Westin's baby blessing

We were able to have Westin's blessing on November 29th, Thanksgiving weekend while family was in town. We attend church at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and were able to bless him in the chapel there. The blessing was beautiful. I was told by some of the men in the blessing circle that Westin just looked up wide-eyed at Skyler the entire time. Makes me smile. What a sweet little guy.

Here we are in front of the Christmas tree in the lobby

After the blessing we had a gathering with friends and family at my family's house. Unfortunately our apartment wasn't an option because it's maximum capacity is about 5, and that's generous.
We kept the food pretty simple but I wanted to experiment a little and make something special for Westin's blessing. Here is the Apple Cider Budnt Cake I decided on. It turned out to be really pretty tasty.

So funny

I just had to share this...


I got this while trying to capture a smile. He smiles a ton but whenever I pull out the camera, he just stops and stares in wonder at the contraption. Thus I got this. It will be years before he can get mad at me for posting such a thing so I think I'm ok for now:)

Christmas centerpiece

This is me being crafty. Martha Stewart gave me the initial idea then I just ran with it. Martha was the Today show the other day and she was showing some homemade gift ideas. She made glittery candles. Glitter! So I bought some supplies for (almost) under $10 and here is what I ended up with!

Thanksgiving '09

This year was such a special Thanksgiving for our family. We welcomed some of Skyler's family over for Thanksgiving dinner. We had his parents and sister and brother-in-law. His parents actually flew in from Seattle on Thanksgiving day. It was Skyler's parents' first time meeting Westin.

My heart was so full on Thanksgiving. I was so excited to have my family, (excluding my brother, Bradley, but including my grandparents) and also Skyler's family, and of course Westin all together. It was really cool to bring both families together to get to know each other and eat yummy food of course!

For Thanksgiving, I made cranberry sauce again. Oranged-Cranberry sauce to be exact. I made it last year and my mom liked it so much she suggested I make it again. I had forgotten that the batch makes way too much and so there was a ton left-over. I have so much fun making it though. It's such a fall food item.



I also made the very deliciousy soft pumpkin cookies again. I just gobble these up so fast so it's good I took (pretty much) all of them to my parents house and out of mine.

I threw together some decorations for the table. I actually ran around town the day before trying to find better fall decor but that was a bad idea. Stores apparently take that stuff off the floors by then. So I just bought some mixed nuts; walnuts, brazillian, almonds, hazelnuts, etc. and thew them in a tall vase and some smaller vases of mine. Then I grabbed a twig from my paents yard and stuck it in the tall one. And just stole a fall garland from elsewhere in my mom's house and wa-lah! You have an earthy fall table.

One of first times holding her first grandson.
Grandma Francis

Our little family and Westin sticking his tongue out to the camera:)

A Night Bite to remember

My sisters and I went to see New Moon the day after it came out. We figured this was a good excuse to finally have a girls night out. We really don't get together as often as we should. We decided to make this happen more often it was so fun. I was silly and didn't get tickets until the day before and so we could only get the seats close to the screen. It turned out to not be all that bad. Kenzie actually thought they were good seats. First thing she said to me is "wow, good seats Nic!" and I don't think it was meant to be sarcastic haha. After the movie we went out for some Italiano at Biaggi's.

One month - November pictures

St. George weekend

The first weekend in November my mom asked me if I would like to go down to St. George with her to support Kenzie in her band competition. She is in the colorguard. Davis High was one of many bands that were competing in St. George. I debated about going. I loved the idea of getting out of the house! But I knew that a road trip would be lots of work. I decided to go for it. We ended up leaving much later than expected because it took me forever to get things ready for a roadtrip with a baby!



My dads brothers family live in St. George and they offered up their community guest house for us to stay at while we were in St. George. This was by far the best part about the trip. This was so much nicer than staying at a hotel. We had a whole house to ourselves! The house had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, workout area, and a very large, open living room. It also had a nice walking path right behind the house on the red rock. Mom went on a walk with Westin. I didn't go. I stayed back to sleep! We were so grateful that they allowed us to stay there. We were tempted to stay longer than the weekend!

McKenzie performed at Dixie College with the Davis High School Band. We got there late because I had to feed Westin but just barely in time to watch her peform. I love to watch her do her thing. She's a great performer whether she's doing flag, or signing, etc.

Duncan home off in the distance

The Duncan family invited us over for a treat Saturday night and showed us around their very lovely home. Such a warm cozy home. You could really feel the spirit so strongly. They also invited us over for lunch on Sunday afternoon. We had some dessert, did some chatting, and we were able to play a fun game as well. It was fun getting to know my cousins who I don't get to see very often. Thanks for having us!