On Monday, I was sick and watched Mr. Bean’s Christmas. Love that episode!
Cute face in the tub
Hello, adorable!
With the help of our committees, we had a very successful ward party! Over 70 people attended and the white elephant exchange was so fun!
Pretty in Pink
Sometimes my baby girl still lets me hold her and it’s the best!
Erin threw a “Favorite Things” party. So classy!
On Sunday evening, we had a couple friends and family over for cake and ice-cream to celebrate Eva’s birthday. I kept singing to Eva, “It’s your party, you can cry if you want to!” She wasn’t in her most chipper mood, but I think she still enjoyed the party.
Everyone brought the cutest gifts for Eva… she sure is loved! Clothes, books, necklaces, and toys-including the playhouse below. We got that toy at the DI several months ago and hid it in the basement. It has been a huge hit! Thanks to everyone who helped to make her first birthday so fun and memorable!
Eva and her cousins playing with the new toy
Cake and cupcakes!
Hannah sent Eva clothes for her bear… Thanks, Nanny Hanny!
Eva wasn’t sure if she wanted to try the cupcake…
But after giving her a bite, she shoved it in!
And the strawberry ice-cream was a huge hit!
Happy Birthday, dear Eva!
It is getting harder and harder to photograph Eva. These were the only ones that weren’t blurry because she is always on the go.
On December 8th, Eva turned one year old. ONE WHOLE YEAR. All last week, I was extremely emotional. It didn’t help that our good friends had a baby girl just two days before her birthday. It brought back all those early memories and excitement at the hospital. I’ve reflected back through this year. Each month brought something new and I can thoroughly say that I enjoyed each month of Eva’s life. The first couple months were difficult because of the crying and the lack of sleep, but there’s something so sweet and special about an innocent newborn baby. And these last couple months have been filled with laughter as Eva’s personality has begun to shine.
This past month has been so much fun. Eva started walking and, once she got the hang of it, hasn’t stopped. She is so curious and always wants to be busy. She entertains herself easily with her toys and books, which is nice because sometimes I have a lot of work and can’t play with her all day.
Eva finally likes baths again. We realized we have to let her stand beside the tub for a while and then she wants to get in and splash. It’s nice not having to bathe a screaming baby anymore.
Recently Eva has started to interact with other babies. To put it bluntly, Eva doesn’t know how to play with other kids yet. She does not like sharing and she sometimes turns into a drama queen. Hopefully we can teach her good social skills these next couple months so she is ready for nursery.
We joked several weeks back that Eva was singing, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.” The two top ones came in, plus a third, and now she is cutting her fourth top tooth. Needless to say, it’s been kind of rough. Cutting teeth comes with nights of screaming and an emotional baby. But what can you do? At least on those days she is extra cuddly!
Last week, Eva got her 12 month shots. I always dread getting her shots. She is always so happy playing in the waiting room and has no idea what is about to happen. Fortunately, she calmed down with some graham crackers and the shots didn’t affect her much this time. But the next day we went to her 12 month checkup. At the end, my doctor told us she needed to get blood work. It is routine at our office for one year olds to get it done to test for iron levels and to make sure they haven’t been exposed to anything bad such as lead. Holy cow. That was such a horrible day. She screamed the entire time. It was so sad to see her in so much pain! But all is well and hopefully we won’t have to do that again! For the record, Eva is 21.5 pounds and 27 inches long.
Pat-a-cake, waving, playing peek-a-boo, saying “Hi”, reading her puppy book, baths, eating pasta, running, swinging, watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, brushing her hair, wearing necklaces and aprons, unfolding the folded laundry, getting into everything and anything, getting tickled and tickling back (that’s the cutest thing ever, BTW), pretending to talk on the phone, giving hugs to her stuffed animals, chasing and getting chased.
Diaper changes, putting on clothes, sitting still at church, anything she ate yesterday, the vacuum cleaner, second nap of the day, cow milk.
I want it to snow! But instead, it’s just been cold and rainy for most of this week. Here are some photos from last month when it snowed… I’m still playing catch up from my blogging hiatus.
Eva wearing my sister’s old baby snowsuit. Adorbs.
