Christmas 2011

This Christmas was awesome!!! We got to travel back to Utah to be with family. We got there on the 19th so that we could spend lots of good quality time with both of our families! I'll post the other portions of our trip later, but Christmas was awesome. We had spent the last couple days with the Maylin's, having family dinner, a baby blessing, and visited Matt's grandpa. We spent Christmas Eve morning with Matt's fam and the evening with mine. (Sorry I don't have pics of Matt's fam, I thought we lost our camera for good, but then found it just in time!) So here is the rest of the evening...

Christmas Dinner! Mmm mmm mmmh :) Gotta love Christmas Dinner, especially cause we didn't get to spend Thanksgiving with fam! Christmas dinner kinda made up for it.

It's opening presents time!!! We decided to not go with our normal tradition of opening gifts between 2-3am, or whenever Santa comes :) We needed to open presents when the kids would be up, and I'm sure glad we did! Cause Zoey loved the presents, and all the paper she could tear all night long!

 My mom went overboard with gift once again! (See pic below, look at all those presents) She always says, oh this Christmas isn't going to be much but I want it to be fun so I just got a couple of things for everyone! Well it was fun for sure! And we got tons of cool gifts. Matt and I got a magic bullet, clothes, jewelry(me, not Matt), Zoey got tons of toys and cute clothes.

I was able to give my parents something fun too that I made. I printed it on a canvas so they could hang it or just display it. I like to give meaningful gifts cause I like making them and then I can't wait til they open it. My parents cried when I gave it to them, they mean the world to me and I wanted them to know how grateful I am to them for how well they raised us, and how much love they showed us through all the little things in life! It truly has taught me how to be good mom to Zoey! I have so many good memories and it's because they were and are such good parents! I hope Zoey can one day say the same to Matt and I!

Alaina kept sharing her pacifier with Zoey and the taking it back :) They enjoyed playing together most of the evening! It's so fun to see them interact.

Just the 3 of us for a Christmas family photo.

 And that was our fabulous Christmas!!! Glad we made it home to spend it with family!

Christmas Photo Shoot

Jess is starting to get into photography so she wanted to take some pics for us for Christmas. She took the pics and I edited them. She did a pretty darn good job huh? 

We saw this idea on pinterest so we wanted to try it out. Turned out pretty darn cute! 

 

Then we headed over to her grandparents-in-law's barn to take some family photos. Zoey was a bit fussy and cold, but we still got a couple cute pics! Thanks to Jess! :) It's fun that she's pursuing this and we lucked out in the deal too! :) 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Announcement

December 20th, 2011
We had a big family dinner to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa Styles anniversary (59 years! WOW!!!) and Christmas! Everyone was there....

The Styles Family

My Family

Jason and Ashley and Avery Eldredge

We enjoyed our absolute favorite Chinese food from ABC Manderine.

 

And enjoyed seeing extended family, including all the kids!!! 

 

 So I decided...what a perfect time to announce that there will be a new addition joining the family in June!!! :) I waited til I was like 14 weeks to tell everyone,  cause I wanted to tell everyone in person. So I thought this was a cute way to announce it. :) Everyone was super surprised and excited! Yay!!!

 

'Nother Christmas Partaaayyyy

Every year a family in our ward throws a Christmas Party! They invite the whole ward over for good food and socialization. We weren't going to go because no kids were allowed, but Brook Olsen a young woman in our ward told us she would watch Zoey for us. Well that lasted for about an hour and half. Zoey was crying to much and ended up coming to the party with us! We were glad to have her!

 

Work Christmas Party

Elm's Christmas Party 2012

My work Christmas Party was a real hit this year. We were able to get a free hall to hold the party at (American Legion). We hired a DJ, bought some gifts for a raffle, and had a pot luck. It was a fun time for all who attended.

For the first time we left Zoey with a baby sitter and enjoyed the party without her.  It was weird without her but also nice not to worry about her and have some fun!

Almost everyone danced the night away. I was surprised at how many people danced! By the end of the night people were yelling at Shauna to come out and dance...she stole the show!

Messiah Sing

December 4th

I've decided that I really need to be getting back into singing. So I sung in the Messiah Choir. Talk about some tough music to sing, but what a way to get into the Christmas spirit!

Check Zoey out, she was so supportive, she didn't make 1 noise the entire show! She just sat and waved at all the choir members :) ha ha... 

It was also nice to have friends sing in the choir with me!

It just felt so good to be singing again! I hope to do more of it!

House Party With Ron Paul

So A family in our ward are big Ron Paul supporters and are helping him with his campaign here in NH. They had a small house party and we were invited to come meet Ron Paul, hear his speech, and ask questions. We had a great time and liked a lot of the things that he had to say. Plus we had to get one more pic with a potential president to add to our collection. :) 

Happy Thanksgiving

THE COMPANY 

Felt super close to family! We've really grown close to the Argyle's and the Olsen's! We hang out with them at least a couple times a month. They're like our "besties" out here! So I am so  glad that we got to spend Thanksgiving with them.

Me, Steph, Kelly

The kids all playin

THE FOOD
Look at that! It was AMAZING!

 

THE LIL CUTIE PIE ON HER FIRST THANKSGIVING
Her 1st Thanksgiving meal :) Oh look, captions! :)

I wasn't going to offer her any. I guess she knew that :)

 The two things in life I'm most grateful for, my amazing husband and my gorgeous perfect daughter!!! I'm so blessed!!!

Lovin on Daddy

I love every second I get to spend with Zoey. I love to see her when I come home for lunch, after work, and then all day on Saturday and Sunday. Here are some pictures of Zoey and me!

Nothing better then holding her in my arms and having her cuddle with me. This is definetly the best part of being a dad.

Bre's Trip Out

NOVEMBER 3RD - 12TH
Bre has been so good to us, while we've been so far away here in NH. She was able to come out again. Even though she's been so busy with school, she found time to come and spend some time relaxing with us. This trip there was some serious rest and relaxation goin on. I'm talking full on: sleep in as late as possible, take as much time as we want eating breakfast, then lolly gag around and play with our cute lil girls. There were days we stayed in our pj's all day. I was just so ecstatic to have her company and to see her sweet lil girl. That's the best part now, that our lil girls just interact so well and it's so fun to watch them together! See:

Bathing is always so much more fun when you have someone playin in there with you.

This was absolutely hilarious! We put Zoey in the pack-n-play that Alaina was using and she thought it was hilarious! She thought it was the funniest thing in the world to press her face up against the mesh and smash her face! She would do that and then just laugh. But Bre and I were laughing way harder! Check this out!!!

Matching girlies! Playing with the funnest of toys...anything that's not really a toy!

Matt sure loved the company too! You can see it in his face. He has fun playin and teasin them and they just eat it all up! 

We had matching outfits for em, so of course we had em be twins for the day! Aren't they cute? They were a tad grumpy and not in the mood for pictures. Seems to be a common trend with these two.

We didn't take too many pictures this trip, but we did have tons of fun! We also had a good time going out to eat and shopping, as always! :) Like I said, I was just happy to have them here and Bre said she was just happy to have a break from the busy, crazy, hectic life she's leading back at home! :) Sure do love her and her sweet daughter! Can't wait to see them again at Christmas!