Arizona Christmas Trip

We left right on time Friday night, but because of Austin rush-hour traffic, it took us 4 hours to Fredericksburg, instead of the 3.5 like normal. We stayed at Days Inn that night and Matthew decided that he didn't want to go to sleep until about 11pm though he was in bed by 8pm. The next morning we woke up and had a wonderful continental breakfast with Texas shaped waffles, fruit, cereal, danishes, muffins, juice, milk, and biscuits and gravy. It was so yummy.
Saturday we were only suppose to drive 6.5 hours total and stay the night in El Paso but the 80mph speed limit helped us get into El Paso 45 minutes earlier then we thought and then we gained an hour so we decided to keep going. We drove about 10 hours that day but thanks to the portable dvd player that we bought life was good for Matthew. We stayed that night in Lordsburg, New Mexico. Sunday morning we realized that it was only 3.5 hours to get to our old ward and they didn't start until 12:30pm so we put our church clothes on and away we drove. It was their WONDERFUL Christmas program, like it always is, and we were so happy we got to be there to listen to all the wonderful music and see our old friends. We received such a warm welcome. After that we drove 45 minutes to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We were all so happy to be done with our trip (one way at least). We have had such a wonderful time here this last week and we can't believe it has gone by so fast. We have been over to Chris' brother's house a couple days and Matthew absolutely loves playing with his cousins. His new best friend is Hudson I think, though Emily and Tori come in close second. Max is his arch enemy in a way because they just fight over toys. What do you expect from 2 year olds? We will probably be hearing Emily, Hudson, Tori, and Max for many many days. We have seen them every day since Monday. It has been so fun to be around them and it has made me appreciate my brother-in-law, J, even more. Two nights Chris and I just put our kids to bed there so we could play games. The first night we all played Rock Band and during one of the songs I was the drummer and I was totally off, I called for J to come rescue me and it was cool because I felt like he was my big brother. The second night we were there, when we did finally "try" to go to sleep, Allison didn't want to sleep, she just wanted to cry. J came and offered to take her so I could go to sleep. What an awesome guy. Deb offered to take her as well but it is more surprising when I guy offers. It has been fun to develop bigger bonds between the brother-in-laws. All four of the brothers are here for Christmas and that means I get to know them a little more each time I am around them. It has been cool. Grandma and Grandpa have just absolutely loved having their grandkids in the house with them. Grandma has especially loved getting a smile from her little granddaughter every day, usually in the morning. We have never spent this long here before and it has gone by really fast. We are leaving tomorrow after Matthew's nap and driving 2 hours to Tuscon to stay with my sister for a couple days.
Last year when Deb and J found out we were pregnant, (Christmas day) they ran across this ADORABLE Santa suit and picked it up for us. This is your one sneak peak of what has happened here. I will post more pictures of our trip when we return home.

Steph needs....

My sister-in-law, Deb, had this on her blog and I thought it would be fun to see what came up. So what you do is type in "Steph needs" in google and see what it says. Make sure you put it in " ". These are the things I need...

Steph needs to go to the bathroom real bahhd.
This is kind of funny because I usually have other things to do rather then take time out to go to the bathroom, so sometimes I will be doing the bathroom dance and Chris will have to bring it to my attention that I need to take time out for myself.

Steph needs someone to CoNfOrT HeR
Well, not true I already have someone:)

Steph needs to be gone
How did they know that? It is right, I should be finishing laundry, packing and getting ready to drive to AZ, not doing this....but I am sure I will cram everything I need to get done in before we leave at 3:30 this afternoon.

STEPH NEEDS tough love
Sometimes yes, and other times no.

STEPH NEEDS ANOTHER NEW START
Somedays I wish I could go back and do things over but that won't ever happen so I just have to make the best out of what I have.

steph needs a prince....xoxo
Well, this one isn't true either but it was interesting.

Ok, well I have spent enough time on here when I should be preparing for my trip so I better start being productive.

4 Month Check-up

Allison had her 4 month check-up today. I went to find her little measurements that the nurse gave me and it must have fallen out somewhere today. So sad:( I will have to call them tomorrow to make sure I get all her information for her scrapbook.
However, what I do remember is that she weighs 15 pounds 4 ounces and she is 24 inches long. She is 75-90% for weight and 70% for height.

I love this little outfit because it is so true. Usually when she sees mommy she just smiles and smiles. However, if she sees daddy, he sometimes gets a grin. I love it but Chris hates it. When our friends gave us this outfit for her Christmas present it was absolutely perfect.
She normally has to swaddled to sleep and if we unswaddle her she wakes up but because she got shots today and she has Tylenol in her she just stayed asleep when we unswaddled her. I just love this little girl:)
Can you tell she has a brother? Allison only has one pink blanket that is big enough to swaddle her in so she gets to use two of Matthew's old blankets. Oh well, right?

Look at those cheeks....she comes by them honestly:)

Trimming the Tree

So why is it called trimming the tree?
Matthew liked putting up the tree, especially the train.

He decided one branch needed a lot of ornaments and put about ten on the same branch.

SNOW!!!!!

