January In A Nutshell

Gees 2011 is flying by!!!

Tyler and I are going to try to have a date night once a month...new years resolution of mine...so here's a picture from our first one! We went out to dinner at Chilis and than walked up and down Mill Ave here in Tempe. We walked a little bit by Tempe Town Lake and had a good time. It was a bit chilly for me but the walking, Tyler and my coat kept me warm. I did end up with a nasty blister from my heals but it was worth it!

I'm trying to go out with Lowe at least once a week to somewhere fun (and for the time being new since the Valley is a whole new area for us). This last week we went to this indoor amusement park called Jambo. I thought it would be overrunning with children seeing as how it's really inexpensive but surprisingly there were only 3 other kids there when we got there. Lowe liked all the carnival rides they had, I on the other hand did not like them much. We did both enjoy the huge jumping castle they had. Lowe loves to jump so he was in heaven!

And being the little boy he is, Lowe discovered DIRT! He loves to go outside and just sit in this patch of dirt and dig at it with his hands and feet. He was so filthy the other day he almost became a mud monster when we took him to the bathtub to get clean.

Our neighbors brought us a bunch of oranges and we decided to dust off our juicer and make some juice. We were all recovering from being sick, Lowe with a double ear infection and Tyler and I from colds. It was the best juice I'd ever tasted! Lowe had fun helping Tyler juice the oranges.

Here is my little man hamming it up. That teddy bear he has a death grip on is from the urgent care trip we made when he was febrile at 103 for longer than I was comfortable with. While in the UC waiting room, I asked him what he was going to name his bear and he told me Teddy Grahm...so, that's the bear's name. It's really cute because he absolutely loves that stuffed animal!

It was laundry day and this is how Lowe helped me out...stole the laundry hamper, put it on his head and ran around the house playing Red Light Green Light. It's his favorite game of late and he could play it all day long if we didn't get tired of playing it with him.

I couldn't find Lowe the other day and when I finally wandered back into our office, this is what I found. He really likes to do anything that we do and messing with the computers is his copy cat thing of the month. I can hardly use the laptop around him because he'll climb up into my lap and press all the keys on the keyboard and mess it up!

At church yesterday, Lowe was being pretty good and playing with two of his toy cars when I heard him making kissing sounds. I looked over at him and he was making his cars kiss! It was sooo funny! Tyler just rolled his eyes but I had a hard time keeping my laughter to myself. Lowe is growing up too fast...too bad Neverland doesn't exist or I'd wisk him away right this second!

Selfish...

So Tyler and I have been married for over 6 years now. So many other people we know have been married between then and now and each time I see their wedding pictures...I get a little more jealous each time. So I convinced Tyler to rent himself a tux, squeezed myself back into my dress, dug out my veil and necklace and talked my awesome friend Beka (www.lowephotos.info) into taking re-wedding pictures for us!

Here are a few of my favorites!

Those are not the shoes I wore on our wedding day...wish they were but they weren't. They were my only heals short enough to go with my wedding dress!!!

I can't wait to pick out a few of the pictures and frame them! Yeah to still fitting in the dress 6 years and a baby later!

And I just wanted to tell Tyler how much I love him and how incredibly handsome he is!!! Sexy!!! Love you lots silly!!!

The 12th Day After Christmas...

Happy New Year!!!

This first picture is just a little late getting posted but Lowe really enjoyed helping me make a bunch of Christmas goodies. Silly boy!

This year we were able to make it up to Idaho for Christmas, brr, but really really fun!!! Lowe got to play with all his cousins on Tyler's side of the family. Santa came for a visit on Christmas Eve and brought all the boys matching pajamas and Evelynn some super cute ones as well. Here's Lowe modeling his pair.

And here they all are: Lowe, Mak, Evelynn and Emmett. Lowe was not really a good sport when it came to getting group pictures taken...please refer to kellygoffdesign.blogspot.com for further evidence of this...we got some family pictures taken and Lowe was just not feeling it!

Lowe got a little balance bike and absolutely loved it! Once we get a working camera, I'll get some cute ones of him running the bike around and posted! Lowe had a lot of fun and so did Tyler and I. Tyler got to go out with the men and go shoot some of his dad's guns which was fun and cold for them. We all went over to the hotel and swam in the pool...it was an indoor one (of course) and Lowe and Evelynn enjoyed the hot tub a whole lot more than the big pool (which is fine with me because i prefer it too!!!)

