We Love Christmas

But then again, who doesn't?

Since we were missing all the lights at Temple Square this Christmas season, we decided to find out where the awesome lights are in our new neck of the woods.

We were lucky enough to find (through a very quick google search) The Setti Christmas Village just down the street from us!

Seriously this is at a house in a neighborhood:

You park on the street, get out, and roam around the elf village.

Someone was obsessed with all the little chairs.

The night before we headed south I remembered we never got a picture of our Christmas tree this year. Millie tried her best to hold still for a picture.

Take a good luck at those P-jams.  We woke up extra early to drive to South Carolina on Friday.  We loaded the last few things in the car, turned it on to warm up,waiting to grab Millie very last to hopefully keep her asleep.  Well would you believe that poor girl got sick sometime during the night?  We found her covered in throw up.  That always makes you feel like a good Mom.  So with that we started a load of laundry and warm bath for our sweet girl.  We were knocked off schedule a little bit, but no big deal.  She did great for most of the drive, only throwing up once.  It turns out the disposable container you get from lunch meat is perfect for toddler throw up.  She such a trooper, and other than throwing up once never even acted sick.

On Christmas Eve we quickly visited my Grandparents in Columbia (just quick enough to exchange gifts-we're so greedy!) then went to Buck's family Christmas party in Camden.  We ate yummy food and enjoyed all the fun company.  Why didn't I get any pictures?

Christmas morning we spent with my Dad and Step-Mom in Summerville.  The girls had a blast playing together and ganging up on the dogs.

Showing off her chocolate and jewelry Santa brought her.

Loving Grandpa.

Where are my child's pants?

I'm not sure we could have survived the trip without our favorite apple products.

Nora's so sweet.

After Christmas morning (and a yummy Christmas lunch) at my Dad's we headed back to Fort Mill for Christmas Dinner with Buck's family.  Somehow Santa found us again there.  We opened up oodles of gifts.  In fact my hands were so busy opening I didn't get any pictures!  Millie loved all her gifts, but on this particular night she refused to take off the dress-up shoes her cousin Jocie got her.

The next day we woke up early to head over to my Mom's house for our third Christmas!  I know you won't believe me, but Santa found us again.  I mean that literally.  We literally opened three stockings over the course of two days--each!  That's just the stockings.  We opened crazy amounts of presents, too.  Millie got a few more pairs of dress-up shoes from my Mom, which have been lovingly worn every day since then.

Nora is insanely good at running in high heels.  It is incredible.  If you can't tell from the poor pictures, these girls move fast once the fancy shoes go on.  Its hilarious, especially when they are pushing the baby stroller around.

As if this post wasn't already long enough, I might as well share with you (ok, brag) some of the gifts we got:

For me, this was the year of appliances and bags.  I got an ice cream maker, food processor, wireless printer, and a bunch of various cute bags (purses, totes, etc).  I also finally got a copy of South Pacific and can hardly wait to teach Millie how to "wash that man right out of her hair."  My most un-expected, yet very exciting gifts I got was a bungee for Millie's kid-sized trampoline I got off of Freecycle.  The bungee was no good, so I've been wanting one.  I'm thrilled to have it, and expect Millie to take out her wiggles on it this winter.

Buck's Christmas is going to sound kind of boring, but he is a very piratical guy and loved it all.  He got black dress shoes (did you know Nike bought Cole Haan so now their shoes have "air max technology?), a suit, dress shirts, an electric razor and a new-to-him Driver.  We both also got some things for our ipads and computer.  Most notable was the ipad head-rest car mount.  Buck says that was something "we didn't know we wanted" but love.

Millie ended up with a baby doll, her first Vera Bradley purse (that we call her diaper bag since it holds her doll accessories currently), a princess scooter, a princess pop-up tent, a new winter wardrobe, a sushi, cookie, and sandwich play food set for her kitchen, a tea set, a kid-sized stand mixer for her kitchen, little plates, mixing bowls, and other kitchen goodies.

Guess what?  That wasn't even everything.  I bet you're wondering right about now how we fit it all in our car.  Well, we barely did.  And yes, we're having to go through all of our stuff to make a Goodwill sweep to fit it all in our house.  Out with the old, in with the new.

Overall our Christmas was busy, fun, full of food, gifts and family, and we loved it.  We hope you loved yours, too.

