Oh Christmas Tree...

The day after Thanksgiving we went with our friends Von & Ashlie to cut down our Christmas tree.  This has never been a tradition of ours before, but I have ALWAYS wanted it to be, and Danny promised me that once we had kids, we could make it a tradition.  Well, he is a man of his word, and we went down past Spanish Fork and cut down our very first Christmas tree.  It was so much fun!  Dan insisted on cutting it down while holding Gwen...and she was brave and didn't even cry when all the branches were in her face.  I am so excited to start traditions with our own family, and for this to be the first one.

And here is the finished product.  I love when it gets dark being able to plug in the lights and see the tree.  It makes it feel so cozy and Christmasy in our house.

 Bring on the holidays!  Yay!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we ate with Dan's family.  He has a huge family, and even with 2 of his brothers & their kids gone, there were 30 of there around the tables. It was fun to be with family, we ate lots of food, and lots of pie.  Gwen was in heaven.  She loved the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, turkey, green bean casserole, rolls, and of course, pie.  I think she probably ate as much as I did.  She is our tiny little piggy.

 We have so much to be thankful for, and I'm so glad we had a day to celebrate it.  I am so grateful for our baby girl and the love and joy that she brings into our home.  I am so grateful to have a home, to have a husband who takes care of us and loves us unconditionally.  I am so grateful for the gospel and for forever families.  I am thankful for health and love.  We are so blessed.

Family Pics

We got our family pictures done in October, but just got them back.  I am really happy with them!  Gwen was kind of being a stinker that day, of course she wasn't being her happy smiley self, but she was still pretty good.  

Yeah, we're pretty cute.  Ok, Ok, it's mostly Gwen.  She's definitely pretty cute.

9 Month Old Baby

Well, she's been out as long as she was in, and I can say one thing for sure, the out side is SO much better!

She has been so much fun lately!  She's started doing some fun things.

She can sort of wave

She is getting really ticklish especially on her back

She is pretty attached to me

She LOVES looking at herself in the mirror

She loves to stand up and walk while holding onto my fingers

She's finally rolling around to get her toys

She refuses to crawl

She LOVES eating everything except mashed peas.  I think she'd probably like the whole ones...I've never tired.

She is so happy and loves to jabber all the time.

She has started practicing her "S" sounds.  She sounds like a little snake

She loves to play with her blocks.  

She still loves her exersaucer as long as she can see me.  

She loves soft things and often holds them to her face and rubs her face with it.

She loves to stand up next to the bath while it's filling and watch the bubbles and water go in.  Chloe likes that too. :) 

She is tiny.  She weighs 14 pounds and is in the 1st %ile for weight.  She's 27 inches long (9th %ile) and her head is like 47 inches in circumfrance, which is the 86th %ile.  Her head makes up for the tiny-ness of her body.

She is the sweetest, happiest girl.  I love it!

Here are a few cute pics of her recently...

We went to Duchesne to see my cousin bless her baby boy.  It was so fun to see them and spend some long overdue time with them!  

 Gwen loves story time.  This is usually how it starts out.  She's very interested in the story and loves looking at the pictures and touching the book.  Then she starts getting distracted and starts leaning over and playing with the ties on the rocking chair.  Then she wiggles her way to her side, and then flips to her belly and ends up throwing the book on the floor.  She thinks its the best game ever.  It's a wrestling match, but really, it's pretty cute.

She sure is getting to be a handful! She is so curious about everything she sees or hears.  She has to check everything out and if she can reach it, you better believe she will grab it.  She is so wiggly and hard to control.  She won't sit still.  I don't think she could if her life depended on it.  She is so fun and we are loving all the new things she's learning.  She sure is growing up too fast.

Cutest pumpkin in the whole world

I’ve been wanting to take some pictures of Gwen in a pumpkin for quite a while.  We got one big enough when we went to the pumpkin patch at the beginning of October, so Dan carved it up for me and I took Gwen and the pumpkin to my friend Lindsey’s backyard, which was covered in leaves.  Linds helped me get Gwen’s attention, and made her smile, and I LOVE how the pictures turned out.  She is just so precious.  We are 200% in love with this cute little pumpkin.

Halloween!

Well, the day finally arrived!  Gwen was a little chick for Halloween, and her costume turned out adorable.  Of course, Dan made her costume.  Is there anything he can’t do?  We made it by sewing 2 onsies together, and then stuffing them with a bunch of cotton.  The feathers are just a boa rapped around her and stitched every so often.  And, he also made her little orange tights to keep her legs warm, and also to make her more like a chicken.  It was pretty hard to get her into her costume, and she was not happy with us.  She screamed for a good 10 minutes, but I can’t really blame her.  It was rough stuff.
Dan had the day off because of Hurricane Sandy.  The SLC Goldman’s servers are linked to the NY ones, so they were down, and he got to stay home.  Well, technically work from home, but he got all his stuff done pretty fast and was able to spend most of the day with us.  We headed over to the grandparents and let them ooh and aah over little G, and her cousins came over to visit as well.  Spider man and Jack-o-lantern were so cute!  After we saw the g-parents, we went over to Michelle’s to go “trick or treating” with a couple other friends.  Of course G didn’t really trick or treat, but we walked around with the others.  It was such a nice evening.  I didn’t even need a jacket!
It was a really fun night, but G was ready to get out of that hot, fluffy costume.  I think it added about 5 pounds to her.  Dan did a really good job of stuffing it. It was a great first Halloween, and her costume was definitely a success…and thanks to Dan, only cost about 10 dollars. Yahoo!!