So it's 5 days into the New Year and so far so good on the resolutions. I'm trying to think of mine as monthly and weekly goals instead of an entire years worth of stuff to do. I figure it'll be easier for me to have things broken down into smaller bits so it's not so overwhelming! I think that's the reason why I never get through more than a few days, of weeks if I'm lucky, on resolutions...thinking about doing things for an entire year blows me away!!!

I pulled out my new sewing machine today and embellished a kitchen towel!!! It looks pretty cool if I can say so myself. I also used the serging stitch on it to fix a hole in one of Tyler's shirts and wow is that fun to do! The fancy foot is crazy but effective. I can't wait to start on other projects! Keep checking back for a possible towel/apron giveaway at the end of the month!!!

Whew...

So now that the gifting (that really started back in July for me) has ended...I can finally post pictures of the secret projects I've been working on all year!!! Aprons and crayon bags!!!

This first apron was for my sister in law Lisa
My mom knew I was planning on making these aprons for Christmas presents way back in June or July so I harrassed her to tell me who out of my family we'd have for Christmas (there are too many of us (9) to do individual presents so forever we've just picked a name and got a gift for that person and now that we're having families, we stick to that system still!!!) and lo and behold...we ended up having my mom for Christmas!!! Surprise!!! So this is hers!

For my other sister in law Whitney

My mother in law Jill

This was the original gift apron to another sister in las Joanna...she married my brother back in July and I had the awesome idea to get the kitchen linens they registered for and make a matching apron...

This is my apron...the first one I made and to tell the truth, I got the fabric and apron pattern book like 5 years ago at a quilt show I went to and have just now gotten around to making them!!!

Here's a little dress I made for a niece for part of her Christmas present

And here's one of the 3 crayon book bags I made also. This one is for the same niece and somehow, I managed not to take pictures of the two bags I made for my nephews on that same side of the family...shame because they were super cute!

This one was for a good friend of mine

And this one was for another sister in law Rebecca who married a different brother of mine also in July! I did the same buy the kitchen linens, make a matching apron thing

So there...those are the secret projects I've been working on! I also finished those letter blocks I mentioned way back in the summer some time also. Not sure how much Lowe likes those though since we haven't had much time to play with them since he got them at Christmas. We were in Idaho at grandma and grandpas and I didn't want to lose any after all that work so they didn't get to come out of their box! So there'll be another post soon about our fun trip to Idaho! Yeah to the holidays and yeah to them being over!!!

PS: I got a new sewing machine for Christmas and CANNOT WAIT!!!! to try it out!!!!!! What to make? What to make?!?!?!?!?!?!?

It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year!!!

Whew it's been a really really long time!!! But tons of things have happened since I last posted! We moved to Mesa, both have different jobs, Lowe's getting bigger than ever, found out we've got another niece/nephew on the way and it's already 5 days into December!!! Craziness!!!

Tyler got a different job within Wells Fargo up here in Tempe so I quit my job in Tucson (miss all my old co-workers!!!), we rented out our house in Tucson, found a nice 4 bedroom with a big backyard here in Mesa, I got a new job in a Level II NICU and we're now all settled in and life's moving on!

The ward we moved into has been absolutely awesome! We had like 8 or 9 guys from the Elder's Quorum show up to help us move all our stuff into the house so it only took about 45 minutes to do so. Than the Bishop and the Elder's Quorum president both showed up (at different times) later in the day to make sure we had gotten help and moved in alright. Than the next day at church, we had more people come and introduce themselves and welcome us to the area/ward than any other ward. It was pretty different than any other move we've had and it's been great. We also got to speak in this new ward already...it's been 7 years and I think 5 or 6 ward changes for me since I've had to speak last! Guess my luck ran out!

Our amazing friend Beka, (lowephotos.info), did some more amazing pictures for us! Here are a few of my favorite from our family shoot. Lowe is getting so big and is always so active that he didn't sit still for many of the pictures but we still got plenty of awesome pictures!

We took some re-wedding ones later that same day...it's a term I made up but since so many people have gotten married between when Tyler and I did (6 years ago!!!) I decided that I wanted some awesome wedding pictures too. The ones we got were alright but I was getting more and more jealous of everyone elses so I stuffed myself back into my wedding dress...yes, 6 years and 1 baby later it still fit...got Tyler back into a tux and we went and took pictures around the Mesa Temple all over again. Once we get those back, I will definitly be posting a few of those :)

Tyler and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on the 11th of November. Love you just as much as when we got married little you!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, my good friend Angela was down from Flagstaff so we had a little GNO...Macaroni Grill and than off to the theaters to see Harry Potter 7, Part 1. It was really really really good. So good in fact, that it made me want to re-read all the books again (for like the 3rd or 4th or 5th time all over again I think...maybe more than that I'm sure!). Funny thing is, that's the latest I've been out in who knows how long! We didn't get home until around midnight...ahh, GNO...must plan more of you!!!

Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year and I just can't wait to go play in the snow in Idaho this year. We're wondering how Lowe's going to react to it...hopefully he'll have loads of fun! And I am going to be making my ridiculous loads of Christmas goodies starting this week...a few tried and true recipes along with some new and exciting ones! Too bad Wonka Vision isn't real or everyone could have some of the goodies...I guess pictures and a vivid imagination are going to have to do for some! Sorry!!!

Silly Lowe...

Lowe is getting such a little personality! Tonight while I was trying to wind him down by reading to him while he was jumping on his crib mattress (which was out of his crib and on the ground) he suddenly put his little lips together and stuck his face in mine and made a kissing sound!!! He continued to try to kiss me on the lips 3 or 4 more times. I was laughing so hard that of course it made him try even harder. Where he gets these things I'll never know.

I tried for about 45 minutes tonight to get him to sleep on his mattress with it outside of his crib too. He kept pretending to sleep for a minute or two and than would proceed to roll of the mattress and onto me where he then would continue to steam roll me until I moved out of the way. I would either put him back on the mattress and tell him it was still sleepy time or ask him to get back on his bed since it was time to sleep. He'd lay there where I put him or crawl back over to the mattress and stay still for about another minutes before calling out for me. If I responded...he's do something silly like come squash me by laying down on me with all his 26.5 pounds. If I didn't respond, he'd come rolling off his mattress to come and get me!

I kept trying to use one of his stuffed animals as a pillow seeing as how I was laying on the ground next to the mattress and he was on the mattress along with the pillow but Lowe would roll over, snatch whatever animal I was resting on, roll back over and snicker. He thought this was a fun game so I stopped trying to have an animal pillow. Finally I told Lowe it was past his bedtime and that he needed to either lay down and sleep on his bed like a big boy or that he could go back in to his crib. He just smiled at me and pretended to sleep on the mattress. So I asked him if he wanted to sleep in his crib and he said Yes. So I asked him again just to be sure and he said yes again. So we put his mattress back in the crib and he tried to put a few animals in there too (he's a little too short to put things in his crib so he tries). I lay him down in his crib with his blanket and a few of his animals and he's quiet as I leave and hasn't made a peep since. I even went and checked on him and he's sound asleep.

Silly little Lowe! He probably just thinks that it's play time anytime he's not in the crib. So I'm thinking he might be ready to have the crib front changed to the toddler rail...we'll have to see though...probably something we can consider after we move...hmmm.

Where Has The Year Gone?

Whew...I can't believe that it's already October...my bad!!! September was obviously full of work and stuff and not much happened since I didn't blog about anything!!! But here's a cute picture of Lowe playing in some bubbles!

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch out in Willcox, Arizona today. Tyler had the day off and the weather was way nice. Lowe had a good time running around like little boys do. We had several people comment on how he doesn't seem to ever stop moving...and let me tell you...he really doesn't ever stop moving!!! Even when he's sitting down, he'll move his little feet or swing his legs if he can. He really like the pumpkins they had on display and kept trying to pick them up...this one weighed a whole lot more than he did I'm sure.

They had random vats of corn...not sure if it was going to be used for feed or if it was just there to have tons of tiny little hands plunged into it but Low e liked it a lot. We kept having to grab his hand away from his mouth because he kept trying to eat it! He liked playing on the hay bales also. Note his naughty little face...we're sure he's thinking of jumping!

We got to walk over to the pumpkin patch and pick our own pumpkin. Lowe really liked the dirt and kept sitting down in it, completely ignoring the pumpkins, and scooping up the dirt while telling us "Dirt! Dirt!" Once again...such a little boy! But here he is helping daddy get the perfect Lowe sized pumpkin out of the patch.

And here he is hefting the thing! I can't say enough how adorable he is in the picture: belly sticking out and tongue sticking out...definitely working hard to hold that little pumpkin!

Well, nothing much else is going on here in the Goodrich household! I am uber excited for it to be october though because I love the holiday season and the fall...woo hoo to autumn, winter and holidays!!!