NYC Date Night

We took advantage of a free Friday night and some good friends by heading into the city to see the Christmas festivities first hand.  It was wonderful.

In case you've been seeing too much of Millie (is that even possible?) here are a ton of pictures of Buck and I.  I'll just go ahead and say it.  We only have one pose.  We really need to fix that.

We were starving when we got there, so we grabbed a quite bite from a street vendor.  Always enjoyable.

We though these more modern jumbo lights were so neat.

Across from Radio City.

THE Christmas tree

This is what happens when you try to get a picture in front of the ice skating rink only to have someone offer to help and think you're going for a picture in front of the tree.

Since we knew y'all would be wondering why we didn't ice skate, here is Buck with a few thousand of his closest friends.

Blurry, but you can see the masses better.

 I was expecting to see tons of amazing store displays, but only a few stores really came through for me.  Bergdorf Goodman was incredible.  This one is my favorite and was made of paper.

I'm still afraid of the flash I guess.

FAO Schwarz was a good time, even without Millie.  I enjoyed running through the doll section dreaming of Millie's future toy obsessions.  Madam Alexander had me drooling...almost.  They had some pretty spectacular Barbies as well.  Vera Wang now designs Bridal Barbies, and the Grace Kelly Barbies were beautiful.  I'm a Barbie girl all the way, if you couldn't guess.

Buck got a kick out of the Barbie Foosball Table.

 We also enjoyed the giant candy.

Can you believe he let me pose like that in public?

 One of our last stops of the night was the Macy's.

The window displays were awesome.  The store itself is massive.  Eight floors even.

Standing right where the parade performances are each year.

Taking in the wooden escalators.

We rode the escalators all the way to the 8th floor.

 The 8th floor is the North Pole with the mailbox.

Buck mailed a letter to Santa for Millie.

We also happened to walk in UNI QLO which seems like a great place to buy a black sweater.  I don't think I'd go in looking for something other than the basics.

It might not look like we did a whole lot, but when you factor in walking everywhere and our commute to and from Connecticut our dear friends were stuck with Millie for over seven hours.  It was a great date night that won't be forgotten any time soon.

Listening

I recently read a friend's blog post where she wrote about how affected she was by positive comments on her blog and on facebook.  It's so true.  Why do we still love to be accepted by others?

In pondering over her words I couldn't help but think of how much I love comments.  Although my comments tend to be from the same folks, I still love any feedback.  I couldn't help but think about how bad I am at doing the same.  Here I am going on and on about myself, loving when others listen, but am I doing the same?  Regretfully, I am not.

It's not entirely my fault.  If you have to place blame, I point my finger at the iPad.  The way the internet browser is set up, it is impossible to look at all your blogs you follow on your dashboard.  So since last Christmas (when we got our first iPad) I've had to rely on my friends posting links on facebook with their new blog posts, remembering blog addresses, or getting on an old fashioned computer!  Poor me, right?

Well feel sorry for me no longer!  I just figured out how to look at all my followed blogs on our iPad.  It is just something they worked out with the new blogger dashboard, and I'm so glad they did.

So when I'm sitting on the couch watching another episode of Pawn Stars with Buck playing with the iPad I can add checking my favorite blogs to my mix of Pinterest and Facebook.

So you could say I'm officially listening.

Terrific and Two

Little Millie a couple of days old

Little Millie on her first birthday

Little Millie on her second birthday

Oh my, we love this little girl.  We loved all 1 pound 4 ounces of her, and we certainly love all (nearly) 24 pounds of her now.

I never look back and think of her time in the NICU as depressing (well maybe the last 30 days...) but rather as an experience our family had.  Simple as that.  Going to the hospital twice a day, every day was our life.  Waiting for her to open her eyes for the first time, seeing if her heart was okay, monitoring her eating like crazy, rejoicing when she could breathe on her own, holding her, and giving her a bath.  It was all incredible.  Those were tender and sacred experiences, unique by circumstance.  I'm sure every parent remembers very similar situations with their first child.  They just don't usually have them in the hospital.

I sometimes wish I still lived in Provo so I could volunteer to work with the NICU parents, and perhaps that is something I could do wherever.  I think seeing tiny babies regularly, and their loving parents, would help me remember just what a delicate baby Millie was.  My heart bursts and tears come easily to my eyes whenever I reflect upon our 135 day journey in the NICU.  They are always joyful tears, but mostly because I feel blessed beyond description.

