Christmas 2009

Despite all of the craziness with moving and getting settled, we had a good Christmas. We were able to move into our house on the 23rd and thanks to my friend Carol, we got mostly everything unloaded that same day. On the 24th I just kept unpacking and putting stuff away until Bryan got home from work. We then were able to go buy some food to make a special dinner and buy something for Tiffany for Christmas. Everything closed at 6pm so we didn't have much time to get her anything special, we just found a couple of toys we thought she would like. Our dinner ended up delicious and it was just SO GOOD to relax in our new place.

These are backwards again. Here Tiff is opening her gifts from Bryan's family. We went to Bear Lake on the 25th to be with family.
Here is mine and Bryan's Christmas gift! This house is part of a program that we were able to qualify for where it is a rent-to-own house and we will have the opportunity to buy it in a few years for a REALLY good price. We don't know if we will stay in it for that long, but I don't want to think about moving again for quite some time, so for now this is our house. We get to treat it as if it was our own pretty much and we pay a really good price for rent. I absolutely LOVE IT. It is a 3 bed 2 bath house, 2 car garage and well, after living in apartments for so long, it is a HOUSE! Oh yeah, and this house is in Kamas, UT (I can give our new address to those who want it later.) But yeah, we're about 15 min from Park City, 20 min from Heber where Bryan works and about 40 min from Salt Lake. We will be doing a lot more driving then we're used to, but it's a great town to live in.
This is on Christmas morning. Tiff wasn't very happy because she was hungry and not feeling very well, but she still enjoyed her gifts and scattered them all over the house already!

Again this was on the 23rd, Tiff was helping Carol and I to decorate our tree.
Here is on the 23rd when we took a break from unpacking to put our Christmas tree up.

I just really have to say that I learned a GREAT deal about faith during these past months. We wanted all this change for SO long but we didn't know how in the world we would be able to accomplish it. Then after much prayer, things just started falling into place. Heavenly Father really knew all along what He wanted for us, we just had to trust in Him and let Him guide us. I'm so thankful for this trial period, because it's making me much more appreciative of these blessings.

Season's Greetings!

This is the only one I was able to upload to my blog. I have a different one in Portuguese, and another one in English. We're loading all of our stuff into Bryan's uncle's trailer tomorrow and I don't know when I'll have access to my computer again, so I just wanted to post our Christmas Card for those I didn't get around to sending one. And the ones I did send one to, I don't think they got it for some reason (probably got stolen from our mailbox here!).

I just wanted to wish all of you my dear friends that are with us through this blog a Merry Christmas! Thanks for checking us out every once in a while and for being part of our lives in one way or another! I really appreciate our friendship and hope we'll keep in touch for many years to come! This year I'm having a different Christmas experience and I'm feeling a lot more appreciative of the things I have in my life, so I just wanted to take the time to tell each one of you that I'm thankful for our friendship and for the things you added to my life (trust me, you ALL have in some way). I hope everyone will have a fun and relaxing Holiday Season and will be able to remember the real meaning of it all. I'm so thankful for my Savior, and for all that He has done for me.

Mean Santa!

Yesterday I took Tiffany to the mall to see Santa Claus. Since we're moving and don't have anything decorated for Christmas, she hasn't really been seeing much of anything that has to do with Christmas, SPECIALLY Santa Claus, so I knew she wouldn't know what to think of him. As soon as she spotted him, she froze. So I picked her up and took her to him and she already started freaking out, but I really wanted a picture so he picked her up and this is how it turned out! I felt bad, like I was torturing her, so I hurried and got her out of there. I think we'll need to prepare her more next year!

Thanksgiving week

We had a fun Thanksgiving. We didn't know if we were going to be able to go anywhere until pretty much the day of, but we ended up going to Bear Lake and be with family. The food was DELICIOUS... and that was one of the reasons we went, because if we would've stayed home I would've had to cook Thanksgiving dinner for our little family and I wouldn't even know where to begin! Tiffany had a LOT of fun with her cousin Gage, and now that both are walking, they interacted a lot more, it was cute to watch!

They both loved the pillows on the floor and kept falling on them and on each other...we were all just laughing our heads off watching them.

Aunt Shannon hadn't seen them since they were little babies, so she had fun playing with both of them.

Gage is so tall, he is 2 months younger than Tiff but they are pretty much the same height.

