A Coon Christmas...

Since we will be with my family this year for Christmas we went over to the Coon's house last night to have an early Christmas with them. I do have to explain something about the Coons. They are incredible people and are some of the most giving people I have ever met. Last week they told us that they had invited a couple of people to our Christmas party that didn't have family to share Christmas with. When I first heard them say it I thought to myself, this isn't going to be fun...i don't want people i don't know at our Christmas party! Yes sometimes I can't believe how bratty i am. Anyways after I thought about it, I was excited to have them there. And I'm so glad they came...I could tell how much they appreciated it and it just brought in that special giving feeling that we should all have during Christmas time. They also made sure to have gifts for the 2 men they had invited over. My sister in law told me that one of them men got up in sacrament meeting last fast sunday and thanked my inlaws for all their help, love and support. They really are such special people and I'm so lucky to have them in my life. I love them so much. 

We always draw names between siblings every year to get gifts...this year Spenc had Tiff and I had Alyssa and Danny had me and Tiff had Spenc. haha so we opened those gifts last night plus Ron and Debbie gave us some much needed cash! :)

Tiffany had a friend over and we finally got to meet the famous Grant. She has been having a blast with this boy and every sunday comes to dinner with stories. It's been so fun to hear all about their dates and its great to finally meet him in person. He lived up to all that Tiffany talked him up to be...he had us all laughing and was so polite and sweet. Tiff got him a present and had him open it in front of all of us...he was a good sport!

And these pajamas were an inside joke of theirs I guess...haha.

They were really cute together! We approve of Grant!

Last night was SO much fun. I'm actually sad that we are going to miss out on some of the Coon Christmas festivities this year...its hard having family live far away. I'm jealous of Dan and Alyssa having both families so close and they get to go to everything and see everyone every holiday. But I am SO excited to see my family! 

Christmas from us...

For those of you who didn't get our Christmas card this year...

I really messed up and totally didn't order enough cards. I really don't know what I was thinking but next year I will be better. Spencer isn't too fond of the family picture I used either but it was the best one we had. Next year were getting family pictures done FOR SURE.

Merry Chirstmas!!! Love the Coons!

kisses...

This girl smiles every time I give her a kiss. I can't tell you how much I love her cute little personality. I was thinking last night about how excited I am that I have a little girl. I love how excited Spencer is to take Preston to do all those boyish things he likes to do and I love that I have my sweet girl to take and do all things girly with!

24...

I turned 24 yesterday...

It was a good day. I bought my present early and have been using it for like a month...

I LOVE it. And my parents sent me a gift card to Rod Works...I can't wait to pick something out!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

I finally wrapped a few presents the other night. Preston is VERY curious...he thinks there are big trucks in every present. I hope he's not too disappointed haha! I think Lylah is more excited about grabbing the bows on top of the presents!

I don't know about you but Christmas just snuck up on me! I can't believe it's in 8 days. Totally not ready...Still need to shop, wrap some more, and get ready to leave to Utah. I had plans to hit some more stores and finish everything today but Preston woke up with a fever and his cough sounding worse. Heres to getting him better and keeping him away from Lylah...wish me luck!

3 Months...

Miss Lylah Kay turned 3 months old yesterday! Time seriously flies. She is such a sweet and beautiful girl. We love her more then words can say. 

• Weighs 12.8 lbs!
• The outfit she is wearing is size 3-6 months :) She still fits in some 0-3 but is starting to switch sizes
• She smiles ALL the time. It really isn't hard to get her to smile. She wakes up so happy and smiles at me and spenc. We love it. 
• She is LOUD. Her cry, snorts, how she eats, her noises...everything. Spencer says shes embarrassing when she eats cause she sucks hard and smacks...haha kinda embarrassing for me too but what can i do!? haha
• I think she is looking more and more like her mama
• Shes keeping her blue eyes and dark brown hair so far
• skinny tiny feet still :) love baby feet
• Loves attention and will scream until she gets it
• wants to be held 24/7 and has a bad habit of sleeping with mom and dad ( gotta break that soon )
• loves her brother and will smile at him when he looks at her. Preston also likes to play pat a cake with her and she loves that

 We love our perfect 3 month old! Seriously don't know what we did without her!

Cousin Fun...

I watched Kamden last week while my sister took one of her finals. Preston was SO excited to have Kamden over and they had so much fun together. 

They swang...

Played dump trucks...

I pulled them around in the wagon...

Went down the slide...

And we watched sesame street while playing cars...

And of course Miss Lylah was here too...

I'm really so grateful for how sweet Preston is. He LOVES to play with Kamden and tries so hard to be soft and he really is SO incredibly nice to Lylah. It amazes me how much he understands about babies and how he really obeys me on rules with his baby sister. I really couldn't ask him to be a better brother to her. And I really don't think he could be a better cousin. We do have to practice his sharing sometimes haha. Kamden is in the "stick everything in your mouth stage" and Preston says his cars are "yuck!" afterwords and tries to throw them in the trash. I've had to really explain to him that we can wash his cars after Kam is done playing and he's been doing SO much better. Gosh I'm so thankful for that boy of mine and for that sweet baby girl! And I'm so thankful for their little cousin Kamden...cousins are SO fun! We would watch Kam anyday:)!

Family...

I LOVE spending time with my family. It really is mostly just smiles and laughter when we all get together. My siblings really are my best friends ( besides the hubs ). They love me no matter what and we always have a good time. Thats how it works though right...you grow up and your family is number one always. I wish I always realized how important they are, especially growing up...because friends are important but family is the most important.

Okay so I am the oldest turning 24 in a few days...wow I'm getting kinda old ha. Then it's Corinne and she is turning 22 in a couple of weeks. Tanner is 18 and just graduated high school. And then it's Courtney, she is 15 and is a sophmore.

