Well... my birthday was actually last week, but I just have to express my joy as to how good of a day it was. Firstly, my husband let me sleep in a bit, which is always nice. Then out of all the fabulousness suprises in the world, my bestest best buddy Ray came all the way from California to see little ol me on my birthday, seeing as how we couldn't make it down to disneyland like we planned. She took me to lunch at the bear paw cafe, where i saw fit to take this lovely picture....
(pardon the quality, these are from my phone.)
So we had fun times hanging out, shopping a bit and redoing my fabulous fireplace floral arrangement, which i failed to take a picture of yet. But it looks totally awesome!!! So after she had to leave me, which was sad.... Alex and I got to go out to dinner without the kids! (thank you erin and i'm sorry they were evil!) We went to this steak place that's kinda fancy, and then got this awesome chocolate fondu for dessert with all these wonderful things to dip in it. And believe it or not, they gave us edible orchids! yeah! cool huh!? I wasn't brave enough to try it, but Alex did. It was kinda sad to drench such a pretty flower in molten chocolate.... it was like you could hear it screaming almost....
ANYWAY... I had a really good birthday, which is special for me cuz those who know me understand how few birthdays i've had without a mini disaster striking (no i'm not being a drama queen about it... my birthday is just jinxed!) So much thanks to my best friend Ray, my hubby, and my brother and his wifey for making it a good day!
So on Friday, January 30th... the Gifford family increased by one! We discovered this little cutie on one of our many afternoon drives we like to take, when we saw a sign for Lab/Wiemaraner puppies. Alex has been wanting to get another big dog since Ruby(our last big brown lab) has been gone. He was so excited at first when he picked one out... then after thinking it over through out the day decided against it... then the next day I managed to talk him back into it and low and behold... we got a new dog!!
Her name is Sophie Ann, and she it about 8 weeks old. She is so cuddly and such a sweetheart. The day we brought her home, she would not leave my side. I cuddled her all day and she would just fall asleep in my arms. I am her comfort blanket since she left her brothers, sisters, and parents. It's sad, but she seems to be very happy with us now. She and our Corgi, Daisey, are getting along very well. They love to wrestle around and cuddle up next to each other at night. I didn't get a chance to take a lot of GOOD pictures of her, but you can at least see her for now! :)
As for me... I'm off to bed, cause honestly... who blogs at 2 AM!?
Isn't she so adorable?!?!
Look how good she matches our couch! Who needs more accent pillows when you can get a dog!
As I watch my daughters grow up, I am excited to see their interest in all things Disney. We love watching some of the old Disney classics so as they can know the characters at Disneyland and be excited about it. Oddly enough as I watch some of these movies I haven't seen in years, I discover some new and rather interesting points in these films. Yesterday, in watching Peter Pan, I discovered that Peter is probably one of the most arrogant main characters ever and he's quit the pimp! Also, I find it odd how much tinkerbell is celebrated now when in the movie she is rather maniacal, openly admitting to tryin to kill wendy! Another movie I was pretty disturbed by is Tarzan. At the end when Clayton dies... Honestly probably one of the scariest Disney deaths I've seen! I mean come on!!!! You just don't show a man hanging there dead with lightning flashing! It's scary!!!
I find myself enjoying but over analyzing the newer movies of Disney, like the Little Mermaid prequel, Wall-E, and tinkerbell. They are much more kid friendly and politically correct, though they are still cartoons and some of the basic laws of nature don't apply. But hey, that's why it's entertaining right?
Also... You may have noticed I'm attempting to revamp my page, so hang in there with me until it's beautiful again!
Okay! So I know I'm a lame blogger and because of such, no one really checks my blog. So for those few followers who have nothing new to read, this ones for you!
SO! Firstly here are some of my pictures from Christmas!
How beautiful my sister in laws tree is! I love it! SO cute! This is my precious niece Andrea, who is about 2 months younger than Kylie. She's a very chill baby and I love her to death! One of our family traditions which i know quite a few families that do as well, opening our pajamas on Christmas Eve so we can look cute for Christmas morning!
Me and my Ky-Pie just hanging out. Kylie was very entranced by all the shiny packages and crinkling of tissue paper.
My dad enjoying one of life's simple pleasures.... the Slinky.
K... This is one of my family traditions that we've had for as long as I can remember. This is "The Big Sock". My grandma and grandpa Anderson bring it with them from California every year and fill it with all kinds of random toys and candy and just anything you can think of really. Then it is dumped out on the floor and everyone goes mad grabbing for misc. stuff until it's gone. It's kinda random, but I LOVE it!
