Owen

Owen Reid James, our sweet little baby boy was born December 30, 2008 at 1:38 pm. He weighed 8 lb. 4 oz. and was 22 in. long. He is so sweet and we are so excited to have him in our family!

So Very Pregnant

I try to avoid belly shots at all costs, but I was getting a little sentimental the other day and realized I needed at least one "belly" picture. So this is me at 39 weeks. I have never been THIS pregnant before, as Brooke was 2 weeks early and its not so fun! Oh well, hopefully we'll have a baby soon!

Merry Christmas!!!!!

We had such a fun Christmas this year! We spent Christmas Eve with some friends and then had a super fun, quiet Christmas by ourselves. Brooke loved all of her new toys, but she especially loved her princess dress (Thanks Grandma Q and Grandpa Jim), her tractor (thanks grandma and grandpa James, now she'll be ready for a hayride if we ever get to visit at the right time!), her umbrella and her new bike! We hope you all had a Merry Christmas as well!

Traditions

One of my favorite things about this time of year is all the fun traditions. Especially now that Reid and I get to pick and choose what we want to do. Here are some of my favorite Christmas traditions.


Treats- Reid grew up in a house and with a grandma that were like a treat making factory around the holidays so he doesn't feel like it's Christmas unless we've made a ridiculous amount of cookies and candy. So far this year we've made popcorn balls, sugar cookies, toffee, chocolate dipped pretzels, chocolate dipped marshmallows and fudge. It is so much fun but I might say that for the three of us it may be a little much! So if you want some treats this year come visit!

Christmas Books- When I was teaching I did the 12 books of Christmas with my class. Now we do the 25 books of Christmas. I wrap all of our Christmas books ahead of time and every night we open and read one. Brooke loves it and I think it's a fun way to have a few more presents we don't have to buy.


Pajamas- I've always loved getting pajamas for Christmas. In the past we've always waited for Christmas Eve, but this year we decided to get them early. So we got our Christmas pajamas a week before Christmas and have been enjoying them ever since.

Gingerbread house- Making a gingerbread house has always been one of our favorite things to do. We've done it a lot of different ways, one year I made the gingerbread from scratch, and we've definitely done the graham cracker thing but this year we opted for the kit from walmart. We were thrilled at how easy it was and the gingerbread definitely tastes better than stale graham crackers!



So these are some of our favorite traditions! What traditions do you enjoy with your families?

Santa Time

Brooke had so much fun at our ward's primary Christmas party. She was very excited about seeing Santa until we got into the room, then she became very serious, and we just sat down and watched him for a few minutes. Finally, she went up to him and shook his hand and sat in his lap, then she told him what she wanted for Christmas (a bike), asked for her treat bag and told him Merry Christmas and thank you, all in a very serious manner without breaking a smile! After the drama of Santa everything else was very fun! She loved her Rudolph pancakes and getting decorated like a Christmas tree!


We've also gone to two Christmas parades, which are my favorites! I love nightime parades, the lights and candy just make them so fun!

I am really enjoying this holiday season! It is really the first year that Brooke has gotten the whole Christmas thing and it is so much fun to see her excitement and the magic of the season through her eyes!

Oh Baby!

So as of today I am officially 37 weeks pregnant! I've been busy getting everything washed and ready and I am starting to feel a little prepared. It does seem that everytime I think I've gotten everything done I make another mile long list of things that I'd forgotten, but what can you do!

This past week a friend threw me and another girl who is expecting her 1st boy, 2nd baby 2 days after me, a super cute baby shower. It was so much fun, double baby showers are great! Anyways, one of the cutest presents I got was this cute little bib that this super crafty girl made for me, it is so adorable!

Also, I just wanted to take a minute to say I'm really starting to get into the whole boy clothes thing. At first, I have to admit I was kind of sad because they just don't have the selection of girls clothes. But there really are some cute baby boy clothes, and I'm getting pretty into it!

Thanksgiving

It's crazy how once Fall gets here, it just seems like we are always so busy and there is always something going on. Anyways here is what we've been doing lately.

We took Brooke to see a shortened version of the Nutcracker ballet. She loved it! The mouse king and the mice were the hit of the show, Brooke likes to talk about how she's going to be a mouse dancer when she's big. She also loves to dance around and say she is a ballerina.



We went to one of those Jumpity Jump places with some friends and Brooke had a ball (we actually have pictures of this)!



For Thanksgiving we drove down to Atlanta and stayed with Reid's uncle and his family. We had a great time and Reid took Brooke 4-wheeling, don't freak out it really wasn't dangerous as our little girl wouldn't even let Reid take her off the road and kept saying "slow, slow". We also got to visit one of my college roomates and her family and it was just a great time all around!