Merry Christmas!!!

We wish all of our wonderful friends and family a happy and peaceful Christmas, and best wishes for a successful and blessed new year 2010!
As 2009 comes to a close, we can honestly say that this year has been our most "successful" and happiest yet - because we were finally blessed with our beautiful, sweet little girl. And while there are many measures of success, having Poppy trumps any material achievement we've ever accomplished! The Lord has truly blessed us.
Here we are, on Christmas Eve, enjoying the warm fire and reading stories about Jesus. We just finished a particularly lovely book called "God Bless Your Way" about an old man named Micah who traveled to Bethlehem the same time as Mary and Joseph - also weary with no place to stay. After some kind strangers bestow bread and a blanket upon him, Micah finds Mary and Joseph in the stable, after Mary has given birth, and he decides to give his bread and blanket to the new family, and wishes them "Good luck on your journey and God bless your way".
May each of us do all we can to follow Christ's example - and no matter the obstacles we may face, with sacrifice comes blessings. Merry Christmas 2009 and may 2010 bring even greater blessings for you and your families. Good luck on your journey and God bless your way.

Poppy wearing her Christmas dress last Sunday

Our little present

Poppy the expert crawler

It's the Most Wonderful (and Poopy) Time of the Year!

I thought we'd try to break our habit of waiting a whole month to update the blog again! So here we are, getting excited for Poppy to experience her first Christmas. Admittedly, Poppy has no idea what's happening, and we're way more excited about it than she is, but no matter! Paul hung my old childhood stocking up in Poppy's bedroom, and it's her favorite thing to look at. She waves at it every morning when she gets out of bed!
We'll be posting lots of pictures of Poppy opening presents, visiting the lights at temple square, and maybe even opening a cracker at new year's so that Paul can start teaching her to keep to her British traditions. I can already picture her in my head, in elementary school, trying to explain to the other children about boxing day, and Christmas pudding & mince pies, pantomimes, etc...
Here's a brief explanation of what Poppy's been doing: her favorite toys these days are her toothbrush and hair brush. A few times we've made the mistake of taking them away, which we immediately regretted!
She got some fun toys recently from Nannie Sue, which she loves. And the most exciting news of all - drumroll - she crawls! She still doesn't seem to care much for it; she kind of just does it randomly. I thought once she figured it out, she wouldn't be able to get enough of it. Now I'm thinking that she kind of knew how to do it before, but couldn't be bothered. Paul says that sounds like me. See what I have to put up with! (He's right, though.) Also, she pulls herself up to stuff now, mostly her leapfrog activity table, which she also loves. One day Paul and I looked over and she was just standing there, staring down at the table. It was pretty funny.
And last but not least - another poo story! The last couple of pictures features one of Poppy's worst blowouts ever. Paul and I were heading out the door to go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert, and were delayed 15 minutes because Poopy Poppy had to go in the bath. Warning: these pictures are not for the faint of heart!
Anyway, have a great Christmas, boxing day, and new year!!

Paul's favorite photo - she loves her Mummy! (and still cries when I leave the room. It gets old, but I have to say, I love that she loves me so much!)

Note the annoying RC Willey ad on the TV behind us!

How in the world does this even happen!?!?!

Cheeky Monkey!