Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We have felt so blessed to be surrounded by family on this special holiday season. We got to spend time with my family this year and on our way up to Washington, we drove to Boise where we stopped by to see my grandparents. It was wonderful to spend some time with them as well. We then flew out from Boise to Seattle where we met my parents and spent a week with them. Steve's (my step-dad) daughter Jamena and family came to visit for a day and it was great to see them too. Jamena's son, Grady who is only 5 months older than Kyla was also there and they had fun playing together.
We got so many wonderful gifts from people. I got a sewing machine and a kitchen aid mixer (the kitchen aid is also part of my birthday present too :)), movies and Jordin Sparks' CD!! Hyrum got a Wii game, a microphone stand to record his music, a webcam and lots of other fun things. Not that Christmas is about receiving gifts, but we really are grateful for family and friends we have thought about us and have blessed our lives. It truly has been wonderful to think of the Ultimate gift of Christmas which is Jesus Christ our Savior, his birth, atonement, his sacrifice, resurrection and his love. I know that Jesus Christ loves me and I am grateful that he has provided a way for all of us to return home to live with him and our Father in Heaven again.

Kyla and Grady playing a beautiful duet!

Here is one of the toys Grammy and Grampa gave to Kyla! She sure enjoyed opening presents. We tried to get the toy out of the box so she could play with it and she got really mad because we were taking too long! It was pretty funny.

Here's our family Christmas day picture!

I met my grandma on my step-dad's side for the first time. We went to visit her at the nursing home on Christmas Day. She was pretty happy!
Kyla playing with Great Grandma Brown!

My parents have a cat named Shiloh and Kyla LOVED playing with her. She would get really excited every time the cat came up to her. It was great!

One really cool thing that Kyla's Grandma Denney does to all her grandkids is give them the 12 days of Christmas. So everyday for 12 days, she got to open one present! Kyla loved it and it gave her a ton of practice for opening the presents on Christmas day! :)

Because we went to be with my family for Christmas this year, we had our own little Christmas before we left.
This was one of Kyla's presents she got from Hyrum and I. She LOVES Barney so we got her a DVD. She definitely has enjoyed it.

This is my mom and step-dad on Christmas day before opening presents! They're so cute!

Kyla got a new princess chair for Christmas from Grammy and Grampa! She loves to sit in it. Notice the dress she's wearing: that's the very first thing I've ever sewn (not including a quilt I made for Kyla)...the first Christmas dress I've ever made! It's kind of a hard picture to see everything but the top is black velvet with a bow around the waist and then red silk with black lacey sequince stuff sticking out the bottom of the red silk. It's very pretty and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Next up: Kyla's Birthday Party!!

Snowball Fight and Christmas Tree Decorating!

This is GREAT! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Snowball fit with Mitt Romney and George Washington!!
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Decorating a Christmas Tree
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Scary Santa!

We took Kyla to see Santa a couple weeks ago at Wal-Mart. As you can tell, she wasn't sure what to think of the guy. :) I wouldn't blame her though. After being around clean shaven, non-fictional characters her whole life, suddenly being handed to a strange thing with a white hairy face and glasses over the eyes can be more than intimidating! I would cry too!
I was actually kind of surprised she cried because she's really quite fond of characters, beards, and new people but apparently with Santa it was a whole different story! Plus it probably didn't help too much that she was ready for a nap. I don't think she's scared of him anymore now though because she can say "Santa" now (or "danda" in her exact words) and point him out of a crowd. Maybe I'll take her again before Christmas ends and see what she really thinks. :) Merry Christmas everyone!!

Confessions

Alright so I have an addiction and obsession. I am a true American Idol fan and it starts in less than 4 weeks!! I am so excited. So if you ask to do anything with me on Tues or Wed nights, forget it because I'll be at home watching American Idol! :) I was so excited that Jordin Sparks won last year and her CD just came out. I haven't been able to get it yet (lack of money of course) but if anyone has it, I'd love to borrow it from you to hear what she's accomplished this last year. Thanks! :)

I'm also proud to announce that Kyla took 10 steps all by herself yesterday! Yay for her! She'll be walking consistently by Christmas for sure.

