Daddy Daughter Time

During the past couple of weeks Rick and Kimbri have spent lots of extra time together. I'm so grateful to Rick and for everything he does, especially during these past couple weeks with having a newborn along with an energy-filled little girl running around!  Even on top of school and work, Rick will still get up with Kimbri in the morning to give her a bottle, play, and read with her so that I can sleep a little longer to make up for the lost sleep during the night due to Garrett's feedings. Rick has been the one to give Kimbri her baths and he has been getting her all ready and taking her to church with him. He is so supportive and is just the best daddy to Kimbri and Garrett I could ever dream of!  I just love him so so so much :)

Here are some of the pictures I've taken of Rick and Kimbri:

Bath Time! - Kimbri LOVES taking baths.

And she loves her bath letters/toys that Grandma & Grandpa Stone got her!

Daddy Daughter Buddies

Christmas 2012

Wow. I'm posting about Christmas when we are almost halfway through January. It's been a little bit crazy, especially having our newborn little Garrett in our family now. I've been recovering and resting from labor and delivery and we are adjusting to life with two kids! We love Kimbri and Garrett so so so much! I'll post more about Garrett's birth on this blog a little later but I want to quickly write about our Christmas for the year 2012! 

So this is our Christmas tree with the gifts underneath! Rick and I decided that we could spend $20 dollars on each other. Since we each needed some things we weren't very secretive. For example, Rick's jeans have holes in them so he needed some more pants. We went Christmas shopping and he picked out and tried on the pair of pants sitting under the Christmas tree in this picture. He also needed some socks so we got those for him too. I needed some new face lotion and then I also picked out a pair of warm and very comfortable sweat pants. I had been wanting something warm and comfortable to go and come home from the hospital in when having baby Garrett. For Kimbri, she got some books and a two babies with a baby doll bed. The books we were able to get for free since I hosted a book show a while back. The baby doll bed has been around for years! My grandpa Haycock made the bed for me a long time ago and my grandma Haycock made a little padding for a mattress for the baby dolls along with some pillows and blankets. They've been stored away for years, since I was little, so I washed the blankets and pillows and got out my twin baby dolls that I had from when I was younger and we gave them to Kimbri. We also got her a little pink and gray bracelet for $1. I know I've mentioned before in a previous post how much Kimbri loves "pretties" or in other words, bracelets and necklaces. She always likes to wear my bracelets so we got her one for herself that is her size. 

She loves her babies!

After having Kimbri opening and seeing her gifts and playing with her for a while, we loaded up and headed down to Spanish fork to spend Christmas morning with my family. I wish I would've written about the day sooner so that I could remember more details but it's been a while now so I don't remember as much. 

Kimbri LOVED picking up the wrapping paper from when anyone opened a present. My mom had a big trash sack and Kimbri would go and pick up each tiny bit of wrapping paper and throw it away. It was pretty funny and very entertaining not only for her but for everyone watching. Haha!

Kimbri loving the big pillow my mom got.

I don't have many pictures from Christmas day :( Bummer! But Donna and Jason, my aunt and uncle from Texas, and their two kids Micah and Maddye were here in Utah for Christmas this year! Also here for Christmas was Dale and Delicia and their three girls, Mckenzie, Mallory, and Katie, also from Texas. It was sooo fun to see them all!!! We didn't get to go to Louisiana for Thanksgiving for the big reunion with all my mom's siblings and parents so it was extra fun to see them.

My uncle Jason reading Christmas books to Kimbri.

We weren't able to get really fancy or that nice of gifts for other people because of our limited amount of money but we tried to get things people might need and enjoy at the same time. We got Rick's parents a cookie scooper. Rick said that his family didn't have one. It's not really a necessity to have a cookie scooper but it's kind of fun and makes scooping cookie dough a little bit easier and faster! Hopefully they enjoy it :) We decided to get my parents a new potato peeler. They have had an old metal one since I can remember that is getting pretty bent and beat up. Someone had given us a nicer potato peeler for our wedding and I love it so hopefully they enjoy their new one too! And I think I already talked about the sibling gift exchange in my Christmas Eve post...but if not, I'll quickly mention it. We had Nolan's name this year and got him a gift card to Red Robin so he and Brooke could go out on a free date. And on Rick's side of the family we had Levi's name and we got him a part that goes to his ukelele. 

