A Day in the Snow

We got Weston all geared up and went into the mountains last weekend.

Its time to teach him about the joys of sledding.

We got a little sidetracked and buried Weston in a snowball.

Which eventually became his first snowman.

He even made his first snow angel.

In the end, we did actually get some sledding done.

The drive up and down the canyon was beautiful and the snow was perfect.

What a great day to play in the snow!!

Posted by Brett

A Cheesy Christmas Eve Tradition

On Christmas Eve we had our Annual "Cheese & Bread" dinner with Brett's family. I think the simpleness of eating just cheese and bread for dinner is supposed to symbolize what shepherds might have eaten the night the angels visited to tell that Jesus was born. But let's be honest, this family is crazy about cheese and loves the big spread of a large variety of cheeses. We sing carols, the special family Christmas song, and Happy Birthday to Jesus. We also open Jammies from Grandma & Grandpa and take a picture. It's a fun tradition.

The Preggers girls (The three left expecting boys, very right expecting a girl!)
The men must have been jeleous of all the attention the pregnant women get because they stuck out their guts as best as they could. It's really wrong all they need is to throw a wig on and there wouldn't be much difference in the above picture and theirs. Ha,ha, but really, I was laughing so hard when I took this picture. Rather than special pregnant treatment though, I think all they're getting is this embarassing picture posted on my blog!

;) Now, above is the real image they're all trying to portray!

The boys

All the kids playing- Priceless. (Weston sitting on fireplace)

Ilove this special family Christmas song because it is such a great reminder about what the spirit of Christmas is all about. Wanted to post some of the lyrics:

"Katie got a dolly that cries and blinks its' eyes

Jimmy got an automatic plane that really flies

But we were poor that Christmas, so mama stayed up all night long

sitting in the kitchen, making us a present,

it was this song:

Church Bells ring a ling

Angels Sing a Ling

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Sleigh Bells Jing a Ling

Snowflakes Tink a Ling,

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

All year long we wait

just to celebrate

this Christmas 'morn

'Cause we want you to know,

we're SO GLAD you were born!

So have a VERY, Merry, Happy Birthday,

Jesus."

It goes on to say (paraphrasing) that they were very lucky because when other kids toys got broken, their mamas song of Christmas lives on and on. Then the 3rd verse talks about how the kids grew up and see the joy of Christmas in their own children's eyes when their gifts are being opened, but they want to give them something better than anything that's on TV: their Mother's special Christmas melody.

SANTA CLAUSE IS COMING TO TOWN!

Weston in his Santa suit, bringing us lots of Christmas joy!

Weston's seen Santa several times this year already, and loves him! Especially how Santa always gives him candy canes! He's just such a social kid and loves everyone, really. We've been to lots of Christmas parties this season including the Newborn ICU party at the UofU for NICU graduates, an open house at the Anniversary Inn, our ward Christmas party, my parent's ward Christmas party, and finally Brett's family's annual Christmas party.

We find ourselves laughing a lot and I'm convinced Weston is destined to be a comedian with the way he cracks us all up all the time with his hugs and laughs and the way he jibber jabbers and talking he does. Ha,ha!

We finally have our Christmas tree up and he loves the lights. I try to keep him away from the wrapped presents because he likes to climb on them and rip the paper. When we drive around in the car at night and he sees lights in people's yards he'll say, "WHOA!"

We are so happy that Brett is home more with school being out and are loving all of our extra family time we get to spend together. We even had a hot home cooked family breakfast yesterday morning together. This season is just so wonderful and magical feeling!

Weston also loves snow and to go on walks in the snow. He doesn't like how the cold snow freezes his hands though. He hasn't quite figured out the correlation yet. I need to get him some gloves, but I've only seen mittens for his size- which I think would stay on his hands for about 2 seconds.

Well, I'm kind of sad we didn't get a Christmas card out this year, so just wanted to send a little of our love through this blog. =) We love you all and hope you have a Merry Christmas!

LASIK

Brett made me that eye looking chart. It says things like 'I love you' or 'Merry Christmas' intermingled in it, and then the very smallest letters say, "I hope you enjoy your LASIK!" I think it was an amazing Christmas present, and the eye chart was very creative! What a thoughtful husband I have!

