Christmas 2011/New Years Eve

Christmas

Super Long...Sorry

Starting at about Thanksgiving, I was really dreading Christmas this year.  Don't get me wrong, I was excited because I knew Jordyn was excited and I was looking forward to seeing Aspyn's reaction to everything. I was dreading it because this year was going to be the 1st year since Cody and I first got married that we would be having Christmas alone and away from our families.  We've always had Christmas at my mom's house or like last year they came here.  Since my parents and Amberlee came here last year, it was time for them to spend it with Ashley's family.

We didn't want to stray too far from the traditions that we usually do Christmas Eve, so we had planned to still do the big dinner Christmas Eve with all the things we usually have and still just keep with the usual.  One day I had been talking to Audrey Reedy, who is Jordyn's soccer coach and friends' mom. She asked us if we were going to be going home for Christmas and if not what we were doing Christmas Eve.  When I told her we were staying here this year and that we weren't going to be doing much, she invited us over for dinner on the 24th.  She said every year their family gets together (about 12-15 of them) for dinner and then shortly after Santa comes with a gift for the girls. Audrey said it was pretty low key and that they would love to have us!

We decided Why Not! It actually turned out to be so much fun.  It really was low key and very comfortable.  For dinner we had Tri tip, twice baked potatoes, rolls, salads, green beans, desserts. It was so so good!  Mike's (Audrey's husband) grandparents have been here in Paonia for 55+ years. They are amazing & good hearted people.  Very down to earth and easy to get along with! 

About 1/2 hour after dinner there was a knock on the door and in walked Santa Claus! He did have a gift for all the girls. He visited for a little bit and told them that he would be back once they all were asleep.  Jordyn loved seeing him!

Abby, Aspyn, Jordyn, Emily

We returned home later that evening. Jordyn set out her Rice Krispie treats that she had made for Santa, sprinkled the reindeer food out on the snow and everyone went to bed!

Christmas morning we got up around 7am. Aspyn wasn't sure where to start. She ended up trying to bring everyone their gifts.  Jordyn got exactly what she wanted from Santa. Aspyn had a great time with everyone's gifts. Cody and I were spoiled by our families as well!

Some of the Christmas morning aftermath

The rest of the day we just hung around the house and played with the new toys. We did our "traditional" Christmas dinner that night. It turned out awesome! Monday my parents came for a visit for a few days.  Once they came it was like Christmas morning all over again!  Jordyn loved hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa. It didn't take Aspyn too long to warm up to Grandpa this time! By the end of their trip they were the best of buds!

Cody and my dad went out to Crawford Reservoir a couple different days to do a little ice fishing.  They didn't catch anything, but still had a great time!  It was hard having my parents go home, as it always is.  We did make a "kind of" plan to have my mom and Amberlee come back in March!

Even though it wasn't our typical Christmas, it actually turned out to be great. We are now getting to be pretty good friends with the Reedy's and their girls. I'm sure we've started a few traditions of our own and I can now look forward to doing other things with just my little family!

New Years

Cody saw online that Aspen was having a big bonfire and fireworks for NYE.  We thought that it sounded like a lot of fun.  Something that we could do as a family, but not have to stay home.  We went up around 4 o'clock, walked around Aspen for a little bit, and got a bite to eat.  Then we checked into our room and hung out there for a few hours.  At around 10pm we went out to the bonfire that they had going in the center of the park. 

There was DJ who was playing some great music! It was so random, but so awesome.  The firefighters that were keeping the fire in control were really getting down. 

We enjoyed the fire for quite some time and then decided to do a little Celebrity Hunting around town.  We didn't find any and it was so cold just walking around, so we went back to the fire.  Jordyn didn't quite make it much past 11, but Aspyn was wide awake and making friends with EVERYONE!  She's quite the party animal.

 At midnight, we woke Jordyn up just in time to watch the fireworks.  Aspyn loved them, even though by then she was ready to drop too.  Once they were finished we loaded up and made it back to our motel and all of us crashed!

Even though it was so cold, we did have a great time.  I don't know if it's something we will do again with the girls, but it was a fun experience!

2011 was great! We had a good year getting to know so many people here in town.  We've all found new interests and are getting & staying active and healthy.  We've had a lot of Ups a few Downs, but it really was a great learning year!  I can't wait to see what 2012 brings.  There are already a few things we have planned or that we know are going to take place that are going to be amazing!

So goodbye 2011, hello 2012!! Can't wait!!

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving this year was in St. George with the Hone Family.  It was so much fun! We actually had a pretty good turn out.  My Grandpa and Jodell came from Wyoming. Chris, JoNell & all of the boys were there.  My Grandma and Ken came up from Vegas, and of course everyone in my family was there (except Brieanna of course)!