No, we didn't go anywhere. We actually got really honest to goodness snow here in Bryan, TX.
Wednesday, December 10th I woke up and saw some white stuff on the ground but to me it just looked like piled up sleet. I didn't attribute it to snow because snow doesn't fall in Bryan, TEXAS. However, that afternoon it actually did start snowing and not only did it snow but it stayed on the ground and things turned white. It was such am amazing sight. I remember it snowed one other time that since we have lived here in the past 4.5 years but it didn't stay on the ground, it just melted. I really wanted to take Matthew outside to play in the snow but I was making dinner to take to someone along with making our dinner and I just couldn't do it. Chris asked Matthew if he wanted to go outside and play in the snow but Matthew said no. If I was free I just have just made him. We don't get this opportunity every day.
However, there was still a little bit of snow left the next morning so before we went to Allison's post-op dr. appt I bundled Matthew up and he went out and crunched in the snow.

Our roof is suppose to be black

He doesn't actually have gloves so I put mine on him and they were a smidgen too big but I think they kept his hands warmer then they would have been so that is all that matters.

Checking out the white stuff on the ground

This video isn't because I have never seen snow. Remember, I am from Montana.
This video is proof that it was snowing. This was just at the beginning.

This one was when it was actually sticking to the ground and covering it white, along with everything else, as you can imagine.


I went to a work Christmas party on Friday and one of the ladies said that she had 4 inches of snow at her house but the closer she got to Bryan, the less it snowed. I also heard on the radio that in Snook it was snowing so hard, you couldn't even see the car right in front of you. Luckily, when I did have to go out that night I didn't get in a wreck nor did I see any.

Thanksgiving

I was looking on my camera and realized that I need to play catch-up a little bit. Since we didn't have an eventful Thanksgiving, I just sort of forgot that I took any pictures.
On Wednesday, I made the salads and the pies. It was the first time I have ever made a pumpkin pie. I didn't know it took soo long to cook. It did eventually get cooked and when I ate it, it tasted really good, just like my mom's.
On Thursday, I just cooked the turkey and all the other stuff that needed to be hot at dinner and we just ate when everything got done. It was so stressless, just having our own little family here. If everything failed, it wasn't going to be a big deal. At one point while cooking I had little Allison in the kitchen on the floor. She just beamed when I looked at her. We really enjoyed just staying home and cooking dinner for our own family. (Yeah, I know, very anti-social)

So sweet!!

This is a common occurrence every single day. This little girl will definitely know who her older brother is. Maybe she won't know who he is if he is far away but she will know every little thing about his face:) Matthew loves baby Allison!

"My name's Matthew, ok?! My name's Matthew!"

This smile is so contagious.

Chris trying to keep the kids out of my way.

Pictures

I wanted to get some family pictures so we could send out Christmas cards and so Chris came up with the brilliant idea to just using the timer on our camera and then we could just stay home.
Here are just a few of the ones we took.

Since Allison is only going to use her blessing dress, I had to get as many pictures with her on it as a could. We took a few family ones and then I made Chris take even more pictures with his daughter. Chris hates taking pictures, so he was very glad when we were done.
However, I am sure baby Allison loves pictures, I hope she takes after me in that regard. Since baby Allison had her dress on and my mom had sent baby Allison's quilt, my mom wanted pictures of Allison in her dress on the quilt. (My mom inherited quilting material/equipment from her mom and ever since then she has made a quilt for every grandchild. The only problem is she has about 20 grandchildren now so that is a lot of different quilts. I believe the oldest two grandchildren were already born before the inheritance so they haven't gotten one, but still18 quilts is a lot.) I am sure there will be many more grandchildren for her but hopefully not in the Thomas family. We are quite happy with our two.
So here is baby Allison laying on her quilt that Grandma McNiven made.

Cosmetic Surgery

So little Allison has already had cosmetic surgery in her short life. You may be thinking, boy Steph starting her young, but we think it is all for the better.
In the hospital when they brought baby Allison to me to feed her the first time, Chris and I noticed that she had 3 skin tags right in front of her left ear. It really bothered me because I had never seen that before or knew what they were. Apparently skin tags are extremely common and they used to just tie them off in the hospital but I guess that still left a little nub. Our pediatrician wasn't worried about it one bit and knew we would be able to get them taken care of. We didn't think that our insurance would pay for it since it was cosmetic surgery but we figured we would pay whatever we needed to, to get them removed. Thankfully we only had to pay two office visit fees and our insurance covered the rest:) Chris sat behind a girl in one of his college classes that had some behind her ear and he didn't think they were very attractive so he wanted to make sure Allison wouldn't have that problem. After Allison's 2 week appointment, the pediatrician called the ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat Dr.) and he said he wanted her to have more fat in the skin tags so he didn't want to remove them until after she was 2 Months old. We had a consultation with the Dr. and then she had her surgery on Thursday, November 20th. I took her into the surgery room, they put a papoose (straight jacket) on her which she was used to since we swaddle her but she didn't like not being able to move her head. Once the Dr. pulled out the needle to give her a local anesthetic I left the room. I went down three different halls and sat in some chairs. I took the Ensign with me to read but as I was trying to read I could hear my baby screaming. Needless to say, it didn't get much reading done. After awhile I didn't hear her crying and then at the end I heard her crying again which actually made me feel better because then I knew she was still breathing. Shortly after I heard her start crying again, the Dr. came and found me and told me she did well. When I went in to see her, they were cleaning the iodine off of her and she was not a happy camper. Even after I picked her up it took her a while to settle down but once she did, she just fell asleep in my arms. She had two bigger ones and then one tiny one in the middle of the two. I thought the Dr. would cut them off but he actually cut them out so hopefully there won't be any stubs left. He used dissolvable stitches. By the time we got home, she woke up and was smiling at Chris so I think she was OK. All but one of her stitches have fallen out or dissolved and it is looking really good.
If you look really closely you can see the two bigger ones right in front of her ear.

Before

After