They had so much fun that of course someone had to get hurt. Tiff went to hug Gage who was standing right in front of a corner...well, they both feel down, he hit the back of his head and Tiff got the worst of it hitting it right on her forehead. At first I didn't think she got really hurt, but she was crying so much that I picked her up...when I looked at her again she had this HUGE bump on her head and everybody freaked out! It grew so fast it was scary and I didn't know what to do. We tried to put something cold on it so it would go down but she only left it on for a little bit. Luckily the swelling started to go down pretty fast and the next it was pretty much gone. Needless to say that after that Bryan and I were panicking with every move of hers...
Here's how I can get Tiff to eat more and in turn sleep longer at night: I'm trying to let her eat more by herself. I really don't like dirty babies and dirty kitchen floor, but I'm working on it. SHe really does like to feed herself, now I just need to think of more things she can manage to put in her mouth by herself.
It's been way different packing this time with a toddler around the house trying to play with the boxes and everything that is in the boxes!
Just two days ago we had the Relief Society Christmas Dinner. I was invited to participate in the planning committee and I had a lot of fun. Everybody came together to make this activity a success.
After the dinner we had a presentation, but since I was the one in charge of the curtains and of setting the stage for each part, I didn't get to take pictures, but it was about the Women at Christ's Birth. I had never thought about the perspective that these women had, since they are never really mentioned in the scriptures, but we had the mother of Mary, and the mother of Joseph, and the Inn keeper's wife and a few others talk about their feelings during that occasion. It was a very neat program and it gave me a different perspective to Christmas.

Now about the big changes in our lives right now...we still haven't decided on a place to live. We're been looking at a few places and next week Bryan will go look at some of them and then hopefully we'll find the best one. He starts Monday on his new job, and yesterday was his last day at his old job. Needless to say he is super relieved and excited to do something better. He is going to be in Salt Lake and Heber next week for training and I'll be here doing all the packing and cleaning (YAY :( ). It's going to be pretty crazy, specially because it is right before Christmas. We haven't done anything to prepare for it yet, we haven't even bought any gifts or made any plans yet, so we'll see what will happen. I guess moving will be our best gift right now, and whatever comes with it will be a plus!

Crazy week

I need to have a lot of patience to post here. The pictures never download the way I want so it takes me FOREVER! But again I'll leave the pictures backwards and just go from there! This last week has been just CRAZY! We went to Salt Lake last Monday because Bryan had another interview with Wells Fargo for a personal banker position, and because he didn't speak Spanish or was a transfer, they were having a hard time find the right fit for him, but he kept trying. He came back to work on Tuesday and I stayed because Tiffany had her surgery on Thursday. I was trying not to freak out about it, and I'm SO glad my friend Paola was able to go with me. She kept talking and distracting me the whole time so I was actually pretty calm, but it was kinda traumatizing seeing my baby girl taken from me by some stranger. She cried a lot when they took her and that broke my heart. The surgery only lasted 30 min. since all they had to do was cut her belly button and make a couple of stitches where the hernia was coming out. When they call me she was just waking up from the anesthesia and by the sound of her voice I could tell that she cried a lot until they were able to put her to sleep. She just wanted to be held the entire time and right when I picked her up, her IV came out and there was blood all over (including my clothes!). As soon as they took that out she went right to sleep again. I'm glad they gave her enough local anesthesia though because she never felt a thing! By the time we got back to my friend's house she was already waking up and moving normally. I was so relieved that her recuperation was awesome and she never felt any pain! I'm going to take the bandage tomorrow and I hope everything will look good so we don't have to worry about it anymore!

When Bryan went back to SL to pick us up he ended up having another interview with Wells Fargo, just him and two managers. He said the interview went REALLY well, and they seemed pretty excited, and if he didn't get it this time he was probably going to stop applying and try something else. But just yesterday he received the call with the job offer, and the lady said it will most likely be in Heber City (the other option was Park City). We have been jumping for joy since and today he got to give his 2 week notice at work, which he's been dreaming about doing pretty much since he started working here! We're now in the process of finding a place to live there and figuring out how we're going to do with packing and moving and all that fun stuff. WISH US LUCK! It's going to be crazy, but since it's for the better, we're super excited!

Before we came back home we had my friend Paola take some family pictures...she is just so talented and did an amazing job even though it was cold and Tiff didn't really feel like taking pictures! Here are some of my favorites...

Isn't this the perfect father-daughter picture? I think she will treasure this one forever! I know I will.


