Christmas

Christmas this year was so much fun. Gabbie really got into opening the presents and loved all her new things. We got a ton of stuff at DI (its like Goodwill for all of you guys back east) that was perfect for Gabbie. The look of pure love on her face the entire day made me think how lucky we are to be parents and how pure and innocent children are. It's no wonder Heavenly Father asks us to be like children.

Gabbie wearing her new jammies that she got to open on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning started with Gabbie opening her presents, then Kyle and I going through our stockings. We have a tradition in our family that we take a certain amount of money and we'll go shopping to fill the other persons stocking. It can be things that are serious or things that are funny and make us laugh. It has turned out to be something that we really look forward to and it helps us to think about someone else more than ourselves. This year, Kyle got a mix of practical, needed things, joke things, and fun things. I got a lot of joke/practical things.

Gabbie is playing with one of her new toys. Its this rocket ship thing that has 4 layers you can take off and re-build. On the bottom is one of those shape games where you have to put the shape in the right hole. She is slowly working up to doing that but she mostly just likes to make it fall apart and then dump all the shapes into the top of the container without fitting them into the right spot.

Kyle got a new BYU hat in his stocking, socks, ties and this lovely elephant balloon that is one of those where you hook the end on your finger and try to hit the balloon as many times in a row as you can.

Gabbie got a new Barney movie in her stocking, bibs, and socks. She also got some bubbles, abc cards, and crayons.

She loves the bubbles...

Gabbie was opening her presents really slow so Kyle decided he needed to show her how to open them really fast.

Opening presents...

Santa brought Gabbie a new frog toy. It's a bouncy ball covered with the body of a frog. She loves it. The whole morning she just wanted her frog. We had to take it away and put it up on the couch because she didn't want to open anything after she saw the frog. (Santa didn't wrap it so she saw it right off the bat)

Kyle's 'faked' excitement for his new Christmas PJs. I was too lazy to wrap them because he already peeked and knew what they were.

Gabbie and Mom showing off Christmas Pjs.

My mom and dad in VA sent Gabs a package for Christmas and in one of the boxes she stuck a picture of my little sister Taylor. Gabbie saw the picture at the bottom of the box and she stopped everything she was doing to look at the picture. She kept pointing at Taylor and then looking up at me as if to say 'Mom, I know her!' It was very special for me because we don't get to see my family that often and Gabbie has only met Taylor twice. Now this picture sits over her bed beside a picture of Kyle's little sister Lacey. Every morning when Gabbie wakes up she will point to the two pictures on her wall and smile.

We had to break out the mittens and hats because it started to snow almost every day. It took so long for the snow to come this year and I was anxiously waiting for it so winter would start. Then when it did finally come, I was ready for it to be spring time after about 2 days of non-stop snow. Doesn't she look so cute in her hat and mittens!

Opening Grandma and Grandpa Campbell's Christmas presents...

Thank you to everyone who helped make our Christmas wonderful. We are so thankful for the thoughtfulness and caring that each of you showed to us and we want you to know how much we appreciated it. We love you guys.

Reindeer

During the Christmas season, we went to see the lights at Thanksgiving Point. Gabbie absolutely loved it. She was so excited to see so many pretty colors and to see the different ways that the lights were used. After seeing the lights, we stopped and got out into the freezing cold to see a couple of reindeer that were up front at the water tower. It was way too cold to do that so we only stuck around for a few minutes then raced back to the car.

Kyle's car picture as we were heading into the lights...

Can you see the excitement in her smile?

I was smart enought to steal the only other blanket in the car that Gabbie didn't have wrapped around her and use it for myself because it was so stinking cold.

The reindeer we froze to see...

Kyle and Gabbie trying to warm themselves up by the little tiny fire.

It was a fun experience to see the lights and the reindeer but maybe next time we will just stay in the car for the lights, or bring warmer clothes.

Happy Birthday Gabbie

Gabbie turned one year old on December 4. We celebrated her birthday on the 5th because Kyle had to work on the actual day. She was super excited to see the presents and birthday cake. These pictures are in reverse order but we started out the night with lasagna for dinner. Then we had the cake and opened presents with Grandma and Grandpa Christensen.

Gabbie opening her first present. She needed her dads help. Notice both of their mouths, she is so much like him.

trying to open some more presents....

Grandpa Christensen wearing the decorations from the cake.

Gabbie is enjoying her cake. She was pretty hesitant about picking it up and eating it when she first saw it but then she realized that it was cake and she started chowing down.

