Christmas in Pittsburgh

This is the second year we've spent Christmas away from our families, and although it would have been nice to spend it with our beloved families, I have to say it sure was a lot less stressful and actually quite relaxing to spend it here with our little family in the 'burgh.  This is the last Christmas we will be here... I can't handle that thought....  which gave us another reason why it was nice to stay home this year.  Not to mention the fact that a certain little missy (who still doesn't have a name) will be joining our family in the next couple of weeks (hopefully sooner), and it wasn't really even an option of whether or not we could go home.

I loved waking up with Trey on Christmas morning and seeing the excitement on his face when he came downstairs.  I'm not sure he really understands who Santa is but I think we told him enough times that Santa was coming and going to bring him presents if he was good, that I think he may have understood to some extent.  Either way, it was fun watching him open all of his presents.  It makes me even more excited for the following years when he starts to understand Christmas more and more.

We decided to let Trey just play with the gifts he got from Santa in the morning, so that we'd have time to get ready and have a nice breakfast before church.  When we got home we all took a long nap and then opened all of our presents.  I kind of liked it that way, it gave us something to look forward to instead of just being done opening gifts in the morning.  I made my favorite Christmas dinner, complete with ham, funeral potatoes, rolls, and green beans.

I wanted to get a picture of all of us together in our church attire, but Trey HATES having his picture taken lately so I gave up on that idea.  Here is the one and only picture I got.

For Christmas Eve morning we got together with our Pittsburgh "family" and had a nice little breakfast at the church.  It was great, the kids all entertained each other while the adults all sat around and chatted all morning.  I'm so glad we did this, I think everyone had a good time.

If you're wondering what's with the 'stache and beards, Jeff and about 75% of his class decided it would be fun to have a graduation picture with mustaches.  Pretty soon it'll be just the 'stache.  Sexy huh?

For Christmas Eve, some friends had us over for fondue.  We are lucky because we have been able to put Trey to bed at other people's houses lately so that we're able to hang out after the kids are in bed.  It's been great, especially since he transfers so well.

I've decided I really like fondue... and I really like the people who invite us over to do fondue.  :)
Thanks Brett and Carlee!

We had planned to have cobbler that night but after we were finished with the fondue we were all too stuffed to eat one more thing.  So instead they had us over on Christmas Day to relish in the deliciousness of peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream.  Thanks guys, you rock!

As I mentioned, Trey has been great lately at going to bed at friends houses, so we've also gotten together a couple of times with some other friends who had us over for games and treats.  We stay up until way too late, which we end up regretting in the morning but it's definitely been fun.  I didn't get a picture either of these times which I'm mad about.  But here is the lovely couple and their little boy.  This was the only pic I could find of all of us.  Our boys have become great friends over the years since they are so close in age.  Too bad we're all going to be leaving soon.

We've had some great friends offer to watch Trey while Jeff and I go out on a date, since it probably won't happen for a while once this baby comes.  We took them up on their offers and went to the Cheesecake Factory one night and then to Mission Impossible and dinner another night.  I love date nights.  It's fun going out without a little toddler tagging along.  Dinner is much more enjoyable. :)

And last but not least, we had a great New Years!  Again, we decided to get together with a bunch of our friends and have an early New Years Eve party.  We all brought appetizers and drank some bubbly.  And some of us were able to play games.  The church has become quite useful for us since none of our houses are quite big enough to host everyone, especially with the amount of kids that we have.  We ended the night around 8 and then Jeff and I came home and rang in the New Year while watching the movie "Warrior."  We may not have banged pots and pans and lit off fireworks, but trust me, our neighbors did enough for the both of us.

Happy New Year!!

2012 is going to bring lots of new and exciting things our way.
Here's to hoping it's a good year!

What we've been up to lately

This past month has flown by!  I can't believe it's already January.  Seriously, where did the time go!?  I've spent much of my time lately finishing up projects and getting things ready for this baby to arrive...  and I am just about there!  Whew!  It's a good thing too because she's gonna be here any day now.  (Unless she is stubborn like Trey, and in that case I've got a ways to go.)  I'm not holding my breath but I AM hoping for an early induction.  We'll see if I can get my doctors on board, I'm gonna have to do some serious convincing.  I'm slightly nervous I'm going to have another very large baby.  The first one was hard enough, I don't know if I can push out another 9 pounder!  Speaking of baby... here is a recent belly pic.  I really don't love these pictures, but I posted so many with Trey that I think I'll appreciate it one day for journaling purposes.  So here it is.

