2009 Recap- in Music!

... and just for laughs, you gotta watch this clip if you haven't yet:

Family Christmas Card/ Newsletter 2009

Has another year whizzed by already?  Where does time go?  I always hear that time goes too fast when you start having kids but golly gee, time is just going lightning speed now.  Here is our 2009 family Christmas Card:

...and the Yarger Family Newsletter 2009:

 

...the year in review.  We can't wait to see what new surprises 2010 brings!  We feel so blessed and so happy to have such a wonderful family :)

Sleeping Cutie

Lately Avril has been even more stubborn about going to sleep, if that's even possible.  She normally goes to bed between 7-7:30ish.  I started trying to get her to sleep at 7:00 and at about 8:30 I was feeling dehydrated, exhausted, and at a loss of motivation to continue my efforts.  Thus, I placed the still awake Avril in her crib and cringed as I shut her bedroom door, knowing the dreaded screams would ring in my ears as I walked downstairs.  I tried to watch TV and made myself a milkshake to defer my attention elsewhere.  Fortunately, after a mere 20 minutes the wailing subsided so I decided to take a peek in Avril's crib to see the aftermath of her fight with sleep.  What I saw was so cute and so funny to me, I risked awaking her just to take a picture:

Normally, I place Avril on her tummy to snooze so this is an entirely new position for her.  She snuggled up with the bunny and laid her head on her pillow in the corner of the crib.  That's our sleeping beauty cutie!

Notice the bed-head :)

Some Special Christmas Gifts

Jesse loves to make me feel special by putting a lot of thought in to his gifts.  Instead of just putting the gifts under the tree this year, he sent me on a scavenger hunt to find my present.  I had asked for a particular gift and I guess he thought it'd just be too easy to give it to me.  He gave me a picture frame with a poem in it and I was supposed to know where to look from the clues in the poem.  The first spot I was sent to was the upstairs bathroom, where there was another picture frame with a poem attached.  I even had to drive over to my parents' house to retrieve a frame.  Below are the picture frames I collected from my hunt :)

The final clue sent me to Avril's nursery...

And on the nightstand sat an iHome, playing a special playlist that Jesse had created just for the occasion.  It was absolutely perfect :)  Thank you sweetheart!  Now I can play Avril's bedtime songs in her room when she goes to sleep and charge the iPod at the same time!  I love it :)

One of my gifts for Jesse was a book I created for him, showing off all his football photos/newspaper articles from this past season.  I downloaded the pages from the book:

This is the back cover and front cover of the book I made.  To see the whole book, see below: :)


I did a similar book for my parents, about their recent trip to Peru.  Here is the cover:

back and front cover
...and to see the full book:

It took me forever to finish these and I had to be very sneaky.  I must say, I'm pretty proud of how they turned out!

Santa also brought us the Rosetta Stone in Spanish, so a New Year's Resolution of ours is to start learning Spanish.  I hope it works!

Merry Christmas!

I could not have asked for a better Christmas.  It was just perfect.  We got to spend it with all the people we love, and it was Avril's very first Christmas!  I get so excited to see people open their gifts.  I got to play Santa this year since Jesse had to work the graveyard shift right before Christmas morning.  I filled the stockings and loaded presents under the tree.  It was so much fun!

Carme (Jesse's mom) was staying with us from Montana so we got to spend time with her.  On Christmas Eve we each opened one gift.  Jesse just couldn't wait because he knew that he'd received a game called Scotland Yard and he was dying to play.  He was introduced to this game over Thanksgiving when we visited cousins in Montana and he'd been talking about it ever since.  I opened a gift from my friend Ina, and it was a new pair of pajamas and slippers so I was comfy sleeping in them that night.

 

Here we are playing Scotland Yard on Christmas Eve.  I am taking the picture with my new digital camera that I just got for my birthday!  Its fantastic!!

 

Avril's first gift that she opened (with help from daddy) was an Avril-sized hoody with the Logan Stampede logo on the front.  The back says "Yarger #11" so she can wear it to daddy's football games.  Shelby and Jesse also received hoodies like this.  I asked a friend of ours, Spencer Brown, who does logos, to specially make these for a Christmas surprise!  Everyone loved them :)

Santa bought mommy some new clothes!  How did Santa know what mommy likes?  I don't know, but he sure has good taste!

 

Grandma Carme got Avril this cool new Xylophone and Avril just loved playing with it.  We think "xylophone" might be her next word she learns, after mama and dada :)

After opening presents at our house we headed over to nana and papa's house for some pancakes and more gift opening!  Our main gift from the grandparents was a new dryer since ours is an energy sucker.  We got a new energy efficient dryer and it will not be delivered until the end of January, due to an overwhelming response to a Home Depot spectacular sale.  The main gift given to the grandparents was a digital scrapbook I made for them from their Peru trip over the summer.  I will try to post some pics of this later, along with pics of Jesse's Stampede football book I designed for him as well :)

Avril's new favorite thing to do at nana and papa's is to ride their rocking horse (that is supposed to be for decoration).  She just laughs with delight!

 Here is Avril with some of her new toys!  She must've been a good girl this year!

 Jesse couldn't quite stay awake through all the gift opening since he'd worked a grave the night before.  We decided to let him slumber.

