Our baby girl is 10 months old. TEN MONTHS! You know what that means? In two very short months, she will be ONE WHOLE YEAR OLD! What the heck just happened? Did I not just have her? Was she not just this tiny little girly who fit between my elbow and the palm of my hand? How do I now have a baby girl who is walking, growing, eating real food and starting to pick up words? How is it that Melia is already so big and independent? Where has this year gone?! Regardless of how much I want the time to just stop and stay where is it forever, we must move forward. This month was just packed full of fun so let's get started!
Week 1:
This seems like forever ago, but my birthday happened in this month! Twas my golden birthday; 23 on the 23rd of November. What a good one it was, too. I was definitely spoiled =D It was great. My parents celebrated early because they went down to Arizona to see my sister and her husband for Thanksgiving. We went to Braza Grill in Salt Lake which was SUPER yummy. I love that food. Such good food. Then we went to my parents for presents. My parents got me a sewing machine, fabric scissors, some patterns to try with the new machine, my mom got me super nice boots (that I have pretty much worn every day since; they are so nice). Scott took me to the new Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay, he bought me purple corduroy pants and the Maze Runner series. It was all great! My birthday fell on a Sunday so we had dinner with Scott's Family that night and the present Donna gave me was great; she treated Scott and I to a night stay to a Bed & Breakfast. It was so fun; it's not often that we have the night ALL to ourselves, not needing to worry about Melia and at the time, worrying about her waking up two-three times a night. Plus, the B&B was absolutely beautiful! We went to 5th East Hall and stayed in the Cancun room. Let me just give you some of the little details; California King, double person old style tub, fire place, live birds that are night trained, a hammock, sand walkway into the bedroom. Yeah. It was awesome.
Donna volunteered her services to babysit and she said that Melia was perfect. That was a huge relief
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| Birthday Sunset |
Onto Melia's developments for this week. She full on started walking for real this week. I know, I've said that like three times already. She really is though. She will independently stand herself up on the couch or whatever, turn around and then walk across the room, 5-10 feet at a time to where ever she wants to be. IT'S FANTASTICALLY SCARY! I am so pumped that she is walking. It's exciting in the scariest way possible. Currently, she will only walk if we hold only one of her hands; if we try to hold both, she will stop walking, and shake a hand free and then start walking again. She's so cute. =D
Melia is also not afraid of any food. She will seriously eat anything (that I allow, of course). I am doing my best to be a healthy Mama and give her the good stuff, with occasional sweets here and there. I don't want Melia (and the rest of our children) to grow up thinking that sugar and sweets
The rest of this week was filled with family events. My great Aunt, since we're German we call her Tante Edde (Tun-tuh Edda) passed away a few days before Thanksgiving. She was my Oma's best friend growing up and she married my Oma's older brother. That's a fun story, isn't it? Tante Edde has a crazy life story and it was so fun to listen to it all at her funeral. She was born in Germany and was there during Hitler's rule and was part of Hitler Youth with my Oma. Knowing that that's my heritage is really neat. My Oma was really scarred from the experience, understandably so, but we don't hear much about it because of that. She agreed to talk about it a few times for school projects her grandkids would do, but she asked us not to bring it up with her anymore.
Sunday, November 30th, my cousin Stacey and her husband blessed their baby Boy, Benjamin in Holladay. It was gun to go to that and see them, meet their baby and see the family. Ben was 12 weeks at his blessing at weighed 15 pounds I want to say. That's a biiiiig baby! He is so cute though. He really likes to have people right in his face, talking to him. He would coo back to you as you would start talking with him. Melia really liked to see a baby too. She doesn't get to be around many babies and she's so fascinated with them. She was really good; we would tell her to be soft and gentle with him and she would just gently put one finger on his forehead and slide it down his face. Ooooh but it was cute.
Week 2:
WOOHOO!!! This was an exciting week. SO MANY GOOD THINGS HAPPENED!
