8 months

it is now 2 days after Christmas and everton has turned 8 months!

-he's been sleeping so much lately.  sleeping on an average of 12-13 hours a night and takes 2 2-3 hr naps during the day. he must be going through a growth spurt right?

-he's definitely been eating a lot too.  when i make his baby food i have to make sure i buy a lot of veggies so that it'll make enough to last awhile.

-and speaking of food, it's been so awesome feeding him little snacks and finger foods.  he loves his crackers and those little yogurt/fruit puff things.  actually, i love snacking on them too.

-as for crawling, he's not fully crawling yet, but creepin.  more like, creepin/crawlin.  and he creeps fast.  we often forget how mobile he is now.  we'll leave the room for what feels like a minute and he's already on the other side of the room chewing on some cords.

-he talks and talks and talks.  but doesn't really say anything coherent.  he does say "yeahhh" a lot.  but other than that he just grunts or babbles.  one time i was in the kitchen while he was in the living room and we honestly had a conversation.  it was mostly grunting like monkeys back and forth but it was awesome!

-he's just an easygoing and super happy baby who only gets grumpy when he's hungry or tired.  

as for Christmas, we had a great one.

i got a kindle!

(pardon the face sans makeup)

i used to be opposed to e-readers, thinking that the paper way is the best way.  but since having a kid, hauling around big books sounded like such an inconvenience.  call me lazy if ya want, but for once, i can actually read scriptures at church!

and what'd i tell ya?  trash and carboard tubes makes the baby happy for Christmas.

reindeer in the headlights

and ok, we did actually get him an actual present for Christmas and got him this snazzy outfit.

whaddup handsome??

Christmas traditions

it's our first Christmas as a little fam bam!

on Christmas day we'll be going down to my auntie's in spanish fork after church.

of course everton doesn't give 2 hoots about Christmas or presents right now.

so that's why we're seriously just giving him a cardboard tube for Christmas.  he LOVES those. with all the presents his darling family is giving him we thought he wouldn't mind if we go cheap for his first Christmas.  it's not like he'll remember it anyways.

brett and i have been talking a lot about what our own families do for Christmas.

we're so excited to see what traditions we do as a family each year as my family gets bigger and is full of different personalities.

and one tradition brett and i have carried on from the jones side since we've been married is picking out our own ornaments every year.  i have an ornament from every year of my life.  with my name and the year on each one.  and when i got married my mom gave me all of my ornaments to put on our Christmas tree.  so right now most of the tree is full of girly and some not so girly ornaments.

and the spider man?  he's mine, from '04

espn santa?  that's brett's from last year.

for everton's first Christmas ornament we're still in the process of making it...

we hope everyone has an amazing and safe Christmas!

LOVE,       

Brett, Alyssa, and baby Everton

come and see the temple lights

i LOVE to see the temple!!

i always feel such a peace when we're walking around the temple grounds or doing temple work.

a Christmas tradition we've always done in my family is going to see the temple lights.

and that was out east to see the DC temple.

now that my little fam and i are here in ootah we feel blessed to live 30mins from the slc temple.

so taking everton to see his first temple lights was very much needed as Christmas is quickly approaching.

(check out one of his top teeth!)

i'd say he had a grand time, despite the freezing weather and his cold cheekies.

but he was a lot warmer then brett and i combined due to his fluffy marshmallow suit.

brett and his parties

brett turned another year older on monday.  26 years old, in fact.  he had to work on his birthday but took tues and wed off.  he has a few paid days off left so taking a few days off for his birthday seemed to be the best time to use em.

monday morning started as present time!

i got brett the movie, the lion king.  and everton got his daddy this super cute picture.

i always joke that ever since we cut everton's hair he's pretty much a man now and that he's gonna go on a mission like, tomorrow.  and i'm just always feeling like it really is gonna happen soon.  and maybe i get sad already just thinking about it.  and getting married?  oh heck no.  i'm going to be forever the love of his life.

but this picture warms my heart.  i really hope everton does serve a mission for our church one day.  ok stop talking about it.  shut up.

but what did we do to party it up for brett's birthday?  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  ok well we did go out to dinner just us two but that's pretty much it.  brett often doesn't want a big hoopla for his birthday.  i sometimes feel bad not throwing him an awesome party.  i mean, last time i did i ended up setting the apt complex's fire alarms off, causing the cops and firemen to come.  mayyybe that's why he doesn't really like to party.  but do you think that's a "man thing?"  saying they don't want you to make a big deal for their birthday when in reality, they want you to go all out?

idk.

i wanted to respect the man's wishes and just chillax for his birthday.

so on his days off we slept in, which actually meant waking up when everton did, feeding him, playing with him, then setting him down for his naps, watched our fav show how i met your mother all day, farted around and cuddled around.  we ate red velvet cake his co-workers got him and then watched some more how i met your mother.  us caldwells sure know how to have a crazy time.

