An Official Family Update

Happy Holiday's Everyone!

2009 brought our family a 5 year anniversary, a new edition and a lot of fun times together. I've enjoyed blogging about our family and my own endeavors. I'm hoping that in the near future I will have a re-vamped website so check back and tell me what you think.

Let me update you on our current happenings:

Kellen starts his last undergraduate semester in January. He is getting a degree in Communications and specializing in Public Relations. Last weekend he took the LSAT and spent most of his free time for the last three months studying for it. He feels that he did well...and I'm willing to bet he did VERY well. In coming months he will be applying to law schools on the west coast for fall 2010.

Right now I'm living it up at home with the girls while I'm on maternity leave from work. The house has never been cleaner :) We have a lot of fun together playing and crafting. I spend my free time reading, blogging and if I'm lucky sewing. The beginning of 2010 I'll start back at work which will be hard because I'll miss the girls and our routine. I'm still working at a local Emergency Department as a Crisis Worker. Fortunately, I enjoy the work I do and the people I work with which will hopefully make the return easier. I have only a few months until I will receive my official license as a LCSW which is currently my goal.

Leah is currently into Disney princesses and cutting paper. She sings all day long and prances about. She is excited to have a little sister and is very helpful big sister. Currently she attends a fine arts pre-school three times weekly. Her school is perfect for her...they sing, dance, try different art forms and make-up stories each morning. Leah is a very good and happy little girl who always keeps us entertained!

Lily sleeps most of the day, eats franticly when she does wake and occasionally opens her eyes long enough to give us some smiles. As of today she has started cooing and is working on laughing...but at this point it just sounds like she is hyperventilating. We are blessed to have two girls that are happy and love to sleep!

2010 will most likely bring a lot of change for us. Kellen will graduate this spring and we hope to move to Portland, Oregon at the end of summer. It's time for us to leave the state of Utah behind before Leah starts Kindergarten. We are grateful for all our blessings and the gift of family. Thank you all for keeping in touch and we hope to hear from you. Have a happy new year!

An Ice-skating First

Leah's aunt and uncle, Kalob and Harmony, wanted to take Leah iceskating. She has been talking about iceskating for a while but we had not made it much of a priority unfortuantly. Thank goodness for aunts and uncles that spoil our children with love and consideration.

It was seriously cold outside...20 degrees. Holy freak. I'm not one for exposing myself to that kind of torture and was talked into going last minute. I guilt tripped myself...who would miss their child's first ice-skating moment? So I threw on and layered everything I saw in sight in an attempt avoid the cold. Lily was nice and toasty in her sling and never even made an appearance during the event.

Harmony and Leah

I loved watching Harmony, Kalob and Kellen help Leah. She did pretty good for her first time!

 

How cute are they?

 

This photo captures how very spoiled Leah can be. She is sipping the hot chocolate that Kalob went and got her because she was crying...Kellen wrapped her feet in Lily's blanket to keep them warm...she's leaning on me and asking me to hold her hot chocolate so that she can eat Harmony's snack...Can she be more pampered?

Thanks Harmony and Kalob for being proactive!

One More Tea Party (Leah's B-Day 09)

I got through it. Marathon decorating of Leah's room for her birthday and planning the birthday Tea Party. Actually, there wasn't that much planning for the party because I'm becoming an expert at quick Tea Party's. The most involved process for me now is the invitations.

I just threw together stuff to eat the day of. Which included peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, turkey pesto sandwiches (of course with crusts removed), snack foods, pigs in a blanket, fruit and Chinese chicken salad. We bought decorations as we shopped and picked up some balloons at the store. While at Costco we saw these flowers that we had to have because they matched everything so well. Leah fell in love with them and has been requesting flowers ever since!

 

Leah's cousins Kyra, Alivia and Sam were able to come which made Leah's day. They spent most of the party running around outside in the wind playing Peter Pan and other imaginary games.

Give Sam a balloon and he will be happy for a while! He's so cute...

 

I should note that the day of her party I was thoroughly worn out (regardless of pregnancy) and not feeling well. Which explains why I never got around to getting Leah dressed...and why she ended up dressing herself in this scandalous belly shirt dress-up ensemble with no shoes and scraggly hair. Oh well!

I did have a surprise when Kellen showed up to the party with my birthday present. He bought me a Flip video camera! I was SO excited and surprised...when I opened the box I almost started crying (again I was exhausted) with the pure thoughtfulness of it! I'll have to post video clips later.

I have a very thoughtful mother-in-law. She made a bunch of tea party hats for the party and had everyone wear them...we did request tea party attire!

Isn't Harmony beautiful in her hat?

Anything for Leah...

Leah's favorite cake is vanilla with strawberries. What a coincidence ...so is mine :) I just made a white cake, poured whip cream on top and added the strawberries...MMMM. So pretty too.

We were supposed to have the tea party outside because it was a "Garden Tea Party" but it was too windy. It turned out to be a casual event because of the change of plans. At the end of her party Leah decided wanted to sacrifice her balloons to the wind...which I'm sure the neighbors appreciated :)

Here's to 5 Years!

