Christmas Pictures

So, I finally got all the 100's of pictures put on my computer, so I can load some up on here! Definitely will take awhile to pick my favorites, because goodness, Daniel is a cute little boy! :o) Check out my facebook page for MANY more pictures! Also, I'll try to get on here soon to tell you all about our 2nd stage of Christmas over at Scott's parents! We had a wonderful time, as you can tell by the pictures! :o)

These first pictures were taken Christmas Eve while Daniel opened his PJs and all the toys from us! He was such a happy little guy and LOVED the bows!








Here are pictures of my Christmas presents from Scott... An awesome, gigantic scrapbook bag on wheels, and a wonderful scrapbook supply shelf to put all my stuff on! I got him a big thing of tools for his truck... :o)





The rest of the pictures are from Scott's parents house... He got a rocking horse from his Grandma and Grandpa and LOVES it! :o)

8 months and 3 days old!!!

Dear Daniel,

Hello big boy! You are just over 8 months old now and Mommy can hardly believe it! Today is your very first Christmas, and it has already been an exciting time for your daddy and I as we watch you get excited about all the presents and things that come with Christmas-time! You are still not crawling forwards, but you have been crawling backwards for awhile now. Although, last night Daddy and I are pretty sure we saw you crawl forward a few 'crawls' towards some tissue paper, but I don't think you realized it and have not done it again! You are so funny because you get so frustrated since when you see something you want to go get you end up very far away from it because you try to move but you go further and further away! :o( Poor little guy! You have been rolling ALL over the place lately, though, so you seem to get to most of the places you want to go! The other day you 'found' the Christmas tree for really the first time since it was up! You rolled all the way underneath it and start kicking and hitting all your gifts (yes, Mommy had to make sure they were your gifts you were destroying and not other people's) and then you grabbed hold of the tree and shook it until the angel fell off the top. Lol. You were so cute I just had to watch you for awhile instead of taking you away from it! :o) Still as curious as can be, that's for sure! :o) You are our little Curious Daniel!



You are working a little more on pulling up, too... Now that there are more toys you things you want to get to you are realizing that if you pull really hard you can get taller! :o) Hmmm... OH, yes, another thing you are doing a lot now is sitting up from a lying down position, which you are VERY excited about! Before you would get so sad when you were stuck on your back or tummy because you loved sitting but couldn't sit back up. Now you even end up sitting up when we put you down for naps! :o)



My favorite new thing you are doing this month is saying Mama!!! I think you started around your 7 month 'birthday' or before, but silly Mommy never recorded the exact date. But, anyway, you say it all the time now and you really do know that it is me who goes with that name!!! I know you usually say it when you are tired or sad or just really want me to come get you, but it is so adorable and you can't even imagine how amazing it makes me feel! :o) You said Dada for the first time like two weeks ago, too, although you haven't said that as often. I think you do know that that is Daddy's name, though, because the times you've said it he was right there!



You love, love, love watching your daddy and Uncle Bryan work in the garage! Daddy and I were just talking about this yesterday, talking about how excited we are for when you are older because Daddy is going to build you a little workbench to put in the garage with him so y'all can build lots of things for Mommy! :o) It's definitely your favorite place to be, probably because you see your Daddy building so many things in there! You also enjoy me reading to you, and although you are getting a bit better with your anxiety when I'm not around, you still enjoy me playing with you the most during the day! :o)



As for how much you weigh, I'm not exactly sure. I'm pretty sure you have gone through a growth spurt in the past few weeks because you definitely seem taller again, but we haven't weighed you in awhile, so I'm not sure. :o) You love eating, that's for sure! You are eating two and sometimes three meals a day now, usually two or three 'ice cubes' of food a meal! Some of your favorites are sweet potato, squash, carrots, peas, pears, apples, avocados, and mango! Your least favorite has definitely been asparagus! ;o) Silly boy!



Well, you have been sleeping for almost an hour now! Hopefully that means you will be very rested when you get up so we can go over to Grandma and Grandpa's and open presents for Christmas!!! You are going to have SO much fun! ;o)

We love you lots and lots and lots!