Gabbie accidentally put her foot in the side of the cake and had frosting on her toes. Kyle thought it would be fun to make her eat it off.

Her beautiful cake. It was a two-layer cake that had strawberry filling in between the two layers.

Wearing her new pjs on her head for fun.

We loved celebrating Gabbie's birthday. It is hard to believe that a year has already gone by since she was born. It feels like yesterday that we were bringing our little girl home. We love you Gabbie!

Good News

So for all of you that are not aware of it yet, I wanted to let you know that we are expecting.

Gabbie is going to be a big sister and she gets really excited when we talk to her about it. We haven't been to the doctor yet but according to our calculations, we are six weeks along and the baby will be due in mid-July around the 15th. We'll let you all know for sure after we have been to the doctors.

I have been feeling okay. So far I have been nauseous a lot and more tired than usual but I haven't actually gotten sick yet. There are a lot of food smells, like the pork tenderloin we had for dinner last night, that have made me feel kind of sick to my stomach and nothing sounds good to me when I think about eating. The good thing though is that even ice cream doesn't sound good so maybe I won't gain as much weight this time! At least that's the goal.

Thanks for all the congrats we have already received and we will keep you posted.

Halloween

Halloween was another first time experience for us this year with a child. We went to our ward Trunk or Treat and walked around for a little bit then went out to dinner and came home to pass out candy. Unfortunately, we only had a few trick-or-treaters so Kyle had to give the ones that came fist fulls of candy so we didn't have a ton around the house to munch on.

Our beautiful little sunflower...

Gabbie, Kyle, and our friends that live below us... Batman is Jacob and the skeleton is Shannon. They love Gabbie and talk to her every time we walk outside.

Daddy and the little sunflower at trunk or treating, checking out the costumes and decorations in the trunks.

Isn't she the cutest little sunflower? She did really well with keeping the hood on during the night. We were lucky to get so many cute pictures. Hope you all had a good Halloween.

New Hobbies

Gabbie has found some new interests recently...

Here she is playing with a ball that I had from teaching. She can totally pick the thing up with one hand and palm it (of course it is one of those squishy balls so that's not really all that hard).

Our next basketball star...

Another new adventure is getting hosed down in the sink after eating. It is much easier to do this lately than get her to hold still so we can clean her up. Unfortunately, she gets all wet when Daddy does it because he uses the sprayer and Mom just sticks her hands under the faucet to clean. But we can all tell from these pictures which one she likes the best...

Doing a piggy back ride with daddy....she loves these. Whenever we put her on our back for a ride, she thinks its so funny and wants us to go super fast. While we run down the hall with her on our back, she giggles her head off and then tells us to 'go' when we stop (this wears you out after running up and down the hall a few times with 20+ pounds bouncing on your back, or we are just really out of shape).

Gabbie rocking out...she's actually just playing with the headphones.

A new treat...Mom got a bag of candy from her Visiting Teachers and Gabbie wanted to have a taste of some of it. This is probably completely against good oral hygiene/care but I just had to let her have a small taste. She tried to suck the whole thing into her mouth. It was very funny to watch because she looked like she was trying to suck the last drop out of her sippy cup or bottle.

And finally, a fun picture with Gabbie showing everyone her two teeth. She has a super strong bite and if she gets your fingers in her mouth, beware!

I sure love introducing her to all these new things and getting to watch as she gets so much enjoyment out of such small things.

Playing with Mom and Dad

Gabbie has been playing with Kyle and I a lot lately and she is getting super fun to play with. Her little laugh when she is excited is the cutest thing to listen to.

Stripped down ready to get cleaned up after eating dinner... she makes a huge mess every time she eats so we have to wet her down in the sink to wipe her off.

Helping Mom close the window...

Playing with the buttons on Dad's shirt...

Daddy teaching Gabs how to do a head stand...

Now Gabbie's turn to show her talent...

Going for a ride in the laundry basket before we go fold the clothes...

Conference Weekend (a month later)

Well, I know I'm about a month late but here are the pictures we took when we went up to Park City for General Conference with the family. Kyle's brother Matt and his family came down from Idaho and spent the weekend with us. This was the only time I brought the camera out so we didn't get too many pictures. Here are Matt, Kyle, Jake, Abbie, Annie, Parker, Lydia, and Gabbie playing in the pool.

Riding down to the pool on Daddy's shoulders.