ONE is Eliza! Must Open Cake and Eat Presents!

Present time!

 

 

Eliza got some cute Disney, of course, clothes from all of her grandparents.

Eliza and Violet are quite a cute pair.

"Oooooh, I get to eat cake soon. I can't wait."

The Moment

 "What?? You put the cake in front of me and tell me to not touch it and wear this funny hat AND smile for the camera. How could you be so mean? I Will NOT do it!"

Let's Eat Cake!

"Now I will squish it up good."

"I'm all squished out. What's next?"

"Oh yes, more pictures...."

"I want my real bathtub. It makes me happy."

Happy, Happy First Birthday Eliza Snow!!!

Of course we needed lots of snow on Eliza Snow's first birthday.

Happy First Birthday, Eliza!

We loved getting to celebrate our first year with Eliza. It has been such an amazing journey to raise this little girl. We have learned so much from her sweet soul and feel so blessed with this precious opportunity to raise her in our family. She is so full of life. She greets each day with a smile. Eliza loves people and interacting with others is her favorite past-time. She is gentle. She loves snuggling and knows how to love. She loves to play with toys and go on walks. She enjoys "reading" books. She loves her nap time and bedtime. She is our little angel straight from heaven.

Of course Eliza had to be woken up with a birthday tune. She was not entirely sure what to thing of all of the hoopla, at first, but then she got on board.

 

Dressed and ready for a celebration party.

Where's my cake??

Loves her daddy's kisses

LETS PARTY!!

Midway Ice Castles

I have lived in Utah Valley for years and have never heard of this until I met Matt. We talked about going in 2011, but in that particular year, the gentleman that did it decided it was to warm and needed to relocate to Colorado. He was right. After all it was 60 degrees on our February wedding day. We thought he would not find his way back here but two years later, married and with a little girl, we got to go and have some fun exploring the Midway Ice Castles. It was beautiful - quite a site to behold. Eliza loved touching the cold, wet ice. I'm pretty sure she would have stuck her tongue out to give it a taste had we let her.

It's truly magical to see things through the eyes of a child.

A January Glimpse

I have decided that instead of creating a digital family album each year that I will blog weekly about happenings and then create a blog book each year. I am pretty sure this will be more to my liking. I enjoy writing and think this can also serve as a family journal. I have kept a journal fairly regularly since I was about 11 years old. In the past couple of years, though, I have faltered in a major way and want to at least have recorded somewhere our beautiful journey of life.  I believe it is AS important to our posterity as it is to our own personal growth and development. ANYWAY, you can read it as you please or not at all. I also wanted to start at the beginning of this year, as to not lose any time. So over the next couple of weeks, it will be catch up time. And I can assure you most pictures will be of Eliza. But we will try to do better at that since now we actually are doing something with our pictures. Matt and I both agree, we still need a real family picture. We just have not brought ourselves to have that photo session yet.

Eliza's happenings at 11 months.

Eliza loves to play with her toys. 

She is a happy girl IF you are sitting in the room with her. She doesn't require anyone to play with her, necessarily, just likes the company.

She loves going on drives. We had to run errands in grandma's car on this day so she even got to face forward. We have not made that transition in our car yet.

Eliza loves her stroller.
As long as we bring that along, she will go anywhere.










Eliza loves to eat. 

She is not a fan of certain textures but her appetite is big and ready to shovel it in anytime of day.

Looking out the window is one of her favorite activities at Grandma and Grandpa McPhillen's house.

Eliza LOVES her cousins. Since Richard's family moved back to Utah in August, we have had a lot of fun spending time with them and enjoying their company.

I have a feeling she is also going to enjoy causing little bits of trouble here and there. She loves to climb (had to snap a shot of her on the dishwasher before I told her we don't climb there), go shopping with mom (if the excitement isn't in front of her, she looks behind to check it out), play in the dog's food while he eats (fortunately my parent's lab is very willing to share his bowl NOT his food), and has a blast climbing up and down and up and down the stairs.

Eliza is our little bundle of joy.