Meeting Mitt Romney

Last night we went to listen to Mitt Romney speak at the airport. Parker was a celebrity for a few minutes while Mitt held him. He wasn't too sure about all the flashes going off. We also saw him a little over a week ago, and were able to get our picture taken with him. Hopefully he will be the next President, and then we can show Parker that the President of the United States held him when he was a baby. So everyone go vote for Mitt!!



Travis was taking this picture and couldn't be in it, so he was glad to find the next picture on Yahoo with us in the background. Now he has proof that he did get to meet Mitt!

Family Photos

While my sister was in town we had her take some family photos for us. There were several that turned out great.





Ok, so there were more than I thought, that I loved. Don't worry, you're half-way through!!

New Zealand!!

Wow, it's been over a month since I last wrote. It's been a great month though. Our Holidays were wonderful. Parker enjoyed his first Christmas, and really liked eating the wrapping paper! My sister Heidi came for Christmas and New Years. It was great having her here with us, especially since we couldn't go home for Christmas. We had a lot of fun just chatting and hanging out together. She had a lot of fun with Parker, and it was great to have a helping hand. She also helped me paint a couple rooms in the house. We now officially don't have any white walls!! Yeah for color!!!

Well last night my little brother got his mission call to Auckland, New Zealand!! He leaves in the middle of May. He is very excited, and we are excited for him. He will be a great missionary, he is so loving and hardworking. My whole family is planning to make a trip there to pick him up in two years when he is finished. I'm VERY excited for that too!! I've been searching on the internet about New Zealand, and it is a beautiful place, a Paradise!

One of my New Years resolutions is to exercise daily and to eat healthier. I haven't exercised every day so far, but I have been doing pretty good. I have been running on the treadmill, lifting weights a little, and doing ab exercises to try and get rid of my bread dough tummy!! The joys of having a baby!! I have actually been enjoying running which is kind of surprising. I use to NEVER run, mainly because I had really bad asthma and couldn't. But the past year or so it's almost been like I don't have asthma at all, it's so wonderful. I can do so many more things without using my inhaler all the time. I love to feel healthy and strong!

Well on to Parker!! He is now nine months old, I can hardly believe it. He is getting so big, too fast. Here are some things I am enjoying about Parker these days:

He is generally a very happy baby. He smiles and laughs all the time. Seeing him so happy brightens my day in an instant.

He is a great sleeper. He takes two really good 2 hour naps a day, and sleeps at night from about 7:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. He goes down great lately. I just cuddle him for a few minutes, then give him his bunny, and he is good to go!

He LOVES his daddy! He gets so excited when Travis gets home. He gives loves by grabbing the side of daddy's face and pulling it to his mouth. He usually goes for the nose!

He's learned how to make all kinds of sounds with his voice! He has a fake laugh, a fake cough, and a fake cry. It's pretty amusing, as long as it doesn't last too long! He also does this high pitched squeal, which also is ok for a short period of time.

I absolutely love being a mom, and it seems like I love it more and more each day. Parker gives us so much happiness, I can't imagine life without him. He makes our life complete. Here are a few pictures from the last month.

Cookies!!

Last night all of the pilots' wives got together and had a cookie exchange. I had heard about these before, but had never done it myself. Everyone makes some cookies and brings them, and then gets a few of each kind of cookie that is brought. I made peanut butter cookies and snickerdoodles, but the snickerdoodles had a few twists. I decided to color them red and green, and then mixed in some Christmas sprinkles to make them extra festive! I also only rolled them in sugar, and left the cinnamon out. They turned out pretty good.



I ended up making 8 dozen cookies! I had a lot of fun doing it, and remembered just how much I love to bake. I came home from the cookie exchange with two plates full of different kinds of yummy cookies! It was a really fun evening, I think I'm going to have to do a few more sit-ups though!

Continued...

I got distracted yesterday and didn't get to finish my post, so I will finish now. Unlike Saturday and Sunday, Friday wasn't such a good day for Parker. First, he fell off of our bed when mommy left the room for a few seconds:( He scraped his nose on something on the way down.

Here are his battle wounds.



Later that day we went grocery shopping at Wal-mart. There was a little girl there who was playing with Parker a little bit, and Parker reached for her hair while they were playing. I reached for his hands to stop him, but jabbed him in the side of the head with my long nails instead, making him bleed:( For those of you who haven't seen Parker's sad face, it is SO sad--he sticks out his bottom lip just before the tears come, and his eyes are like little sad puppy-dog eyes. Anyways he gave me this look and then started crying, which made me feel worse than I already did. I felt like a horrible mom that day, but luckily Parker is a tough little guy, and should recover from his injuries pretty quickly!

Santa!!

I was looking through some of my recent pictures, and realized that I have a lot to write about today, and I think they are all about Parker! That is all I ever seem to post about, but he is my life right now, so I hope you don't get bored with all of the Parker news!

Parker got to meet Santa Saturday night at our Ward Christmas party. He did really well, and was all smiles on Santa's lap, although he did try to eat Santa's coat as you will see in the small clip.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Here are a couple of pictures of Parker with Santa.

I love this picture of Parker eying Santa's beard. I can imagine him thinking "I wonder if that thing is real...I'd better pull on it just to make sure", which he did, and it WAS real!! Poor Santa:)


Parker also experienced his very first lollipop on Sunday afternoon. He LOVED it, and of course managed to get extremely sticky(like I expected anything different!) Don't worry, we aren't planning to give him candy very often, he just really wanted to try my sucker, so we decided every once in awhile wouldn't hurt too bad!!

Gettin' Around

Parker isn't crawling yet, but he has been getting around a lot lately. He has figured out how to pull himself forward with his arms(while on his tummy), and push himself backward with his feet(when he's on his back). Today he was playing in the living room while I was folding laundry in my room. When I went out to check on him, he wasn't on his blanket where I'd left him. I found him laying under the piano bench with his lion friend!



Here's a little clip of him sliding on his back. Once I got the camera out he got excited and stopped sliding as much.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
Here are a couple other cute pictures.