Saying Good-bye to 2009

As I sit here with only a few minutes left of the year, the first thought that comes to my mind is, how pathetic am I to be sitting her updating my blog on New Year's Eve, but what else am I supposed to do when I have a sleeping little one and a working husband? I also look back over the past year. We definitely have had our ups and downs this year, a lot of changes and a lot of growing. I hope this next year we can continue to grow and find joy in the things around us, but I also hope that we have some time to breathe and just enjoy life before we have to start jumping hurdles again (or at least big hurdles). I have to admit, I've had one of the hardest years of my life, and while I probably haven't learned as much as I should have from my trials, I didn't walk away empty handed. And this handful of knowledge that I've gained comes a few resolutions for the upcoming year. I'm going to focus more on the family and making lasting memories with them now. I'm going to show more gratitude for my blessings and all the beautiful things around me. I'm going to be more patient with my family, and especially with myself. Lastly (but definitely not the least) I'm going to strive harder at keeping the commandments that Heavenly Father has given, pay more attention to the basics (scripture study, prayer, FHE, going to the temple, etc.). I hope that the new year finds you all Healthy and Happy.

Cinderella's Cleaning Service

The other day I was treated to a total house cleaning by Cinderella's Cleaning Service. If you ask me, this girl is worth every penny, and she knows how to dress for the occasion. If you'd like to have her come clean your house just let me know and I'm sure we can make arrangements.

CHRISTMAS (and Christmas Eve)!!

*note: there are not many pictures in this post because I didn't take very many on Christmas day. I was enjoying the moment and completely forgot to pull out the camera until later in the day when things had calmed down.

We were fortunate enough to have Erik home with us on Christmas eve. To start the day off, Erik (with Jordyn's help) put cabinets up in the garage so that he could finally unpack the boxes in there (now I can officially say we are finished with the unpacking). While they were busy in the garage, I was busy inside getting things cleaned up and ready for our 1st annual Christmas breakfast. Then we started the celebrating. We read Luke 2 and watched Joy to the World and then each of us got to open a present from under the tree. Surprise! Surprise! We all got new jammies! That evening we went to a friends Cajun Christmas party. It was fun, but a bit cold so we called it an early night and headed home for some hot chocolate before bed (but not before we made sure our stockings were hung by the chimney with care). Santa came to our house fairly early (he knew he'd have to get up early to take the dogs out and wanted to get some sleep). Up with the sun rose the puppies and one very excited little girl. Santa brought her a Care Bear castle, and a camera, along with new gloves and a hat. Erik got a lump of coal (seriously, I or rather, Santa found a bag of candy at Walmart that was wrapped to look like coal, it was awesome!), I got a new TV for the playroom and some bath stuff. After we emptied our stockings it was time to start the cooking. Since Erik had to work Christmas evening we couldn't do a traditional Christmas dinner so we opted for a Christmas breakfast. We invited Erik's parents over, our good friends Caitlin & Jared and Thomas & Amanda (and the missionaries from our ward, but due to a miss communication they couldn't make it, maybe next year!). We stuffed ourselves with crepes, quiche, cinnamon rolls, fruit kabobs and casseroles. It was good food and GREAT company. So, great in fact, that we plan on doing it again next year (but next time invite everyone to stay in their jammies since it's so early!). After breakfast everyone settled down in the living room to watch Jordyn open her presents. For this, my family joined us, via skype. Jordyn was definitely spoiled this year. A few of her presents included, a cleaning cart (so she can help mommy clean with tools that are her size) a rocking, doll that says "give me a kiss and brush my beautiful hair" in 6 different languages, Disney princess toys (dress ups and several types of dolls). Overall, I'd say we had a great Christmas, and I hope that you did too!

Makeup

One day while Erik was getting ready for work and I was doing who knows what (probably making Erik's lunch) Jordyn decided that she needed to get start getting ready for Mimi's Christmas party which was later that night. To start things off she probably put some blush on her cheeks and forehead then some foundation on her chin and cheeks (but below the blush so it wouldn't be covered). Since this was a special occasion she decided to finish things off with a bit of mascara around the eyes. She's quite proud of herself, what do you think?