Love,
Mommy

Merry Christmas One and All!

Merry Christmas! I just realized that it's been a VERY long time since I wrote on here... I can't quite believe how fast this month went! My little guy is already 8 months old and enjoying his very first Christmas! Right now, Scott is over at his parents' while I am home with Daniel to allow him to get a good nap before heading back over there to open gifts and enjoy a delicious lunch of ham, potato casserole, homemade rolls, green bean casserole and I'm sure some other yummy dishes! I can't believe it's Christmas AND it's warmer than 50 outside, but I'm sure it'll be a wonderful day! :o)

Yesterday, to start off the Christmas weekend, we went over to Scott's parents' house to play games and have a biscuit and gravy brunch with his parents and Geoffrey, who is in town. Bryan was working, but the rest of us had fun playing Dominoes and eating the yummy food! Then, we headed over to Amanda's where my other sister, Lelia, and her husband Wayne joined Amanda and us for pizza and The Farming Game (or whatever that is called). It was good to see them before we celebrate our Christmas together next week over New Year's. We had a fun afternoon there, and then headed to our church for the Christmas Eve service at 5 p.m. Debbie King, a good friend of ours, played the keyboard for the service and did a great job and we enjoyed sitting with the Kings, Burgesses, and Cunninghams, catching up with them before enjoying the great service! After that we drove over to Scott's parents' church to join his family for their Christmas Eve service... Yep, it sounds like we were very religious. ;o) But, no, it was just nice to be able to go to our church and still be able to make it to theirs which was good, also!

After getting home last night, we started our new tradition of opening up Christmas PJs on Christmas Eve, which was tons of fun! We took pics, so I'll have to post some on here once I get all the Christmas pics loaded. Daniel's little PJs are super cute. They say Baby's 1st Christmas and have reindeer on them! (He is actually wearing them today, because he wanted to be extra comfy!) He LOVED opening up his gift and playing with the bag and tissue paper so much that we decided to go ahead and open all our gifts while he was happy instead of waiting until this morning. I'm glad we decided to do that because he hasn't been so happy so far this morning, but last night he was so adorable! :o) We video taped it all, and I'll definitely want to watch it again! He go a laugh and learn table that makes lots of cool noises and will definitely be something to enjoy for a long time. He unwrapped part of it, but I had to do the most after he decided his favorite part of gifts are the bows. :o) Lol. He LOVED all of his bows and tried to open and play with his toys WHILE holding the bows! He wouldn't let go of them! After opening and playing with that gift a little while he opened his big blue tub of mega blocks, which look like legos but they are gigantic! :o) The tub is big enough for him to fit in so he knocked it on it's side and then worked on digging out blocks while crawling almost entirely inside! :o) (Oh, by the way... He is not crawling yet, although he was SO excited about his gifts last night that we were pretty sure we saw him take a few 'crawls' forward, which was exciting! He crawls backwards ALL the time, but just doesn't go forwards yet!) Although he was super happy with those blocks, we had to have him open his last gift, so we brought out his last one which is a noisy zoo thing, which he also loved! After that he played forever with all of his toys while Scott and I opened our gifts! I had gotten Scott some type of tools (can't remember what) and he got me a mega big scrapbook supply holder wheely thing! I'm super excited!!! :o) Then we just watched Daniel play for awhile until it was past his bedtime and we had to put away his toys so he could go to bed. It was hilarious watching him as Scott put away the blocks! Scott would put the blocks in and Daniel would pull himself up and try to start taking blocks out again! HE didn't want to stop playing! :o) Lol.

So, that's been our Christmas so far! Super excited for today!!!

Well, he is still sleeping, so I think I will go ahead and do my 8-month 'letter' to my little guy now... Got to keep up with what changes he has had this month!! :o)

MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Professional Pics!

