February

So I'll confess initially I didn't update the blog for February because we were being selfish and keeping our great news to ourselves.  Then things just got too busy.  The reason being...

ELLIE!

Ellie was born February 10, 2015. She weighed 7 lbs 5 oz and was 21 inches long.

We got to see her in the hospital and spend a little time with her.

Sadly she spent 2 days in the NICU for antibiotics because they were worried she might have had an infection but she did great!

She joined our family and came home on February 13.  Mia was excited to meet her little sister.

She likes to be the big helper...sometimes.  Mia has had some adjustment issues but is doing better than I expected her to so that's a good thing.

When Ellie came home her bilirubin was super high so she ended up on photo therapy lights at home.  Luckily she didn't seem to mind them too much.

Mia was "keeping Ellie company" while she was hanging out in her bed on her lights.

Ellie's first bath.

Her huge blanket that grandma made her.

The weather has been nice enough we've even been able to go out on a few walks.

Mia was sharing her new baby with Ellie.

Most of February has just been spent hanging at home adjusting to being a family of 4.

My coworkers sent us a dozen chocolate covered strawberries to congratulate us on the new baby.  They were delicious.  Too bad we didn't get to share with Ellie.

Nana got Mia and Ellie cute little Valentine's Day outfits.

We had lots of visitors coming to meet Ellie.  Aunt Jen and her family came.

Aunt Kelli

 Aunt Trina

Uncle Shawn

And more.
My mom came and stayed with us for a week.  Mia loved it.  It's the longest Grandma has ever come to visit.

One day during quiet time Mia decided to turn herself into a tiger.  My mom walked back to the bathroom and saw Mia in her room and she whispered "Shh don't tell mom"  She had colored tiger stripes on both her legs, her arms, her stomach, and some on her face.  It was too funny to even get mad at her.

We have loved having Ellie in our family and are so very grateful for her birth family.  She has an strong, amazing birth mom who we have loved getting to know.  She will forever be our angel.  I promise I will be better in updating next month.  We are loving the warm weather March has brought and I need to get some pictures of the girls room up now that they are all done!

January

Needless to say I was a total slacker in January and took very few pictures. It was a rather boring month.  The beginning of the month was cold and there was no snow so there wasn't much to do but sit around, play games, and watch movies. Later in the month it warmed up a little so Mia was able to ride her bike and play in the back yard some.  One big highlight of January is Monty's birthday.  He turned 34 this year.  Originally the plan was to go out to dinner on his birthday.  However his brother brought him lunch at work so he wasn't really hungry.  Instead we just had a light dinner of whatever before opening presents and having cake.  Mia had toast with jam and peaches for her dinner.  Super exciting right.

I did the traditional ice cream cake. Mia got to decide what we wrote on it.  She wanted an M for Daddy's name and a 34.  That was simple enough, however I didn't realize until we pulled the cake out that we had no candles.  I totally dropped the ball this year.  The funniest part of Monty's birthday was Mia's present for him.  She has wanted for awhile to get Dad's watch fixed for him.  About 5 days before his birthday we took it in and they were able to fix it.  We came home and wrapped up all his presents and I told Mia that she had to keep it a secret and she couldn't tell Daddy what his presents were.  I fully expected Monty to know by the end of the day what we had done.  However Mia managed to keep her mouth shut.  Finally it was Monty's birthday and we were just finishing up dinner and Mia looked up and said,  "Can Daddy open his watch NOW?"  So close...  Monty about died laughing.
Monty also got a loop to hang all his belts up.  That way they stop falling into my shoes!

 He also go movie theater popcorn tubs to use in his movie theater and a new movie.

 Mia and I made cookies one day.  They were super chocolaty and delicious!

 At the very end of the month I decided I wanted to redo the 2 bedrooms upstairs.  This meant painting everything starting from the ceiling and working my way down.  I decided to do bead board on the bottom part of the walls and then paint the top half.  The bead board has turned into a lot more work than anticipated so my project is still not done.

 Painting ceilings is the pits!

 Luckily the weather was nice enough I was able to take the cap rail for the bead board outside to paint.

Stay tuned for the finished project.  Also I've already taken more pictures this month than I did last month so my next post will be a little more exciting.