Our Family is Growing!

Our family is growing and this little one couldn't be more excited! To see pictures of the twins scroll down. . .































Okay, so that's probably not exactly what you were expecting to see and not exactly twins, but I'd like to introduce you to the newest additions to our family. Belle (in pink) and Beauty (in purple). We've been discussing getting a dog for a while, but there was always some reason for putting it off, but those reasons are no longer valid so when we saw an article in the local paper about our county animal shelter practically giving puppies away because they'd had so many dropped off in recent weeks, we jumped at the chance. We went on a Friday afternoon and came home with Belle, Saturday night, Erik and I were talking about how we felt like we needed another one, so first thing Monday morning we headed back. Our original plan was to get a little boy, but Belle didn't like any of them so we came home with 2 little girls. They get along great and Jordyn LOVES them. The three of them enjoy playing outside together and Belle tries to sneak up to Jordyn's room a night so she can sleep by her! We couldn't be happier with our new additions. We all love them and look forward to many fun adventures with them!

Visit To Santa

Santa came to visit our local mall a few weeks before Thanksgiving so we took advantage of there being no lines and made our yearly trip to put our Christmas requests in. Jordyn was quite excited to see Santa until we sat her down on his lap and then she wanted out. We tried bribing her with a Rudolph stuffed animal (the brown lump she's holding onto) and that worked well enough to get her close to Santa again, but not on his lap. Finally Santa, in his infinite wisdom came up with a plan and we sat Jordyn on his footstool and he sat behind her. She was still a little nervous around Santa after this, but she was so proud of herself for sitting on Santa's lap long enough to ask for a candy cane at our ward party.

Christmas Crafts and Other Activities

To help Jordyn get excited for Christmas this year, I made a Christmas chain with activities on each piece to help us count down to Christmas. Here's a few of our activities. We made a large Christmas chain to hang across the window in our living room, snow flakes to hang in the entryway, reindeer cookies (as well as sugar cookies), a local toy store had one of Santa's elves come and visit so we went and took a picture and came home with our own elf to help us to remember to be good. At a Christmas party at Mimi's house, a friend helped Jordyn make this snowman out of plates. We also read the story of Christ's birth in both the Book of Mormon and the New Testament, watched "Joy to the World" and made a gingerbread house and read a Christmas story every night before bed. Jordyn enjoyed breaking the chain to see what the activity was for that day, and some days she tried to break more than one so we could do several activities. She was quite excited for Christmas by the time the big day finally rolled around!

Happy (Belated) Birthday Mama!

My mother's birthday was in November. It was during the most stressful time of our move and I even forgot to call her on that day (fortunately she's a very loving, very forgiving mother and understood when I called her the following morning). I just want to dedicate this post to my mother dearest. She is WONDERFUL. She give so much of herself to help those around her, even though she's the one that should be taken care of. She has some health issues that cause her a lot of pain, but I rarely hear her complain and she's always willing to help others even when she's not feeling the best. Not only is she was GREAT mom, she's a FABULOUS Grandma. She's got 3 granddaughters and a grandson that absolutely love her (in fact her eldest grandchild is frequently asking if she can live with grandma). My mom is also very talented. She can sew anything/everything. She is a great cook and an amazing artist. I love my mama very much and wish I could see her more often. I'm so excited that she's coming to visit us after the New Year, we can't wait to see her!

Fashonista

Jordyn loves playing dress ups and on day while I was packing she came down stairs wearing the following . . . She told me these were her "glass slippers.

P.S. These are the only pictures I have from November. we were in the midst of packing/moving during this time and so there wasn't much to take pictures of (I really don't want to remember the HUGE pile of boxes). I forgot to take my camera with us on Thanksgiving to get pictures of Jordyn playing with her cousin Alta (they're 2 months apart), but my father-in-law took some so once I get some from him I'll post them.

