Happy New Year!!!

I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy new year. We love you all!!!

Love 

Tim, Nikki and Isabella :) 

Christmas Morning 2008

We were very blessed this year to have Kevin and Susie with us this Christmas, we all had a lot of fun. The week flew by way to fast. Christmas morning was wonderful, we woke up ate the usual Christmas wreath then went downstairs to open all our presents. Izzie went first, she opened her little people and wanted to play with them right away, it took us awhile to even get her to look at another present.

We all had a very relaxed morning, it was fun to just take our time. After we opened presents we got to work making dinner. We had our friends Tiffany and Rick and family over, as well as our friends Karen and Bill and their kids too. We ate dinner played games and had a really great time.

What a site to wake up to!

Stuart wanted her toy sooooo bad!

Kevin and Susie hanging out on the couch.

Let me do it myself!

On Christmas Eve Tim, Kevin and I went out to get the last minute items for our Christmas dinner, we stopped for lunch at Rumbi's and Izzie thought it was time to feed herself. She just took the fork from Tim and went to town, she was even holding it right!!

Sorry about the fuzzy pictures, had to use the camera on the phone and the lighting was bad.

Check out the new mullet she's sporting, as Tim says business in the front, party in the back!

He Can Fly!!!

Tim and I decided to give Kevin an early Christmas gift this year. A few days before Christmas we drove up to Ogden, Utah so he could do a little indoor skydiving! Here are some great pictures enjoy......

Here he is suited up and ready to go.

He went pretty high up by himself.

But the instructor to him up even higher!

Does he look a little windblown to you?

Hello?

Here she is talking on daddy's old work phone. 

She's trying to walk over to me with the phone.

And here she's getting really mad at the phone because the cord won't go any further. This is the little attitude we talk about, it makes us laugh now but later I'm sure it will be a challenge!

She's playing with the kitchen David and Maria got her for her birthday she loves it.

She's such a ham!

And here the attitude is back! She got really mad at it for some reason, she started screaming at her little sink, scary!

WARNING MOMMY STORY!!!

I swore to myself I would not become one of "them", you know the mom that tells everyone she comes in contact with all the "cute" things their child did last night, the mom that thinks their child is just the sweetest, smartest, funniest kid ever! But it has happened. Tonight it is with great pride that I say that I have become one of "them".  

When it was just the two of us, a lot of our friends were having babies and telling us these kinds of stories, and don't get me wrong some of them were funny, some of them even make us laugh to this day, but some of them were painful to listen to at the time. I would be thinking to myself why are they telling me this? Please make them stop! Quick someone change the subject! But now that I have joined the "Club" I get it, I totally get it. I was young and not ready enter into that faze of life. I now find myself seeking these stories out, reading them on other moms blogs, when I run into other moms I know, I drag them out of them! Hearing them makes me feel "normal" that I'm not alone in the sometimes frustrating world of mommyhood. I know now that it can brighten someones day, like when I was talking to my Mom on the phone yesterday, she has been having a rough time lately, but it made her smile and laugh a little to hear about Izzies latest and greatest adventures. And when she said "heywo" to her Uncle Ryan on the phone it made him laugh, and it made her Aunt Stephanie very jealous. 

My daughter makes me laugh everyday, and tonight, in my eyes, she became the smartest little one year old to ever walk, I mean crawl, the face of the earth. And her little attitude, oh it makes Tim and I laugh all the time, we always look at each other and say "we're in trouble". And so I share my tales of Izzie with great pride here on my blog, I figure if people don't want to hear them they can just press their back key and spare themselves, because I won't, I will keep on talking about my smart, sweet, sassy and funny baby girl.

It's here!

The snow is finally here! We woke up to a few inches of snow this morning, Izzie and I peeked out the backdoor she was so excited to see all the white stuff all over her backyard, it got a long ooooooohhhhhh!!! We took her out front so she could touch the trees, I'm sure she's going to have fun this winter now that she's old enough to play in it.

We tried to take more Christmas pictures, it started off pretty rocky as you can see, but we were able to get a few good shots.

Tim and I bought this dress last Christmas, we couldn't resist the gorgeous green!

Here's the money shot!

More cute winter shots to follow I'm sure!  We are planning a trip up to Idaho to visit family next week before Christmas so check back soon for more pictures! I am in a mad rush to get the house clean for Christmas, gifts shipped off and homemade gifts completed before Santa gets here so please forgive me for the short post!

It's official....

I honestly never thought I would say it and mean it, but today for the first time in a really long time, I could have killed my precious first "baby girl" Stella. The past couple of days she has been a huge pain in the neck!!! We put up our "winter fence" for the dogs the other day, it's SUPPOSED to stop them from getting into the yard during the winter time to keep the grass looking good come spring. But Stella has gotten out both days, Stuart however has been a saint. After getting yelled at and smacked on the butt she was put in her "place" and then proceeded to eat the babies lunch off the coffee table as soon as my back was turned!! I had a MAJOR breakdown, all day it felt like I was taking one step forward, two steps back(you know the kind of day right?) Later on I finally got the books done and the baby to bed (on top of everything else she's teething again) and put the dogs in the garage to eat dinner and got to cleaning the kitchen, something I was trying to get to all day. After two hours of cleaning and cooking dinner, I finally got it all done and went to let the dogs in and Stella comes charging past me, and Stuart is stuck standing in the huge puddle she left behind shaking. He's looking at me like "I didn't do it please don't beat me!!!!" So needless to say I had my second breakdown for the day, and Tim came home to me yelling at her, nice homecoming :) So for the next half hour I was scrubbing my garage floor with Lysol (something I never thought I would do) and then had to go inside and scrub the floors inside too, you know because the baby crawls all over them all day and the dogs tracked pee all over them. And can I say, while we're on the subject, since Izzie has started crawling, my wood floors have never looked so good!!! So once again Tim had to calm me down, and threatened Stella, "If you piss your Mom off again, I'm going to tie you up in a sweater outside and you can just freeze, like the little dog across the street and howl all day" and of course Stella is shaking the whole time. All in all the day ended pretty well, we ate our stuffed bell peppers, YUM and watched a little TV. Thanks for listening to me vent!! But listen up one more very important announcement.......

