Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day everyone! We had a wonderful day at my Mom's house eating, playing, cooking and sleeping...you know, the regular Thanksgiving activities. This year my Grandparents and my Uncle Darryl's family came out from California. It was so much fun to see them and show off our cute little girl. At first, Chloe didn't know how to react to Great Grandpa, but by the end of the evening she couldn't get enough of him.

Chloe also learned a new trick today: climbing up stairs. We just put her there and the next thing we knew she had climbed all the way to the top!

Since it is Thanksgiving and all, I am going to post my top 10 things that I am thankful for:






1. The Savior and His Gospel
2. A loving husband and daughter (What more could one ask for?)
3. My family
4. Mountains
5. Chocolate
6. Games...even the silly ones
7. Employment
8. Education
9. Health
10. Music

We hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving too!

Christmas on Thanksgiving

While my sisters and I were at BYU, we would always go to California for the holiday break to spend Christmas at home. Usually, there wasn't enough time to go home for Thanksgiving too, so we would always go to my Dad's house in Salt Lake for Thanksgiving.

This gave rise to the tradition in which we would go up to my Dad's house the night before Thanksgiving and decorate his Christmas tree, then on Thanksgiving day, we would celebrate Christmas by opening up our stockings and presents. That evening we would then have our traditional Thanksgiving feast and sometimes, if the timing was right, we would even celebrate my Dad's birthday, which is on the November 24.

Since Aaron and I have been married, the tradition has changed a bit as we now do everything on the day before Thanksgiving so we can better divide our time between my Dad, my Mom and Aaron's family, but it is nevertheless quite an event and kind of strange, but it works. So this year, we found ourselves once again at my Dad's house celebrating Christmas the night before Thanksgiving.

Chloe is Standing!

Well, our little girl is just growing up so fast! Chloe has learned how to balance quite well and she loves standing up. She can stay standing independently for at least 10-15 seconds before she loses her balance and gently sits down on her bum. I just know that she is going to be walking before we know it. Here is a picture of her standing and enjoying her tasty shoe before church this morning.

Why does this stuff always happen to us?

This morning Aaron and I decided to take a nice Sunday walk. Since it was early morning and still freezing outside we got Chloe all bundled up and we went down stairs. We got our shoes on and I then used the front door to push the closet door closed (bad idea) and this is what happened.

What is the likelihood of that? The door handles lined up just right, got hooked together and neither would even turn. So, there we were with our front door stuck wide open at 9 a.m. with all the cold November air just flowing on in. After trying to squeeze our hands in between the doors to try and jimmy them apart for a few minutes, Aaron realized that the only way we could get them unstuck was to take the front door off its hinges and that is exactly what he had to end up doing. I am sure glad that I have a handy hubby who can do things like that! And I promised to never again push the closet door closed with front door.

Five Inches!

Well, I finally did it! I cut my hair more than and inch or two and had a lot of layers put into it. What do you think? For those of you who don't remember how long my hair was before this cut look at where my hand is placed in the second picture...that's about five inches!

Chloe is Crawling!

Chloe has started crawling and it is the cutest thing ever. Well, she has actually been crawling since October 23 (exactly nine months from the day she was born), but I just haven't had the time to figure out how to get a dang video off the camcorder and onto the blog until now.

What, you may ask was the first object that so desperately had to have that caused her to crawl for the first time? A fun toy? Mommy? Daddy? Nope, it was an old band-aide that she had gotten earlier in the day when she went to the doctor and got some shots. She pulled it off of her toe and I threw it across the room so she wouldn't play with it. I guess she really wanted it because next thing we knew she was crawling across the room after it with determination in her eyes.

She started off doing this kind of gimpy crawl where she would move one knee forward normal and then would straighten her other leg all the way out and stick it forward like she was trying to stand up...it was pretty funny to see. However, she has since gotten this crawling business down pat and we've had to install the baby gate at the top of the stairs and baby proof the rest of the house. It seems like she gets faster and faster everyday and just the other day she decided it was OK to crawl on hard floors, something she wasn't to sure of at first.

Here is a video of her showing off her skills.

Happy Halloween!

We had a very busy but fun Halloween. The day started off with Chloe and I going to my class party. Of course all the kids (and parents) wanted to hold Chloe.

After that party, we went to Aaron's work for their Halloween party. They invited everyone's families to come and take the kids trick-or-treating around the office. Chloe was the cutest little bunny around and she got all the attention she could handle.

In the evening we went to my mom's house for dinner, cookie decorating and games. While we were waiting for our "mummy dogs" to finish baking we went to a neighbors house to return some vanilla. Chloe took one look at the bowl of goodies and reached for one. She then realized she had another hand and that that one didn't have any candy. So, she grabbed another treat. Good thing she is so cute!

Here are some pictures from the day. I think one of the hardest things about this blog is trying to pick which pictures of Chloe to post here because they are all so adorable.

James and Megan Huntington as Bleeker and Juno

Playing games with our delicious wax fangs

Chloe and Daddy

Chloe and her pumpkin

Our little family