Christmas Day

We were able to spend Christmas day with my family.  We had a wonderful time opening gifts, eating yummy food, and playing games together.  This is where Zack and I did most of our gift opening and we had to wait until about 2pm to do it!  Even though I am not a kid anymore I was dying to get in there and open my presents!!!  I still get excited :)

Here is our family by the tree!  We were so excited!  We decided to let Elise start us off and we had to let her open her biggest gift first.  It turned out to be a new stroller since her other one was stolen! 

For Zack this was his clothes Christmas!  He already has everything he needs (we both do!) and so we decided to gear him up with lots and lots of warm clothes for him to walk back and forth from school in.

My big gift this year was the Kindle Fire.  I have been wanting a kindle for years now but couldn't rationalize spending the money on one because I never buy books- I always check them out from the library.  With the kindle fire you can check out ebooks and get apps, surf the web, play music, etc.  I was sold!  I knew Zack was getting it for me so I couldn't wait until Christmas for me to get my new toy! I am so glad I got it!  I use it all the time- and it is awesome to use as my scriptures at church too.

One of my favorite things that Elise got was her "Birthday Girl" outfit.  I know that it is something she really will only wear once, but I couldn't resist getting it for her.  It is so cute!

Our whole family was able to be in town this year and it was so much fun to be together.  My brother Ryan and his wife, Becky, are big time gamers!  They brought a new game called Telestrations.  It is a little bit like pictionary mixed with the telephone game.  We had a lot of fun and laughed hard as we played. It was a great Christmas!

Christmas Morning

Since we split up Christmas Eve and Christmas day, things get a bit tricky for our family.  Especially this year because Christmas fell on a Sunday. We had to decide where to do stocking and Santa gifts, where to go to Church, and when we would re-unite with the rest of the Galbraith family.

We got up and got Elise ready for church and then opened our stockings.  I laughed because this is probably the first and last time that Elise will be up and bathed and in a dress on Christmas morning.  Either way she still looks adorable :)  Here are some pictures from her first Christmas:

 She seemed to think that all these items in a stocking were pretty cool!  Her stocking was filled with toy keys, a ball, finger puppets, baby spoons, freeze dried apples, and an orange.  It was so cute to see her face filled with wonder and confusion as to what to do with all of it and if it was hers! 

Yes, I was also there.  Zack didn't want any pictures taken of him but I was willing to act stupid and model my new sunglasses. We both had a great Christmas morning!  Everything changes when you have kids and celebrate the holidays.  It changes in such a good way!  We were so excited to see how Elise would react to everything.  It was a great day!

Christmas Eve

 

We spent Christmas Eve with Zack's family and we had a great time!   One of my favorite traditions that they do on the Pugh side is to sing Christmas carols.  Zack's mom plays the piano and we all gather round and sing so many fun songs!

 Here's Linda at the piano surrounded by some of her granddaughters.

 More candid snapshots of everyone singing. 

 Elise would get sick of all the singing and we would find her in the closet under the stairs.  Here she is holding her own with the boys playing with the Lego's. 

Here are Zack and I with our "sibling gifts" that we exchanged with Zack's brothers and sisters.  Our niece got a little excited with Zack's present and decided she would help him open it!!  We got some great things and had so much fun seeing what everyone else ended up with too!  We had a wonderful time eating dinner, singing songs, performing the nativity and giving gifts.  It was the perfect way to spend Christmas Eve! 

Home for the Holidays

We have been having so much fun being back in Utah for the holidays!  There is so much to do and so many friends and family to catchup with, we've been having a blast!

 It doesn't take long for Elise to find the stairs anywhere she goes!  It is by far her favorite thing!  She will be entertained for hours on here but that also means that I get my workout for the day!  She knows how to go up but not down so I have to keep a close eye on her.  She sure does love it!

 She had a blast playing with the toys at Grandma Galbraith's house!  She loved the talking Winnie-the-Pooh phone.  She laughed and giggled at it all day long.

 She has had all sorts of junk food and treats that come with Christmastime!

 We pulled out my old tickle me Elmo for Elise and she loved it!  What a precious picture!  I love this one!

 Here she is trapping herself in small spaces.  What a goof- we love this girl!

Told you she loved this phone!  It is pretty great :)  It is going to be so hard to go back to Wisconsin after all of the fun we have been having with family!

Thanksgiving 2011

We were fortunate enough to have been invited to spend Thanksgiving with the Spencer family.  Zack and Brian Spencer were roommates for two years at BYU.  Brian lives in Iowa and we were able to meet in the middle at his parents home in Illinois. 

