Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas day...it all began with the stockings.
Then there were plenty of presents to open. Elsie did a very good job at opening her own gifts. The first one she got was a very noisy one and she was not sure what to do with it. So she moved it around and around until Will started to pull the paper off. Then seeing a chance to eat something yummy she went for the paper and pulled.




The morning progressed with Elsie trying to eat just about every present and the paper that came off of them too. Luckily Will was too quick for her and took all the paper she tore off before it ended up in her mouth. All in all it was a wonderful morning of gift receiving.





The rest of Christmas was also good but we do not have any photos to document it. So you are just going to have to read on if you want to know what we did. After lazing around all morning and eating a light lunch we went to Independence Missouri. There is a LDS visitors center there and we wanted to go and see the nativity sets they had on display. It turns out that the collection belongs to one woman. She had done a lot of traveling and as she did so she collected nativity sets. She has around 500 of them! But we only saw about half of them. They were very beautiful and very diverse...they were made from all sorts of things glass, painted rocks, metal, straw and bees wax to name a few. After looking at the nativities we drove back towards home and went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing at home. I surprised myself that I was not upset about canceling the big Christmas dinner. We decided to have the ham on New Years day instead.

Christmas Eve

We decided to follow one of Adah's family tradition of opening one present each on Christmas Eve. This turn out to be a good first try for Elsie. She pulled on the paper a little but got a lot of help to find her 2 new books.

Our little Christmas tree

We went to find a Christmas tree last Monday night...and it did not go too well. First of all the tree place we went to did not take credit cards. Then we go to Walmart and they are all out of their smaller trees and so we ended up inside looking at fake trees. We picked the smallest one they had and spent a whopping $10. We went home and pulled it out of the box and set it all up. It turns out it is barely taller than Elsie. We decorated it and we think it is very cute...what do you think?

Our adventure

One of the snowy days we had we decided to take a little walk. It was fun and Elsie seemed to like it just fine though the wind was cold.

Isn't she so cute

I think these photos speak for themselves.

First snow in Kansas

Elsie actually saw her first snow in Vermont but we did not make a big deal out of it there. Here are a few pictures of the first snow we have seen in Kansas though. Since then we have had several other little storms and an ice storm too. But it gets warm and sunny enough in between these storms to melt most of the white stuff. What this boils down too is we have only had a inch or two of snow on the ground at once!! But it does look like we will be having a white Christmas!

Our big announcement!!!

Our most happy thing that has happened to us this year besides Elsie's birth is...Will has finally finished his MBA. That is right Will is now a happy graduate of Auburn University with his Masters in Business Administration. And to celebrate I thought I would show off Elsie in her new shirt!

Time for solids

These photos are from the fist tastes of solid food Elsie eat.

We have finally taken he plunge. Elsie started with rice cereal at the beginning of December. She now prefers oatmeal cereal and absolutely loves the sweet potatoes and squash we have given her. She is great at swallowing now but it took her a few weeks to get the hang of it. We have tried to get her to drink from a cup a few times and while she loves to play with the cup and bite it she has not done much swallowing of the water.

Gingerbread fun

Chrissy and I spent some time at Maude's house one day. It was a fun filled afternoon. First my four year old niece Abby did my hair in 3 pony tails. You can see her handy work here. Then I got to help construct a Gingerbread house. We spent lots of time on the candy tasting and had to watch out because each time we got one so did Abby!! In the end it turned out beautiful. A few days later we started to eat the candy off the house!

Aunt Chrarity

Aunt Charity loves Elsie and thinks she is soooooo cute, just like everyone else. It was great to have her come visit us in Vermont. We enjoyed several cozy days of watching the snow fall out side while we where toasty warm inside.

Happy Thanksgiving

Here is the cutest outfit that Auntie Chrissy gave us for Thanksgiving. The feet even say gobble gobble on them!!! We had a good Thanksgiving in Vermont with Adah's family. Charity joined us for the feast as well. Then we went home to our rental place and relaxed the rest of the evening.

The rest of the cousins

Here are pictures of Elsie with the rest of her cousins.
This is Abigail and Elsie...
...this is Joseph and Elsie...

...this is Brisies and Elsie...

...and this is Alora and Elsie.