but brett was starting to get a little burnt out from work so i think it was just what he needed.

happy 26 years brett.

let's go buck wild for your birthday next year and maybe go to a movie?

then on saturday brett's work had their annual Christmas dinner/white elephant party at his boss's house.

it was so freakin fun.  and a lot of brett's co-workers aren't LDS, which made the party have quite a few hilarious drunk people.

i brought my lumpia, which was a hit if i may say so myself, and we had a mexican dinner.  it was delicioso.  and the white elephant part of the party was very eventful.  gifts consisted of chocolates, cash, gas-x, hot cocoa mixes, bark-off alarm, picture frames, and other random items.

our winnings of the night?  a GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL!  which brett won from a raffle.  and i got 5, count em, 5 bucks from white elephant, and brett got some cup with freezable gel inside.  i guess he really needed it.

it's been a pretty good week.

everton meets santa

it was the ward Christmas party.

got milk?  actually he got frosting from brett when i wasn't looking. hmph.

we ate good food, chatted with good friends, and met good ol' santa.

everton freaked out a little, but just because of the stranger danger factor and he knows his mommy doesn't have a beard..or does she??

he definitely doesn't know who or what santa is right now.  it'll be fun to see his reactions next year.

remember this post from 2 Christmases ago?

brett was a firm believer in santy and i wasn't.

at first i told him i didn't want my kids to believe in santa because i thought he was just something silly and there was no point.

we spent Christmas with brett's bro and sis-in-law one year and the looks on the kids' faces were absolutely priceless as they came down the stairs and saw awesome presents santa left them.

it was the cutest thing and from then on i knew i wanted my kids to believe in that fat man in red.

ok santa you'll get another chance with me through my kids

but leave me some christian louboutin shoes under the tree and you'll make a full believer outta me.

and it's my mom's birthday!  happy birthday ya cute lola.

twinnerz?

i think everton looks like brett the most.

it's been a little bit of a puzzler for everyone as to who everton looks like the most.  some people thought he looked more like me when he was born (maybe it was the swollen face and squinty eyes) and that everton now looks more like brett.

i'd say that's totally true.

i mean, that is why i married brett, so i'd have a little boy who looked just like brett when he was a little tyke.

a reason for the season

a sweet video one of my friends shared on fb. this is what Christmas is all about.

weight check

took everton back to the pediatrician for his weight check to really see if he's gonna be skinny dwarf.  they weighed him and he now weighs 15 lbs and grew to 27 in.  hooray he actually grew!  it's a small increase but the doc said that as long as he's growing, it's allllll good.

phewwww.

it's now OFFICIALLY OFFICIALLY winter.

for a while there the weather was pretty nice in november.

but of course, it was too good to be true.

seeing it snow today got me excited for only one thing, putting everton in his marshmallow snow suit.

WINTER IS HERE.

and check out everton's little teeth!

all 6 of them.

when you catch his smile at a certain angle he looks like a snaggletoothed hillbilly.

it's really scary to put your finger in there.

while daddy went to the temple....

pinkies up!

which of these animals don't belong?

a barrel o fish.

7 months

everton is 7 months!

he's such a doll.

-he's sitting up a lot better now.  he still topples over but not as often anymore.  and when he's on his back he works his little AB muscles so hard to sit back up.

-he is SOOO close to crawling!  in order to get around he just rolls around till he gets to his destination.  he can get up on his knees and thaaaaat's it.

-the young man has been busy growing teeth.  his bottom 2 teeth have popped out and he's currently growing 4 on the top!  holy cow.  when he flashes his sweet grin we can see 4 white nubs peekin through his top gums.  and surprisingly he still sleeps amazingly through the night.  he'll get really fussy at times but other than that, he's been a really good teether.

in other news, thanksgiving was great.

i ate so much food i started to feel dizzy, everton peed on brett during dinner, and we relaxed while eating multiple kinds of pie and chatting it up with family.

and i became even more grateful for the fact that i have a ton of nieces.

brett and i feel like we hardly held everton the whole day due to my darling nieces wanting to play or cuddle with him.  and it definitely felt amazing not having to play "pass the baby back and forth while the other tries to take a few bites of the meal before it gets too cold" game.

also we took everton swimming for the first time!

brett's co-worker had a little birthday party for her kids at the indoor pool and at first i was like, "swimming in winter?!?!?!?!"

then the invite made us go on a frantic search for lil swimmers diapers and swimming trunks for everton, cuz those things are definitely not what we would have on hand in november.

but another one of brett's co-workers hooked everton up with the swimming necessities and everton seemed to really like swimming.  i think he'll be a water baby like brett and not a swimming wussy like me.

happy 7 months my little gentleman!