We had a wonderful time eating a beautiful meal with all the usual trimmings.  I even ate some Thanksgiving side dishes that I always thought I hated and surprise- I actually liked them!  Who knew?!  Guess I am growing up!  We also had great company to visit with and wonderful toys for Elise to put in her mouth. 

Elise spent most of the evening practiciting climbing the up the stairs.  She is a pro!  Ask her to go down the stairs and you'll probably end up at the ER.  We don't have any stairs in our apartment so we will have to work on that when we are home for Christmas!

Above all, Thanksgiving is a great time to be reminded of how blessed we truly are.  We are so thankful, above all, for family;  For our small family of 3 and for all our family members spread out across the country.  We are grateful for Zack and all the hard work he does in medical school.  We are grateful for our health.  We are grateful to have the knowledge of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Even when times our tough it is always good to have an entire day to remind you of how lucky you are and all the many blessings we have been given.  From the Pugh family to yours, we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Holiday Crafting

I have been getting things ready for the upcoming holidays!  Here is some of the work I've been doing lately! 

I found these stockings and the tutorial on Pinterest.  I think they turned out very cute and I loved how easy and simple the tutorial was.  I didn't even make a mistake...which for me is a miracle!  If you need stockings this is a great way to go! 

I also made this adorable little turkey onesie for Elise to wear!  I was able to use all scraps from my quilt!  I love that the colors are perfect for fall :)  Can't wait for the holidays to be here!

Zack's Birthday

Zack turned 26 yesterday!  We had a great time celebrating it with a few of his good friends from school.

  Amy (holding Elise), Zack and Hemel

Zack was able to break away from his busy busy school schedule to come home a bit earlier and enjoy praises, food, and of course cake!  I'm not sure what his wish was but he did get all the candles out in one shot- so it's bound to come true right?

He is much wiser in the past year that has transpired!  He has learned the following in his 25th year:

 

-how to get into medical school

-how to fill up gas in a u-haul truck

-that Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa are not places he ever wants to live

-how to change poopy diapers

-how to make a girl laugh on cue

-how to be a wonderful father

-he became the Dominion master

-Washing off the cadaver smell is not always easy

-how to ace biochemistry and anatomy

-that cramming 8lbs. of food in your mouth at one time is possible

-Moving 2 times in one year is no fun

-being the head microscopist is tough work

-how to graduate in Physiology and Developmental Biology

-and best of all how to keep these two crazy girls just as in love with him as the day we met him :)

Airplane Tray Cover

In my current thoughts of airplane travel I saw a tray table play mat on a blog. I decided it was a wonderful idea!  I took it and ran with it!  I had all sorts of extra fabric and scraps lying around so I didn't even need to take a trip to the fabric store.  I may be a bit biased, but I think I improved a bit on the original design I found.  I am really happy with how things turned out!

I put little "taggies" along the sides for Elise to tug and play at.  The white ribbon you see tied in a bow is so it will stay attached to the tray table. The side seam is left open so you can slide the cover on and then secure it with the ties.  The pumpkin face and counting beads are the side you will see when the tray is in the "upright position".  I realize that not every activity is something that Elise can really do right now, but give her two years and she'll be there!

I had a lot of fun with this project because other than the dimensions I got from the other blog, I had total creative liberty!  I could pick the activities and the size and placement of everything. It took me most of yesterday but I did finish it in one day :)  The above photo shows you the opening so it can fit around the tray.  I put a small cookie sheet in it to test it out!  I can't wait to try it out for real!

And while I'm sharing craft projects, I also started working on the party favors for Elise's birthday.  It will be a circus theme.  I found a candy mold with circus animals and then bought a big box of crayola crayons and melted them away until they turned into these awesome animal crayons!  They aren't the colors I was hoping for, but I love them all the same!  Can't wait to give them to the kids!

And finally this is my marble maze I am making in part of a busy bag swap.  It was a simple project and I'm almost done with all of them to send away!  I don't know if you can tell but in this picture the marble is in the bottom right corner and you move it along the sewed lines to get to the other side. Simple and easy!  The best kind of craft!

