Christmas with the MacNairs!

New York, New York

Upon arriving in New York after a long flight the first day was spent sleeping all morning. Ian's did to because he did not sleep at all during the night. We kept Ian on Utah time which worked out even better for us because then in New York he would sleep in until 8 am and go to sleep at 10 pm. Which was great for all of Tim's family because they are night owls.

The next day was Christmas eve and after a lazy morning we heading to Jim, Suzanne, and Grant's home for a fabulous Christmas eve dinner. Can you tell that Ian is just about to go down for a nap in the picture above?

Uncle Jim preparing the dinner table.
Aunt Suzanne and Aunt Carol working hard to prepare an amazing meal.

Dinner was delicious and oh boy were we hungry. Shrimp appetizer followed by twice baked potatoes, steak, corn bread (the real stuff with actual carrots in it), and peas. And not to mention dessert! Every meal should start with dessert -there is no question about it. Homemade peppermint ice cream chocolate cake and these eggnog danishes. It was delicious! Thanks for all of the hard work and effort that was put into preparing this fabulous meal.

Ian was such a trooper and didn't seem to mind the flashing cameras and different people holding him all the time and just smiled at everyone.
GG Ma -Aunt Suzanne--Aunt Wendy

That night we came home opened our pajamas and read The Night Before Christmas. Ian loved listening and did his best to turn -well hit the pages.

Doesn't he look cute in his Santa pajamas -although we thought he looked like a Candy Cane.

Christmas Day

Tim and Jimmer's present creation to hide the actual Christmas tree
-they were up until about 3 am working on this.

We woke up at about 8:30am with Ian then everyone was up around 10:30am to open stockings. Tim's parents had this stocking made for Ian -Tim has one very similar to it however Ian's is a little bit bigger -which I am sure Ian doesn't mind.

Ians favorite present from Christmas was in this stocking and I am kicking myself that I do not have a picture of him with it. He would carry this little purple bendy guy with him at all times and rarely let go of it. While waiting for the Hinckley's to arrive we had crapes and lounged around the house in our pj's.

Later that afternoon everyone was there and Ian had lots of help from his cousins with unwrapping presents. As you can tell he did not mind and he sure loved Maddie. All Maddie had to do was say smile -and Ian instantly smiled.
This is the only picture that I have of Ian opening presents we have some video tape but it is mostly of little girls backs because they all love Ian so much. Ian was constantly surrounded by his cousins and he didn't seem to mind -then Ian puked and all the little girls scattered.

Here is a picture of the clock that Tim made for his parents for Christmas with my dad's help.

After a long evening of opening presents and watching Tinkerbell at least 4 times we ended the night with Tim's version of Costa Vida sweet pork burritos. It was delicious -not exactly your usual Christmas meal but excellent none the less. Followed by apple and pumpkins pie -although I am pretty sure that the 2nd apple pie with artificial sweetener is still sitting on the counter :)

Family Party
I think this picture explains it all.

As does this one...

Tim's family all gets together for Christmas every year -not just his brother and sisters but all of his aunts, uncles, cousins -everyone from both sides of the family. I think it is amazing and so special that they are all always together no matter how far they have to fly or what else might be going on. What a night...great food again and hours of fun with the family.

Andrew loved this fire helmet. What was great is when we saw him the next morning he was all dress for the day and still had his fire hat on.

All of the cousins showing there true side
(Wendy, Tim, April, Britty, Grant, Jimmer, Kristen)

Wait??? Where is Kristen....here she is

The girls with their American Girl dolls and in their matching American girl dresses.

Last be defiantly not least the hit of the party and the cutest on of all
-ok so maybe I am a little bias but what do you expect from his mother

So Cute!

All in all the trip went well and it was great to see all of the family and show off our little boy!

Flying!

This adventure deserved its very own separate post. Flying! Where to begin -even the thought makes me want to rip my own hair out -or what is left of it.

The trip there...

• snowing like crazy took twice as long to get through the canyon
• Tim left his ipod in the car so I stayed with the baby and all of the luggage while the car service came back and picked him up. To bad they didn't have one of these like the JFK airport. Honestly a vending machine for ipods -crazy.

