Merry Christmas, 25th Golden Birthday, and a Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful holiday this year! Full of family and friends! So many people to see and so little time.

Here is our humble abode decorated for Christmas. I was so excited to have a house to put Christmas lights up then we found out they had broke....maybe next year. :( I loved putting out my passed down It's A Wonderful Life Christmas House Collection! We watched the movie with family as our usual tradition goes.

A few weeks ago we went to a cool place with Devin and Julianne full of trampolines and foam pits.

Since I am now 24 weeks along I couldn't join in on the jumping but became the honorary picture taker. Sheehan was dressed for the part flying ("jumping") around in his Superman shirt.

It was Sheehan's golden birthday this year, 25 years old on the 25th of December! Before we left for our trip to California we went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Tucanos! We loved it and stuffed ourselves as usual! By the end of the night we realized we both did not have our wallets with us so I stayed at the table while Sheehan raced home and back in a record 20 minutes to get some money. That was awkward but it was still a great night...definitely memorable.

We started Christmas off by leaving after work on Thursday, the 22nd and driving straight to Sheridan's in Vegas. We stayed up until 2:00 in the morning hanging out with everyone including Sheehan's mom, Colleen. The next morning we made breakfast and Seth and his family came over to join us. A little before noon we took off for Hesperia, California to visit Sheehan's Grandma Patty, Shena (sister), and Payne (nephew). We had lunch there then drove to Silver Lakes and had a wonderful dinner together with Sheehan's sister, Shanette and Grandparents Pat and Marilyn Hinman. His Dad, David Thomson, was also able to join us for dinner and a couple games of pool! We stayed the night at Shanette's out in Silver Lakes then Saturday morning we drove out to Barstow to spend Christmas Eve morning brunch with Scott and Terri. Sheehan taught them how to make cake pops which were delicious, as is expected. From Barstow (ARE YOU TIRED YET??? We were...) we traveled to Lancaster to visit with my Dad's side of the family at Grandpa Haub's house. It was nice to hear Grandpa play the piano again and we are fortunate to be able to spend time with him when we can. He is 90 years old now but is still very active and healthy. He is losing his hearing a little but that hasn't affected his ability to play the piano with amazing skill and talent. When we finally made it to my parents after Grandpa Haub's on Christmas Eve we decided to start Christmas morning (Sheehan's birthday) with birthday presents first. Sheehan had party favors for all the men in my family which were individually monogrammed white collared shirts. Thanks to my Mom. :)

Sheehan got a lot of great gifts from all of our families and we are so grateful for the generosity and love. My Mom bought Sheehan a gold shirt to wear with a huge "It's My Birthday" badge and a gold arm band all for his Golden Birthday. It was awesome! We had to embarrass him just a little. After all you only get one Golden Birthday. :)

Dad getting his new wedding ring from Mom for Christmas.Kiley girl opening her presents from Gigi and Papi.One of Sheehan's Christmas presents from my family. Tehachapi represent!

Lys and I in our most recent sister's belly shot. :)

We came home on the 28th so that I could get back to work the next day. We fit a ton of stuff in our little Honda Civic. It was amazing! Sheehan should get an award for his origami, Tetris work.

This is what the living room looked like after we unloaded the Civic. It was unbelievable how much we fit. It all barely fit in the living room!! We were happy to be home! Then at around 1:00 am in the morning I heard water running. I knew the tenants down stairs were still out of town and nothing was running in our part of the house so Sheehan ran down to the tenant's unit and found a minor flood. A pipe had disconnected from the tank of the toilet and flooded part of the unit. It took 3-4 hours that night to suck up the water with 2 vacuums. Here is the wonderful, Saint of a man Brother Tippetts helping us vacuum up water from 1:30-4:00 in the morning. He has been amazing helping in our emergency and helping us install the kitchen counters several weeks ago. He is a wonderful example of true service.
We used a dehumidifier, high power fans for several days, and replaced the carpet padding to fix our little natural disaster. We are grateful it happened just hours after we got home. We don't even want to imagine the damage and mess that could have been caused had the pipe been broken for several hours or days before we found it. So fortunate. We know this was not a coincidence and are counting our blessings!

For New Years we spent the evening with Devin and Julianne. We went out to Iggy's Sports bar restaurant for drinks and appetizers while we watched the Spurs-Jazz game. Then we headed back to the house and played Acquire and Bananagrams until midnight.

Mmmm....Sparkling Cider....Love this stuff!!

We were so busy trying to plan all these pictures that we missed the countdown by a minute... Devin and I were supposed to be watching it and we misunderstood the time....we had one job....next year someone else is in charge of the countdown.... Then there were cops and a tow truck outside, for some reason, so we didn't want to set off our car alarms ceremoniously for the new year with several police men right next to our cars....another memorable holiday. haha

Here's a little clip of Sheehan jumping off the climbing wall into the foam pit then getting stuck in the foam.

Procrastinating...

I am such a hypocrite….I get annoyed when I see that people haven’t updated their blog in two+ weeks….then I notice I haven’t updated mine in two months….so here is the update!!