First of all, Scott and I became first time Aunt and Uncle! Yay! Tyler and Hannah scheduled a c-section for Sammy since he had been breech the last few weeks of the pregnancy and they scheduled it for December 3rd. It was so hard to focus that day on anything. PLUS! One of my best friends, Samantha Rainsdon, came home from her mission that day too! She and I became instant friends when I moved to Utah and into the house my parents are in now. We were in the same ward, same school, same choir. We did a lot together. BACK to Sammy now. So we went over to see the new family later in the day and he is just so precious. He looks a lot Hannah. It's crazy to think that Melia was only a few ounces bigger than Sammy when she was born. Holding Sammy and thinking of Melia being a newborn just blew my mind; he is so tiny and fragile and light. Melia could never have been that small, fragile and light. 
With my friend Samantha coming home, I wanted to see her the moment I could!! I went over with Scott the day she got home but they were out. Makes sense. I went over by myself a day or two later and only her dad, Alan, was home. He gave me Sam's number and I called her. She missed my call and text me later asking who it was. When I told her that it was me she replied with, "Waaaaaaaa!! (.....) I'll call you later" And she did! IT WAS SO GREAT TO TALK TO HER! Oh how I've missed her. She's a lot of fun. We talked on the phone for a good while; caught up, laughed about old times, new life developments and what's ahead of us still. It's like nothing has changed. It's the greatest.
Saturday was a pretty busy day for me. I had a private swim lesson scheduled with an upper level student, then immediately after, I had a date with my friend Reagan. I met Reagan in Women's Chorus and we've stayed in pretty good contact ever since. Oh how I love Reagan. She's a hoot. We have a lot of fun together. She's a big singer, big into Disney and big into just being herself. We were definitely meant to be friends and I plan to keep her like that forever. Anyway, I went down to Reagan's place in Provo so she could help me get along with my new sewing machine. We did a few projects together; talked about choir, school, boys, dating, Melia, sewing, etc. That was a good break. That was a lot of fun. Getting out is nice.
Week 3:
A lot of things happened this week. We had an event pretty much every day. It was a riot! So here we go. Monday night, the whole Christensen household (the family upstairs and us), went to Lone Peak Madrigal Dinner. Oooooh that's always fun. So Joshua is in A Cappella this year so we went for him and I gave him a hard time haha. So Madrigal dinner is this "Medieval Feast" that the Chamber and A Cappella choirs put on as a fundraiser. So, to go along with the theme, there is a Mister and Mistress of the Salt, since salt was such a precious thing back in the days. I made sure Josh had to get salt a couple times because to do so, one much kiss the Mister or Mistress of the Salt
On Tuesday, Scott and I went to campus. I set up an appointment with Sis. A. to see her and have her listen to me sing. I've been really wanting to have her listen to me since I got my tonsils out to see if she can tell me what's changed. When we go there, she was too busy to see me, which is fine, so she had her TA for the semester, Lee, take me to another room and listen to me. Man, I am out of practice. Lee helped me with a few techniques I had fallen out of touch with. He told me my range and where to stick with when I am looking for songs for auditions and such. It was a lot of fun. Melia had a lot of fun on campus too, Sis. A. LOVED seeing her. She showed off a little bit for her even. After my singing, we tried to go to the usual rehearsal, but it was right after a concert so it was the discussion day. We left shortly after it started and decided to go the Bean Museum. That was a lot of fun. Melia loved that too. She roared at all the animals, pointed and "ooo'ed" and bounced and laughed. It was so cute. There was a little kid corner in the museum with a slide and we took Melia to the corner and helped her down the slide. I am happy to say that she actually showed enjoyment in her face this time. Haha. It took long enough. We did the slide with her a few times and she loved it every time!
