oh and i may or may not have started a new project this morning

berries and cream

weston called this the berries & cream quilt and i hadn't thought about that - but i loved it!

this is a quilt for baby "maggie" anderson. have you guys landed on the name officially, yet? well, she's a sweetheart, so beautiful, so fresh, and so tiny! we love that you have a baby in the house again :) congrats!!

sledding

on the 26th, we all bundled up to face the below freezing temperatures and expose our fair skin to the cold and wind that comes with 4-wheeling and sledding. but it was totally worth it! we rode around in the fields in front of the jones' house. kate wanted nothing to do with anyone but her parents and wasn't too crazy about being outside or anywhere near a sled.

we went on a family 4-wheel excursion through the fields and she quickly adjusted and had a lot of fun. she was screaming "go! go! go!" and laughing and loving it. after a few rounds of that, i took kate and we went to visit kimberly whose parents live just down the lane. it was nice to warm up, see her family, and catch up.

kate and i braved the cold again and watched weston wake/snowboard as his dad pulled him behind a 4-wheeler.


after watching him for a few minutes, kate decided to give the old sled a try with me and trent and jess pulled us around for a few laps. she had a great time and kept saying, "again! again!"

what a cold cutie pie!

christmas in monroe

we got to central in the early afternoon and spent time with weston's parents.  afterwards, we went to monroe and kate opened her gifts from grandma & grandpa cottle. 

 

she got the cutest little kitchen and she was thrilled.  she is very into pretend play right now with anything and everything and is loving her kitchen, shopping cart, food, and dolls.  it is so much fun to see her play.

 checking it all out

she got some more cozy pajamas and a book from grandma cottle and as soon as she saw this biscuit book, she rushed right over to grandpa for a quick read.  a few months ago, he read a different biscuit book to kate about 20 times in a row.  it was so cute that she remembered and went straight to grandpa.

that night, we went back to central to exchange gifts with the rest of weston's family. 

we had a good night visiting and enjoying all the little girls

and brand new oliver!

what a day!

christmas morning

we started bright and early at 7am and had to wake up kate. she wasn't too thrilled at first, but it took hardly any time for her to perk up once she realized she was going to get to open her presents.

kate had practiced opening presents the day before, so she was an old pro once we pulled her away from the drums and jewelry :)

it wouldn't be a proper gift exchange holiday without some new shoes for kate to open.  we both love these little shoes.  and kate was obviously excited about them - she insisted on wearing them that morning. 

at least we didn't hear "yuck!" followed by "double yuck!" :)

some of the haul:

 

off to grandma's!

and kate's rockin' out

day 1.

she's only gotten better :)

christmas eve festivities

christmas eve started out with breakfast with weston's parents and grandpa colton. we really need to be better about taking pictures with outings like this - sorry, no such luck for this post.

after breakfast, weston's parents came over to our place because they wanted to watch kate open her christmas presents from them. what a lucky girl! she got early christmas presents! she got an awesome drum kit!

and she's totally a natural :)

then she got a box full of goodies:

jewelry music box, clothes, books ... good stuff!

that afternoon, rory and ashley stopped by for a quick visit! kate took a minute to warm up to rory, but once she knew he was safe, she had a great time playing, teasing, and laughing with him.

it was great to see you guys!

afterwards, we started on dinner - weston was a huge help as i have a very hard time multi-tasking in the kitchen. the problem is that i think i can multi-task as much as i usually do ... that's when things turn black and the kitchen fills with smoke. not good. so thank you, weston, for helping make this dinner a success!!!

i mean, what's better than bacon and cherry pie - weston thinks these flavors go great together apparently :)

we had spiral sliced ham with the yummy glaze, loaded baked potatoes, peas, and rolls. and the best part for me was the red grape sparkling soda i got - it tasted exactly like my grandma nielsen's bottled grape juice. i mean exactly. just add soda! it was awesome.

after looking at christmas lights with our hot chocolate, we came home so kate could open her christmas pajamas. 

they were a little big to start, but now that they've been washed they are a perfect fit!

and i am in love with the little mandarin collar! she looks like such a doll :)

we finished off the night with a little polar express and went to sleep so santa claus could make a visit :) hope you all had a fabulous christmas eve!!

december 21, 22, 23, and 24

so i'm back!

