Darlene and Dayne

Darlene and I were roommates in college and have stayed close ever since. She is my kid's adopted aunt. She's now married and pregnant. Her baby was due February 11th and Hannah was due Dec 15th so it was fun sharing pregnant stories together. This pregnant picture was taken at Hannah's baby blessing on January 3rd. After a semi rough pregnancy, baby Richard DeWayne Field III, known from now on as Dayne, was born January 14th.

He was a tiny but healthy baby (5 lbs 8oz) and I had the privilege to see him in the hospital that Saturday. He is so cute and it felt great holding a tiny baby again. (Hannah's growing too fast for my liking.)

The following Monday, I took the kids up to see Dayne. Hailey fell in love with him immediately. She told us that Hannah and Dayne are best friends. It's fun to see the comparison between the two babies since they are a month apart.

So...Welcome baby Dayne to Idaho!!!

Baby Blessing

Hannah Marie Clements was blessed on January 4th. It was so great to be surround by family since we missed the big family gathering for Christmas. Since the blessing is a sacred and private thing, it's not being posted here on the Internet but I am thankful to have Nathan as our strong priesthood leader.

Here's Nathan's family.

Here's my family.

And here's Darlene and Wayne with us.

After church we had a luncheon at the commons.

And of course, Hannah's first cake.

Since I got professional pictures of Hannah in her dress, I forgot to get some from on own computer. However, I like this dress a lot and it is her own special dress but just a hand-me-down. (Hailey's dress would have been too big for Hannah.)

Wii

While my family was over, we had a fun night playing the Wii. I only have Wii Sports and Wii Fit but we had a blast taking turns.

Here's Kyle and Dad boxing.

Sleding

While my family was here, we borrowed a sled and went sledding on the hill across from our complex. It was a lot of fun. Hailey loved going down and was brave enough to go all by herself once. Robert went down three times and didn't want to go anymore. It was scare of it. Maybe next year he'll enjoy it more. My mom and Hailey consistently went the furthest until my dad took a running start and slid down on his stomach. Somehow I kept going backwards down the hill. I'm excited to go again next year. (I don't think we'll get enough snow to do it this year. It's been a pretty mild winter for us.)

Grandparents

My parents and my brother, Kyle, were able to spend a few days with us at the beginning of January. Hannah loved the attention since she got held a lot. We loved having them over and it was sad to see them go.

Hannah

Here is a cute and random picture of Hannah taken on Dec 29th. She had a doctor's appointment on Jan 4th and weighed 8 lbs and 3 oz. She is getting so big. I love dressing up my little sweet pea.

December 29th

Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas at home. We were surprised by how many gifts we got and in our small apartment, gifts, boxes, and wrapping paper filled the front room. We took pictures of every gift we got but that would be too much to put on the blog. So, here are a few of the gifts that we got. We really liked all of our presents. Thank you to everyone who helped make this Christmas special.

Stockings and Santa

This was the first year that we needed our own stockings. Growing up my mom made our stockings out of felt and we each had our own symbol on it. Ryan had a lion on his, Kerstin a kitten, I had an angel, and Kyle had a soldier. I liked that idea of it being individualized. A friend in the complex was holding a sewing class on stockings and Christmas decorations. She helped me make them. (She just guided me on what to do and helped me get the patterns for the symbols.) I love how they turned out. I'm going to do two more just in case of more children (I plan on having only 4 though) or when grandparents spend Christmas with us in the future. Also I am making a tree skirt to match.
I finished the doves the day after Christmas so I used my old stocking and Kerstin had the bells which will normally be mine. Nathan's stocking is the holy leaves. Ours are the ones with ribbon on them.

Hannah had the candle since it matches her Jesus picture (that is a story for another blog). Hailey had the star and Robert had the tree. I will embroider them with every one's name later.

The stockings match the color scheme of our Christmas decorations.

Anyways...

This is how we started our Christmas morning.

The kids woke up around 7. So we looked at our stockings. Kerstin got a lot of candy.

Nathan got me a big thing of fancy chocolate. Also notice my stocking that I grew up with.

Hannah who was still asleep through most of Christmas got pacifiers and a teething ring.

Nathan's special item from me was a small scrapbook of nice things about him.

From Santa, Hailey and Robert got musical animal brooms. They loved them and swept while I made breakfast.

Christmas Eve

This year was our first Christmas at home. Generally we switch off every year on which parents to go to and this year we were supposed to be with Nathan's family in Utah. However, Hannah and I were not able to travel yet.

I was excited to have Christmas my way and start our own traditions (which really don't vary much from what my parents do/did). My sister who lives in Utah was able to come up and spend Christmas with us. After a nice dinner, we had a little Christmas Eve program that mixed scriptures of the Savior with Christmas songs. Hailey and Robert played with the nativity puppets we got last year.

Then we open our Christmas PJ's.

Now Hailey and Robert are ready for Christmas.