Saturday we had a family Christmas party with Mom N's family at Pa & Ma S. house it was so fun. I need to give a little back ground on winter activities with my Pa. My grandparents live in a very small town, they have a house & a feed lot where they keep the animals. The two locations are a short distance from each other. We as grandkids were lucky enough to live by our grandparents growing up & got to spend lots of time with them as well as together. During the winter Pa would tie sleds behind the old brown truck. The old brown truck is said with much love & affection, when I say old I mean old but don't be deceived by it's looks this thing is going to run forever....even if it is held together by duct tape & bailing twine. Anyway back to the history lesson. After hooking up the sleds Pa would proceed to drive back and forth between the house & the feed lot, this would continue for hours as we'd shove each other all over the road....good thing the plows kind of suck/miss this road. Well Saturday Pa decided it was time for the tradition to continue, but instead of a truck he used.....well you can just look at the pictures & see.

Noah was really excited for this experience, no he didn't go in the sleigh! What kind of mother do you think I am!

He got to ride with Pa & my Mom (Grandma)

I believe he's saying "lets get this thing moving Pa!"

& there off.

Cuddling with Cousin Kari

My cousin Tyler's little boy Cash is so cute with Noah. He was tickling Noah in this picture, you just can't really tell.

Noah is 5 months old! Can you believe that, I sure can't. It has been so fun to watch him develop new skills everyday.
Height: 27 inches
Weight: is between 15 & 16lbs (we had to weigh him on a home scale while he was being held so it wasn't 100% accurate)

Noah has figured out cameras, computers and cell phones are pretty cool & thinks he should be able to have them....I don't think so kid!

He loves laughing, you can't always hear him but he makes a great face when he is trying to get it out.

He has been eating solids for 1 week, loving them

The Dr I work for bought us these super cute dancing chickens for Christmas, I figured Noah would hate it or love it.

or as the video shows not care at all and think I am crazy for making him watch it.

Dec. 15, 2006

That is the day Mark proposed to me! I had plans to blog about it that day, obviously that didn't happen with a baby, work, two cakes to make & life in general. The story you ask, okay I'll share. It was a snowy Friday night and I had just returned from a Hanukkah party at my friends house. We were flying to Chicago in the morning so we exchanged Christmas that night since I'd be flying back before Christmas & he was going to stay. After exchanging gifts I decided we should check the weather, to make sure our flight was going to take off as planned, while waiting for my roommate to finish her church lesson so we could watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3. When I went to ask my roommate a question Mark slipped a white box with red bow under our tree (this box still goes under or on our tree every year). Now those of you who know me well know I can get very focused & at this time I was focused on checking the weather and getting our flight plans in order. Mark had different ideas. I never noticed the box, finally he had to ask me "what's under the tree" I knew it must be for me because roommates gifts had already been given out. I was surprised by an extra present since we had just exchanged, had I been with it I'd have realized what it was, I grabbed the box not thinking anything of it until I opened it. I recognized the box inside right away since it was just like my best friends ring box I had seen only a few months earlier. I couldn't get the box out of the box, after Mark got it out for me. He opened it and had this really cute speech prepared, sadly I didn't write it down, but it ended with Will you Marry Me. Obviously I said yes. The ring was perfect and I didn't even pick it out he did! Perfect proposal for us since all important things in our relationship had taken place in our living room....first kiss, first I love you, the marriage talk.

I remember screaming and running into my roommate Amys room to show her than back to the living room where Mark was.

We decided to surprise my sister with a visit to tell her, this was not very nice of me as she had been very, very sick. She opened the door I stuck up my hand & well I can't repeat what she said this is a G rated blog. It was awesome though, perfect response.

Poor Matthew & Kristin had no idea and we just casual showed them when they got home from probably some wedding planning, I don't really know. They seemed shocked, but don't worry it was excitement too. Mark & Matthew are cousins and Kristin is my best friend so now we are all one big family. Side note while I was dating Mark the possibility of us getting married was never brought up by these two as to not "jinx" it. Must have worked cause we are 4 very happy cousins/best friends!

The next morning we headed to Salt Lake for our flight to Chicago. We got to visit Opa & Oma before hand (Mark's grandparents) and tell them the news. We were sneaky and didn't tell Dad & Mom H he had given me the ring because last they heard he was going to propose in Nauvoo. He decided against this because of airport security. As we came down the escalator at the airport I thought Dad H was going to rip my hand of trying to see the ring. It was great! The rest is wonderful history. I am so glad that Matthew's "city cousin" moved to Logan and stole my heart 4 years ago.

Visiting Nauvoo just after we got engaged.

Tonight we got to celebrate cousin Sara's graduation with a very yummy dinner. It was great fun to get to spend time with family & celebrate such an awesome accomplishment by Sara. Aunt Laurie made the suggestion of putting Noah in a highchair & it worked (once we shoved my coat behind him). The pictures isn't very good cause it's a cell phone pic in a dark place. He is getting so big I can't believe it!

Today my Mom's extended family had their annual Christmas party. Noah got to meet Santa for the first time, he didn't seem to really care about him till we walked away and Santa waived making his bells jingle than he really wanted those bells.


Meet Sofie the Girafee (that really is her name).

I was just going through pictures for Christmas stuff & happened upon these from this past summer. They made me smile & brought a little sunshine & warmth to this chilly day so I thought I'd share with you all.


I love his face in these two