I just put up some pictures on here that were taken by AH Photography a few weeks ago! :o) Aren't they amazing??? Anissa was the same lady who took pictures of Scott and I at our wedding! She is such an amazing photographer! We love all the pictures! Just wanted to share them with all of you!

Random thoughts of mommyhood :o)

I'm sitting here thinking I could probably take a nap but realizing that Daniel will probably not nap much longer, so I should probably stay up... But, anyway, as I'm thinking that, I began thinking about how much I am LOVING being a Mommy! I seriously couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life right now! :o) It's amazing how God always knows best... Even though Scott and I were not planning on starting a family when we did, God knew how much I needed little Daniel and how much I needed the feeling of being able to be a part of raising a little boy! We are doing Daniel's baby dedication in just a few weeks at church, and I'm really excited for it! I'm not sure why we waited this long, but it is cool thinking about doing it right before Christmas because this season always makes me so thankful for where we are and what God has blessed us with! I love the idea of dedicating our little ones to God in front of our church family because it is such a great reminder that Daniel is God's boy who has been given to us to take care of for now. That makes me even more thankful to God for how much he loves us by giving us our little boy! :o)

I just found out this past week that a friend from church is pregnant again and it made me miss being pregnant even more! Goodness, sometime I wonder if I'll be one of those women who wants to have child after child! I guess I'll find out after a have another one or two! :o) Anyway, I'm already looking forward to being pregnant again... I just know that Daniel would LOVE having a little sister or brother! He will be such a great older brother, too! Aahhh... But, enough dreaming! I am thankful for today that we have a curious little 7 month old boy named Daniel! He is a blessing to us and we wouldn't be the same without him! :o)

We are SO thankful! :o)

Happy Thanksgiving a few days late to everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful day spent with your family or friends! We had a great time ourselves! But, I'm going to go back to a few days before Thanksgiving before continuing... :o)

Back on Monday, the 22nd, Daniel turned 7 months old! He is such a big boy, and I really can't believe STILL how fast he is growing! Goodness! He will be crawling in no time at all now, and is still loving figuring out everything around our house. He is a very curious little guy and now that he is actually realizing he can ROLL from one side of the room to the other from time to time, he is getting where he wants to go! On a side note, we just put up the Christmas tree yesterday and I am already worried about that and our Christmas village which I put up on the area in front of the fireplace because I know if he starts full-on crawling soon and pulling up, he will have all the village people for dinner! SOOO, basically, Mommy will be watching him VERY closely during this next month so that he will not eat any of them or break any of the very cool houses that he already wants to grab! We'll see how long those last in that spot. :o) ANYWAYS, I am getting super excited for Christmas to give him all his new toys because he will LOVE them! Although, I'm still thinking if I just got him editable paper that would be exciting enough for him. Lol. ;o)

7 months old!




As for crawling, he really is getting much closer than last month when he turned 6 months, so if he keeps progressing at this speed he should be crawling for Christmas! We don't have to put him up on his hands and knees anymore, because he gets up on them from his sitting up position and when he's on his tummy all the time! He does the rocking back and forth on them and lunges for almost anything now! Boy, will he ever be excited once he realizes he can move fast! :o) Daniel is also LOVING his little bouncer thing with wheels that we have in our kitchen. I put him in it while I cook, clean the kitchen, or make his food! He used to not like it all that much, but now that he has figured out how to move where he wants to go in it, he is figuring out that kitchen! He investigates the cabinets, and just figured out how to open them the other day. He gets a little frustrated, though, since he is in a big thing that blocks the complete opening of the cabinet, but Mommy is very grateful for that! It is about time for me to start using a few of the cabinet locks, though, although I did think before unpacking and put many things that he could play with in the cabinets he could reach... :o) That's very nice!