• bag was overweight by 3 pounds -she said it was ok put a heavy tag on it and we didn't have to pay :)
  
• all of our carry on's we searched very thoroughly
  
• security officer said our bag was the most unique bag they had ever seen (contained breast pump, skookie pans, some gun holder thing, Christmas stockings, other random things, and tim's brand new bottle of cologne).
• yes you read right -Tim's new bottle of cologne. We have two identical bags and he though he put his cologne in the check in bag instead of the carry-on oops! Not to worry though the security lady said it was ok and wiped it down and put it back in the bag :)
  
• were able to get an extra seat on the airplane for Ian to sit in his car seat :)
  
• Loaded the plane and Ian was asleep so I put his binkie in his mouth for him to suck on while we took off -he slept the first 45 minutes of the four hour flight.
• Ian woke up and seemed to be happy -at first. So much for the empty seat because we never used it again. After nursing him on the plane we spent the rest of the flight struggling to keep him quiet as he screamed on and off while everyone else was sleeping (well trying to sleep that is)
• Ian screamed the last 20-30 minutes solid of the flight he would not eat nor would he take a bottle, anything. He finally fell asleep the last 5 minutes then slept in the car on the two hour ride to Tim's parents house.

The trip home:

• On the way their we stopped to pick up formula and benadryl for Ian for the flight.
• Everywhere seemed be out of the benadryl so we had to stop a couple places (then we found out they do not make infant benadryl -duh to me I forgot we are supposed to use the children benadryl).
• Because of our many stops we were pushing making it to the airport with enough time -so we were booking it once we got there. Ian slept the whole car ride to the airport -he was tired and had a little bit of a cold.
  
• Ian woke up when we were going through security. We were nervous because Utah was so lax so we though NY wouldn't be quite the same. I had a full bottle of benadryl, tylenol, formula, 2 things of baby food, and 2 bottles one full of sugar water and they did not even take a second glance at us. Tim even went through the metal detector with all of his keys in his pocket and it didn't go off. Weird! So we made it through security very easily.
  
• They started bordering the plane just as we arrived to our gate.
  
• Nursed Ian on the way up and he did great. Just after feeding Ian I handed him to Tim to burp him and Tim felt something wet. BLOW OUT!!! It was everywhere all over his pants, up his back he was covered and so were his clothes. As soon as the seat belt sign turned off Tim went to go change him in the pint size bathroom (they have small changing tables in there). While sitting there waiting for them to return I can hear Ian screaming the whole time. Tim got a garbage bag from the flight attendent for his poop covered cloths. And Ian came back red face and not a happy camper.
• Since Ian usually goes to bed at 8 pm I had held him off to eat until 6:30 pm when the flight takes off. But no matter what at 8 o'clock he still wants to eat. So I got the formula container out of the diaper bag. When I went to open the seal and it literally exploded. White formula powder everywhere -literally everywhere. I was covered from head to toe it was all over the window to the side of me and the seat in front of me. Tim and I could not help but just laugh because I looked absolutely ridiculous. So Ian is now straight faced wondering why we are laughing as I try to clean up all this white powder. I am surprised they didn't think we had some kind of a bomb or something and do an emergency landing. Who knew that formula does that on a plane -advice that would have been good to know.
• Ian refuses to take any bottle and is screaming mad at this point so I nurse him again. He only eats half way and falls asleep -hurray!
  
• 7 minutes later he wakes up screaming. I finish feeding him -he is still awake and unhappy
• I asked the flight attendent for a sprite (anything to give me some kind of energy -at that point I was seriously considering the coffee) Ian gets a hold of the sprite and spills it all over me. So now I am covered in white powder that is now wet -combination makes ikky gu. It has soaked through all layers of my clothing so I was extremely uncomfortable.
• Ian continues to scream on the flight on and off. A five hour flight on the why home -benadryl does nothing, he looks exhausted as do I and he will not fall asleep. Even after nursing him 4 times with in a 5 hour flight the boy would not sleep.
  