And then there are my parents. I REALLY wish we lived closer. I love spending time with them and would love to be able to just hang out with my mom on our free days. She is one of my bestest friends ever too. 

Lylah loves them too! Her smiles are the cutest :). Me and Spencer both think she is a bigelow baby...can you see my side of the family in her?

Counting down the days! 10 days until we go to Utah!!! Yay!

Dear Santa...

We have made it a tradition now that every year we go to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa. The pictures are free there :) I had to scan this picture into the computer so its not that clear.

Santa 2011!

They have a lot of fun things there for kids too...they have things to color, remote control trucks and a free carousel! We had fun :).

We practiced before we went to see Santa what Preston would say but he was too shy when the time came. But when I asked him what he was going to ask Santa for he would say " BIG TRUCKS!" every time.

Me and Spenc decided to skip Christmas for us this year. We are really wanting to take a trip this coming year ( just the two of us ) before he starts law school. We are looking into cruises and some other places and so we are saving our money for that. So my usual christmas list is just a getaway with my sweet hubby. Let's hope we actaully make it work haha!

Lylahs Blessing...

I really want to write about Lylah's blessing while it's still all fresh in my mind so I'm gonna skip the rest of the weekend and post that first.

Boy was this blessing hard to schedule. We were going to bless her the beginning of November but Spencer had a racing trip scheduled so we decided the first of December would work. My mom called and wanted to schedule flights so I told her that December 4th was the for sure date so she booked flights. Come to find out our stake conference was scheduled for that December 4th. When is stake conference in December? And when is it ever on a fast sunday? I've never heard of that but there it was...on our day. So I called my mom and the airline wouldn't change her flights unless she wanted to pay an extra 150.00 per flight. Ya right! So we called our bishop and asked if we could bless her at home. He said we would make it work but would never set a for sure time with us. Come to find out our ward split and we got a new bishop the week before. Are you kidding me? haha it seemed as if this really might not happen for us. So we called our new bishop which was in our old ward. He's such a great guy and he took time out of his crazy busy schedule to come to our baby's blessing. We ended up blessing her in the relief society room and then had dessert over at our house.

That night turned out perfect. I didn't know what to expect not blessing her during a fast sunday sacrament meeting. It was so intimate and the spirit there was so strong. We had a lot of family and friends there and it felt so good to have such amazing support. Our bishop conducted and then we sang a song and my dad said the opening prayer. She was then blessed by her daddy and the men that was in the circle were...Grandpa Bigelow, Grandpa Coon, Great Grandpa Porter, Uncle Danny, Uncle John, Uncle Justin, JL Dodd, Zach Baldwin, Taylor Lines, and My Uncle Greg. One of my favorite things that she was blessed with was that she would have a great understanding of the gospel at a young age. Justin also said that he peeked at her while she was being blessed and she was smiling. That just melts my heart. I was nervous that she would cry through the whole thing because she was fussy up until it was time to be blessed so its just so cute that she was happy during the blessing. Then we had a little testimony meeting and Spencer, Grandpa and Grandma Coon, Grandma and Grandpa Bigelow and I bore our testimonies. After that my mom said the closing prayer. It seriously was perfect and I wouldn't have wanted it to turn out any other way. 

We only took a few pictures at the church before it started...I'm glad we did because I pretty much cried the whole blessing and I'm sure my makeup was not so cute haha. 

Then we all headed over to our house for dessert. We had cookie dough cupcakes ( found recipe on pinterest ) they were really good, recipe HERE. And we had chocolate chip and butterscotch cookies, fruit with a fruit dip and a vege tray. Our house is a bit small for large groups but we managed to fit and it was so nice to be able to visit with everyone. Our families don't get to see much of each other so it's fun when we have something like this going on when we have both families together.

This was Lylah the whole time...I was kinda sad cause I didn't get anymore pictures of her with her guests.

She woke up when everyone except my parents and siblings had already left. She was being all cute and happy so we took a few more pictures. This is her close up so you can see her cute dress and shoes...

She is such a special girl and I can't tell you how thankful I am that our Heavenly Father sent her to us. She makes our family whole (for now). I can't picture life without her in it. We love you so much Lylah.

Life according to Spencer's phone...

Spencer has been pretty good about talking pictures when I'm not around. He has been taking Preston a lot lately and he always comes home to show me pictures. He's the best daddy. I also found pictures from when we were in Utah to have Lylah that I liked.

Spencer took Preston one day in Utah to ride the ranger and some dirtbikes. They had so much fun. He's sitting with his cousin Riley :).

We had dinner one night at my Aunt Merrie and Uncle Heaths house. Preston loved to play with their kids.

Right after sweet Lylah was born. She's so adorable.

When we came home Preston really wanted to hold Lylah...she was a bit squirmy haha.

Preston has been taking showers with Spenc in the mornings ( helps me out a ton! no more baths haha ) and he always chills on our bed in his towel.

We couldn't hear Preston one night and found him in his room reading. Gosh he's too cute.

Spenc and his baby girl...

This tractor was outside Bashas in Flagstaff. He just had to ride it. Look at his cute hair style. Can you believe I let him out of the house like this? haha I can't...

On Thanksgiving he went out on the lake. It was cold...

I guess he fell asleep and Spenc made him a bed right here. People didn't realize he was there and started throwing their clothes on him haha. When Spencer first showed me the picture I didn't even see preston! I thought maybe Preston just took a pic of nothing haha.

The day after Thanksgiving Spenc took Preston out shooting and to ride the dirt bikes. He had a blast.

And we put our tree up last week! Preston had SO much fun decorating it!

I have a lot of pictures from our fun weekend that I will hopefully post tomorrow!!!