We just got him a space heater for his room because he was getting so cold every night in there! The thermostat was in our room, which does not have vaulted ceilings, so even with us keeping it set at 70 or even 75 some nights, it would still be like 60 in his room! :o( We would bundle him up and put blankets on him, but he hates blankets and always kicks them off (that he gets from Mommy... I kicked off all blankets until I was probably 10 or something). Sooo, we got him a space heater and now we don't have to sweat in our room at night and he is nice and toasty warm! YAY! :o)

Playing with his toys (he poured the entire thing of stuffed animals on top of himself)


Anyway, happy 7 months little guy! Mommy and Daddy love you SO much and are super excited to spend this next month of holidays with you!!! We are SOOOOOOO thankful for you every single minute of the day!!! :o)

Thanksgiving day was lots of fun! I came down with some kind of cold AGAIN on Wednesday afternoon, so I didn't sleep almost at all that night, but we were still able to get the house all cleaned and ready and I made chocolate cheesecakes Wed. and mashed potatoes Thurs. morning for our contribution to the Thanksgiving day feast! Thursday morning I watched the Macy's Parade off and on while we cleaned and ate breakfast. Then, Lelia and Wayne and Amanda, Tyler, and Vienna all got there so the ad shopping began! That is quite the ordeal, especially as we each looked through a paper's worth of ads! OUr living room was a mess! ;o) Amanda had made green bean casserole, pecan, and chocolate pecan pies while Lelia brought a fruit salad, cranberry sauce, eggnog, and pumpkin pie! A little bit later Dad and Mom arrived with the main fixings - turkey, gravy, and dressing! :o) Then, Scott's parents came with delicious homemade potato rolls and apple pie! We were ready to eat!!! :o) Daniel sat down with all of us at our big, long table (two tables put together) and he feasted on his sweet potatoes and squash yumminess while we all ate everything else! Boy, was it all ever good!

Eating!




Daniel on his first Thanksgiving Day! (Look at his two front teeth!!)


After lunch we rested for just a bit before almost all of us went on a good walk around the block in the cold 20-something degree weather! We were determined to burn off at least a little of our meal before pies! :O) Then it was back inside for pies!!! We had pumpkin, pecan, chocolate pecan, chocolate cheesecake, and apple pie! THey were all amazing!

We spent the rest of the day playing the Wii, talking, ad shopping, playing with a very happy Daniel (he LOVED all the attention during the day), eating a bit for dinner, and just enjoying family time! It was SO nice having it at our house!! The first time to host a thing that big for everyone and it worked out great!! I'm SO thankful for our big house, especially our big dining room, kitchen, and living room to hold everyone! :o)

Friday morning Scott's AWESOME mom came and "watched" (after he woke up, that is) Daniel for us while we went Black Friday shopping! I was surprised how many people actually take their little babies out there with them that early, but I'm glad we had her watch him. Not too sure how happy he would be waiting in lines for so long! :o) We were able to go to lots of places and got many Christmas gifts and a few things we needed and saved hundreds of dollars, which was very nice! AND, it was half as busy as I thought it would be! The rest of Friday we were lazy and watched a movie and didn't do too much.

Yesterday, we decorated for Christmas at our house and Scott worked on a Christmas present in the garage for me! :o) (He is LOVING an area to work on wood out there!) Then, last night, we joined some others from church and decorated for Christmas there. That was fun hanging out with some of the families there!

Well, I should probably go wake up my hubby. We need to get everything cleaned up from decorating yesterday... Right now it looks like a tornado hit our living room! I just put Daniel down for his nap so it's time to begin the day! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and hopefully everyone is getting ready for Christmas, because I know that I am!!! I'm getting SOOOOO excited! :o)

In the midst of a long, busy week!

