Sunday, December 30, 2012

Elise turns Two!

Our little girl turned TWO on December 29th and I can still hardly believe she is that big!  She is such a joy in our lives and we love her so much!  I wanted her birthday to be all about her and something fun so we headed out to celebrate at Jungle Jims!  Her cousins Carter and Ava were also able to come and have fun with us!
Riding the swings!
Jungle Safari Ride!  I love how Elise is doing her "cheese" smile!
Riding in the Jeep with Carter!
Taking at turn at the Rocket!  These two couldn't figure out how to work the joystick that moves the rocket up and down but they still had a great time!

After playing and playing and going on all of the rides at Jungle Jims we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa Pugh's to have cake and ice cream!
This girl had lots of practice in the days previous about what presents were, so she got really excited when she saw more of them!
Opening up her magnetic dress up dolls from Grandma and Grandpa Pugh!
Reading her new Elephant book!  It was a big hit!
We also bought her this adorable dress up!  She was so excited when she opening it she wanted it on immediately!  She looks pretty cute in it, if I do say so myself!!
Testing out her new party dress at the tea party!
Singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candle!  
We finished off the night with cupcakes and ice cream. What could be better?!  Thanks to everyone who helped and who came over to help celebrate our sweet Elise!  

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas Day

We spent the night at the Galbraith's on Christmas Eve but as soon as Elise woke up we loaded up the car and headed over to the Pugh's.  We got there around 8:45am and the present opening began!  We were all very spoiled and fortunate this year.  We had a great time opening gifts with Zack's mom and dad.
First, Grandpa helped Elise look at all of the fun treasures inside her stocking.  She saw the m&ms inside first and was pretty content to just sit and eat them all morning!  Guess that was all she needed!
Here she is with a bunch of candy in her mouth!  Remember those socks?!  Yep she wore them to bed and all Christmas morning too! What a silly girl!
Zack's parents got him the Nexus 7 (google's tablet).  He was really surprised with this gift and had a great time playing with it all day long.  
Here is Elise with her musical princess book and her Minnie Mouse bow-tique!  She doesn't look like it here, but she was excited for both of these!  

After we opened presents, some of Zack's siblings (Brian and Sonia) and their families came over and we had a delicious breakfast!  We had eggs, sausage, coffee cake, cinnamon pull aparts, fruit and juice!  We nibbled on that for hours and talked with everyone about what Santa brought!  

At 4pm the entire Pugh clan came over!  We had a very yummy dinner with bacon wrapped steaks!  The kids all had fun running around and eating all the candy off of Grandmas candy tree.  We sang Christmas carols together and got to open even more presents! Elise got 4 fun new board books from her cousin!  We've already been reading and loving them!

One all the kids presents were open we did the sibling gift exchange with all of the Pugh's. We tried to have everyone do more of a homemade/heartfelt gifts this year and I was so impressed with the creativity in the gifts!  Brian and Liz had us and had a whole theme about how we are becoming cheese-heads and that we have been in Wisconsin too long!  Every letter we opened was full of jokes and more reasons why we should move back to Utah.  We ended up with cartons of Aggie ice cream and BYU creamery ice cream.  Our final gift was an ice cream maker that will be shipped to us when we get home. Thanks so much Brian and Liz!  We loved our gift and can't wait to use it when we get home!

Monday, December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve

This year, Christmas Eve was spend with the Galbraith side of the family!  It was really small since my other siblings has to be away at their in-laws homes!  It was just us, my brother Todd and my mom and dad.  It was fun to have Elise be the only child there because she got to be the center of attention and loved every minute of it!

We had a delicious dinner of chicken cordon bleu, potatoes, salad, rolls and sparkling cider to go with it, yumm!  My mom never disappoints on holiday meals!

