Natalie's Birthday

Natalie turned 2 years old on December 15 and she was spoiled rotten! We had a small family party at the house the day before where she opened presents and loved the baby set (play pen, stroller, gym, swing, diaper bag and doll) that her aunt Amanda got her. I was excited for her to be excited about Princess Ariel shoes and Tutus but she was more excited about the sticker books that she got - it's the little things I guess. On her actual birthday day we had a few more presents from Kevin and I that we let her open and then we took her to Build a Bear workshop in the mall and let her stuff her own bear, she loved it! I think that she was pretty spoiled, but it was worth it since now she has plenty of toys to keep her from asking me or Kevin to entertain her all the time. I just can't believe that she is 2! The time goes by so fast! :( But we LOVE (almost) every minute of it!

Thanksgiving and Christmas

I have been busy working all that I can; so right off the bat I am apologizing for not sending out Christmas cards this year. Apparently I am going to be a every other year Christmas card sender.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful, we ate everyday Thursday through Saturday and enjoyed all the time we were able to spend with family. All the cousins (grandbabies) are even starting to interact with one another now.

Christmas was a blast! We started at Kevin's parents house with breakfast once I got off of work and then opened presents for what seemed like all day since we kept getting interrupted by his brother Doug calling from Argentina. It was so nice to hear from him. Then Friday we had our own family Christmas and did some shopping which was ridiculously busy. And Saturday we went to Logandale and spent the day with my family. My sister Kortney gave me my Christmas present which was my Wedding scrapbook that she has been working on and I LOVE IT! Kevin and I will be married 4 years in March and it is so nice to actually see more of my pictures on display. Natalie got so many presents that she doesn't even know what to do with herself. Her Grandpa Reid got her a treasure chest full of Princess dress up clothes and her favorite part is the Princess slippers!

So enough about the temporal things. We have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season, just the fact that we have been able to live off of one income this year is huge! We are so grateful for all of our blessings and are really hoping to be blessed with a career for Kevin in January or June. I am thankful for our ward and especially nursery! It has been so much fun and hard work every Sunday; mostly I love spending all of my time during church with my family - both my husband and my daughter.

We hope that everyone's holidays were wonderful and have a Fantastic New Year's!

Oregon Trip

We took a family trip with Kevin's whole family to Oregon to visit his grandparents and the coast in October and I finally got some pictures. We were there for a week and saw his grandparents half the time and the other half we went down to the Oregon coast and camped in yurts which was wonderful. It drizzled a lot and was overcast most of the time, but we still had a lot of fun. We went on a Jet Boat tour and we also saw a lot of sea lions and seals it was great. Natalie had fun and was actually pretty well behaved for all of the driving we did. She enjoyed visiting her great-grandparents and really warmed up to her great-grandmother quickly.

I've been busy!

Alright, I know I have been slacking with the blog - I have just been wanting to do pictures but was having trouble figuring it out so I asked Kortney and she helped.

Halloween

So my favorite holiday is Halloween - mostly because of all the candy but the costumes are fun too. This year was a blast dressing up Natalie and she loved going from trunk to trunk at the trunk-or-treat and saying trick-or-treat and getting candy. She had two costumes because I got a skunk costume last year on clearance that I wanted her to wear and then Kevin's mom got her this cheerleading outfit and she had to wear it because she was too cute in it. My only grip for Halloween is that I got all dressed up as a gypsy and all Kevin wore was a huge afro for his costume and he got way more compliments than I did, so next year I am wearing the afro!

I love the Olympics

So I just love the Olympics and have thoroughly enjoyed watching them for the past couple weeks. I also LOVE the fact that when I taking my lunch at work (if I get a lunch) at 2am there is something wonderful to watch on TV. It has been so great to see Swimming and Gymnastics and now Track and Field - it has been so fun. With each new event that I watch I wonder if my daughter could ever be an olympic champion in that event. I am ready to enroll her in gymnastics, water polo, swimming, beach volleyball and even fencing classes right now. She is only 20 months but I know I have to start early. Kevin just laughs at me and says she won't be tall enough to do half of the events and the other half just don't seem as fun. But who knows, I am all for rowing and kayaking - I didn't even know that kayaking was an Olympic event. So I will just start watching her now to see if she has any natural skills or tendencies towards any of the Olympic events and maybe someday we will be watching her become an Olympic Gold Medalist! A parent can dream, right ;)

Team Edward

Okay so since my sister-in-law Amanda is sitting outside waiting for a book tonight I thought I would honor her hard work with a post. I am a big fan of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. I actually got into it because my brother-in-law Nathaniel needed a book to read for school and had seen a lot of girls reading twilight so he figured it must be good, plus it would be a good way to flirt with the girls! So I bought it and challenged him to read it before me. I was only able to read it when I was at my in-laws and he wasn't reading it. I didn't get very far while he was in school and then one day after he was out I picked it up and just started and never stopped. Then I went out and bought the next two books at Sam's club and challenged Nathaniel to finish the first one before I finished the second book. Anyhow we continued this challenge until we ran out of books and I finished the first and second first and he finished the third first. I love the books and could hardly put them down and convinced everyone else I ran into to read them because they are wonderful. I haven't read this much since I graduated from college. So I am looking forward to "Breaking Dawn" that is out today but at the same time I don't want it to end. I figure that Bella and Edward will end up together I just hope that Jacob is able to imprint on someone and be happy. I agree with my sister Kortney that Bella will be giving up a lot by being with Edward but she loves him so much and I can't even imagine being without my handsome husband Kevin so I understand where she is coming from. I hope that when I finish this series I will be able to keep reading and reopen that window of imagination that I lost for a couple years. It is so nice to escape into a book!

Birthday Vacation

Me and Kevin were able to get away for a few days to Laughlin for my birthday last week. I have lived in Vegas almost all of my life and had never been to Laughlin before so we thought we would check it out. We stayed at Harrah's laughlin casino and it was nice. They had a private beach but I never used it because the water was way too cold for me. We had a great time but couldn't wait to get back to see Natalie, we missed her a lot.

Also while we were gone, Kevin's sister Courtney went into labor and had her baby on the 15th and I felt bad that I wasn't there, being that I am a labor and delivery nurse and all, but she did great and little Richard is a cutie. So all and all it was a busy week last week but nice that I didn't have to go to work.

When we got back from vacation we set out to get Natalie to sleep in her own bed and room. It has been going well, but we tend to get lazy and end up sleeping part of the night in her room when she cries in the middle of the night. We are still working on getting the bedframe done but the bed is on the floor which is easier for her to get in and out of. When she wakes up in the morning she climbs out of bed opens her door and comes into our room and wakes us up. She is a lot of fun and we wouldn't trade her for the world.

First Post

Yay! This is our first post!