Daniel is down for a nap - hopefully a good, long one, and I am waiting for my Love to come home from work! Today has been a really good day! It was something I really needed after a LONG couple of days since the weekend! Daniel's teething and 6-month (almost 7-month) phase has been very trying on me lately so today we got out of the house after a morning of trying to get him down for a nap and had a delicious lunch with Scott and then ran errands around town while Daniel slept! We had to go to the hospital to pick up a part for my breast pump that I needed (SO thankful that they give those away for free!) and then since Daniel was still sleeping I decided to treat myself to a Starbucks Peppermint White Mocha at Target and ended up taking a walk around the mall, listening to the Christmas music, buying Daniel is first stocking ever and getting Christmas cards! I'm excited for Thanksgiving next week, but I'll definitely be ready to decorate for Christmas next weekend and get all the Christmas music out!!! I was on a website the other day that I have been a part of since I first got pregnant with Daniel... a mom's group website who all had babies in April. Anyway, they were all discussing Christmas traditions that they will be starting up now that they have a new baby, and it was so cool reading through all of them AND thinking about traditions I want to start up now that we have our little family! :o) I told Scott that we should talk about it all tonight and decide what we'd like to do... It's so cool taking two different families' ideas and then our own and coming up with amazing traditions that we'll be able to stick with for many, many years! I'm so excited for Daniel to experience his first holiday season! My wish is that he will be crawling at least by Christmas... hopefully so, because I know then that he'll be so much more excited about going around seeing everything set up and unwrapping gifts, etc. We will see!

Wow, I have definitely gone on a long rant today. Lol. Typical me! I would catch up from the last time I wrote, but I can't remember when that was right now. Last week was busy but great at the same time! We had lots of fun hanging out with our friends, Sean and Kacey, and then Phil and Hannah on Wed. and Thurs. evening and enjoyed making dinner for them and having the company! Scott and I LOVE having people over and we are so loving having our house giving us more space! Plus, it's been nice having our grill because Scott is ALWAYS up for grilling some meat! Makes it much easier for me! :o)

Anyway, after our good times Scott and I both came down with the yucky sickness that has been going around and he took a couple of sick days from work to rest and get over it! We started feeling much better on Sunday, but it was good to have a few days to just focus on getting better. So far Daniel has NOT gotten it, so hopefully that will stay that way! Now I really want to stay well throughout the rest of the winter... I do NOT like being sick and having a baby! That's for sure!

This is a week of girls' nights for me, which has been a lot of fun, although I really miss hanging with my boys, too! Last night I went to a purse party at my sister, Amanda's, which was fun! I didn't end up buying one because they are a little too pricey for my taste, but they were super cute! It was nice catching up with some old friends and talking to girls from church, though! Tomorrow night I have a Stampin' Up Party at a friends' house. We are making Christmas cards so I am SUPER excited about that! THEN, on Friday night I am going to the Alice in Wonderland play at the college with some other friends. :o) See, super busy week, but it'll be good! And, Scott is enjoying having some extra time with Daniel.

Well, my little boy just woke up so I should go! Sorry for how all over this post was...

Our cute little Danny boy!

Okay, here are lots of new pictures just taken in the last week! :o) The slide and swing set are in our back yard. See how nice it's been? He loved 'sliding' down and swinging with Daddy and Mommy! Then, he helped Daddy mow the yard - lol - and tried to climb our small tree. :o) He had a great time!

The other pictures are him playing in our living room and then eating pears which he tried yesterday for the first time! He had fun and really loved them! :o)

I think Fall might FINALLY be here!

I am sitting looking out the window at the cloudy, rainy day outside! I have heard rumors that we might get snow sometime soon. I don't know about that, as it is over 40 degrees outside, but the nice thing is it is under 50 degrees here, which makes it seem FINALLY like fall! :o) Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the nice weather in the 70's and 80's, but when we have to turn on the air conditioning in the car still some days, I just know something is wrong. Plus, people keep telling me they are getting their Christmas shopping done and I have yet to do almost anything because it DOES NOT seem like Christmas is in just a month a half!!! How can that be?!?! Anyway... Enough about the weather...