Okay so it's actually not that recent, this was me at 34 weeks.
I told you this baby's gonna be big!

Back in November my friends threw me a baby shower for our little girl.
My friends are great, I just love all these girls.

I have to say, I made quite the hall.

Little girl clothes really are the cutest thing.

We took Trey to the Dentist (aka Jeff) for a cleaning a few weeks back.  Let's just say, Trey was NOT a fan.  I tried to get some pics but since he wasn't cooperating these were the best I got.  Can you tell he was nervous?  haha.  I pretty much held him down while Jeff quickly cleaned his teeth... if you can even call it that.  Little stinker.

Jeff spent a good chunk of December studying for boards.  It was a long few weeks, but the good news is, HE PASSED!!!!  I am so proud of him.  It's such a relief knowing the studying part of his dental career is over.  It's all down hill from here.... Way to go Jeff!!

Trey gets so excited whenever Jeff comes home from school.  I will always tell him when Jeff is about to come home and Trey will quickly run and climb up on the couch to look out the window.  This particular time I found him like this.  He cracks me up.

As I mentioned before I have been keeping busy working on a bunch of projects.  I am happy to say that I FINALLY finished my Quiet Books that ended up being way more work than I had anticipated.  I sure hope it pays off.  A bunch of girls here decided to get together and do a Quiet Book page swap.  So each of us picked 2 pages and then made enough for everyone in the group.  Some only did one page and therefore only got on page.  In the end, I ended up making 24 pages.  It was crazy.  Like I said, it better be worth all the time and money I spent on this book.  If I have to, I will force my kids to play with it.  :)  Seriously.

Here are the pages I ended up making.  The second two were ones I just made for myself.  It was meant to be a church themed book, so aside from a couple... that is what it is.

And here's a glance at a few of the others.

Some other things I've accomplished these past couple of months include: burpcloths, wipes case, carseat canopy, hooded towel, lots and lots of little girl bows, blog books, wedding book, (yes I know, we've been married for almost 5 years and I just now finished our wedding book) and these Christmas cards.

Here's a few more pics for your enjoyment.

Thanks Tyler for taking these pictures for us and Stacey for doing our Christmas card!

I only finished 08-09' of our blog, but it took me forever and I'm afraid it'll be a while before I get to 2010 and 2011.  But hey, at least I'm half way there!

Here are some random pictures that were taken throughout the month in no particular order.

Trey has really gotten into reading books and doing puzzles lately.  When he wakes up from his nap, he often wants me to put all of his books in the crib with all of his stuffed animals.  He then proceeds to show all of his books to his stuffed animals.  It's pretty darn cute.

We had a small little baby shower for one of my friends who is only a week behind me. (She's second from the left)  We went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.  I love that place.  I have a feeling she's going to have her baby before I have mine.  I will not be happy if that is the case. ;)

In addition to lunch, we've been able to have a few other girls night outs this month.  Thank heavens for our husbands who are willing to stay home and watch the kiddos!

We are currently getting ready to sell our house.  Great timing right!?  We've been trying to organize, de-junk, clean, fix things that need to be fixed, and our latest project or I guess Jeff's latest project is painting.  He's right in the middle of painting all of the trim, base boards, stairs, and doors around the house.  It's intense.  Our hope is to get our house up for sale either by the end of Jan. or first of February.  We shall see.

It's been so great having Jeff home these past couple of weeks.  Especially since we've been able to get a lot done.  I'm going to miss these long breaks that he gets over the holidays and during the summer.  It's unfortunate these long breaks only last while he's in school.  I guess I'll enjoy it while I can.

We had a great holiday (which I will post about soon).  Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving in Utah

This is the first year since we've been in Pittsburgh that we've gone home for Thanksgiving.  It was so fun spending the holiday with family but I'm still a little sad we missed out on the last Thanksgiving here in Pittsburgh.  Especially since we've grown so close with so many great friends here.  I'm sure going to miss this place.

