For Christmas this year, Ryan and I decided to buy our own presents. I have been saving up for a while to buy a nice big picture of the Timp Temple. There are a lot of beautiful ones out there, but they just aren't my style. Pretty, but kind of typical. I finally came across this one on FramedLegacy.com. I LOVE it!
I love the rustic, old fashioned look. And I love that it has my beautiful mountain in the background. Oh my miss my mountains!
Ryan also took me shopping for some winter shoes/boots. I scored big time with sales and promotions. Love them! Thanks Ryan!
Pardon the stupid sassy picture below (it was a joke between Nicia and I), but I also went out and bought my first ever pair of skinny jeans. They aren't as "skinny" as I expected and now I can wear my new boots with them. I also bought a new hoodie. I am slightly obsessed with hoodies and wear them pretty much every day of my life. But the majority of them are really old (as in my high school hoodies) and it was time to get something a little more updated.
We let Pierscen open one of his birthday presents the week before Christmas. A forward facing seat. Finally!!! His doctor said wait to flip him until his is 2, or reaches the weight limit. Well, the weight limit was 32 lbs and P probably won't reach that until he's 5 or something. Haha. He loved it! He was so excited for his big boy seat.
But of course he was also really excited for the box. It's the best part, right?
For days, Pierscen was CRAZY excited when it came to riding in his new seat. Even to the point of crying when he came inside and we didn't bring it inside with us. Silly little guy. The amazing thing is that within maybe two days being in that seat, he had his red and green down really well. He would watch the traffic lights out the windshield and call them out to us. He will now yell, "Green means go!" and "Red means stop!" It's so cute!
Since we were heading to Utah on Christmas Eve, we decided to do our Christmas the Saturday before. We hadn't put out any presents previous to this to help keep temptation down for P.
When we brought Pierscen down in the morning, we put him in front of the tree and asked him what he thought. He spread his arms out wide and said, "Woooow!" It was pretty cute.
Since P is still so young, and his birthday is two days after Christmas, we decided to keep things simple. (We can still get away with that for a little bit.)
Ryan made Pierscen a set of building blocks with the present Ryan bought for himself - a Dewalt Sliding Miter saw. Pretty awesome, right? (Both the saw and the blocks.) :)
P had some great gifts. He got him a few books, some alphabet letters for the tub, Elmo slippers and jacket, workbench, and Tonka truck. He was one happy little dude.
The jean blanket above was made my Ryan's mom. P also received a new handsome suit. It's a little big for him now, but he will look super handsome in it.
Saturday night I invited a family over that has been investigating the church. He is a member, but hasn't been active in years, and she is taking the discussions. They recently just fell on some really hard times and have since moved out of the ward, so I thought it would be nice to have them over. I made my first ever ham and it turned out really good. I also made the traditional twice baked potatoes and ribbon jello salad. Everything turned out really nice. It was great to have them over. And P was especially glad to have their daughter over. She is 11 or so and was so cute playing with him.
Christmas Sunday was pretty funny. The primary was supposed to sing two songs, "Samuel Tells of Baby Jesus" and "Away in a Manger." We didn't have a lot of time to learn the songs, so I knew they would need some extra help. I printed the words out nice and big so they could read it. As the kids were heading up to the stage, P ran out into the aisle and followed them up. I tried to stop him, but he was dead set on joining them. I figured it really wouldn't hurt anything. We walked up to the very front, but he is so short, that you couldn't even see he was there. The narrators sitting on the side grabbed a step stool and lifted him up so he could see. He was beaming.
During the first song, the Samuel one - which I pretty much sang a solo because the kids didn't know it and there weren't maybe 10 kids total - Pierscen just smiled and looked around. During the second song, he decided to start tasting the wall in front of him and then play peek-a-boo with the audience. Hahaha. Well, I guess a little entertainment never hurts.
He was super ecstatic about this awesome "Happy Birthday Jesus" hat he got in nursery. I tried to get some good Christmas pictures with him, but he wasn't very interested in holding still. Oh well. He was very handsome.
He also made his first tree ornaments in nursery which he was very proud to put on the tree.
I had to include some bath pictures, and especially the one below because that Cars towel was his birthday present from Ryan's mom. It has his name embroidered on it. That and I really love his Blue Steel face. ;)
Phew! Now onto the main event...
We traveled out to Utah Christmas Eve. We made really good time, even though the road from Casper to Rawlins was a little slow and painful. We spent the evening with my family. That night as we were getting ready for bed, Dodger jumped off the bed and started cruising the room. He crawled under the bed and a few seconds later, the bed seemed to start vibrating. For a second we were confused, and then at the exact same time, Ryan and I said, "Oh no." It was the illusive family cat, Timur. He had been under the bed the whole time. Now cornered, he was furious. I had to drag Dodger out by his tail. I wasn't sure how to get Timur out as anyone who knows me knows I have a history of some great injuries sustained by trying to play peace keeper with cats. Anyway, just as I found something long enough to try and push him out, he ran out on his own. Naturally, however, Dodger would not calm down after that. It was a long night. At least P slept like a rock.
The next day, we opened presents and had our traditional ebleskiver breakfast. So yummy! Around 11 am, we headed out to Fairfield to see Ryan's grandpa. He hasn't been doing too great lately and was kind of moody when we first showed up, but as soon as he saw Pierscen he perked right up and started making silly noises and trying to interact with him. We ate lunch with grandpa and Ryan's parents, and then headed to Ryan's parents house.
