Christmas Letter 2010

Merry Christmas!

If I was to sum up our year in two words, they would be busy and blessed.

Both Cam and I continue to work. I am at Hobby Lobby in Ahwatukee and Cameron still with the City of Tempe. Every week has been a balancing act with two jobs and Jake, but we survived thanks to a lot of help from family and friends!

Blogs are amazing tools. I have had a lot of fun recapping our year through pictures and links, and hopefully you can find the time to check some of them out too.

In January, we decided to list our house for Short Sale.

After six months of no luck and lots of stress, we took it off the market and waited for the inevitable foreclosure... we are still waiting.

In March we took Jake to see the snow in Flagstaff.

And we snuck in Cameron's first ever ski trip!

In April, we attended the wedding of our good friends, Mandy and Trevor!

Isn't she gorgeous?

The only camping we managed this year was one night at Camp LoMia with the ward in late May.

I hit a home run with Cameron's Father's Day gift in June.

Cam has taken up a bit of hunting this year. Only small things like Quail and Doves for now.

This July was our big adventure for the year.

We traveled up to Aurora, UT for a family reunion and made some stops along the way.

In August we got the good 'ol project itch due to our overly extended stay in a foreclosing house and decided to create a playroom for Jake!

(You can also see some other projects I worked on this year on my craft blog.)

We still have both dogs.

Monkey as spastic as ever and Major calm and cuddly.

Here are some family photos that we had done in September by our friend Diana Pickett.

Our Halloween in October!.. duh!

Jake turning two in November. And his party!

December has already proven to be eventful as Jake got to meet Santa on the Polar Express! (I haven't had the chance to blog that yet. :) )

We are excited for Christmas with a two year old and especially grateful for this time of year and the opportunities it awards us to teach our son about Jesus Christ, his birth and especially his atonement.

Stay tuned this year as we have big plans. A possible move, a cross country trip and a wedding to name a few!

We hope all is well with you and want to wish you the best in 2011!

Jake's Second Birthday

For Jake'e Birthday this year we gathered together all kinds of people from all walks of our life.

The party was come and go with very little effort exerted on my part. :)

There was a giant bounce house with slide and plenty of friends!

Our friends, Kelli and Andy got Jake this little remote control car and he seriously loved it.

He has since played with and enjoyed all the other generous gifts, but this is the one that held his attention that day and I have pictures of him playing with... (Thanks to my friend, Megan for taking some pictures. They are the only ones I have from the party!)

All in all, the day was a success.

Bounce house

Friends

Cupcakes

and this little guy. :)

Thanksgiving and Other Randomness

Thanksgiving for us this year was pretty quiet. We spent the evening at Cameron's parent's house. Cam and his mom prepared a very yummy meal while I cuddled on the couch with our feverish boy. :( It was just the 5 of us for dinner and Cam said that he enjoyed cooking on a much smaller scale and I have to say I was happy to have made nothing for the dinner except the napkins!

In other completely unrelated news...

This picture is from the weekend before Thanksgiving. We got to watch my nephew, Sam, for a couple of days. They were playing together so well that I had to take a picture.

The best part? Jake's Wii mote is off! Haha. He is focusing very hard.

And, as part of Jake's birthday I asked each of his grandma's to do something special with him as his gift. Cameron's mom did some fun Thanksgiving sticker pages which Jake loves and asks to hold all the time. "Ball! Ball!" Because there are basketball and footballs on them. I wish I had a picture of them together. I bet seeing Jake sit still long enough to peel a sticker was a sight!

Anyway, for Louise's activity, Louise met us at Build a Bear to let Jake get his bear some Christmas Pajamas. We picked out these Abominable Snowman ones. I think he liked them. :)

Easy Breezy Cover Girl...

... or boy.

I was going through some old pics today and this one escaped my blog postings.

Mascara+2 year old =

priceless.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Our little family had such a fun weekend together. We did some Christmas shopping and then some really fun stuff! We heard that every night at San Tan Village there is snow and horse-drawn carriage rides. Sure enough. Jake loved the "snow" which ended up really being like bubbles. And we all enjoyed the carriage ride.

Jake and Daddy in the "snow".

