Simply having a wonderful Christmas time!!

This year David and I will be spending
our first Christmas at home together and we are so excited!
We are excited to establish our own family traditions
and have searched hi and low for wonderful,
Christ-centered traditions to bring into our home.
Here's a few of the ideas we got from other wonderful
families in our group of friends at church...

-Visiting a nursing home
-Volunteering at a soup kitchen
-Acts of service paper chain
-Advent the four Sunday's before Christmas to talk about Christ as a family
-Giving a gift to the Savior on Christmas eve each year
-Filling the manger with acts of service to prepare Christ's bed for His birth
-Wrapping 24 favorite family books and opening one each day and
reading it as a family leading up to Christmas
-Doing a charitable act in someone else's name as your gift to them for Christmas
-Family prayer and read Luke chapter 2 before opening presents
to remember the Savior's birth
-Add a new ornament to the tree each year to eventually fill your tree with
family memories from over the years
-Anonymously donate to a family in need

Merry Christmas!
May Christ be at the center of this holiday for you!

Hilarious!

For those of you who think
David is too serious and doesn't know how to let loose,
I REALLY wish you could hang around our house for a day
or even a night.
He CRACKS me up all the time!
Tonight, we were bantering back and forth
laughing so hard
trying to 'one-up' each other,
when all of a sudden he got a sassy look on his face,
and started moving his head from side to side
and in the best teenage black girl voice you can imagine he said,
"I don't think so girlfriend!"

Hilarious!

Tall trees and a little handful of sunshine

Coleman is such a little Houdini. While we were in Benicia, CA visiting family for Thanksgiving, we woke up one morning and found Coleman sleeping in his portable crib, both arms free of his Velcro tight sleeping sack, and one arm out of his pajamas. He's a lion in a lambs body.

While in the Bay Area, we decided to take a walk through the John Muir woods. It was nice to spend some time enjoying warm weather and nice sunshine while in California. We had a great time.

Now, I'm REALLY a mom

We're sick.
All of us.
Me, David and Coleman and it STINKS!
So last night, Coleman woke up around 3:30 am
SCREAMING
and wouldn't take his pacifier, which is normally why he
wakes up crying late at night. He seemed frantic and
I was completely stumped as to what to do.
I knew he probably had a plugged nose and couldn't breath with his paci in,
or he had a sore throat and wanted me to fix it
but both are a hard thing for me to do anything about with a 5 month old.
All of a sudden I remembered what my mom used to do for me
when I was sick and couldn't sleep late at night.
So, I took him in the bathroom, turned on the shower to HOT
and we sat in the steam.
All three of us.
And sat.
At first he was crazy and frantic and crying so hard
but before long, he began to calm down,
enough so that I could feed him
and then that calmed him down even more.
And I thought, THANK YOU MOM!!!
Thank you for staying up late with me at night
when you were SOOOO TIRED,
because now I know what that's like
and thank you for always knowing just what to do
to make a little sicky feel better
and thank you for teaching me
what to do when my little sicky needs to feel better
Because last night,
I was able to help him and I knew what to do
because you did it for me so many times years ago
and I could feel the love you had for me,
because of the love I have for him.
And now, I feel like

I am REALLY a mom.

Beard or no beard??

David decided to grow a little scruff one day and once he had it, I wouldn't let him shave! I LOVE it when he has a short (very short :)) and clean looking beard because he has a baby face and looks so much older, handsome, charming, debonair, and let's face it...sexy! He got past the itchy stage and has now had a beard longer than any other time in his entire life.
I think we're going on 3 weeks now or so.

Here's a side by side comparison of his naked face with his scruffy face,

what do you think??
Beard or no beard??

Family photos...

Tripods sure come in handy when your husband is a professional photographer. I think that they turned out pretty good, what about you?

This one's for Coco...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Thanks for the costume Coco, it was a big hit!

Has it really been FOUR MONTHS??!!

Lil' Cole had his four month well baby check on Wednesday

and guess who is in the
72nd percentile for height
and the 24th percentile for weight,
yup, you guessed it...we have a tall and skinny baby on our hands!
He's turning into a little boy more and more everyday and although it is
so sad to realize that very soon he won't be my baby anymore,
we have had a BLAST watching him grow and develop
and become more of a person than a baby that just eats and sleeps.
He has also developed quite a personality and
has a strong preference for just about everything!
If we try to do something different than what he wants, he will
let us hear it!

Coleman likes to scream and talk to himself all day since he is
learning all about making noises and
he will smile at just about anybody who gives him a smile first.
He also reaches for just about everything in sight now and
LOVES toys that make any sort of noise.

In other exciting news, he also got his first taste of something
other than mom's milk on Wednesday
with Rice Cereal AND Peas!
(I know, we're only supposed to do one at a time, but we were just so excited!)
How did he do, you may ask,
well let's just say more got on his shirt than in his mouth, but it was still so fun.

October snow

We woke up early yesterday morning to find snow on our pumpkins. Ugh. Thank goodness the heater in the Jeep is finally fixed.

