Christmas Day

First of all,  HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my friends and family!  It is currently 11:09pm and I am blogging.  Oh, and washing piles of laundry from our trip.  Thankfully we are not totally lame, and went to some friends house for dinner earlier this evening.  Thanks Brittany and Travis for the yummy food and great company!  We loved it!

Anyway, we had a wonderful Christmas.  My brother Nate and his family came over from Boise and my brother Mike and his wife Megan spent a lot of time hanging out with us (which we loved).  The boys played A LOT of Halo Reach on the xbox, we ate out, had frozen yogurt, saw old friends, took naps, went sledding, played games...and many other things.  Christmas Eve was wonderful as well.  As Jorgensen family tradition's past, we met up with all of my dad's family for a little Christmas Eve dinner.  It was great, and so fun to see family I hadn't seen in a while.   After heading back home, my mom passed out all of our Christmas PJs.  She put a lot of thought into them - all the girls had matching PJs and so did all the guys.  While passing out the boy's PJs we all noticed that they said 'Jingle My Bells' hahah....my sweet Mother had bought them thinking they said JINGLE BELLS.  The added 'my' made a huge difference! haha.  We all got a good laugh out of it.  My poor mom was so horrified and embarrassed that she may have even cried.  We all thought it was super funny though, and will remember that moment for forever!!  Thanks Mom, for such a great Christmas memory! haha (And don't kill me for telling everyone)!

Christmas morning we woke up early, opened presents and mom made a wonderful Christmas breakfast.  Just a warning ahead of time.  There are a lot of pictures, so bear with me.

Seeing what's in my stocking......

Chuck the Dump Truck from Grandma and Papa.....



A motorcycle of my very own......and some cars too.  Oh how I love cars....

What could this be, what could it be???

A Cars movie race station.....oh my oh my....

Realization/excitement set in....

Everyone is having a good time!

Golf shoes for Andy....

And a new Gingham quilt for Aunt Megan - made by yours truly, my VERY talented mother and even a little help from my sister Whitney.  Megan loved it! 



We were so blessed to have a wonderful and generous Christmas.  So grateful to have such wonderful family, on both sides.  We are so lucky to have them all in our lives, and are especially grateful for them this year.  I am sad to see Christmas come and go, but I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well!  Here's to a positive new year!  



Traveling and the 24 Hour Flu

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  That's the first thing that came out of my mouth when we finally made it to my parents house.  Our travels ended up being a lot more eventful than we had anticipated and it all started around 3am. 

Our flight left around 8am on Monday morning...so in attempts to save money on a hotel room...we decided to wake up early and make the 2 hour drive to the airport that same morning.  Andy and I woke up around 3 am to get ready and finish up all the packing.  Once on the road Noah fell back asleep and we were making great time.  Then, about an hour and a half into our drive Noah started gagging.  I figured he was gagging on mucus, since he has been suffering from a chronic runny nose.  I turn around to wipe his nose and realize that he is not gagging on mucus, but he is in fact, throwing up.  I crawl to the back seat and try to clean him up as much as possible, until we can pull over and change his clothes.  Once we were able to, we pulled over for a quick stop and changed his shirt.  We all felt better, and Noah seemed to be back to his old self.  I wasn't sure if it was motion sickness, or if he was actually sick.  So we figured motion sickness, since he seemed to be a lot better. 

After we made it to the airport and proceeded to check in, we headed down to the security check.  We were running a little behind, and our flight was jam packed, so we wanted to be sure to get through security quickly.  While I am taking trying to get things organized I turn just in time to see Noah throw up all over the side of Andy's face and down the front of his NICE coat and Shirt.  Awesome.  The TSA people were super nice and helpful and after a lot of adjusting (and wiping up puke off the floor), we made it though security.  Once we made it to our gate, I ran to buy Andy a new shirt so he wouldn't be drenched in puke all day.   Meanwhile I was praying that Noah wouldn't throw up on the plane. 

Well, after a 3 hour flight and 2 throw up incidences (thankfully we asked for barf bags that saved our life), we made it to Salt lake City.  At this point I hadn't given Noah anything to eat, for fear that he would throw up all over me.  I already had it on my shirt, on Noah's pants and socks, and also on my jacket.  So when we went to meet Andy's brother Greg for lunch, we figured we could give him a little something to drink and see if that would help.  It didn't.  He threw up in the middle of the restaurant.  Thankfully it wasn't much.   Poor guy.  All in all, after one more incident right before bed...Noah had a pretty rough day.  I am glad it was only a 24 hour bug, because you can imagine (after getting it right in the face)  Andy caught the flu just a couple of days later. 

There were some happy points of our short stay in Utah though....and here are some picture to document them.  Thankfully while we were at Temple Square, my dad was kind enough to stay at the hotel with Noah so we could put him to bed.  Thanks Dad.

The Denning and Oakey Clan

Alyssa, Whitney, Me and my Mom

Andy, Me, Gus, Greg, Finn, Allice and Cammie

This is what happens when you have the guys take your picture..........

