Merry Christmas!

Our 2010 Christmas card

We had a great holiday season this year! It was so much fun because it was Isaac's 1st Christmas. We have so many fun traditions, especially now that Malea is a little older.

Of course we had to go see Santa (Malea is always so excited until she gets up to him and then she is all serious lol)

She asked Santa for a Jessie doll for Christmas (from Toy Story)

We went to see Santa with our friends The Dinkel's and she also got to ride the train with Maddie and Zach!

Trying to get a picture of both kids in their Christmas jammies

Another fun tradition is going to see the lights at Temple Square!

A picture of the kids in front of our tree

It was fun this year being able to do Christmas crafts with Malea! We made a paper plate snow man, paper bag reindeer, and homemade Christmas cards that Malea colored and put stickers on. It was so fun :)

Isaac had fun too!

A picture of Malea and Daddy with our Gingerbread house, another tradition of ours (I'm too lazy to do homemade ones so we just always buy the kit lol)

A new tradition this year was taking Malea to the Festival of Lights! She LOVED it!

Malea helping mommy make Christmas cookies for the neighbors

Christmas Eve
This picture cracks me up, I was trying to get a cute picture of both of the kids but Malea pulled a face and Isaac wasn't too happy....oh well, good memories!

I bought this blanket for Malea's 1st Christmas, so I had to get a picture of Isaac with it too :)

Only 1 more day!

Christmas morning
We had Keith's parents, Grandma & Grandpa "Dub" (Walker) over for Christmas morning

Keith got the Blu-Ray player he wanted!

And Malea got the Jessie doll she asked for!

Both kids with their loot

Merry Christmas!

6 years!

1 guy + 1 girl + 2 kids + lots of love = 6 years of marriage!

Keith and I have been married for 6 years today! I can't believe how fast it has gone! I love you babe, here's to 60 more years!

Baby Isaac

(Isaac - 8 weeks old)

Isaac is such a joy to our family! Here are a few fun tidbits about our sweet baby boy:

He is so smiley! He started smiling very young and hasn't stopped since! He is turning out to be kind of a ham, and has a great sense of humor. He loves to smile and laugh, and it doesn't take much to get him to do either of those things. You can't help but cheer up when you see him smile.

Everyone that holds him makes the same comment...."He is so wiggly!" He is a very squirmy, wiggly baby. He knows how to roll from his stomach to his back already. He is also doing well holding his head up when he lays on his stomach, and has a strong back. He is constantly moving. If you put a blanket on him in a bouncer or a swing, he will have it kicked off in about 10 seconds! His new favorite thing lately is to stand up on our laps with us holding his hands.

He has turned out to be a pretty good-natured baby. He started out being pretty fussy but is doing much better. He also started out not being the best napper, but with some training has been doing better. He is doing great at night though, I feed him at about 11 or 11:30pm and then he makes it until 7:30 or 8:00am! It is wonderful! He eats about 4-5 oz every 3 hours.


He loves to talk and coo at us. The other night I was feeding him, and I said "I love you Isaac"....he stopped sucking on his bottle, looked up at me, and said "ah-goo" right back. It was so cute!!!


He loves his big sister. From a young age, he would smile when he saw her and he recognizes her voice. She is so sweet with him and very helpful. I hope they will be good buddies someday!

We are looking forward to celebrating his first Christmas!

I am excited to see Isaac grow and see more of his personality come out! It is going by too fast though!

Family Pictures

Here are some family pictures we had taken a few weeks ago. I love how they turned out, especially of the kids! Getting pictures done is always stressful...Malea had an atomic meltdown partway through, and despite my efforts to time everything, Isaac got hungry so we had to keep a bottle in his mouth and then pull it out really quick right before she took the picture. It was totally worth it though!

My Malea

(Malea - 2 1/2 yrs)

Malea has hit such a fun stage! She is starting to be more imaginative, which has be good and bad. She has started having more bad dreams at night and gets more scared in her room. She will point to a shadow saying that it looks like a monster or a snake or something. At the same time, she is also more imaginative with her toys and while she plays. She makes up little stories when she plays, and she pretends that her toys are talking to each other. She is also speaking really well, which makes things a lot easier.