FREE TO A GOOD HOME

This cute, perfect in every way, female boxer needs a new home. No really she's perfect!!! 

(just kidding)

Getting that perfect christmas card photo!

  Today we were on the hunt for the perfect Christmas card photo. We went everywhere stuck our baby in places she should never have been, and still didn't get it, but we sure had fun trying :) To start our day off we decided to finally try one of the local places we saw on Diners  Drive-Ins and Dives, you know the show on the Food Network, So we went to Moochies....

And I'm just going to say it .... I LOVE MOOCHIES!!! I'm telling you we are taking everyone here when you come to visit so be prepared :) The BEST Philly cheese steak sandwich ever! And I mean ever!!

Izzie loved it too!

 

It was another beautiful day here so we went to Gardner's Village to try and get photos of Izzie and do a little Christmas shopping too. They have these little elves they put out around the holidays, some of them are a little scary and some are very cute so we walked all over the whole village trying to find the "perfect" elf to sit her next to. We didn't get the photo, but we got some really cute shots:)

                                              

I made the mistake of going in the cute little Baby Boutique they have there and bought this hat in Black for Izzie... sometimes I just can't stop myself.

Here's a shot of one of the elves in the background, but Izzie wouldn't look at the camera!  

And here we put her in front of a tree in one of the stores and still she wouldn't look, ugh! So Tim gave her a ball off the tree and what does she do.... stares at the ball of course :)

And there's the always lovely fake smile

And here we thought oh won't that be cute, her by the covered bridge... no she just wanted to yell at the ducks.

And here are some of the scary elves I was talking about, yuck what is that stuff oozing down her face?!

We finally gave up and went to the mall, and Izzie rode the carousel for the first time. She loved it. I was a little sad, she is growing up so fast! My sadness didn't last very long though, I was soon laughing my head off when the carousel started to go round. It wasn't to fast for Izzie, but it sure was for Tim. He said it feels much faster when you're standing, and the animal next to them was a reindeer and every time it went up and down the antlers would jab into his back but he couldn't move because he had to stay close to Izzie, so he kept making this painful face the whole time.

She was all smiles the whole time!

We didn't get the perfect Christmas card photo, but I think we got a perfect day together. 

Ryan, Steph, Tim and Jordan 

Getting ready to hit the rapids this past summer.

We love it when people come out to see us!!!!

Just another day...

Today I found myself drowning in endless piles of clothes that I let accumulate, again! Why do I always do that to myself? I think that will be one of my new years resolutions, one of many I should say. Other than the piles of laundry I waded through, today was a pretty good day. The sun was shining and it's in the  high 40's, in Utah, in December! Can you believe that we have yet to get a real snowstorm? I'm telling you the universe is waiting for Kevin and Susie's plane to touch down and BAM!! storm watch 2008 :). We joke about that here in Utah now, we remember watching the news at night in California, and even if it was only 1/8th of an inch of rain, the weatherman would call it "STORM WATCH" and some cameraman would take a shot of the water rushing down the gutter. Ahhh California there are some things we miss but not much.

Tim and I talk about it sometimes, moving to Utah, especially when the seasons change here. Life in California was just whizzing by us, and now that we're here, life just goes a little slower. I never knew why people would make such a big deal about fall and now that we're here oh my gosh the colors and the crispness of the air, there's nothing like it. And curling up by the fire while you watch the snow fall outside your windows, blissful. And just when you can't take the snow anymore... spring comes. We love it here, we love how our lives have changed. Instead of saying hi and goodbye in between our 2 sometimes 3 jobs in California, we see each other all day everyday and WE get to stay home with our baby girl. I'm a truly lucky, lucky girl.

The only downfall?.... we miss all of you, our family and friends back in California. Please come visit!! There is always room at our Inn!!!! 

All the toys you buy them and they play with......

I just don't understand it, all the toys she got for her birthday and she plays for hours with her... croc-pot!!!! 

Check out her new molars, she's been working on them for weeks :)

Cousin Wendi's Wedding

This weekend I was doing my Costco gig, so Tim took care of Izzie during the day, they always have a good time. On Saturday my cousin Wendi was having her wedding reception, so after I finished up for the day at Costco I asked Tim to get her ready and meet me in the parking lot so we could drive there together and when he pulled up Izzie was sitting in the front seat in her car seat sunroof open, mind you it was in the 30's, in this outfit (the one we bought for Christmas pictures) her hair was sticking straight up and she looked like she had been in a wind tunnel! She had the BIGGEST smile on her face. I could NOT stop laughing, and even as I'm writing this I'm still laughing. 

This was taken later in the night, she was ready to go!

She likes to pull my hair when it's down, so here I scared her by grabbing her hands before she could pull my hair again. She loves loves loves to be scared it cracks her up!

Look at her little curl! Her hair is getting longer!!!

Christmas Tree Shopping 2008

This afternoon we went christmas tree shopping, imagine that it's not even December yet! 

 Have we got it together this year or what?!!! :)

She's so darn cute!!!

She spotted the perfect tree!

The weather could not have been better. At lunch Tim and I decided that the first snow storm of the year will come when Kevin and Susie get here later this month ( it's always freezing cold when they come)

Izzie checking on her daddy