Halloween

I absolutely LOVE Halloween! I would have to say it is proabably my second favorite holiday next to Christmas. I love everything about it. I love carving pumpkins, haunted houses and mazes, and most of all dressing up. Andy has never been too into it, but he is a good sport and always puts on what I give him and he always has fun with it. These are some pics from the past few years.

This year was extra fun because I not only got to dress up me and Andy, but got to dress up Nixon too. The costumes were actually a HUGE pain to coordinate, especially without having Andy with me to try them on, but after buying and returning many costumes, this is what we ended up with. Our costumes actually matched perfectly which was a miracle. Andy had black and red pants like Nixon's and my skirt was black and white to match Andy's top. It was really fun to dress up except for the fact that I had to put eyeliner on Andy. :) This was hilarious! Can I just say men were obviously not made for makeup. He made it through it though and looked like a hot pirate! We went to a ward party and got best costumes! It was a lot of fun.

Ward Costume Party

Thanks to my friend Allie, I now have pics of another fun activity that we did this year. Allie and Bryan had us and our friends Maddie and Matt over to carve pumpkins. It was a ton of fun and we learned some new creative ways to carve pumpkins. Leave it to Allie to be creative and always think out of the box. She and Bryan every year carve fake pumpkins. That way they can keep them forever. I think that is an amazing idea and may just steal it. Hope you guys don't care. Anyway here some pics of our adventures.

Matt and Maddie

Cute, prego Allie

Andy and Bryan

Our little fam. Including our adorably challenged Matt in the background.

The finished creations. The smiley one is Matt and Maddie's. The scary grinned one is Andy's (quite the talent)

Bryan and Allie's creative fake pumpkins. Not bad at all.

Our little pirate

CAMPING

Another fun event we got to do in October was go camping! Well I guess we'd have to call it wussy camping cuz we didn't stay over night. But it was a lot of fun. Our good friends Allie and Bryan Shumway planned a camping trip. Keep in mind at this point Allie was like 7 1/2 months pregnant. She's a brave one isn't she. They invited all of our good friends and it was a great turn out. We ate yummy chocolate, carmel banana's and just had fun around the fire. The camp grounds were actually a lot better than I thought they would be considering there are no mountains in Texas. I liked them so much I want to go back. Nixon did awesome. He was in a ton of layers and just enjoyed being passed around. Thanks Bryan and Allie for inviting us! We had so much fun!

The two who made it all happen. Bryan and Allie.

Grant and Kelsie Tanner and Emily Mallory

Yummy caramel, banana, thingys

Matt and Maddie

Logan and Emily

Caitlin and Hugh

Us three

The whole crew

The Philipp Fam

BYU vs. TCU:
October was quite the eventful month. On the 16th Mark, Colleen, Craig, Amanda and Jana and Joslyn came out to see the TCU vs. BYU game. Mark was kind enough to get everyone tickets to the game and we all enjoyed it. The sun was facing us most of the game as you will be able to tell from the pictures, but we had fun anyway. Unfortunately BYU lost, but at least TCU wasn't too harsh on us. Thanks Mark and Colleen for the tickets. We loved it. We also loved having everyone here and hope they come back soon.

Sorry for not taking very good pictures, but this is all I had

Colleen takin care of Nix. Nix showing off his famous spit up. What a proud mother I am.

Craig feeling the intensity of the game

Staring into the sun or not Mark did not take his eyes off the game

cute pregnant Jana holding Joslyn getting into the game

Texas State Fair:

While they were here, we got the chance to go to the state fair for our second time since we've lived here. It was a lot of fun. Of course we managed to get no pics of the family except for one. The rest are of the fair, so enjoy. :)

While we were waiting in line for tickets (which are not cheap), there were these cute old man that were walking by me and Amanda. They already had tickets, so they were able to walk right in. Before they walked in, one of them turns to me and says here you go sweetie and hands me a ticket. I thought that was just the sweetest thing! What a nice old man. I won't ever forget him.

repeat pic of Nana and Nixon on the train to the state fair

We got to ride the ferris wheel this year. It was really pretty cool. We had a neat view of the fair, the Cotton Bowl and Dallas. When we stepped in the cart, there were three ladies sitting across from us and I think they thought Andy and I were boyfriend and girlfriend, because we had both forgotten to wear our rings. The ladies were gawking over us the entire time saying "oh you are so cute!" "So in love" " Do you want us to take a picture of the two of you with our phones, we'll email it to you?" ha ha! Andy actually ended up having his phone, and this pic was the result. Gotta love sweet Texas people! Little did they know we'd been married for three years and had a baby.

Two Love Birds

View of Dallas

Cotton Bowl

View of the fair

Thanks again Philipp's for coming to see us! We sure loved having you here.

First Rangers Game

Take Me Out To The Ball Game:
Adding on to the last post. Back in October we had the opportunity to go to our first Rangers game. My brother in law gave Andy tickets for Christmas last year. This year had been so crazy busy that we weren't sure if we were gonna be able to get the chance to go, but we most certainly did. We went on the last game of the season. We had front row seats that were awesome. Thanks Chris!! We had an awesome view of course and we had a blast. We were a bit worried about taking a 3 month old to a loud baseball game, but he did great! We had him dressed in baseball p.j's and he was a hit! Since it was the last game of the season, people were extra crazy! The Rangers did awesome as you all know and won. They then went onto the playoffs where they were so close but didn't quite take it! Oh well GO RANGERS!

Play Ball

Rangers Stadium

Nix representin


Andy's Nixon hat


Nixon was doing great until the crowd started cheering. That was a bit loud for him. He cried the first few times but then eventually got used to it and even fell asleep. This is Nix showing his true feelings about the noise.




This was our special way of keeping him asleep. It worked pretty well.

