Ghosts and Goblins and...Little Red Riding Hood

Memories--Here are a picture of Danica at Halloween last year. She was a ballerina and so super cute.

And here are some pictures and a video of Danica at Halloween this year. She was Little Red Riding Hood. She is so tall that the costume (I got the one for 2 year olds) was almost too small.

We went to a neighborhood Halloween party. She loved the cupcake walk, the candy the people. But what she loved more than anything else was the bean bag toss game. She kept running back to it. She became almost a permanent fixture at the table.

No one minded because really she didn't care about the candy. She didn't care if they gave her any or not. All she wanted to do was toss the bean bags through the holes.

Mother's Day Weekend

Danica and I had a very busy Mother's Day weekend. We started celebrating early with a Pool Party and BBQ at a friends house. Danica had not really been in a pool much until the party but she loved it. She stood on the first step of the pool splashing and kicking--and of course giggling. Then one of my friends let us use her pool toy for babies, which looks like an inner-tube but has leg holes for the baby's legs to go through. And she loved that. My dad and I are going to start looking for one for her to use throughout the summer because she had so much fun being lead around the pool on that.

Here are some pictures from the party:


Then on Sunday we decided to go to Harper's Nursery and get the herbs that I wanted for Mother's Day. Unfortunately they did not have any thyme that looked good for cooking (the onese there were more for ground cover). But they had Rosemary and Basil. So that is what I got, but they told me to try again in two weeks and they should have more options.

So I took the Basil (I named him Rathbone) and Rosemary (Rosie) home and transplanted them. Here are some pictures of them now: I am hoping they will grow as quickly as Danica did. :)



Finally, Dad noticed that we had a hummingbird who built a nest on our carport. I had seen the hummingbird a couple of times flying around some of our bushes--I showed Danica and of course she giggled. But it was neat to see the nest. I had never been this close to one.

Halloween!!

Danica's first Halloween costume was a ballerina outfit that her daddy picked out for her--complete with cute pink shoes that she wore until they no longer fit. And yes, they already don't fit. I love kids shoes.

We went to the neighborhood Halloween party where she played games and charmed everyone with her cuteness. It was a lot of fun.

Christmas Day

Luckily Santa didn't wake us up too early here--we didn't get home until after midnight from the Christmas Eve festivities with Corey's family. But we did open a few gifts here this morning.

This year Corey and I decided to start a tradition of getting each other and Danica a Christmas Ornament each year. Here are pictures of what we got this year:

This is the one that Corey got me--It says Baby's First Christmas and he put a picture of Danica and Santa in it. It was beautiful.
This is the one I got for Corey. It's called Living on Baby Time and says things like Diaper Time, Sleeping Time, Eating Time, Lullaby Time...you get the picture. And since that has been our focus for the last couple of months it was fitting. He got a big chuckle out of it.
And this is the one we got for Danica. Since her room has a Pooh theme we thought it was perfect. Around the bottom it says, "A baby," Said Pooh "Is a Very Nice Thing." And I have to say she is very nice.

After we opened our presents, we went to Shirley's to open more presents and have Christmas Lunch. And it was wonderful. Unfortunately, in my daze (did I mention not going to bed until well after midnight) I left the camera memory card in the computer (after my post about Christmas Eve), so I didn't get any pictures. But my cousin will probably post pictures in a few days. I plan to copy some of her pictures since I know that a certain cute little baby was in quite a few of them. :)

Some of the moments:

Corey got gift cards from Best Buy and wanted to know if they were open on Christmas for him to go spend them--and he may wake up the moment they do open to get himself something (he has quite decided yet what he wants--but the cards are burning a whole in his pocket).

Danica got a play mat--and did tummy time for everyone to see. She loves her gift.

Dad's brisket that he made by modifying the recipe used to make Brisket at the reunions went over famously. Corey had never had it and he loved it. And now I want the modified recipe (the original calls for like 200 pounds of meat--not likely to happen for a family of three).

Danica got her first quilt--it is so cute. And it is nice and thick and warm. She loved it!