I'M PREGNANT!!! We get to have our first ultrasound this coming Tuesday (November 22, 2011). I'm pretty sure my doctor’s nurses messed up and mischarted (as in completely did not record) my last visit so I don’t think they realized how far along I was and that our appointment last Friday was supposed to be an ultrasound but instead it was just another appointment listening to the heartbeat. I had a freak out conversation with the nurses (it was a bad day to start) and so when I saw my doctor she said I should come in next week for an ultrasound….That’s more like it!!! I’m dying to know what the baby is so that I can get clothes and things. This little onesie in particular....

I got another promotion and raise which was timely since Sheehan is no longer working at REIC after they laid him off since they eliminated his position. That was also timely because we just switched over to my work health insurance and it allowed Sheehan the time he needed to finish up the basement apartment so that we could get it rented. We have everything finished finally and had it rented the same day we posted the ad. I am really proud of Sheehan and all the hard work he did. He re-did the whole kitchen (cabinets, installed the dishwasher, microwave, tile, baseboards, etc), he did the bathrooms (installed the shower, tile, etc) and the other 60% of little things that you don’t realize or account for when you start big projects.

Sheehan’s dad was nice enough to drive from the High Desert (California) to come and help us with some electrical and plumbing projects. He helped with a lot of things that we don’t know how to do and would have had to hire someone. We were really grateful for his talents and taking the time to come help and visit with us.

We are debating our options as far as Sheehan’s employment goes. We are thinking about working with Vivint (formerly APX) selling security systems again. We will see what happens.

I am now 18 weeks along and am feeling pretty good. I’m just starting to show and graduate into maternity pants. They are awesome! It’s like wearing PJ’s all day!....which I do 70% of the time anyway. I haven’t thrown up or had any weird symptoms. If I was the type that threw up all the time I don’t think we would have very many children so it’s a good thing I’ve been blessed so far to have a pretty easy pregnancy.

All of the chinchilla babies are gone. We gave them all away and Sheehan is having withdrawals. He made a video of them before we let them go….

Sheehan and I were called as the Christmas Activities Chairs so we are in charge. We’ve got it in the bag since half of the activity is already planned based on this ward’s traditions.

We can’t wait for the holidays and being able to see all of the family again. I’ve been dying to go to the beach and back to California so Thanksgiving is going to be awesome at Carpinteria!! I can’t wait for a Reynaldo’s bean burrito while I watch the waves crash on the beach. B-E-A-utiful.

It was so exciting this year to finally have a house where kids come to trick or treat!! I was pretty excited about it...I bought a bunch of candy weeks ahead of time which turned out to be a mistake (or a well-thought out plan) because I ate half of it before Halloween actually arrived. The Kit Kats in particular disappeared very quickly... We had Julianne, Devin, Katie, and Preston Davis over to make lanterns from pickle jars and had the Shurtliffs over to do real Jack-o-Lantern carving. It was lots of fun and the pumpkin seeds were worth working through the pumpkin slime.

Ready for Fall....

We have had a great Summer and I know I am really looking forward to Fall! I like the cool weather and pretty fall colors. I've decided Fall is my favorite season. I'm really excited for Halloween and decorating for Fall!!

The first week of August we bought a new car and sold the other car we had. The other car was great but Sheehan's brother told us about a great deal for a 2003 Honda Civic. We couldn't pass up the offer so now we have the Toyota Camry and the Honda Civic. Sheehan had to go to Vegas to pick up the car so he flew to Vegas and then he drove the car back with his Mom to visit for a few weeks. We took Sheehan's Mom, Colleen, to see the sites in Salt Lake since she had never been to Utah before.

We did all of Temple Square and ate at the Lion House. I LOVE the Lion House...mostly for their amazing rolls.

Don't be alarmed....it's just Root Beer and Sarsaparilla in those bottles. haha

We also went to Swiss Days up in Midway.

We enjoyed all the crafts and of course..the scones!

Our little chinchilla had babies...again. She had 3!! We couldn't believe it! Her first two litters she only had one baby each time and then this time around she popped out 3!

We've had to help her feed them a little because 3 of them was a little much for her to handle. They are VERY cute and are a little over a week old now. They were born on September 9th.

This is a picture of Milly a week or so before she had the babies. She was pretty exhausted.

Here's the Dad chinchilla, Max. I laughed so hard after I took this picture. I timed the picture with the perch just right.

We bought a house!!

We have been looking out for the right home with all of our requirements for a few months and then our home listed. The morning it came on the MLS we got it under contract. We are so excited and looking forward to being homeowners. It is a beautiful house in Provo! I'll get some pictures of it soon.... We are looking to close and be able to move in on Thursday or Friday. It is exactly what we were looking for and couldn't be happier!!
My parents have been back and forth from California to Utah for some business here in Utah. It's been fun to see them so often visiting us. It makes Sheehan and I really miss living so close to family. We miss going to the beach, Disneyland, and Sunday dinners with my parents but we are lucky to have family here in Utah too so we aren't totally alone. :)

One of the trips that my parents were here we had a little family celebration for Julianne's birthday.

We played a few games....

and had some good cake made by yours truly.