Each of our parent's went over the top in giving us a Christmas this year. We feel so grateful to them and feel so blessed to have such amazing parents! Rick's parents got us pass of all passes! We are soooo excited! That gives us tons of free dates. And we'll get to spend a few weeks at Seven Peaks this next summer before moving to Arizona! They also gave us some money for Christmas. Thanks to both Mike and Sundee for so much generosity. I don't think they will realize how much it means to us right now in our lives! 

My parents got us a Chicco double stroller! I was totally shocked! It's gray and black and the car seat we have will snap into either the front or back seat of the stroller. I am sooooo excited. I can't even express how amazed I am. I've been wanting a double stroller for quite a while now, especially with a new baby! But we just new that it wasn't something we could afford right now. I've just been thinking about how when we will be living in Arizona and me being at home with two kids and how hard it would be to go anywhere. Kimbri and Garrett are just so close in age that they are both young enough to need to ride in a stroller. Thanks mom and dad! I can't believe it and I'm so excited!  They also renewed our Sam's club membership that came with a gift card which we are also so grateful for! They even looked up to make sure there was a Sam's Club in the area we will be living at in Arizona. Also they gave us a Walmart gift card and some extra cash. 

Again, I'm not sure if our parents will realize how big of a blessing their generosity has been for us. With the money we received from both of our parents we were able to buy food and even replace some of the food storage we had eaten. Rick and I often talk about how we want to be like our parents when Rick is done with school and we actually have money. We want to help others out like so many people have done for us. We want to be able to leave an extra big tip for someone who might really need it or secretly buy groceries for a family in need, like someone "secretly" did for us. I say "secretly" because we found out who actually did it and we can't even begin to express how grateful we are for the fruit, vegetables, meat and food money they left on our front porch.

During this Christmas season people have been so generous to us and as I have sat here and typed this out I'm overcome with tears and just hope that we can someday pay it forward to others who are in need. We love our family and friends and are so grateful to every one of them in our lives! 

Merry Christmas! 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was so fun! Rick, Kimbri and I got to spend the whole day together! We got up and had breakfast and just lounged around together. We did have to get a little bit of laundry done but other than that, we spent the whole morning hanging out together. Kimbri took a nap mid-morning and Rick and I just played games together. Since Rick got done with finals we've had way more time to play some games. We've probably played Phase 10 the most. It goes a lot faster with 2 people and is still really fun. In between Kimbri's naps we decided to make Christmas sugar cookies. So we did that and made cookies into Christmas trees, stockings, candy canes, snowmen, and a few stars and frosted them different colors. Kimbri sure enjoyed taste-testing the cookie dough, frosting and the final cookie when they were done!

The beginning of a ton of snow just in time for Christmas!!

Lunch time on Christmas Eve plus Kimbri's silly faces.

We also had to finish up gathering up and wrapping a few presents for each of our sibling exchanges, so we made a quick stop at Sam's Club and at the mall. On my side we had Nolan's name and on Rick's side we had Levi's name. We got Nolan a Red Robin gift card so he could take his girlfriend, Brooke, out on a free date. Rick and I have always enjoyed gift cards that we've been given because then we can go out to eat and have a free date together! So hopefully they enjoy that :) Then for Levi's gift, we got him what I think is called a capo, for his ukelele. We sure hope he enjoys that as well!

Olivia had Rick and I for the sibling gift exchange...and she went way too all out with it and got all the members of our family something! Even Garrett who isn't even born yet! That was really thoughtful of her and we appreciate it a ton! She gave us a baby gate. And that is something that we have really been wanting for when Garrett is born. Attached to it was a Cafe Rio gift card! I'm soooo excited for that:) She also got Kimbri as couple of cute outfits; one is purple and dark blue. The shirt has polka dots and a pink flower and the other one is a onsie with cute flower pants. And then she got Garrett a little red and black flannel sleeper that is so soft! I can't wait to dress him in it! On Rick's side of the sibling exchange, his sister Mindy had us. She got us a movie gift card!! We are SO excited for that! We usually just wait til it's in Red Box or sometimes we'll splurge and go to the dollar theater. Haha :-) So we are really excited to go to the 'real' movie theater together!