We have been busy, busy, busy around here getting out house ready for the winter and for having company over this week and in just a few weeks for Thanksgiving with our family! It's so weird having a house that is SO much bigger than our little apartment that we could clean in a few hours! Since I can't really get the entire house cleaned and organized in a day with taking care of Daniel and helping keep him entertained because he has decided he LOVES mommy and just can't get enough of me (lol), I am focusing on doing a few things each day instead. Today my list entails of cleaning the kitchen and finally finishing organizing the front room. We moved all the furniture around in that room the other day after getting the trim put up, so I just have a few boxes to either unpack if we need the stuff, or pack up and store so they are not in the middle of the room. I'm REALLY getting excited about getting a fold-up table from Sam's Club sometime soon so I can set up my scrapbook stuff in there. :o) I think I'll spoil myself a bit and give myself at least one of Daniel's nap times to focus on getting scrapbooking done, or at least getting Christmas presents done! :o)

I finally unpacked and decorated our master bedroom a few evenings ago after much procrastination. That means we are officially finished except for a few boxes that I'll go through these next two days. We are having some friends over for dinner tomorrow night and our good friends, Hannah and Phil over Thursday, so my hope is to have the house completely done! :o) ALTHOUGH, I do need to get over to Hobby Lobby again to get a few more decorations for the front room because we have almost no pictures or anything to put on the walls and I greatly don't like that! :o( I'm sure Scott will be glad when I stop shopping for the house... Lol. At least I have only shopped sales and at cheaper stores, so that helps.

SOOOO, enough about house stuff!!! Our little Daniel is getting his teeth in!!! I can't believe he is getting so big! I thought he was getting one in like a month ago, but nope, he didn't! BUT, the last three or four days I've seen one very clearly under his bottom gums, so I knew it would be sooner than later. This morning I felt his gums but nope, I couldn't feel anything! UNTIL.... I just put him down for a nap a little while ago and since he was crying as I put him down I figured it wouldn't hurt to put some teething gel on him and I felt the sharp little tooth! So cute! :o) We'll see if I still feel the way when I feed him in a little while... I'll take pictures of him soon and share them! I know I haven't put any pictures of him up here in awhile... I have taken a few new pictures of him, so I'll try to get those up here soon! I also have some cute videos of him lately that I NEED to get up on Scott's computer (since they won't go onto my mac)... I love showing him off! :o)

Well, I probably should get going on my list. Sorry this was so rambly. :o(

6 Months and 1 week old!

Dear Daniel,

Goodness! I can hardly believe you are already 6 months old! Time passes so fast. It seems like I was just writing you a letter on your 5 month 'birthday'... I can't believe it's already been over a month since then! You are half of a year old, and at the rate time is passing now, I know that it won't seem very long at all until you are celebrating your 1st year birthday! But, I am not going to think about that right now because I hope it goes very slow. Daddy and I want to enjoy every little minute we have with you right now!

You are at such an adorable, fun stage right now! Not that the other stages were not so... :o) But, six months is extra cute, I think! You have figured out how to sit up without anyone holding you this month, and it is your favorite way to play with any toy and to look at the world around you! You are enjoying tummy time a bit more than before, which is good, and you are working so hard at getting up on your knees to crawl! You lift your chest and tummy up all the time by your strong arms... I'm sure by 7 months you'll be crawling! :o) You still don't like to roll over all that much, but you surprise me occasionally by rolling over several times in a row. I think you just want to show me that you really can do it... you just don't like to much. :o) Oh, well. Maybe you'll just be more of a crawling baby than a roller. That's fine with me!

We just moved into our new house a week ago, and you are getting used to it a little at a time. You sleep amazing in your new room, which Mommy and Daddy were very excited about, and you love your bright blue and cream colored walls that we painted for you! AND, your curtains from our apartment still fit in your window, so you are also very excited about that. I just got your pictures up yesterday and you love staring at them on your new walls. Just last week you began playing with your Noah's ark and animals, and you think that that is the coolest toy ever! Mommy is getting super excited to give you your Christmas toys, but even though I want to give them to you now, I will wait like Daddy said to. :o)

We have not given you any food yet, but Mommy is planning on going out and buying some avacados, sweet potatoes, and bananas today or tomorrow so you can hopefully try your first food on Sunday! :o) I think you are definitely ready for it, and you have been practicing 'eating' with your spoon and plate lately in your high chair as we eat dinner in our new house. I'll video tape as Daddy feeds you your first time so you can watch it one day. :o) I'm excited to see how you do!

