The Best Season-2012 Christmas Card

 I love this season when all, young and old, are a little more kind, more selfless, more giving and more Christlike. I have the great desire every year to be a little better and change myself. Change is difficult I've discovered and it takes time. Sometimes we are changed drastically without really knowing it. For example when someone we love passes away, or a new family member is born into the world. The change just comes. This change is almost automatic. The change of being better is a choice and I believe it happens with small choices, choices that are the best ones not just the good or better ones, but the BEST. I found this talk helpful, read it here. I hope that I can do it this year! Wishing you all the merriest Christmas season ever with more giving of our own will.

Love, 

                                                                               

The Claybaughs 

Busy Boy, Sweet Girl

Gavin is an average toddler, getting into everything and he's everywhere. I love my little Gavin. Here's some of what he's been up to.

Gavin was falling asleep in the craziest places and positions! This was before he got on a good schedule of taking a nap.

Gavin loves his bathes. Then we added green foam and he wouldn't get out! 

 He loves to talk on the phone. We usually call Grandma Watson every morning and talk on speaker, this specific day he wanted to do like mama. 

He loves to build things. He loves to put things together. When asked what he made with his large Lego's he says "a rocket ship".  

 Gavin finds my jewelry and puts as many on as possible. 

 Gavin will stack both laundry baskets on top of each other and play inside it. He also takes out the DVDs from the case by pulling them out...it makes me cringe. He's such a good boy most the time, especially since he's been taking naps! A good sleeping baby makes a happy mom! 

Trying on sister's shoes...too big for her but fit G perfectly. 

Gavin loves his daddy. He's started calling him "Todd". He'll say "Todd watch this" or "watch out Todd". It makes me laugh. Todd tries to get Gavin to say my name but he won't for some reason. Funny boy. 

Gavin is my little shadow and I love it. I keep thinking this time is so precious, he's growing so fast and soon he'll be grown. Oh please help me to soak up every moment with my sweet kids!

 This is the outfit I was taken home in from the hospital. This picture was taken about a month ago and Millie has grown so much since then. She has chubbier cheeks and less hair, still so cute!

Gavin loves Millie.

 Yes Millie has lost most her hair. It was going mullet style so I had to trim it. Millie does this wide eye look often. I think it's so cute.

Millie has the cutest laugh. She will always laugh when I put her feet to her cheeks, yes she is that flexible. She's been on solids for about two weeks and loves it. She sleeps well, not consistently through the night yet but she'll do a good 7-8 hours wake, eat, then go back to sleep. 

Life is so good!

Millie's Blessing

Millie was blessed last month. Todd gave a beautiful blessing. We loved having so much of our families there to support us. We are so blessed! (And we did miss those who weren't there...Rob and Tina and fam , Jonny and Grandma and Grandpa Claybaugh) Thank you wonderful family! 

The family picture is the only picture from her actual blessing day. It was a crazy day so we dressed her up in her blessing outfit a few days (weeks) later for a photo shoot. I have to say, she is adorable. 

Here are a few updates for our family. Millie is so fun! She smiles often and even laughs. She'll smile and even laugh without fail when I play pat-a-cake with her. Gavin talks to Millie in a high pitch voice, I guess copying me, it's so cute! He's growing fast and I can't get enough of him. We are loving Springville and our house. Todd spent most of his summer days working in the yard, which has drastically improved because of his efforts. I'm trying to decorate and feel good about it. We are just loving life!

Baby and a Move

Time to do Todd's version of a quick update on the past month:

We had a baby! Millie Jo Claybaugh born 6/6/12 7:30 am 5 lb 10 oz. Everything went great

  

And then we bought a house!

We're living in Springville now which has cut my work commute time by more than half. It's just a simple 3 bedroom house that's perfect for us. The yard needs some work and I'm actually enjoying working on it. We'd love to have you come and visit now that we have a bigger living area than our basement apartment.

In the midst of this all I've also started a Master's in Education/Administrative License through Southern Utah University. I'll be done in a couple years and will be able to become an administrator at a school.

Good Things Utah!

For Valentine's Day I got Lexi tickets to go be part of the live studio audience for the morning talk show "Good Things Utah." Whenever I have school off, we'll usually watch Price is Right at 9:00 am, then switch it over to Good Things Utah at 10:00 while we're getting ready for the day. As we watch, sometimes they show the audience and we always laugh at how few people go and joke about going someday. Well, we finally went:

To the left is the weather center and behind the glass wall to the right is where they do all the recording.

Posters of some of my favorite shows:


"Back to you..."

One of the guests on the show was this guy. He used to play for Real Salt Lake, and so I got a picture with him.
Lexi's favorite of the girls on GTU, Nicea.
The girls and us at the famous table where all the hot topics are discussed.
The studio

It was fun to see how they did everything behind the scenes. Where they sit and talk is actually on wheels and they have to move it back and forth between commercial breaks depending on what they're going to shoot next. The cameramen were funny and entertaining to watch too. We got about 5 seconds of fame when they did a drawing and showed the audience (all 10 of us!) It was a fun little date and we'd do it again.