Christmas time

I love Christmas time, Christmas eve to be exact. You see thats the day my family (as in my extended family, the Lindhardts) has Christmas. Thats the way the Danes do it. Christmas day for us is rather boring. We open all our presents on Christmas Eve and do all our festivities and traditions. When we were younger we still opened most of our presents on Christmas day. We were allowed to open one present from our parents, that'd we'd bring with us to our big extended family Christmas party, (as long as my mom ok'd it, she didnt want us to pick one of our big presents) mind you this would not be pajamas. Actually I dont think i ever got pj's for Christmas until after my mom passed away. The other presents we were allowed to open were the ones we got at the party. The rest we opened Christmas day. But now that we're all grown up and moved out, we open all of them on Christmas Eve. We have a huge Danish Christmas meal, with all the yummy yummy danish treats. (and yes, we make them all. Thank you mom, bedstemor, and aunts for teaching us how to make them all) I absolutely love this day of the year. The past few years it has just been my immediate family, but this year some of the extended family is joining us again. The bigger the better if you ask me. I love all the people, the mingling, hearing all the Danish, dancing around the Christmas tree while singing American and Danish Christmas songs, opening the presents and watching others (especially the kids) open all their gifts. And now this year, we have our own child. I'm so excited for him to have his first Christmas. I know he won't remember it, and won't really care too much about the presents(actually I think he's going to like the wrapping paper more than any gift we give him) But I'll remember it, and I'm so excited to see him experience it all.

Ok now that I've ranted about my Christmas traditions, doesn't it just make you wish you could join us? I don't blame you, I'd want in on the fun too.

So growing up, my mom always had these cookies in the house around Christmas time...remember these?

My favorite was all the one in the middle in the picture above. The sugar crystals on top were too hard for me. Anyways, this is what my mom always did to them to make them a little more fun to eat.....

so yummy! Chocolate makes everything so much better. If you've never tried this, I suggest you give it a whirl. So worth it.

Here's a picture of my Christmas tree. I decided I want a Danish tree from now on. (I love adding the Danish traditions to our American ones) It's a little plain because I don't have all the little things that are supposed to go on it, but it's a start. Plus I'm missing the star that goes on the top. It somehow disappeared, along with a few of my other decorations. So I'm having to do without until I can find a new one.The string of red and white is a string of the Danish flag, and in the red and white hearts are cookies! Such a smart idea the Danes had on that one right! Why didn't we think of putting treats on our trees?! For now, I just have the Danish butter cookies (not dipped in chocolate). The ones I'm supposed to make to put in them, will go hard way too fast. Plus Jon won't really eat them(he tends to be really picky, or maybe it's just him being skeptical, with a lot of the Danish treats), so I figure I'll hold off on those.

In the very center of the tree is my favorite ornament. It was given to me by my grandma the Christmas after my mom passed away. It is an ornament with her picture on it. I'll need to get an upclose picture of it. I love that I can incorporate my mom into Christmas.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Happy 8 Months

Look what I can do!

Things to remember:
- He's crawling every where!
- He will NOT say mama. He's been saying Dada for more than a month. Every time i try to get him to say mama, he looks at me with his little grin and says "dada" It's so cute, but not fair! :)
- (Disclaimer: This might be too much information for some people, but I think it's funny. So if you get offended easily, just go ahead and skip this one). Sometimes when I'm changing his diaper, as soon as a wipe his penis, he starts to laugh. I don't know what it is, and it's not every time but I think it's hilarious. :)
- He's eating a TON! He eats 2 jars of baby food, plus nurses (about 4 1/2 ounces) for lunch and dinner. I'm suprised he's not a chunk.
- We have an unused tooth brush that he loves to chew on. Most times it's his prefered toy.
- He's in the fun stage of putting EVERYTHING in his mouth. The other day I found a shirt size sticker,  you know the little round ones that say S, M, or L on them, on the roof of his mouth.
- He's such a happy baby. I get comments for everyone about how happy and good of a baby he is. He's a super easy baby to watch, minus the times he won't go down for a nap. (or so our baby sitter tells me).
- He's a little flirt. (like i mentioned in one of my previous posts) He loves the women already. :)
- He's starting to hate his car seat again. I'm thinking it's almost time to put him in a big boy seat. (He's almost heavy enough. I'm think another month or so and he'll be ready) He can't stand being strapped down while having to lay down. If i can tilt the car seat up slightly so he feels like he's sitting up more than laying down he does a little bit better.
- He used me to pull himself to a standing position all by himself today! Oh and while he did it he made the cutest face. He puckered his lips, then blew in and out of his nose. It's so cute. I'll try to get a pic of it.
-When I put socks on him he of course instantly tries to pull them off. But the odd thing is, is that he only pulls off his left sock. Well, eventually he'll pull off his right one if he really wants them off, but most times its just the left one that he pulls off.
-He gives us kisses! It's so cute. We ask for kisses and he leans in and opens his mouth real wide. haha. Gotta love it.
-We can't put our fingers in his mouth at all anymore. I used to try to check if he has any teeth coming in, but now if I try, I get bit. And boy are his two little teeth sharp!

I'm loving this new phase. It's way different now that he can get around with out me. It's easier and harder at the same time. I love that I don't have to entertain him all the time. Him being able to find new toys and things to play with on his own, is so nice. But now I have to be so much more careful. We're actually having to be parents now. I mean, of course we've always been parents to him, but now comes the disciplining and watching out for him, etc. I can't just leave him alone with a few toys and know that he can't get into anything. I guess I just can't be as lazy as I use to be. haha

We love you monkey! Thanks for making the adjustment to parenthood a little easier on us.