Finally, a decent one.......

We had a great (but short) visit in Salt Lake, and loved that we could spend it with my Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and also Greg, Allice the boys and Cammie. We appreciate everyone making the trip to come see us.  We are SO blessed to have such wonderful family and friends.  Seriously. So. Blessed.

More pictures and stories from our trip coming soon! 
PS.  If you are wondering why I am walking around in the freezing cold with my coat unbuttoned, it's simple,  I can no longer button it up without looking like this dude -  aka.  Fat Guy in a Little Coat

Burnt Marshmallow

Yesterday I finally picked up a winter coat for Noah.  It's always an inner struggle for me....do I spend $50-$100 to get a really nice coat for him, even if he may only be able to wear it for one year, or do I get the cheap one?   I decided to get a cheaper one for him this year.  Since the only place we have to shop here is Walmart (I know you feel bad for me right?), then obviously that's where I picked it up.  It was only $13.  And even if it isn't fancy, he LOVES it.  In fact, he wore it around the house all afternoon yesterday.   It's so puffy that he can barely move around, and it makes him look like a burnt marshmallow.  Good thing we love the burnt ones!!

Last night while I was making dinner I put on Toy Story 3 and found Noah chilling on the couch, in his coat, enjoying the show.  

Notice he has his trusty dog with him.  We got that stuffed dog a while ago and Noah loves him.  The tag on his bum says his name is Jazzy, but Andy didn't like that - so we call him Mo.  It's the only kind of dog that Noah will every be allowed to own, so it's a good thing he has him.

Noah also loves his cars.  I posted a while ago about how he loves to line them up.  He still does that occasionally, but lately he likes to lay on the floor, couch or coffee table and play with his cars while he lays there.  

Just to give you an idea...Noah will lay down on ANY floor to play with his cars.  The other day I made a trip to a fabric store about 30 miles away.  When we walk in, Noah sees a little basket with a bunch of toys in it (obviously for children to play with).   I set him down and he starts pulling them out...tractors, cars, dinosaurs...a little boy's dream.  I start looking for what I need and turn around to find him lying in the middle of the isle, on the cement floor playing with the cars.  I kept bugging him to get up, but it was useless.  I figured that there was only one other person in the store, and it was a very small store, so I just let him lay there.  Sometimes I avoid situations that I know will cause tantrums, and that day it just wasn't worth it to me (of course he did throw one when we had to leave, but I expected that). 

We are getting ready to head out west for Christmas and CAN'T wait (I know I mentioned this in my previous post as well).  Just to give you an idea of how much Noah has changed in the last 7 months...here are some side by side pics. 

I think the fam will be pretty surprised!

Party at Our House!

Or at least it was a party at our house, over the Thanksgiving holiday!  Our friends, the Whipple's, traveled to good old MO from Kansas to celebrate the Holiday with us.  It's a good thing too, because Morgan cooked the Turkey - and saved me from having to figure that part out for myself! 

The weekend was full of FOOD, Christmas movies, decorating the Tree, Golf and Video games (for the boys at least), Sewing, Shopping in Saint Louis - oh and Food. 

The day of Thanksgiving was great! The girls helped me to set the table and we were all so proud of the finished product! They are such good helpers!!

 Its amazing how hard you can work on preparing a meal, to have it finished in about 20 minutes!  It was worth it though, we enjoyed every bite on Thanksgiving (and for a couple days after too!) 

Here is what Andy and Corky did a lot of (can you say Halo Reach?)  Andy doesn't get the opportunity to play video games very often, so he and Corky jumped at the chance!

Apparently the sofa wasn't close enough to the TV, so they parked it on the coffee table.  Looks super comfortable, right?

The Girls decided they would help me out by taking care of Noah's unruly hair (I don't do his hair every day, because there just isn't much there).  The girls did a great job though, and we got a good laugh out of it.  Noah was very patient and let them make him over.

Noah loves Gracey and Emily!  When he saw that they were here he ran around in circles, squealing with joy.  He gave them lots of hugs, watched Rudolf with them, Jumped in the love sac and of course, let them make him over. 

We decided to take a day trip to Saint Louis to show the Whipple's around, since they had never been.  We stopped at the Arch, had a little picnic in the back of the car and then, of course, headed to the mall.  It was freezing, but we still enjoyed ourselves!!

At the mall, Morgan and I decided to walk through Anthropologie, to take a gander.  Who did we see there?  Well, see for yourself!

That's right friends, that's NieNie herself, and her Ma too!  They were SO nice, I can't even tell you.  It was great being able to chat with them...and certainly made my day. 

So, as you can obviously see, we had a great weekend...and you even get a nice peek at the bump.  The picture isn't super flattering of me, but you get the idea.  We had a wonderful time and now can't wait for CHRISTMAS, and I am pretty sure my parents and the rest of the Jorgensen clan can't wait either!!