Christmas Morning

Elise was very delicate about opening her presents. Each piece was ripped off and then placed in our hands. When she finally had it unwrapped then we immediately wanted it opened.

Her faces were priceless.

Ryan's new pocket watch.

Baby doll has been her favorite toy thus far from christmas. Although the tricycle will be a lot more fun when we can ride it outside.

all us girls without planning it wore pink (Kylie and I are in pink pajamma pants)

yeah christmas was a hit.

Love Ryan, Kimi and Elise

Christmas Party

Tis the season for parties. Ryan got home Thursday and we have had five parties in four days. Elise has  now learned to say PARTY TIME! We've been having way to much fun.

This particular party has Santa come and the kids all sit on his lap and he recounts how good you've been all year and then you can ask for a present. Elise was the LAST child to go up and she just couldn't contain herself. She wanted it to be her turn so bad and then she got there and was shy and quiet. He heard her ask for her choo choo train toy though and gave her a bag of candy and she was in heaven! So cute. The rest of the time they have a production. They have some songs that the kids can go join in on. Elise loved going up and dancing to the music and dressing up. We had so much fun!

Festival of Trees

I love festival of trees! It was incredibly crowded though and that made a little hard for a little girl in a stroller to have much fun, or see much for that matter...

this is the shirt I wanted her to wear, but we spilled on it.

I wish I could say she was this happy all the time but there were so many people that she had to be held or in her stroller so she wasn't terribly happy.

I love this picture!

Luckily Lindsey gave her a sucker and we were able to have her be happy in the stroller for a lot longer. THANKS LINDS

1st Time

BOWLING! I hurt my thumb pretty bad sewing earlier that day so I refrained from bowling this time.  It was still a lot of fun to see Elise bowl. She was so excited. She had a really hard time staying away from the ball return but she eventually got distracted by the other balls, the video game arcade thingy and dancing with her cousin.

Thanksgiving

Ugh, Elise has another runny nose. Started the day before Thanksgiving and she STILL has it. Well I thought I would take a few minutes to blog about Thanksgiving to give myself a small break from nose wiping duty and crankiness. (she's coloring so that will keep her distracted for a while)
Weight loss wise I didn't do so bad over thanksgiving. The week before it I had lost five pounds, last week I did put on .7 pound I consider that a minor victory. Could have been a lot worse. You can read more on this blog I write for scalematters 

Anyway to the fun stuff! Elise's cousin Atlee was in town. Oh my gosh did they have fun together! We went to dinner at Ryan's parents and then Ryan and I left to go to a movie with my family. We saw HUGO. Pretty cute movie. Reminds me a lot of Finding Neverland. We had a second thanksgiving dinner with my family on Sunday. Elise loves my sisters. They are so nice to her. Elise watched some Winnie the Pooh with my mom and then we had some pie (our first piece, I was trying to be so good!).

I think these are some pretty cute kiddos, but I may be biased.

A Little Off the Bottom

Runny noses are frustrating to me. I've had one for two weeks now. Some days I feel fine and take some medicine for it and I can breathe and do pretty much anything. Other days I have been so tired and had other symptoms associated with the runny nose like dizziness, soar throat, and at night I have lost my voice. I read online that you are contagious the first couple days of a cold; and then as long as you have symptoms you could still be contagious but not nearly as much. I want to get things done people! I need to make Christmas stockings, go Christmas shopping, do the dishes, take Elise for a walk, clean up the clutter, make a baby/toddler emergency kit, play with friends, go grocery shopping, take newborn pictures for my sister in law. But I'm scared to death of 1) making someone else sick and 2) making myself worse.  When do you guys get back to business as usual when you've got a cold?

Today is one of those days where I have taken minimal medicine and have had more energy than I have had in the last two days so I got Elise and I showered and then I CUT HER HAIR!! She had the best hair when she was a baby. It just curled and I could stick a headband on and she looked adorable. Now she has this under growth of hair that is about 2-3 inches long that doesn't stay in any pigtail,braid or pony tail I have put it in. And she has her hair that was so cute and curly but is so long it just lays semi curled when it's left down. I seriously need lessons from my friend Jamie Kotter Moncur on how to make Elise hair look as good as her girls hair does.  Anyway I took about 1/2 an inch off the bottom of Elise's long hair. The curl came back almost instantly. Hopefully this will help with the hair down look for a while.