We love you SO much, little Daniel! You are an amazing boy, and are getting so big and tall! Just yesterday I was holding you and thinking back to when you were a tiny little baby. You are so long now... I already feel like I'm holding a big boy! Your six month Dr. appointment is on Monday, so I will have to come back and add how much you weigh and how tall you are now. I'm very curious to see! :o)

Love,
Mommy

Fall in Fruita!

Hi everyone! It's so crazy that it has been just over a week since I last posted something on here and SO much has happened! Gee whiz, I have lots to catch up on! :o) First of all, I want to tell you all about our trip to the pumpkin patch / corn maze with my sister, Amanda, and niece, Vienna! It was a lot of fun for us all, and Daniel had a wonderful time outside in the amazing fall weather, seeing all the pumpkins and watching his very funny cousin goof off. Lol. He is so cute when she is around because she makes him laugh and laugh! We went out to a nearby one and took over a hundred pictures of Vienna and Daniel petting the animals in the petting zoo, riding in the yellow wagon as we pulled them around until they found 'their' pumpkins., and going through the big corn maze in the shape of a dinosaur!

As you can see, we got some super cute pictures of the two of them, and Amanda took some good ones of our family, also. Vienna picked out a gigantic pumpkin from the patch, and Daniel got a little one more his size, that he still needs to decorate. (I'm going to let him play with paint for the first time and paint a 'picture' on it before Halloween hopefully.)


Just before the sun went completely down we started going through their corn maze, and Vienna had a lot of fun 'leading' everyone through it, as Amanda and Scott kept track of where we were on the little map. It was such a fun time, and a great evening in the middle of a busy, busy week of doing stuff at our new place before moving in!



Wednesday and Thursday they put the new carpet in the house and we got a new furnace and hot water heater by Friday, too. The new carpet is amazing! SUPER soft and definitely helps to brighten up the entire house! :o) I will definitely post some pictures on here once I finish unpacking... We got the new sidearm hot water heater / furnace, too, which I guess is more economical, and saves a lot of money over time. It works much better than the old ones, so that's what I care about right now! :o) I spent most of the days getting the last things packed up at the apartment, trying to get everything ready for people to help us move out on Saturday.

Saturday morning, Bryan and my mother-in-law came over and helped us with the last minute things before she took Daniel to their place so I could help my dad, sisters, Tyler, David, Jessica, Bryan, and Scott load things up in the cars and moving truck. We began everything around 9:30 and were finished and headed over to the new house by noon, which was amazing timing! I'm sure the homemade cinnamon rolls that Scott's mom made us helped give us that extra burst of energy needed! We got over to our new house in time to have homemade pizza also made by Evelyn, and then got everything unloaded and most put where they were supposed to go by 1:30. We were MOVED! :o) Daniel took a good, long nap in his new room that afternoon while I began working on unloading the kitchen boxes with Evelyn. We ended up getting about half done, which definitely felt good, and then I took the rest of the evening off. We were exhausted!

Sunday, after church, we went over and ordered our new washer and dryer from Sears and Scott got a new grill and saw thing for his garage. :o) The washer and dryer should be here on Saturday, which I'm so excited about! It's going to be amazing to have a washer and dryer here... right off the kitchen, even... so I can do laundry whenever I wish! :o) Just one amazing thing about our new home! Sunday night we had some friends over and were able to show off our new house and spend some time carving pumpkins in the backyard. I can't wait to have even more people over... I LOVE having the room to entertain again! So thankful for this place!

