‘Twas the Week Before Christmas

It seems like this year the holidays just came out of nowhere!  Obviously we were a little distracted eating, sleeping, crapping our pants, and trying to enjoy bath time a little more…

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I am slowly taking new projects here and there for work.  A fun project I did, though, was for a friend who asked me to replicate a family tree for her for a Christmas gift and I am so happy with how it turned out.

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Life with a newborn is so much better than I expected.  I don’t get as much done day to day as I used to, but I am enjoying this stage of her life so very much.  I might die when I can no longer tuck her in one arm…

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The week before Christmas we had our annual Henderson Adult Christmas dinner.  We had it at the Roof this year, in the round room.  Zach and I checked “Seeing the lights at Temple Square” off our holiday to-do list…from above and in a warm room.

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Thank you to Mark and Jeanene for a delicious meal with great company!

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On the daily, Sloan is such a champ and goes everywhere with me.  Lucky for me, she loves riding in the car and doesn’t mind her car seat at all.  She loves looking out the window as we run our errands.

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I feel very lucky that I can work from home.

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Like I said, I am taking it in stages, but I really like my new co-worker.  She doesn’t mind that I am in my jams 80 percent of the time.

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I have learned a lot the past 6 weeks on my quest to become a decent mother.  One of the most random is that just because you love clothes and buy your unborn child a whole slew of them, doesn’t mean that she will like them as much as you do.  Sloan would rather be naked [aka in a diaper only] all day every day if I would let her.  One of the few things she would tolerate, however, were her Christmas jammies.

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Zach went up to the Hendo cabin for a weekend with his guy friends.  I took the opportunity to get everything done before the holiday.  I got all my neighbor gifts done.  Talk about last minute.  This year we did pasta and pesto.  Which means I will have a frozen pesto supply until next Christmas…

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Also, Sloan and I wrapped all the Christmas presents [naked of course – her, not me].

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One of the best bits of advice I got before Sloan came was to get a Rock and Play [thank you Lindsey!] and I can’t even say how grateful I am for that suggestion.  Sloan loves to watch me do everything.  Make dinner, clean the house, whatever – all in her little Rock and Play (that she also sleeps in next to our bed every night).  It has saved me!

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Since Zach didn’t get home until Sunday, my mom and I decided to have a mini stay-cation.  Just us three girls.  We stayed a night at the Grand America.  We had in-room dining for dinner and watched movies all night.  Sloan was trippin’ out in the middle of the night when she realized her dad had morphed into Gram…

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Sunday was the Henderson Family Christmas party at Classic Skating.  Sloan wore her Christmas dress for 10 whole seconds before she was over it.  I am glad I got a photo op before it was boycotted…

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Also, going along with the “better-late-than-never” theme…we sent out our Christmas cards.  Probably my favorite year thus far.  Sloan’s face is killing it in this picture.  Our child fits in pretty well with her weirdo parents, if you can’t tell…

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Just counting down the days until we get to celebrate our first Christmas with our baby girl!

Sloan’s Newborn Photos

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The day before Thanksgiving we had Sloan’s newborn photos taken at our home.  Ashleigh from Harlow Moon Photography took them and we are thrilled at how they turned out.  I am so grateful she captured some of Sloan’s nursery, as well.

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The Way We Were

This week we took Sloan to the mall for some holiday shopping.  We tried out our bassinet attachment that goes with or stroller and the poor thing looked like she was in a deep dark cavern.  She didn’t hate it…she just doesn’t fit very well in it yet.  Every turn of the stroller meant she was playing steamroller inside there.

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We scored some great gifts and afterwards Zach made us get Hot Dog on a Stick at the food court – a “Fashion Place tradition”.  I am not the biggest fan of HDOAS, but the lime lemonade is always a win.  Hopefully Sloan enjoyed her second-hand corn dog…

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She slept almost the entire time.  The hustle and bustle of the holidays didn’t phase her one bit.

I finally put up our Christmas decorations as well.  Sloan’s stocking arrived just in time.  It’s not as decked out as it usually is, but at least there is a tree for Sloan to snooze by.

