Christmas Morning

This year I decided it's going to be an official tradition every year to take family pictures before opening presents. I think it's funny to take pictures just after people wake up and I'm sure in the future our kids will love having to wait to open presents to take pictures.

Tucker loved the new books he got for Christmas, he got some sesame street books from my Grandma and he said 'Elmo' all morning.

I love the new robe that Sheldon got me for Christmas and we all got new pajamas for Christmas. Note to self: next year start shopping for pajamas earlier because almost all the stores were sold out of the smaller sizes of pajamas!

Tucker still doesn't quite understand that a wrapped present has something exciting on the inside, but he did enjoy helpin us rip the wrapping paper off.

Tucker got a cute music set from Grandma and Grandpa Mills and he loves it so much! This kid definitely loves music, the first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is reach for the CD player in his room and say "dss" ( I think that is his word for music) until you turn it on. He has had a lot of fun so far making his own music by banging the drumsticks on everything in the house.

Dear Santa:

We went to visit Sheldon's parents this past weekend after Christmas. I was so excited to find that Sheldon's mom had pulled out a Christmas letter he wrote when he was 8. I loved it so much I just had to share it with everyone!

In case you missed the date at the top, it's supposed to be 12/24/90. I love that the 9 is backwards.

In case you have a hard time reading Sheldon's letter (don't forget he was only 8 years old, so you can't make fun of him too much for typos ;)

"I wish you would give my a soccer ball and a boomerang. And do you need a map. And how do you all thos houses. I've been a good exzample to my mom."

And then my very favoritest part, in huge letters:

Sheldon definitely wanted to get on Santa's good side so he could get his soccer ball and boomerang :)

The Proposal

This year Sheldon was so sweet and did the 12 days of Christmas for me. One day we were supposed to go back to where he proposed to me and reminisce together, but we couldn't find a babysitter for Tucker so he came along and the evening wasn't quite as romantic as we planned on, but it was still fun. Sheldon proposed to me at Utah Lake, because that is where we had our first date together. It was so cold when we went there last week, we actually spent a lot of the time huddled in the car drinking our martinelli's while Tucker pressed all the buttons on the car. Good times :)

Animal Sounds

Tucker is starting to learn so many words and he has definitely got all his animals sounds down. I finally recorded most of the animals sounds but I forgot a few of my favorites! One of my favorites is the elephant, I think it is so cute he can do the hand motion with the noise. A few of the words Tucker says all the time are: Dad, Bear, Ball, Tucker, Airplane, applesauce, Car, Baby, More, All done, Avery (his friend from upstairs), shoes, cat, dog, and he learns more every day. I love this stage where he tries to imitate everything.

I forgot to post Tucker's stats when he went to the doctor about 2 weeks ago (He was about 15 1/2 months old). I put these on here more for my own information so I have another place to keep a record.

Weight: 22.44 lbs 21%

Height: 31" 47.96%

Head: 19" 80%

Poor kid still has a huge head, and he really does. I try to find hats for him and his head is always too big!

The Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

But wait, what's that I see?!

Something is moving behind that tree!




It's a burglar, a thief, a Grinch no doubt!
Trying to ruin someone's Christmas, what a lout.

Oh no, he's not the only thief I spy
On top of the snow-covered roof there's a guy!


Creeping and crawling so softly with ease

Don't disturb this nice house, oh please!

He was dressed all in black from his head to his foot
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.

How I wished he was Santa so cheerful and merry,

but I knew he had come to take all he could carry.

"Stop!" one thief called out, "It's not what you think!"
"They ran out of red outfits, it was this or pink"
I was doubtful, unsure. Santa's elves in black?
From behind the tree he pulled out a sack
Full of books and treats, trains and toys.
I knewthey must be for good little girls and boys.
They spoke no more, but went straight to their work,
And filled all the stockings and turned with a jerk.
But I heard them exclain as they flew off in the night,
"Happy Christmas to all, sorry to give you such a fright!"