So this year we were going to spend the main part of Christmas Eve with my family and then drop in at the Stone's to visit them after that since last year we were at the Stone's house most of the night and then dropped in at my family's to say hi. Well, it turned out that several people were sick at the Stone's and we didn't want to risk getting sick, especially since I could be having the baby any time now. So we were just at my family's house for the night.

Things started around 6pm. Camille and Tim plus their son, Jake, spent Christmas in Utah, from Colorado, this year, so they were there along with my Grandma and Grandpa Haycock. Two of my aunts on my mom's side, Donna and Delicia and their families were in town too! So that was fun, but they ended up having to split time with other family around this area too. But it was soooo fun to see them since we didn't get to go to Louisiana for the big family get together for Thanksgiving!

We had our yearly Christmas Eve 'dinner' which was super yummy. It's not your typical dinner but more of snack-type foods. My favorite are my dad's homemade taquitos with salsa!! Yuuummmm!!!! I probably ate way too many. But it's one of the Christmas Eve favorites, in my opinion:) There was also my Grandma's homemade rolls with turkey and ham meat and cheese to make little sandwiches. And a whole lot of other types of food. Different kinds of chips and dip, mini pickles, another of my favorites, a huge variety of cookies and of course the tradition of a sherbet and sprite slushy drink! It was really yummy.

Later in the evening we did our little "Gift to the Savior" show. It is a time where you can present something you've been working on or share a an experience, etc... but mostly it is sharing our talents. For example, several people played Christmas songs, or other songs, on the piano. My little cousin, Jake played a song, Zach played one and so did Wyatt. Enoch performed a dance that Olivia had helped him learn. Rick played a song on the piano. My dad wanted me to play a Christmas hymn. And then everyone finally got my dad to sing a song, along with Wyatt and Rick. It wasn't really Christmas related or anything but rather a fun random tradition of me playing Phantom of the Opera songs and the boys all singing along. They belt it out and sing along and it's really funny! And they're actually quite good.

The rest of the evening was spent just hanging out and relaxing, spending time with family and just lounging around together. We also played a round of Tommy Right & Tommy Left. Rick got a box of popcorn and I got two Christmas dish towels. That game is a Christmas tradition that I want to continue on with our family! It was really fun to spend time with family and to get to visit with family from out of town that we don't get to see very often!

Here are a few more snapshots of Christmas Eve I took at my parents house.

Kimbri opening a present from her Uncle Zach.

She LOVES the soft purple blanket he gave her! 

Thanks Uncle Zach!

Timber & Koda's Puppy

I'm a little behind on posting to my blog. Of course it's been a little crazy because of the holidays but I definitely want to catch up on a few posts because baby Garrett could come any day now! We are really anxious and excited and I just cannot wait until he makes his arrival. I'm anxiously waiting, minute by minute:)

Anyway, a while back Zach's dogs, Timber and Koda, had puppies, and one day when we were down in Spanish Fork, before Christmas, Zach had just bathed one of the puppies that was about to leave to go to another home. Kimbri had quite a lot of fun with the little puppy. She kept trying to get the blanket and put it on top of the puppy. Then a little while later they were sitting side by side and the puppy kept leaning over and sniffing Kimbri and she would try and lean over away from him and she was just making the funniest faces! It was really cute.

Also, Stacie and the kids visited from Nebraska and I wish I would've taken more pictures! I took some of Luke on my phone but I still need to figure out how to get them from my phone to the computer.... Anyway, so here is Oaklee and Kimbri sitting on the couch together. I couldn't get Kimbri to smile, haha.

Our Little Cowgirl ~ Almost 17 Months Old

Kimbri found this cowgirl hat on the bottom shelf in our bedroom closet a while back, and now she always goes to there and gets it and likes to wear it around. 

Some other things that Kimbri does lately (at almost 17 months old):

-When her food is all gone she raises one hand way in the air and spreads her fingers all apart, motioning that "it's all gone gone". Haha.

-She randomly walks on her tip-toes around the house. 

-When we turn on the Christmas tree lights and the lights on top of the piano, she says, "ooooo" - but in a super high pitched girly voice. I can't describe how cute and funny it is with words.

-Kimbri has always loved to "read" books. When she was younger she wouldn't really let me read the books to her, she just wanted to flip through the pages and look. But now she loves to bring me one book at a time from off the book shelf and we read them! She's a little bookworm! I love sitting down and reading with her. Lately, however, there has become less and less room on my lap due to my ever-growing belly. Baby Garrett needs to hurry up and make his debut! 

