Free photo session giveaway!

My friend Wendy has a photography business that is currently running a giveaway. If you'd like to see details click here. This promotion ends on January 3rd so if you're interested hurry and enter now! Good luck!

Gigi's got the clap...

Eric and I noticed for the first time today that Gigi has learned how to clap. I'm not sure how she learned this but I have a hunch that she decided today would be the day when she realized the Utes were playing. Anyway, she practiced clapping tonight for about an hour while we were at Tim & Brittany's house watching the Poinsettia Bowl. She's a born Ute!

BYU game with the Winders

Today I stayed indoors during the big snowstorm and Eric came home early from work! Then we spent the evening with the Winder family, which if you know the Winders you know that you never leave their house without a full stomach and a happy heart! (Even when BYU wins.) We are so excited for Jordan and Christie to get married (on our 3rd anniversary) next week!

Paper Mache

My neighbor made this nativity out of paper mache. I think its pretty cool especially because the simplicity and imperfections in it are symbolic to me of what the real birth of Christ must have been like. He arrived as simply and humbly as anyone else into this world. His parents were refugees. His bed was a trough for the animals. He was a baby and probably cried as most babies do, and needed His diaper changed, and fell down when He was learning to walk. That's the truly amazing thing, He was a man of flesh and blood who walked the earth just like each of us. That's how He understands us so completely and knowing this helps me to understand Him just a little bit better. I'm not going to try to be too poetic here at the risk it might just come off as being really cheesy, but I just wanted to say why I love this nativity... I needed a good reminder of what really makes this season so special.

We broke the bed

It was bound to happen! :) The large white line you can see, that is where the wood split on our bed frame today. Now I finally have a really good excuse for not exercising though... my Firm step box is holding the bed up so we don't have to sleep on a slant. Looks like Eric is getting a new bed for his birthday!

Laser lady

The picture 'aint great but the game was! Here is Team Turbo... Laser Taggers 2k9. I think that if aliens are secretly spying on our laser tag centers to see what kind of skills we possess, they are now very aware that they don't stand a chance in hell!

Slumber party

We're having a slumber party! Whitney and Taylor joined us for the evening to go see the light show at the "Christmas Utah" house in Murray, eat dinner at Arctic Circle (Taylor's favorite restaurant), play games and watch Home Alone 3. It was such a fun night! I think my favorite part of the night was watching Home Alone 3 with them because they had the most sincerely exstatic reactions at the main character's ways of thwarting the thieves. Oh, to be a kid again!

Sleepy boys

What's even better than this? Gwyneth was sleeping in her crib at the time. Mom had a few moments of peace and quiet.

The Lights

Sorry, not the lights at temple square. Not even Zoo lights, or a really interesting or cool display of lights. But they're our lights so they're pretty special to us!

White elephant Christmas

Lyndsey, Kathryn, Erin, Emily, Meg, Steph & Meg - Collectively the "Access Girls". I always love when we get together because we always laugh hard and have a great time. It's also fun to see how we evolve over the years. Its crazy that we've known each other for 5 years (give or take for some)! We are each posing with the white elephant gifts we received. Stephanie has leg warmers on & Emily is also wearing her lovely snowman sweater vest.

Santa baby

You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout I'm tellin' you why...

Whiterney's birthday party

Happy 9th Birthday to Whitney! I still need to post the picture for today but its on my mom's camera so it might be a few days before I get it. The best story from the party happened when Whitney was opening one of her presents from my parents. For some reason, Lily (her 2-yr-old cousin) had a sense about this present; she knew it was a baby. From the minute Whithey started opening it Lily was saying "baby, baby!" First, it was wrapped inside an empty box. So Whitney opened that and then there was another wrapped present inside the box. When Whitney pulled that out, Lily got so excited she was jumping up and down and screaming "BABY! BABY! BABY!" Her face started to turn bright red and the more Whitney opened the package, Lily's eyes started to tear up! The best part of all was that it really was a baby doll. Nobody knows how Lily knew this but she grabbed it from Whitney immediately and took it around like a prize trophy, holding it up to show everybody "Whitney's baby!" We were all laughing, including Whitney. Lily was on cloud nine for the rest of the night and was still talking about the baby as they left that night. Mandy made the comment earlier in the night that she doesn't really get "baby hungry". Well, she might not, but her 2-yr-old daughter sure does!

Jones Family Christmas Party

My picture today is from the annual Jones Family Christmas Party. Every year Santa makes an appearance. This year Brady got to sit on Santa's lap. Unfortunately, he was holding Eme.