Kaitlyn and Grandma Bev checking out the spoils of the big sock. (I have no idea what she's holding!) This year was our first Christmas Eve we stayed in our own house as a family. the past few years we've stayed with family but we thought it'd be fun for the girls to have Santa come to our house this year! Kylie Grace totally mystified by the lights on our tree!
Check out what Santa brought Kaitlyn! 5 AM Christmas morning she came downstairs and saw this slide and in her sleepy, broken, 2 year old speech, started saying "SWIDE! SWIDE! WEEEEE!" I swear she went down that thing 50 times before we could get her to look at any other presents!
This cabinet was really meaningful for me to do for Kaitlyn. It used to be in my little play kitchen when I was a little girl and I thought it was gone, but my aunt actually had it and it had gone through so many layers of paint over 20 years that we had to sand it down through about 8 different layers of paint so we could repaint it. We added new hardware and matched it to the little kitchen she got for her birthday. She was so excited! which is really good because Alex was up till 4 AM christmas eve painting it so it could be ready!
Opening some gifts.
Kylie's gift from Santa! it's a "Jumperoo". Oh the entertainment!
As you can tell, she was ECSTATIC about everything!
Alex got cowboys stuff.... he's a happy camper!
Next is photo's from the christmas lights at the temple. My dad is the sole coordinator of all the christmas lights for the St. George temple. He did an awesome job this year so me and ray went to document and enjoy some of his work!
A lot of people were really impressed with the new LED lights they added to the temple grounds this year. They are super bright and look so beautiful!
Ray in all her photographing glory.... the butt sticking out is a must!
Light by the front gate! SO pretty!!
The visitor center was all decked out in christmas as well! Jesus is always in the holiday mood! :) Please note, as part of the volunteer set up crew, I personally helped wrap these trees which have about 30 strands of lights on each tree! I got dizzy after walking around wrapping the trunks.
Now, here's some good stuff with my kids!
Big sister holding little sister! So precious!
Kaitlyn was Tinkerbell for Halloween. (Yes i know it was a while ago but I wanted to show you anyways!)
Kylie was a mermaid! SO cute!
Playing in the snow in Zion National Park.
Kylie's Blessing Day!
Slidin at Jumpin Jacks! Kylie wanted to ride too! :)
My beautiful daughter and her adorable smile!
Let's wrap things up with a naked baby picture! Nothin like a cute nude girl to put a smile on your face!! lol :)
Well, that's about all I got for right now, it's getting late and i'm hearing a little one still awake upstairs. Hope you enjoyed the pictures and I'm REALLY going to start updating more often! Toodles for now!
Merry Christmas! Well... I'm a few days off but still fun to say. So we had a great Christmas with family and got to spend our first Christmas eve at our house! In years past we have spent Christmas eve at my moms then go to alex's parents in the morning. But we we're looking foward to spending it at home and being able to see Kaitlyn's reaction when she saw that Santa came. Video of this is soon to follow. :) but yeah Kaitlyn got a slide from Santa and a revamped play kitchen that my grandpa made for me before he died. She was so e cited and kept saying "SWIDE! SWIDE!" (her L's tend to suffer) . It was so fun!
Besides the fun christmas stuff, St. George got a bunch of snow recently! May not seem like much to most people, but we actually got a snow day for schools which hasn't happened for ten years! It was really fun... But also cold and scary to drive in!
I will post pictures soon since I just discovers I can't do it from my phone; by until then Happy New Year! :)
So I thought of a brilliant plan. Since I'm so awful at remembering to update my blog when I'm home, I thought of the idea to use my cool new iPhone to update it when I'm out doing stuff and just sitting in the car.
So... Here is my first blog from my phone! A lot has been going on lately. We've been getting ready for the holidays at our house so it's been fun wrapping presents and putting them under the tree. Kaitlyn is very interested in Santa this year instead of being terrified of him like last year.She also is very into snow. We got her this little plastic snow globe that blows around styrofoam snow and she goes nuts and says "ITS SNOWING!" She's getting so big!
So I honestly have a bunch of pictures to add when I get a chance, so hopefully I'll be able to do that soon. For right now, I'm out!
Well.. it's been a while since I've updated, and I have a few very brief moments to make a post.
1- I'm not dead.. just super busy being a mom. 2- Had a fun thanksgiving with lots of good eats. 3-Been very busy doing lots of family pictures and editing them. 4- Had a fun little party for Kaitlyn's birthday as she had turned 2! 5- Going crazy with Christmas coming up, but am super excited for it.
I have to load all my pictures on here, which will come another time (go figure).
OH! super excited about this... Got a rockin Iphone for my christmas gift from hubby. We just couldn't wait for them so we got them early. Love it! really I do! maybe if I can figure it out, I will start posting from there more often. But until then, it's late, my kids are asleep finally, and I'm goin to bed! Peace out.