Today Kellen and I have been married five years. Crazy. I'm sure in jest Kellen would say that it seems like SOOOO much longer...and I would agree :)

We celebrated during our trip to the west coast and went to dinner together tonight. But I also feel that this anniversary deserves public recognition in a culture where five years feels like a large milestone. Kellen might not like this blog...but oh well!

We have had a lot of great moments in the last five years in marriage from schooling to different jobs, children, traveling and playing together. My favorite part of marriage is growing together. When you first get married you have to learn how to mesh your lives. We have learned to do this fairly seamlessly without losing ourselves. I appreciate our partnership in bettering one another and loving our children. We're a team.

Here is my photo tribute. I thought that I would feature some of the out-takes along with some nice pictures from our engagement and wedding. They were not the highest quality to begin with and then I scanned them in which did not help. Just imagine their potential.

 Kellen and I, along with our family, had a VERY cold photo experience on our wedding day.

I like this picture because it seems to sum up our relationship. I would name it "Oh Kellen..."

Kellen's infamous open eyed weirdo smile...

 

This picture creeps me out...

Exhaustion.

Kellen, thank you for five great years (and staying so incredibly attractive)....I'm excited to see what we can do with the next five. How about a house and one more child?

PROCLAMATION!!! It's a Medieval Party.

        To celebrate all the Holgate birthdays in August/Early September we threw a Medieval birthday celebration. Clint and Riley really like to dress up and I kinda wanted to be over-the-top this year with this and Leah's tea party. It was so much fun!

 Introducing....Princess Leah!

King Kellen and Squire Clint

Friar Kalob and Lady Harmony...and other commoners.

Allison the Gypsy

 

Adam the Wizard

What medieval party would be any good without a feast? Our feast included goblets of juice and silver platters piled with food...and a speech from the king.

Doesn't this look like fun? We really only had enough sunlight for one of the tournament games. We jousted. This included pinning a balloon to our sides and trying to pop our opponents balloon with our Styrofoam lances with pins in the ends. It was so funny...as well as painful because we kept sticking each other! There was also a rule that we had to gallop which made it all the more ridiculous.

We also played slay the dragon with a dragon pinata. After all this I can only imagine what our new neighbors think of us. They probably think we are really into larping :)

A big thank you to everyone who celebrated with us! How cool is it that our family and friends would go out of their way to play along? And by the way...my parents were there as well....they managed to stay out of all my pictures.

P.S. I must mention this cake I made for the party....Doesn't it look incredible? Good news...it tastes as good as it looks!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Tiered Cake with a Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting and a Peanut Butter Chocolate Glaze... For REAL.

I had been day dreaming about this cake for weeks. It was a big hit and I need to share one of my favorite food blogs that brought it to my attention, Smitten Kitchen. Follow the link for this yummy recipe.

August 2008

Leah is turning 4.

For those of you out of town...a virtual invite to Leah's Tea Party. She had so much fun last year she wants to do it again! This year we are not going as fancy and I'm just going to make a bunch of finger foods that she will enjoy and let her dress up in a princess dress. I can't believe that she is turning 4! Wow.

Babe #2 (Warning: Bare Belly Photos)

It's about time I publish about the baby in waiting. I don't know why it's taken me so long...maybe because she doesn't have a name yet. I should tell you that I have had this secret desire to keep her all to myself and our little family. I don't like leaking information. Her arrival has only been a far off date and only proof of her existence is my expanding belly and her movements that are only for my own knowledge. I don't know why it is. I guess my pregnancy (and birth) of Leah was all too public.

I can't hide any longer. I am much larger with this baby than with Leah and I'm getting pretty close here people. It snuck up on me. So here are the much requested belly shots you've all been waiting for and a few of the ultrasound pictures for documentation purposes. I'm 27 weeks and all baby.



This pregnancy has been very uneventful which has been really nice. Leah's first 2 trimesters were the same way. This time around I was sick with a cold and then sinus infections for the first couple of months which in turn made me nauseous from medications. But I still was much better off than most! I totally held it together emotionally this time around...I don't know what the heck Leah did to me but I was an emotional wreck with her the first trimester or maybe I have just matured :) This second trimester has been utterly uneventful. Again good. One other thing that is different is that this baby girl is really low riding. It doesn't even seem right. I keep thinking she might fall out. Leah was so far up and in it was hard to tell I was pregnant at all.



The one thing I look forward to the most about this baby girl coming is Leah's interaction with her. Leah has wanted a sibling for so long and refused to believe we would have anything but a sister for her. When the ultrasound technician told us it was a girl Leah had this expression on her face like..."What the heck did YOU expect it to be?" No biggy for her. For the last 6 months she has spoken about her sister in her play and refers to the baby as "my baby". She tells me everyday how her sister will soon be involved in whatever she is doing. She will be a very good big sister.

SO. Now for suggestions or opinion. I have come to the conclusion that we will not be able to agree on a name for this little girl. So I'm letting Kellen name her with the idea that I can name the next. Kellen really wants to name her Sadie Mae. It's a cute name but for some reason I am struggling with it (probably because my grandparents had a dog named Sadie). What do you think? Any suggestions? He told me I could change the middle name but everyone seems to like it and I think Mae is really pretty. I'm just afraid it sounds hickish. Let me know what you think and I will continue to update on the baby as my 3rd trimester plays out. Due date : Halloween. Kinda fitting for our little family I think!