Thanksgiving

I could use some reminders to be more grateful. Can you ever be too grateful? Cuz that's my goal. Found this quote in Mosiah. It's going in my seasonal frame.

What did we do this weekend?

It started Friday when my good friend Amy invited us over to take some costume pictures and then we had lunch and played a little. And did I mention our kids locked themselves in her master bedroom. Yeah we almost had to take apart the doorknob when I finally got the lock to give. Phew.

Just in case you aren't up on the newest haps of Sesame Street, she is Abby Cadabby for Halloween. She's holding her doll Abby for some clarification. I'm Elmo and Ryan is Cookie Monster.

Saturday we went to Murray Park and took some maternity photos for my sister in-law. I think they turned out cute.

Then we carved pumpkins and went to my parents trunk r treat with my family. Elise caught on really fast to this whole trick or treat thing. By the way, I free hand drew Kipper on Elise's pumpkin and carved it. I'm pretty proud of myself.

Kimi's

Elise's

Ryan's

Then Sunday we went to a party at Ryan's cousins. It was a lot of fun to see everyone and their costumes. My favorite costume was Arthur Dent, and if you don't know who that is we need a serious movie night. Unfortunately (or not according to your opinion of how many pictures should be in one post) I don't have any pictures of the party. 

We had a lot of fun this weekend, so why did Elise cry herself to sleep tonight?

hiking in the fall leaves

We went hiking a couple times this month with friends. I really should try to go more often. It's exercise I could get behind. the leaves were neon next to the dark green of the pines. It was more spectacular in person but the pictures of us with friends are so fun! I thought I would share.

Elise's 2nd Birthday

I had so much fun getting Elise's Birthday Bash ready. I like being creative (and stealing ideas I saw on pinterest) So with just some scrapbook paper, toothpicks, ribbon and the dollar store I was able to put together a birthday party that Elise loved. Just look at that face!


I think I'm most excited about how the cupcakes turned out.  They were so simple to put together, it was awesome.

Yay for having a cricut and some paper that went along with the theme. I also had some ribbon laying around so it was easy to make some of them Minnie mouse. I even figured out how to cut the cupcake wrappers out on cricut. My cricut is pretty worn out, I didn't cut anything by hand.

I got a package of little white buttons at walmart for the mickey cupcake wrappers. The cupcake stand is a DUFF one that was on clearance at michaels for four dollars.

I also made her a banner.

We had party hats with some good sport adults that also had them on.

dollar store party hats with circles glued on the side. The ears kept coming off because I did them so far in advance with scrapbool tape. If I did it again I would do elmers glue and really stick them on there.

I did party favor bags filled with things I thought might keep 2 year olds entertained. I couldn't really think of games that toddlers could really be a part of and they would rather just run around anyway.

I had these brown sacks already and did they're first letter of their name and then gave it a bow if it was a girl we were giving it to. Inside is a composition notebook that I scrapbooked with different mickey or minnie things. I got them during the back to school sales in august to they were $.50 a piece. I also got crayons at the same time for $.15 that I put in. I got glow bracelets at the dollar store and divided them up between the bags. There are mickey mouse apple juice pouches from langers in there. So I didn't spend a ton but they had a lot of fun with them.

This is traditional West family birthday cake. Chocolate box cake with box marshmallow frosting. So Yummy! I didn't realize that the marshmallow would slide off the cake so bad. In fact we didn't get to the leftovers in time after the party and when I went in the kithchen the top layer had slid off, hit the counter, and ended up on the floor.

The Menu:
"Minnie" corndogs
Pluto Pizza puffs
Goofy fruit-y
Vondrake veggies
Chip's chips (sweet potato fries)
Dale's dip (fry suace)
Again printed off on the computer.

It wasn't very expensive or hrad but put together it was a lot of fun.