It's pretty much tradition to go out to the desert and do a little shooting.  I think everyone really looks forward to it.  We turn it into a "friendly" competition having an Annie Oakley shoot off! It's really is a blast! 

Amberlee and her "Christmas Present"

Armed and Awesome

One of the A.O finals

 We even took Aspyn out. I thought she might get a little freaked out with the all the guns firing, but it didn't bother her at all.  While we were out there, she tripped and did a little nose dive. She ended up with her 1st bloody nose.  I think she was more mad that I was trying to wipe her bloody nose than she was hurt.  After a few minutes she was fine and she was up and running around again!

 My dad taught Jordyn how to shoot the pistol. She absolutely loved it!  All she could talk about was when she was going to shoot again.  I love the fact that she's learning how to handle a gun responsibly at such a young age.  Guns and hunting are such a big part of our family, so it just makes sense to start this young!

Cody wasn't really into the shotguns, but absolutely loved shooting my Uncle's 9mm.  I think that I've found the next toy that I would like to have!

After we went through a ton of shells, & skeets we went back to my parents house and ate some A.May.Zing dinner!  I am never disappointed with any dinner with my family.  We all ate too much, but it was so worth it!  We really enjoyed seeing the Hone family again.  It's been awhile since we've seen everyone.  Everyone looked great! I can't wait until the next Hone get together.

The next day we went down to Mesquite to see Cody's family.  We went out to dinner with everyone and ended up back at Danie'l and Chad's house. We saw a couple other good friends that we haven't seen in awhile, it was great!  Aspyn and Jadon played together really well. Jordyn ended up staying at Grandma Sharon's.  I know Jordyn misses her Grandma and Grandpa Survis so it was great that she spent some time with them.  We really miss seeing Chad and Danie'l as well, but it's always so nice when we are all able to hangout again. 

We ended up in Cedar City for 1 night on the way back home. We stayed with Alan, Taliah and Lyli.  Jordyn loves Lyli, and Aspyn just loves playing with anyone.  We miss them a lot too!
Our Thanksgiving getaway was just what we all needed.  We haven't spent that much time in St. George for a long time!

Aspyn's 1st Birthday

Aspyn's 1st Birthday was November 12th! We kept it small, but she had a good time! Uncle Terry and Aunt Bonnie came over for cake, ice cream and to open a few presents.

Yes, I made her awesome cake! It was a double layer chocolate cake, with strawberry frosting in the middle. The outside is just plain ol' vanilla! Yeah, yeah I know, not the most creative, but it was super yummy and Jordyn loved to help me decorate it!

Aspyn got right in there when it came time to open her gifts. She loved it!

 I found this ball pit and thought Aspyn would love playing in it. Little did I know that Jordyn would love it too, maybe even more than Aspyn! I did end up having to buy more balls, but it was still a hit empty.

 We all know that Aspyn LOVES to eat...anything.  As soon as I put the cake down on her tray she went to town on it. Yes, she ended up eating the ENTIRE piece of cake. 

The aftermath

 I can't believe that she has been in our family for a year! This last year went so fast. She's such a good little girl! She is so smart. She loves to read books, loves her sister and her dad.  She still loves the outside and the dogs! It really has been great having her in our family.  She's just such a joy. Happy 98% of the time, but she does have a stubborn streak with a HUGE attitude.  She's definitely going to give us a hard time when she hits the Terrible Two's!

At her 1 year checkup she weighed 21 lb 3 oz and was 29.5 inches tall. Dr Moore noticed that her weight had dropped off since her last visit and that she wasn't following her curve like she had been. She's pretty sure that it's just because she was walking and was a lot more active than before.  She does want to see her again in February for a weight check. Other than that, her 1 year appointment was great!

It's going to be a great year watching her learn new things and explore the world around her.  I know that the bond between Jordyn and Aspyn will just continue to grow stronger!

Happy 1st Birthday Beebs, We love You!

October Fun

October has been a fun and exciting month for all of us. My mom and Amberlee came to visit for Cody's birthday. We had a great time! We shopped, ate at Texas Roadhouse, just had a fun visit.



Amberlee & Aspyn



Amberlee and my mom helped the girls carve pumpkins!

Amber decided to take a "traditional" approach to her pumpkin!



Heather, Me, Taliah, Laura



On October 22nd we took a very quick trip to St. George so I could run in the Save A Sister 10k with my cousins, Heather, Clint, Laura (Clint's wife), Sarah (Kyle's wife) and Taliah! We had a blast! I finished in 1hour 3 minutes. It wasn't a very quick pace, but I ran the entire thing & I finished. I call that a success! Now that I know I can do it, I've been working on "picking up the pace"!  Sarah, who has ran a lot of races, said that the course was kind of a hard one. There were a ton of uphill parts. I felt better hearing her say that it was kind of challenging!  Now we all are training for the Red Rock Relay in Moab in May!!

Jordyn has finished the Fall Soccer Season. She can't wait until Spring to start all over again. Her team lost only 2 games and every kid on the team scored at least one goal for the Season. Jordyn scored the final goal in the final game!  It was great. It was such a great team.

All the kids really worked together as a team. They learned how to pass to each other and how to really function together.  There aren't many U6 teams that play as well together as they did!

The Saturday before Halloween, we went to one of the Corn Mazes. They had a little scavenger hunt where, as you walk through you find different numbered items. If you find them all you got a little prize at the end. It was great!

This year for Halloween, Jordyn wanted to be something other than a Disney princess. She wanted to be a "Girl Vampire".  After looking at a ton of costumes she saw this one and said it was perfect! She was such a cute Vampire! We both agreed though that whatever she decides to be next year we will be finding a wig instead of doing the spray painted hair! Aspyn was a cute Lil Lady Bug! It took her awhile before she would leave her wings alone though. Both girls had a great time Trick or Treating. Jordyn got a ton of candy, and loved passing out our candy after she was done with her Trick or Treating.  I am so glad that Halloween is over!!

November is already gearing up to be an interesting month! Fun things and another change is happening! Until next time......!!!

Just an Update!

Wow! Time completely has a way of slipping away! It seems like quite a bit happens in just a short time!

Jordyn

Jordyn absolutely loves kindergarten! She is doing so well. She's learning to read a little bit, and learning so much about a lot of different things. Lately they have been learning about the Native Americans.  Everyday she has came home with different "facts" or stories about them.  She gets so excited when she tells me about what she has learned in class.

She is also loving soccer!  Her coach is amazing, the kids on the team are a lot of fun and all get along quite well! She has practice on Mondays & Wednesdays with games on Saturdays.  I can't believe how much she has improved from Spring.  She seems more confident with the game and her skills have improved so much.  She has scored quite a few goals in her games. It's so fun to watch her run around the soccer field with a smile on her face.   I love watching her improve, learn and grow!

She is such a big help with Aspyn and they get along so well!

Aspyn!

Aspyn is just about 11 months now!  She is walking everywhere. She started walking about 2 weeks before her 10 mos.  She is down to 2 bottles max a day. Sometimes 1 in the morning (sometimes not) and one right before bed. I think that one is going to be the hardest to break!  One thing that hasn't been hard to get rid of is her pacifier!  She actually took herself off it.  She just decided one day that she didn't want it anymore.  She would chew on it and let it dangle out of her mouth, but wasn't really sucking on it.   If I would try to give it to her at night she would take it out and throw it on the floor.  So we just put it away and she hasn't really cared since. It's been so nice not having to worry about having one around or with us when we go out.  It's also been nice not having to worry about us taking it away from her!

She no longer is eating baby food. She just eats what we eat or a slight variation of it.  She is down to one nap a day, usually 1-3 hours depending on the day. Aspyn loves books! She has 3 favorite ones that she will find on the book shelf and bring to us to read.  Her favorite toy is still her stuffed Monkey and now she has a favorite cell phone! Yup, she's starting early on the cell phone thing. She will walk around with it holding it up to her ear saying "Hello" and chattering all around the house.  It seems like everyday she is learning new words or some new thing.  Jordyn is still her favorite person. She loves her dogs and still loves being outside.  When we are outside she will walk around the yard, crawl on the dogs or play in the grass, the sand or the leaves! She loves (& prefers) to drink from a straw.

She has 4 teeth, 2 top, 2 bottom with one of her eye teeth popping through very soon. She is happy 98% of the time.

It's so much fun watching my girls grow!!

Cody

Cody has had a change in departments at work.  He is now in the Survey/Engineering department.  He's doing more drafting and working with numbers, more of what he went to school for.  He still goes down in the mine, just not for as long during the night as he used to.  It's been a very nice change.  He leaves to go into work at 11:45pm (to start at 12:30) and gets home about 9:00am.  He usually sleeps until about 5pm.  It's been nice to have him home at night, to have dinner, spend time with the girls, and help put them to bed.  Then we are able to spend some time together before having to leave.  The girls love having him awake and home more consistently. I do too!  It's really done a lot for our relationship being able to spend more time together.  He seems a lot happier in this new department (even though it does have it's down sides) doing more of what he's comfortable doing!

He was supposed to take his Electrical test in November. However, the paperwork to take it was needing to be submitted by October 5th. In order to submit the paperwork you have to have been working for a year. His year hire date is October 6th. They would not make an exception for 1 day. So, the Electrical test has been pushed by to February. That will just give him a little while longer to study so he can pass 1st try!!!

Me

I am adjusting to the changes and all the things that are going on in our family. I love having Jordyn in Kindergarten, Aspyn growing and changing  everyday and Cody's new schedule.  I have started taking time for myself everyday by either going to the gym or running.  It's been great!  I feel a lot better!  In 2 weeks, Taliah, Clint, Laura, Heather and myself are going to be running a 10k in St George.  It's for breast cancer awareness.  It called Save a Sister! I am pretty excited to do it.  That is 1 more goal of mine that I can cross off my list. This race all I want to do is finish the race. I'm not going for an awesome, amazing time. I just want to be able to say that I finished a 10k.  I guess this is just one more stepping stone on my way to my big goal of running a marathon and hopefully (eventually) a triathlon!

All in all we are doing really well.  We are getting excited for Fall/Winter to be here!

Next post there will be pictures.....I promise!!

Off To Kindergarten

Yup, it's that time in every mother's life that they dread. Monday August 22nd was Jordyn's 1st day of Kindergarten. She has been very excited to go since her last day at Preschool. We were able to go into the school the week before and meet the two kindergarten teachers, look around the school and finish any registration. Once we were in the room she got a little quiet and a bit nervous.  On our way home she was a lot more talkative and still very excited.

Sunday night, she picked out what she was going to wear the next day and said that she hoped she could sleep!



Her new Kindergarten backpack

Monday morning she woke up on time, with no problems or complaints! When we got onto the school grounds she looked around and said "There really is a lot of kids here". I walked down to Mrs Mohr's class with her. Her teacher was so friendly. She gave her a little name tag to help her learn the kid's names, showed her where to put her backpack and showed her where all of her supplies were. From that point on she seemed quite nervous.  A boy from her Preschool, Kelly is also in her class and he was feeling a bit nervous as well.  Once me and his mom got them sitting together looking at books, they both were more at ease.  I said my goodbyes and left her for her 1st day of school!!

I will admit it was harder than I thought it was going to be.  I always thought that since she has been in Preschool from the age of 3, that it was going to be an easy transition. I was wrong.  I got a bit teary eyed walking out of her classroom. It just seemed really weird leaving her there all day long.  I know she's looked forward to going to Kindergarten for quite awhile, and that she was going to love it! By mid morning I was feeling better. 

Jordyn absolutely loved school! She even said that "hot lunch" aka school lunch wasn't that bad!  The girls in her class are going to be fun, even if the boys are a little mean (her words). She said her teacher was very nice, and Yes, she is going to love it!

I still can't believe that she is in Kindergarten, and that very soon she will be reading and writing! Watching her grow up is so much fun. I can not wait to see what this school year brings us!

9 Months Already!

I can not believe that Aspyn is 9 months old. It is CRAZY how fast time passes! It has been so great having her in our family. Her and Jordyn as so cute together. Aspyn loves being around her big sister. She is so happy when Jordyn will play with her (which is a lot). The 1st thing Jordyn does in the morning, is give Aspyn a hug and kiss. The last thing she does before going to bed at night is give her a hug and kiss! I hope that the bond they have now continues as they get older.

Aspyn also loves her dad. Anytime she hears his voice, she starts smiling and bouncing. When he comes into the room, she reaches out for him. It's so cute! Of course if he's not home, she will look for him and keep saying "Da" It's so stinkin cute!

It doesn't matter what we are doing outside, Aspyn just enjoys it all. She loves the water, playing in the sand, the grass, it doesn't matter as long as it's outside!  Her favorite animal is dogs. She has a little book that has different animals in it.  She'll open it up to the dog page and smile and say over and over "Daw"! When she hears a dog bark, she'll stop whatever she's doing and say "Daw". She loves them!  She also likes her little bath duck. Anytime we are in the bathroom, she looks at the tub and says "Duh"! If you give her other bath toys she just ignores them and plays with her "Duh"!

She really loves saying her D's, but you can definitely tell a difference with the vowel sounds. She knows what she's saying!

She loves music and dances (or bounces) to just about everything. She sleeps very well, day and night. She eats anything and everything, but lima beans! She crawls everywhere and has lately been trying to climb the stairs. She's standing very well on her own and walks around the furniture. She's tried taking a few steps between furniture, but no out on her own. She'll throw her arms in the air when you tell her "So big" and actually tries to imitate the words and voice tone! Aspyn will most of the time wave bye-bye and give you an open mouth kiss if you ask. She is so cute when she stops what she's doing and claps her hands, and looks at you like she did something awesome!

Her little personality is so dang cute. She really brings a lot of entertainment to our house.

At her 9 month appointment she weighed 19 lbs 13 oz, and was 28" long. Dr  Moore said she is absolutely perfect and doesn't see any concerns at all.  She's meeting or exceding the milestones set for her age!  I can't believe that in 3 short months she'll be a year. I am not quite ready for that!