Cute things she has done/said lately:

-Whenever we go anywhere like the mall, a play place, story time, etc, we will be driving home and she will say "I have fun at ________, mom"....it is so cute!

(I went to check on her the other night and found her in this position!)

-Malea is obsessed with the show "Caillou" that is on the Sprout channel. The show can be kind of annoying, especially the opening song ("I'm just a kid who's 4, each day I learn some more...."). But she learns so much from the show. She will just randomly bring up things that she has seen on the show in everyday life.

-On the show "Caillou", he goes to "play school". Well ever since she has gotten in to the show, she pretends she is going to play school. She will put her back pack on and say "I'm going to play school mom! Bye!" and she will go upstairs to her room. I really want to get her in to a pre-school when she turns 3. She loves the interaction with other kids and the structure. She always looks forward to going to nursery and she is very social.

(Her hair is getting so long! When it dries it is has this beautiful natural curl...I'm so jealous!)

-The other day the movie Spider Man was on, and she got so excited randomly. She stood up on the kitchen counter and said "Daddy wook! (look) Its spider man! I like him cuz I'm bigger now! Spider man turns nice and smiles at me!"

-After Isaac was born, any time we talked about something Isaac was doing she would say, "last time when I was a little baby, I did that." It is so funny!

(Malea got new Disney princess snow boots....she was very excited to wear them :))

-I'm not sure where she got this from, but lately she will specify what kinds of things are for boys and what kinds of things are for girls. For example, she wanted me to paint her nails today, and she said "painting nails only for girls". Or if she sees a toy that is blue, she will say "that only for boys." The cutest thing about it is that she still hasn't mastered her "R's", so she will say "that's only for 'guls', not for boys"

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-She is OBSESSED with books. She will just sit and flip through the pages of books forever. She has a basket of books next to her bed, and I will listen to her flipping through books for an hour sometimes when she is going to bed. The other day I was talking to her and she said "Mom, I need to concentrate on my book." lol!! She will also pretend to read me the stories, and she has some of the words memorized. She especially likes the Berenstain Bears books.

(She was just learning how to ride her tricycle when the weather got bad! Next year will be fun!)

-She absolutely loves Isaac. She hasn't shown any jealousy since he was born (although she has acted out in her own way). If she wakes up from a nap and he is asleep in his room, the first thing she will say "where's Isaac?" She wants to hug and kiss him constantly (we have to protect him sometimes!). She will talk to him like Keith and I do, like saying "Hi!" or "He's so cute" or things like that. Isaac had to get his 2 month shots, and I told her that he was kind of sad from that. She said, "Awww poor Isaac! Sad!" It was so cute. I love that she loves him so much. She is very motherly, too. She will help put his binky in, and if he is crying in his bed he will say, "mom, I go help Isaac." The other day she said, "mommy, when I a little bigger I have 3 kids"....lol!

-The other day she said "Mommy, you and me and daddy and Isaac, we a family!" It was so stinkin' cute!

(I absolutely LOVE this picture of her! She made such a mess, I had to hose her off in the tub afterwards!)

-She is speaking really well and has full-on conversations, although some of her pronunciations are funny. For example, she pronounces the word "kitchen" like "chicken", and "ketchup" like "check-up". She also has a little bit of a lisp which is so cute.

(Learning her letters....I'm not sure what face she is making, its kind of a fake smile)

-She loves doing art and anything crafty. She will say "mommy I want to do a craft!" She likes to paint water colors, do play doh, finger paints, gluing macaroni (with help), color on a white board with markers, do chalk, etc.

-She loves playing dress-up and has really gotten in to Disney princesses. She always wants me to put lipstick on her and she will say "I pretty mommy". She also loves for me to paint her nails (fingers and toes) and wants me to paint mine too. She's definitely going to be my mani/pedi partner when she gets older :)

I love my sweet little girl!