• Tim is able to tune us out and watch the television in front of him with no sound because I would not let him put his head phones on -then he can't hear anything at all -stupid noise canceling headphones. I ask him to take him but of course he can't hear me so I get upset and then he gets upset. After complete frustration and exhaustion the baby is still not happy and neither are we so have him watching baby mozart on the ipod -which lasted about 20 minutes. By this point neither Tim or I are very happy with each other either.
• The last 10 minutes of the flight Ian finally falls asleep again but while getting off the plane Ian wakes up and screams for about 10 minutes on the drive home.
• Bump into a lady with Two twins about 1 year old who's kids are sleeping happily while they get luggage. I asked her how her flight was she said "Great, the first 20 minutes are a struggle then the benadryl kicks in and they sleep the rest of the flight." Ridiculous - benadryl didn't do one thing for us.
  

This is why people do not fly with children -I lost at least half a head of hair, and 10 years off my life. If you ask me now the next time we will be fly will have to be when Ian is 20 years old.

Christmas with the Diamonds!

This year Christmas cam early! We celebrated Christmas with my family on the 21st -it was nice to have everyone there. We started off the day with a wonderful chicken and potatoes dutch oven dinner -at my request!

Before we began open presents Ian had fun banging on them with a xylophone stick -that he loved putting in his mouth.

Unwrapping presents -whether they were his or not (of course no one was going to stop an almost 7 month old from unwrapping their present). He would just crawl from one person to the next to help out. It would take a little while but he would be sure that all of the wrapping paper was off. The moment he would rip a piece of paper off it would be heading straight for his mouth. We would then take that piece of paper away and he would ripe another one to put in his mouth --you get the idea.

As many of you know Ian loves reading books! Thanks to Christmas and our wonderful families we now have quite the collection of books. We are in desperate need of a bookshelf for Ian to organize them all -which we will be getting sometime this week very very soon.

The family together! With an early Christmas both grandparents were able to come and spend the day with us -thanks for coming down even in the snowy weather. It was so nice to have everyone there together for the day -we ending with a game of Apples to Apples which was loads of fun.

All I want for christmas is my two bottom teeth.

We have been thinking that Ian is teething for months now -finally they popped through. His right bottom one came through the beginning of this weekend and his left one popped through just yesterday (Sunday) at 6 months and 3 weeks old. This picture was taken Saturday while he was sleeping and as of Sunday he now has two!

Ian is getting really good at standing up on things and walking when holding onto something. We have come to find that anything he puts his mind to he can pretty much do.

He also loves sleeping with stuff animals -he goes to bed easily as long as there is a stuffed animal near by.
In other news we just had Christmas with my family yesterday and it was wonderful...as post will be coming sometime when we return from NY. Hope everyone has a merry christmas!

Santa!

Today Tim had his work party and Santa even came. So we couldn't resist but to snap a picture with Ian sitting on Santa's lap. I will admit Santa was a little nervous because he was afraid he was going to cry but we reassured Santa that he would not. Sure enough all Ian wanted to do was pull Santa's beard -lets just say that he has a pretty good grip too. I think he could have sat with Santa for hours.

Things have been pretty busy lately -we both feel like we have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off. The last day of work for me is tomorrow and the last day of work for Tim is tonight. We have so much to do and so little time. We are leaving for NY on Monday and are attempting to make sure we do not have to pay for additional baggage, and I think we are going to make it. That is to say if we even make it out of Utah since there is supposed to be a big snow storm coming in on Monday and lasting all week. Cross your fingers that all goes well. In addition I have to give the Relief Society lesson on Sunday and lets just say so far I have read the title. I am still shaking my head at this very moment wondering why I so happily agree. Do you think if I teach differential equations that they will not ask me to teach again???
Hmmm.....It is a thought.
Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

P.S. Thanks to Andrew and my dad for taking the family photos!

3 years and counting

Tim & I have been married for three years now as of the 16th of December. Thinking back on three years I am not sure where the time has gone. We have been here in our home in Smithfield for all but 3 months of those three years and loving every minute of it. We have finished school, gone through finals together, started our careers in the "real world" and changed our -ok well Tim has changed his mind a few times -but we are hoping that current path is the final career path. Actually there is no hoping it is :) We have loved life throughout it many trials and can't wait to see what is to come next.

Even now three years later we still have never run out of things to talk about -anytime we drive to Salt Lake we always forget to turn on the music because we are to busy talking and laughing. Sure we have our disagreements but eventually they become agreements. And now we have our beautiful little boy Ian who lets face it -we will be able to talk about for an eternity.