Not a lot of Melia developments this week, but some exciting news for Scott and I. We have talked a lot about arranging a song on our own. Well we finally started to do that this week! We figured that with Christmas around the corner, we would put together our own Christmas song. So we are doing a medley of Silent Night and The First Noel. It's been a lot of fun. We have put the harmonies
On Saturday of this week, Donna hosted the Christensen Family Christmas Party. That was a lot of fun. We were in charge of making mashed potatoes for everyone. Want to know the fun part? We made two, 20lb bags of potatoes, into mashed potatoes. Party was 8 days ago, there's still leftovers for another week left haha. So great. Another funny thing about the potatoes; every year there's a White Elephant gift exchange. Donna realized that they were a few gifts short so she decided to pack up some potatoes, wrap them and add them to the pile. So when one of the cousins, Tommy, picked the potatoes, still wrapped, he grabbed it, felt it a little bit and said, "Ewww!! It's warm! Why is so warm?!" When he opened it, he was legitimately excited and pleased with what he picked. Aunt Fran "stole" the potatoes from him at one point and he was bummed. Tommy opened another gift and that was stolen from him later too, which he then stole the potatoes back. When he did so, his dad, Andy, reacted like so: "What the heck are you thinking?! Aunt Donna would give you some potatoes for FREE! Pick something of value!" To which Tommy then said, "But I really like potatoes!" Easily, that was the best part of the night hahaha.
Sunday was Sam's homecoming. She served in Argentina and she loved every moment of it. It was a lot of fun to listen to her stories and experiences and see how much she's grown. After sacrament meeting was over, we went to see Sam at the front of the building. She was so excited to see me and especially to meet Melia. To make the first meeting better, Melia reached for Sam and was more than happy to be in her arms. It was a really sweet moment. After the block was over, we went to the Rainsdon's house for munchies and to visit her. We talked with her for a little while, her parents for a good while, and some of the other families from the ward that I haven't seen in awhile. Melia was good the whole time too which made the whole visit a lot easier. To be honest, I'm not sure how I made it through the entire day in one piece. Melia is getting a lot better about sleeping. She usually doesn't wake up at all anymore until she wakes up for good. Typically, that's 7:30am. Though sometimes it's 6:30am or 9:00am. Mostly 7:30 though, which is a good time. ANYWAY. Back to how I stayed together Sunday. I really don't know how. Saturday night, Melia would not sleep. She just did not want to stay asleep. No matter what we tried; nursing, crying it out, holding and singing, diaper, teething gel, everything. It was awful. We probably got a total of 4-5 hours of sleep; maybe. I am definitely ready for her to be done with this whole, sleep struggle thing.
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| She has a hard time waking from naps...but her hair is cute! |
Week 4:
Twas the week before Christmas. And what a week it was indeed. On Monday, after Scott came home from work, we decided it would be good to go Christmas shopping. I got pretty much all my shopping done on this trip. Not that I had a lot to get anyway....but still. I finished Scott's shopping this day which was a good start. I have a hard time gift giving. It was a lot of fun, actually, to go shopping. We went together haha. So I had Scott's present in the car the whole time, with him knowing about it being right in front of his nose. It was funny. But now it's hidden and secret and safe. I'm so excited for his Christmas!!
