Birthday and Christmas Have Come and Gone

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Christmas season. We enjoyed time together as a family since Todd had a three week break from school. We also were able to visit with both sides of our family which always makes for good times.

Hurry up Dad!

Todd took Fisher on a walk one night to go around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights. Fisher loved the lights and decorations this year along with everything dealing with Christmas. It was so much fun seeing how much more he seemed to understand what was going on.

Rosey cheeks after being outside.

On Fisher's last day of pre-school before break they had a pajama party and gift exchange. They made reindeer antlers using their hand prints which is what Fisher has on his head. He loved his hat and wore it around for a few days straight.


We're still in this particular smile phase. I am waiting for him to grow out of this one :)

Grandma & Grandpa Church did the 12 days of Christmas for us. Between his pre-school party, packages in the mail, celebrating his birthday & Christmas with G & G Church early and then birthday and Christmas out in Reno, Fisher seems to think that presents are an everyday occurrence. It has taken a little bit of present weening since we've been home and settling back into our everyday routine for him to realise this is not the case. For a while he was wrapping up anything he could find in blankets and paper and telling us he had presents for us.

Little hands busy at work. I wouldn't be surprised if they were calloused after this holiday season from the onslaught of presents.

One of the best parts about going to Grandma & Grandpa Church's is playing with all of the candles. I pulled out the old/used ones so he couldn't do any damage to the nice ones. If anyone is looking for great scented candles my in-laws make the best!

Grandpa and Fisher.

Grandpa was showing off the new beard which we all voted for him to keep but we heard through the grapevine that it was recently shaved off :) Happy belated Birthday Grandpa!

Fisher is always excited when Uncle Jedd is around to play with. They are best buds.

We went up to Cinci to celebrate Fisher's third birthday and Christmas with Todd's family before we left out of town. The night we got in we did birthday and the next morning was Christmas. Here is his Spiderman birthday cake. He loved it and still plays with the spiderman constantly.

Staring down the candles after a few attempts of blowing on them with no luck. He eventually figured it out.

Opening presents for his birthday.

And more presents...

Fisher checking out the presents under the tree that he was going to be opening for "Christmas" morning.

Grandma and Fisher smiling for the camera on "Christmas" morning.

One of Todd's mission buddies happens to be in his parents' ward so we were able to visit with him for the first time since we were married over six and a half years ago. After a few hours it was easy to see why the two of them got a long so well :)

Babies. Big boy beds.Thanksgiving. Halloween. A LOT has ben going on. Does anyone even bother looking on this non-updated blog anymore?

Unfortunately what happens when you go MIA in the blogging world for two months is that you wind up with one extremely LONG blog. I'm warning you in advance that this is going to be one of those.

Did you miss me?

Fisher is happy to announce that he will have a baby brother or sister sometime around the middle of 2009.

Since I don't know how long it will be before I blog again we thought we might as well tell everyone that I am pregnant. I am entering week 13, whoo hoo! After having miscarried at almost 10 weeks last February, we were really nervous to get too excited before we were sure everything was okay. This ultrasound was done when I was nine weeks along and so far everything is going well. The due date is around June 18th. I wish I could have been in better shape going into this pregnancy but after all my back problems it was going to take a while and we were ready for Fisher to have a sibling. So I guess the work out regime will have to get started after the baby :)

We started a new tradition this year with "The Elf on the Shelf" and Fisher just loves it. The elf moves every night and he will wake up and look for it in the morning. The idea is that the elf reports back to Santa. Fisher doesn't understand Santa so much but he does love the elf who he named "Elf." Thanks Grandma Lund!

I absolutely love Christmas. One of my favorite things to do every year is make sugar cookies. This year Fisher was my helper. Here he is testing the batter.

Fisher + knife + frosting = I had every right to be scared. J/k. He actually did a really good job with frosting the cookies.

All I can say is that I have sprinkles EVERYWHERE.

It took him about five cookies to be sure, but I am pretty sure he liked them.

The final product.

Fisher really enjoyed helping put the ornaments on the tree this year. Hopefully his enthusiasm will continue through the years. The tree and decorations come out the day after Thanksgiving (and I normally have to force myself to wait that long) and although Todd likes the tree, he isn't one to get all excited about putting it up or doing the decorating.


Adding a few finishing touches to the tree. Apparently it was missing a few cars, airplanes, trains, boats and of course, a computer mouse.


G & G Church gave Fisher his own little tent that he just LOVES. Not only did he spend all Thanksgiving weekend asking everyone to go in his tent with him but he has spent every waking moment in there since receiving it. I

I can't tell you how ready we were to get the bed into Fisher's room. It took about a week for the mattress to arrive. We were dying with the bed frame in the living room. And Fisher's tent. And all of the Christmas decorations/boxes everywhere. And we still have the extra leaf in the table...Basically our house has been a mess. It was wonderful to move the bed into the room where it was supposed to be.

