John, Lindsay & Emerson: 2011

Temple Square Christmas Lights

This last weekend John's brother Andrew came up to visit. We spent the day doing some shopping and catching up. We went to Salt Lake to walk around Temple Square and check out the beautiful lights. It was really cold so Emerson was bundled up and couldn't see much but every once in a while he would sit up straighter so he could see something. I think he liked it but I'm not entirely sure. One thing I am sure of is that he had a great time at dinner afterward, getting to be a big boy and sit next to Uncle Andrew.

All bundled up

Andrew wanted to get a picture next to this Joseph Smith statue and then he said "Boy he was tall wasn't he."

Kisssng the lights

Look at my two big boys

After a day he was no longer scared of Uncle Andrew. He couldn't get enough of him always wanted his attention.

Santa Visit and Christmas Lights

The other day we were able to take Emerson to the mall to visit Santa and get pictures. I've noticed that Emerson isn't the biggest fan of facial hair. He only like Uncle Andrew when he is clean shaven, so I wasn't sure how he was going to do. But he was fine, he was more curious than scared and we were able to get a picture of him with a half a smile.
Afterwards we went to look at some lights around the neighborhood. There are a couple of house just down the street that have their lights timed with music and you can tune into the song through a radio station so we took in a few songs. Emerson was intrigued for like a minute and then he was more interested in the fact that he was his carseat than watching the lights.

This is when he realized that he could see Daddy in the front seat. After that he just kept trying to stand up and climb over the seat to him.

Decorating for Christmas

The other night John and I were talking after we had put Emerson to bed, and had some interesting thoughts. We have been married for over ten years and this is the first Christmas since our first that we have both been very excited for Christmas. No stress about shopping, dealing with crowds, putting up decorations, or just feeling tired of the whole holiday season. We can attribute our wonderful feelings of excitement to having our amazing son in our lives. This is the best present we could ever ask for and we are enjoying every minute of it. So I wasn't suprised this year when John couldn't wait to get out the decorations and get festive. It took a few days because we had to rearrange furniture in order to make room for the tree but it all ended up being worth it in the end.
So I am giving all my Thanks to our wonderful and loving Heavenly Father for giving us the chance to have a son and raise one of his blessed souls. Having Emerson has changed and elevated our lives in ways that we could never imagine, it is the best thing ever.

At first he was more interested in watching Rudolph than helping with the tree

Then he decided he needed to be in the way

Tree is up

This is the ornament that Braxton made for Emerson last year. It says Baby's First Christmas.

Decorated! We went minimal so that he wouldn't get into all the ornaments.

John loves this snowman, it sings Ice Ice Baby. So he had fun getting Emerson to enjoy it too.

Decided to kiss the penguin, or eat it one of the two.

This is our newest Christmas addition. I am so grateful that my Mother kept ahold of this. It is a ceramic christmas tree that lights up. It was made in my Grandma's ceramic shop that we used to have. I was so happy when I found out that I would be able to have it to add to my collection. I had to replace the bulbs, but other than that it is PERFECT.

Emerson's Surgery

At Emerson's 6 Month checkup we noticed that the Urethra opening in his penis was different looking. It appeared extra long at first then I noticed that there were two holes. So the doctor looked at it and sent us to Primary Children's Urology for a consult. We found out that what he had is called Hypospadia, which means that he had two holes one was non fuctioning and the opening was more on towards the botton than at the tip. It wasn't a very severe case, but there was a chance that he would never be able to stand to pee, due to aiming issues or that if the opening was too small that it could cause fertility issues. Since we didn't want him to have to go through the heartache that we did with fertility, we decided to go ahead and have it repaired.
So on the 1st of December we went up to Primary Children's to have the surgery done. Well as these things go, the patient before us took longer than expected so my poor little man was very onery. He hadn't had a meal since 9 the night before, had a little juice at 7 that morning, which was surprising since he usually won't drink juice. Finally at close to noon he was called back. That has been the hardest thing I've had to do so far, handing him over to the doctor and watching him cry as he was taken back to the surgery room. That was the longest 45 minutes of my life. In the end everything went great and he has fully recovered and is his same energetic self.

His cute little hospital gown, it is acturally more like pajamas, but serves the same purpose.

Fell asleep after waiting too long to go back for surgery so I let him snuggle up and I rocked him. So peaceful.

Just after waking up

He was so hungry and they were getting him some juice and the only way to get him to calm down was to give him my phone.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we were at my Parent's house. Since we have grown so much in numbers we have started having it out at Tiff's house since it is bigger. Then the day after Thanksgiving we headed to St. George to spend some time with John's family. The actual reason for us going was so John could help his Sister Anna finish up her bathroom remodel by doing her drywall. But since we were going to be there and they were having a 2nd Thanksgiving to celebrate with John's brother who had to work the day before, we decided to join in on another Thanksgiving dinner. Then on Saturday John's family has a tradition of making rice krispy houses. This is the first year we have been there for this and it was a blast.

Earlier in the week Emerson fell while standing up and hit is head and got a rug burn all at the same time so don't mind the huge scab on his forehead.

Tiff lining us all out

Earlier in the day Tiff watched how to carve a turkey by Bobby Flay and thought that we should do it. Thankfully John learned this a few years ago so he carved it just right for us.