december 21st was take treats to a friend.  kate and i delivered bags of all the goodies we had made to a few friends in the afternoon and that evening we all went out to deliver a few more plates to grandparents and another friend or two.  i, for one, am glad to share the sugar with others :)  i wish i had taken pictures of the goodie bags - they turned out so cute!

december 22nd was make rice crispie treats.  i opted for making a cherry pie. 

weston helped me add the sugar on top (his favorite part).  maybe i should try a piece ... not much for extra sugar.  looks pretty, though!!

december 23rd was go get hot chocolate.

we didn't have time to do this on the 23rd so we combined it with the 24th which was drive around and look at christmas lights.  we stopped at the gas station and made our custom cups and spent the next 30 minutes or so admiring all the christmas lights around town.  i love this tradition!

well, it took much effort - but we did it!  it was a full month but i know kate loved each of these traditions.  she talked about several of them for days.  it was a great way to stretch the spirit of the season to last the whole month!

bathroom humor

remember this?  well, it didn't last long and after a few days with training pants, we gave up.  ever since then, kate would ask here and there to go potty - but no success.  yesterday i decided, very out of the blue since it's not much fun to potty train if you ask me, to give it a go again.  she sat on her potty chair for about 45 minutes (while i entertained her with the water spray bottle) but it was no use.  i asked her if she wanted to try on the big toilet and she said ok.  i may or may not have had to show her how ;) but she hopped on and went immediately!  i was so proud :)  about 15 minutes later i asked her if she wanted to try again and she went again!  she went potty in the toilet, and had zero accidents in those training pants, 4 times yesterday!  is this really happening?  is she really ready this time?  we'll have to wait it out and see...

christmas dress

before church, weston snapped a couple shots of kate in her new christmas dress.

 singing

smiling

december 18, 19, and 20

december 18 was read a christmas story.  we don't really have any children's holiday books.  i ended up reading a story out of a compilation book and kate lost interest pretty quickly.  i, however, enjoyed reading a couple of stories - namely the gift of the magi by o'henry.

i remember my 7th grade basic ed teacher, mr. rogers, reading this to us and i have always found it such a good story - especially at christmastime.  the selflessness of the characters in giving up prized possessions (her long hair and his grandfather's pocketwatch) to buy a gift for the other.  such a sweet story.

december 19th was go to a local christmas activity.  we improvised and finished up our christmas shopping.  we had a fun evening looking for the last gifts on our list and getting out of the house.  we ate dinner at chili's before heading home and our fajitas were tasty!

december 20th was make gingerbread cookies.  kate was in and out of the kitchen "helping mama" make cookies.

we had a fun night of baking, making dinner together, and watching a couple of movies.

december 17

today was a full day, again.

it all started when weston called me around 8:45 am with the news that he was one of those dumb people in an accident on the freeway. thank goodness, and no surprise, it was not at all his fault. (the fact that weston is such a conservative, safe driver is one of the top reasons my mom loves him). apparently he got rear-ended and it totally killed the back end of my sweet little prizm. so sad. we are awaiting his appointment monday morning with the other driver's insurance adjustor to find out what happens next. do we get to keep her or will she go the way of the salvage yard. i am really very sad about this - i love that little car. she's such a good one.

our activity for the day was to go see the lights at temple square. so, once we figured the traffic had died down, we drove to salt lake. kate crashed out about halfway there and when we arrived, she was still out cold. we wrapped a blanket around her and layed her out in her stroller (thank goodness for the adjustable seat!) and she missed more than half the night. we had her really covered up in that blanket - her face was covered even - and more than one person gave that sideways glance into the stroller trying to figure out if we had anyone in there :)

it was incredible to see the amount of slr cameras and tripods on temple square - laughable really. i should have kept count. in no exaggeration, there were probably more than 50 tripods in the 30 minutes we were there. oh boy. my man shot all of these images with no tripod and his awesome point and shoot g10 :)

kate finally woke up and finally decided to smile and enjoy the night.

we ended the night by eating dinner at, you guessed it, in-n-out. they opened up right by our house finally and boy did it put a smile on our faces. we were both laughing at ourselves because we felt like we were all of a sudden travelling and far from home. it's hard to believe you can get a double double just 1 minute away :) it was fantastic.