Flirt

My son is a total flirt! He smiles at every woman he sees if they look and talk to him. It's funny to see the difference when it's a male or female talking to him. Males have to try much harder to get him to smile. (minus daddy of course) He had a great time in relief society today with all the women giving him attention. Ha. He's a little stinker.

Happy Birthday (yesterday)

Happy birthday to me. I'm.....24, I had to stop and think about that for a second. haha. When I was little and I would ask my mom how old she was and she would say she didn't remember and had to think about it, I never believed her. I thought "How in the world does someone forget how old they are?!!!!" Ha turns out she wasn't lying. The older you get, the more the numbers just mesh together I guess. Anyways...
I had a great birthday. We decided not to exchange presents for our birthdays this year. Money is just too tight and we have more important things to spend our money on. So I told Jon that his present to me could be not complaining when we got our family pictures done. Oh, I forgot...... I won a free photo shoot! Teria Photography was giving away a free photo shoot for Christmas. So I entered the contest, told her why I think I should win (Jon doesn't have a job, well a permanent one anyways, Jon hates taking pictures so I don't have any family pictures other than the ones I've taken, and my b-day was the day after the contest ended-happy birthday to me if I won) Well I guess my sob story was enough to win her over :) I can't wait to get them back.

Back to my birthday, we woke up, cleaned our house, went into town and ran some errands, then we went out to dinner at the Gun Barrell. I was rather disappointed. For a high priced restaurant, the food just wasn't that good. They had one chicken option and it just wasn't that good. And Jon said his steak was rather blah as well. So we'll proably never go back there again. Maybe it was just a bad night, I don't know, but I'm not willing to pay that much to risk it again.

Here's the only picture I got. Sorry, I'm just not that good at remembering to take pictures.

Thanks for all the b-day wishes. I had a great day :)

Crawling

He's so so so close to being all over the house. I'm excited for the next step in watching our little monkey grow :)

Anniversary and a 7 month old

We just had our two year anniversary, ok it was a couple weeks ago on the 7th. Crazy how time flies. We went to Anasazi Steak house and LOVED it! Its definitely only a special occasions place though, as it is rather pricey. But the food is totally worth it. gotta say I love fondue :) My mother in law watched Taegen for us so we could go on our date. It was so nice to just be the two of us again (even if it was only for an hour or so). We love our little man, don't get me wrong, but the date was SO nice.

Speaking of our little man, he just had his 7 month birthday. WOW he's getting so big! Here's his monthly update:

-He FINALLY sleeps without being wrapped up!
-He got sick for the first time :( Had a fever of 102.6 and is now sick again with a bad cough and stuffy nose which makes sleeping hard.
-He's almost ready to crawl. He'll get himself up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth but hasn't really made any lunges forward yet. He's tried a couple times, to move one of his arms forward but then just falls (he hasn't quite grasped the concept yet)
-He's waking up A TON in the night (I'm at a loss. Little tangent on this subject below)
-Weighing in at about 18lbs
-LOVES his binky! Sure way to get him to stop fussing. Luckily, most times he doesn't cry for his binky, but will stop crying temporally if we give it to him. I'm hoping this'll mean weaning him from it won't be as difficult. I can dream right :)
-Zeffie is watching him for about 4 hours each day while mommy and daddy go to work. I drop him off at 11 and Jon picks him up around 3.
-He gets so so so excited when I walk in the door from work. Most times he's in his jumperoo and just jumps and kicks and is full of smiles. Its too cute. He loves and misses his momma!
-He has TWO teeth! His bottom two have come it.
-He falls asleep at night really well. We follow our bedtime routine-bath (only some days) eat some baby food, pajamas, then nurse and off to bed he goes.
-Napping on the other hand is another story. Most days, it's miserable getting him down for naps. And he won't take his last nap of the day. I'm trying to move him to 2 naps a day, but can't figure out how to do it and still follow the eat-play-sleep routine from baby wise. (Any suggestions?)

We love our little guy. Life is so much fun with him. I feel so blessed to be his mother. I just wish I could stay at home with him. I HATE leaving him with a sitter every day. It just breaks my heart.
We love you Taeg!

Sleeping tangent:
I let him cry if I know he's not hungry, but it takes him an hour of crying to actually fall back asleep, and only to wake up an hour after that. And by then he is actually hungry. And once he wakes up once to eat, he'll wake up every two hours(if I'm lucky) to eat again. I DON'T GET IT! He goes 3 1/2 hours inbetween eating during the day, why at night does he only go 2 hours? It's infuriating!

Binky mission

I'm gonna get that binky...

 Oh wait, I've been distracted from my mission...

 back on track...I'm almost there

 Almost there...

 Mission complete!

 I know it's shiney and not a very good picture, but just look how blue his eyes are!



Happy Halloween

Better late then never, right?

For his first Halloween, our little monkey boy was.... A MONKEY!

All these pictures are really similar, but his face is just too cute to not post them all.

LOVE IT!

 The grandkids (Evertsen side - minus Justyn) The army man, kitty cat, monkey, ballerina and lady bug.. oh and uncle James

Up on all 4s

This little guy is up on all 4's. Not crawling yet but he's almost there. Crazy how much he's growing.

 He loves his binky!

 Lin's was giving out free balloons and of course Taegen wanted one, ok ok it was really Jon that wanted it. haha. Taegen did love it though. Luckily it didn't pop in his face. And yes, here's Jon showing Taeg exactly how to do it. :)

 Love this face...look at those eyes. So blue

The Bongos & Babies

Cierra came into town a while back, so the bongos decided we needed to get together so our little ones could meet. We had a lot of fun catching up and watching the babies play.

They were all born within the first two weeks of April.