Happy Birthday Iris!

How is my baby girl already 2?!  I am thankful every day for this amazing child.  She is funny and sweet and super smart.  I was afraid having a second baby might throw me over the edge of sanity and that we should just call our family of three complete, but here we are and I am so happy we decided to go for it!  I do have to disclose that my patience has been tried a bit lately with her constant need to be on my hip or in my lap, but I guess that's just a reminder that I need to slow down and appreciate my kids, in all of their stages, as often as I can.

Things she likes these days:

Reading books (Richard Scary's Best First Book Ever is her favorite right now)
Butterflies
Baby dolls
Yanking tissues from the box and taking them directly to the trash can
Shoes
Just about any food we offer her 
Watching nursery rhymes on the computer.  Five Little Monkeys and the Butterfly Color Song make her extremely happy.
Playing in the hot tub.  She asks to go out to it almost every night.
Listening to kiddie music any time we drive in the car.  She gets very upset if she doesn't get her way (which actually applies to everything, not just the music in the car)!
Singing Twinkle Twinkle before I lay her in bed.

Looking regal in her birthday crown from Aunt Jen

Happy birthday baby!

Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas this year.  It was nice to have a chance to relax with family and be thankful for all we have and all we received.  Miles was really excited about Santa coming and about opening his presents and seeing all his cool new toys.  Iris, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with opening presents.  She gave lots of stink eye and shoved us away when we tried to encourage her to tear the paper and see what was inside.  Maybe next year!

 Miles with the cookies we baked for Santa.

 All that remained of Santa's cookies by morning!  Note the dinosaur to the left of the plate.  The Imaginext Apatosaurus.  That was the one thing Miles asked Santa for.  We'd seen it at Target many times but put off getting around to purchasing it until it was gone from every store in Utah.  The cost for it to be shipped by Amazon just a few days before Christmas...a cool $112.  Fortunately, Grandma and Grandpa saved the day by finding the one store in Utah that had one in stock!

 She perked up a bit when she got her hands on some cool new toys.

Iris and Bella at dinner.  We don't usually let the cat join us at the table, but she managed to sneak up in hopes of scoring a scrap of  Honeybaked ham and they looked so cute together!

Santa through the years

I went back and looked at pictures of Miles with Santa through the years.  I forgot what an awesomely cute baby he was!  I also forgot just how much he freaked when he saw Santa for the second time :)

 December 2007, 7 months old

 December 2008, 1 and a half years old

December 2009, 2 and a half years old

December 2010, 3 and a half years old

December 2011, 4 and a half years old

Santa!

Santa came to First Steps today.  Four is a great age for believing and the excitement that comes with it!  Unfortunately Iris was home sick, so no 2011 Santa shot for her.  

Mid December Happenings

How did it get to be mid December already?  Life has been super busy.  I thought it would slow down in October, but I was wrong.  Then I said November and was wrong again.  I'm just keeping my mouth shut from this point on.  

We are still waiting to see what happens with the house situation.  We should know more in a week when we are past inspections.  We went yesterday and spent more time at the place we are hoping to get.  It is big and bright with lots of cool stuff and lots of potential.  The best part is that we both like it a lot.

Here it is with the car parked in front!

We managed to get the Christmas packages in the mail with time to spare.  Miles was excited to help with the bows, which he firmly believed needed to go on the outside of the shipping boxes!

I've been meaning to get a picture on here of Iris in her new robe.  It is covered with butterflies, which she is very into these days.  It's three sizes too big for her but she loves it and gets super excited to put it on.

The bracelet no girl wants to wear.  Our house has been cursed with the plague the past week.  We had several days home with both kids.  They had fevers and coughs and just seemed miserable.  We thought we were out of the woods, but last night Iris got much worse.  I spent most of the night up with her while she coughed and struggled to breathe, then Jeff took her to the ER at the crack of dawn.  Two breathing treatments, an oral steroid treatment and several hours later they were on their way home, which is where she will have to stay for the next few days.  Again, thanks Grandma and Grandpa for coming to the rescue and babysitting our sicko.

Who knew?

Who knew that this contract, these few harmless looking pieces of paper, could cause so much anxiety for two people??  We just signed an offer on the house last night, which means closing will be on or near January 16, 2012 and we will be moving out of this house.  We've been scrambling to shop around and see what's available for us at different prices and in different locations around the valley.  We settled on 3 places and have offers in on each of them.  I said I found it a bit unethical to make offers on multiple properties and get people's hopes up, but we're told that's how it's done and best to cover our butts.  We have until tomorrow night to hear back on the offers we put in, so again...stay tuned.  In the meantime, Jeff and I will be house hunting in our non-existent free time and having long talks at hours when nobody should awake and conversing!