Tots & Travel

In a desperate attempt to not re-create this cartoon above, I'm here to ask for tips for traveling with an infant. We fly out to Utah (hooray!) in mid-December and I'm looking for any advice my fellow bloggers might have.  Things I'm wondering now include: Elise doesn't actually have her own seat...how does that work?  Do I bring her to the gate in her car seat?  Does that count as luggage?  What about a car seat base?  Her stroller...do I have to pay to check that? It is just me and Elise on the flight, Zack will join us later.  I will be bringing a busy bag full of activities to hopefully keep her occupied and entertained as well as food.  I could bring a laptop with some Baby Einstein DVD's- is that a good idea?  Let me know :)  Thanks in advance for the help.  Here's to a happy and safe holiday travel season!

Everyday Elise

Here are a few random pictures of Elise in some funny and cute day to day experiences.

Her hair is getting so long!  We have to put a bow in it everyday or it would get in her eyes!  I had some fun during bath time and gave her a cute little mow hawk.  She enjoyed it as well :)

I caught her smiling at herself in the mirror the other day.  This made me happy.  I hope she will always have good self esteem about her herself- because she is beautiful inside and out!

Big smile behind the binky as we played at the park.

We had stake conference yesterday and were (of course) late.  We didn't even bother looking for seats since it was so packed and just hung out in the foyer listening.  Elise loved having all the space to crawl and playing with the other kids out there!

Daddy was helping her steady her bottle.  Had to snap a picture of how cute this was!  And I promise we were listening to most of the conference!

In other news I realized I never posted Elise's stats on here and thought I would for memory's sake-

Height: 29 1/4 inches 95% Who knew she was so tall?!
Weight: 18 lbs 10.5 oz.  60%
Head: 43 1/4 cm 25%

She is getting so big!  I can't believe she'll be one before we know it!

Happy Halloween

We were able to take Elise trick-or-treating at the medical college this year.  All of the offices decorate to make it look great.  It was fun to take her to a place that is warm and inside- I don't know if future years here will give us snow on Halloween but I'm happy to know that we can always have the school to go to :)  Elise was a skeleton this year!  I'm sorry to say we didn't dress up :( I normally like to but just didn't get around to it.

Zack would hold Elise and she'd reach into the candy bowl and grab some.   She would always grab out 2 pieces of candy in one hand. We didn't even teach her to do that! We are so proud, ha ha.

Taking in her spoils!  It was a lot of fun to take her out and show her off.  I know that holidays and traditions will only get more fun as she gets bigger.  Happy Halloween everyone!

Boo at the Zoo!

On Saturday I was invited to go to the zoo with some friends.  The zoo was decorated with lights and sounds for Halloween.  They had several trick or treat spots along the way.  It was a lot of fun to get out of the house and check out some spooky animals!

The Stroller gang!  Melanie and Sadie, Necia and Ellie, Me and Elise. If you click on this picture you can see Elise and Ellie grabbing hands!  So cute- I didn't notice until I uploaded the photo.

Many of the animals were given pumpkins inside of their cages.  It was interesting to see which animals touched them, devoured them, and had nothing to do with them.  Milwaukee Zoo has some great animals.  Definitely a step up from Hogle Zoo.  They have lion cubs right now too but they weren't out for display while we visited :(

Here are some fish from the Amazon!

Elise went in her pink skeleton Halloween costume.  I didn't get a great picture of it on Saturday, but I will soon!!  Happy haunting everyone!  

Grandma's Visit to Wisconsin

We had such a blast when my mom came to visit!  One day we headed out to Lake Michigan to check out the beach and have a picnic lunch!  It was a lot of fun.

I love this picture!!  Elise is so delighted.  I'm not sure if it is my mom or the wind or what, but she was loving something.  Cute!

Me and my best girl!  Lake Michigan is the largest of the great lakes and man it is huge!  If I didn't know any better I would have thought it was an ocean!  We tested out the water and it was cold but I would have happily slapped on wet suit and jumped in if that meant I could have gone water skiing :)

Around dinner time we went to a family farm called Apple Holler.  It is about 30 minutes south of Milwaukee.  I had heard from many ward members that this is a great place to go, so we decided to check it out.

We had a fun time looking at all the baby animals.  Elise really liked the baby goats.  She laughed at them and was very interested in them.

Another great picture of Elise and Grandma Marie!  Check out those cute pigs in the background :)

They had all sorts of fun activities for kids to do like hay bale maze, pony rides, apple picking, etc. It was fun but I think Elise would have enjoyed it more if she were a little bit older. We still had a great time.  After walking around the farm we decided to eat there.  Many of the dishes use things that are grown right there one the farm.

And to end on, our little flower Elise.