What a blessing

Kevin and I live in California. My family lives on the east coast. When I found out I was having a baby I was happy and sad at the same time. Happy because I have always wanted to be a mom, but sad because you always imagine your family (in particular your mother) being there to share this experience with you. So...you can imagine how happy I was when I found out that some of my family was going to be able to come out here to be part of Morgan's baby blessing. Kevin's family has been great at making me feel like I was truly a part of their family, but it was nice to have both sides of Morgan's family there to share this special event.

Melissa, her husband, Ted and my parents all said that they would be willing to come travel across the country to meet our little girl, but the problem was getting everyone's schedule all figured out. The date we finally came up with for Morgan's blessing was January 17th. When we went to church to confirm that date with our bishop, Kevin discovered that was the date of our Stake conference. GRREEEAAATTTT!

We were pretty bummed that it worked out that way, but we talked to our bishop and he said that we could do later at the church building or he could come to our home and we could do it there. After thinking it over we decided we wanted to do it at the church building right after conference so some of those church members that wanted to could see it as well.

We thought that it wasn't going to be as nice as having the whole congregation watching her get blessed, but actually having only our close friends and family being there made the experience so much more special.

Kevin did an amazing job. Everyone felt the spirit so strongly and after the blessing the Bishop gave us time to have our own little testimony meeting. Everyone said such wonderful things and there almost wasn't a dry eye in the place. I must say that I am thankful that it turned out this way because I know that it wouldn't have been so personal if we had had it any other way.

After the blessing we had everyone come to our house for food and socializing. It was nice to have Kevin's family and our friends get to know some of my family. I will always look back fondly on that day.

Kevin's mom bought Morgan her blessing gown and headband. (Thanks again Linda) I decided that I didn't get enough pictures of her on that Sunday so I decided to have a little photo shoot. Here are a few of my favorites.

 

  

  

  

 

What a doll

Our friends made this cute little onesie for Morgan...So I had to take some pictures.

 

This one was taken as she was falling to the side. You can see in her eyes that she is saying "um mom put down the camera and help me".

 

6 weeks

Today Morgan had a Doctors appointment to check and see how she is growing as well as get some vaccinations.

Her Height, Weight and head all measure in the 50th percentile. So we thought that was good...she is in the same range in all areas and she is now 10 lbs even and 22 inches long.

As far as the vaccinations go...we decided we only want her to have two shots at a time. I personally just don't think little babies bodies can handle more than that at once. I don't even know if I believe that all of the vaccinations are necessary, but I need to do a little more research. Poor little thing. I lost it when they gave her her shots. I started crying. I felt silly, but I just don't like to see her in pain like that. Honestly, she really was a trooper she only cried for a few seconds after the shot. I think I was more upset than she was.

BUT the best part about today was that since it was pretty cold out we finally got the chance to dress her in this cute little suit.

Ready for her close up

When Morgan was two weeks old we took her to have her pictures taken. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Emily for letting us use your house for the shoot and thanks Evaly for being so patient with little Morgan.

First Christmas with Morgan

I don't know about you guys, but to me Christmas came really fast this year. And it was over just as fast. Christmas for our little family was pretty special since it was the first Christmas Morgan was with us. Other than that it was pretty mellow.

Kevin's parents came to our place to spend Christmas eve with us. We went out to Claim Jumper to eat because Kevin and I have done that  the two other Christmases we lived here. Kevin's parents were happy to keep up the tradition with us. That was the first time we had taken Morgan out and she pretty much just stayed quietly in her infant seat the whole time. After dinner we came back to our apartment and watched "It's a wonderful life" and split between the four of us a piece of chocolate mother load cake. YUM! That was pretty much it. We just enjoyed each others company and soaked up that warm feeling that this time of year usually brings.

Kevin had told me not to get him much of anything this year because what he planned on getting me was really more of a gift for the family. SO....of course I tried to secretly figure out what he got us. Christmas morning when I opened my present I wasn't TOO surprised to see that he had gotten us an Xbox 360. He explained that he really wanted to get me the Beatles Rockband but we didn't have a game system to play it on. So that will be a gift in the future. It would have been crazy expensive to get the Xbox and Rockband all at once. I was impressed he really did his homework to find out what he should get and he ended up getting us a refurbished Xbox with a three year warranty. That saved us some money. I think he also thought that it would be a good idea for us to have this since we probably won't be going out much for a while. It will give us something to entertain ourselves with.

After opening presents we packed up and drove to Kevin's parents house to meet up the the rest of his family. We had a great dinner and enjoyed spending time together. I was a little upset that I didn't take many pictures this Christmas, but I was just relaxing and enjoying our first Christmas with our little girl.

My mom sent us our Christmas ornaments for this year and it was so fun to see one for Morgan. Mine was the goofy one and Pluto was for Kevin. I think these ornaments are such a fun tradition that my mom started and I look forward to getting them every year.

Overall it was a nice relaxing holiday. I hope everyone had great Christmas with good food, fun and surrounded by their friends and family.