Christmas 2009 (aka Charlie's! First! Christmas!)

We had a lot of pressure this year to ensure that Charlie's! First! Christmas! would go well. Luckily, it seemed we were successful in our preparations and a good time was had by all. We are fortunate enough to live close to both of our families and because of that we were included in many holiday celebrations. (Although, when talking to my sister about her very low-key, peaceful, homey, SIMPLE Christmas in the Middle East, it sounded heavenly to me. The hustle and bustle of scurrying around I could live without!)

My favorite thing about Christmas this year is a new tradition that John and I started. After all the guests had gone home and Charlie was asleep, we sat under the Christmas tree and opened our gifts to each other late on Christmas Eve. It was really special to spend that time just the two of us!

Charlie received some great gifts from loving family members but of course, he was more interested in the orange and apple from my stocking (because they are balls to him!) and all the boxes and wrapping paper.

Here's a few photos:

Christmas tree bokeh

Even my normally friendly baby found Santa a little frightening!

On Christmas Eve, we hosted my brother's family and in-laws for a Christmas Eve dinner pajama party. We had the most gigantic breakfast for dinner (scones, fruit, bacon, hash browns, quiche) and opened a few presents.

Charlie the champion crawler loved "helping" Daddy vacuum (which to our surprise, he isn't afraid of at all!) (Please notice my mom's awesome Christmas jammies).

Kerry (my sister-in-law) and her sister, Kristin, checking out the Christmas cards

Uncle Steve and Charlie

Our little family on Charlie's! First! Christmas!

"Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!"

Sam was excited to open up a new sled

And Grandpa Marty helped Sam and Lily try out their new sleds right away!

Charlie and Grandma Bev

Charlie and Auntie Barb

Charlie was mesmerized by the Christmas tree
(notice the lack of ornaments on the lowest branches)

On Christmas morning, we went to Steve and Kerry's house to open more presents!

Grandpa Marty helping Sam put together Lego models- Sam was occupied by this for hours!

The whole crew- (clockwise from middle) Lily, Steve, Grandma Bev, Charlie, Barb, Grandpa Marty, Grandma Peggy, Kerry and Sam (not pictured: Kristin and Johnny)

Lily and Sam picked out the cutest gifts for Charlie- one of which, a singing pig (not pictured), he loves dancing along

Sam and Lily were all about opening gifts and when they moved onto the next one, Charlie was all about playing with their momentarily discarded toys!

Later Christmas Day, we gathered at Grandma and Grandpa T's house for a luncheon, opening gifts, playing Rock Band, watching movies, and talking to our missionary, Elder Sam!

Jeff, Breea, Charlie and John playing RockBand (Breea and Charlie were playing the yoga ball- a very important instrument)

Baby James- check out his awesome Rudolf slippers!

What a cute little Christmas elf!

Anne was a perky Santa

I love this picture of Charlie and Uncle Jeff because you can see some of Charlie's little dimples. Precious.

John's a perky elf, too

The whole crew (L-R: Mark, Grandpa T, James, Chelsea, Grandma T, Anne, Jeff, Kate, Breea, Dave, Charlie, Barb, and Johnny)


All lined up, youngest to oldest, waiting to go open presents. Poor Anne- Sam is finally gone on a mission and she got booted out of first place by the babies. ;) I love this photo because James is so excited to grab Chelsea's hat and Charlie can't quite figure out what we're doing.

Charlie helped Daddy open his stocking

Dave and Breea, Mark and James

Anne, Kate, Jeff and Uncle Jim

The Sunday after Christmas, we had our ward choir program. My mom made John and Charlie matching Christmas vests! Aren't they dapper?

John, my mom and I are all in the choir so we needed someone to watch Charlie. Steve came to tend him and Charlie fell asleep in his arms! He shall now be known as the Baby Whisperer.



It was a great holiday. I'm so glad my mom could be here to celebrate with us! However, I missed being with Richard, Cat and my dad. It was a little tricky to work in Charlie's napping schedule while being shuffled around to so many different places but there were plenty of people willing to hold and love him!!

Heartsick for Haiti

Today I have had the people of Haiti on my mind and in my heart. Please read this excellent post by Chris Sacca (via Dooce) about six ways you can help now. I am also so thankful and pleased to read this article about the humanitarian aid that the LDS church and Islamic Relief USA have partnered to send to Haiti. I am so happy that my church can be one of the first responders to this tragedy and that it has such a great relationship with the Islamic humanitarian aid branch. I have donated and I hope you will, too!