December

I have been a slacker this month. Normally I try to get the blog updated the first week of the month but I didn't work much the beginning of the month (which is when I usually do my posts, and when I have worked, it's been BUSY!  Now that the month is over half over I'm finally getting a chance to do it.
We started the month by getting the house all ready for Christmas.

Mia loved helping decorate the tree this year. She didn't like it when we had to rearrange her ornaments that she was stacking all on the same branch.

In the end it ended up looking pretty good I think.

 Mia started this odd thing where she likes to wear plastic bags.  She pushes her feet through the bottom and runs the handles up over her arms. I don't know where if came from but she has done it several times...silly girl.

 We had our ward Christmas party which is always fun.

 We had some pretty good entertainment and they did an adorable slide show with all the primary kids dressed up as various parts of the nativity.  Mia got to dress up as Mary for her picture.

 Of course no December is complete without a visit to Santa.  Mia asked Santa for a scooter with 2 wheels, a whistle to go around her neck, and How to Train Your Dragon.

 Monty's mom had her annual grandkid Christmas party.  They had pizza, made cookies, and made ginger bread houses.  They also got all matching pajama pants. (All the grandkids are girls so don't worry there aren't any boys running around in butterfly pants.)

 My parents came down to work on a couple Christmas projects.  It's always lots of fun when they come down.  Mia loved every minute of it.

 We took them with us to see the Christmas Villages in Ogden.  My dad had never seen them so that was pretty fun.  My mom saw them once probably 7 years ago and a lot has changed since then.

 They had tons of other lights this year in addition to the villages.

Mia and I went on an adventure one day and took the train  to Station Park and did some shopping.  Mia was really good for the shopping and absolutely loved the train ride.  She keeps asking when we are going to do it again.

Every year we also go to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square.

 Mia liked all the lights but her favorite part was the train ride down there.

 They had cool lanterns this year depicting various scenes from the nativity. They were pretty cool looking.

 We got a picture of the family all together but they didn't manage to get the tree behind us.

Another tradition we have is s sisters lunch with Monty's family.  Only the 2 younger cousins got to go this year because the other 3 were in school.

On Christmas Eve we went to Monty's parents house for the annual Fa Ra Ra dinner.  If you've eever seen A Christmas Story you would understand but it's a big Chinese dinner.  Monty's sister made sushi.  I've never had any sushi before and I have to admit this was pretty good, although there wasn't any raw fish in hers.  While we were waiting for dinner Mia got to make (and then eat) Olaf.

After the Fa Ra Ra dinner we headed home. We drove around and looked at some Christmas lights.  There were a couple houses in our area that had music synced to their light show.  They were pretty cool.  When we got home Mia got to open one present.

 It was her new Christmas jammies.  Don't mind her hair she used hand soap as gel before we left Nana's.

 After a quick bath she left milk and cookies for Santa and some carrots for his reindeer.

 What the living room looked like after Santa came.

 Mia was really cute this year at Christmas.  When she came walking out she said "Wow oh wow it's a scooter with two wheels.  She was excited to open presents but didn't throw a fit when everything didn't revolve around her.

She enjoyed handing out presents for us to open as well.

 One of Mia's favorite presents was her Utah State blanket from Uncle Shawn.

 I got an awesome new pot and pan set.

 Mia also got a bunch of new art supplies.

 Needless to say she was spoiled once again this year.  This was even before we headed down to Monty's parents where she was spoiled again by everyone else.

 She would have been happy as a clam riding her scooter around the kitchen for the rest of the day.

 Christmas finally brought us our first snow fall of the year.  Mia helped Monty shovel the driveway before we headed out.

 I forgot to take pictures while we were all opening presents.  After presents all the girls put on their matching pajama pants (capris for the adults) for pictures.

 Although the snow didn't stick around too long Mia enjoyed sledding while she could.  She was really good at hauling her own sled up the hill this year.

 One of the times she took her new whistle with her and would toot her whistle all the way down the hill.

Hopefully we will get some more snow so she can do some more sledding.  I guess I need to start taking some pictures this month.  LOL. Guess I'm still a bit of a slacker.