Christmas

We were able to have a great Christmas this year. It was our first Christmas we were able to be home for christmas day. I was so excited! It went great. First we had a Christmas party with my family the weekend before christmas. Then we had another Christmas party with Scott's family on Christmas eve. After the party on Christmas eve we drove home to make our own traditions. When we got back to our house we started with some Christmas carols and then took the girls downstairs to open their one present before bed.They put on their pajamas, left out some treats for santa and went to bed. Scott and I got things ready and went to bed. Scott and I couldn't sleep very well so, about 7 am we woke the girls up. I put in my parents traditional egg sausage breakfast casserole in the oven and we started opening presents. Catie was so excited that she couldn't sit still. Kiana, on the other hand was bored out of her mind. She sat in our laps and tried to fall back asleep. We spent the rest of the day playing with our new toys and being lazy. It was great!

Family Pictures

We set up to do family picture when my brother was here around Thanksgiving. For one reason or another we didn't end up doing the pictures like I had hoped. We did manage to get in a few pics on Thanksgiving Day. My sister was able to get her friends camera and we took some pics. They didn't turn out great but, since I had gotten everything ready for some family pictures, I set up my own time to take family pictures. We got together with my sister's friend here in Pocatello. On the 3rd of December we went out in the freezing cold to take pictures. It was 18 degrees and I was wearing short sleaves. The girls did so great even though it was SOOO cold. Kiana was even smiling and laughing. Even though we were freezing cold and we did it really fast they turned out great. Thanks to Rita Peck, who did an awesome job!!

Catch up

I'll play a little catch up here for a bit. First, Scott was finally able to get a replacement for his Ketchum job. He was finally down to one job by the end of October. Scott got a call from someone he worked with in Boise during his rotations asking about the job. So he talked to the guy for a while and soon set up a time for the guy to head up to Ketchum to see and talk to Ken. So, he saw Ken and signed a contract the same day. We were elated. 

The girls are growing up so fast. Catie is now 2 years and 10 months old. She is crazy fun, so creative and full of imagination. She comes up with these crazy words, for example she says "77 k pap" all the time. I have no idea what it means or where she came up with it. She really likes to quote movies, her favorite right now is the 4th Ice Age movie, she likes to say, "where's my booty?" a lot. She will also quote large sections of other movies as well like Mulan and Beauty and the Beast. She has a crazy good memory. The other day she put on my hat, looked at me and said, "Mommy I look like you, and that's cute." She also is really into singing. She sings Part of Your World all the time. She knows almost all the words. I love it! She also sings I Am A Child Of God, Popcorn Popping, Jingle Bells, and the ABC's. She is adventurous, loving, and so much fun!

Kiana is growing like a weed. She is now 7 months old and so smart! She rolls over, from front to back. She is almost crawling, she moves but she isn't up on her knees yet. Tonight she was trying to get her knees underneath her but not quite making it. Tonight she also drank out of a straw for the first time. I was sitting at the table feeding her cereal and she was coughing so, I was giving her some water. I just decide that she seemed like she was trying to suck the water up so I put the straw in the water and gave it to her and after a few tries she had it figured out. She is currently trying to feed herself, if the piece of food is large she can get it in her mouth but, if it is small she can't get the coordination to get it in her mouth. She loves eating though, anything she can get her hands on she will put in her mouth. Just a few days ago she cut 2 teeth. Her very first teeth. The bottom front 2 teeth are just barely cutting through. She is a happy and loving little girl. I love her bubbly, happy personality.

Scott is enjoying only working one job. The hours fluctuate but, we do alright. He has almost all weekends off, and we are very grateful for that. He is looking forward to a weekend in Vegas coming up at the end of the month. He is headed down there to watch Rugby with my Dad and Brother-In-Law. He loves going to the tournament every year. 

I am doing well, not much new here for me. I love my family and my house. I'm grateful to be able to stay home with my wonderful girls. I need to get better at housework and such but, I'm working on it.

Busy, Busy, Busy

The last few months have been pretty crazy. Not that they have been crazy enough to not blog. I'm just terrible at remembering to do it. I just looked back and realized I neglected to announce I was pregnant. I was due June 15th to have another little girl. I was lucky enough that everything went very well with the pregnancy. I was also very lucky to have her 9 days early. Kiana Mae Thomas was born on June 6th, 2013 at 1:53 am. She weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and was 19 inches long. She also had the good fortune to be born with a small amount of hair that was a lovely dark brown, almost black, color. We did have a couple problems with the birth but nothing serious. I went into the doctors office that morning at 8:30 am, my doctor had told me she was going to strip my membranes and that would send me into labor. Well after talking to my sisters I realized, most of the time it doesn't work like that. So I went to the appointment and after the doctor sent me over to labor and delivery in the hospital. As I checked in the nurse was asking me questions and asked if I had been having any contractions and how close were they. I looked at her thinking, "What do I say? If I tell her I haven't had any contractions she is going to just send me home." So, I embellished a little. I could see by the nurses face that one contraction an hour is not nearly enough to warrant checking into the hospital. Nonetheless she took all my information then said she was going to call my doctor. After talking to my doctor they decided I needed to take a walk. Basically they were telling me I needed to ramp up my contractions if I didn't want sent home. After an hour walk they brought me back and checked me. My labor was progressing but with one glaring omission, contractions. So they sent me walking some more... I walked, and walked, and walked. I went into the hospital at 8:30 am and didn't go into active labor til around 11 pm or so. I didn't have any contractions, and not very painful ones at that, until I was dilated to an 8. Around 10 pm my doctor broke my water and that was when everything changed. After my water was broken my contractions became much more painful, and things progressed pretty fast. It went so quickly, I almost didn't get my epidural. The anesthesiologist took about 30 minutes to get to the hospital, it being so late at night, and by that time Kiana was almost here. I didn't truly  understand the pain that comes along with giving birth... After almost missing my epidural, I will never take it for granted again. No offense to anybody but, I don't understand how anyone can give birth without an epidural. Anyway, I pushed for about 12 minutes before Kiana made her debut. She was healthy and beautiful. Later on that night I did hemorrhage and lost a lot of blood but, other than a little anemia everything was great. 

