Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

This year Justin's family decided to start a Christmas tradition of making a music video to a Christmas song. Each family will make their own music video to the same song and then Justin's sister will splice pieces of each together. This is our family's music video to Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you." We had a lot of fun making it! Enjoy! 

Here's the combined family video!

Christmas Village

This weekend we went to Christmas Village in Ogden with two couples we're good friends with-the Schultz's and Haws. It was pretty cold outside so we did a speed trip.

Myah was bundled up, but I felt bad for her little face poking out! Should have brought a baby ski-mask...if they make those!

Three couples and two babies in strollers. Fun times!

Christmas is coming!

This year I'm extra excited for Christmas because we have a new member of the family to focus on. Holidays are more fun now that Myah's here! We put up our Christmas decor last week (or the week before) and I think it looks great! It's always nice to have some extra twinkle lights to spice up our apartment!

So here's our tree and stockings...hung by the tree with care.

We tried to get some pics of Myah with the tree in the background but she kept craning her neck to look at the tree and not us! (These are probably cuter!)

Yay for Christmas!

This is Justin and Myah's new trick. Justin holds Myah's feet and balances her while she stands on her own! (He's careful!)

She just loves staring at the tree. She especially loves it when I let her touch the tree!

A bit Attached

Yesterday I went to Myah's 4 month doctor appointment and she weighed about 14 lbs and is 25.5 inches long. The doc said she looked perfect! Myah's obviously growing (which is good), but I didn't know I'd get so attached to Myah's clothes!

She's pretty much in 6 month clothing because of her length, so it was time to pack away the small clothes...and it was sad!

Myah's room looks like a bomb went off, but I'm in the process of getting it more organized, so it will look better in the next few days! In this picture I'm showing Myah the onesie we brought her home in from the hospital...memories.

Happy Thanksgibing back!

For Thanksgiving day we spent it with my mom's side of the family-the Porter side.

My mom has a huge family so we had it at my parents' church Stake Center. After our feast we set up Volley-ball nets and played. Good times! (Jess, I'm using your pictures since I forgot my camera! Hope you don't mind!!)

Myah and cousin Mabel looking deep in conversation!

On Friday we went over to Justin's family for another Thanksgiving bash. It was also so fun!

This is Justin's sister, Katie, holding her sweet baby, Porter. She had him only 4 days previous! You go girl!

Nana with the 3 grandbabies...each baby is 4 months apart. Noah (middle)-8 months, Myah (right)-4 months, and Porter (left)-4 days!

If you look close in this one, you'll see Myah spitting up! Good timing!

And here's the crew either taking pictures or trying to get the babies to look! How many Calders does it take to make a baby look? ...aparently 5!

Scary, yet hilarious

We have found that Myah thinks it's funny when we try to scare her! We don't do anything really scary...we just jump in front of her suddenly and she thinks it's hilarious.

Nellis Airshow!

Over the weekend Justin and I drove to Nevada to see the Nellis Airshow! We left our sweet Myah with Justin's parents (and she had a great time, I'm sure!) We stayed in a hotel called "Nellis Suites" that was simply amazing and very inexpensive...our room far exceeded our expectations! Our room had a nice living room, a full kitchen, table and chairs, and a separate bedroom with bathroom and little walk-in closet!

 

This last picture is what we saw when we walked out our door! It was so beautiful and we felt right at home. Actually, we kind of wanted to move in for good!

Here we are on the shuttle bus about to head over to Nellis AFB for the airshow! We were very excited! I don't think I've ever seen Justin more excited than that morning. He said the excitement and anticipation was way more intense than Christmas morning as a child for him!

We walked around the first 2 hours before the show started so we could see all the planes and jets. There were tons of booths to get free stuff. The Navy had a pull-up bar out and were trying to get people to come do some for prizes. Justin did 10 here and got a water bottle. He did 8 more later and got a shirt. I was so proud!

Us at our amazing spot for the airshow in front of the Thunderbirds. We were on the front row right next to where the Thunderbird pilots and crew walked out. We could have reached out and given them hugs if we wanted to! I'm surprised Justin didn't!

Here's a shot of the Thunderbirds during their part of the show. Awesome!

We had to go to the Vegas strip for a bit since Justin had never been there before. Luckily Justin is like me and we're not big fans of huge crowds and booming cities so we mostly just did a driving tour (provided by me) and then went back to our awesome, quiet hotel. We did visit the inside of the Ballagio and also the fountain shows outside.

