NYE in Salt Lake

We love the Sorenson's.  I think I have written about them before. Ryan and Walt were mission companions and are secretly or not so secretly in love with each other.   We try to meet up with them at least twice a year ever since we got married.   They have a little girl 5 weeks older than Holden and Lexie and I already have them married when they get older.

We travelled down on NYE,  immediately left our baby with Lexies mom and went to a NYE party (good parents I know)   Tonya is awesome and the babies were spoiled to death.   I was nice to be up past 10pm even though I had been travelling all day and looked a fright.  

Ryan and I took Holden to meet my Aunt and Cousins for the first time too!   He got to meet Linda and Thom and Wendy and their children and on the way home we stopped at Kim and Daniels but I didn't take any pictures of that :(

The rest of our time there was spent going out to eat,  letting the babies play and watching movies.   It was a nice relaxing trip.   We are looking forward to seeing them in May when we go camping in Moab.

Looking back..

I was loading video's of Holden onto the computer the other day and I came across the video's of when I heard the babies heartbeats for the first time.  

I watched a video going around Facebook about a undercover investigator who was 23.5 weeks pregnant going into a Phoenix clinic and getting signed up for a late term abortion.   I cried the whole way through it pretty much.  I personally do not agree with abortion and am pro-life but each person has agency and is able to make decisions they will answer for someday.  But after watching this video of my babies heart beats at almost 9 weeks it just makes me even sadder. 

At 9 weeks I loved these babies and I mourned deeply when I lost one of them.  At 13 weeks I found out that I was having a little boy. At 18 weeks I really felt Holden kick me for the first time,   I had been feeling the flutters since about 14 weeks.   At 23 weeks I had my first 3D ultrasound and saw that my baby had the same button nose as me and finally at 39 weeks I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.

People are so cruel in this world it makes me scared sometimes that I am raising children during this time.

On the video my friend Heather (who owns Miracles in Progress) is talking about the hearbeats and the 10pt difference and they were thinking it was a boy and a girl.   So in my mind my baby girl wasn't ready to come to this earth.  Hopefully she will be ready to come join our family next year!

From Crawling to Creeping and Beyond!

One downside to having a husband that is learning all the medical terms is he uses them too frequently.  To me crawling is when he gets up on his hands and knees.  But apparently that is called creeping...it weirds me out when Ryan says it and so I think he says it all the time just to annoy me.

Anyways our baby has went from army crawling to crawling(creeping) and is now a proficient couch walker.

Here is a few video's Ive taken

Holden 1st Crawl

First real walk along the couch.  He is now a PRO

First knee crawl at home.   I missed it I was up taking a bath so Ryan video taped it for me

Holden 8 Months

For some reason I cannot turn the clock back and I cannot get it to stop.  My baby boy just keeps getting bigger and older and while I absolutely love this stage (my favorite so far) it makes me a little sad.

Packing away the clothes that are too small and bringing out the next size this month.  Baby boy is still so long and is wearing 6-12 month shirts and 12 month pants.  We didn't go to the doctor for stats but we did go when he had a cold and he weighed 20lbs!  He still has no rolls though :) 

He is proficient at crawling now and is fast!  He is happy just walking the couch back and forth and finally figured out his basketball hoop and that the balls go in the basket and make noise.  He gets so excited when we clap after he makes a basket.

He is probably 40% baby food and 60% real food because he is just not a good baby food eater.  He loves avocados,  black beans,  squash,  yams,  zucchini and so many puffs and crunchies its crazy!  He holds his own bottle and is still wakin up at 3am or so hungry and teething constantly.   We go in give him a bottle of 5oz and walk out,  he feeds himself and puts himself back to sleep.

He is such a happy great little boy and we love him so much!  

Holden's first Christmas Eve/Morning

As a kid we always got Christmas pajama's for Christmas Eve,  we wore them to bed and the next day all our pictures were taken in our pj's.  I loved it and so we started the tradition this year with Holden's first Chrsitmas pj's.  His babysitter got him Christmas socks so it was cute how he matched all the way to his toes :)

Christmas Eve we always go to Ryan's parents and watch White Christmas and eat soup.   This year Holden wore a little shirt for Grandma and got cranky and so we ended up not watching the end.  Next year maybe he will be better or just pass out on the floor.

Christmas Eve night started Ryan's first night as a dad putting together toys for Christmas morning.   It was so fun for me to watch my hubby do this for our son.  As a side it's one of Holden's favorite toys.  He crawls over to it and tries to get in and has us push him all around the house.  We walk to the mailbox with him in it too.

Christmas morning our little family got up and opened each other's gift and just spent time together.   at 10:00am my family came over for breakfast and to exchange gifts.   Let me just say, being the 1st grandchild on my side.  Holden was SOOO spoiled.  My family just kept bringing in boxes and boxes filled with toys.  But it was awesome to watch how excited my parents and brothers were to spoil Holden.  He is definitely a loved little boy.

My mom and dad got him his own little chair.  He fits perfectly in it and we climb in and read books all the time.

That night everyone including Ryan's parents came back over for Christmas dinner.   I wish I took more pictures I was too busy cooking  and being a mom all day and I just didn't get very many pictures. 

But it was a great Christmas and I can't wait until next year when he gets it a little more! 

Christmas Wrap Up

I need to get Christmas blogged about so I can clear the photo's off my phone. I'm tired of it telling me I have no storage :)

For Holden's first Christmas we saw Santa twice (attempted a 3rd),  visited lights twice (Speedway and Magical Forest) had a few Santa outfits his mother made him wear and got way too many presents!

Our first Holiday outing was at the Oppurtinity Village Magical Forest.  We met up with Nycole and Ruby and Amber, Fred and Lily.   It was pretty chilly so I made Holden stay in his stroller most of the night.  But we had some hot chocolate, saw Santa (he didn't cry) and saw some lights.

We next attempted to see Santa out at the Bass Pro shops,   being a first time mom I was a total novice.  #1 going there on a weekend and #2 not being prepared to spend hours in line.   Needless to say we hit the cafe with my parents and did NOT see Santa!  Next year I will be more prepared.

We also toured the Speedway lights with Ryan's parents.   They were actually pretty good and Holden was thrilled I let him out of the car seat. He stood up pretty much the whole time and genuinely seemed to have fun.  

Lastly I wanted a good picture with Santa in a cute outfit so we headed off to the Fashion Show Mall to visit the REAL Santa.   We were prepared this time to wait hours and ended up waiting maybe 10 minutes.  They took a few pictures of Holden with Santa and instead of buying the traditional one I bought the one of him looking at Santa because it was too cute!   He was so good and the Disney store was right next door so it's never too soon to start bribing/rewarding your kid with toys in my opinion.  Holden LOVES the theme song (and now can watch a few additional minutes) of Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  When we handed him his first little stuffed Disney doll he just smiled and smiled.   It really was the cutest thing ever.