Such a great dad

David is such an awesome dad! He always plays with Coleman, plays him guitar, and makes him laugh. When I walked in to Coleman's room tonight after blogging for a little bit, I found this....

...the toy bucket tipped over with toys everywhere and David just holding Coleman up so he can play with them all! That's got to be every boys dream - Dad playing with me and giving me all the toys in the world.

David is also an AMAZING dad because he fixed the heater in my car last Saturday so Coleman wouldn't be cold this winter, and so I wouldn't be. :) Can one person be any more talented??? Seriously! He fixes our cars, fixes our appliances, is an amazing photographer, was a collegiate athlete, speaks fluent spanish, rocks at any sport he tries - including wakeboarding and snowboarding, writes his own music on guitar and bass, and he can make/build/fix just about anything. How did I get to be so lucky marrying him??

Overdue post...3 months and counting

Coleman is actually almost 4 months old now, so hopefully I can be more on top of the next update, but first let's do 3 months...

*He's rolling over constantly every time I lay him down, but he doesn't like his tummy very much, so he gets mad that he's rolled over but as soon as I put him back on his back he does it again!
*He laughs out loud - and it is the cutest thing!
*He sleeps through the night - for 12 HOURS now!!
*He is exercising his vocal chords and SCREAMS and SCREAMS happy screams all day...especially at church when it is quiet.
*He notices toys now and reaches for them and plays with them. He loves anything that makes noise.
*He loves his linen blankets from Charity and calms right down when I give him one. As soon as it's in his hand, he brings it straight up to his face and it is so sweet!

Here's a couple of videos from my phone for the Grandparents...

Time for bed...

We are trying to get Coleman on more of a schedule and establishing a few routines that he can rely on because all the experts say it's the best. So, at night we feed him, give him a bath, read him a story, have family prayer and then it's off to bed and he puts himself to sleep. Although he struggled a little at first with getting used to this, he now loves it. All of it. And he especially loves story time and bath time and then he puts himself to sleep, sometimes without making a peep, within just a few minutes!



He LOVES and I mean LOVES bath time! He splashes and laughs and talks and screams happy screams the whole time!


Although at first he would cry and be fussy during story time, it quickly became something he loves and looks forward to! We even read to him during the day when he's fussy and he'll calm right down.


I will forever declare to every new mom that rocking babies to sleep is more for the parents than for the child and that if you can let them learn to go to sleep on their own, they will go to sleep easier and stay asleep longer...and don't wait until they're old enough to sit, crawl or walk because they'll just stand up and scream instead of go to bed if you haven't established it yet. We just learned that from some friends who are now trying to get away from nursing to sleep with a 15 month old. Yikes!

Still a crazy sleeper...

If he sleeps this crazy, imagine what he's like when he's awake! He never stops going, but I love that he's curious and experimental and has such a strong personality!! He'll be able to withstand all the temptations present in our world today and prevail.

Coleman is a Cougar Fan

We rode our bikes to the BYU football game a few weeks ago and Erynn got us free tickets from work! Thanks Erynn, we had so much fun with you at the game! Coleman is definitely a BYU Cougar fan and he did so well during the game. We had a blast and love that we can ride bikes with Coleman.

LION KING!

We went to the Lion King a few weeks ago and it was AWESOME! Leaving Coleman was VERY difficult to say the least, but I think it was good for us to go and for Coleman to be with someone else. I bought the tickets back in March before I knew anything about needing a babysitter. Thank you thank you to Ken and Kristina for watching little Coleman! The play was incredible and we both absolutely loved it! If any of you have never seen the Lion King, you absolutely have to go! The costumes, the singing, all of it was absolutely amazing! When the huge elephant comes out in the opening scene, it is absolutely breathtaking!

The cutest thing about having Coleman babysat was when we got back and he wouldn't even let me or David feed him a bottle. He refused it and screamed at me every time I tried to give it to him and I was forced to nurse him. He just needed to know it was me and I was back. Just another wonderful thing about being a nursing mom!

Wrapped around his little finger!

How can I not be, aren't you after seeing these pictures??

Coleman, we ADORE you!

A little mover...

Coleman is getting to be SO active! When we put him in the swing without buckling him in, this is what happens in a matter of 10 minutes. I guess he just likes to chill as he watches Baby Einstein...

What's a family without a cat?

This is our new cat. Surprised? So are we. Since before Coleman was born we have noticed this cat hanging around our house. In fact once, I almost peed my pants early one morning when I sat down in my truck and the cat screeched and jumped out the back window because it had been sleeping in my car all night long.

Last week Brittany and I were pulling weeds in the front yard. The cat snuck up and scared Brit half to death. After that we named him Rascal. Now he's like another member of the family, except that he's not allowed in the house, nobody is allowed to feed him and we don't even dare touch him. Although, I'm sure that Coleman will pull his tail and whiskers in a few months.

Getting to know us

One thing we love about each other is that we like to have fun. Here's our best impersonation of Tim Lockwood, if he wore glasses and/or a sombrero of course.