We decided since we couldn't make it home for Christmas this year, (due to unborn fetus) we would go home for Thanksgiving instead.  I'm so glad we did.  I think this will be the last time we go home before we move.  (I'm trying not to think about that.)  Trey is at such a fun age right now.  He did so great on this trip and had so much fun with all of his cousins.  I am sad every time we have to leave because I can see how much fun Trey has with both of our families.  Hopefully someday we will be closer to home. {sigh.}

My friends and I got together a couple of times while I was there, and like always, shared some good laughs, good food, and did lots of catching up.  I sure do love these girls.

We stayed up way too late like usual, I think it took me a few days to catch up on sleep!

Trey has really started loving books.  I just love watching him read to himself.

I love this pic.

We ate Thanksgiving dinner with Jeff's family and then spent the evening over at my Grandmas with my family.

These two had a good time together.

Trey went down for a nap right before dinner.  It was nice being able to enjoy the food.  :)

Some of you might find this picture a little odd... but I quite enjoyed myself.  :)  I'm getting a back and foot massage from two of my brother-in-laws while my husband sits across the way texting.  I guess pregnancy has its perks!  (And my husband will probably never give me another massage after I may have mentioned that he hasn't given me very many this pregnancy.)  I guess my bro-in-laws felt bad for me.  Hey, I won't complain!

Random pics throughout the week....

 My dad's side of the family had an early Christmas Party that we were able to make it to.  My Grandma pays for everyone to bowl and then orders pizza and cookies for us all.  We took up 10 lanes between all of our families (and that probably wasn't even half of my Dad's family!)

This was Trey's first time bowling and he loved it!

 

Trey is OBSESSED with trucks lately.  Well, pretty much any vehicle on the road that is larger than a car.  Buses and garbage trucks included.  So you can imagine how excited he was to drive in Grandpa's truck.  It was a joke trying to get him out.

 Trey and Lydia playing together again.

 Lydia was trying to help Trey put on his shoes.  Too cute!

Lunch with Papa Tony and Grandma Kathie.

Trey has also gotten into coloring lately.  Another thing I love.

The night before we left we went over to my Grandma's and had pizza.

Well believe it or not, there were plenty more pictures I wish I would have taken.  We played games with Ang and Shane a couple of times, visited Benji and Anne and their new baby girl in Bountiful, ate a big dinner and played games over at my Aunt Lori's, basically played games with everyone... Tony and Kathie, Ash and John, Cort and Steph, Andy and Missy.... you name it.  We like to play games!

Trey really was great the whole trip, he slept great, traveled great, and enjoyed every minute of playing with his cousins.  I'm glad we were able to get one more trip in before this baby girl comes.  Time is flying!!  I'm going to be a mom of 2 in no time!  Ahhh!!!

Happy Halloween!!

We had quite the party weekend with all of the Halloween festivities we attended.  By the time Halloween was actually here, we were party poopers and spent the evening inside.  Trey's too young to really care anyway.  I'm sad to say that we didn't get even ONE measly trick-or-treater.  I don't think anyone wants to climb our steps to come to the door.  Lazy kids!!

On Friday, I took Trey to the annual Halloween Parade at Jeff's school.  All the teachers and faculty love seeing all the little kids dressed up.  I'm sad this is the last year we got to attend.

Despite my efforts, Trey had no interest in standing by the rest of the kids to get his picture taken.

This was probably only half of the kids that were there.

Following the Parade, we headed over to our friends house where they were hosting a Halloween Party... The food was great and the kids were thoroughly entertained by each other.

They even had a "spooky basement" for the kids who were old enough.  Some came up the stairs crying, others who exclaimed, "that was AWESOME!", and some who were literally shaking in their boots.

It was a hit.  Although, I'm not sure who enjoyed it more, the kids or the husbands who were doing the scaring.

On Saturday we went to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat and chili cook-off.  We came home with WAY too much candy, mostly left over from what we didn't hand out.

Two little buddies.  Little Monkey and little Dinosaur. (or dragon as most people called him)

And one last attempt at some pictures.

He really HATES to get his picture taken lately so it took A LOT of tries.

This was the best one I could get.

He makes a darn cute little Dinosaur if I do say so myself.

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!!!