2011

The order on these might be a little messed up but it was a lot easier to make collages on picnik than use blogger to upload all the pictures.

We started 2011 off 6 months pregnant. We bought our first house! We had my baby shower at the house. Took some maternity pictures and then May 1st Chase Curtis arrived!!!

June was my brother-in-law's wedding. Chase got to meet one of his Great Grandpa's. Hubs celebrated his first father's day (see out of order Mother's day is in the next collage!) and we celebrated our first 4th of July as a family!

I got to have my first Mother's Day. Chase met his other Great Grandpa. We went to Tahoe and Chase got to attend his first wedding in Reno in August.

September was another wedding (yeah the horse pictures). October was the arrival of Chase's best friend and first time at a pumpkin patch. We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary!

Chase had his first Halloween, Thanksgiving, trip to Apple Hill and Christmas!!!


Man, that kid got big fast!

In 2012 some very close family members will be moving closer. I'm excited to see what is in store for us in 2012!!!

De-Christmasing

As I mentioned before, this is our first Christmas in our house. We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope that you all did as well. But, when the heck do you take the Christmas stuff down?!

The boy scouts don't come to get the tree until Saturday morning. So I'll take the tree decorations down Friday. But do I leave everything else up too?

Hubby probably won't have time to take the lights down for awhile. I was surprised the neighbors turned theirs on tonight so we did too. How long do you turn you lights on for?!

Help me! Help me!

Christmas decor

It is our first Christmas in our new house and it was so fun decorating it! Somehow we ended up with the color/theme of red, white, silver, snowflakes.
Coffee table in living room. You can't tell the candle holders are snowflakes. The friends picture is our picture coasters. The Christmas cards scrapbook is a scrapbook of our Christmas cards we send out every year. The baby book is on the shelf below the glass.

Reindeer guy and Christmas throw on loveseat.

Little tree and candle holders in our family room which has turned into "Santa's workshop".

Gotta have Christmas kitchen towels!

A couple cards we just got today. My print from Brittany and a candle.

Candles on dining room table. The dining room table needs more decor!

My janky way to hang the cards up :)

Tree skit.

Christmas countdown Santa!

Merry Christmas welcome mat!

Our tree!

This is our front porch and the tree in the window.

Our stockings.

You've got mail!

It's our Christmas card! In case you can't read it, it says "May the Christmas season fill your home with joy, your heart with love and your life with laughter."

Merry Christmas!!!!

Christmas Quiz!

I wanted to write a post today but I had no ideas until I stumbled on this little gem on Amber's blog!

1. Eggnog or hot chocolate?
HOT CHOCOLATE! I've never had eggnog it looks and sounds disgusting!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?
I'm an only child so Santa didn't have to wrap presents. Now that I have my own house and kiddo Santa is going to wrap presents in special Santa wrapping paper.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
I bought white lights for the tree and Hubby thought they were boring and made me return them. Colored lights on the house and tree now.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Nope

5. When do you put your decorations up?
The day after Thanksgiving.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Fudge

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
My memories are weird. I remember one year getting up in the middle of the night and trying to see what Santa had brought me but I couldn't see. Guess I didn't put my glasses on? I think we have pictures from one Christmas where I still have my head gear on. I'm so sexy!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
These are not things that I can remember!

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
My Dad always begs to be able to open a gift on Christmas Eve. Usually it was the gift from my Grandpa and Step Grandma. They are the worst gift givers. This year, and all the years to come, Chase is opening his jammies to wear that night!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
Lights first, then silver balls, and then personalized ornaments.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it?
It snows like every 8 years and doesn't stick to the ground here. I love going to the snow! We have to take Chase this winter!

12. Can you ice skate?
I used to ice skate competitively. I would love to go with Hubby but I don't want to embarass him. Some moms in our mom group were talking about taking their kids in the strollers. That it just crazy to me!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
I love our video camera we got a few years ago. Love my ipod touch. But the best gift of all is a healthy family!

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Spending time with family! I can't wait to read the Christmas story and Twas the night before Christmas to Chase on Christmas Eve and tuck him into bed and then sneak down the stairs and put out his presents and fill his stocking!

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Fudge, we went over this.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
All of them! Looking at lights, spending time with family...

17. What tops your tree?
Just got it this year its a light up star. I LOVE it!

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving?
I'm bummed this year I don't feel like I got anything exciting for Hubby. I love some of the presents we got for the grandparents!

19. Candy canes: yuck or yum?
Yum! I need one of those see's cherry ones!

20. Favorite Christmas show?
It's Hubby's family's tradition to watch A Christmas story. I love how much they all love it. We watched Four Christmases and wrapped presents this year. Since I don't like Chase watching much tv and once he is in bed I am exhausted that might be all we watch this year.

21. Saddest Christmas song?
Last Christmas?

22. What’s your favorite Christmas song?
My new fave is all I want for Christmas is a hippopotamus. Have you heard it? It's amazing!

Can you see it in our eyes?

When I went browsing through my 2010 photo album on facebook looking for our Christmas pic from last year most of my memories related to where we were in our baby making journey.

