Musings, Moments, and Memories.: January 2018

We are in the Season of the "firsts". As in the first Halloween. First Thanksgiving, First Christmas, Etc.

Sam and I were married last year and were able to go through all these "firsts" together, but as a young family with a child, it all takes on a new light.

In October, we planned our first Halloween. I actually came up with the costume idea the week before Rosalie was born. I dressed as Jasmine. Sam was Aladdin. And Rosalie was the magic lamp. My favorite part of our costumes was making them. We bought Sam's pants and vest but everything else I put together with items we had around the house. It was fun and turned out even better than I had expected.

I also made my first baby quilt for my then "soon to be" niece. I started in August and finished just in time for my Sister-in-law (Kelly) baby shower in November. It turned out so nice, but I had a LOT of help. I traveled to Austin quite a bit to get help from my mother in law. She helped teach me how to quilt it and bind the quilt. Katrina (my twin) also helped me a lot. She sent me video tutorials on how to cut and sew the pattern and peices together. It felt so nice giving something that I had spent so much time working on. :)

The weekend of Kelly's shower, we found out her husband (Neils) had passed the Texas Bar Exam. It was so great being able to celebrate with them. My father-in-law got the four of us tickets to see Jim Gaffigan. I was BEYOND excited!!!. It was everything I had hoped it would be. I laughed so much. And I felt pretty fancy because we had special tickets so we got to use a fancy back door to get in the venue instead of waiting in the mile long line to get inside.

Sam, Rosalie, and I ventured back to Austin the next weekend to watch Hattie's roller derby bout. We missed the last one because that was the day Rosalie was born. Hattie looked so cute all dressed up in her scarecrow "costume". It was fun watching pretty Hattie pushing against these other tough looking women. And I was surprised at how well she took a hit. When she got knocked down, she was right back up! After the bought, all the women agreed to get a picture with Rosalie since it was her "2 month" mark. It was funny seeing this pink little baby in an ocean of black and red.

My love.

Rosie surprisingly slept through the entire bout!

Cute little pink baby.

The night before Hattie's bout, we went to dinner to listen to Sam's Uncle play live. I had never seen Vance play so that was pretty fun. Rosalie liked dancing with her pappy.

Listening to her great uncle Vance while sitting with her pappy.

Vance is the bass player.

Oh yeah, I finally cut my hair. I kept it long for my Halloween costume, but had been wanting to get it since Rosalie was born. She kept pulling my hair and it would get in her face while she was nursing. The lady cut my hair a little shorter than I had planned but for some reason it didn't really bother me. I was just ready for something EASY to take care of. With long hair I felt like I always had to style it for it to look the way I wanted. Now I can just brush my hair and let it dry and it looks great. No fuss. Perfect for having a little baby. :)

The next weekend in November, we traveled up to Lometa to help put together the ranch house my in-laws just had built. (We didn't spend any weekends in San Antonio this month. We kept pretty busy.) We spent the entire day (along with the rest of the family), pretty much from 7am until we left at 10pm, cleaning rooms, putting together indoor/outdoor furniture, lining cabinets, decorating beds, and helping with things like oiling the stone counter tops throughout the house. The ranch house is HUGE and GORGEOUS. But it is also a LOT of work trying to put together a house in one weekend. Connie was a champ and continued on throughout the week and by Wednesday, when we arrived at the ranch house for Thanksgiving, the house looked so nice! Decorations were put up and the place had a "home-y" feel.
Staying at the ranch house is like staying at a resort. Sam and I have our own room/bathroom with our own tv. In the living room is a LARGE tv, the kitchen is huge, and the pool/hot tub is beyond words. The one downside is having to share a room with Rosalie. She is a noisy sleeper and since becoming a mother, I am a light sleeper. At home, she sleeps in her own room, but at the ranch house, the packnplay is set up in our room, so I hear EVERY noise and don't get as much sleep. But Sam and I just purchased a noise machine to hopefully help with that in the future :)

The bunk room. Rosie is gonna have so many fun sleepovers here with her cousins

Putting furniture together

Our room at the Ranch house :)

Another thing I loved about Thanksgiving, besides being able to stay at the new ranch house, was seeing/meeting some of Sam's extended family that traveled here for a mini reunion. We made crafts, watched television on the big screen, went swimming, and ate delicious food! Sam and I had to return to San Antonio on Thanksgiving night because we both had to work on black friday, but we enjoyed every minute we had with the family.