October Outings

I hate to admit it, but I'm getting tired of playing catch up so I'm going to lump all of our outings from October into one LONG post. Here goes. To start out the month, we took one of Jordyn's friends to see Houston's mounted patrol horses. The girls had fun and so did us adults. It was the first time Jordyn's friend was able to feed horses (her mom's first time as well) but they were brave and stepped up to the task (it's a bit scary feeding these horses, some of them are HUGE). We miss seeing K and her mom at church, they were in our old ward (we miss all of our Summerwood Ward friends).

Side note: since Jordyn started gymnastics in Septmeber she hangs on EVERY bar she sees and has to walk on EVERYTHING that looks like a beam

The next outing sort of just happened. We were out house hunting and arrived at a house a little early so we found a small park for Jordyn to play at while we waited for our realtor. It was a fun break for all of us. I even got into the fun and went down the slide with Jordyn. Daddy was a bit tired so he tried to take a catnap on the bench, but Jordyn kept him up by piling things on him as he slept.

We were wanting to take Jordyn to a "real" pumpkin patch this year but didn't have the time to make the required hour or so drive so we settled for a "church patch" Jordyn had fun looking at all the pumpkins. She picked out a couple of baby ones for her and a big one for daddy. We even ran into Jordyn's pediatrician while there. Apparently the Dr. goes to that church and was volunteering at the patch that day. It was fun to see her in a different setting, though Jordyn didn't seem to recognize her. This was during Jordyn's "acorn phase" and she ended up with 2 fistfuls of acorns before we got back to the car. Unfortunately we never got around to carving those pumpkins and they got thrown out right before we moved.

Erik's mom is an Assistant Principal at a local high school and some of her students were going on a field trip to the Houston Renaissance Festival. Erik and I were able to be chaperone's and took Jordyn with us. It was nice to be able to go on a day that wasn't too crowded (it was only open to schools on the day we went) and have Jordyn enjoy the festivities. The dress she wore is one that we got for her at the festival last year. She pretended she was Cinderella in it and would go up to EVERY bench we passed and would lean on it and start to cry "for her fairy Godmother" just like Cinderella does in the cartoon. It was cute at first but quickly got old since she had to do that on EVEY bench we saw.

Last, but not least, Halloween. When we were in Utah in August, I asked my mom to make Jordyn a costume (my mom is also SUPER talented and can sew anything). At the time, Jordyn's favorite movie was 101 Dalmatians so we found a cute pattern and some adorable fabric and my mom made this awesome costume for Jordyn. Jordyn was able to wear the costume several times. Her Mimi (Erik's Mom) took her to a costume party at her gymnastics class, we went to our ward's trunk-or-treat and then we went trick-or-treating with Jordyn's friend Elizabeth. Jordyn really got into the spirit of trick-or-treating. She'd run up to the door and pound on it and then if the people weren't fast enough in opening the door she'd grab the door knob and try to open the door herself. Once the door was open she'd say "tricker treat", get her candy and then try to reach into the bowl to get some more. Several houses in our neighborhood had their walkways decorated. Elizabeth was a little too nervous to go up to the door on some of them, but the scary stuff didn't bother Jordyn. She had a mission and that was to GET MORE CANDY and that she did. After the girls had their fun, Elizabeth's grandparents watched the girls so us adults could go to a party at the neighbors. I appreciate Michelle and Miguel for letting me be the third wheel since by significant other was out playing cops and robbers.

Random Tidbits from October

In October we tasted the first (and only) watermelon from our garden. The vine withered away while the watermelon was still growing so it wasn't completely ripe (hence the brown spot in the middle), but the outer edges tasted fine.

We signed a contract on our old home and a week later signed a contract on our new home. It was stressful looking for our new place but after looking at hundreds of homes online and half that many in person we finally found the place we now call home.

The mosquitoes were out in full force so Jordyn frequently looked like this (and people tend to give you dirty looks when your 2yr old has a black eye).

My very talented older sister, Heather, sent Jordyn a box filled with these WONDERFUL bows. We love them!