Christmas Eve

I love Christmas Eve!

It's so much fun getting everything ready for the next day

and thinking about what Santa will be bringing you.

We spent the day with Grandpa and Grandma Lindstrom and Uncle Jason.

We went to McGraths for dinner. Lyla wasn't being very much fun,

but she liked looking at the live lobsters.

It's so hard to make a wiggly girl sit and wait for food.

I got a ice cream sundae and 'Happy Birthday' sung to me.

Do you like my hat?

Isn't she so pretty?

Santa came to visit Lyla.

She didn't really like him, but a little while later as soon

as she saw her Grandpa she ran up and cuddled on his lap for a while. ;-)

Scott's family does 'Honks' funny gifts of Christmas Eve.

Lyla loved her daddy's new glasses!

After we read the story of the birth of Christ we have a musical program.

Grandpa gets his accordion out and plays us some songs. He plays 'White Christmas' while Grandma plays with him on the piano. The song he always ends with is 'Beer Barrel Polka.'

It's lots of fun. Lyla really wanted to push all of the buttons on Grandpa's accordion. Scott and Uncle Jason even pulled out their trombones and played us some scales (they didn't know any songs). It was so much fun. I love family traditions!

Lyla went right to sleep when we got home!

We forgot to take some cookies home for Santa

so this is what we left out for him...

A waffle and two brownies.

We also left out some cheese for the Santa Mouse.

I think Santa liked his treats because he came by and dropped off presents. :-)

Christmas Day

I am so grateful for the birth of our Savior and for his life and example.

I love this time of year when I get to think a little bit more about my Savior and his teachings.

I feel so blessed to have the knowledge of the Gospel.

Growing up I always felt like it was a gift to be able to celebrate my birthday on Christmas.

I woke up early Christmas morning to get breakfast going and get ready for the day.

Scott and I opened most of our presents before Lyla even got out of bed.

We were too excited and couldn't wait for her. :-)

Good Morning Lyla! She is so fun to wake up in the morning!

She is so smiley and giggly. And she always has CRAZY hair! :-)

Lyla's face was classic when she came out and saw all the presents from Santa.

She went straight for the blocks. I told Santa she would love them!

We let her play for a while and then we ate breakfast.

I love Christmas morning egg casserole!!

Lyla loved opening presents!

After she opened one she just wanted to play with it and didn't want to open another one.

She received lots of fun presents. A little car to ride, a kitchen set and a potty.

She has already gone potty twice!! We are going to have her potty trained soon!

After our one hour long church we went to Scott's parents house and had amazing food!

Later that day we talked to Uncle Huston (Scott's youngest brother Justin) who is in Mexico on his mission. We get to see him in 6 weeks! Lyla can't wait to meet him.

Overall the two days were great!

Christmas Tree

Lyla loves the Christmas tree. She wants to grab all of the ornament off the tree.
She was doing really well and just pointing and saying 'OOOO' or 'WOW',

BUT NOW....

She points...

She grabs...

and then she runs....

Over all she has been really nice the the tree and the presents.
We are so excited for Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Temple Square

We went to see the amazing lights at temple square.
Scott has only seen the lights once before so we had to take him back to see them.
Plus Lyla and cousin D' needed to see them.
Earlier that day Scott and Andrew went to the Utah game (He was happy they lost).
Us girls (Aunt Meg, Aunt Sara, Lyla and I) and D' met up with them down town.
It was really windy and cold, but the kids seemed to have fun.

Love this picture of us in front of the temple and the trees.

D' and his Dad (Andrew) walking around looking at all of the lights.
D' is so funny. He kept calling it 'Square Temple.'
LOVE THIS KID!!

D' LOVES his Aunt Sara!!!

Cute picture my sister Meg took of us.

Lyla had so much fun looking at the lights. She kept saying 'Wow.'
She is at this stage where she will only hold your hand for a few minutes.
So you end up holding her so she doesn't run away.
Well, she weighs 30 pounds so she isn't very much fun to carry, so Dad ends up
carrying her most of the time. Which she likes because she loves her Dad and he's taller than
Mom so she can see more things.

Thanksgiving 2011

Scott, Lyla and I got to spend Thanksgiving with my side of the family.

It was lots of fun and really busy.

We had the whole family together which was so much fun.

My parents remodeled their house over the summer and it's amazing how much bigger the family room is. I know that my Dad really likes the remodel, but I think he likes it even more when he sees his whole family sitting in the same room.

This is all of us.

Andrew, Megan, D', Dad, Jen, Tyler, Mel, Lyla, Scott, Sara and Mom.

(We all have our Boston shirts on) :-)

We were so excited to have Sara home from Boston, where she is a nanny.

D' and Lyla LOVE their Aunt Sara.

Sara was really busy seeing old friends, going on dates and getting a new drivers licence, but we all spent as much time as we could with her. We all miss her when she is gone, but we know she is having so much fun and learning so much about herself.

She looked like a different person when she walked off the plane.

She was in Boots...with heels! ;-)

Lyla loves her Uncle Tyler. She doesn't even really hesitate anymore when she first sees him.

Uncle Tyler likes to tease her and make her laugh.

Lyla and Aunt Jen! Lyla likes to steal Aunt Jen's french fries! :-)

AUNT SARA! We love her!

Thanksgiving is such a great Holiday!