1 week vs. 9 months

My sister-in-law, Kerry, aka She Who Is Like Unto Aphrodite (SWILUA), requested the comparison shots of Charlie at 1 week and Charlie now. I don't like to mess with Divine Goddesses, so I of course, complied. :)

Charlie, 1 week old

Charlie, 9 months old

Charlie- 9 months old

Not a cheerful picture- he was mad that I wouldn't let him stand up in the rocking chair

Charlie turned 9 months old on Christmas day! He's turning into such a big boy and I'm amazed at how quickly he masters new skills now. He weighs 24 lbs (almost exactly) and is 29 inches long/tall which lands him still in the 90's percentage wise. Here is what he's up to recently:

-Exploring new facial expressions, like this one:

... and this one, where he puts his eyebrows waaayy up when he's excited or interested or just being cute. I finally caught it on camera!

-He is officially crawling! He is quick and gets into everything! He does the hands and knees crawling but what he prefers most recently is one or two moves forward on his hands and knees with a little hop forward in between. It is so cute. It's like he has a little hitch in his giddy-up.

Daddy and Charlie putting together a new, super strength baby gate to keep our new crawler from taking a header down the stairs.

My brother, Steve, came to our sacrament meeting to watch Charlie while John and I were singing in the choir Christmas program. He shall now be known as the Baby Whisperer.

Charlie helping us do some shopping (his job was holding/chewing on my wallet)

Making some phone calls

-Can push himself up from crawling to sitting.

-He has begun to pull himself to standing. His preferred tool is the bathtub- it's just the right height for him to grab onto. He crawls over, reaches both hands up, pulls himself onto his knees then keeps pulling until his knees slide over then stands up. It's hilarious and very cute.



-Loves to dance (kicking his legs and bouncing his torso and head) when he hears music or when John starts drumming with him. He loves music of any kind, in the car, at the piano, on his toys, and at church... he likes to "sing" along.

-Loves to play the drums whether it's the RockBand set, John's drum kit in the studio or his little toy bongos, he's all about it!



-He loves balls (especially the big green yoga ball at Grandma and Grandpa T's). He is working on throwing the ball, too. Right now he throws his arm then drops the ball. Pretty good for 9 months, I'd say!

Playing ball with Grandma Bev

-He says "Da" for Daddy and "Hi". I think he says "Ba" for ball, but it's too early for a conclusive decision on that one. When he wants to nurse or he's sad he cries out for me by saying, "Ma" or "Mmmm" which is heartbreakingly adorable every time.

-He eats Cheerios (Grandma Sue got me to realize that he could do it one day) and Gerber puffs like a champ. He still loves baby food, his favorites being sweet potatoes and carrots. He likes noodles, too, and it pretty up for trying almost anything off our plates.

-Finally has a TOOTH! He has been working on it for a few weeks now and it finally has broken through. It's the bottom left middle one and the one right next to it is thinking about coming in as well. EDIT: Since I started writing this post a couple of days ago, the second bottom tooth has broken through and there's a bulge on his upper gum as well. Oh, mamacita!

-Drinks water out of a cup while holding it by himself. If we put just about a half an inch in the cup he doesn't spill or choke on it. It's pretty darling and impressive. He usually uses a plastic cup but when I help him use a glass, you can hear his little tooth clinking against the side of the glass.

-He loves to play Peekaboo and has started putting the blanket over his head on his own to play with us. He also gets so excited when other people are nearby when I'm holding him- he thinks everyone is playing "I'm gonna get you!"

-Loves to play in the pots and pans




-Likes to go sit in the car with Daddy while it is warming up.




He's a joy to be around, even when he's in pain from teething or bonking his head on his crawling adventures. We love this little guy!

Charlie's standing meeting

Charlie can now pull up to stand on furniture and prefers to make all his Skype conference calls that way.

[Skyping with Aunt Cat]

One Little Word

A great New Year's tradition that I'm partaking in is the Ali Edwards' One Little Word challenge. Ali Edwards is a scrapbooking designer and blogger whose blog is fantastic. She inspires me for so many reasons, but one of the outstanding things she does is choose a word to be her focus for the year. (I know many others on the web do this in similar incarnations, but she is the first I ever saw do it). Her One Little Word for the year is Story (past words: Nurture, Vitality, Peace). Ali encourages her readers to choose a word to guide them through the new year. (Check out their word choices here.)