I can see! It's almost a miracle that last week, on Wednesday, my vision was so bad that what I could see at 20 feet in front of my face was what someone with 20/20 vision saw when they spied something that was 650 feet away! I had LASIK eye surgery done Thursday, and by Friday morning, I could see 20/20! I've had glasses since 6th grade, but no more glasses or contacts for me! Hello, skiing, swimming, walking in the rain or snow, going on vacation, and waking up in the morning without having to worry about the hassle of any devices to assist my vision.

Weston has more free time that he's figuring out what to do with instead of always pulling my glasses off and smudging them. Unfortunately, on Christmas Eve he poked me in the eye while waiting in the long line at the grocery store long line. I don't fully blame him, he was nap deprived and we had him 'on the go' all day long. But he poked me in such a way that my lower eye lid became inverted and Brett had to 'snap' it back into place. Don't worry, it's okay, it was just freaky.

I've been asked if the surgery was scary. I'm not going to lie, the actual surgery, although short, felt like I had been abducted by aliens and was being researched on as I looked into all the lights while being awake and had my eyes forced open, lasered, and smelt the burning of my eyes. It was more anxiety than my dose of Valium could control. Rather than the calming affect the Valium was meant to have on me, I just felt a plain and simple loss of control of my emotions which began with laughing, then turned into crying. I was so embarrassed, but felt like I had no control! The other patients didn't seem to be as crazy as I was, and at my follow up appointment my Dr. asked how his "nervous patient" was doing. =) Regardless the slight trauma, it was well worth it and I can't wait for my eyes to be completely healed up as they're still needing a bit of special attention and with lots of eye drops and being careful not to bump or rub them. I also have light sensitivity and lights are a bit blurry.

Thanksgiving

Weston on Thanksgiving at Grandma's house. His shirt says, "I'm stuffed!"

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! First we went to my mom's house. The turkey and potatoes were delicious! The grandkids put on a play with piano playing carols, singing, and dancing (Weston joined in a little bit with the dancing and clapping.) We then went to Brett's mom's house and had lots of nummy desserts (and had to try the deep fried turkey) then played and visited with family. We're lucky to have both families close by, but sometimes that has made the Holidays really hectic running from house to house. This year was different though- we felt like we got to spend a lot of quality time with both families and it didn't feel hectic.
I love that Thanksgiving reminds us we are so blessed to have all of the wonderful friends and family that we have, a shelter over our head, food in our bellies & God's peace in our lives!
That's my better late than never Thanksgiving post. I know, I've been really terrible at posting ever since Weston wants to push all the buttons on the computer. We have our computer in the computer hutch in Weston's bedroom. He's also been a pretty light sleeper lately also, so it's hard to get on when he's down for a nap even. He's actually getting a little less obsessed with it, so more updating posts are to come- because we've been having so much fun!

Summer Sample Pics

Lilly's Bday Party in Logan

Weston's 1st Birthday Party: In September, Weston had his first birthday! We had such a great time at Wheeler Farm. We had lots of people from both of our families there to celebrate and had a blast. We ate pizza and had drinks and cake. We had a big cake from Coscto that had a cute caterpillar on it and it said "Happy Birthday, Bug" (Bug is what mom and dad call Weston) but I forgot to take a pic of that before it got eaten. Weston had his very own chocolate bear cake (with oreo ears) that he went to town with. We even had a bouncy room. He got lots of fun presents like blocks, clothes, books, DVD's, little instruments, a piano, dumptrucks, a noisy walk along lawn mower and even money! What a lucky little boy!! It was a great day- but lots of work on the Mom and Dad's part. We never realized what a big job it is to throw a first birthday party. But his smiles were so worth it! And great memories we'll never forget were made for this big milestone. Well, Brett and I won't forget, but ironically the birthday boy himself will! That's okay, we'll have plenty of pictures for him to look back on.
Also wanted to show this picture. Weston's our little fish and loved swimming in the pool this summer!

We also spent our summer with trips to the zoo. There were many baby animals this year from elephant, giraffe, tiger cubs, and even a baby monkey. It was a great way to get out of the house and go for walks. The most recent time we went, Weston enjoyed the playground at the zoo. He loved crawling through the tunnels and sliding down the slide. If I get around to it, I'll post more pictures.

Notice the baby?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Weston loves his pumpkin costume. He hugs the pumpkin, he picked it out, and to my surprise, he actually likes to wear it!...but sometimes not the hat.

Weston and his Pumpkin friend Parker at Gardner Village

Fun in the leaves!

Well, now that I've completely skipped over the summer, I'll move on to Fall. I'll have to do a catchup/review later on, BUT for now, I wanted to say
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The little bug is growing extremely fast. He weights 25 lbs and seems to be getting inches taller by the week!
Unfortunately, Brett and Weston got sick with the swine flu.=( They are pretty much better now, but not 100%, so we're skipping out on all the fun parties and festivities, which is bad timing because Halloween is SOOO fun. Somehow I (Nicky) have managed to not get sick for the exhausting week of taking care of my sick boys.

Tonight, I was thinking we'll carve pumpkins and watch a movie or something so we can still do something fun.

Our family at the Confrence Center. We went to a multi regional steak confrence and got to see the Prophet speak. It was a beautiful day. We walked around Memory Grove afterwards.

Summertime Family Fun

One Happy Family Playing in the water on a hot day at the park.

Smothered in love!
Weston (First row, left side) and all his cousins from Brett's side of the family!
There are more cousins to come with a couple of recent pregnancy announcements...

Weston the Cruiser

The Outlaws of Summer! We got this picture in Pioneer Village at Lagoon Father's Day Wkend.
On the 4th of July, Weston started crawling. Last week, he started CRUISING and pulling himself into standing position onto everything. Which means, we have been substantially busier! And he's had a few bonks and a fat lip along the way as he learns some surfaces are harder to fall into than others. I think it hurts me more than him when he gets hurt. I'm trying to learn not to freak out, but that's going to take some practice because whenever he falls I instinctively make a big gasp, and so he cries harder due to my reaction. He's also found his high pitch screaming voice. He uses it when he's happy or sad. He is a total handful, but so much fun! He also takes steps when I'm holding his hands to "walk" with me. He even stood for a few seconds at a wedding.

He also went to his 1st FRIEND BIRTHDAY PARTY AT CHUCKEE CHEESE & loved it. His eyes were glued to the characters on stage and he would clap and 'sing' with them. He even tried his first pizza. He likes olive pizza.

I'm learning where the saying, "I can't take you anywhere" comes from because Weston is just SO VOCAL lately! Ha,ha. We went to Souper Salad to eat and even though he was happy, his noisy "talking" and screaming and squeals of delight at being able to try so many new finger foods were enough to give the people two tables over a headache. And at Church, we ended up sitting in the foyer. Still haven't found his volume button. Probably never will. =)

Last week, somehow I managed to go with Kelly (Brett's mom) for a couple of days to go to the Shakespearean festival in Cedar City and to the Tuachan theater in St George. I LOOOOOVED it! We saw Annie, Foxfire, Henry V, and the Secret Garden all in 2 days! The part where it was 115 degrees was pretty crazy. It was nice to have a nice hotel bed all to myself, not always be carrying around arm fulls of stuff for baby and be able to relax at the pool in the morning. I also missed my boys, though. Next time, they're coming with! Thank You Brett, Weston's aunt, uncle and cousins who played with him while I was gone!

Summer's been really busy and fun with lots of things I'd like to post on but... not tonight, I'm beat!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL YOU FATHERS!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL THE MEN IN OUR LIVES THAT HELPED US LEARN HOW TO DO SO MANY FUN THINGS! LIKE BOTH OF OUR FATHER'S, OUR GRANDPAS, BROTHERS, ETC WHO NOT ONLY TAUGHT US WHAT TO DO, BUT ALSO WHAT NOT TO DO. =) hahaha. JK. WE LOVE YOU ALL!

THIS FATHERS DAY WE'RE SO THANKFUL FOR WESTON. HE MAKES BRETT A VERY PROUD DAD ON THIS FIRST FATHER'S DAY FOR HIM! WE ALSO HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN HIS BIRTHFATHER AND WE ARE SO GREATFUL FOR HIM FOR ALLOWING US THE OPPROTUNITY TO BE WESTON'S PARENTS. WE WISH HIM AND ALL FATHER'S A WONDERFUL FATHER'S DAY!