.:Christmas 2008:.

Christmas this year was spent in Oregon. Reece and I flew up there a few days before Josh got there. Reece was so great on the plane! She did great at the airport, going through security, and then ended up sleeping in my arms the whole flight! I was so proud of her.

Once we got there, we spent time running errands and waiting for everyone else to get there! We had the whole family there this year! There was lots of Christmas fun, as well as wedding prep for Alli's wedding. The boys spent a lot of time playing MarioCart on the Wii, and a few people spent tons of time doing puzzles. The boys were also the official snow removers, and spent a lot of time outside shoveling and snow blowing the driveway. It snowed every day while we were there!

Christmas Eve was spent with two sets of missionaries, as well as my grandparents from Arizona! We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of ham, potatoes, rolls, durkey beans, and chocolate pies! Josh and I also made our peppermint cheesecake dessert, which was a hit! After dinner, we did the nativity, as we've done for so many years. It's turned into a reader's theater, with songs in between, and I think this is the first time in years we haven't all lost it laughing at some point during it! After that, we were graced with my grandpa's rendition of the Grinch! We've heard about it for years, but never been able to experience it. It was wonderful! The missionaries shared a message with us before they left, and then it was time to open our Christmas pj's and gift exchange gifts. Here is our little family on Christmas Eve.

Reece loves Santa!
All the girls got robes for our Christmas pj's this year. They are so cozy!

All the grandkids in their matching pj's! So cute!


The Grinch!

Christmas morning we woke up to see what Santa had left for all of us. As usual,. he was very good to us all! We took turns opening presents one by one - we did a couple of rounds before our traditional Christmas Day breakfast of bran muffins, peppered bacon, oranges, and juice. Delicious as usual! It took us a good amount of time to get through it all! There were 19 people opening presents!


Gramzee and PSTEW having a moment with Reece and Andi.


Reece with her stocking. Doesn't she look excited? :)


Daddy and Reece.


All of the stockings for the whole fam!


All of Santa's loot!


Carter and Gray having fun with all of their new toys!


Yep, I'm related to both of them. My handsome husband, and brother!


Cal, Andi, Carter, and Gray enjoying Christmas muffins!


Once Christmas was over, it was time for Alli and Nic's wedding! On Friday nite, we headed over to Medford to have a dinner with all of our family and all of Nic's family. It was a nice evening with good food!



Then Saturday morning was the wedding! Alli looked beautiful, of course! She is the last of us five kids to be married, and it was so neat to have all of us and our spouses in the sealing room with her. My grandpa sealed her and Nic - he has done all of us kids. It's such an incredibly neat thing to have our grandpa seal all of us. It was definitely a proud moment for our family.



Then it was back to Klamath to get things ready for the reception. We had it at our house, and were really worried about the turnout. My parents live on top of a mountain, and it was snowing like crazy! But people really surprised us, and we had an awesome turnout. It was fun to see people, and to just have the party part of their marriage. The house looked beautiful and the food was great. What more could you ask for?

The original Stewart five!


The whole fam!

Reece and Mommy. She looked so cute!


Gray and Carter - Handsome boys!


Sweet Reece. She was such a trooper with all of the madness around her!


Jefferson, Andi, Josh and Cal


Me and my hubby


The Stewart women (and Andrus, Phair, and Harmon! :) )


All the sibs with their spouses.


Daddy and Reece


It was a great trip, and we are so blessed to have such wonderful families to spend our time with. We are not sure when the next time is that we'll all be together, but hopefully it's not too long!

.:New Years Goals:.

I am definitely slacking in posting about our trip to Oregon for Christmas, and Nic and Alli's wedding, but that is going to take awhile, and I don't have time to do that right now!

But I wanted to get down some of the goals that I have for myself, as well as our family, for this upcoming year. There are always things that we can be working on to be better, but I seem to have put those all by the wayside with the excuse of being too tired from being a new mom. Well, Reece is almost four months old, so no more excuses!