Food and Family, what more can you ask for??

Every Hair Stylists Dream!!!

Every Mother who is also a hair stylist dreams of having a little girl with perfect hair!

I am lucky Lyla has amazing curly, long (for her age) hair!

Oh and she lets me do pretty much anything I want with it!:-) This morning like most mornings she found hair things. I put a headband on this morning to fancy up my pony tail (I am in desperate need of a hair cut) and Lyla wanted one too. Every time her headband falls off she brings it to me so I can put it back on. She is so silly!! Here's to hoping she will always let me play with her hair!!!

Autumn in Boise Idaho is so beautiful! There are so many trees!

We went to Albertson park to take some pictures.

I think every photographer in Boise was there taking family pictures!

So many people! We didn't stay long, but we got a few pictures. :-)

Lyla isn't liking pictures so much lately. She wants to run and not hold

still and smile.

We take pictures anyway.

Lyla LOVES her daddy! I think it's because he's always doing silly things to make her laugh or letting her climb all over him. Whenever he is around she follows him and laughs even when he's not doing anything funny. It's fun to see them together. She is getting really good at saying 'Da Da' and recognizes him in pictures. When Scott is on his way home and I ask her where her Dad is she goes to the front door and runs across our deck to meet him at the top of the stairs. The whole time she is pointing, laughing and looking for him.

Look at how cute she is!!! ;-)

I LOVE that Lyla is walking and running around!! I love love love it!!! She is 15 months old and weighs almost 30 pounds!! She is too heavy to carry around and she needs to run off some of her baby fat!! (BTW I LOVE cubby kids!!!) Lyla loves to play in the leaves!!

I can't wait for snow! Lyla loved it last year and she couldn't even play in it!

This year is going to be so much fun!!!

Happy Halloween! We love Halloween!!

We went around Grandpa and Grandma Lindstrom's block trick-or-treating. We just went to a couple of houses. I think Lyla's favorite part was the dog she tried to kiss.

She loves animals so much.

Lyla kept showing everyone her candy!

Lyla liked frosting cookies! Yummy!!

I don't like the mess of cleaning and carving a pumpkin so we decided to let Lyla paint her pumpkin. I only had light pink, dark pink and white paint. Not really Halloween colors, but they are Lyla colors!!! She liked it for a little bit, until she tried to eat it so we had to stop.

The Ward Grandparents came for a visit this last weekend!! We went to Shafer Butte to take some fall picture. It was so beautiful!! I love fall time and all of the colors!!

Wants Daddy's Keys! Really wants the keys!! No Keys!

Lyla is so good at walking.

My Dad has never been to a Boise State game and so we went to one while they were up here. We had lots of fun! We are glad they won! The weekend was a ton of fun!! So glad my parents could come up and that I get to go down in less than a month!!!

We went to Berry Ranch in Nampa yesterday with some of our friends. It was so much fun. The weather was perfect and all the kids had a blast. In fact, I think the moms had just as much fun as the kids. Lyla was walking (while holding my hand) the whole time. At one point we were in the back of the pack and kinda far behind and she started to try and run to catch up with everyone else. She is so grown up.

Lyla walked through a pumpkin patch and picked own pumpkin (which I carried). She loved it!
She loved the cows and got so close she was feeding them straight from her had. I just stood her there and she walked towards them and grabbed there food (I thought she was going to put it in her mouth) but she reached out and the cow licked it from her hand. Crazy girl. Or should I be the crazy one for letting her??;-) One of the cows mooed really loud and scared/made Lyla laugh. It was so funny because she couldn't decided if she wanted to laugh or to cry.
She was watching sheep eat and tried to reach through and pet them. Can you see the joy on her face? She loved all the animals.
In this picture she is saying "Ooo Ooo Ooo!" This is the noise she makes when she sees something to wants, needs or really likes. All the kids were lined up along the fence looking at these huge male sheep. The sheep were just laying around and as soon as Lyla got there one got up and went straight to her. Which she loved and freaked out and tried to pet. She really does love animals. The day was perfect!!!

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!!! I know it's early to be showing off our costumes, but I couldn't wait!!! I hate that Halloween is at the end of the month. I like to celebrate it all month long. I love dressing up and I had decided that we were going to do a family theme. Scott and I came up with the Flintstones idea on the same day. I sewed and designed these all by myself. I had never used a sewing machine before. There will probably be more pictures of Halloween later when it gets closer to trick or treat time. "Yabba Dabba DOOO!!"

Lyla is growing up so fast! She is so cute and has such a sweet personality. She is walking and standing by herself more and more. She likes to be outside. I took these pictures in front of our place. Every time she goes outside she looks for this grey cat. She loves animals. Oh and don't you just LOVE her shirt in these two pictures?! Go Cougars!!

Lyla loves to read and eat books. The next kid will need all new books because Lyla has eaten them all. :-) Also, I can't believe how curly her hair is!!! I am so happy about it!! Thanks to her Grandma Lindstrom and her Grandpa Ward for sharing their curls.

Lyla and I walked our 1st 5K. Well, Lyla was in the stroller and ate treats the whole time, but it was her 1st one. We went to the Boise Women Celebration! Grandma Lindstrom took us and we always have so much fun doing girl things together. We had so much fun! It was amazing to see all of those women and children walking and running. There were some crazy outfit and I think we decided to do something crazy for next year!