Welcome 2012!

I've gotta admit that 2011 was very good to us.  We have been and continue to be so blessed!  In 2011 we welcomed our sweet little Trey into the world, which has completely changed our lives for the better.  We've been blessed with Dale getting a plethora of new piano students....12 in December alone!  My dad and my brother both came home from Iraq safe and sound...and before Christmas too!  We paid off our car, which was pretty much the happiest day of 2011 after the day Trey was born of course. :)  We welcomed our sweet little nephew Spencer Harper into the family on Christmas Eve.  What a handsome little guy!  We are so grateful for the time we have spent together and with our families and friends this year.  In that regard we are truly rich!  We can't wait to see what 2012 brings!

Happy New Year!

Christmas

Trey's first Christmas was pretty dang awesome.  I think for us more than him.  We LOVED watching him open all of his presents!  We got it all on video, but unfortunately didn't think to take any pictures.   Here's a pic. I stole off Facebook of the Jessee Family in our Christmas Eve PJ's though :).

And here's the pic. from our Christmas card my incredible sil took!  I love it!

And here's our Santa Trey...another pic by my sil.  I love this one too!

Trey's 1st Christmas gifts:  The kiddo needed clothes, so he mostly got a ton of 9 month clothes.  He also got some fun books and a super awesome Dino that shoots out balls.  I can't wait for him to be able to crawl around and chase them!  He got some more toys, but he just stares at them right now...again, we'll have to wait til he starts crawling, which he is nowhere near doing.  He's a rolling maniac, but try and have him sit up by himself and he falls right over.  Trey's favorite part of the whole gift unwrapping experience? The bows off the presents.  I put tiny bows on all of his gifts, and he loved grabbing them and pulling them off.  Super fun to watch!

We hope you had a Merry Christmas! :)

Gingerbread Palaces

We aren't into just makin normal, boring, plain old gingerbread houses around here.  Go big or go home baby!  Or at least that's how it started out.  Then our building construction got a bit too complicated and morphed into just another average run of the mill gingerbread house.  Oh well, maybe next year :).

 Dale and I rockin the frosting nose look...I love my goofy hubby :)

He's Got Skills

Trey learned to hold his bottle!  Only for a few minutes though.  He just can't seem to get his hands to do what he wants!

Breakfast with Santa

Dale and I took Trey to visit Santa this year!  Dale's mom is in the Riverton Orchestra and they put on a delicious breakfast catered by Kneaders while they serenaded us with beautiful Christmas music.  Afterwards Santa visited and we got to have Trey sit on his lap.  He wasn't so sure about the beard at first...but after a lot of calling his name and making goofy faces, we got him to kind of look at the camera :).  

In line to see Santa :)

This is kinda scary!

Chillin with daddy!

From the mouths of 7 year olds...

I had my kiddos at school write letters to soldiers for Veteran's Day.  I was going to mail them to my Dad and little bro while they were serving in Iraq, but they weren't able to receive mail by the time we had our letters ready because they were getting ready to come home.  Now they are HOME!!!  YAY!!!  So I'm super excited to deliver them in person.  I loved my kid's cute letters so much you get a little peak :).  Here's a few of my favs:

Dear Soldier,

Thank you for serving our country.  And thank you for fighting our country and my favorite color is purple.  And my favorite food is makronne and chesee.  Thank you.


Dear Soldier,

Do you drive a tank?  My favorite color is purple.  I am a boy.  I like unicorns.  Me and my friend love the army.  Do you like dirt biking?  I love to go dirt biking!

Army Lover (This is how he signed his letter :)


Dear Soldier,

Thank you for serving.  You are a nice soldier.  I like you.  You are the best soldier ever.  You are good.  You are the best guy in the world.  I wish you can stay alive forever because you are a good soldier.  And I like you soldier.  Why do they call you a solder and give me your phone number so I can call you.


Dear Soldier,

Thank you for serving our country.  Do you make your house?  Do you have any friends?  Do you know any girls?  Do you have pencils?


Dear Soldier,

Hi.  I will tell you about me.  I like animals.  My favorite animal is a lion cuz they are the king of the animals and my second favorite animal is a tiger cuz they have stripes.  Are you a boy or a girl?  I am a boy.  Thank you for helping us.  Good by.

The Joys of Rice Cereal

This post is a little late, but we got some pretty stellar pics, so I decided to post anyway!  Dale went to Trey's 4 month Dr. appointment, and was given the okay to start feeding him rice cereal.  We got a little overambitious and didn't exactly read the directions on the box well enough.  We made him an entire bowl of thick fluffy cereal.  We kind of blindsided the poor little guy with the texture. 

Poor naive little Trey...he has no idea what's coming!

 First Bite

 Not loving the cereal

Really, Mom?  REALLY?!

 YUCK!!!

 This picture is super blurry, but I love it anyway :)

 Please no more!

 All done

After this first traumatic experience, we started putting it in a bottle.  Then we had a much happier Trey!