* Lose the baby weight and then some! I got some new workout dvd's for Christmas, and have started getting up at 6:00 a.m., before Reece is up, to do them. It's only been a couple of days, but I am feeling so much better about myself. I'm also keeping a food journal to help myself stop all of the unnecessary snacking that I do. My sweets are going to be limited to the weekends - in moderation - and I'm just going to try to eat healthier all around. I use this website, calorieking.com, to keep track of how many calories I'm consuming. It feels good to be proactive about this. I've been disgusted with the way I look and feel lately, and I'm glad I finally got off my lazy bum and started doing something about it!

* Family prayer & scriptures EVERY DAY! We are usually pretty decent about saying our prayers, but we've definitely fallen off the wagon with our scripture study. I know we'll feel closer to each other, and closer to the Lord, as we work on this.

* Date nights! I need to be better about being a wife, and not just a mom. I feel like I've kind of neglected Josh with my focus on Reece, and that isn't right! We need to make time for each other - even if it's not in the form of a date night - and keep fostering our marriage. He's my best friend, and I'm so lucky to be married to him. I love him so much!

* Be good parents! We are still figuring this parenting thing out, but I think we're getting the hang of it. I imagine this will always be a goal in progress - there's always things we'll be learning about how to be a good parent to Reece and our future children.

* Do my calling willingly! I am getting better about this, but I could certainly stand some improvement. I have received a lot of blessing from serving in young women's, and I need to have a better attitude about the time committment. I love the ladies that I serve with, and I love the girls! I need to be a good example to them, and can always be learning from them as well.

Those are just some of the main things I want to work on for this year. Josh and I are so blessed with our home, the ability for me to stay home with Reece, with our marriage, our families, our friends, and our beautiful daughter. 2008 was good to us, and hopefully 2009 will be even better!

.:My Baby:.

After I gave Reece her bottle tonite, and was rocking her for a minute, I just had the feeling that I was falling in love with her all over again. She is almost four months old now, and her little personality is starting to shine through so much. I realized that she's not going to want me to be holding her a ton for much longer, and while I'm anxious for her to reach new milestones, I'm kind of sad to be leaving some of the little baby stuff behind. She is such a sweet girl, and is getting to a really fun stage right now. She loves to look in the mirror - at herself, and at whoever is holding her. Her newest thing is 'standing' on your lap while you hold her. She has strong legs! Her neck and back are so strong, and she's going to be sitting on her own before we know it. I'm so grateful for her, and the joy she's brought to Josh and I. She is such a blessing in our lives. We love you Reece!

.:Three Months:.

I'll have more to update about Christmas later, but I wanted to get Reece's three month entry in today. I can't believe that my baby is three months old! Everyone always tells you how fast the time goes, being a parent, but you just have no idea until you have a child of your own!

At three months Reece likes:
- smiling at Mom and Dad
- 'talking' to Mom and Dad
- Daddy playing his nose game with her
- laying on the couch and looking around
- laying on the floor and looking around
- watching Baby Einstein movies (or just about anything that is playing on TV)
- her pink elephant toy that lights up and plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
- being sung to
- grabbing onto things (that are placed in her hands)
- sucking on her hands (or your finger if you put it in her mouth!)
- kicking her legs (going to be a soccer player like her mama!)
- being held facing out, so she can look around

At three months Reece tolerates:
- the swing
- baths (I think she might be starting to like them!)
- Mom putting headbands on her
- tummy time (for short periods of time!)

At three months Reeces hates:
- getting dressed (still hates putting arms into sleeves!)
- being burped or held tummy to tummy (most of the time)
- going up and down stairs while facing out (discovered this at my parents house - it scares her!)

Reece is such a sweet little baby. We feel so blessed to have her in our lives. We are still learning how to be the best parents we can be, and Reece is hanging in there with us! She is pretty much the cutest baby I have ever seen, and we couldn't love her more!

.:I'm a real mommy now:.

I decided that I must truly be a mom now because I now see nothing wrong with talking to anyone about my child's poop! Sounds gross, but other mommies understand I'm sure. Reece went through a little stage where her poor little tummy wasn't doing very well, and we were having explosions/blowouts every couple of days. Poor babe! I think I earned my mommy wings by experiencing some of this in public places!

