The Week of CHRISTMAS

We had a Merry Christmas and hope you all had the same. This is a bunch of the pictures from The week of Christmas. I had the week off and we had some good times as a family. Russell loved unwrapping his presents and kept trying to eat the paper. Once he could see what was inside he started playing with out even noticing there was still wrapping paper on the present. Funny boy!

Christmas morning. Russell loves looking at (and trying to touch) the Christmas tree



Russell's favorite present was a duck from G&G Johnson that fights and makes a fuss when lifted by its head. He gets a kick out of attacking it.

Russell unwrapping a tractor that sings "Old McDonald"

Russell missed his nap waiting in line to see Santa and told him all he wanted for Christmas was sleep. (Which miraculously he got and slept all night Christmas Eve.)

We went for a hike to Red Rock Canyon and the weather was perfect.

The lights at Ethel M Chocolate factory and Cactus garden are a family tradition.

"Farmer" Russell in his overalls and my straw hat.

We set up a tent in the front room, and Russell was in Heaven.

The Lions at Outdoor world

A Giraffe that I thought was really cool.

Christmas is Coming

Russell is growing up so fast! He is not really content crawling, he is always looking for a way to stand or try walking. He found that the highchair is a great walker.
The sink is a great place to find new toys, and this also lets Natalie get herself ready and keep him entertained at the same time.

Russell thinks its funny to come lay down by me early in the morning to wake me up.

And here is Russell on his 9 month birthday doing what he does best - smiling and going somewhere!

Around Here

Well we sort of missed the 8month mark, now that he is almost 9months, but Russell is doing really well, crawling all over the place, and I am loving it! It is so fun to have him play with me! We have a bigger box now, that I can crawl through too, and we just go back and forth all day. His main goals in life at this point are to get to something (does not matter what) and stand up. He is always standing and loves to pretend that he can walk. He takes adventures dives away from furniture, but needs a bit more practice.

We got our carpets cleaned last week, they were really nasty. When we moved in to this rental the carpets looked really really bad and so I borrowed a cleaner from a friend and did it myself, I spent quite literally weeks going from room to room cleaning and then back again. But when you do it yourself it the stains just come back when any dirt touches them.
Now that Russell is crawling all over the place we decided that we needed to break down and get the floors cleaned. Now we can't believe that we waited to do it for so long. We had the Austins from the ward do it for us, and they did an amazing job

Back from Idaho

We went to Idaho this past month so I could do my OB/Gyn rotation. Natalie and Russell had a good time hanging out with family and enjoying the crazy weather.
When we got there, Russell turned 7 months.

Our friends, the Sidwells, came up from Logan and visited us. We took them to the Twin Falls, ID temple, and Molly and Russell had a good time together.

Russell at the temple.

Russell also had a good time with his cousin Megan.

I went hunting, and Russell thought it was fun to wear my "hunter's orange" hat.

The grass and leaves were fun to play in!

Catching up!

I have been slacking and I have to do a fast catch up now. You will see here that Russell got his first hair cut, first 2 teeth (at the same time), got to see snow for the first time, playing on the grass for the first time, And in general having a good time. He is so close to crawling, he is just too interested in standing, we have to make sure that we are far enough away that he cant reach us or he trys to climb up to a stand on us.

Project #2

Here is the second project that we had going on. It is a toy box, sort of holder, for Russell. Chad worked really hard on this one and I think that it turned out really cute. It is going to have a padded top one day, but that is going to be a while so for now it is done.

Fun in the Sun!

We made a quick trip to California, it was a moment notice type of thing. We got to even make it to the beach. Since Russell is not a fan of the water we did not even try to put him in a swimming suit. We just let him play in the shade of the umbrella.
Russell in Great Grandma's lap.

Russell sitting next to a sleeping a Great Grandpa.

Russell does not like the water so this is what he does when he sees it.

We did get him in, he was not really thrilled.

All of us at the beach.

We finished our little project too.

YUM!!!

Russell found a new toy, he took my carrot from me when I pulled it out of the fridge last week and he played with it for almost an hour. It was fun to watch him, and it meant that I did not have to entertain him, the carrot took care of that for me!

New Trick

Russell SITS! He finally did it all by himself, he has been sitting for two days now and getting better every day. The pillows behind him are there to catch him when he topples over. Our floor is really hard and his head has come in contact a couple of times and it takes like 15 min. to make the head feel better. It is sad. But with the help of the pillows life is good. I have been so excited for him to sit, now he is so much happier on the floor. YES!

This is a very supervised Russell enjoying some birthday wrapping paper. He enjoyed it for quite some time. Eventually it started to make it to his mouth a little to well and it had to go, he was not happy about that.

More Pictures!

I was going through my pictures from Idaho and just had so many more I wanted to share.

Russell loved sitting on my sisters lap while she attempted to play one handed, as Russell would either hit the piano himself or try to pull her hand off or play with her hand, or eat any of the above. It was funny, as you can see my sister is laughing.
Here is Russell with cousin Alli and Charile. Russell thought that this was hillarious! He was laughing so hard he was having a hard time staying sitting up.

This is my brother that just came home from his mission in Georgia just over a month ago. It was so fun to see him.

This year my parents did a completly veritcal garden. Everything from tomatos, cucumbers, squash to beans are growing UP poles and string. It is very cool. But takes alot of work.