27 Days Til Christmas!

Here is our beautiful Christmas Tree! It's decorated in blue and silver ornaments, silver bows and white lights. It's only 3 ft tall but it's sitting on a platform to make it seem even taller. :) We had to barricade it in a corner so Kyla wouldn't go for the kill and knock it over 30 times a day. She hasn't even gotten to it yet!

A close up


Here is part of our Christmas decorations. The shelf is new. I got it with some of my b-day money! I love it. I made the little arrangement with extras left over from the wreath.

One other thing I have forgotten to mention: I had a great b-day on the 16th. Hyrum got me a KitchenAid stand Mixer! I was the happiest person in the world that day! Also Kyla got me a b-day gift too. The day before my b-day, she took 2 steps for the first time all by herself!! I was so proud and happy. She hasn't really done anymore than that, but she's getting better still! We're hoping she'll be walking by Christmas.
Here is the one and only Christmas Wreath arranged by Amiee! I can't believe I actually made that!

Thanksgiving

The Day after Thanksgiving we did a little shopping. We needed to get some boots for Kyla to keep her feet warm and to prevent her from taking her socks off while in the cold car. So we found these for a great deal and she looks so cute in them! Hyrum took this picture. You can see she's ready for winter! :)

This is what Kyla looks like after a yummie dinner of chili! She is ALWAYS such a messy eater, espeically when it comes to one of her favorite foods: beans!



These 2 pictures are of what Kyla's hair sometimes looks like in the back--CURLY!!!! I absolutely love it! The top of her hair is completely straight though so who knows what it'll look like in a couple years. hehe.


During Thanksgiving Break we spent a lot of time with Hyrum's family here in Rexburg. They have a hot tub so we took Kyla in the hot tub with us for the first time! She thought it was REALLY hot at first but as soon as she got used to it, she loved it!

On Thanksgiving Day we had lots of fun. We ate all day long and stuffed ourselves until we got sick, we watched the movie "The Ultimate Gift" which I highly reccommend. It is soooo good!! All the girls cried. :) Then the girls scrapbooked for part of the evening, played games and relaxed. It was such a great day!

Getting Ready for the Holidays

Hello Everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I updated our blog. You all know how it goes though: You start to get really busy and then one thing after another comes up that's more important and then you just never have time to do anything!
By the way, these pictures are some of the cute ones we took for our family Christmas cards we're sending out. We're only putting the one of her and one of the 3 of us on there. The one with her hands up in the air has a story behind it. Let me share. With Hyrum's wonderful and funny sense of humor he taught Kyla to raise her hands high above her head whenever he said "Wasssup!" So now when we say that, she'll raise her hands up and tilt her head. It's so cute!



Can you believe there is only 28 days until Christmas?! I am so excited this year because
1) It's Kyla's first Christmas and everyone is spoiling her...including us!
2) I get to see my family (which we weren't sure until this weekend if we were even going to be able to. Once we actually decided we were going we wanted to surprise my mom because we were going to drive but then plans ended up changing again by my mom surprising us saying she was going to fly us down there!! Thanks again soooo much Mom. I love you and am so happy I'll get to see you soon!)
3) We have a beautiful decorated tree. It's simple, and it's small, but I think it's beautiful! Not to mention I made another wreath today which again, I'm pretty proud of. It turned out really pretty!
4) I've gotten into the Christmas spirit early this year. Hyrum and I started listening to Christmas music in the beginning of November so we've been really excited.
5) Since this is Kyla's first Christmas, we get to play Santa this year!!!! This is something that I have been looking forward to since High School.
6) We get to take Kyla to see Santa and get her picture with him....whether she's screaming or not!

There are more pictures and stories on the way! Have a great week!