Let's see, where to begin. It's been awhile!

Reece has been doing really well this past month. I can't believe that she is going to be three months old in a few days! I feel like she just barely turned two months old. She has mellowed out a lot, and isn't nearly as fussy as she used to be. She smiles and 'talks' all the time, and there's just nothing better. She is getting so big, and it's been kind of fun to have a new wardrobe for her to choose from!

Right now we are in Oregon for Christmas. Reece and I flew in. My parents were so nice and bought us a plane ticket so that we didn't have to drive! She was an absolute angel on the plane! She did a great job going through security and ended up falling asleep in my arms while we were waiting in the terminal. Then she slept the whole flight! I was so proud of her! I got a lot of comments on how well behaved she was. She's been having a bit of a rough time since we got here. Her sleeping schedule is still the same - not the greatest naps but sleeping through the nite - but I still think she is a little off from being in a new place, with tons of new people around, always wanting to be in her face and handling her. Yesterday was probably THE WORST day we've ever had with her. She and I both spent a lot of it in tears! Luckily I have great family members who helped keep me sane and took some turns with her so I could cool off. Josh is always really patient with her too, and seems to know just when I'm at my breaking point. Today has been better, so hopefully she'll figure things out in the next day or two. Probably just in time for us to head back to Utah! :)

It is so fun to be home. The last batch of family is getting in today. My parents have a full house! I love being able to spend this extra time with my parents, siblings, in laws, and niece/nephews. It doesn't happen nearly enough! It's going to be so neat to have everyone here for the holidays. Everything is really falling into place for Alli's wedding as well. She is so ready and excited, and we are excited to have Nic officially in the family! We also got the news that the 6th grandchild is on the way from Dani and Jefferson. We are so happy and excited for them. I can't believe they'll have three kids!

Other than that, not much going on with us. Josh is still busy working both of his jobs, but happy to have this week off to relax and not have to worry about it! I had started watching Millie again for a couple of weeks. It was fun to have her and spend the time with her. I figure now I'll be a pro when we have two kids of our own! But I got laid off because her mom got laid off! It will be nice for Millie to have that time with Leslie, but it's also going to hurt us since we won't have that money coming in anymore. We're considering having me sub once a week - on Fridays - which are short days at school, and also my mother in law's day off. So we'll see if we end up needing to go that route. The thought of leaving Reece makes me sick, but I also feel lucky to have the option of a flexible job!

I'm sure I'll have lots more to update after our holidays are over! Merry merry!

.:7 Facts About Me:.

Some of my friends are blogging seven random facts about themselves, so I thought I would do the same for fun!

1. I color code the clothes in my closet. It makes things a lot easier to find. (Not that I have so many clothes that it's really that hard to find something!)

2. I am very anal/ocd about having things in their particular place. I'm sure Josh could back me up on that one!

3. I love the smell of Scotch tape. Weird, I know, but it's true.

4. I am fascinated with Asian and Middle Eastern culture. I love to read books about them, and wish that I could visit some of the places that I've read about.

5. True crime also interests me! I love to watch crime shows on TV, read true crime stories, and would love to go tag along for some investigation.

6. I love playing the piano. I've been playing since first or second grade. Growing up, I would compete in competitions, and made it to state a few times.

7. I can't stand grammar errors! The teacher in me is constantly correcting people for using words like 'funner' or 'funnest' and substituting misspelled words. i.e. your - you're, their - there, etc.

.:Growing:.

I forgot to put Reece's stats from her two month appointment. She weighed in at 10 pounds, 14 ounces, which was about the 55th percentile. She is now 23 and 1/4 inches long, which was the 83rd percentile. I can't remember her head circumference, but she was in the 65th percentile for that. (Yep, she's a Stewart!)

I had to clean out her drawers yesterday of all the clothes that she's grown out of. I can't believe that I am already having to do that! I was updating her scrapbook tonite as well, and it was crazy to look at her older pictures. She really has grown and changed so much just in these two months. It's just going by so quickly! I need to remember to just enjoy every moment because it will just keep going faster and faster!