Drip, drip, drip

Today's picture is of our bathroom faucet and fixtures in the middle of Eric trying to fix our drippy faucet. He worked on this all day (mainly because he had no idea what he was doing and he made 3 trips to Home Depot before he ended up at the Tower of Plumbing for some good advice and then he made several more trips back to the Tower of Plumbing.) He did a great job and not only is the leak fixed but he also bought new knobs that are so shiny and not moldy and calcified like our old ones! He can totally count this as a Christmas gift to me! Thanks babe!

A post a day...

My new advent calendar was inspired by a patient who said that one of their traditions is to take a picture every day until Christmas and then at the end of the month she makes a book of remembrance with all the pictures and each year they look at the years past! I loved that idea and decided to start this tradition but digitally so starting yesterday, December 10th my picture is this spider. Eric killed it in our doorway and then said "Jenny come check this out." I took a picture originally because I wondered if it was a hobo spider but come to find out it is probably just a common house spider, albeit a big one! Hopefully no more of these for the rest of the month!

Gwyneth eating a whole banana like a carnivorous beast!

Two months of Gwyneth

I've really let my blog go and so I'm now going to do a quick recap of Gwyneth's last two months...
Caught red-handed! I guess it was around the end of September to beginning of October that Gwyneth really started to figure out how to get around. She was always getting into everything she could within reach. This unfortunately includes our Wii remotes which are still a favorite thing of hers.
With a dad like Eric, Gwyneth was destined to end up with a Hot Dog on a Stick "future hotdogger" tattoo on her leg by the time she was 6 months old.
And then Halloween rolled around... and we had a ladybug on our hands! Pictured here with an "antique" nurse (Grandma Ann). The "antique" joke is a reference to a commetn made by a co-worker when Ann worse this costume to work. Someone said, "Where did you get an antique nurses hat?" To which Ann replied, "This was my hat in college!" I like to call this picture new meets old! :)
She's a little mischievious!
I think this was the first time she discovered the garbage can and she loved it. She started trying to eat it, or kiss herself... who knows?
Then suddenly, she grew a full head of hair! Or she fell victim to Grandma Ann's infamous wig stash.

She been eating solids since about 5 1/2 months and she loves them! She eats everything we've fed her with great enjoyment. Except for beets. She threw them up and ever since then she's been completely disgusted with them. She coughs and spits and makes the saddest faces known to man. All in all though, this girl can't seem to get enough! Where does she put it all?

In November we made the journey down to St. George so Gwyneth could meet Grandpa Taylor and Grandma Faye for the first time. They sure did love her. Faye kept saying how babies "bring their love with them." Grandpa claimed he never heard her cry the whole time we were visiting but I can assure you this was more a matter of his hearing than her being a miracle no-cry baby. Neither of them could believe how good she ate either. She had her first Ritz cracker given to her by Grandma Faye and she ate the whole thing within a couple of minutes!
This was the night we got home from St. George and Gigi decided to recommence her favorite activity - getting into the dog food & water. So I relocated the dishes to a safe place behind the kitchen table and the next day...
Gwyneth found them with no trouble however she hasn't figured out how to crawl around the chairs yet so for now I have a great barrier to the dog food as long as the chairs are properly placed! It was hilarious though to see her make it this far and then just stare longingly at the dog food dishes and squeal in anger at her inability to reach them. So close, yet so far away!
This was on her 7-month birthday- November 27th and it was also the first time she pulled herself up to stand! She also prefers her pants above her waist but with her build its just not gonna happen.
Same day, just a different angle. This one showcases how she found her tongue and has started sticking it out all the time.
And now we've made it to December! Happy Holidays to all! Gwyneth loves the tree and is actually not as bad as I thought she'd be with getting ornaments. There's only a few that are hung on the very bottom that were strategically placed because they were the ones she could play with. Genius parents! (said in a sing-song voice) :)
Our best buddies are apparently each other's best buddies as well! What a sad time I'd be having on the couch without these guys.
Gwyneth loves our new washer as much as I do but for different reasons. I do love that its a new toy to entertain her on top of the fact that its so much better than our old one and its HE!
Dad has too much fun when he's changing her. At least she's having fun too!
First time meeting Santa and Mrs. Claus. Not so sure about this guy.... but she didn't cry.
And here's a picture of the video I posted above. I've always mashed bananas up for her in the past but she was throwing a fit so I just stuck it in her mouth whole to see what her reaction would be and she just went to town. She loved it! I'm so glad my little girl is such a fantastic eater.

Gwyneth laughing!

This video was taken back in October but I haven't been the best at blogging so I'm just getting to posting it now! She still laughs when I kiss her tummy or blow on it but not quite as hard as this! I apologize for the bad video footage, I was busy kissing her tummy, not watching the camera!