Christmas

We spent Christmas this year with the Jackson family in Moses Lake. Kaelyn and I were there for a week, and Ty came over Tuesday night. It went by really fast for me though because I had so much to do to keep me busy (making our stockings, sewing Kaelyn's jammies, etc. All stuff I didn't even try to find time for beforehand). But it was nice to see everybody and it was especially nice to have so many people to help me out with my little monster! This is Kaelyn in her Christmas Eve jammies that my mom and I made for her. It fit her more like a tent than a nightgown, but she looked so cute!

Santa brought Kaelyn a stroller that she can push with a dolly in it. It's hilarious watching her try to push that thing around. But I'm glad she hasn't figured out this whole walking thing yet. My house still isn't ready! While we were opening presents, all she was interested in were the bows, ribbons, tags and boxes. And I thought she would definitely be a natural at opening presents since she destroys any kind of paper she finds on the floor at our house, but all she would do that day was pull off the bows and then scratch the paper with her pointer finger. It was so silly. So we had to help her out a ton in that department.

(Above) Here is Kaelyn with Uncle Kyle. He flew in from Salt Lake on Christmas Eve and almost didn't make it because of the weather. It was so fun to see him! He made it in really late so Kaelyn and I didn't even get to see him til Christmas morning.

Auntie Mayg got Guitar Hero so I played it that day for the very first time (and I totally rocked, might I add), and it's been about the only thing I can think about ever since. Seriously, it was the highlight of my week. Anyone reading this who has played, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I'm almost as addicted as I was when Mario Kart for N-64 first came out. Anyways. The next couple pictures are from Saturday night when we got back to Post Falls. We had prime rib with Ty's parents at their house and then opened presents with them. My camera died on me so these were the only shots I could get. Kaelyn loved all her fun presents and still has more to open! It's unbelievable how many presents that child got.
Thanks to both of our families for an amazing holiday!

Ok the next few pictures are from a couple of weeks ago. I decided to add them since I haven't posted anything in a while. Kaelyn let me bury her in Beanie Babies one day. She laid there perfectly still for the longest time! It was cute.
We've been getting SO MUCH FREAKING SNOW up here. The snow in our front yard is as tall as me, and there have been days when Ty has spent hours upon hours shoveling our driveway. This picture was taken on one of those days when we decided to go out and play in the snow with Daddy. I laughed so hard when I put Kaelyn in this thing. She was not a huge fan at first.

And here's my cute little nakey girl! She has all of the sudden lost her desire to hold still for me while I either change her diaper or get her dressed. So after almost every bath she takes, I let her roll around on the floor naked until she decides she's cold enough to let me put some clothes on her.
The End.

Sick & Tired

My baby is very tired and desperately needs a nap. She also came down with her first cold a few days ago and hasn't been sleeping well since. She's been an angel all day up to this point and was very quick to tell everyone in the grocery store who made eye contact with her about her "dadada." But now that we are home, she doesn't want to cooperate. She usually goes right down for a nap on the first try, but I've been in and out of her room several times now trying to make her happy. I've been letting her cry it out for about a half hour now, but I've never had to do this before, so how far am I supposed to let it go?
I hope she doesn't make throwing tantrums a regular occurence. At the store today, she just had to be holding Mrs. Butterworth the whole time and would start throwing a fit everytime I tried to take it from her. So I just let her have it and she was absolutely perfect from then on. Hopefully she's just clingy and cranky from being sick. Poor thing.

At least she always has time for a smile, though. Sure makes me feel better, but I wish I could do the same for her.

In Loving Memory

My sweet puppy dog Sadie died Wednesday night in her sleep. She is the first and only dog that my family has ever had, which makes this a little harder than normal for us. I miss her SO much. We got her in Spokane when I was 12. She threw up on my lap on the car ride home, and I've been crazy about her ever since. I remember when I graduated from high school and left for college, I always missed Sadie more than anybody else (sorry Mom and Dad). She was such a nice doggy and never hurt a fly. She was always nice to the cats and let them cuddle with her, and I know she loved my dad more than anyone. He's the only one she would ever listen to! All he would have to do is look at her wrong and she would drop whatever she was doing and go lay down in the corner.

This is one of my favorite pictures of her as a puppy. She was so fluffy and cute!
I always wanted a puppy just like her for my own house. But it's so hard getting so attached to an animal and then eventually losing them. Sadie lived longer than most dogs her breed do, but it's still sad. I'm just SO glad she went peacefully, and I'm sure she knew how much we all loved her.

Our First Christmas Tree

We chopped down our Christmas tree today! We went out to the woods as a family and found the perfect one. It's just the right size and looks great in our house. This is the first Christmas since living on my own that I've had a Christmas tree. In previous years, I never cared to have one and I never cared to decorate for Christmas in any way whatsoever. But now that I have my own family, I couldn't WAIT to start decorating. Yesterday I had so much fun hanging up lights and setting out all the other cool stuff we have. And today we had fun decorating the tree. We're a little short on ornaments, so it's not all that impressive, but I just love having a tree! I'll post pictures of the final result as soon as I can get all the pine needles and the other wreckage from decorating out of my living room. Here's our tree after we loaded it into the truck:


And since we drove all the way out there, we had to make a little time for target practice.
It was a fun day and I think this is what we're going to do every year!

And while I'm at it, I think I'll take a few minutes to catch up on the last couple of weeks. First of all, Thanksgiving. We spent it with Ty's family this year, and it was a lot of fun! We had a big cribbage tournament, and there was lots of amazing food to eat and cute babies to play with. Sadly, I forgot my camera so I didn't take any pictures. So you'll just have to take my word for it that it was a good time. The next day I drove to Moses Lake for like, a day, so I could be reunited with my awesome friends Kelly and Sara. We did a lot of reminiscing and it made me miss the days when we did everything together! I wish we could see each other more. It had been a year and a half since I'd seen Kelly last! That is just ridiculous and entirely unacceptable.

Oh, and one more thing. I know pretty much everybody has said something about this on their blog by now, and I can't help but talk about it as well: Twilight. I had been looking forward to seeing this movie for months and months since reading the book, so I dragged Ty to the midnight premiere with me. I bought tickets earlier in the week and everything. Ty complained the whole week about not wanting to see a stupid vampire movie, so I talked it up to him as much as I could. The theater we went to in Coeur d'Alene was showing it on SIX screens that night. I mean, the place was just flooded with teenagers. I was so excited for the movie to start that I was practically SHAKING. But I think I expected a little too much out of it, because I was really disappointed! I was expecting something amazing like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, with convincing special effects and good--if not great--acting. But this movie came no where close. The characters were all so...awkward. The way they interacted with each other, the way they looked, the bland and monotonous dialogue...it was all too weird for me. AND, I would have done everybody's hair for FREE and it would've looked better. Everybody's hair was just awful. And that's not something I tend to notice. But I just never like movies much when I've already read the book. Books just always do a better job at telling a story. So I don't care if they had to make this movie 5 hours long to get in all the good stuff--I still would have sat through it--and it just could have been SO much better. I sure hope they have enough money to make the next one better, or they can count me out. That's all I'm going to let myself say for now. Just thinking about it again is getting me all worked up. But at least Ty liked it, so the night wasn't a total failure right?