Merry "Pre"-Christmas and Happy Birthday

It was Eric's 25th birthday last Friday!Not only was it Eric's birthday but we both finished our last finals on that day as well, meaning we have another semester down! Eric had a pretty heavy load this last semester with Business Law, Accounting, a business finance class and an entrepreneur class. Needless to say he was gone all last week studying for those finals. My semester was also a little different then normal in that I took a critical research class and family theories class. My research class was basically applied statistics which wasn't bad, however my theory class really made me use critical thinking as we learned about the different theories that are used to help understand families. I love being able to look back and realize all the things I learned over a semester, but it wasn't by my favorite class so I am glad to be done with it as I am sure Eric is for his as well!

Anyway, we had a lot to celebrate that night so we figured we might as well do a little "pre" Christmas celebration and opened all our presents under the tree from my parents after Eric opened his birthday presents. Ok, I'll admit it was a little against my "traditional Christmas" plans, but we thought it would be less we would have to pack when we leave for Vernal to be with Eric's family for Christmas.

With a little help from my mom, I was able to get Eric that Iphone that he has been really wanted for awhile know. And I would just like to add that I was able to keep this a secret and really surprise him with this gift!

We got a Kinect and a zumba game for me!

My drill!!!! Projects here I come! And an external hard-drive I've really been needing for all of my pictures.

This years Christmas tree. Both of our families go out in the mountains and cut down real Christmas trees each year and Eric and I have been lucky to keep tradition going, especially thanks to his Grandparents who cut our tree down for us this year.

I also made Eric a nice birthday dinner complete with Steak and shrimp, twice-baked potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, rolls and homemade paradise pie for dessert. Even though the pictures don't do it justice, it was all really delicious!!  We ended the night by watching "The Rise of the Planet of the Apes".

Happy Birthday Eric! I'm so glad to have been a part of your life these last three years and for the rest to come! You are the greatest husband and father a girl could ever ask for!!

Ode to Crafts!

Anyone who knows me, knows I have recently gotten into crafting over the last couple of years. As I was looking for things to ask for for Christmas I decided to ask for a drill and even was considering a jigsaw and nail gun. Eric gave me a weird look when he saw my list, but I have big plans to kick my crafting up a notch, especially when we finally get a house and I have some space (very far into the future)! Anyway, here will be my first project when I get my tools...

Wall Bookshelves for Mia's room: I have always had a love for reading especially as a child. I've been wanting to get a big library for Mia when I read to her and when she gets old enough to pick out her own bedtime stories. Anyway, I ended up splurging a little and bought over 250 children books for a lady on KSL. I've loved having different books to read Mia other than the two we previous had and this is what I plan to do in our next place.

As for now, here are few projects I've done recently for Christmas presents.

Kitchen Wall Art: I have a good friend who I've said I would help her with decorating her apartment and I thought what better gift then some home decor! It turned out really cute! I hope she doesn't mind me posting her Christmas present.

Magnetic Nativity: I've been looking for a good gift for the girls I visit teach and found this perfect idea since they all have young children. I found this really cute nativity clip-art online for $1 and then printed it off on magnetic sheets and cut it out. To give it a little extra protection from children I put a coating of mod podge over the pieces. I didn't take a picture of it but here is the clip art I used.

I also rearranged Mia's bedroom. We use to have a double bed in there but found out that Mia was not a very good sleeping partner and we hardly used the bed so on a whim I decided to sell it and got it taken off my hands the same day I listed in on KSL! Anyway, it was some great extra cash for the holidays and really opened up Mia's room. I even finally got around to putting up the window frame I made last winter!

This little love of mine

I'm at it again...a post of how stinking cute little, miss Mia is! I'm sure everyone just rolls their eye at another mother bragging about their child, but this must be documented!!! Mia's personality is showing through more and more each day and I can already tell she is going to be a spunky little girl. Let me define spunky...she is very playful and when we play silly games with her she plays right back, she is always smiling, playing and seeing how loud she can be while she does it. She will play for hours with her toys and I love hearing her playfully scream in the background as I'm getting things done around the apartment. Mia also can be very persistent. When she sets her sights on something she goes for it, even when she hears mom in the background telling her no she just turns her head and smiles and goes right back to what she was doing. Even though I know this can eventually prove to be a problem, for now I can't help but laugh to myself before I go get her that somehow she manages to be really cute as she disobeys me. Needless to say, Mia has and continues to bring the greatest feelings of joy into my life. I'm often telling Eric, "I'm so glad we did this!" (As in have a baby) She is my little pal throughout the day (whether she wants to be or not) that I find myself talking, singing and reading to and acting silly around.

Mia is now army crawling around. She gets on her hands and knees to sit up by herself, but anytime she wants to get somewhere she goes back down on her stomach. She is also becoming a very good eater. We're introducing her to new foods every day and she is able to feed herself little snacks! Mia also is learning to pull herself up on things which come with a lot of toppling over, but most of the time she takes it with a brave face. There isn't too much that phases her, expect when she is getting her mouth wipes off or nose blown.

