Christmas 2012

It had been three years since we were in Salt Lake for Christmas.  We were pretty excited that we would be there for all the family fun.

The first party was the annual white elephant party with the Bakers.  Mark ended up with a grab stick and I ended up with a whole bag of trinkets that I threw away.  We sure came out on top this past year. :) 

We also got to see our new nephew Ethan that night. He is a cute little guy.

We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner with Mark's parents.  Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures while there. It was snowing all day Christmas Eve and Mark really wanted to go take pictures at temple square after dinner. He got some pretty pictures of the temple.

 

It was fun to spend Christmas morning at my old house--it brought back such good Christmas morning memories of a very clever Santa note, my dad taking videos, and my mom stumbling in tired.  Ang also made it extra fun by wearing her festive ugly sweater that was 5 sizes too small.  It was my old violin performing sweater--complete with santa buttons and stitched on Christmas objects.

I was so excited to watch Lucy check out what Santa brought her.  While I was waiting for Mark to get the camera ready, she wandered in on her own and started playing with her toys while I wasn't watching.  It was funny and sad.  

This is Lucy later in the morning showing off her new snowman socks with Grandpa and Grandma's Elmo toy.

That night we got together with the rest of my family--except for the Thalmans that is.  It was sad we missed them because of the flu bug going around in our family. 

We had dinner, a talent show, and opened presents.

Lucy got a new chair and magic coloring book from Grandpa and Grandpa that she was very content with.

Her favorite presents came later that night.  She got a soft blanket from Mark and I and her very own elmo doll from Grandpa and Grandma!

The fun ended for Lucy there however because that night she woke up with the stomach flu.  I felt so bad for her.  The only good that came about it was that we got to stay a couple of days longer while she recovered.  We got to stay and bring in the New Year with my family too.  Besides the flu part, it was a great holiday. 

Thanksgiving Marshmallo Fight

I loved this past Thanksgiving!!! It was so fun to be in Utah and be able to celebrate with everyone.  It was a great day filled with excellent food, a gingerbread house competition, thankful moments from every family member, and a marshmallo fight!  

I thought I would be safe from getting pelted by marshmallos by being the camera lady but I was wrong.  I think it gave people the opportunity to get a free shot instead because I was unarmed.

Lucy just walked around eating a sucker during all the commotion.

At the very end, my dad got a garbage can to clean up the mess.

Little did he know that he was really just setting himself up for the celebratory dump at the end of our marshmallo game.

My Favorite Buddy

I love that I get to spend all day with my favorite little buddy, Lucy. She keeps me entertained by the cute little things she does and says. Some of my favorites right now are:

-How happy she is!  She is giggles all day long.  It is my favorite sound.

-How much she loves Elmo.  She gets so excited every time she sees him and keeps repeating his name.  She feeds him, cuddles him, and sleeps with him.  On Friday, she took his little hands in hers and put her maracas inbetween so it seemed like he was shaking them. :) She also loves to give him rides in her Barbie car.

-Her little voice.  She started talking a lot more and it is like music to my ears!  She sounds the cutest to me when she says honey, thank you, napkin, and Ernie.  

-What a sweetheart she is.  Yesterday while driving to my sister's house we let her watch Winnie the Pooh for the first time.  It seemed she was really liking it until tears started rolling down her cheeks. She got scared because Winnie the Pooh had bees stuck in his head after eating a handful of honey.  She also gives hugs to any object in books that she really likes. What topped all of her sweetness off though was when I was rocking and singing to her before bed tonight.  She took her little hand and started stroking my arm, hand, and fingers softly.  My heart melted!

-She started telling me when she poops.  Bring on the potty training!

-Her blue eyes looking back at me.  Sometimes when I am frustrated with her, I see her cute innocent eyes looking back at me and my frustration disappears. 

-When she yells "Mom" while she's walking around the house looking for me.

 

These next pictures are some of the funny things we caught in the last couple of months.

 

While we were unpacking Lucy's room, Lucy found a new use for her plastic swimming pants.

I layed a mirror on the floor with some paper to cover the front so I could spray paint the edges.  While I was out of the room for a second,  Lucy found a better use for it--a new bed and blanket.

I never know what I am going to get at the end of naptime.  Sometimes Lucy is good and goes to sleep, other days she get creative.  Lately, when I get Lucy out of her crib, she is completely naked and a couple of times has left some "surprises" in her sheets.  A couple of months ago, Mark found Lucy like this at the end of her nap. 

One of my favorite things to watch Lucy do is jump.

Lucy loves stickers! She found my mailing stickers during Christmas time and made socks out of them.

Lucy got to touch snow for the first time in December. She had fun walking around in the snow while I shoveled the driveway.  Everytime she knew it was heavy for me she make the "uhhh" sound. :)

One of Lucy's favorite things is brushing her teeth.  She has one proud dentist.

"Business Trip" to San Diego

A week after we moved in, Mark called me on his way home from work and asked if I wanted to go to San Diego the following weekend.  Naturally I said yes! All I needed was a couple of trip buddies to have fun with while Mark spent the daytime at a dental laser course.  Since my mom and sister Ang are always up for a party, I was set!

The drive there wasn't too bad since my mom kept us entertained.  Her misfortune was like stand up comedy.  She spilled chocolate shake all over her pillow, was constantly failing at her attempts to put her socks on, and couldn't fix her one pant leg that was unhemmed because Lucy's huge seat stole all her mobility.   This probably doesn't sound very funny but it was in real life.  Thanks for sacrificing your comfort for our humor Mom! :)   

We only had two days to spend there so we tried to pack in the fun.  We started at the Mormon Battalion Museum where we became honorary members!!!  

I loved the exhibit.  We went through an interactive movie about the battalion that reminded me of a Disney ride. I was loving everything about the movie until I realized Brigham Young and I had the same hair.  It was then that I knew I needed a haircut.

Ang so graciously volunteered to become one of the batallion members during our experience.  Just kidding Ang--thanks for taking it for the team--again.

 

 

 Afterwards we went down the street to Old Town San Diego where we saw the old Courthouse that the Battalion helped build,

 

along with the jail, 

the Wells Fargo Builiding,

the first schoolhouse,

 

a historic mansion,

 

a stables museum,

and ate some great Mexican.

We still had an hour before we had to pick up Mark so I had the stupid idea of driving over to Coronodo bridge to see the view of the bay. It sounded great in my head until we got stuck in work traffic and there was only one way out--over the bridge, to the island, and back over the bridge.  We were late of course--poor Mark.

 

The next day we took some great trip advice from my friend Amy and saw a beautiful view of San Diego from Mount Soledad. 

Next we went to the Old Point Loma Lighthouse at Cabrillo National Monument.  I was super excited about this since I wanted to see a lighthouse in Florida before we left but never did.  I can finally check it off my bucket list.

 

The lighthouse also had a spectacular view of San Diego. It was beautiful! 

 

Last but not least we got to see live seals at Seal Beach.  It was crazy they were all just sitting there for everyone to see! So cool! 

We were late picking up Mark again because the first time the GPS took us to here!

I am still annoyed when I look at this.  Poor, patient Mark.

Luckily Mark got to do something that he wanted to do at the end of the day.  When we got to Mark, we were just in time to take pictures of the sunset. 

It was so nice to be at a beach again. I have to admit though, as pretty as this one was, I missed the Florida beaches a bit. The sand was so fine in San Diego but it didn't have the same clear blue color!

Thank you to Mark who's hard work made this "business trip" possible!