With Mommy for the first time.

With Daddy for the first time

The nurse called me Rapunzel the whole time because my hair was spread across the pillow like that when she walked in

Seeing Big Sis for the first time

With Nana

With Grandma

With Grandpa

Getting to go home!

Getting to go home

She is now 3 months old and adorable!! Her big sister loved her so much. Catie loves her so much we have to pry her off of Kiana fairly often. Catie is also a great help, very willing to get things and help put Kiana's Binky back in. Kiana is already rolling over, she rolled over for the first time about a week ago. She is a very sweet baby. She sleeps all the way through the night and laughs and smiles all day long. 

She also really likes to stick out her tongue

Less than a month ago we were able to move back to Pocatello. I can't tell you how very relieved I am to be back in Pocatello. We were also very fortunate to be able to buy a house. Scott got a job at Walmart being a traveling pharmacist based here in Chubbuck, he started on July 10th. He is supposed to be traveling between  Burley, Chubbuck, and Blackfoot. He occasionally travels to Twin Falls and sometimes Idaho Falls. Unfortunately he is still working up in Ketchum for the time being. We are searching for a replacement but, having a hard time finding someone willing to take the job. So, until we get a replacement for the job in Ketchum the girls and I don't see much of Scott. He works almost all his time off, from Walmart, in Ketchum. 
I love my new house!! We had given up on getting a house and were looking at rentals when we found out about this house. In Ketchum they had just hired a part time pharmacist to pick up some of the extra shifts, and he heard we were looking for a house in the Pocatello area. He tells Scott that his daughter is looking to sell a house. So he tells us it is a fairly new, 4 bedroom house with a loft. That is all he said. I was pretty worried about it and almost didn't call to ask about the house. I was worried when he said newish, it didn't sound very new from what he said. Fortunately I did call on the house and she told me it is a 4 bedroom house with an unfinished basement with room for another bedroom to be put in downstairs. She also informed me it had a fully fenced back yard and was around 3200 square feet. So I got pretty excited and set up a time to see it. The people selling it were just about to put it on the market with a realtor but had not yet. They had even talked to a realtor about listing it. We looked at it and informed them we wanted to make an offer and had a price settled on by the end of that night. So, I am now the proud owner of a gorgeous 13 year old house. I couldn't be happier to be back in the Pocatello area and owning a house.

2 Years!

My baby is 2 years old! I just can't believe it. She got several days of celebrations as well. The Saturday before her birthday our friends Katie and Gabe came to visit so we decided it was a good day to go swimming. Katie and Gabe are some of Catherine's favorite people. So we all went to the YMCA here in Ketchum and had a fun afternoon playing in the pool. It is a pretty cool facility. Then on her birthday she got her presents from Mommy and Daddy.

Her smile didn't really work

She got lots of bath toys

She loves these fish!

Her pretty pink dump truck.

She uses her dump truck to hold her fish.

 Pretty much right after opening her presents we all left to go to Nana and Papa's house. We had planned a dinner in Pocatello to celebrate Aunt Crystals birthday along with Catherine's birthday on Friday. So, I decided I needed time to get the cake done before the dinner so went to Nana and Papa's house early so I could get it done. On Friday I spent pretty much the whole day making the cake then we went down to Pocatello for dinner at Pizza Pie Cafe. I am pretty proud of my cake. I do have to mention that I definitely didn't do it all on my own. My sister Elisa, who was down from Moscow, helped a lot. I don't think I would have been able to get it all done if she hadn't been there. 

Love this cake! It turned out really good.

We had a great time at Pizza Pie Cafe, everybody who could come was there. We did miss my brother Matt and his family but they have a good reason to not be there. 

After finishing at Pizza Pie Cafe we continued our journey on to Grace to be with Grandma and Grandpa. When we got to Grace we were met by Scott's brother Curtis and 3 of his children. Curtis' little girl Marcey is 3 days younger than Catherine so, Grandma had a cake waiting for them.

One of the things she got from Grandma and Grandpa.

It was very hard to get them both smiling at the same time.

Catherine trying to blow out the candles. She kept blowing down.

Love my little girl!!