G's nine month stats

Weight: 21 pounds (65%)

Length: 29.25 inches (85%)

Cuteness: OFF THE CHARTS!!!!!

Teeth: 2 bottom and his top left one is just starting to poke through

Sleep: is starting to sleep through the night again (woot!) goes to bed at 7 and usually makes it at least until 5:30. He'll often go until 7 without waking up and it's blissful.

Signs: More (clapping) He gets very excited when we sign "milk" and claps about that too.

Words: Dada. He definitely babbles it a lot, but often calls out to Neal with it too. It's so cute!

Skills: nunchuck, bow hunting, computer hacking, army crawling, getting himself into the sitting position (especially during sleep time) standing up against a support, feeding himself, and being adorable.

Neal and I were just talking about how much joy little Gideon brings into our life. Even something as simple as watching Gideon feed himself, or using his head to get into the sitting position. . . these things bring us great joy and satisfaction. Being a mother has brought me more joy than I could have possibly imagined, and I love it more than I could have possibly imagined. Motherhood is the most special thing in the world, and I love love LOVE it! Enough to have another one? We'll see.... ;)

Sunny AZ!

Hello blogging world. First of all, we moved and are in a cute little 2 bed/2 bath condo. It is marvelous! As some of you know, Gideon and I just *happened* to be out of town during aforementioned move. That was also marvelous, I'm not gonna lie. :)

One of my best friends Rachel just up and moved across the country a few months after I had Gideon. Thanks a lot, right??? sheesh. but she was moving for a good cause-- getting married and whatnot, so I GUESS it's okay. She moved to Tucson, where I just so happen to have a lovely Aunt, Uncle and cousin, with other family in Phoenix. I started looking at tickets, and found a screaming deal, so I bought it. I spent a week in AZ, dividing my time between Phoenix and Tucson, and it was an absolutely WONDERFUL trip!!!!

The planeride was rooooouuuuuugh. I flew alone with G when he was 3 months old, and just happened to have the entire row to myself, so I erroneously believed that I could travel alone with him just fine. Yeah.... he spent the entire flight trying to grab everyone's everything, kick everyone within reach, and arching his back. It was pretty exhausting, but although busy, he wasn't fussy, so it was mostly okay for the other passengers. By the way, he's too big to nurse without kicking those around him, so that was a little awkward. Luckily the people around me were extremely tolerant.

I spent the first couple of days with Jeanni and Megan. I've been really close to them growing up, and it was so nice to get to spend some time with them. We went to the Zoo, swimming, and ate delicious food.

Favorite cousin!

We got to pet stingrays and feed them (I was too scared until I saw Meg's 4 year old do it)

G loves Aunt Jeanni!

Then Meg and Jeanni graciously drove me up to Tucson, where I was reunited with Rachel. It was SOOO GOOD to see her and spend time with her darling kids.

We didn't see much of her husband John, as he's finishing up his medical residency. Rachel and I had a blast together-- just catching up and of course, eating Rachel's delicious cookies that cannot be duplicated as she doesn't measure anything.

Gideon loved watching Jonas play

Vera loved baby Gideon. She liked to pretend his name was Jesus. "But not Jesus Christ" she told me.

We went on walks, went to the park, and even had a girls night out, as my Aunt Jayne very thoughtfully offered to watch G. I stayed with my Aunt Jayne and Uncle David, which was incredible because a) they have a gorgeous house, b) they had enough room for G and me to sleep in different rooms (YES!) so that was really nice, and c) they lived about 4 minutes from Rachel. Oh and d) Jayne let me take her car over there so I could come and go as I pleased-- so nice!!! Also I got to see my cousin Alison and her family-- she has a darling one year old so that was so much fun! Jayne and David hosted a dinner for everyone (again, SO NICE!) so we all hung out over there eating delicious food and visiting.

My awesome Uncle David and Aunt Jayne

My cute cousin Alison and her darling baby

Gideon was an absolute angel the entire trip-- I couldn't even believe it. He went immediately down every single nap/night. I couldn't even believe it! (He made up for it later, but I'm glad he was such an angel baby on vacation!!!) GREAT VACATION! Oh, and if you're wondering if Neal is the best, he is. He even sent me gorgeous tulips to Aunt Jayne's while we were gone! :)

Florida

The day after Christmas, we flew to Florida for the McMillan biennial get together. My father in law rented a beach house (bless him!) so we could be in the same place and it was a wonderful time! The house itself was absolutely amazing-- we're talking grand piano, elevator, showers with multiple shower heads-- it was truly luxurious. Gideon even had his very own walk in closet room with a window! It was, of course, nice to be living large, but more importantly, we all got to spend quality time together all day and after the kids went to bed. 4 out of 5 of Neal's siblings were there with their families, and the house with filled with a constant joyful noise (there are 13 grandchildren!) I am so blessed to have such delightful, welcoming, and loving in-laws. The only hard thing was the McMillans are all night owls--while I am NOT, especially since baby G wakes up at 7 at the latest. I was pretty consistently the first one to call it a night, but I'm pretty sure they still love me. Anyway, it was a week of delightful company, DELICIOUS food, and lots of relaxation.

