Trip to Arizona

Over the Christmas Break we were very fortunate to spend some time with Geoff's family in Arizona.  After Hylie did a superb job handling her first flight, Geoff's sister and brother-in-law, Heather and Lonn, were so kind to pick us up, let us crash at their place, and then we all caravaned down to Tuscan.  We were so excited that Geoff's brother, Todd, was able to come down for a visit from Minnesota the same time we were there.

Hylie was enjoying the chance to meet her Aunt and Uncles and Grammy and Pappy were thrilled to see how much she has grown since October.

We took advantage of the beautiful Arizona weather and went on several walks.  Can you tell which family members are Arizona natives and which ones are visiting from colder climates?  Geoff and I also got a kick out of the Christmas decorations we saw throughout the neighborhood.

Hylie tuckered out from a long walk

 During our visit we enjoyed amazing food by Grammy, lots of time to gab and hang out, Wii competitions, and nightly games.

Geoff showing off his archery skills...and amazing bed head.

Hylie hanging with Aunt Heather

Proof that Hylie did not cry EVERY time Lonn held her

Brothers being brothers

 It was a delightful trip.  Geoff was so grateful to catch up with family, I was excited to get to know everyone better and Hylie enjoyed being spoiled constantly.

Thank you, Woodhouse Clan, for a wonderful week!

Christmas Happenings

A few days before we left for Arizona, Geoff came home with a wonderful surprise.

That's right, he dug out our Christmas Tree from our storage unit!  (Trust me, this was no small feat.)  Apparently, Geoff got the tree over two weeks before, but I was always home when he got off work so he was keeping it in his trunk until he could set it up without me knowing.  He kept asking me if I wanted to go to the gym or on a walk with Hylie, but I was always too tired for the gym, or it was too cold outside.  Finally, one night he came home and told me I had to stay in the Nursery until he told me to come out.  Needless to say I was super excited with his surprise and told him the next time he wants me out of the house, just tell me to go shopping.

We also put together a Gingerbread House.  No, it's not the traditional Nelson graham cracker style, but it worked for us this year.  As we were putting it together, Geoff mentioned this was his first EVER Gingerbread House!  I have a feeling this will be his first of many...

One night I decided to try a Pinterest idea and make Christmas tree waffles.  I think I'm going to log this as my first Pinterest FAIL.  They tasted great, but they didn't stay green!

What Pinterest says they should look like...

How the waffles turn out in real life.

I was also asked to direct our Church Choir for the Christmas program in our new ward.  We didn't start rehearsing until December 2nd but everything came together so wonderfully and we had a fun time singing together.  I arranged a selection incorporating "Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing" and "Angels We Have Heard on High" and also played a violin duet with another gal in our congregation.  I enjoyed being involved and couldn't have done it without Geoff's amazing help and support.  He was always tending to Hylie when I was conducting and even helped make some cookie treats I wanted to give the choir.  Thanks for being a super Dad and husband, Geoff!

Part of the script read for the Christmas program told a story of Elder Holland that I had never heard before.  Here is a link to the story, I hope it will touch your heart as much as it did ours.

Four Months

 Hylie won't stop growing!  She's already four months old.  She's in the 85th percentile weighing in at 15 lbs. 15 oz. and is 25 inches long.

Recently she's been figuring out how her hands work and has been shoving anything she can into her mouth.  It's been fun to finally watch her play with some of her toys!  She's also kicking her legs more and more and I'll find her rotating around on her blanket when she's chillin' on the floor.

She's decided that sleeping through the night wasn't as much fun as she had hoped, so she's back to multiple night-time get-togethers.  When I talked to the doctor about her eating and sleeping habits, he said it was time for "Sleep Training"...which is just a fancy way to say "let her cry it out."  I've decided I'm not very good at that, but Geoff's hopeful that it will bring me more sleep, so he's helping me be strong and not get Hylie out of her crib.

We also attempted a "Christmas Photo Shoot" a few days ago.  Here are some pics:

Christmas Countdown

Since most of our Christmas stuff is buried in our storage unit, we had to get a little creative to show our Christmas spirit in the house.  So I turned our Christmas Advent Calendar into our Tree as well.