This one was the day of Tiff's surgery, after we got back and she started to get back to normal.
This one was before the surgery, since now she can't take baths because of the bandage...
We went to this really cute store with a bunch of crafty decorations and there was some bedroom setups for display, so we asked if we could take a few pictures of her there.
This is what she did pretty much the whole time we were there. She learned how to open and close their doors...good thing here in our apartment the door knob is round and she can't quite open it yet.
This was supposed to be the first picture. We had to be at the hospital super early and she had woken up in the middle of night so she was very upset that she wasn't asleep and that there were strangers coming in and out and touching her. She had this mad look in her face the whole time and this outfit is what they made her wear before she went in. Doesn't this picture just brakes your heart?!

My little model!

I have no idea what's going on here, but I haven't been able to download photos to my blog. Is this happening to anybody else? When it finally worked it downloaded 3 of each. I'm about to give up, so I'm just gonna leave these pictures!

My sweet husband just bought me a 1 TB of external hard drive, which is allowing me to finally do TONS of things with my computer, including digital scrapbooking! I'm still learning, and what I have the hardest time with is photo editing, but I'll get there! I was so excited to start working on it that I went and took some pictures of Tiffany downtown! Ok, actually Bryan took these pictures! He is so much better at it than I am, so I was just playing with Tiff to make her laugh and stuff. I think they turned out adorable, and I can't wait to take more pics...I just don't think the weather sill stay this nice for much longer!

I'm watching all kinds of tutorials I'm finding online, and if anybody has any tips for me, I'll love to hear them!

We finally rescheduled Tiffany's surgery for the 19th of this month. I'm kinda scared, even though I know it will be a simple procedure, but it is still surgery. I just want her to get better before all the holidays coming up and specially our trip to Brazil in January.

Other than that life is just great. I'm really adapting to our life here in Rock Springs (even though we're looking to move and I'll do it in a heartbeat!) but for now it's good. Tiffany is growing more and more everyday. She still doesn't talk much except for au au (doggy), vovo (grandma and grandpa), mama, dada, tata (bye bye), and lots of babbling that we have no idea what it means, but we love to hear her talk away! She signals a lot more than talks and it's getting easier to understand what she wants. She still loves to be held, specially when I'm cooking. She just got 4 more teeth, and these bothered her the most, poor thing!

Anyways, she is still just so much fun, and I think even more now that she plays with us.

HUGE GIVEAWAY!

So for those of you who LOVE digital scrapbooking, check out this blog!

She is giving away a super cool kit and all you have to do it leave a comment!

And when you do, please mention my name, so we can all have more chances to WIN! YAY!

GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

www.kevinandamanda.com

Trick or Treating!

Wow, another month is gone and I haven't updated this blog yet! The disk C in my computer is so full that I'm having a hard time doing anything on it, specially download and upload pictures!
But we had a really fun Halloween. I bought this costume for her and didn't even know if we would get to do anything, but then I found out that the stake was going to have a Trunk or Treating and dinner, and it ended up being TONS of fun! Tiff really enjoyed trick or treating...half way through she caught on the fact that people would put candy in her bag so she would not let go of it! It started to get heavy though, so she would just drag it across the parking lot! It was the cutest thing, she would just wonder around, and I think she was just excited to be outside and free since she's been kinda sick and we haven't taken her out much.
This was the morning of Halloween when I tried her whole outfit to see if the warm sweat shirt and pants would match and keep her warm enough! She was excited to be wearing it, cuz anything she puts on and you tell her "So cute" she loves and feels all pretty!We first went downtown where they had a pumpkin patch set up and some of the stores were doing trick or treating. Tiff didn't know what to think then so I couldn't get her to smile in any of the pictures.
She was just adorable walking around with that little bag!
This was later at the Church when we went Trunk or Treating.
I don't know why this picture is turned, but anyways, here she had already figured out that she could get candy out of people's bowls.
One of the sisters set up her things in one of the rooms inside the church, which I wish everybody had done cuz it was getting pretty cold outside.
Playing with her candy when we got home. I never really give her candy, so she didn't know she could eat them, she just loved playing with them!Here's a random picture! I set up her little play area in her room, but since we're montly out in the living room she hasn't been playing with her toys much. She doesn't like to play alone, so she'll bring a couple of toys out to the living room so we can play with her.

September has come and gone...

These pictures are totally backwards but last time I tried to change the order it took me forever so I'll just leave it like this!
These are still a recap from September, which we spent mostly in Bear Lake. Bryan went hunting for a whole week and then there were the Birthday preparations, so we stayed there the whole time. It was a lot of fun...Tiff started to adapt really well, probably because of all the room she had to walk around, the dogs she got to play with and all the attention! Since she started walking she turned into quite the outgoing baby. I was really surprised because she's always been soooo attached to me, so it's nice to see her going with other people!