Sheldon and I had so much fun decorating our gingerbread house as I'm sure you can tell. Sheldon was especially good at decorating. His window is the first picture below and I did the second window. Mine is so crooked and wiggly, I definitely need to practice and gain a steadier hand. Sheldon likes to call this gingerbread house Christmas in California or Compton :)

cRaCkEr

This video is an example of how Tucker tries to eat everything. To Tucker, there is no such things as taking bites. He shoves as much as possible in his mouth and then holds it in there with his hands while he chews because he can't shut his mouth all the way. I have no idea how to teach him to take bites, I'm hoping it is just something he will learn as he gets older.

December Events

We have been so busy this December, but I love it! I love the chance to get together with friends and family that you haven't seen for a while. Tucker and I both got a little sick at the beginning of the month, which was definitely no fun, but we are all healthy now! I could tell Tucker wasn't feeling well by the fact that he actually laid down to watch a movie, poor kid. I can't imagine what it would be like to have more than one kid throwing up with the flew, it was a lot of work with just Tucker being sick! Lots of laundry and baths for Tucker and I swear the smell lingered for a week no matter what I did to try and get rid of it. On that happy note to brighten your day :)

About a week and a half ago we went to the Annual Mills Family Christmas Party. We ate lots of good food and came home with way too many treats that I ended up eating most of. I need to start having Sheldon hide the treats, or else I look at them all day and I can't resist eating all of them! They had Santa come to the party, but Tucker was not feeling well that day so he wasn't having anything to do with strangers. Trying to keep him as happy as long as possible, I did not get a picture of him with Santa :(

We were able to go see my sister and cousin's choir concert at BYU (Many thanks to my Aunt for the tickets!) It was so much fun and I was very impressed with how good they were. The only bad part was Sheldon and I got there late due to lots of snow on the road and no parking available whatsoever. We walked in late to the concert and realized our seats were in the VERY middle of the row. We vetoed the idea of crawling over 20 people to get to our seats and instead sat in the very front row that had lots of open seats. Nobody kicked us out and I ended up enjoying our seats very much!

Last Sunday one of my old roommates was in town, so got together for dinner. I love that 6 years after our freshman year together we are still good friends! My hair is kind of crazy in this picture, but everyone else looks so cute, especially Tucker :)

Snow Day!

The week of giving thanks

Sheldon and I were were able to go to California for Thanksgiving, and it gets even better than that, we were able to FLY! Driving almost 12 hours is so killer with Tucker, so Sheldon and I were able to find some not too expensive tickes and fly to Cali. I think we were both able to enjoy the trip so much more because we weren't dead after driving forever in the car. California was so much fun as always, and definitely too short. We were there for about a week and spent most of our time visiting with different relatives. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of everyone we visited, so even if you are not on this blog it doesn't mean we don't love you! It just means I'm not a very good photographer and I was too busy having fun to take pictures all the time.

We were able to take Tucker to Redondo Beach one day and it was perfect weather. I think it was almost in the 80s at the beach, which is totally warm for the beach, especially in November.

Tucker was making some pretty funny faces while we were walking around the pier.

For some reason Tucker did not just want to sit down and play in the sand. In the past he has loved playing in the sand, but I guess now that he is walking he just really loves to walk around. Tucker was also not a big fan of walking in the sand, it made things more difficult and this kid just likes to go places quickly.

Unfortunately the water was cold and Tucker didn't want to play in the water either. I don't really blame him, I ran away from the water like a wimp. It was kind of difficult trying to take pictures and run away from the waves at the same time.

Tucker finally decided he was done with playing in the sand and waves and headed for the cement.



But he didn't want to leave without us, he yelled at us until we came :)

We had fun staying at my parent's house and of course Tucker was always the center of attention, and he loved every minute of it.

Tucker totally zones out in front of the TV, he will just sit there with his mouth hanging open and drool will usually start falling. I think it's so funny :)

We were able to go visit Sheldon's brother in San Diego. We had lots of fun playing at the park with them, and Sheldon probably had just as much if not more fun than the kids!

By the way, does anyone else hate uploading pictures on blogger? It takes me forever because I can only upload a few at a time. Am I just technologically inept or do other people have this problem? If it's not just me than Blogger should definitely be able to come up with a better method. With the amount of people that use Blogger I think they can afford to make a few upgrades.