Each ornament has an activity for us to do each day such as reading about Joseph and Mary, watching a Christmas movie, or making goodies for our neighbors.  Geoff certainly has been a trooper in participating after his long days at work. It's kind of nice to test out these Christmas ideas while Hylie's a little baby so we know what works well and what doesn't.  We're mostly grateful to be together and learning more about our Savior and how He has eternally blessed our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year our little family was able to travel down to PA to be with my family for Thanksgiving.  It has been at least ten years since I was home for the holiday, so it was such a treat for me!  Hylie was excited to meet more of her cousins, Uncle Dean, Aunt Andrea, and Great-Grandma and Pap Pap, of course!  We were also able to finally meet Braddock--he sure is a handsome little fella!

We enjoyed eating way too much food, catching up with everyone, a little bit of crafting, getting hair cuts & being tutored on cutting hair (thanks Andrea!), and a Scrabble game with Janna.

Dean and Andrea had some extra tickets to the Phipps Conservatory and Grandma and Grandpa Nelson offered to baby-sit all 5 grand kids (all under the age of 5) while Grant, Rachel, Dean, Andrea, Geoff and I ventured out for a mid-day date.  It was a beautiful conservatory and as you will see, Geoff couldn't help but get in some of the shots to help 'add perspective'.

Thanks for a great Thanksgiving weekend, Mom and Dad.  We are so incredibly thankful for such a loving family who is always so fun to be around.  Looking forward to more visits!

Cousin Time

On Saturday Grant, Rachel and Eli came over to watch Hylie while Geoff and I went to the temple.  What a treat it was to enjoy a session and see the beautiful Chicago Temple.  When we got back we found out that Grant and Rachel had a pretty easy baby-sitting job, Hylie slept the entire time!

Grant and Rachel then took off to do a session, they came back and we all enjoyed dinner together and then Geoff and I continued to watch Eli while his Mom and Dad enjoyed a night in downtown Chicago.

Eli was a cutie and enjoyed getting acquainted with his little cousin.

After I put Hylie down for the night, I came out of the nursery to find Eli snuggled up to Geoff and was ready to call it a night as well!

Three Months

 Hylie turns three months old today.  Looking back at her pictures from birth to now, she has really grown and changed...and she's only just begun!  We sure love having Hylie around.  She is smiling more and more and has started to give us some giggles when she's really tired.  Another thing we absolutely adore is that Hylie is starting to 'talk'.  She coos and gurgles and just makes the greatest baby sounds that we could listen to all day.  For a while I was feeling pretty special when she'd be looking into my eyes and just jabbering away--thinking, this is great bonding time!  But that special feeling faded away when I watched her carry on a pretty intense conversation with the ceiling fan.  Oh well.

As stated in the last post, Hylie loves to suck her thumb, but she hasn't learned to be very subtle about it yet.  Whenever you hear a sound like someone is just finishing their favorite milkshake, but there are no shakes around, you can be pretty sure it's Hylie sucking away at her thumb.  It's particularly amusing when she does so in the quiet moments of Sacrament Meeting.

I almost hesitate to put this in writing, but she is sleeping really well at night.  To say the least, sleep deprivation was wearing me down, so it has been a huge blessing for now...we'll see how long it continues.  When she wakes up, instead of crying we'll hear her talking and moving around and it is just delightful...I wonder how long this phase will last, ha ha!  She's also started putting herself to sleep for naps.  I used to rock her to get her down, but she's been getting better at staying content in her crib and fading away on her own.  I sure miss the snuggle time...but I think in the long run letting her fall asleep on her own will be the better alternative.

Her typical tummy time position...she rarely lifts her head.

So that's this little lady in a nutshell for now!  

We sure are loving every moment.

Sleeping Beauty

Ever since birth, some of Hylie's sleep habits have caused Geoff and I to giggle.  One of the first things we noticed is that Hylie liked to sleep with her arms stretched above her head.  She STILL does this!

Because she would jerk quite a bit at night, her arms would wake her up, so we found swaddling would help her have longer sleeping spells...but the minute she'd wake up, the escape artist side of her would take over and you'd hear her grunting in her crib trying to work her way out of the swaddle.  It wouldn't be long before she'd tucker out from all the hard work and we'd find her sound asleep and literally 'caught' in the middle of her act.

Every once in a while, Hylie falls asleep while we're on the road...it's amazing how well she sleeps in her little 'bucket'.

One thing we love is that Hylie does like to snuggle.  We're hoping she'll want to do this for a LONG time!