-Whenever something is baking in the oven, I'll turn on the oven light and she loves to look through the oven window and see what's in there. I think she knows now that whatever is in the oven eventually comes out and she gets to eat it! 

-Her favorite food is probably bananas. She absolutely positively LOVES bananas. Some other foods that she likes are oranges/clementines, apple slices, grilled cheese sandwiches, green beans, mashed potatoes, and pasta with red sauce! -Just to name a few. She won't really eat chicken. I guess it's maybe the texture? If I discreetly mix it in with a bite of mashed potatoes or something then sometimes she'll eat it, but not always.  And of course, she loves cookies! She usually gets spoiled and Grandma's house with those :)

-Kimbri has always been a pretty good sleeper. She is almost 17 months now and she usually goes to bed around 6:30pm (sometimes sooner and sometimes later), and sleeps anywhere from 12 to 14 hours... which is great! But she only takes usually one nap during the day. And it totally varies, sometimes only 45 minutes and sometimes 2 hours!

-She loves to wear her "prettys'" a.k.a. any sort of necklace or bracelet. I used to keep my jewelry box on a lower shelf but recently Kimbri has discovered it and can open the drawers and get things out. She would always go straight for the drawer with my bracelets in it and put them on her arms and show me.  I had to move the box to a higher shelf but I got our a couple bracelets for her to have and play with. She also loves to put on all the beaded Mardi Gras necklaces at Grandma Haycock's house!

-For some reason Kimbri loves to put things in and out of boxes, tupperware, bags, etc... Lately she has had so much fun with these little colorful bear figurines that go with a book that my mom gave her. She loves putting all the bears in any sort of container and then getting them out, and repeating the process over and over! 

-And of course Kimbri loves to go visit Grandma's house in Spanish Fork and Salem! Along with all of her many aunts and uncles! Kimbri, you are loved by SO many people! And we all love you so SO much!!! 

Our little girl is growing up so fast! I can't believe how fast time is flying by. I love you Kimbri with all my heart! 

Hand-Me-Down Christmas Jammies

I'm not sure who all wore these Christmas pajamas among my siblings or other family members, but they were in a box of clothes my mom gave me. The pants are a little small and somehow made their way off Kimbri's little legs by morning time, but we had to take some pictures of her in them for documentations sake! Haha. Maybe I'll find a picture some day of me in them...who knows? 

Sick

I haven't updated the blog in a while... probably because we've all just been sick and I've had no energy to do anything lately :(  I guess being sick, taking care of a sick baby, and being huge pregnant all at the same time is hard...at least for me it is.

A little over one month ago Kimbri came down with the croup. Even though she got the medicine in her fast (they just gave her a shot), the doctor said that she would have the symptoms, a runny nose and cough, for a couple weeks after. So just as she seemed to start getting better I came down with a very sore throat and runny nose. Then Rick got it. And Kimbri just as Kimbri seemed to be getting better her cough suddenly got worse. 

Rick and I both started feeling better and got over the sore throat and runny nose thing. And it seemed like Kimbri was just not able to completely get over it. Just as I would think that her cough would start to sound better, it would just go right back to the way it was before. I kept thinking she would get over it soon and didn't want to be the paranoid mom bringing her kid back in right after taking her in for the croup just a month before. 

But one night that thinking changed. Kimbri sounded so bad during the night. She coughed and coughed and coughed some more. She slept through the night but just kept coughing. I've been a pretty light sleeper ever since becoming a mom, and I heard every time she coughed. And it started to worry me. Because it wasn't just a cough anymore, it was a wheezy, hard to breath sounding cough. 

So we scheduled a doctors appointment for that morning. By that point her oxygen levels were super low. They would rise and then dip and repeat that process, just over and under the borderline for hospitalization. So she had two breathing treatments and then they decided she would be okay to go home but they had a machine sent to us that night so we could do breathing treatments at home. 

The breathing treatments, along with a steroid medicine stuff they gave her, helped a ton! I felt so bad for our little girl. I guess this is the season for this type of thing, unfortunately :(

I'm sure grateful for doctors! And I'm glad that little miss Kimbri is feeling so much better!