That evening, Jen and Jess came down for dinner and presents. We played games and had a great evening. We were able to snag a four generation picture with all the grandkids, (minus Jodi's) and then one with just the four boys.
And it wouldn't have been a proper holiday without another injury. This time P tripped and banged his head against the door frame. At least there were no stitched involved!
Thursday, Ryan and his dad went shooting and I went shopping with my sisters. When Ry got home and P woke up from his nap, we made our trip to Cabelas. We have been trying to get there for over a year now. No exaggeration. Ryan really needed works pants and had a bunch of points to use. Yes, he could order them online, but without knowing how they fit, it's a gamble. So we finally made it. We enjoyed our elk and bison sandwiches and wandered for quite a while.
Pierscen loved the shooting range area. Even though we didn't actually put any tokens in, he loved just yelling bang. In fact, some time after this picture when Ry and I got split up, I took P back here and when we finally had to leave, he cried and cried yelling, "Bang! Bang!" as I dragged him away. Not even a free fudge sample would make things better. I finally distracted him by searching for the zebra. :)
I had one quarter in my wallet, so I let him feed the fish. He thought that was pretty amazing, so we spent a lot of time picking up the pieces that other people dropped on the floor and tossing them to the fish too. At one point, I was telling P that they were all gone and that I didn't have any more money. A young girl, probably 8-10 pulled out a quarter from her own wallet and gave it to me. It was one of the sweetest gestures I have seen in a while. I used it to get some more food, then split it with the girl. So nice!
That night we stayed at Ryan's parents. The next was Pierscen's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY PIERSCEN!
Admittedly, a lot of the day was dedicated to that. But... I am going to postpone that portion this post until I have his two year check up at the end of this month and then you will get all the glorious two year birthday details. It was a really great day. :)
However, the other really fun thing that happened that day was we had our Academy of Ballet Alumni brunch. I know I talk about these girls a lot, but seriously, I can't ever say enough about how much I love them and how wonderful it is that after all of these years, we are still such good friends. To be perfectly honest, there are people that I went to school with for 12 years that I probably couldn't tell you their names anymore, but these girls still mean the world to me. And - this picture was all thanks to Alicia's three and a half year old step-daughter who stood on a chair and took this picture for us. Thanks Lindy!
Saturday Ryan and I did some shopping, and then Pierscen and I went to lunch with Grandma RayRay. I love this woman so much. I have no doubt that Heavenly Father brought us together for a reason. She is the one that gave Pierscen that adorable Elmo jacket. She is the best!
After lunch, I tried to put P down for a nap. After a while I could hear that he was not sleeping and was making way more noise than what I thought was capable for being in a pack 'n' play. So I went to investigate.
Can you see what's in his hand? He found a bottle of baby powder in the drawer and managed to empty the entire thing all over himself, the bed, the floor and the chest of drawers.
To give him some credit, his artwork was pretty neat. ;) We stripped everything down, changed his clothes and diaper, and put him back down. Sorry buddy. Even dousing yourself with powder won't get you out of a nap. Haha.
That night we ordered Chinese food from one of our old favorite places, Chen's Noodles and went to Necia's for food and game night. It was such a perfect way to end things. We used to do game night with Necia all the time and I hardly got to see Nec over Thanksgiving. We had a blast. Kara and Will came, as did Sabrina, and Tallon and Karma Sue.
I love this picture of Pierscen eating ice cream at the island with his cousins. He's such a tiny little thing.
Sunday came all too soon. We went to Sacrament meeting with Ryan's parents. (My parents headed to St. George on Saturday to go help clean out my grandma's condo who was just moved into an assisted living facility.)
We packed up and made it on the road a little after 11. It was a wonderful trip. I felt like this trip, even though it wasn't even a week long, was one of the best we have had as far as spending time with everyone. It was awesome.
The trip home was good too. The road between Rawlins and Casper was crazy. The wind was blowing the snow across the road in a really cool, but eery way. It looked a lot like fog - but more river like. There were times it totally wiped out visibility. It was crazy!
Thankfully we made it home in one piece and there were no frozen pipes. Yah!!! Holy cow! I just remembered! I didn't mention that in my Thanksgiving post. The day or so after we got home from our November trip, I tried to do a load of laundry. Instead of the water going down the pipe in the wall - it was reguritated back up and all over the floor because the dang pipe was frozen. I didn't notice until it had reached the kitchen. I used every towel in my house. I finally got it cleaned up by the time Ry came home from lunch, or so I thought. He came home and went downstairs to check on things. I didn't even think about that. Yeah... it had soaked through the floor, broken several ceiling tiles and light covers, soaked the floor, and splattered over a LOT of stuff. Clean up was a nightmare. Shortly after, the hot water pipe going to the kitchen sink froze too. Ryan tore out the sheet rock by the washer and under the sink to expose the pipes to a space heater and my hair dryer. Yes, there is insulation in the wall by the washer, but the leaking water turned the insulation into a block of ice. Ugh. Anyway, everything works now and is cleaned up. But goodness what a pain.
So - back to topic. The trip was awesome. We had a wonderful Christmas. P had an incredible birthday. All in all, it was great!
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