Christmas 2014

Norah absolutely loved this past Christmas season. She really started to understand who Santa Claus is, though we definitely need to work on the true meaning of Christmas next time around. We tried to tell her about baby Jesus and the first Christmas, but I can understand how that's a difficult story for a young mind to understand.

Here's a little picture recap of our yuletide fun!

Each year, each family member gets to choose a new ornament for the tree. Here are this year's additions:

Norah's

 

Rich's and mine (Technically Rich got a couple this year, thanks to Fanzz, including a Seattle Supersonics one that I didn't get picture of.)

We were on our ward's Christmas party planning committee this year. It turned out to be a pretty fun party, and Norah was super excited about Santa.

Here's last year's picture for comparison. So different! (I really do love this picture, though!)

She finally got over being star struck to tell him what she wanted.

Norah with Uncle Brian and my cousin Corwyn at the Burnham Christmas party. We got to see lots of family and had great food and a fun White Elephant exchange (but this was the only picture I got!).

 This was at the Fredrickson Christmas party on Christmas Eve. Somehow, every year on Christmas Eve, Santa has been able to take a break from delivering gifts to stop by this party. I don't know how he does it!

Christmas morning at our house. This was the first time for our family having Christmas morning by ourselves. It was pretty fun because we could just focus on our own little family.

 Norah got her kitchen, and she was so excited about it!

 More present opening. Santa brought Rich a really good pack of baseball cards this year, and, thanks to Grandma and Poppa Nelson, Norah finally got a doctor kit, something we'd been talking about getting her since before we left Spokane. She gives at least 4 checkups every day, now.

We went to the Kirtleys' house Christmas afternoon for some more fun time with cousins. I wasn't in the mood to have my phone on me, so this was the only picture I got. Which is incredibly adorable.

One last picture. Thanks to Aunt Christine, Norah got some fun dress up clothes for Christmas, and she's had tons of fun with them. And, thanks to my parents, Rich and I got a new portrait lens for our camera. This was just me playing with it a little. I love it so much. I really should try to take some nice pictures of Norah before things get too crazy with baby around here.

Pre-Christmas 2014

I have to start out this post by saying that Norah is napping. For real. At about 10 this morning, I had already had enough of her attitude and knew it was mainly caused by sleep deprivation. So, not without some tears and fighting, I got her into her bed. She calmed down quickly, though, when I said I would lie down on the floor next to her while she fell asleep. (That was a good sign.) Despite being on the floor, I actually fell asleep first. When I woke up, she was asleep. Hallelujah! We're going on an hour and a half of nap here, at least, and she really needed it.

But anyway. Here's a little pre-Christmas wrap-up.

We were a little eager for Christmas this past season. We actually set up our tree on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We usually try to wait until after, but our reasoning this time was that it was a late Thanksgiving anyway and we would be with family during the break so we wanted it up sooner rather than later. No regrets, even though it felt like it took up half of our apartment. Norah loved the tree immediately and did a great job not breaking anything.

Rich showed Norah a really cool view of the tree one day after work, so she made sure she showed her friends.

I'm not a big fan of grocery shopping with this one (actually, I'm not a big fan of grocery shopping in general). I feel like it takes twice as long when she comes along. I love moments like this where she actually wants to be in the cart. She insists on using the paper towels as a pillow, so I love the trips where I need to buy them.

Our Fanzz insurance kicked in in December, which means dental (and vision) insurance! We got in for appointments right away. Norah was a champ for her first check-up, though she preferred the hygienist over the doctor. In other dentist news, Rich had no cavities even with no check-ups for 4 years. It had been 6 years for me, and I wasn't so lucky with one small cavity that I will need filled once baby comes. I am so grateful for good insurance.

 Haircut! I am in love with it, although it's sadly too short for pigtails now.

Family fun night with Muppets' Christmas Carol, hot cocoa, and chocolate cake

Post-church tea party

I love when this happens. I don't even mind that she pulls every single book she owns off the shelf for it.

Rich's birthday. We had a family dinner at Texas Roadhouse, followed by an apple pie that we were all too stuffed to even eat.

I just can't over the level of sass in this picture.

We absolutely loved Station Park during Christmas. We called it Christmasland. Right before we took this picture, we saw Santa and Mrs. Claus leaving for the night. Norah was absolutely star struck when she saw him and was so excited when she got to say hi.

Every year, the Larry H. Miller Company puts on a free singalong at the Energy Solutions Arena. If you know me well, you know that I don't sing, so Rich practically had to drag me there, even with free tickets to Jazz and Bees games being offered at the door.

Rich's birthday present from me. Classic.

Don't judge me, but I sometimes fall asleep on the couch while Norah plays. I can hear Norah if something goes wrong and she can't get into anything bad, so I don't feel so bad. But it often turns into this mess.

Our Christmas puzzle for the year. Basically everything that was left to do from here was crazy hard - just varying shades of blue-black.

Okay, you probably can't tell what this picture is about, but it's the best I could do to capture the moment. One day, Norah was playing in her room, and I realized after a while I hadn't heard her for a bit. I went to check on her and found I couldn't open the door more than a crack. Because she had FALLEN ASLEEP right behind it. That's her forehead in the crack of the door.

