A Lot to be Thankful For

 This year for Thanksgiving we were blessed enough to have Grandma and Grandpa Fife come to visit us. We had such a good time! We had yummy food, shopped, saw the beautiful lights at Temple Square, and put up Christmas decorations. Thanks to Grandpa and his iPad, Andy has learned how to ask for music (he waves his arm like he is conducting), and Grandma finally got him to sign "more" (which he uses more like "I want"). Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures all together, so the following will have to suffice, but I think Andy's face says it all:  We certainly have a lot to be thankful for!

Happy Birthday, Andy!

It is hard to believe that a year has gone by already. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was waddling around taking care of laboring women and being totally jealous as we waited for our little boy's arrival.

Andy has grown so much! At one year old, he:

• Weighs 21.8 pounds
• Is 28.5 inches tall
• Has 13 teeth (and two more coming in)
• Crawls speedily
  
• Walks not so speedily (I think he would like to skip to running, though)
• Climbs on everything
  
• Eats anything he can grab (including hair and lint, if Mommy's not looking)
• Says Hi
  
• Waves
• Hugs toys, and sometimes Mom and Dad
• Is still the cutest boy in the world!

We decided to celebrate Andy's first birthday with a family party. Our little house was wonderfully crowded, but I think the birthday boy (and everyone else) had a good time.

Unwrapping presents with Daddy

Someone didn't want to let go of his new toys, even for cake!

Yum!

Andy lets us know he is full by throwing away his leftovers. How kind.

And just a refresher as to why Andy is still the cutest boy in the world:

We love our fall baby!

Before and After

Ok, last post for the evening and we'll finally be caught up! Lance did an awful lot of work on the house over the summer, but perhaps what we are most proud of so far are the doors. When we moved in, the only interior doors that were finished and hung were the bathroom and furnace room doors. All the exterior doors were still unpainted. It took Lance several weeks to prime, paint, and hang all the interior doors, but the exterior doors were a nightmare. Since of course, they were already framed and hung, we had to take them off the hinges and then put tape and plastic over the whole house. We were actually without doors on the house for about a week. We were very blessed that no one broke in!

I didn't get pictures of all the doors (I'm sure it would bore you anyway), which we painted dark green on the outside and a lighter green color for the inside, but here is the best of them all.

Before:
After:

Ooooh! Aahhhh! It really is a great improvement and I am very thankful for and proud of my sweet husband who has worked so hard to make our house a home.

In other news, Lance told me a few weeks ago that the time had come to cut Andy's hair. I have been putting it off. There is just something about that fluffy, curly baby hair that is just so sweet I couldn't bring myself to do it. I knew he would look so much older without it! However, Andy has started to carry my headbands around as toys and when he manages to put them on his head I realized how long his hair had really gotten and I gave Lance the green light.

Before:

...during...

After:

The day after we cut it we realized that we had left the top too long, so it was back to the bathtub with our little boy for an extra trim. I didn't take another "after" picture, so this snapshot will have to do:

Andy has figured out how to push around the stepstool to get to what he wants (although he has an amazingly long reach even without it). Here he is turning off the digital box, which hooked up to the TV so we could watch General Conference, for the millionth time during the Sunday Afternoon session (I'm afraid I didn't catch too much of Conference this year).

With a new haircut and some new clothes (thanks to his most recent growth spurt), our baby is really starting to look like a big boy! I can't believe his first birthday is almost here. Sometimes I miss the inert little bundle that would nap in my arms, but it has been an amazing journey so far to see him grow into the wonderful, wiggly little--or big-- boy that he is now.

Picture Palooza

Mom gave me a "hint" that I need to post some more recent pictures of Andy. In the hopes of cheering and speeding up her recovery, here are some from the State Fair and a photo session from a few Sundays ago when Lance brought out the camera and got a little picture happy.

Goodbye, Summer

Well, now that it is actually starting to get a little chilly and the fall holidays are quickly approaching, I guess it is time to post our summer pictures. The following pictures are from a couple parades we went to, our visit to Grandma and Grampa Fife in California, the Annual Rees Family Lagoon Day, and various other summery activities. Enjoy.

Memorial Day

Another Memorial Day has come and gone, which meant a trip up to Morgan for the annual Rees Family Reunion. I was scheduled to work all day Monday, but due to poor staffing on Saturday night, I was able to switch my shifts. I haven't done nights in a long time, and I've never done them well, so it was a tough weekend. I was only supposed to be on call, but of course since they were short I ended up being there all night long. As soon as I got home I got ready for 9 o'clock church, and boy, was that the most difficult meeting I've ever had to sit through. After being awake for over 24 hours, I even fell asleep chewing the bread!

Even though I dislike night shifts and I was sad to miss out on attending all of church with my family, I was very happy to have Monday off. If only the weather had been nicer! It actually snowed in Morgan the night before. Fortunately they have a big shop up there that was dry and warm where we met for lunch and games. We all had a good time, and it was fun to show off our cute Andy at his first trip to the ranch.

At the Morgan Cemetery

Having fun watching the action next to Aunt Erin, cousin Trey, and Grandma and Grandpa Rees.

Lance preparing to launch a marshmallow.

Wearing Grandpa Rees' hat (and looking a little dazed)

By the time we left, it finally stopped raining!

In other news, Andy now has two more teeth sprouting up and has learned to pull himself up on his feet. Pictures to follow!