Snow!

I'm honestly surprised that I even took my camera out with me when I let the kids play in the snow the other day. With two 2-year olds running loose in the snow (more like ICE!!), falling every two seconds, trying to walk in the street and walking up random people's drive ways, it was kind of crazy. But it was fun to see Cole's reaction to experiencing snow for the first time in his life.

The 6th of December

It was a beautiful, very special day, the day my nephew Henry was born! It was also St. Nikolaus Tag (a German Christmas tradition) which we weren't able to celebrate yesterday, you know, since Emma had her baby, but we will definitely be celebrating late!
I'm so glad that it worked out for me to be here when he was born to help out a little bit, to take pictures at his birth (I'll be posting those soon!) and I'm SO excited to take his newborn pictures! He is the cutest thing I've ever seen :)

It's that time of year

We put up the Christmas tree last week and Cole was really helpful this year! We did it while rocking out to the Raffi Christmas album that my mom gave to us for Christmas last year (or was it two years ago?)
This year my mom's Christmas gift to us was the cutest wooden advent calendar that Cole looooves to play with. She even provided the German chocolates to put into each wooden drawer and they are delicious! I probably should have taken a picture of the chocolate santa that came in the same package but that got eaten about 2 minutes after opening the box :/ So yummy.
It's safe to say that I miss Germany, especially at Christmas-time but at least we have an advent calendar from Germany in the house now. Thanks for sending it, mom. It is the perfect gift!

Hello December

Hello Christmas-time and hello Christmas lights!!
These pictures are from Temple Square last week. I don't think I've ever seen so many Christmas lights all in one place like that. It was absolutely beautiful! I am so excited that it is now Christmas season! There are so many things to do including:

+another trip to Utah to help Emma with her new baby
+a trip to Washington to spend Christmas with Steve's family
+create our family Christmas card
+plan Cole's birthday!!!
+make sweet potato pie (for no other reason than that I've never had it before)
+Christmas baking and goodie plates!
+Christmas shopping
+Christmas crafts

And seriously so much more it's kind of ridiculous. Up next though is meeting my new nephew who will be born any day! So excited to snuggle him :)

Puppies!!

There's a puppy overload for you, but I don't really have to apologize for that do I?! They were just the cutest things and I couldn't get enough of them, obviously. These puppies belonged to Emma's neighbors and they let us come over and play with them on Saturday. Cole was in puppy heaven and loved having them climb/crawl/lick all over him ;) It's probably not good to have favorites, but my favorites were the little brown one and the tiny black one that Emma's holding. They were just so sweet! We played hard with them for a good 15 minutes, and then the puppies slowly started to fall asleep one by one. We wore them out!

The only thing cuter than a playful pup is a puppy that's asleep!

And now I want one!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

+So thankful for my in-laws for hosting a wonderful thanksgiving dinner, complete with pecan pie, even with a wedding the very next day!! (Yvonne you are amazing!)

+So thankful for my little boy who has pretty much been neglected on this trip with us skipping his naps and with me being the wedding photographer. With as poorly as he's eaten from being on the go so much (he pretty much ate only whip cream for Thanksgiving dinner...) and as much as we've kept him going on little sleep, he's been pretty good!

+So thankful for my wonderful husband Steve who is so supportive of me. I love him and Cole so so much.

Happy Thanksgiving!!