Here's to an Eternity! Love ya

To view our wedding album click here

Wrapping!

We have started wrapping Christmas presents this week since we are celebrating Christmas early with my family this coming Sunday! Then we head out to New York the next day for Christmas with Tim's family. Let just say that Ian loves wrapping paper and tries his best to be a big help and unwraps them all.

No I did not put them there -he climbed up there himself.
Ian's motto: "Don't go around it if you can go over it."

My Grandma Kathy sent us a Santa Hat and we couldn't help but throw it on Ian. He was having so much fun siting on the Christmas gift and playing that we did our own little photo shoot. Thanks for the hat, he loves playing with it and looking at the lights on the front of it!

In other news -we have to lower the crib again! Ian is almost 6 and a 1/2 months and the crib is as low as it can go. It is a good thing we know the builder (my dad for those of you who do not know)-he might have to make a top for it to keep Ian in. He has also discovered the stairs! He likes to climb up them and with Andrew's help attempt to go down them. He can now turn the mobile on himself and change the songs.


Just some fun pictures of Ian and us...
as you can see he loves pulling my hair and taking Tim's glasses.

Bye Bye split ends

I used to love shopping. Now -I hate it. Lately anytime I go to the store to try and find some shirt that possibly fits me that I can wear to work and not look completely ridiculous -it seems after a little while I finally give up and go look for fun things for Ian. However last week I did go shopping with my mom, Tim and Ian and got two shirts. They were even buy one get the other at half price!!!

Well along that same aspect the last time I colored or even cut my hair was in June. Needless to say it needed to be done. However when the furnace broke this weekend ($140 dollar later) that pretty much took away all of my "hair" budget. After having been almost 7 months since I have had my hair done I declared it an emergency and got my hair done anyway!

Before....(it is 6:30 am and I am about to deal with
hormonal immature teenagers I don't know why I am smiling
...just kidding I do love my job never a dull moment)

After....
Much better -I cut off just over 6 inches!

Being gone all day Ian spent the remainder of the night clinging to my shoulder.
But I didn't mind :)

Update

Ian is no longer slow at crawling around he moves at a rather quick pace. His new thing is attempting to pull himself up into a standing position on various things. He has also discovered that he can crawl on our hard wood floor but that it is easier if he crawls on his hands and feet -forget using your knees. So his little bum sticks up high in the air.

Just about to get in the bath -ignore the sweet potatoes all over his face.

Ian playing the Wii with Hunter.

Ian's new favorite toy - a little toy piano, it was Hunter's when he was little.  Ian lights up the moment he spots it.

In other news Tim got into Nursing School. He starts in February. He applied for the spring since this way we would only have to have someone watch Ian for 4 months until the summer then I could take care of him since I have the summers off while Tim was in school. Unfortunately we just found out that Tim also has the summer off and starts again in the fall -uggg. Don't ask me what we are going to do because I have know idea at the time being. But one must ask how could someone who already has a bachelors and is now going to Nursing School do something like this....How do you replace a light bulb on a really high ceiling when you don't own a ladder? Take two bistro chairs -wait still not tall enough - put one of the filing cabinets ontop of the bistro chairs -reach on your tippie toes -and pray you don't fall to the left down the set of 14 more stairs. Yes bachelors people?!? Love you babe!

Decorations

This weekend we pulled out the Christmas decorations. I love Christmas although I must say it is kind of weird here in Utah right now because there is no snow on the ground (in the mountains there is ski hills are open). But the christmas music has been playing since the beginning of November despite what Tim thinks (he thinks you should only listen to christmas music on christmas eve -boring). It is of course Ian's first Christmas and I can already tell that he will be most excited about bows, paper, and boxes although he will want to eat them all so note to all grandparents -avoid glitter.

Here is a little picture capture of how our day went setting up the tree...

Spotted the tree

Knowing that he is too cute and will probably get away with his plan

Going to get the tree

Got it! (he no longer cares if you are in his way he will just climb over you)

After he got tired of reaching up and pulling the branches he decided to go for the base of the tree and attempting to pull it towards him. We are going to be one of those family that has to put up child proof gates around our tree but I refuse. What six month old child (turned 6 months on saturday) does this we are in for it. Currently the last few day's have been spent moving Ian away from the tree -many many times.