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Saturday we went to our first family movie.  I had been dying to see the new Hunger Games flick so we decided to go for it.  I originally purchased some infant headphones so I could take Sloan to her dad’s ice hockey games, but we decided to experiment with them at the movie.  We had it all planned out.  Sloan takes a bottle like a champ [I started pumping one bottle for her a day when she was a week old] so we gave her a bottle during the opening trailers.  She slept through the entire movie thanks to a full belly and those silly headphones.

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I kept reminding Zach not to drop popcorn on her head…

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When I think about the way we were before Sloan, it makes sense what people warned me about.  Having a baby does make certain situations tricky.  BUT if you make a plan, and if you are really lucky, you can do the things you want to do or did before having kids.  Yes, things take more time.  Literally it took me 6 times as long this week to send out Christmas cards as it would have normally, but we did it!  And we’re getting into a groove.  All three of us, actually.  We are learning Sloan’s little tells.  She is officially one month old and I am starting to tell the difference between a “I am hungry” cry and a “I just crapped my pants” cry…

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She’s a pretty rad chick and I can confidently say that this has been the fastest month in memory.  Can’t wait to see who she morphs into next month!

Thanksgiving

It’s weird to think about, but this has been our first Thanksgiving home in six years!  Even though it was different being home instead of out of town celebrating our anniversary, different is sometimes even better…

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We had Sloan’s newborn photos the day before Thanksgiving.  She was snoozing the majority of the time and I am hoping the photographer captured a few with her eyes open.  I still have to wake her up to eat at night.  Poor thing hates to be disturbed while she is zoned out, but the girl has got to beef up!

Thursday we elected to stay home for Thanksgiving day.  We were planning on going to the Hendo cabin for dinner, but with 25 grandkids we figured it would be smarter to stay home and stay healthy.  But we weren’t alone the whole day.  My parents, brother, and sister-in-law came to visit us for lunch.  We had pizza and picked our way through the Black Friday adds.

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That afternoon Sloan and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner.  I was elated that I didn’t mess everything up for our first Thanksgiving as a family of three.  Granted that the stuffing was Stovetop and we ate with Cafe Rio silverware…but we are calling it a victory because nothing was burned or tasted foul!

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Even the pie, which I had to battle for at the grocery store because it was the LAST one, turned out ok!

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Zach’s sister dropped of this hilarious onesie before dinner.  So thanks to Lori, my daughter was festive for her very first holiday.

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Friday I ventured to Target for a little bargain shopping, but wasn’t looking for anything in particular and left with sheets.  Like we need another pair of neutral sheets around this house…

Zach spent his day off from work snowboarding at Park City.  He put his new pole [his “new dad” gift he asked for] to good use in the park.

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Saturday we got our family Christmas card photos taken by the sweet and talented Erin Burk.  She was so sweet to put up with us and our (ok, this was MY idea, Zach was not so into it) theme for the card.  I can’t wait to see how they turned out!

Later that night Zach took Sloan and I to Em’s Restaurant up by the capital.  It was my first time and it did not disappoint.  It is such a cute and quiet restaurant.  Sloan slumbered next to me in her car seat the entire time.  It was the perfect place to take her out with us.  There were only a few other groups at the restaurant.  Two out of the four tables asked to come see her.  The reaction we got when they realized she was just two weeks old was pretty hilarious.  People find it very odd that Zach and I are taking her with us everywhere, but we figure that WE are goers…so Sloan is going to have to keep up eventually.

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I am so grateful for so many things this holiday.  The support from our family and friends throughout this whole process welcoming Sloan into our family has completely floored me.  I am so lucky to have my husband.  He is such an incredible partner and parent already.  I am beyond blessed to have an angel in our home every day.  She doesn’t always smell like an angel, but everything else is heavenly.  Sloan has made the two of us a real eternal family, and for that I will never be able to repay her.  She is our little BFF already and I can’t wait to share more experiences with her and make millions of memories.