Come back snow!
For a couple days last month, I had a stomach bug. I think I mentioned it, but I don’t think I ever shared this photo:
Whenever I moved, I felt really sick, so I stayed still on the couch. Fortunately, T.J. was able to get off work after Eva woke up from her nap, but in the morning when he was at work, Eva got to roam around without consequences, and boy, did she take advantage of it!
Holly Dolly turned one last month! Oh my gosh, I teared up singing Happy Birthday to my sweet niece, so I can’t imagine how it will be when it’s my own daughter this week!
Here are the three babies (eehh… toddlers!?) playing with Holly’s birthday present!
For part of Holly’s birthday gift, I made these bows:
I made a lot of doubles so Eva could match!
A couple weeks ago, my friend Erin invited me to go see Twilight with her and some friends on the night of the premiere. Fortunately, the tickets were for 10 pm, not midnight… I don’t think I could do a minight showing anymore!
I actually loved the movie. I never read the books or really got into the other movies, although I always saw them and enjoy watching them from time to time when I need a cheesy chick flick to watch. But this last one, it was intense and Bella and Edward were actually enjoyable to watch since they weren’t so depressed the whole time.
I wanted to report on some Pinterest finds I’ve tried out recently. I’ve learned that you can’t trust every blogosphere out there… ha!
So, first things first. I just made these tonight because I want to make a funfetti cake for Eva’s birthday and thought funfetti cookies would also be awesome. Here’s the link. If you have a severe sweet tooth, maybe you’ll them but they were just too intense for me. Maybe it was the type of sprinkles I used? Who knows. But one thing I do know… I feel sick after one cookie!
Last week I tried to make this peanut butter fudge link. I made the terrible mistake of DOUBLING the recipe because it was for a church activity. It turned out horribly. I don’t know what happened. But I had to throw away two 13×9 pans of awful fudge. I do still suggest making another recipe for fudge and wrapping them like reindeer because it’s adorable!
I crafted my own glitter reindeer like the one below. I found the idea on Pinterest-linking to this blog. I immediately fell in love with the idea and we had all the stuff on hand, so I went for it. I first used modge podge and it failed miserably. But, after reading the directions over again, she said to use elmers glue. Worked like a charm except that the glue spread out a lot so I had to go and fix the outlines several times while it was drying. I’d recommend the project only if you have all of the stuff on hand. If not, it’s not worth your time.
Here’s another Pinterest bomb. I can’t find the direct link, but the photo is below. I dried to do that candy cane twist when making sugar cookies one night and it did not look like that. Who do they think I am? Martha Stewart? In my dreams.
After posting so many dessert recipes, I’m ashamed that I’ve tried another recently. (Don’t worry Mom, I’m still down the 20 pounds. It’s a Christmas miracle.) This recipe I found on Pinterest actually worked really well. We all have seen the cake in a mug cakes, but most of the time they require cocoa and I never have that on hand. So, this one is a vanilla sponge cake recipe. I topped it with a couple chocolate chips and it was absolutely wonderful. If I didn’t already feel sick from that cookie I ate earlier, I would go make it right now. It was so warm and gooey!
Lastly, this one I’m trying tonight. I wish upon a star that I could get gel nails at the salon for Christmas, but no mon, no fun. I’m going to do my own nails and try this. I’ll let you know if it works out!
I usually go out on Black Friday, but I decided I didn’t want to do that this year. Other than having zero extra dollars to throw around, I saw this graphic:
Instead, we hung out with T.J.’s family and had such a fun evening playing Kinect, eating fondu, and decorating sugar cookies.
View from Dustin & Lindsay’s home. I love Utah sunsets!
Lots of food to dip into the fondu!
T.J. made a Scrooge sugar cookie. I just made a star and a circle.
Cohen rocking the sun glasses.
Adorable Holly
I was lucky to catch this photo.
T.J. tried to curl Eva’s hair with rollers. She ripped them out immediately.
This was Eva’s favorite face to make last week.
Eva was mezmerised by the Christmas tree when we first put it up. It’s “old news” now and she doesn’t even try to touch the ornaments anymore. Thank goodness.
It was a great weekend!
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