learning to love the season just as much as we do!!

Tonight, Spencer and I ordered some pizza and watched "The Santa Clause" by the Christmas tree. Maddie joined us for the first little bit, but had to go to bed half way through. She seemed to enjoy the movie, though, or maybe her eyes were glazed over with sleepiness. :)

We're trying to do something "Christmassy" each night so that we can make the most of the holidays, so tomorrow we'll be doing some Christmas shopping during the day and then we'll be attending "The Living Nativity" tomorrow night. I'm really looking forward to seeing it, and we'll let you know how it is. But honestly, who could go wrong with the Nativity story?!?

20 days till Christmas!

Our Home at Christmas...

To give you a mere glimpse at our house during the holidays, here's some pictures....

Entryway


Foyer


Sign below stairs


View from stairs


View from kitchen


Advent Calendar on Kitchen Table

As i said, this is JUST a glimpse--there's a lot more decorations elsewhere, but one of my close friends put it this way, "It looks like Christmas threw up in your house." Nice, i know, but a very effective analogy. :) And tomorrow, we're putting up the outside decorations, so stay tuned for those! Let the countdown to Christmas continue!!!! :)

The Beginning of the Holiday Season

During the Thanksgiving break, our little family traveled down to Las Vegas to spend Thanksgiving with Spencer's family. This was Maddie's first time down to Grandma and Grandpa's, and she did really well. I was especially worried about the car trip down and back (6 hours in the car, both ways), but Maddie did really well--of course she did--she's always so good natured. And normally I dread the drive as well, but I had Stephanie Meyer books to occupy my time...that's right. I gave into the "Twilight" craze and started reading the books before I went to see the new movie. I finished the first book in less than a day and had the ENTIRE series read in less than a week. They are SUPER addicting, and I fell absolutely in love with them. So, needless to say, this time I didn't mind the trip to and from Vegas because that gave me some time to read! :)

We had a great time with our family and are super excited to be going back for Christmas!! I love this time of year as anyone who knows me can tell you. I am somewhat obsessed with the Christmas season and I try, in every way, to make Christmas a part of my families' lives as well. We had our Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving (thank you, Spencer!) and we've been enjoying local Christmas festivities. On Monday, December 1st, our little family went to the "Lights On Celebration" in Provo. Down Center street in Provo, UT, the city decorates and lights up the entire street starting on the first day of December. So we were there to witness the official "beginning" of the season. Maddie absolutely LOVED it--when the lights went on after the countdown, she could NOT stop looking around! All the trees were lit and lots of decorations were put up--needless to say, she was occupied for most of the night! Later that night, we came home and had homemade hot chocolate. It was a fun day, and we're trying to do something fun each day to bring the Christmas Spirit into our home. So for now, Happy Holidays to all, and we hope you enjoy the season as much as we will! :) Goodnight!

Pictures from the "Lights on Celebration"

Daddy and Maddie


Mommy and Maddie