Recently, Hylie's been a little more consistent at going for her thumb.  I was hoping I could distract her with a pacifier...but with no luck.  Yes, it's cute now...but this will be a hard habit to break!

Happy Halloween!

As first-time Halloween parents we were pretty excited to doll up our little girl.  Truly, with the craziness of the move we couldn't have done it without help.  Just before we left Denver, a sweet work friend of mine, Alice, surprised us with a super-cute lady bug costume!  Now my only task was to figure out a 'family theme' around the lady bug.  The only thing I could come up with was for Geoff to dress up like a "BUG" and I would dress as a "LADY".

We got our costumes ready for our ward's Trunk-or-Treat, but the event was pretty much all outside at a park and it was almost freezing weather.  There was one small building where people could escape to for warmth, that's where Geoff and Hylie hung out while I passed out candy, so people never really saw us together, so our costumes never truly worked.  But no matter!  There's always next year!  But one thing's for sure, Hylie definitely looked cute!

 

We certainly look forward to more Halloween's which will be filled with Pumpkin Patches, Pumpkin Carving, Costumes, and little fingers helping me make cookies instead of me hurriedly doing so during nap time.

Bread! Glorious, Bread!

For our wedding, Grandma Furin was extremely generous and gave us a bread maker and wheat grinder.  We were so excited to experience the delightful loaves that would come from such gifts.  I had attempted to make bread prior to the bread maker entering our lives with some success, but it seemed Denver's altitude had too much influence on the outcome.  The bread maker proved to bring a great deal of improvement to my baked goods, showing much success on regular, white bread but when I would make wheat bread, each loaf came out different--some remarkably well and others...let's just put it this way, one brother in our Denver Ward had a taste of one of the loaves I made which didn't rise as much as past loaves had.  He lifted a piece and declared, "Why, this is pioneer bread!"  After Geoff and I asked what he meant he proudly explained, "This is the type of bread they would throw at the Indians!"  Ugh.  I was definitely wanting more consistency with my bread experiences.  So I begged a sister in our ward who was notorious for her amazing baked goods.  At first she brushed me off, but my persistent begging finally convinced her that I wanted to know how to bake bread in high altitude.  Finally, an appointment was set.  She gave me the list of ingredients to get, one of which was "Dough Enhancer".  I went from store to store looking for this product with no success.  Finally, I asked her where she finds hers.  "Utah," was her reply.  By this time I was 6 months pregnant and had no plans of traveling anywhere.  But luckily, Dean and Andrea did (Andrea's way more brave than I am to travel prego).  So they were kind enough to pick up some Dough Enhancer for me while they were visiting family.  We set another appointment which was postponed due to Hylie's birth.  Another appointment set, but the sweet sister got sick.  Then Geoff and I realized we were moving, so after all the efforts, I never learned how to make perfect bread in the Mile-High City.  But no worries, because now that we're in Chicago, we experience beautiful bread like this:

I cannot tell you how I squealed with delight when I opened up the machine after our first attempt of making wheat bread in Chicago.  I think I'm going to like living here.  :)

Hylie's Blessing Day

Hylie was blessed on our first Sunday in Chicago.  We wanted to have her blessing at a time when family would be present and since Mom and Dad Woodhouse were troopers and helped us move, they were with us for the occasion.  To make things even better, my parents and Janna drove over from Pittsburgh as well--so Hylie was spoiled and had both sets of Grandparents with her.  Grant and Rachel hosted the Pittsburgh travelers and made the drive over to Niles to help us move, feed us some yummy food, and be there for her blessing.  What a treat to be surrounded by family!  We are truly grateful to be here in Chicago and have already spent some more time with Grant, Rachel and Eli.

The day of Hylie's blessing was pretty rainy, so we took pictures inside where the lighting wasn't that great because we still weren't anywhere near being situated from the move!

Dad and Grant were able to stand in on the blessing

Grammy and Pappy getting in a few more squeezes before they headed to the airport

Rachel, Eli and Grant with Hylie

Grandma and Grandpa Nelson and Aunt Janna with Hylie

Grandma Nelson made Hylie's blessing dress and the beautiful blessing blanket

Hylie enjoying being held by Aunt Janna

If I look tired it's because I was exhausted from the move.  I don't know how we could have made it without all the help we received from friends and family!

Geoff pronounced a beautiful blessing on Hylie.  We already feel so incredibly blessed to have this lovely daughter in our lives.  We can only hope and pray to return to her the happiness she brings us.