Another night, another trip to Christmasland

I had my big ultrasound on December 23rd, so my mom came up to watch Norah for me. She brought the Kirtley kids along, and they all got to decorate sugar cookies together.

Speaking of the big ultrasound, IT'S A BOY! I wouldn't let myself admit that I wanted a boy a little bit more, but I realized it when the ultrasound said so! We are so excited to meet this little one. The ultrasound also gave us a better due date - May 10th. That's is a little earlier than the original, so I'm fine with that.

Last picture. How we found Norah one night before we went to bed. How does she not realize she's fallen out?!

Temple Square Lights

I took a short break from blogging because I'm trying to get some photobooks done. We started doing family yearbooks over a year ago, but I put the project on hold after our external hard drive crashed, taking with thousands and thousands of pictures. But a couple good deals on photobooks have brought me back to it. Thanks to Facebook and family members, I've been able to scrape together a decent picture of the years that got hit the hardest. I used Groupon to get 2 books through MyPublisher for $15 each, so I'm working on getting those done. (I don't know if it's been worth it, though. The MyPublisher software is crazy frustrating and really limited. I'm not impressed at all.)

So anyway, here's another catch-up post, finishing up our Thanksgiving break.

We met up with a bunch of the Nelson family to look at the lights on Temple Square on the Saturday after Thanksgiving (which Rich spent a lot of the day working). We probably picked the busiest night of the year to go, making it basically impossible to keep our group together, especially with our strollers. But the lights were definitely beautiful, and I always love the atmosphere there, especially during the Christmas season.

I really love this shot Rich got. The color of the sky just makes it that much better.

I don't know how more kids don't fall into the reflection pool. It's a favorite place to play for all kids, and, no matter how cold it is, there is always splashing. It was hard to explain to Norah why I didn't want her to touch it when basically every other kid was.

After looking at the lights, we all headed over to Crown Burger for some dinner. Oh my yum. I avoided getting burgers in Spokane because, in my opinion, nothing compares to Utah burger joints. Crown Burger and Apollo Burger are my personal faves.

Norah was in an especially sweet mood at the restaurant. We got to sit with Grandma and Poppa, so I'm sure that helped.

This is probably one of my favorite pictures of all time. She pulled Grandma and Poppa in for a hug on her own, and it was absolutely adorable.

Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to Grandma and Poppa right after this. But it sure was a fun Thanksgiving, and we were so glad we could spend it with them and so many other Nelsons!

Thanksgiving 2014

Less than two months behind. I can do this. Slowly but surely, I will catch up.

Thanksgiving 2014 was lots of fun. We spent it with the Nelson side, hosted by Christine and Nathan at their home in West Jordan. We were excited for a chance to spend time with as many of the siblings as could come, but things got even better when we heard that Doug and Edie would brave the weather for the drive down. We definitely miss seeing them multiple times a week!

When we pulled up to the Kidds' home, Norah knew exactly whose car we parked behind. She got pretty excited when she realized that their car being there meant they would be there, too.

We knocked on the door, and she basically screamed the moment she saw her Grandma and Poppa. She ran across the room and gave the biggest hug I've ever seen (I'm a little jealous of it, actually). Doug says this moment has permanently secured her place in the will.

For Thanksgiving dinner, it was Great Grandma Farnsworth, Doug and Edie, the Kidds, the Wings, and us. We got to see the (Scott) Nelsons the next day since they had dinner with Karolyn's family, as well as the Harrisons on Saturday. We all missed the Petersens!

Norah and Kelsey got to sit at their own table, which was great since they kept each other happy. I'm pretty sure Norah didn't eat anything, though.

The pies. This was my first time making any kind of pie. and it actually worked out for me! Well, the pumpkin wasn't all that great, but my chocolate mousse pie was delicious!

Cami and Ethan

Doug and Edie brought along lots of slides for us to see, and someone was able to dig up a slide projector so we could put on a show.

If you're familiar with "Christmas Vacation," you'll appreciate the video. Especially listen to the music and watch Nate.

Watching the show

 Visiting the Kidds' house is always a ton of fun for Norah because they have toys galore. Norah and Kelsey were plenty entertained with the ponies!

The next day, we all got together again after doing some Black Friday shopping. My first Black Friday experience back in Utah was actually pretty disappointing. I think it was because Utah is just so BUSY and CROWDED! Sure, Spokane has its crowds, but nothing like here. Rich always had to work on Black Friday in Spokane, so we'd go out after he got off of work and have no problem finding at least a couple great deals. But Utah just had constant crowds all day because there are so many people, and everything was basically gone by the time we got out. (I am not the type of person to go out Thanksgiving night or crazy early the next morning, so I guess that's what I get.) The only real success we had (which, admittedly, is a big one) was helping Santa find Norah's big present.

After shopping, we headed back to the Kidds' for leftovers and some family sports time. We had a big kickball game, and then the more agile of the group (meaning not the pregnant women) played some basketball.

Cami had a great idea of how to keep the littlest ones occupied. They loved it, and it kept me pretty entertained, too.

I love how slow they went down. But that didn't matter because it was a "slide."

There's still a little more to cover from Thanksgiving weekend, but Saturday's event gets its own post so this one doesn't turn out crazy long. So, more on that later!