Can you feel the excitement? This was the first few minutes in his new bed.

Posing in the new bed. I couldn't bring myself to buy a Spiderman comforter so we settled on sheets. He's happy and Mom's happy.

The first night in the bed. (Thanks Grandma & Grandpa Church!)
Although it was a little difficult helping him settle down, once asleep he slept in until 8:00 the next morning. The last few nights have been the same so hopefully the early morning phase it over for a little while.


We spent Thanksgiving with Todd's family in Louisville this year. It was a nice relaxing time and Fisher loved having Grandma, Grandpa & Jedd around to play with him. He always gets so excited when we tell him they are coming to visit.

The two ladies who slaved away all day long. I have a lot more respect for my mom and all the years that she hosted Thanksgiving for 15-20+ people. It is insane and exhausting and I wish I would have given a lot more help over the years...especially during clean up when those that have cooked all day are spent and ready to sit down and put their feet up!

My mom came into town on a last minute visit. One day we went to Bernheim Forest after a few days of rain and let Fisher run wild. A lot of the leaves had dropped and the colors weren't quite as vibrant as they had been even a week before but it was still beautiful.

Fisher loved throwing rocks into the water.

And throwing more rocks....

Walking backwards is so much fun when you're two. You can imagine how long it took to walk that way down the entire walk. Grandma was a trooper and did it for about half the way. Thanks for coming to visit, Mom! It was nice having you out here even if it was only for a few days.

Fisher loves to hang on the bars at the park. This is a new development.

You will see in the next few pictures that Fisher has officially entered the Spiderman phase. We can't get him out of his pajamas that Grandma Lund gave him.

He still loves to help in the kitchen. Sometimes it is a pain, but most of the time I try to enjoy the enthusiasm of helping Mom out. I know it won't last forever. Note the pajamas...

The costume is another daily outfit. He hasn't worn it for a little while now that I think about it...out of sight, out of mind :)

Todd's family came down for a couple of days to drop off his mom to have a girls weekend with her sisters and cousins. It was fun seeing Aunt(s) Pat, Jill, Jean & Jane! It was even more fun seeing them pack into their van blasting "It's My Party" as they left for their little adventure. Fisher still mentions "Grandma Pat" who is Mom Church's identical twin. It is still trippy for me to see the two of them together :)

Mom Church was kind enough to make a few visits down to Louisville on her days off to help me with Fisher...or maybe it was to help Fisher with me :) I was extremely tired and Fisher decided to stop napping right when I found out I was pregnant. He also started waking up earlier and being grumpy and tired the entire day. With both of us being tired it was an unpleasant combination. Thank you so much for the help!! It was greatly appreciated :)

We carved pumpkins for the first time in our 6.5 year marriage. We always said once we had kids old enough to enjoy doing holiday things then we would be better about it. Fisher had a lot of fun holding all the carving tools but thought the pumpkin guts were "gross!"

As always, I waited until the last minute to buy Fisher's costume. I didn't think he would care what he was...I was very wrong. He refused to wear the costume we bought for him and kept insisting on being Spiderman. I can't tell you how many stores I went to looking for Spiderman. Thankfully Todd saved the day- found a costume and took Fisher out trick-or-treating. He caught on very fast and loved it until he grew tired after his 15 houses and laid down on the sidewalk. :)

Nothing happening.

I don't have any new pictures (I think the re-chargeable battery on our camera has finally gone bye-bye after about four years...) but I realized that I have posts I uploaded the pictures onto but never actually posted. There is another one coming up in the next few days with Fisher and his cousin Abby.

Todd is busy studying for another big test. I got bored today and painted a wall mudslide brown. I tend to like dark colors which is going to stink when we have to paint over it all when it comes time to sell the house.

Fisher had a fun day going to pre-school and eating a chocolate cupcake, playing with his friend Abby while I painted my wall, and then going to his second birthday party this week where he proceeded to eat about a pound of skittles and M&Ms (he was sneaking them from the game), cake, ice cream and topping it all off with a blue ring pop. I can't even begin to estimate how many minutes we stood in front of the mirror while he made faces at himself with his blue face, blue lips, blue teeth and blue tongue. To be almost three again...

Random picture of Fisher. Singing, talking, meditating, trying to catch bees...Not sure what he is doing.

Fisher is a loud kid. This picture says it all.


A couple of these buckets found their way onto Abby. Poor thing.


Jumping in the pool.

Jumping out of the pool.

Jumping into the pool.

Who knew there were so many combinations of pool jumping?

Playing it cool after all of that wild man jumping.

Fisher's impersonation of Titanic. "I'm flying Mama!"