Christmastime

Rachel's favorite place in Utah is the "jumping park". We visited both Jump On It (free for kids under 2 and is mostly trampolines) and Kangaroo Zoo (blowup toys - about $5). She absolutely loved it and I got worn out chasing her!

Here we are at party #2 on Christmas Eve. Since our parents/grandparents/siblings all live in the same town, we usually split the time and go as many places as we can. Both families are understanding and flexible which helps, but people always ask me how we like everyone being in the same place and "splitting the time" - I really do love it! I don't feel like I have to miss out on anything and we always get to see everyone when we go home.

Rachel had so many treats this trip - really, she did. I just had to document it. All she had to do is say "Treat?" in her sweet voice and whatever relative was closest would oblige her.

I think I already mentioned it before, but all Rachel wanted for Christmas was "Elmo" and she got one! (Thanks, mom!) It's the Elmo Live! and he's pretty funny and Rachel is enthralled with him too.

And what would the holiday be without a Christmas dress from Nana?! She looked so pretty!

We had so much fun with everyone and it was so fun to get Rachel reacquainted with her great-grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles and to spend lots of time with Grandma/Grandpy & Nana/Papa. Love you all!

Here we are going back home to Arizona (flight #16 for Rachie) and this time she definitely understood we were in an airplane and that we were flying - pretty fun! When traveling by myself, the flights are never my concern - it's the getting on and off the plane that's always the big ordeal, but we always manage and make friends with strangers who are willing to help a little.

Other Christmas memories I don't want to forget:

- Parker family talent show ... hiliarous! Brandon re-wrote the words "Mary, did you know?" and changed it to "Cindy, did you know?" and sang to Chad and her all about the not-so-"joys" of parenthood [Brandon - you should post the lyrics!]; mom and dad sang "Baby, it's cold outside" complete with costumes and choreographed dance moves; Chad & Cindy lip-synched & danced to Sandy Patti's "The Gift Goes On" (a classic from my childhood! Does anyone love this song as much as our family?); Cade played the piano; Rachel did the hot dog dance.

- We got babysitters and went to dinner with the Worthen's - we miss them terribly!

- My mother-in-law started a new tradition and had all the grandkids sleepover while us siblings went out to dinner and then had the night to ourselves - it was so fun and I just got some pics from them, so I'll do a separate post.

- I thought it was so funny how much Rachel loved my 15 year old brother, Cade, who is your typical teenage boy and not animated with her at all - but she just loves him. Everytime he'd walk in the room, she'd say "Hi Cade". She also aced almost every family member's names without help - go Rach! She also loves my mom's dog, Zoe, who must love her too because Rachel shared almost every meal with him (reminder to self - do not ever get a dog while you have a child in a high chair, who will throw everything down the dog).

- Are you still reading? Wow, I'm getting a bit carried away!

- We love to go see the light show up on the hill - the one where about a million lights are synchronized to music - it's so festive and and I'm so glad they put it on each year.

- Went to a small Christmas production at the rest home my grandfather stayed at up until he passed away this last July. My grandmother sang with the tenants who live there and it was so sweet to see them all participate in whatever way they could - some sang loud (even if it was out of tune) and other chimed their bells. (Clarification - my grandmother has a fabulous singing voice and was a huge support to the group) It was so sweet to feel of their Christmas Spirit.

Trip to see Santa at the Mall

You be the judge, but I don't think it went so well...

She talked a big talk about Santa this year, but would rather not sit on his lap! :)

Rachel in action & other random happenings in December

We were really looking forward to Christmas this year since Rachel is sort of getting it now - meaning that she can say Santa & Jesus and shows her excitement a little more than last year. She's 18 months old now and getting so big! She was especially excited to see Grandma, Grandpy, Nana & Papa in Utah (she talks about them daily). We were also excited about the snow, that is until we lived in it and froze for two weeks and decided that that was enough for us - we are such winter babies now that we live in Arizona.

Anyway, before we left for Utah we put lights up for the first time and decorated our house to make it feel like Christmas (even though it didn't really feel like Christmas to me until we got to Utah). We have two, small fake trees to decorate - one for dad & Rach (left) and one for mom (right), and Rachel did great at leaving the ornaments alone for the most part. We also listened to lots of Christmas music on pandora.com - if you haven't discovered this website yet, check it out here. Oh, and Rachel requested to watch Baby Einstein's "Baby Santa" constantly.