Rosalie met her uncle Jack for the first time. He has been away at BYU.

Talking to Meme

Oh yeah, I sort of started working again. Just PRN (as needed). It felt good returning to Blanco Villa on black friday. A lot of the patients on my caseload were residents I had worked with before, so it was like visiting old friends. I hadn't realized how much I had missed everyone! And it was also nice that ALL of the nursing staff came up to me to tell me how much they missed working with me. I felt very appreciated.

And all of the sudden, it was "Christmas time". The past few years I have struggled with feeling the Christmas spirit in Texas because it is usually pretty warm. Chrsitmas almost feels a little fake. But this year, it snowed. In TEXAS! It was a christmas miracle! Unfortunately I missed the relief society activity I had planned on going to, due to the snow. Ive turned into a pansy driving in the snow after living without it for two years. Plus it didn't help that I almost witnessed an accident (right in front of me!) because the power went out at a stop light. So I returned home and Sam and I took Rosalie out to "play" in the snow. It was her bed time so she was pretty tired, and not very amused. But Sam and I had to have evidence of her "first snow". Especially since it was such perfect,sticky snow. And it all meted away by noon the next day.

A few weekends ago, we traveled down to Lake Jackson to visit Mary, Colton, and Addy. Mary is 8 months pregnant, so she wont be traveling up to San Antonio any time soon and we missed them. So we packed our bags and made the 3 hour journey to spend time with family and it was so worth it! On Saturday, we joined in on a service project of singing Carols and doing crafts at a nursing home. The later that day, we went to their library where they were holding this Harry Potter event which was actually pretty awesome. We put a "dobby" hat on Rosalie that Mary and Colton let us borrow. They had it leftover from Addy's Halloween costume two years ago. People kept coming up to us and asking of they could take pictures of our baby. haha On Sunday, before church, we traveled to the beach to walk along the jetty. It was a beautiful day and the waves were so peaceful. It was Rosalie's first time at the beach! We had the best time and couldn't have picked a better weekend to visit!

Rosalies first time at the beach

For Christmas, Sam, Rosalie and I traveled to Ohio. It was our first plane ride with Rosalie and Oh boy was that eventful.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:55 pm so we made a plan for me to pick Sam up from work at 5 and make our way immediately to the airport. Sam's supervisors tried to keep him later so we were a few minutes behind and THEN we got stuck in traffic. I was feeling pretty stressed at this point. We made it to the airport at around 5:40 and I dropped Sam off to check in our bags and get our boarding passes while I parked the car. Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn in the parking garage and ended up exiting the garage. So I had to wait in line to "pay my ticket" and then circle back around the airport to re-enter the garage, find a parking spot, and then assemble the stroller so Rosalie and I could run to meet Sam inside the airport. When we got inside, Sam told me that our flight had been delayed to 7:55 pm. What a relief! We walked to the TSA line, but when we met with the agent, he asked where Rosalie's information was and I realized that I had left her birth certificate at our apartment! Sam offered to run home to get the birth certificate. Unfortunately with all the construction at the airport over the past few years, Sam didn't know where the terminal to the parking garage was located so he had to run around the ENTIRE airport to get the car and then drive home to get the birth certificate.

When he returned to the airport, we got back in the TSA line, only to be told that we needed a boarding pass for the baby as well. They had me stand to the side with Rosalie while Sam ran all the way to the end where Southwest was located. Sam waited in line and then was informed that he needed the baby present. So he ran back to me to pick up Rosalie and then ran back to the southwest area where he had to wait in line AGAIN before getting her boarding pass. I am holding back tears at this point because we are getting dangerously close to missing our flight. The print off passes and finally we are ready to go through the TSA gate. The agent took one look at our passes and informed us that they didn't give us Rosalie's boarding pass. They had just reprinted Sam's boarding pass. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? But since I had been standing close by the whole time, he let us through saying "you tried your best". They gave us her boarding passes as we were putting our shoes back on.

We basically walked straight onto our plane but since we were first time fliers with a child, we didn't know that we needed to disassemble the car seat and stroller, so after we were seated Sam had to fight the oncoming passengers to get off the plane to disassemble them. So stressful. Luckily Rosalie slept the entire flight because I don't think I could have handled a crying baby at this point.

She looks fussy, and she was. But she fell asleep a minute later.