I've Been Tagged

Da Rules:
List 6 facts/habits about yourself on your blog. At the end of your post, tag 6 friends. Visit your 6 friends blogs and leave a comment informing them they have been tagged - let them know they can read your blog for the rules.
1. I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road. I went to a three room school house which included grades K-8 and no it was not crammed!
2. I lived in Boston for 7 years where I went to art school, met my husband and danced with Latino men.
3. My favorite movie is "Sweet Home Alabama" mostly because I have a secret thing of hicks! I love the character Jake, the soon to be x husband. Don't worry Will I would not trade my city boy for ten hicks, you are still number 1.
4. The best thing about being a mom is the smiles and giggles you get for doing nothing more then turning your head.
5. The worst thing about being a mom is cutting the babies fingernails. You can't do it while they are awake because they move too much. If you do it when they are asleep you risk waking them up. So you have to do it when they are some place in the middle...this way they will be still enough so you cut their nails and not their fingers and if they wake up you will not be too disappointed.
6. This is the first real content to this blog. If you haven't noticed yet our blog is more for posting cute pictures of our daughter and not about writing anything at all. What we do write could be mildly interesting to close friends and family while being incredibly boring to most other folks!
Well that about does it I hope you are not all bored out of your minds!! I tag Mandy, Lehilina, Kharin, Dani, Cherisa, and Sandy.

The baby line up

Well here we all are with our babies. As you can imagine there are lots of excited Aunts, Uncles, cousins and Grandparents.

Cousin Raymond

After a week in Mass Will joined us and we drove up to Vermont for a visit. This is where we met the third grandchild of the year at a whopping two weeks old! Raymond is so tinny and cute. It is amazing to think Elsie used to be that small!! She is very interested in him and for once is being gentle enough to touch.

Friends in Mass

Before leaving Mass we had to spend a little time with some old friends.

Cousin Nathan

There has been a lot of activity in Adah's family. Elsie is the first of 3 new grandchildren in the past 6 months!! Nathan is number two. He is around 2 months old in the photo and is almost as big as Elsie is at 5.5 months. He is a big baby but oh so cute. Adah and Elsie spent a week with Nathan and his mommy and daddy in Mass. We had a lot of fun too!!

So if I where a judge at a "cutest baby contest" I think this would be the winning shot!

Vacation

No we have not been abducted by aliens we were just on a very long vacation.



We are home now in good old Kansas so no worries. We began our vacation in Boston with my sister Chrissy. After going to the Hingham ward for a reunion there we came home and posed for the camera.

Dad helping with bath time

Well I guess I am just boring but nothing this exciting happens when I give Elsie a bath. I suppose I am only interested in getting the job done with and then moving on. Maybe there are a few things I can learn from Will.

Yum Yum!

She has been at if for a while but here is a cute picture of Elsie eating her toes! Will really hates for her to do this as he thinks it is grouse but it is hard to stop. Plus I think it is so cute!

Halloween!!

We went to story time at the Library all dressed up and met some of our friends there. The girls on ether side of Elsie are twins.

Elsie was such a good girl for her photo shoot...so good that eventually she fell asleep.

We did not go trick or treating but we did take a walk while we waited for Will to come home and saw some goons and goblins collecting candy.

Teeth!!!!

Elsie got her first tooth on Oct. 18th!! She proceaded to get a second one a day later! We were not expecting it but looking back teething can answer a few questions we have been having about her behavior as of late. I still can't believe I got her pearly whites on film.

I think I can...I think I can

Here she is trying to sit up. She loves to give those tummy muscles a work out! I wish I could say the same for the adults in the house. She actually can pull herself up this way and she can sit for a while if she is being watched. I am impressed with all these changes and am beginning to think she is not a baby anymore!!

Elsie is not always...

...all smiles!!! As you can see here she knows how to get her way just like the best of them!

Our trip to Nauvoo

We had a wonderful time in Nauvoo last weekend. We spent time in the Temple and then went to visit Sister Louise Arkell a good friend from our ward in Hingham, MA. After that we got to see some of the sites around town. We saw the graves of Joseph, Hyrum and Emma Smith as well as several of their homes and the red brick store. To end a perfect fall day we went to see a small play the elderly missionaries put on called "Rondezvous in old Nauvoo". The best part about the play was Louise was in it! Plus they did a great job and it was funny. We can't wait to go back again and see more of the sights and invite all of you to come visit us so you can go there too.

It's a fashion show

We all know how cute Elsie is right? I love the way she looks every day in each little outfit she has on. So here are a few of the cute ones from the last few weeks.

A Visitor

We had another visit from Will's mom this month. She and Elsie got to spend lots of quality time together. She was happy to see us too but we are no longer the center of attention!