Anyway, as appreciation for making it through yet another ranting post here are some picture of Miss Mia being cute as usual.

The other day I couldn't find her and then I noticed she was under this basket hiding.

This girl always has her tongue hanging out! Such a goof ball!

Mia had a friend over the other day. I was actually watching this cutie, Emma and her and Mia got along great! Mia zones in on any kids around her and loves playing with them.

Party like it's the 80's!!!

For Eric and Tyler's 25th birthday Annelise and I threw them an 80's surprise birthday party! Can I just say, even though I was not born in the 80s I still love that decade full of neon colors, and some of my favorite music and movies! I'm not  fantastic at keeping secrets from Eric just because I am a horrible liar so he found out prior to it but it was still really fun! Thanks to all the family and friends who came to celebrate with us! 

We had a snack bar of one of the boy's favorite foods...chili cheese fries and nachos. Then we had a bunch of different candies from the 80's. I love how the cassette tape food labels turned out! It really added to our 80's theme.

I really wished it was a dress-up party, but we decided not to. I still dressed Mia in her 80's outfit anyway and Sophia was sporting her's as well.

One of my favorite things from the party...an 80's photo booth! I didn't get to making all the props I wanted to since Mia was sick all week, but the clothes were awesome. Somehow we ended up with a little of the 70's in it as well...nonetheless really fun!

Annelise and her sister Tiffany made a rubics cake which turned out really cute!

The Birthday Boys!!

For the party I made this Chex mix my family makes every Christmas season. It takes seconds to make and is absolutely delicious so I thought I would share the recipe.

White Chocolate Chex Mix

4 cups Crispix cereal

3 cups Cheerios

2 cups pretzels

1 lb. M&Ms

1 lb. White chocolate (almond bark in baking section at the store)

Melt white chocolate, pour over cereal, etc. Spread on foil to set.

The Thanksgiving Post

This is me finally getting to that Thanksgiving post! I must say I felt a little pressure over Thanksgiving to do everything I blogged about doing; however, after talking to my brother, he assured me that he blogs all the time about doing things and never does them. The thing about the Robertson family is that we always make "big" plans, but only end up doing about 1/4 of them and still end up having a great time.

Anyway, Mia and I had a nice, relaxing week home before all the family started showing up. The crowd of family started showing up Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. We didn't take long jump off the bang-wagon of eating health when we made homemade cazookies that night. Basically I've gotten everyone hooked since Eric and I tried them and the inside joke of me eating three in one weekend. So this particular time I held to my guns and didn't have one with the intent to save room for the ten pies we made/bought for the following night.

Just a few of our many pies!

We actually did not have Thanksgiving until Friday because Sara and Collin originally were not going to be able to make it until Friday morning, but they surprised us by showing up Thursday morning! We decided it would be a good idea to eat pie though Thursday before we were sick from eating Thanksgiving dinner so we make a few small appetizers and ate pie for dinner. Call us weird, but I thought it was a very good idea! For the first time I was able to enjoy eating my pie! Friday was our Thanksgiving day. We had a fabulous meal and sharing it with everyone there (My parents, siblings (minus Tyler, Annelise and Sohpia), Grandpa Bohn, Grandpa and Grandma Robertson, my uncle Pat and two kids and his girlfriend and her little girl)

Unfortunately we did not end up doing the turkey trot due to no one wanting to get up at 6 to run it and our unusual Thanksgiving schedule and getting Christmas trees because we forgot to get tags and didn't want to risk paying a $600 fine if we got caught. However, we still baked and ate a ton of delicious food, mom and I got quite a few Christmas movies in (although not as much as I would have liked), card making, girl's night at Twilight which we all highly regretted after going, "Just Dance" dance off and game night, and all around fun!

Mia had a fabulous time being spoiled by everyone there and rarely ever got put down and I was also very spoiled since my parents had Mia sleep up in a room next to them and my dad got up with her in the mornings and bathed her! A huge thanks Mom and Dad!!!! (Especially since Eric and I were the ones without the room this trip and slept out in the family room once we finally would kick everyone out for the night!) Luckily Mia slept well the whole trip during the nights and was a great baby as usual.

Mia getting her bath in the kitchen sink. (Future blackmail pictures!)

Mia and my Grandma Robertson

Mia got a walker for Christmas! It took her a couple days to figure out she could move in this but she figured it out. She would grab the necks of both the giraffes and look like she was trying to fly a plane. lol 

I love this picture! Mia loves to play and yell at the same time...now you can see where she gets in from ;)

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Baby steps right?...in the past I would not have taken any!

Reminiscing Continued...

Oops, I forgot to add my maternity pictures to my last post as well! I had a friend take them and I forgot completely about them. Better late then never right? It crazy to think that Mia was once inside of me and I sat there wondering each day what she would look and be like...I must say I like the outcome!

Also, stay tuned for my Thanksgiving post if any of you care to know how the Robertson's celebrate Thanksgiving! :)