frustrations and joys of parenting

Frustrations:

Sophie does not sleep through the night anymore. She has always done great for us but all of a sudden she wakes up at 2 and sometimes again at 5. I am so tired from lack of sleep. If anybody has any ideas on what to do for her... until we get it figured out I will just need to learn some patience.

Joys

Sophie now gives kisses. It is so sweet. She will open her mouth and go right for our mouths. It looks a little like she is eating our faces but it is totally cute.

Also Josh will sometimes squeeze her nose and make a honking noise, now she does it herself. You squeeze Sophie's nose and she will honk. One of these days I will try and get a video of it.

Home Tour: Front Room

So I thought I would give my readers a tour of our house, one room at a time. Today is my front room.

The patterned wall is fabric. My sister and brother helped me put it up when we were moving in. I love it so so much. It is one of the things I am most proud of in my house. In the first picture you can also see my rocking chair that was a DI find, I had to repaint it but I love to sit in it by the window and soak up the sun. One of my other good find was the big painting in the 2nd pic that I got at Goodwill back when I was in high school. Our couch is a hand me down from my grandparents.
It's kind of dark so in the 3rd pic you can't read it but the sign says "hang your troubles here" it was a wedding gift from my brother. I love the thought of it and I hope that my house is always a place that people can hang their troubles at the door and not worry. The sled was a much longed for Christmas gift as a child (which doesn't make too much sense considering the lack of snow Oregon gets).

9 months

Christmas at Home and New Years

So the day after Christmas Josh came home so he could work- Sophie and I stayed a few days longer. On the 30th we headed home- we flew into Salt Lake and then caught a shuttle to come home. We got home at 2 in the morning new years eve. Sophie traveled well, as usual. After some glorious sleep we woke and had our Christmas with all the gifts we had left here.






Sophie enjoyed the walker that she got and Josh and I got pillows! I know that may not seem that wonderful but for us it was- we haven't ever had new pillows we were still sleeping on the ones we took from our parents houses when we left for college.

After our Christmas we went to Carsten's Bakery in Idaho Falls for a treat and then for new years went to Josh's brother's house and played games. Then New Years day we just hung out- nice and relaxing. I hated when Monday came and we were back to reality.

Krista's wedding and Christmas present

For starters- this is the cute dress Sophie got to have for Krista's wedding- I am so in love with it and the headband. The whole bit.



Before Krista got married I thought long and hard about what to give her. I wanted it to be something personal but also something she would use. (She hasn't always appreciated past thoughtful, but not useful gifts.) So then I began to think about gifts I really liked getting when I got married and one thing I enjoyed was when I got gift cards to go out to eat. So I decided to make her and Ragan a date book- 52 date ideas. It was a big project but I enjoyed doing it. I came up with some fun things, such as, I gave them directions to a small town about 30 mins away in each direction but did not tell them the destination, then when they get there they are supposed to find a place to eat that isn't a chain restaurant and spend some time seeing the town. There is also a garage sale scavenger hunt and romantic versions of scrabble and twister. At the end I had a few gift cards of places to eat that are near their house.

Christmas Morning

I know I am so behind with this- but here we go. Christmas at my parents house is typically not a quick affair- this year even more so. But it's good, I like it that way. Both Josh and my sister's new husband reacted the same way when we told them that we used to have to wait about a half hour between gifts to open the next one. They were appalled, but I liked it that way because then we got to open presents all day long. It also became a tradition in our house to wake up and do a service for someone before we even saw what Santa brought. I also loved this, it gives a whole different meaning to the day.
Anyway, this year we got up and did our service (we went and cleaned Krista and Ragan's apartment because they were still on their honeymoon and had very nicely let us stay there while they were gone) and we came home and had some breakfast. After that, we went to check out the stocking situation. (Except Sophie was already down for a nap so she had hers later)

Then Krista called and asked if we could wait to do gifts until they got there- so we didn't even start on our gifts until after 1pm. But that's ok- we hung out with my brother and parents and eventually Sophie did get up to see what Santa had brought her. She had fun with it.
She definitely enjoyed the presents that came in bags better because they were easier to get out. We had a nice day- I got a sewing machine from Josh (yay!) and I gave tickets to see Le Mis this summer to Josh. We also got some gift cards to go out to eat (which is one of my favorite things to do), so I'm excited about that too.

Pay it Forward

I promise to send something handmade to the first 5 people who leave a comment. They must in turn post this (either on facebook or their blog) and send something they made to the first 5 people who comment on their's. The rules are that ...it must be handmade by you...and it must be sent to your 5 people sometime in 2011!

I put this out there with a disclaimer that I am not very good at homemade. But I think I am getting better.

First of Oregon Trip

We went to Oregon for Christmas and Krista's wedding. I didn't have my camera the wedding day but I loved having my grandparents around for a few days and I did take a few pictures with them around. Krista's wedding went well and Congrats to her and Ragan. I'll post about Christmas soon.