Like daddy like daughter... all the excitement exhausted poor little Avril.  Here she sleeps with her two doting grandmas near.

Grandma and Grandma got us kids some gorros all the way from Peru.  That was really nice of them to travel all the way to South America just to get us some warm hats.

Uncle Jared in his new sweater and new Peruvian gorro, holding Avril :)

Next we headed over to great grandma and great grandpa Parkinsons' house that evening for some tasty soup and muffins, and yes, even MORE presents to open!  We were really, really good this year!

Olivia, Jared, and I devouring our food!

Avril is wearing her new pink boots from grandma and grandpa Santa and contently watching us open presents.

Great grandpa and great grandma with some of their gifts.  Patricia and Olivia gave them a homemade blanket and a picture of Olivia.

 

 Brother and sister decked out in new Christmas attire.

Olivia has such a personality.  She is just a fun loving ball of energy and pulls some of the craziest faces.  Here she is with her big brown puppy dog eyes.

My Aunt Patricia with her daughter Olivia.

Trish and I :)

 

Silly great grandpa wearing his gorro gift.

Avril and grandpa decided to play some Christmas carols to get in to the spirit of things.  It was lovely :)

We could not keep Avril away from the Christmas candy. She just LOVED playing with it... we didn't let her eat it! I know, we deprive that poor child.

Temple Square

So we had to go see the lights at Temple Square because of their pure magnificence.  It was snowing and freezing but we bundled up, sipped hot cocoa, and enjoyed each others' company to stay warm.  It was a wonderful day!  We dined at P.F. Chang's for some delicious Chinese food after.  Thanks mom and dad!  Love you!

So She Thinks She Can Dance!

Avril's latest favorite thing to do, is to push the button on her new Snoopy Christmas Toy! Great Grandma Parkinson brought this over the other day as a gift and it is a total hit! This musical Snoopy toy plays 3 different songs and Avril will keep on pushing the button just as one song finishes to start the next one. Yes, she's that smart!! In this video we even caught her busting a move! This is so funny, she is just having too much fun!

Another Birthday?

We celebrated my birthday at my parents' house with dinner, games, cake, gifts, family, and good times!  I would've rather bypassed the whole aging thing but I guess its an excuse for gathering with loved ones and eating cake so I can't complain too much!

Delicious!

The white candles are for decades... Happy Birthday to me!!

The Scrunchy Nose Smile

Avril's latest facial expression that has us all wildly entertained, is her "scrunchy nose smile" face. She often does this when she's excited... which is a lot.
Below are some video clips where you will see the "scrunchy nose face". See if you can spot it... it looks like this:

Such personality!


Avril's first encounter with a Barbie doll. This was one of mommy's old ones... hence, the giant bald spot on the side of Barbie's head.


Don't drop it!


A plate and spoon?... or a drum and drumstick?


Who knew dishes could be so much fun?!

A Family Outing

School is finally out which means we have had more time to spend together as a family lately. This is fantastic news. We love having daddy home! We decided to go out to lunch together at Cafe Sabor, and then we did some shopping at Macey's. We couldn't resist taking some pics/videos of our little cutie cute.


This was the first time Avril wore her hair in 2 pony tails... one on each side, instead of one poking straight up in the middle. We think it makes her look older. She is almost 10 months in these shots. Can you believe it!? She must feel older because she's already trying to color with the crayons they gave her at Cafe Sabor... ok, more like trying to eat the crayons :)


Haha she just makes me smile :)


Aren't these car-carts the coolest? Avril was not the only one excited about it! Mommy and Daddy thought this was pretty cool too! After our day of family outings Avril was ready to come home and take a nap. We wore that baby out!

I'm Copying this Post from My Parents' Blog

... just cuz it's too cute!
Here are some shots of Avril getting into the Christmas spirit...

Here's the cutest reindeer with her puppy. See what she says below...

"Wudoff (Rudolf), I wants to have a tuwn to guide Santa's sleigh!"

"I tink I taw mommy kissin' Santa Cwaus!"

Christmas Pictures

We wanted to take some family Christmas pictures to make a Christmas card this year and it was just too much fun dressing Avril up in her "Santa Baby" outfit! Here is a glimpse of our fun photo shoot:


Avril couldn't keep her hands off of mommy's necklace so we decided to let her wear it for a little while.


Yes! I got my way :)


Now a pose for the camera, to show how pretty I look in mommy's necklace.


Avril was sort of cooperating so we were able to get a few good shots for our Christmas card :)


Somehow Jesse's football made it in to our family pics.



I think Avril was trying to sing Christmas carols in this one.


Daddy gasps with delight that Avril has taken a liking to his sport.


Mmm, tasty finger...


The cutest part of Avril's outfit, her little "Santa Baby" on the bum!


Mommy and Daddy

After our photo shoot Daddy and Avril took over the kitchen to make some yummy dinner. Avril was being such a Santa's little helper!

Daddy and Av read the instructions on how to cook the shrimp!


No sweat! We can do this!


Yay! I can't wait to eat the yummy shrimp!


And then... Santa's little helper helped with the dishes!! What a fantastic night!!

Avril kept herself (and the rest of us) entertained by playing with daddy's football :)