Chopping Our Tree!

We started a new family tradition this year- chopping our own Christmas Tree! It was so much fun driving way high into the mountains, down snowy roads no one had been on yet, to find the perfect tree. The snow was pretty deep but the weather was nice. Dallen wore his little snow suit and got to sit in a pile of snow for the first time. He loved it! :) Lily had a hard time keeping up since she could only jump so high in and out of the snow. She mostly stuck to our tracks. We found a really nice, tall symmetrical tree which turned out to be almost too tall. They really don't look so big out in the forest. It isn't as smelly as I thought it would be, but still so nice to have a real tree again. Yeah!

More Dallen...4-6months

Dallen has been so much fun these last few months. So many new adventures for him and us. He makes us laugh so much and always has a smile on his face. He is a big eater now but still makes funny faces every time you put a new taste in his mouth. By that I don't mean a new food, but every meal the first bite always produces a funny face. We fed him rice cereal and breast milk for his first feeding and it was quite the adventure. :)

He had his first bath in the big tub at Grandma Linda's in his bumbo. His skin is basically the same color as the bumbo-ha! He loved it and was so much easier for me to handle him in a bigger tub. He loves to splash around and lay on his tummy and play in the water. Funny though, he still hates being on his tummy on carpet-little stinker. :)

We take him everywhere and stick him on everything. He loves it. He loves the fish tanks at Cabelas and could just sit and watch the fish for a good long time. Speaking of Cabelas, after 3 hours of shopping, our little man pooped out- I put him on a couch in the home decor section and he fell asleep in less than a minute. We usually carry him around when we shop, well his Daddy carries him around when we shop showing him around. He is becoming more and more interested in Lily and she's not too happy about that, although she does protect us from other people and dogs. Oh Lil.

He started out to be quite the thumb sucker but has since dropped that and has taken to his binky when he's tired. We try to only give it to him when it's time to sleep. Occasionally we'll find him like this, silly little guy. Speaking of sleeping, I think FINALLY he's starting to understand you're suppose to sleep through the night, not eat every 3 hours. Sheesh! Once he was settled into eating baby food and we started supplementing with a formula that he liked, the sleeping seemed to start to come in longer segments. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lasts!

His first big mess was when we gave him a tissue paper flower to play with. He loves the crinkling sounds and of course stuck it in his mouth as well. Little did we know that this tissue paper bleeds and he soon had purple all over his face and hands. :P He makes other messes every now and then as well, especially when his daddy is feeding him. :D

He's just getting so big! He got his 'two front teeth' for Christmas- well really, the 2 bottom front teeth, but still. :) They came in about a week before. The nickname that has stuck so far is 'Bucket'. It started out as fuss bucket for whatever reason, and now it's just bucket. He also has a little chant I sing to him, but we won't go into that. ha! He's learning how to play ball- rolling it back and forth and catching it. It's sooo cute! He learned to sit up on his own in the month of December and finally got it down without falling over while visiting Grandma Linda. Seriously, what happened to our little baby? He's just turning into a little guy more and more every day. He'll be 7 months Jan 7th! We're loving every minute. :D

The Big 3-0 and double 3's!

Our Birthdays! Had to make a quick mention of our birthdays this year since it was the big 3-0 for me. :P It actually was a really really good birthday- I had a day filled with fun activities and socializing, both my favorites. :) On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I play basketball with a bunch of moms at the church while the kids play in the nursery or run around us in the gym. So since my birthday was on Tuesday, I got up and played basketball. Then the girls bought me lunch and we all met at the park to eat while the kids played. It was so nice chit chatting and enjoying the nice weather. Lunch ended up being chicken strips from Dairy Queen, but living in Beaver, there really isn't much else to chose from! ha! Then Dallen and I took at nap (Travis was working just a day shift). Then he came home and we did presents. I loved all the gifts from Travis, Mom, and Linda and felt so loved from all the birthday calls, texts, and facebook posts. :) That evening I went to my Bunco group and had dinner at the sandwich shop and then went straight to my last city league volleyball game. It was such a great birthday!