I just love this picture! I bought her this pair of glasses and have been teaching her how to wear them. She loves to put them on and if she's outside doing something she'll even leave them on! She is such a girly girl...I love it!
We stayed at Bryan's uncle Lane and they have a projector where they mostly play XBox but since they were gone, Tiff got to watch her DVD's on it and she just LOVED the huge image on the wall. She would just stand right in front of it hypnotized...it was super cute!
Here's daddy practicing (down) and getting ready to leave (up). He was SO excited to go becaused it had been two years since he went hunting and he could just hardly wait. They didn't get anything because it was still too hot but I think they still enjoyed the whole man vs wild experience!

It's always hard to get all three cousins together, but this day they all just happened to be there so I decided to take some pictures...it was the funniest thing! Tiff just wanted to lay agains Boden, she would not sit up. Boden was extremely bored so this is the best smile I got out of him, and Gage was dying to crawl out of there!

I think we got to make some really good memories...we had some good times, and now we're home again! I can't believe there's snow outside...I'm so not ready for winter just yet, but I guess I don't have an option anymore! We always take family pictures during the fall because it's Bryan's favorite season, but I don't know if we'll have a chance to find fall leaves this year! So sad!

My baby is 1!

Uau! I can't believe that's been a year since I went to the hospital to have my little baby girl. I remember that I felt like that day was never going to come and I was going to stay pregnant forever! Now she is walking, starting to talk and growing everyday, and I just wish time would slow down!

We had her birthday party on the 25th, and I really got excited and went all out with the decorations! It took me a long time to do everything, but it was definitely worth it! She loved seeing Monica (the character in red, which is her favorite since she was little) all over the place and actually even enjoyed the party. She had no problem unwrapping her gifts and even shared them with her cousins.

Today she is actually sick, so we're probably not going to do anything special for her birthday, just make sure she gets plenty of rest and mommy and daddy's love! Plus it snowed for the first time this year, so it's too cold to go out and do anything else!

I took this picture this morning to show the snow on the back! She kinda looks sick poor thing!

catching up a little...

It's been a little while, but my computer's C disk is pretty much full (like 99%) so I'm having a hard time getting my pictures downloaded... We've been having a lot of fun this summer, and a couple of weeks ago we had another "last minute" family reunion with the Mecham side of the family. We thought nobody was going to come and then at the last minute pretty much everybody decided to come! It turned out really fun, except for the crazy change of weather, that made us freeze and not be able to go to the lake...so we decided to go Huckleberry picking. I was SO excited because my bags from last year are almost gone and nothing better than fresh huckleberries!

Here are Tiffany's babysitters...she didn't really warm up to anybody during the reunion but at least she would let some hold her every once in a while!Mommy was very busy the entire time. I found some pretty full patches with some huge huckleberries....it was heaven!
Kandace let Tiffany play with her sunglasses, and everybody laughed when we put it on her, so she would just let us do it and look at me with a huge smile on her face...it was adorable! Tiff hanging out with the girls. She thought she was pretty big!
Tiff learned how to give hugs...I have to say this is my FAVORITE thing she's done so far...she hugs me so hard and she loves to do it...she will hug me anytime I ask her so I keep asking because who knows how long it will last?!
Laura, Bryan's aunt, brought her dog with her and Tiffany loved to watch her, she just freaked out everytime the dog got too close. She kept trying to say au-au (baby word for dog in Portuguese).Since the weather never warmed up, we went up in the mountains again for some s'mores... Tiff doesn't have any warm clothes because it's been so hot so we had to improvise with some big boy's hat and gloves...I'm SO not looking forward to winter with her...having to bundle her up will be a pain!Her Great-grandpa Mecham gave her this doll and she just LOVED it... she keeps hugging it all the time now and will grabs it's arms and just walk around the house...SO CUTE!The week after the reunion we all got sick. I started and then got everybody else, so here Tiff is just tired laying on the floor (which she hardly ever does!)
Any ideas on how to cover and/or make Tiffany stop chewing on her crib? The right side of her crib is totally destroyed...and it's scary because it has pieces of wood poking out and I'm afraid she'll cut herself with it!Here is her new mama's hair! I really wanted a dark brown but on the box it had a Mahogany in the middle so it turned out like this....Bryan absolutely loves and I took some getting used to...maybe next time I'll get it right! Tiff is now obsessing with purses (starting early this one...) so I gave her this little purse I had and put a few things in it and gave it to her...she looked like a total babe!Another one of her obsessions...my wallet! Smart girl, huh?!