This was Rosalie's first time in Ohio. She loved spending time with her Granny and Papa and meeting her Aunts and Uncles (She even met Ryan over skype for a minute)

Our first day there, we took Rosalie to Whispering Christmas at Fort Sinclair where Rosie could sit on Santa's lap in a quaint little cabin with a roaring fire and free cookies and hot cocoa.

Our first time eating at Rapid Fire Pizza. SO good.

First time on Santa's lap. She WANTS those candy canes!

With Granny and Papa

The next day, we traveled with the entire Mills clan down to Cincinnati to go to Jungle Jim's International Market. Sam had never been before so it was a fun Adventure. They have foods from all over the world. We walked straight to the Great Britain section (about three aisles) and bought special treats that Sam enjoyed during his mission. That night we stayed up late spending time with Casey and Katrina. Its always fun chatting and laughing together.

A Rosalie sized Lollipop? What a find!

There is an entire aisle of random sodas. Like this one.

The next day was Christmas Eve. We had a delicious breakfast at my grandparents home before church and then we traveled to beavercreek to have a lovely lunch with grandma and grandpa Hazen. I really enjoyed walking around her house to look at all the decorate Christmas trees. We had such a lovely visit and are so lucky to be able to see both of our grandparents during our Ohio visits.

We then were able to go to my aunt Jennifer's annual Christmas Eve party. My favorite part was caroling in the snow. It was so picturesque.

On Christmas Day, we exchanged gifts and then went to the park to go sledding. I woke up feeling unwell, so I didn't sled, but I just HAD to go and take pictures of Sam. He doesn't get many chances to sled in Texas. I pretty much spent the rest of the day in bed recovering so we could make it back to Texas that night. It was such a nice visit.

After returning to Texas, Sam worked for a few days and then we traveled up to Lometa to spend New Years weekend with the Hazens at the ranch. It was such a relaxing weekend. We enjoyed spending our time by the fire watching harry potter. Rosalie especially enjoyed all of her one on one time with her Meme, Pappy, and Aunt Hattie. The highlight of the weekend was meeting little Naomi who was born on Christmas Eve. Rosalie was enchanted with her pretty cousin.
Naomi is so small and beautiful. It made me realize how much Rosalie had grown and makes me want to cuddle her before she grows any more.

Rosalie kept trying to touch Naomi. She just loved her!

An almost sunset on the pool.

Sam holding Naomi for the first time.

All of the rooms had Christmas sheets

Baby wearing at its finest

Harry Potter

On New Years Eve, we stayed up and had fondue and played games.

New Years Eve face mask

"New year, new us"

Rosalie's first stocking

Smiling at Pappy

Playing with Aunt Hattie

Playing with Meme

Playing with the "Amy's Icecream" cow

Sleepy Enzo

Rosalie Update:

She has started sleeping through the night. Hallelujah! Rarely do I still need to wake up with her and even then it is only once and then she sleeps the rest of the night. She still LOVES to eat. She now regularly eats 6oz at a time (or more). She coos and babbles a lot. I love watching her try to talk with inanimate objects. So cute. She is also much more playful. She smile and laughs and loves attention and eye contact. She tolerates tummy time but after about 10 minutes she gets fussy. I have only seen her roll over once. She mostly rolls over when I'm not in the room. She enjoys looking at toys and gazing at herself in the mirror. And she is as wiggly as ever and is still Oh SO Kissable!

So this is our end of the 2017 Year Update. It has been a great year and we are looking forward to what 2018 brings.

Other Pictures:

our family pumpkin.

cozy lady.

She lasts about 15 minutes at the gym before she gets bored.

Wearing Connies glasses while I quilt so i can see the stitching better.

Cuddling with Aunt Hattie while mommy sews.

She really loves her daddy

Kelly MADE this outfit for Rosalie.

Every time this happens I laugh. never gets old.

2 month shots. poor baby girl. This was actually before she got her shots. She is crying because she is cold.

Classic "baby in the sock drawer" pictures

Sam received his Christmas present early.I had his car repainted. Goodbye black bumper. Hello, shiny entirely white car!

Little Lady loves the christmas tree

Amen to that! Rosalie just started sleeping through the night a few weeks ago and it is the BEST!

This apple was the size of Rosies head!

Sam and I went to help our cousin Ben with his eagle scout project. He put together a 5K to gather food for a local food bank. Our job was to tell the runners which way to run. This is us sitting/playing with Rosalie while we waited for the runners to reach us.