Some of you know that Hubs and I dated for 6 years before he proposed. The funny thing was he was ready for kids before he was ready to get married. I didn't want my father to shoot him so we compromised by saying we would not wait too long after we got married to start trying to have a baby. We got married October 2009 and on our honeymoon discussed when we would start trying. I had just been hired by Hubby's company at the end of August 2009 so we wanted to wait a little while.

I am trying to remember now why my friend T and I were emailing about when we would start trying, but I can't. She was getting married the summer of 2010 and we were also emailing about dresses. I forwarded an email to my mom so she could see the pictures of the dress. Well sneaky mom read the whole email history and found out Curtis and I were talking about trying.

This is a picture from her visit to San Diego in February 2010. She told me on this trip that she had read those emails and I think she was going to tell us to wait awhile but I told her I had already stopped taking birth control.

Hubs and I had planned not to tell anyone that we were trying. I didn't want people calling every month to find out if we were pregnant or not. Even though my mom was sneaky I am so glad she knew we were trying. She helped me out a lot through the next few months.

This is a picture from a trip we made to LA in April. I didn't drink on this trip because I thought I might be pregnant. I wasn't.

This picture is from my brother-in-law's graduation from SF state. Again I didn't drink on this trip because I thought I might be pregnant. My mother-in-law made some comments about us making a grandchild for her but she was telling people I was due in June before we got married. She did the math if we got pregnant on our honeymoon. I wasn't due in June and I wasn't pregnant on this trip.

This picture is from this little guy's birthday in July. I will never forget the conversation I had with a friend at this party. No one knew we were trying but it came up that it had taken my friend 6 months to get pregnant. Since we were going on 5 or 6 months at this point I just remember thinking maybe there wasn't something wrong with me.



This is a picture from our anniversary trip in October. I didn't drink this trip because I was PREGNANT! Do we look different? I think I tried to hide my tiny bump under the table but I can't remember. When I look at this picture I feel like we have this amazing and wonderful secret!

Another picture from our anniversary trip. Am I glowing? Do my boobs look bigger? This night when we went back to our hotel after going to the melting pot the elevator lady said something about me being pregnant. She was the first person to comment on my bump. I think it was a food bump from the melting pot, but still.

This post was fun! I love looking back on 2010 and I'm sure I'll always look back on 2011 very fondly since it is the year my baby arrived!

Last Christmas

This is our picture from our Christmas card last year. I'm probably 5 or 5 1/2 months pregnant in this picture. I remember thinking I was so huge at Christmas. Ha!

Let's talk about Glee!

To get Rubber Duckie out of my head last night I tried to remember what songs they sang on Glee this week. Man in the mirror was stuck in my head all night. How great was Man in the mirror?!

I have to admit I was crying at the end. Glad the girls are back!

What did you think of Lindsay from the Glee project's appearance this week? I had been thinking geez Damian has gotten to be on the show a lot and then up pops Lindsay.

I loved the Glee project but I do not love seeing the contestants on the show! Is that weird? Anyone else with me? I think because we got to know them on a reality show it's hard to believe them on the show. Or maybe they aren't great actors like Stephen Colletti. Don't you forget he was on Laguna Beach when you are watching OTH?!

Did any of you not watch Glee project? Do you know which people are from Glee project? Do they bug you too?

Gotta say I really don't think I'll be watching once Finnchel leave!

This isn't funny anymore. I do not have a 7 month old.

What Chase has been up to during his 6th month of life:



Chase got to eat food! We started with avocado. He gagged. We tried homemade green beans. He gagged. We tried gerber green beans and he was a happy boy. He got used to the homemade stuff. He has now had green beans, sweet potatoes, peas, pears, and prunes.




We went to his cousin Luke's 4th birthday spiderman party. The party favor was a golf club and now one of Chase's favorite toys.




We also went to Apple Hill.


We took our first professional pictures as a family and they turned out super cute!

Chase had his first Thanksgiving!

Chase got to drink from a sippy cup for the first time! We probably don't need to go into the details of why he needed juice :)

He started sucking his left thumb a lot. Then he stopped doing it as much. The other day I put him in his crib and he cried a little and then sucked his thumb. Surprised me but made me happy!

In the last few days Chase has really started babbling. We took him Christmas shopping at Target and the whole time he was going, "bababa".

Chase got his first tooth!! I think the second one is in or will be soon.

Chase watched us decorate our house for Christmas. So special that we will be spending our first Christmas as a family for the first time in this house. Does that make sense? It's all new here.

Chase got to go with us to a restaurant and was such a good big boy in his high chair!

He started reaching for me when I go to pick him up! It's my favorite!

He started getting up on his knees and rocking. I thought he would start crawling this month but he does a couple scoots and belly flops.





Chase's aunt let us borrow his cousin's walker. It took him a little while to figure out how to go forward but he is fast now! I have to run to keep up with him! We also play a little walker bowling for fun.





I'm pretty sure he knows his name now. He definitely looks at you when you say Chase.

If you are holding him and he is tired he puts his arms up underneath himself like he does when he sleeps.

I love when he plays with my wedding ring.

I love his giggles.