weekend

we had a pretty good weekend! saturday, i was able to catch up with one of my very good friends from art school who i haven't seen since milly was born, literally! the last time i saw her was when she came to visit us in the hospital! it had been way too long, lets get together again, miss leah, and soon!!! 

later that night joey and i had an excuse to get all gussied up and head out on the town. we went to his post holiday company party and i was determined to stay for the band: vampire weekend! last year we skipped out early because i was too pregnant and tired to stay past 10 and we heard we missed out. so this year we stayed, and although we didn't stay for their whole set (my feet were killing me) it was still pretty awesome and fun. technically this was the first "concert" joey and i had ever been to together. we were about three rows back from the stage; i took a photo after we had made our way to the back of the venue to show just how close we were! i need to say a huge thank you to my girl ashley for babysitting for us so we could have a date night and interact with other adults for a couple hours. i love you! (she did our dishes as well as kept our baby alive while we were gone, best babysitter ever! not to mention took our prom-inspired-posed-photo below...)

it was a good night until we had to wake up the next morning...we were both exhausted during church. 

lastly, this little girl turned 10 months old this weekend, she's in the double digits and i still can't believe it. i keep looking back at photos of when she was oh so tiny and i can't believe how much she's grown in the last 10 months. i love you little miss.... you and all your curiosity!

bath time

while katrina was here she captured some photos of bath time. something we do every night and sometimes it seems like such a chore when milly's fussy or tired and i'm exhausted but i'm so glad she captured this sometimes mundane task. it helps remind me to take a step back and enjoy the little things, it helps me remember that before i know it, milly won't need my help during bath time (she's already outgrown her little bathtub we put in the sink) and i need to enjoy it while she's still little. we now take baths in the 'big girl' tub and she's constantly on the go, crawling from one end to the other and up the sides, chewing on toys and exploring the faucet. i always say it: she's growing up too fast, so a big thank you to katrina for capturing my everyday with little miss milly!

carousel

over the holiday break we took milly to ride the carousel at redmond town center. she got a little nervous halfway through so i ended up just holding her but it was fun all the same. after looking at these pictures maybe it was sensory overload with all the lights and sounds that made her nervous...!

snow

a couple days before christmas, we woke up to snow!

we tried to enjoy as much of it as possible before it all melted away later that day...

new years!

for new years we decided to take milly to a couple touristy spots in seattle. 

the photos below were taken at kerry park. enjoy!

christmas 2013

below are a few photos from our christmas holiday, how wonderful it was!

there's so much i could say about how awesome and special it was but i'll just let the pictures do the talking because i'll never be able to explain how amazing milly's first christmas was.

enjoy!

^ we decided to walk around SU on christmas eve to reminisce and 

remember how much has changed since last christmas.

^ christmas morning...

^ milly had a ridiculous amount of presents to open and about 1/3 of the way in, 

she decided tissue paper was all she needed and headed out.. 

(i recently updated my phone for the camera, can you tell?)

hello 2014!

well hello 2014 and goodbye 2013!
i'm so excited for the new year, something in my soul is telling me it's going to be a good year. which part of me is like "really? 2013 was amazing! you're gonna try to beat that?" 2013 was amazing! as you may have read from this post, i started making a lot of positive changes in my life and gave birth to a healthy, happy, beautiful baby girl. it's going to be hard to beat that but i'm excited for what the future holds. i'm excited to get back on track (it's hard to not eat all the candy that comes into your house during the holidays...) and accomplish some goals for the new year. joey and i surprised ourselves by being able to stay up to actually ring in the new year at midnight and as the clock starting ticking down i was feeling a little bittersweet, that's how good 2013 was! i was having a moment where i had to say goodbye to a wonderful year in hopes that the new year would be even better. and at the same time, i can't shake this feeling that 2014 will be yet another amazing year!

so here's a list of a few of my goals for 2014:
i want to start reading more, my goal is a book and a half a month (18 books for the year) including the book of mormon. this may sound easy but after having milly i don't read nearly as much as i used too. after i put her down for the night i get sucked into watching mindless entertainment on the tv which brings me to goal number two: watch less tv! i have plenty of books laying around the house that i have yet to read (perks of your husband working for amazon). i'm also gonna try to follow this online book club to help get ideas of what to read next.
another goal, which is a pretty big stereotype for the new year, is to loose wieght. specifically: get down to my wedding weight. i'm predicting i won't be a stereotype and give up in two months because i already started this journey in 2013, so technically i'm gonna be ending a goal in the new year...right? right! to help me achieve this goal and stay on track i want to sign up for my first half marathon. eek! but also exciting!
lastly: learn something new. the 68 year old woman inside me (or hipster, depending on how you look at it) is telling me to learn how to crotchet! what do you think? all in all, i'm hoping these goals will help me be a better person, because that's what's really important. happy new year y'all!

^ first photo of 2014!

santa baby

i don't know why i never thought about this until my own daughter cried on santa's lap, 

but santa has a lot of kids crying in his arms every year. 

makes me kinda feel bad for santa... here's to wishing everyone a very merry christmas!!!

the perks of your best friend being a photographer

...and then my heart exploded...

these photos were all taken by my very talented friend katrina brooks. 

to see more of her work, go here.

thanksgiving 2013

holy cow! it's almost christmas and i'm just now getting my thanksgiving post up! thanksgiving was awesome. we always like having extra days at home with joey and thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays around here so it's a win/win anyway you look at it. it's so fun sharing these holidays with milly for the first time, making sweet memories and having such great family time together. over the weekend we ate tons and tons of leftovers (that's what happens when you buy a 20lb turkey), did some black friday shopping, walked around town to see the lights and set up our own christmas tree. milly loves the tree and all it's lights...so much so that we do a lot of chasing back and forth so she stops eating everything on and around it. and on that note, i can't wait for christmas! 

enjoy the photos below!