This week I have been staying busy unpacking, decorating, and organizing! Daniel's room is just about complete... just have one more box to unpack. The dining room and kitchen are about done, too. It looks so nice! :o) I was planning on getting our room done today, and the rest of the living room decorated, but I'm needing some advice from Scott as to where to put pictures, so instead I am updating my blog. :o) I love this new house! The kitchen and dining room are amazing, and really look awesome with all my pictures up and our table and bookshelf where they go. I went and bought some fall decorations at Ross and Michaels two days ago, so those beautiful reds, greens, yellows, and oranges add a lot to the living room and dining room, too. I love those colors! I could keep them up all year around and that would be fine by me! :o)

Daniel has been adjusting really well to our new place, too. He sleeps amazing at night and loves, loves, loves his closet mirror! :o) Today he has been extremely tired, for some reason, so he is down for his third LONG nap of the day, after being really grumpy while awake. Poor guy. He's probably going through another growth spurt. Hopefully it'll happen fast and then he'll be our happy little one again!

This weekend we have Halloween party after Halloween party! Tomorrow night is one with some friends from church. Poor little Daniel can't go, though, so we are planning on just putting him down and then going while Scott's parents stay here at our house to watch him in case he wakes up... Then, on Saturday we have a work party which he gets to dress up for and go with us, and then Sunday is a party at my sister, Amanda's, which Daniel also gets to go to. He is going to be a monkey and super de duper cute! :o) When I tried on the costume the other day he didn't like the ears / head part, though, so hopefully he won't mind it as much this weekend.

Breckenridge Trip and Preparations to Move...

Wow! So much has been going on! It's definitely been a crazy, crazy few weeks! Two weeks ago today, I'm pretty sure Daniel came down with some kind of sickiness which I ended up getting and we had a LONG week with a fussy little guy who didn't want to sleep much. We thought he was teething at first, which might be part of it, but no tooth yet, so we'll see about that! Of course it happened to be through our weekend in Breckenridge, which was a little hard on us, but overall our trip was still awesome! :o) It was so nice to close on our house on Friday the 8th and then leave shortly after that for the mountains for three days with my family.

We had a great time up in the beautiful mountains of CO! I just love that we live in this state and are so close to all the amazing places around here! We stayed in this really nice condo like place with my parents, sisters, Amanda's boyfriend, and my brother-in-law. They were all amazing and gave Scott, Daniel, and I the big Master bedroom suite so that was wonderful although little guy woke up at least twice a night all weekend! We spent the days watching the TX Ranger games (COME ON RANGERS!), shopping downtown, hot-tubbing, walking around the area, eating, and playing games. It was perfect fall weather up there, which was so nice, and it even snowed from time to time... not ever really sticking, though. We had bought Daniel a cute little bear suit to keep warm in while he was out in the chilly weather, so he was extra cute in that each time we went out. He felt his first snow coming down from the sky and I think he liked it. :o) I'm so glad we had that time away before we headed back home and entered into the chaotic craziness of moving!!!









I headed out to our new house this last Wed. to clean all day while my mom watched Daniel here at the apartment. I got lots done, although it took me much longer than I had first thought it would. But, it was so nice to actually be able to see all the corners after getting the spider webs and bugs vacuumed up... Buying a foreclosure where they don't clean it before we buy it and having it empty for the entire summer definitely meant we didn't have the most perfect looking place before I got in there. It looked much better by the time I got home. We went out there almost every day last week to work on different things at the house, and ended up beginning the painting process Friday night while Daniel was with Scott's parents. Scott and I were able to to the two rooms we wanted painted almost done - just the first coat - by the time we left that morning... (Well, I left at 8:30 and he left at 12:30... he did a bit more than me!) We painted our front room a beautiful green - it looks so nice - and ended up painting Daniel's room a sky blue on two walls and a really light blueish/creamish color on the others. I will have to post pics for sure. Saturday my dad, Scott, and Bryan ripped up the wood floor in the living room which took forever since it was all glued on and Mom and I finished painting. We get carpet in tomorrow and Thurs. and a new furnace and hot water heater on Thurs. too.

Yesterday, Amanda and my friend, Christine, came over to help me pack and we got so much done! It was amazing!! :o) I am now surrounded by boxes and mom is coming over in a few hours to help pack some more. I am so ready to move! I can hardly wait for Saturday! :o)