Flannery had all of our presents passed out to our spots before we had even sat down. She was so excited to find more presents with her name on them. :)

Danica got her first stuffed horse--now all I need to do is get a picture of her in her cowgirl outfit with her stuffed horse and we will all be set. :)

You may have noticed someone's name popping up a lot in my memories from Christmas. What can I say--I am a little enamored with our little blessing this Christmas. It is hard to believe by next Christmas she will be walking and talking and not be my baby girl (by then she will be my big girl).

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is when Corey's family traditionally gets together for the family gift exchange. And so last night was Danica's first real taste of Christmas--and she seemed to like it. She lasted much longer than Corey and I ever expected. And she watched with an amazed look on her face as everyone opened gifts.

Last night was the first time Corey's nieces met Danica--and they were amazed with her. They were constantly asking to hold her. They couldn't believe that she wore diapers and drank milk--and were totally shocked when we told them that they used to do that too. Here are pictures of them holding Danica--they were so excited:


The girls also loved giving Danica hugs and kisses.
Corey's dad is home from the hospital and loved holding Danica too--what can I say she is quite popular. Corey's nieces also loved to be picked up by their uncle. And when he picked them up they were fascinated with his sunglasses. It was so cute:

Corey's favorite gift was the picture quilt his mom made him with pictures and momentos from his childhood. She had news clippings from when Corey played hockey that listed the number of goals he made and his stats from when he played goalie. And his baby pictures were on it--Danica is a spitting image of her daddy when he was a baby (with more hair though--hehe).

Overall it was a wonderful evening.

Tis the Season

Corey and I have learned that Christmas decorating with a newborn must be done in stages--and so far the only stage we have completed has been the tree. But really we were rather proud of ourselves for figuring out how to get our tree up--the directions were not helpful at all.

So now I am answering my cousin's call to show our Christmas decorations--I will try to show more as we get them done.

While Danica may have been sleeping, someone else in our house was watching us put the tree up for the first time. And we have some concerns about how she is going to handle the tree and the ornaments.While I was giving Danica a bath, Corey took a picture of Brandy investigating the tree. We are actually starting to take a pool on how many of our ornaments we will have at the end of the holiday season--but so far she hasn't found them yet. But she has tried to eat one of the bottom branches--hopefully artificial trees are not toxic to investigating cats?
But we also have realized we have many decisions to make regarding our decorations and the traditions we want to start in our family. First you may have noticed we don't have a tree topper--we can't decide what we want at the top of the tree. Its a big decision.

Second, we have our wonderful stockings but no mantle. So we have to decide where we are going to put our stockings. I was going to line them up with garland under the window by the tree--but Corey reminded me that Brandy would probably think they were her new toys. And I probably would have to murder the cat if she attacked our stockings.

Speaking of stockings I have to show everyone the beautiful stocking that my Aunt Shirley made to match Corey's (she made it too) and my stocking (my grandma made that one). Isn't it the cutiest stocking ever!!

When I figure out how I am going to display the stockings I will take more pictures so you can see all three of the stockings. But as you can see--our Christmas decorations are a work in progress right now. :)

Thanksgiving

As this day comes to a close I realized that we haven't really talked a lot about what we are giving thanks for this holiday season. Well it may be obvious that we have a new family member that we are very thankful for. We are thankful that she was born healthy. We are thankful that I had a safe delivery. We are thankful that Corey was able to get the time off from his new job to spend time with us the first week.

But even before she was born we had a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful for my job at ASU--my dream job at my favorite place (go SUN DEVILS!!). And even when I am stressed and things are crazy at work--I remember that this is 100 million times better than working at UOP. We are thankful for each other--we have been through a lot as a couple but have found strength in each other. We are thankful for our families who have been supportive of us even if they didn't agree with all of the decisions we made (of course now that they have Danica to play with they forgive us for everything) :).

And we are thankful for our friends who have always been there for us to make us laugh or help us think through a new idea or make plans for things we want to do.

Overall we have a lot to be thankful for. But today we will share with you some of our thanksgiving pictures featuring the person we are most thankful for this year:

Danica in her Bouncy chair that Aunt Shirley gave her with her outfit from Bradi--Danica is a cowgirl already:

Danica looking around--ahh she is so cute!!

Danica and her grandpa:

Danica sleeping after the turkey dinner--I seem to remember other Nicolls needing a nap as soon as the dinner was done...hehe: