Our Christmas update...and a Happy New Year

So here's our exciting and long update :): We are loving our new apartment and feel so good here. We're so close to Michael's work and it really has been a blessing because he's been working a little extra the last couple weeks, which has also been a blessing. Our ward is really friendly and we feel very welcome. Noelle is a very active and busy little girl. She loves walking around on her train and little car. She is on such a good sleep schedule here and naps twice a day if we aren't out and about. She smiles and waves at EVERYONE. She is such a social butterfly. She likes to open and close doors and even closed herself in her room for a few seconds. She didn't like that at all. Michael's brother Mark and his wife Teandra came to visit a couple of weeks ago and we had so much fun with them. It was Teandra's first time seeing Noelle. I know Noelle loved having you guys here, so did we! I baked a pumpkin and apple pie for Christmas day and they both turned out delicious if I do say so myself. Me and Michael had our 2 year anniversary on Dec. 22nd. It really seems like we have been married much longer than that, in a good way ;). We got to talk to my sister Alyson on her mission and it was wonderful. She comes home in about 5 months! We had a great Christmas and had fun seeing Noelle try to open presents. Her face lit up when she saw her new toys and that made everything worth it. So many little things are going on right now that I can't really keep up with it all. Noelle is changing and learning so much everyday and I'm trying to remember and capture it all in some way. We're having fun and loving every minute we have together. At this time of year I especially have missed my brother Eric, but I know he is close. I'm so grateful for the Savior. For loving us so much and giving us the most precious gift. Because of Him we are able to repent and live with our families and Heavenly Father forever. I'm so grateful for this knowledge and testimony. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and hope everyone's New Year is wonderful. Enjoy the pictures!

Noelle with Uncle Mark and Aunt Teandra

Us catching her "reading" a book in her room. This happens all the time and I love it.

Waiting in line for Santa at the mall. She loved waiting in line and loved waving to all the people.

She was just so happy to be around a ton of people.

One of the pictures with Santa she was smiling. This one, not so much. She wasn't quite sure about Santa. Interesting little thing, Santa was blind this year.

Trying to get her to watch the grinch in our messy family room. She actually sat there for a couple minutes.

Tanner and Nina in their awesome Christmas sweaters at our Christmas Eve party at my grandma's. Hope you guys don't mind me putting your picture on here.

Me and Michael. We don't take many pictures together so I thought I'd put this on here.

Noelle and Aunt Nina

Noelle and second cousin Taven with their new Christmas pajamas that they get on Christmas eve.

Noelle and Aunt Taylor

Christmas morning talking to Grandma Pfeil :)

Noelle with her new pretty bows from Mark and Teandra. We love them, you did such a awesome job. Thanks!

With her new dora car from Grandma Pfeil and family. She loves it!

Sunday in her pretty Christmas dress.

Noelle dancing to the ending song on Mickey's Clubhouse. We love watching her dance.

Family Photos

We finally got some real, professional family pictures taken. I think they turned out pretty good. We got some of just Noelle too. Grandma Pfeil got her a cute Christmas dress and we just couldn't wait until Christmas :). Thanks for the beautiful dress!

Santa Dress

We didn't post anything for Thanksgiving. We had a fun day with my side of the family and we missed Michael's side. We hope to be with them next year. We've had a crazy couple of weeks trying to get all our things packed up so we could move in to our new apartment. We moved in yesterday and are doing great. It's a great size and we're excited to be here. I apologize again for not posting pictures sooner. We finally hooked up our new computer and it's fast and I'm hoping that means that I will be posting more often. Well we have a fun video of Noelle walking with her little train. She'll sometimes stand on her own and then when she realizes it will sit right back down or fall over. It'll come. We've got such a stubborn girl :). She's getting taller and slimming down a little bit. I think she's got the Pfeil gene for height, I hope so anyway. My little cousin Jaycee used to wear this cute little santa claus dress and they decided to give it to Noelle. It's so cute and I just had to take pictures of her in it.

Mod Podge Rocks!

So I haven't done a craft project in a VERY long time and my mom was doing them so I figured that I would try. Well I kind of got caught up in it and did all of these projects (actually a couple of each) with some help from my mom and sister-in-law. For a while there I was obsessed with mod podge and with all of these crafts I used it. This is such an amazing and creative product and I'm sad I didn't discover it before. Thanks to whoever introduced it to my mom, who introduced it to me. Anyway. I've had fun doing all of these projects and I'm sure I'll be doing some more once things calm down around here.

As you will see I've loved doing these decoupage blocks. I'm not gonna lie, they were a lot of work but I think they turned out pretty good.

This tree has three mini clothes pins for photos.

Some women in my old relief society do projects like these once or twice a month. This one happened to be tile coasters. They are 4"x4" squares and you could use scrapbook paper or photos to make the coasters. You used a glue gun to put cork on the back of the tile so they wouldn't scratch the surface that you put them on. I really liked this one.

no new news

First of all I apologize to all those who have missed seeing current pictures of Noelle. I haven't been too busy lately but I have had a terrible cough that has lasted a couple of weeks and it's taken a lot out of me. Nothing too much has happened around here. Noelle is teething still and it's really not been the funnest thing. It will wake her up in the middle of the night sometimes. We sometimes call her our little ball of energy because she is constantly moving and wanting to get into everything. She doesn't really have much of a desire to walk yet. I know it will come when she is ready and wants it to happen. She's as stubborn as ever and is changing and learning new things every day. We are having so much fun with her. We are moving out in two weeks and are really looking forward to it. Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Messy girl with a blue sucker

We went to a little farm with Noelle and she liked seeing all the animals.

Trying to give the goat a kiss.

On daddy's shoulders

I want to touch the horse

Before we went and saw the animals we had a picnic at a park right outside the little farm. We had a lot of fun.

Noelle was a "midnight bat" for Halloween. She was so cute and wanted to touch and grab the sparkles on her costume. Here she is with her second cousins Kailey and Brookelynn.

Happy Birthday Noelle!

Today is Noelle's birthday! I can't believe that she is 1 year old. This last year has gone by much faster than I expected. This time last year we had a 2lb 15oz preemie and today she is 20+lbs and is as active and happy as ever. She has been through a lot this last year but it has also been so much fun. Saturday (Oct. 24) we had her birthday party. We had a lot of fun and lots of friends and family were there. We missed the Pfeil family though and love you guys a lot. She got a lot of fun presents and jumped right in to the cake. We've realized that we do not have a shy little girl and she is not reserved at all. As me and Michael are not social butterflies we've realized Noelle is. She is so much fun and keeps us on our toes. I feel so blessed to be her mother and am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for watching over Noelle. I know that Noelle was supposed to be born when she was and we've learned so much from all that we've been through together. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything in the whole world. I can't believe how fast she is growing. We love you Noelle so much and are so grateful you are a part of our lives!

Here are some pictures of Noelle throughout the year. Be sure to see the last few pictures, they're from her party on Saturday :). Warning: Lots of pictures ahead!

This was the first picture taken of her in the NICU.

The first time I got to hold Noelle. To be honest, thinking about this today I could literally feel what I felt that day and couldn't help but cry. I remember that day so clearly.The first time Michael got to hold Noelle.

We loved when she would hold on to our fingers.

One of the first times giving her a bottle.

The day we took Noelle home from the NICU.

Home at last.

One of the first days without the oxygen canula.

We just love this picture.

First day trying rice cereal.

The day of Noelle's surgery.

Happy Girl in the physical therapy room.

One of the first days with her helmet and up camping.

Getting a break from her helmet. She's so happy and excited in this one.

One of the last days with the helmet. She loves this bouncy door thing.

So proud that she can finally pull herself up :).

Our cute little pumpkin!

These next pictures are from her birthday party:

These were the desserts from the party. I made the small and big pumpkin. The big one is made of two bundt (carrot) cakes put together and the small one is two small bundt (chocolate) cakes put together. Both with cream cheese frosting. The small one was Noelle's. Me and my mom did the bat cupcakes. Okay, I made them and my mom decorated them. I had the basic idea and my mom pulled it off.

She actually did pretty good opening presents. She was really happy to see this stuffed monkey for some reason. Cute.

Uncle Tanner and Aunt Nina got her this awesome rocking horse. She's very curious about it. Spoiled girl :).

She wanted to touch the candle.

She did not hestitate at all, even with all the people around.

She is loving making a mess.

Very happy eating chocolate cake.

By the end of the party Noelle was exhausted and wanted to sleep and she did as soon as everyone left.