On Wednesday, DoTERRA had their annual work Christmas party. It has really grown since I started working there two years ago. I'm not there anymore, obviously. But Scott is still there and doing well. He started a month after I did. There were 400 employees. Now there's over 1,500. Crazzzyyy. The party favor this year was a fun little Christmas tree that lights up all sorts of colors and patterns. Melia loves it; everyone else doesn't haha. But if it makes her happy, we're happy. So here's how the party went: We had dinner, which was pretty good. Last year's was better, but I quite enjoyed the potatoes. After dinner, they had The Dueling Pianos which was really cool, but super loud. Turn the volume down, folks. We can hear you. After the pianos, they did the raffles. I was sure that we were going to win something this year....but....we didn't. So that's too bad. After the raffles, they did some random announcements and we were out. It was pretty fun. Melia got real antsy after the Dueling Pianos. It was impossible. But I saw some people there I didn't think I'd see. I love when that happens. It was a good night. =]
The next night, Thursday, was my Oma's Christmas party at the Senior Living home. It was super delicious. I was more than pleased with the meal. My parents were there, Kara was there, Scott, Melia and I, my Aunt Heidi, Uncle Brian and my cousins Jared and Brandon. It was a great company. After we were done eating, we were told that there was a Santa down the hall. I was ECSTATIC! I've been trying to get some Santa time for Melia all month! So we went a strolling on down to see Santa. Melia, mind you, has been super good all night and happy as can be, giggling, eating, walking, happy. Scott had her and as we sat down, he says, "You want to see Santa? Want to sit on his lap?" She's cheerful, happy fine. The very second he handed her to Santa, she totally flipped! It was total insta-tears, she looked immediately betrayed. She was reaching for me and just hollering. I grabbed her, held her close; completely fine. That was that. She was fine. It was absolutely hilarious. The whole family that was there was watching and were just roaring with laughter. Santa was laughing with us and I'm apologizing through my laughs. We are just waiting for them to post their pictures to get the good ones; we have some that were taken on a cell phone. Oh but it was good. So good.
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| Notice her "No, no" finger |
Saturday was a crazy busy day for Scott and I. So. Here's the deal. I love anatomy; I find it so fascinating and fun. Well, Body World's is human anatomy at it's finest. People donate their bodies for display. They break down the muscular system, the ligaments, the nerves, the skeletal system, the brain; everything. It's so cool! I told Scott about it years ago and he promised that if it came back to Utah, we would go. Well, it's here!! We went on Saturday! Scott was all worried that he would be sick and grossed out but he was quite pleased and fascinated himself. We stuck around and played in the rest of the museum and Melia was really good through the whole day. She was loving all the different things we were seeing and playing with. She got a little antsy around lunch time and we had a hard time finding a good place to feed her, but we made it work. We ended up spending the entire day in Salt Lake because later we were meeting the Christensen's for dinner and the Piano Guys Concert. That was tons of fun! We went to dinner at Applebee's at The Gateway. Scott and I went Christmas shopping some more at the Gateway and I found some more presents =] I am so excited for Christmas and to give what I have to everyone. After we finished shopping, we called Dallin to see where they all were. They were on their way and asked us to reserve a table. We went in to reserve and they don't take reservations; just so ya'll know. So instead, they sat Scott and I at the table and we sat and waited for about 40 minutes....ish. It worked out nicely, actually. We were able to feed Melia, get water for the table, settle down after our long day and pick out what we wanted to eat before everyone got there. We walked across the street to the Energy Solutions Arena after dinner for the show and man was that great or what?! It was so great. I love The Piano Guys. They are really funny on stage too. Jon Schmidt, I've seen him in concert before he was part of The Piano Guys and his tricks are pretty much the same. Doesn't make him any less funny; he did pull some pretty intense dance moves which was funny. "Will all the white male dancers please return to their piano benches." Just to give you an idea of how that went. Steven Sharp Nelson is a funny man. He 
and they were loving the attention she was giving them. She was awake for the first two songs and she very much enjoyed those. Danced away, sang, ooo'ed, hummed, danced some more. She couldn't get enough of it! It was so cute! Oh I love that girl.
It seems as though I've reached the end of the month. Melia is 10 months old today! Such a big girl. She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it too. She also knows what she's not allowed to play with and she's very smart about it too. She definitely keeps us on our toes; especially when all we want to do is be off our feet, sleeping and resting. I love that girly with all I have and Scott does too. She has been just a bundle of joy! Even though she wears us out to the point of exhaustion, we Keep Moving Forward as a family.
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| The "before" picture that I took after I cleaned it up |
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| You can see it in her eyes that she knows she did something naughty |
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