Another blogger/artist I adore is Kal Barteski whose blog I Love Life has become a favorite read of mine this last year. I purchased her artwork for Charlie's nursery and have loved it every day. She is also an Ali Edwards fan and took the One Little Word challenge and expanded it. She chose several words to guide her through the new year (Rebuild, Soothe, Go, Story).

For this year's challenge, I brainstormed a few difference words that could inspire me in my goals:

ACCOMPLISH- school, goals
SAVE- money, resources
HOME- save money for our future home, work hard at maintaining the refuge that is our home
NOURISH- my body, my mind, my family
PREPARE- stay on top of my homework, work on food storage, save money for our home
WORK- treat my jobs of Mother and Keeper of the House (not to be confused with housekeeper) as serious work, work hard at my schoolwork
HEALTH- healthy eating, healthy activity, exercise, healthy weight, strong body, healthy family
STUDY- stay ahead of my homework, study the gospel (Read the Book of Mormon with Sam's guidelines and the Old Testament)

I'm still revisiting this and paring down so that I will have a manageable short list of words that can be my mantra for the year. I love this exercise and I hope you will join me in it!

What will your One Little Word(s) be?

Resolutions and stuff

I feel like I am avoiding this little blog here. I don't know what it is, but I just don't find myself wanting to be here much recently. It could be just feeling overwhelmed from the holidays, but I haven't been taking as many pictures and I haven't been wanting to write much either. I have also taken to Tweeting and checking Facebook whenever I nurse Charlie to sleep so I have been internet-ing in other ways. My apologies for my absenteeism, dear readers.

I still want to update about Christmas and such, but I have been thinking about the hot topic of conversation both on- and off-line, namely, New Year's Resolutions.

When I think back on the last year, my major accomplishment was becoming a mother and getting to know this little person to whom I gave birth. It has been almost entirely a purely joyful experience (and those other non-joyful moments are totally worth it). Charlie has dominated 2009 and I will always remember it as the Year of the Che.

When I think forward to what 2010 has in store for me, I have a few desires. The number one goal dwarfs all others. This is the year I will finally graduate from college.

The path I took after I graduated high school was slightly non-traditional. I didn't attend college for 4 straight years, graduate, then venture into my first career job, then get married, then have a baby. I realize this is more of a cliche than an actuality but it is always how I saw my life going.

Instead, I attended school, juggled several part time jobs, traveled, dated John for 3 years before we married, fell into a career of campaign management and politics, worked full time off and on, got pregnant and had a baby. During all of this, I was attending school off and on. I never quit, I just didn't go straight through. I always had at least a semester of classes a year but there were many years where I took a whole semester off.

I've been calling it the Poky Little Puppy plan.

And now I am a full-time mom with a baby I can hardly tear myself away from, so to finish school is a huge feat. I look up to the women who do much more than that (working, parenting, school, sometimes all on their own) with awe because this is hard enough!

I have a great support system that allows me the opportunity to finish my education. I am thrilled to look ahead to August 2010 when I will finally do it!

What are your goals for 2010?

Did you hear?

My sister is expecting a baby! Wahoo! Catherine and Richard will be such great parents and I am so happy for them! Just look how cute they are with Baby Che!



She's due the end of June. Visit their blog for more info!

Happy Birthday to many

Hey there! This is JohnnyT (not my cute wife Barb - who usually posts here)

This time of year has some amazing birthdays to celebrate. First and foremost on December 25th we celebrate the birthday of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We also are reminded of Joseph Smith who was born on December 23, 1805.

And the pure geek in me will add this to the list (from slashdot.org):

Today is the birthday of Linus Torvalds. Just under 19 years ago, on the first day the shops in Helsinki were open after the holidays, Linus rushed out and spent all his Christmas and birthday money on his first PC: a DX33 80386, with 4 Megs of RAM, no co-processor, and a 40 Megabyte hard disc. Today, the kernel he wrote on that system powers 90% of the fastest supercomputers, and is starting to find its way into more and more smartphones — not to mention everything in between.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

JohnnyT