Playing Catch Up

Merry Christmas everyone!!! And Happy New Year too! And happy belated birthday and happy new house and happy new hair style to me!! Okay, I'll go in order.

For Christmas our initial plan was to spend our first Christmas together as just us and then visit John's family later on Christmas day. Well, Christmas Eve we received a phone call from my mother-in-law saying that they were just surprised for Christmas by the arrival of Melissa and her family from Ohio. That meant that ALL of the family was there except for us, so of course we changed our plans and went to complete the picture. It was the first time that all of the family has been together for Christmas in, I don't know, but a long time! It's a good thing we went because we wouldn't have been able to go on Christmas Day due to the huge storm that lasted all day. Anyway, when it comes to Christmas, I could do like my little sister did and say "all I ever wanted for Christmas I already have!" and then point to each member of my family. It just doesn't get any better than sharing my life with my loved ones. I wish I could have spent some time with my side of the family up north for Christmas, but we'll have to make up for it with our upcoming visit this month.

I wanted to take a picture with Grandpa & Grandma Humphries and ALL of their grandchildren. Once we got them all piled together I was just snapping a bunch of times, knowing I wouldn't get everyone smiling or looking at the camera. Especially with the oldest one bawling her eyes out! Pictures are torture, I know. Anyway, I chose this one because I noticed something funny as I was looking through all of the snaps I got. Notice my nephew, Noah, who is sitting to the left of Grandma in this picture. In all the other pictures, he seems oblivious to the camera and completely enraptured by the binky in his hand. He's looking at it and playing with it in different ways, and then in this one, yes, that binky is in his mouth. And that's Joseph's binky. I thought that was pretty funny. click the picture to see what I'm talking about.

My birthday, the day after Christmas, was a lot of fun too and for the first time in a while I wasn't sick on it! John and I went to St. George, just us, and went shopping. I got my nails done and we went and got smoothies. John surprised me by getting the stuff for his sister to highlight my hair later, which I was really excited about. I was treated with a yummy lasagna dinner and a delicious homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting on it after we got back. So I'm 27 now... inching ever closer to that 30 mark, which really, is just unbelievable to me.

Our plan was to make our move on New Year's Eve. I know. Such a fun way to spend the holiday! And on December 29th, I hadn't packed a single thing. I didn't even have boxes. I went box hunting that evening and my sister-in-law and her family came over to help us that night to pack stuff up. They came over again the next day and we spent it packing and loading up the trailer. The 31st came with lots of help from John's family and amazingly we had our place emptied and everything moved over to our new house and even enough unpacked so that we were functional. I can't say thank you enough to those who helped!!! Now I'm just working on getting everything unpacked and organized.

We blessed Joseph last Sunday in our ward before we switch to our new ward. He looked so handsome in his little suit, even though it was so big on him. And he was a quiet little angel all throughout the meeting. John gave him a beautiful blessing. It really was a wonderful meeting. Afterwards we went over to John's sister's for lunch: sloppy joes and potato salad. Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE potato salad? Yep, I do.

And as for an update on little Joseph... he is still gaining weight. On Monday he weighed in at 7lbs 8 oz. He's almost back to his birth weight! You know, I had no idea that babies lost weight after they were born. It's been so weird to look at my little guy and think, "you were bigger when you were born!" Well, I'm sure he's grown at least an inch since he was born, but he weighs the same! It's going to be so amazing to watch him get bigger and start to fill out more. I'm glad that I've had a little bit longer time to enjoy his littleness! He is 6 1/2 weeks old. He loves to fall asleep on people. He has a pretty good internal clock that he falls asleep and stays asleep around 10 or 11 each night. He has been used to sleeping with us in our bed at night and the past week we have been trying to get him used to sleeping in his own bed. So we lay him down after he falls asleep and then if he starts waking up again we bring him to bed with us where he'll sleep for the rest of the early morning. He's been spending 2, 3, maybe 4 hours in his own bed before sleeping with us. Then last night he slept the whole night in his own bed! We were so surprised and proud of him. He's got a little cough that doesn't sound so great... but we're just letting it run it's course and taking care of him the best we can. I really just LOVE his little baby coos! That's currently my favorite thing about him. He is starting to smile at us too, not just gas smiles. It's really fun to watch him. We are really loving this parenthood thing. :)

All right. Well, I wrote a lot. And if you're still reading, bless your heart. I hope to post more interesting things than just a log of what we've been up to... look forward to that. And in the mean time, I hope your year is starting out as fabulously as mine has!

P.S. Our Santa had boobs. This was so funny because he didn't realize he looked so "womanly," even when I asked him to pose like this!