Delicate is not a word I would use to describe her today.  Her nursery leaders at church refer to her as "daring".  You feel sorry for them, right?  I do.  She's the one standing on the table constantly.  She's the one jumping out of the baby high chair.  She's the one hiding her shoes in the toys, and then snatching someone elses'.  The worst part is she's light on her feet so you don't even hear her sneaking off to do something crazy.  She is also a little accident prone.  I'm not sure I'd recognize her without a goose egg on her head.

Her two year old check up was uneventful.  I asked for a laid back doctor, and boy did I get one.  I didn't even take one of those quizes that asks you detailed questions like "can your child pick up a cheerio using only their teeth with their eyes closed?" or something.  I always feel like I should have about a week to test her on all of these things since most of them I've never noticed or tried.  Can I get an amen?  I can't say I missed the quiz, but I still miss Dr. Later.  I wanted to like this guy, I really did.  I never got a "wow, she looks great for a 23 weeker".  I'm not actually convinced he read her chart ahead of time, mostly because he never referenced her prematurity.  I did, but he never really did.  We are planning a visit to the cardiologist and eye doctor to see how her heart and vision are.  Other than that, all is well.  She's just under 24 pounds and either 32 or 34 inches.  I can't remember what the nurse said and I never got a print out.  He never said "she's officially caught up" or "she's not quite caught up" and when I brought it up he said children are usually all caught up between two and three years old.  Each question he asked, she was right on.  So pretty much, I don't know where she stands.

So there you have it.  We've got a terrific two-year-old and we love it.  When she screams (often) we try and remember how long we waited to hear her make a peep.  When she begs for another cookie we try and remember how lucky we are she eats on her own and has no food allergies.  When she colors a beautiful picture on anything that stands still we try and remember how blessed we are she has the motor skills to color.  She keeps us on our toes, and we do our best to remember just how lucky we are.

A Very Special Thanksgiving

You know how you work so hard to make sure your child looks cute for church on Sunday only to have her come home (after nursery) looking like she did her own hair?  To prove that I actually do try to make her look cute, I thought I'd take some before and after church pictures.  Only I forgot the after.

Millie wasn't into it

Somehow we convinced her it was a good idea.  If only we could have found her (still missing) black shoes...

The purpose of these pictures were to show off her early birthday present from my Dad.

Ta-da!

Now on to Thanksgiving:

Since Millie's birthday was on actual Thanksgiving this year, we celebrated on Wednesday with a small (yet large) party for our families.  I worked tirelessly on decorations for weeks, yet seemed to get no pictures of them.  Trust me, it was my best work yet.

Her loving father picked out her party theme: Sweet As Pie

We went all out with more than eight types of pie to enjoy, a pie-in-the-face booth, a pie eating contest and sent everyone home with a pie-in-a-jar.  Because these pictures don't reflect all of that, you'll just have to take my word for it.

We've been practicing blowing out the candles for weeks.  Stage fright I guess?

Buck's Grandma, Grammy, made the pie Millie is loving.

Some of Buck's family, and a small sample of the decorations.

Present opening is always crazy!

Millie got a sweet stroller that she pushes around very seriously.  Jocie wanted to help.

This is Millie's official Barbie.  The one we used in the hospital.

The party went well, but I sure missed having someone (Ashley did it last year) take official pictures of everything.  Millie did learn how to tell everyone she is two by party time, which made us so proud.

We were only home a short while but managed to squeeze in her party, a surprise baby shower for my Aunt Molly, Thanksgiving Dinner, my cousin Lily's Baptism, and Black Friday shopping before we took off early Saturday Morning.

Lily's Baptism was a sacred experience for me, and I'm sure the rest of my family.  Having the opportunity to participate in something so special in such an intimate setting among family (that lives all over, I should add) doesn't happen very often.  Lily asked me to give a talk on Baptism, which I was thrilled (and nervous) to do.  I also got to hear my brother give a talk on the Holy Ghost as well as see my cousins give prayers and sing together.  These are such simple things, but because we live all over and don't attend church together it isn't something I get to see very often.  She is such a sweet little girl that I know will work hard to keep the covenants she made that day.

Millie goes in for her two-year-old check up next week, so I think I will hold off on the "my, how you've grown" post until I know more.  This will be our first visit to a doctor in Connecticut, so cross your fingers we will love him.