Happy Birthday To Me

Yesterday was my 29th birthday and I was S-P-O-I-L-E-D!

As soon as Addison woke up in the morning she said "it's your birthday, now it's time for a party!". I thought it was so cute that she remembered. All day long she tried to make a party for me. She would sing me the birthday song and make her musical toys play music and tell us we had to dance because it was a birthday party. She also informed me that we needed to get some balloons because a birthday party just wasn't a party without balloons. Then she insisted on helping me make a birthday cake. She is so funny, I love that girl. Maybe she'll go into party planning...who knows?

My amazing hubster left me a very sweet card so that I'd get it first thing in the morning. Then he took a lunch break and brought me some Panda Express, one of my favorites. YUMMY! For my present he got me a super cute Victorian jewelry holder. You know, the kind that's shaped like a mannequin. I love it!

My wonderful mom & dad gave me an adorable (& much needed) coat and gloves when they were here visiting. I was so excited. Then they sent me a cute home made birthday card and gift card to target (thanks to my dad's bad memory) in the mail. =)

My sweet in-laws got me a very generous gift card to JC Penney. I was instructed that I was not allowed to spend it on anyone but myself (they know me so well). =) Luckily they were having a huge sale so I got a lot of winter clothes that I was in desperate need of.

My fabulous sister Heather and her family gave me a gift card to Olive Garden (another favorite) and then watched the kiddos so Jared could take me out to a nice birthday dinner. When we got back all of the kids jumped out and yelled "surprise, Happy Birthday" and gave me some adorable birthday cards that they made for me. They even made me a cake.

I got lots of sweet phone calls, e-mails and blog messages from other family members and friends too.

See, I told ya I got spoiled!

Thank you so much to everyone for all that you did to make my birthday so special. It really was a great day. It felt so nice to be so well taken care of, I really needed that. Thanks again, I love you all!

Catch up!

I am so behind on my blogging. I haven't really been on the computer for about a week or so. I haven't even posted about Christmas yet and I just realized that I also haven't posted about our "new" puppy or Urban's first steps. I know it doesn't really matter if I miss some things but this is how I keep track of what goes on in our lives so I like to have it documented. I also do it for the grandma's, I know they like it. So I've done a bunch of little posts real quick just to get caught up. They're not necessarily in chronological order.

Before I get into that though I just have to say that I hope everyone had a wonderful new year! Ours was a lot of fun. We had our first adult slumber party! Some friends of ours that we've known for years came to spend the night with us. Since they live about 30-45 minutes away and have a 4 month old and a 2 year old they decided to just put the kiddos to sleep and stay over night rather than drag their kids back home after midnight. Our kids all had a blast playing together while they were awake and the adults enjoyed a game of monopoly until about 2:30 in the morning. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures (I'm so bad about taking pictures). We all had so much fun we think we may make it a yearly tradition.

On a different note, I have my first Sunbeam! That's right, Addison is no longer in nursery. Can you believe it? I can't. I'm so excited for her but it also makes me kind of sad. I can't believe my baby girl is in primary. She loves it! And I'm so proud of her because when we went to get her after class her teacher kept telling us how good she was. She's so funny though because the thing she is most excited about is singing in Sacrament. For our Christmas program the primary kids all got up on the stand to sing a song and she was so sad because at that point she was still in nursery so she didn't get to go. Well, now that she's in primary she remembers that they get to go up and sing so on Sunday while we were sitting in Sacrament she kept asking me when she got to go up with the other kids and sing. I had to explain to her that that doesn't happen every week, just on special Sundays. She can't wait!

That's it for now. I'll try to do a post later on some of my personal resolutions and our goals as a family as well. Mostly just because it helps me to keep repeating them and to see them in as many places as possible. If other people know about them besides myself I may be more likely to follow through.

Walkin' fool!