Don't you love his dragon hat?

If I look tired, it is probably because I really, really am. :)

On Saturday after I got home from work, we decided to decorate Jake's tree.

(We got him his own tree since ours will be unreachable when we do get around to putting it up...)

He was such a pill while decorating, but we got it done.

We tried really hard to let him lead the whole thing. He wanted to put all of the ornaments in his toy shopping cart instead of on the tree. It took a while, but eventually we got it done.

As for the star, he knew just what to do and was very proud... You can tell in this picture.

After Jake was in bed, Cam and I caught up on our Lego Advent Calendar.

We are so excited about this silly little thing.

Each day has a gift to build. It is pretty much awesome.

Jake is Two!

This little baby is two today.

And, he isn't that much of a baby anymore...

He is a big boy.

At two, Jake is tall and skinny. His pants fall off of his waist if they are long enough, but if they fit at the waist, they are way too short!

He has spent the last year of his life OBSESSED with Elmo. Anything red, or resembling a screen (computer or tv) is "Melmo! Melmo! However in the last week he has discovered Toy Story and now asks for "Oys?" He also makes a "bzzz" sound for Buzz.

Some of Jake's favorite foods are cheese and tomatoes. The kid will eat tomato in any form. It is pretty cute.

As for words, they were slow coming, but he now says a few things:

Mama: for me or Cam...

da da: once or twice I have actually gotten him to say da da instead or mama for Cam.

Melmo: Elmo

Was at?: What's that?

oys: Toy Story (not toys.. he hasn't made the connection)

Nice: when he tell him to say Sorry... he pats us and says "nice" I think it stems from us asking him to be nice to the dogs.

Buh Bye!

Eese!: Cheese... he love is

Yes: The yes is very clear.

Yeah

No, no, no: in threes. It is funny.

That is all I can think of right now, but I might add more later. :)

A Late Halloween Post

Halloween snuck up on me...

and in a last minute scramble, this is what we came up with.

Jake was so cute, and got a ton of compliments at the ward party.

He also proved to me that he is a true boy and innately knows what a gun is and how to shoot it.

Leading up to Halloween, we enjoyed the cooler weather here and took in not one, but two, pumpkin patches!

The three little pumpkins are from Vertuccio Farms in QC. Jake loved reaching in the box to pull them out... he wouldn't stop! haha. So we let him have three, and I let him paint one every now and again.

The bigger one is the pumpkin that came with our entrance fee at Mother Nature's Farm.

It has stickers on it.

Here is the little monkey riding in style at Vertuccio's

but he really spent most of his time walking.

This picture pretty much sums up the entire corn maze from my perspective.

For journaling purposes: Our costume choice was a pain in the booty! Jake loves Elmo. He is completely obsessed. I can't even describe fully the level of obsession, but I can try. Everything red is Elmo. Every TV or computer screen is also Elmo. At home, or Walmart, or whatever. A month ago when he still wasn't talking much there were two constants: mamamamama (that's me, or Cam, he doesn't care) or Mo Mo (that's Elmo). So, (getting back to the point here) naturally, the first costume choice I can think of that suits Jake is... Elmo. WRONG. The kid refused to wear anything on his head and certainly not a large mouth and eyes. And after going through several other options: a monkey (hood thing) a pirate (save for later) super hero (no concept of..) a robot (too late in the game) a devil (fitting, yet not as easily located at one would think!) After several stops at several party/halloween stores and Goodwills, we decided on the cops and criminals theme. Only to find out it would take us two more stops to locate the police costume that the first store was out of and then 2 more stops at toy stores to fully stock his belt. Next year, I think Jake will be going as an almost 3 year old. That should be easy.

One more: Trick or treating for the first time. This year our ward did "blanket trick or treating" in the gym. At first Jake was so confused. When we started and someone gave him candy he wanted it opened so he could eat it. I tried to show him how to put the candy in his police car (it's an Easter Basket), but he clinched on to those first few pieces very tightly. After about a quarter of the room he caught on to the concept. Everyone was going to give him candy! He picked up his pace and very boldly walked up to each person with his hand extended. It was a very cute first trick or treating experience.