After dinner it was time for presents!  We opened more than the traditional "one gift" because we would be spending Christmas day with the Pugh's so we made sure to open all of the gifts from the Galbraith's that night.
My mom got all of the grandkids the book called, Bear Stays Up for Christmas.  It is a very cute book and ends with bears friends giving him a quilt for Christmas.  If you know my mom, she loves anything with quilts!  
To go along with the book they all got a little stuffed bear, a special box, and a quilt the size for the bear!  Elise loved to open the box and put the quilt back in and out.  She could have been happy with just that one present!
Elise is our little present so we had to keep adding bows to her!  I also opened some socks (exciting, I know) and Elise thought those were pretty great. She insisted on putting them on and even wore them to bed that night!
When Todd comes that means that his dog, Cheeto, will also be there.  Elise loves Cheeto and follows him around anytime he comes over.  She is a little aggressive with him at times so Zack and Grandpa were trying to help her be soft when she pets him.
My mom has a cute little manger that holds a baby Jesus.  Elise had a lot of fun holding the baby and playing with the hay in it too.
Elise is pulling a funny smile in this, but it's the best one we got!  We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with the Galbraiths!  We finished off the night putting Elise down to sleep and the rest of us stayed up watching the movie Silent Night.  It was neat to see the story behind one of my favorite Christmas songs. We are so grateful for the holiday season and the warmth and love it brings to all!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

A Visit to LA

We've been all over the place this break!  After being in Utah for only a couple of days our family of 3 headed off to sunny California!  We went for a visit to see our friends David and Rachel.  Zack and David are great friends and it's been a while since we saw them last so a trip to CA was in order!  David is out in LA where he is going to dental school at UCLA.  It was a nice break and fun to have some nice weather too!

We did lots of fun things like trying out a bunch of new restaurants, saw a lot of movies, and even went to walk around Hollywood.  Of course I didn't take any pictures of anything until we went to the beach!  So here are the few pictures we have from our trip!

We headed out to the beach at Santa Monica and it was a beautiful day!  It was around 65 degrees and sunny!  It was so much fun to watch Elise experience the ocean for the first time!
This girl would have ran straight in and never come back if we'd let her!  When the water washed up onto her feet she giggled and laughed so hard!  She couldn't believe what was going on- it was so cute!
She ran all over the place!  She loved to have the sand on her feet, find seashells and run up and down this lifeguard watch station.  
We really could have stayed at the ocean all day with her, and probably should have!  We were poor planners and only could stay for about and hour because we had to catch our flight back to Salt Lake!  Next time, we'll come prepared!

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Playing at Grandmas!

I love going home to Utah because Elise had a million new toys to play with and lots and lots of cousins to run around with!  Over the past few weeks I've snapped some pictures of her just playing pretend!  
Grandma Galbraith has a fun dollhouse up on this bookshelf so it is the perfect height for Elise to get in there and play with all the things inside!
Caught readings all of Grandmas books!  Is there anything better than finding them reading!?
Since being in Utah we've realized two things- First, that Elise LOVES dress ups!  She is a total girly girl and loves to wear crowns, dresses and high heels!  Once they are on it's hard to get them off of her!  Second, she loves Elephants.  She calls them Elos.  Grandma Pugh has two elephants in her house and Elise has insisted on carrying them around with her wherever she goes.  It's  so cute!
Grandma Pugh also got this cute little table as a new edition to the play room and Elise has spent a lot of time up there playing tea party.  Where did she even learn to do that!?  I'm not sure but I love pretending with her!  She is growing up so fast!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

My New Toy

This week I got an early Christmas present in the mail.  My in-laws called to double check our address and told me to be on the lookout for my gift.  They told me it was heavy and large and so instead of giving it to me in Utah they were mailing it so I wouldn't have to worry about taking it home.  Boy did they pique my interest!  I hadn't told them anything I want for Christmas nor had they asked!  I love being surprised, so I was excited! 

The doorbell rang on Tuesday and sure enough, it was the UPS guy.  I looked on my porch and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a serger!!!!   I was so excited!!  I never would have even thought to ask for one for years! They got me a Brother Lock serger. I got it all set up and am already looking for some great projects to make that use a serger.  If any of you have an idea for me, send it my way! 

Thank you so much Linda and Evan!!  I love it and I know this is a gift I can use for years and years to come.