As much as G loves water, he didn't enjoy having his tootsies dunked in the frigid ocean, as seen here:

Yeah, he didn't trust me after this, as seen here:

Maybe because I thought it was hilarious. He hung out with Papa after that, as seen here:

Okay, so obviously G didn't love the actual ocean part of the trip. He did, however, love hanging out with his cousins:

Doesn't he just look enthralled?? Clearly these babies loved hanging out. G also loved his Grandma:

And eating my flip flop. I know, gross.

I really wish I would have gotten a picture of G's face after he had his first bite of sugar cookie-- oh man, he grinned and grinned! He's already got his Mama's sweet tooth, I can tell.

Thanks again to my wonderfully generous father in law for making this trip possible!!!!

Christmas 2011

Happy New Year! This Christmas was one of my favorites, I think. It was a very different celebration, since this was the first Christmas of my life that I didn't go to Utah. While I missed my family, it was so nice to be here with my own little family! On Christmas Adam, we went out to dinner and went to the DC temple to see the lights. It was gorgeous!

Christmas Eve we had clam chowder for dinner (I made it myself-- it was delicious!!!!) We went to a Julbord celebration with our friends Thad and Erika (delicious swedish food!) and then came home and opened our Christmas Eve books.

I gave Neal "As a Man Thinketh" (watch out, he judges you if you haven't heard of it) He gave me a gorgeous picture book called "Wherever you are, my love will find you," and we got Gideon this book: ( it's a personalized childrens book-- so cute!)

Christmas morning we had a DELICIOUS breakfast-- homemade cinnamon rolls and egg casserole, and opened presents.

Now, I told myself "Gideon is 7 months old, he's not going to be excited about his presents" so I was prepared for total indifference. However, he was EXCITED about them!

It was the cutest thing I've ever seen! He would triumphantly remove the toy from the giftbag, and then smile really big and show his new toy to Neal. It was DARLING!!!! I was pretty surprised.

Then again, I guess it goes to show what a good Mom I am, and what great toys I picked out. (uh huh...) We attended about 20 minutes of Sacrament Meeting, but left early to hang out with this guy for a few minutes:

I felt kind of bad leaving early on Christmas Day, but I really, REALLY wanted to make sure I got to Skype with Matthias. It was so good to talk to him and see him and have him see Gideon. In the afternoon, we had a delicious Christmas dinner with Cali, Josh, Bastian and Piper. It was a little sad because poor Bastian was quarantined away from us since he had RSV, but it was so nice to be with family on Christmas.

Plus Bastian didn't seem to mind:

The food was delicious, the company delightful, and our first Christmas alone was a huge success!

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat!

Hello everyone. It's music to my ears when people say "you need to update your blog!!!!" yes, people, I hear you. You like me! You really like me! Okay anyway.....

Life is great!!!! I think part of the reason I'm hesitant to blog is a) I've been watching "Bones" on Netflix (gotta be honest here) b) I'm not as witty as I once was (I blame lack of sleep!!!!) and c) all I really have to say is MY BABY IS THE CUTEST and MY HUSBAND IS THE BEST and I thought some of you might be sick of this. Apparently not.

Some of you, dear readers, might be thinking to yourselves "did she just mention LACK OF SLEEP? Whaaaaat? Wasn't this the girl with the angel baby who slept through the night at 8 weeks?!?" While that is true, it's also true that Gideon is regressing... a lot. It all started with mobility. Since G has been able to roll around, he has been less interested in sleeping, and more interested in rolling around his crib and then melting down out of exhaustion. We still swaddle (the kids is a swaddle junkie!!!), but even the straightjacket doesn't seem to help..... Then he started teething (2 bottom teeth to date). Then we went to Seattle for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful trip on sooo many levels, but G's sleeping wasn't one of those. Also on the trip he got a little cold, which turned into croup. And croup turned us into the biggest softie parents in the WORLD (leaping out of bed at his first bark, nursing 10 times a night..you get the idea.) All this to say, I can now relate to everyone! Hooraaaaay. Except life was better when he slept through the night, I must admit. ;) Luckily he is so cute it *almost* makes up for it. Thus far, we can only stand hearing him cry for 5 minutes before we go in and sing/pat/nurse/rock/bounce but it's getting old fast. Don't tell Neal I told you, but he's about ready to put G in the car at night. ;) Part of the problem is we're still rocking the one bedroom apartment, and I'll tell you what, there's no escaping G's coughs/cries/screams/grunts/growls. We are looking to move as soon as we find a place.

Okay enough about how my baby is no longer perfect in every way. We are doing great as a family, and are very excited about CHRISTMAS! Those of you who know me will find it no surprise that we decked our halls the day after our Thanksgiving trip and have been blasting Christmas music, making Christmas treats, and going crazy on amazon.com in anticipation for the big day. LOOOOOOOOVE holidays!!!! And now, a year in photos:

JANUARY: yeah.. I got nothing. According to my pictures, January didn't even exist.

FEBRUARY: I start getting huge

MARCH: Baby showers begin
APRIL: Mom and Dad visited and I'm huge.
MAY: My birthday, oh, and G was born too. ;)
JUNE: G is unimpressed with his mama and goes to his first musical at Wolftrap
JULY: Peach picking tradition continues with G and family vacation to Shenandoah
AUGUST: G's blessing and Utah trip
SEPTEMBER: Taylor visits
OCTOBER: Cale visits and G is for Giraffe
NOVEMBER: Freezing family photos and Seattle

DECEMBER: G gets the hang of self portraits
We've had a GREAT year and feel very blessed!