For those of you wondering, yes, Urban does finally walk. He actually took his first steps on Halloween night. He took quite a few steps that night and then a few more the next day and then he refused to walk for the next couple of weeks. I think he had secretly been walking for quite a while and then got upset with himself for letting me see him because he knew I wouldn't carry him as much any more and he'd lose his free ride! =) He didn't start walking again until right around Thanksgiving time and now he's a walking pro. It's so cute when he walks fast or tries to run, he looks so funny.

Here's a look at some of his first steps (the second round of firsts).

Here he is mid-fall.

Come to mama!

Don't pay attention to the ears, we were being silly.

PUPPY!

So, we caved! Addison has been begging us for a puppy or a kitty for months and we finally gave in. The day after Thanksgiving we found an ad for german shepherd/doberman pups so Jared went to look at them. Of course he came home with one. How can you not get a puppy once you see their cute little faces and pet their floppy ears? You'd have to be heartless! Needless to say Addison was ecstatic, although she still wants a kitty. Urban was scared to death of him for the first 2 days. Anytime the dog would come any where near him he'd scream and fall to the ground. Silly boy! He's since gotten used to him and loves him just as much as the rest of us.

Anyway, here's our sweet little pup. He has the funnest personality. We had the hardest time thinking of a name for the little guy though. He's been Willis, Pups, Murray, Bruce, Chuck Norris, and a combination of all of these. Addison thought he should have a first, last & middle name (Pups Willis Murray). Poor puppy was probably so confused. Finally Addison picked Bruno (after Cinderella's dog) and that's what has stuck...so far. =)

I love to see the Temple

It is always such a beautiful and spiritual experience to be on temple grounds. I love the Salt Lake Temple. It is absolutely gorgeous, especially at Christmas time. We went to see all of the lights and Nativity scene the day after Christmas. It was FREEZING and there were a ton of people there, but it was still very peaceful. I love the way the temple makes me feel. I've never been inside the Salt Lake Temple and I can't wait to do a session there. In fact one of my New Year's resolutions is to attend the temple regularly.

Christmas

Christmas was wonderful. We had our first white Christmas, okay so Jared has had white Christmas' before, but it was a first for me & the kids and it was BEAUTIFUL! It snowed for a good portion of the day but somehow I didn't get any pictures. Everything was white, it was so pretty.

We got to spend it with my parents and my sister's family. I wish my brother could have been here too, it's been way too long! We also really missed all of Jared's family. We got spoiled living so close to them for the last 3 years. We'll have to figure out a way to see everyone soon.

As usual, the kids got way too much stuff, but it was so much fun to watch them. Addison actually understood that you got to ask for things you wanted and if you were a good girl then you would probably get them. She's really in to Barbie (I'm not quite sure how that happened) and the main thing she wanted was a Diamond Castle. Well, thanks to Santa (and a rebate incentive) she actually got one and it made her day. She's so funny though because she doesn't always show a lot of emotion, so unless you know her really well it's sometimes hard to tell how excited she is. Urban really enjoyed everything this year too, but since he doesn't have a lot of patience (really he doesn't have any at all) he would get upset with the packaging on his presents if it took us too long to get them free.
The puppy was pooped after ripping up all of the wrapping paper and chasing after the kids trying to steal their toys! =)

Santa

Our ward Christmas party was so much fun. We ate yummy food and got to mingle with all of our friends. An older gentleman in the ward played his guitar and sang Christmas songs all night. He did a great job too, might I add. At one point he had all of the kids join him up on stage to sing songs. I was kind of surprised that Addison wanted to do it because she can be pretty shy sometimes, but that girl LOVES to sing. Later in the evening we had a special visitor...Santa came to see the children. We were so glad that he came because we had decided that we probably weren't going to take the kids to see Santa this year because of the incident last year. For those of you who don't remember, Urban was screaming bloody murder and Addison jumped off Santa's lap and ran to the safety of her grandma who was standing nearby! Again I was surprised at how excited Addison was to talk to Santa. She couldn't wait to tell him about the Barbie & The Diamond Castle toys she wanted.

We figured we wouldn't torture poor Urban (or Santa) by making him sit on Santa's lap. He's going through an "I hate everyone who's not mom or dad" phase, so I don't think he would have enjoyed it.