For Travis' birthday, he unfortunately had to work a 24hr shift. So Dallen and I went and visited him at work with a balloon and some of his favorite Dove chocolates. The office got him his favorite Mexican food for lunch which was so nice. He too got tons of birthday wishes on facebook and on his phone. We did presents after his shift in the clinic. Dallen only lasted through half of them and then zonked out. So we dug into the cake I made Travis without singing happy birthday since he wasn't around to hear our lovey voices. ha! Yet again, it was definitely different celebrating without family around, but we enjoyed our birthdays and don't feel anything like a 30 and 33 year old. :)

A Chill Thanksgiving

This year was the year the Heeb family was suppose to spend Thanksgiving together. Well both Travis and Thomas had to work Thanksgiving weekend, so Mom & Dad and fam decided to travel to Texas and spend Thanksgiving with them this year. The Wells were able to go as well which left us Hicks and Jordan, obviously-since he's on his mission in Tennessee, to have our own Thanksgivings. I figure it was only fair that Mom & Dad travel to Dallas since they did come down the Vegas one year to visit us for Thanksgiving too. :)

So we spent our first Thanksgiving without extended family, here in Beaver. We were so kindly invited to feast with our friends the Hatches here in town. They had 3 other family members come to town, so it was a good size gathering. Dallen pooped out just in time for us to eat and Travis found him a perfect little napping spot. :)

Since Travis was on call, he did have to go in a handful of times that day, but really it wasn't that bad. I spent the day finishing up cooking and cleaning up after the feast. And to complete the tradition, I had to have a football game playing in the back ground. :) It was a nice, quite, relaxing Thanksgiving where we were so thankful for good friends but definitely missed being with family too.

THE Elk Hunt

Travis had quite the adventure on Eddie's Elk Hunt this year. They saw lots and lots of Elk and had multiple Bulls to go after. The trick to this hunt was getting Eddie close enough since he has a hard time hunting due to his physical limitations. So they attempted multiple times to stalk, shoot, or drive up to the bulls but finally, on the last morning they were there, they spotted one off the main road and got him. He's an average size bull, but so good that they were able to harvest one after all that hard work!

Now the hunt was a little more challenging with the freezing cold weather and snow storm that came through. Thankfully, Eddie had rented a trailer for the 4 of them to sleep in. It was also challenging because of all the things that went wrong- generators didn't work, diesel fuel was put into the wrong equipment, water lines and water jugs froze, tires blew, but worst of all was the steering knuckle that broke on Travis' truck! So yet again, he had to get towed- this time all the way from central Nevada to Beaver, including his trailer with the ATV on it. :P What a mess! It definitely was the trip where everything went wrong. All I have to say, is I'm glad I wasn't part of this hunt! I did my time in a huge snow storm hunt. :) But overall they all had a great time and it was a good hunt.

Down to Vegas

While Travis was out on the big elk hunt with his dad, Eddie, and Erik, Dallen & I headed out on his first trip down to Vegas. I hadn't been there since my baby shower in April, but I still found myself calling it 'home' a couple times. ha! I guess having family there and having lived there for 5 years it still is kind of homey. Who would've thought! Anyway, we had a great time staying with Linda and Kristin and her kiddos. Brighton and David were so fun to play with and see how big they've gotten!

Dallen enjoyed all the new toys and animals at Grandma's house and even had his first bath in a big bath tub there!

The dogs seemed to love having us there since they followed me & Dallen all over the house. (In the picture below, that's all of us in the bathroom, minus Roxy who was in the hallway right behind me, getting ready in the morning!) Sadie and Roxy are getting pretty old so they couldn't play much, but they sure still wanted a lot of love. Lily enjoyed her Grandma lovin and hanging out with her doggie buddies.

While I was there I was able to go to the temple with Mindy thanks to Jill who watched Dallen for me. It was so nice to go again since the last time I went was April. I also did A LOT of shopping- the best was with Linda and Kristin at Toys 'R Us. :) Dallen loved looking at all the toys and we had fun finding the best Christmas gifts for the 3 grand kids. I also got to eat at my favorite restaurants: Panera, Sweet Tomatoes, BJ's, and Enzos. So yummy! I ate at Sweet Tomatoes with a bunch of the girls and actually got to go out with them a couple times. It was so nice to catch up! Dallen and I went to our old ward on Sunday too, which happened to be the Hammond's new baby girl, Presley's baby blessing. So adorable! And so wonderful to hear their testimonies. I also showed Dallen off to my old co-workers at Southwick LA. It was nice seeing them but felt weird not being a part of the every day business there. I definitely miss it and am so grateful I got to work in a field that I loved! So those were the highlights of the trip. I had a great time and hopefully less time will pass before we make it out there again!