Then Brandon made Christmas lemonade using the lemons from our tree out back. It's not really Christmas-y, but they are fully ripe now and it was delicious. We'll have to be in charge of the lemons for next year's mint julep drink at the Hale Christmas Eve Party. (Does anyone else have this Christmas drink tradition? Our version is non-alcoholic and it's ingredients are lemons, sprite, sugar, mint extract, green food coloring and lots of ice.)

Not to brag or anything...

...but it's been 70 degrees here for the last 3 days - wa hoo! (It's above average temperatures, but I'll take it!) So Rach is in heaven and we've gone to the park everyday.

Christmas post coming soon... we had so much fun being in Utah for the holidays (it was freezing, but so fun!)

Family Pictures

We got some family pictures taken over Thanksgiving Weekend while we were in Utah. Our friend, Emily, took them and I think they turned out great. She took the one on our Christmas card too. It's always hard to choose favorites, so here are way more than you wanted to see. :) Thanks, Emily!

Happy Holidays

Here's the Christmas card this year (and sorry if you're family and live in Orem you probably haven't received it yet since I'm planning on hand delivering them to you as I will be seeing you very soon - yay!).

I thought about writing up a little "year in review" and then sat down to write it and it looked something like this .... "Brandon graduated from law school, took the bar exam in Arizona and passed, and started working as an attorney in Phoenix this past September." That's a lot to compete with!! But I tried to continue ... "Whitney is still loving being a stay-at-home mom to Rachel who is now 18 months old! Rachel keeps her super busy with playing kitchen, blocks, puppets and going to the park." And then I stopped. It just didn't flow right. I really do love being a mom - it's exactly what I want to be doing right now, but it just didn't look very good on paper. :)

Besides being a mom this year, I feel like I have tried a little bit of everything to try to discover new talents and interests (mostly when Rachel is asleep). I have a hard time focusing on just one project at a time, so I am usually working on a handful of things at a time. I experimented a little bit with cooking this year, sewing, photo organizing, photo taking & editing, baby book-ing, running, house hunting, decorating, and blogging, of course. And my most recent fun has been "photoshop-ing" and designing (wait, that sounds way too professional)... more like throwing together cards for myself and family. Want to see some of them? CLICK HERE to view the gallery. I really tried to make them what they wanted, so you'll see there are a lot of different looks/styles.

Happy Holidays! I'm off to the land of cold and snow for a couple weeks, so no guarantee on any posts until the New Year.

Thanksgiving Recap

Here's a family picture in my mom's backyard on Thanksgiving. We had such a great time in Utah and can't wait to go back for Christmas too! Since our families live only five minutes apart, we split our time and went to both dinners - totally worth it. I know that some people prefer to choose one place/family to be with on holidays, but splitting the time works for us (at least for now and when there's more kids in the mix I might change my mind).

With all the grandkids together, we had to snap a picture with Grandma & Grandpy Hale. (Cannon, Val, Rach, Brynn, Nancy, Kennedy, Mason)

Oh, some good news to share ... my brother and his wife, Cindy, are expecting a baby in June, so Rachel will have her first cousin on the Parker side! Wahoo - we love cousins! Keep 'em coming!

Just a classic Rachel face.

We are loving our new place and really loving living in Arizona. We go to the park and play outside lots. Here's Brandon and Rachel playing in the backyard and pictured below checking out the neighbors dog. Check out B's new glasses - pretty styling, right!?

Rachel's has already got two presents for Christmas. One was a play kitchen from Grandma & Grandpy (she absolutely loves it!) and the other one is a little tricycle bike that I found at a garage sale. It's the kind that I can push/steer from behind. She's still learning and isn't sure she likes it yet, but she's still little.

p.s. I photoshopped her boogies out of the picture above. Is that cheating? Hope not - I'm completely obsessed with Photoshop elements and Brandon's pretty good too, so he helps me a lot. I've been really busy for the past couple weeks designing Christmas cards for family/friends and it's been so fun. Nothing fancy... I'm totally a beginner ... I caught the bug back here when I completed my first one. Soon, I'll put together a gallery or something and share my work.

And how could I resist not posting this last picture! :) I have to laugh everytime I see it. I'm part of a cooking blog with some friends from Chicago (anyone can join and there's no pressure to participate every week, it's just for fun) and I made these cookies and needed a quick picture. Well, Rachel climbed up onto the bar to get some and I told her "no" - that I needed to take a picture first. Here was the result. I just love this girl - tantrums and all.