Fast asleep

Thanks to Chris Ericson for giving Andy/us the tickets! We really had a blast and are so happy we had the opportunity to go.

Long and awaited....

Well I am super embarrassed to say that it has seriously been 5 + months since I blogged last. Nixon is now old and we've done so many fun things since the last time I posted. I don't have many pics to account for everything. But I will try and make sure to mention everything. So here goes....

The day after we left the hospital to take Nixon home, we had to go see a Neurologist to do some tests on Nixon. While we were in the hospital, Nixon started doing some weird shakes that seemed liked he had the hiccups but with no hiccups. His body would jump consistently for a few minutes and then it would stop. It happened a few times and we thought maybe it is just a weird newborn thing, but then it happened when a nurse was holding him and she got really worried and went and put him on some machines to monitor his heart. They kept him on the monitor for quite some time and kind of left us in the dark. It really started to worry me. They brought him in after a while and said that he didn't do the jumping the whole time he was being monitored. I then held him and he went into a deep sleep and started the jumping again. We came to the conclusion that he did it only when he was in a deep sleep. The hospital was worried about it, so they made us an appointment to get some tests done. When we brought him into the office, everyone was so sad to see such a young baby having to get these tests. You can't tell very well in the pictures, but they had to attach 100 + sticky wires to his tiny head and then had to monitor him while he was in a deep sleep. It was so sad to see. The hardest part really was pulling off the sticky wires. He didn't like that. Guess I wouldn't like my hair getting pulled 100 + times either. Poor baby. The good thing was, things came out negative. He wasn't having seizures, which they were worried about and he was just fine. Just a young baby. He grew out of it by about a month and a half.

Attaching all the wires

You can't tell, but that is all the wires hanging down

A few days later, Colleen (Nana) came out to help me with Nixon and to see all of us. We unfortunately didn't get any pics while she was here, but we were so glad she came. She was a huge help with driving me around since I couldn't drive and feeding us and cleaning up around the house. We were so grateful to have her around. Like I said we didn't get any pics of her while she was here, but here is a pic with her and Nix when she and the fam came out in Oct. They were on a train.

Two days after Colleen left, Liz and the kids came out to meet our little man. I wasn't able to be with them as much as I wanted because much of the time I was in the car nursing, or putting the baby to sleep, or nursing in the house while they were at the pool, or nursing, nursing and nursing some more, but I was happy to be able to see them at least for a bit. When they got here, Preston (8 years old) said, " So this is Texas huh? " "I thought there was supposed to be dirt roads, tumble weeds and people riding horses?"(read that in a cowboy accent, cuz that's how he talks) "I didn't even think people were allowed to have cars here." Sorry Prest, hate to disappoint ya. We got a laugh out of that one. We then asked Preston what he wanted to do while he was here, and he said "Eat all the delicious Texas food." Little did he know Texas is known for barbecue, which means meat and Preston hates meat, so he ate rice most of the time he was here since that's all he likes. Ha ha! Gotta love him. We did go to the stock yards of course and to a few fun food places, but mostly they had fun at the pool. We were so happy to have them here and are excited for them to come back one day.

Liz, Lauren and Preston in a small town called Roanoke. Cutest town you'll ever see. You can tell how often they were at the pool just by looking at their black skin in this pic. :) They got so dark by the time they left.

Andy and Lauren just being their cute selves

Yee Haw, now this is a little taste of Texas

Eating a bomb Oreo shake at a Bomb hamburger place called Twisted Root

5 weeks after Nixon was born, we went to the west coast.... good o'l Cali. Curtis, Andy's brother got married to a beautiful bride named Heidi.

First plane ride. He did awesome. People were complimenting him on the plane.

The Bride and Groom

The wedding was beautiful and they are just a gorgeous couple. It was fun to get to know Heidi a little bit better and to introduce Nixon to the family.

I have to admit I was a stress case the whole time I was there (sorry Philipp's) because becoming a new mom wasn't easy for me. Some women fit into the role of a mother perfectly and never get frustrated or discouraged and are able to nurse perfectly, work around schedules perfectly, go without sleep perfectly, and then there is me. Nixon is an amazing baby and has been from the start, but it took me some time to figure things out and learn how to accommodate to him and others. While I was in California, I was still very much learning and trying to be a part of the wedding as well as meet the needs of my newborn. I don't think I did the best job of it, but I tried. Either way I really enjoyed the wedding and enjoyed being with family and being apart of the beautiful scenery in California. I am so happy for Curtis and Heidi and happy to have Heidi join our family.

Here are some pictures from the wedding.

Three boy cousins, one on the way in Feb.
Nix, Mase, and Stock

The Fam minus all the chillens

The girls minus Heidi and Colleen

Nix man 5 weeks old

After the wedding, we got to go to San Fran thanks to Mark and Colleen. It was my first time ever going there and I really enjoyed it. I couldn't believe just how beautiful it was there, but then again coming from Texas any scenery is beautiful. :) The weather was quite gloomy, but it was still quite majestic. We got to go on a tour and were able to sit on the top of the bus. It was freezing cold, but really fun. It was so interesting to learn about San Fran and also realize how darn expensive it is to live there. We went through China town, which was just like China, and past the Full House home. It was awesome! Thanks Mark and Colleen! We didn't get many pics while we were there, so I had to steal some from Becky. She's the best at remembering to take pics. Thanks Bec. :)

All the clan

Full House

On top of the bus. In front of Full House

Andy found himself a Nixon hat

Thanks to Becky and Chris for stopping by the Golden Gate Bridge. It was pretty darn awesome to see. Just loved it.

Congrats to Curtis and Heidi for their beautiful wedding and Thanks to Mark and Colleen for the trip to San Fran. We had a lot of fun.