We had a great weekend but were so excited to come back and get our cute Myah. Well...while on the road Sunday, our car pretty much broke down. Since it was Sunday (and in Utah), hardly any auto shops were open. A mechanic at the Cedar City Walmart showed us to a shop he thought was open. Unfortunately they weren't but a shop next door was! We were excited that we might still make it home that night! As he looked at the car he said he'd have to wait until Monday morning to have a better mechanic fix it. Aaaahhhh!!!! To make a long story short, we stayed at a cheap motel next door, Myah stayed another night with Justin's parents, I had an emotional break-down not being able to get to Myah and Justin comforted me, and then the next morning our car was fixed (though they took longer than anticipated) and we were on the road at noon! We arrived at 4 pm and both of our parents were there to greet us and present our beautiful little girl back to us! We are sooooo glad to be back and to have Myah with us!

What made my day!

For some reason Myah thought it was hilarious when I'd look away and then look back at her. She has never laughed this hard for so long before! So glad she kept it up after we grabbed the camera!

Halloween costumes

If any of you have seen the show Psych (I believe the episode is called "Camp Tiki-hana"), then you might know what Justin was for Halloween. If not then you'll have no idea what he is! He was the murderer and I was a victim he strangled. Justin kept wanting to put murder'ish paint on Myah, like he did to me, but I could not allow a cute baby to look dead! That's just sick! So she's her cute self in a Halloween onesie!

"What a cute family picture!" That's probably what you all are thinking!

Carving Pumpkins

We had a good time carving pumpkins this year! I saw a show with tips on drawing and then carving pumpkins. One tip was to use a draw-erase marker to draw the design on and then you can wipe it off if you mess up. We found that it didn't wipe off as easily as the show said it did, so if you looked closely, you could see marker on the pumpkins. (I guess that meant we messed up a lot!)

This is Justin's awesome Frankenstein pumpkin!

Here's my hungry pumpkin!

And of course, here's cute Myah!

Beus Park

Beus Park is a park in Ogden by where we used to live. It brings back fond memories for me and Justin of our beloved South Ogden. (We miss living there!) I had my last dentist appointment up there so we stopped by the park with Myah. It was a chilly day, but it was beautiful.

I strapped Myah on me and zipped her in my jacket and we were good to go!

Here's Myah peeking out!

There were a lot of ducks and geese at the pond. I loved this one in the middle, with one leg held up. It didn't look too comfortable to me!

I thought this was a beautiful stairway with the leaves covering them. Plus there's that good-lookin' man in the picture!

Growing so fast

Myah is about three and a half months old. She is just growing so fast and the time is flying by! Her new thing is arching her back. I think she'll be turning over soon because she's half way there. Yesterday I had her lying on her back on the couch next to me and she was just arching away! When it was nap time, I was getting her all swaddled tight when all the sudden she let out a big grunt, arched her back, and unwrapped the swaddle! It was pretty hilarious!

She can sit very well in her bumbo seat, but I think she gets bored in it. I put the tray on it with toys and she did ok for a little longer, but she still can't grab them too easily so she still got bored or her head got tired.

Here's Myah sporting her jacket. (Don't you love the little tassle on top!)

Talking Myah

A few days ago, Myah started chatting a lot more and a lot louder. It is so darn cute and it's fun for us to see her discover her voice.

Happy Myah!

I just love Myah's smiles! She's smiling so much now and we love it! She loves this octopus stuffed animal that was mine growing up. Here's a video to show it!

TV watcher

Justin and I have discovered that we have a little TV watcher on our hands! Myah just loves looking at the TV with all the fun colors! Whenever the TV's on and she's not facing it, she'll crank her neck around as far as she can to try and see it!

I just love this picture of daddy and daughter watching the TV together!

Black Island Farms

Last Saturday we went to Black Island Farms in Syracuse. It's a farm that is made into a Halloween extravaganza! They have corn mazes and all sorts of things to do...mostly for kids...but we are pretty much kids ourselves so we fit in just fine! This is me and Myah (she's asleep on me) in front of the pig races!

The pigs started out at one side of this little barn and then we'd all yell "Sooey!" and they'd be let loose to run to get their food on the other side. They did this many times and it was hilarious!

Here's me and Justin (and Myah...still sleeping) in the corn maze!

On top of a bridge in the corn maze. It was beautiful!

Justin and Myah after they went down a slide and the farm! It was a much bigger slide, not the one in this picture...but this was where the shade was.

Myah's Baby Blessing

On October 9th was Myah's baby blessing in our LDS ward in Layton. Justin gave such a beautiful blessing. Everything went perfect (no diaper explosions or screaming). She looked so beautiful in her blessing dress made by her Nana (Justin's mom, Julie). Julie did an amazing job with this dress! It's too bad they only wear it once!

After the blessing, we all went over to my parents house for lunch and everyone brought very yummy food! It was a good time!

I love this first picture of Myah. She does NOT look amused at all and looks like she is done with this photo-shoot! She's so cute though, so we of course have to take a billion more pictures of her!