Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas with our families in Roseville. We are truly blessed to have both sides of the family in one place so that we can celebrate with everyone every year.

It was Naomi's second Christmas but this time she was actually able to really enjoy some of the Christmas activities. She had lots of fun going Christmas Caroling with our Faith Bible Church family and looking at Christmas lights with the Hallsten's in Roseville. On Christmas morning she opened presents and had fun playing with her new toys. Here is a small sampling from Christmas.

Here's Naomi all bundled up for Christmas Caroling.

Here are a few videos from Christmas morning at the Hallsten home.

Later on Christmas day we went to Matthew's brothers house for food and gift opening for his side of the family. We hope all of you had a blessed time this year celebrating the birth of Jesus with your loved ones.

Go! Go! Go!

Naomi's official first word is Go. She started saying it in late December. At about that same time she also started understanding and responding to much more of what we were saying. Here are a couple of videos that Emily took of Naomi saying her first phrase (go, go, go!).

Since these videos were taken Naomi's communication has continued to explode. She has a number of words now (although her use of them is still somewhat inconsistent). She says "ball", "girl", "daddy", "go get it" and (joy of joys) "T.V.". She also imitates many other words and sounds that we make. She can clearly understand much of what we say and will sometimes respond to simple requests like "let's go upstairs" and "shut the door". Her signing has also improved significantly and she babbles almost constantly. We're going to have real chatterbox on our hands soon.

Future Seamstress?

The other morning Naomi got hold of Emily's Quilter's Measuring Tape and decided it made a great accessory. She played it with it for over an hour and walked all over the house wearing it. Here's a quick video.

Christmas Tree Hunt

On Saturday November 28th some friends of ours from church (Rick and Bobbie Green and Troy and Kimber Caldwell and their son Curtis) took us along for their annual Christmas Tree hunt. They drove us up with them into the Mendocino Forest where for a 10 dollar fee you can cut your own Christmas tree.

Here is a short video of us tromping around in the snow.

We had a lot of fun visiting with our friends on the way experiencing the snow and looking for the perfect tree. We found a beauty. A 9 foot silver tip fir, the biggest by far we've ever had. Naomi had fun too (mostly). Here are a few pictures from our hunt followed by a couple showing what the tree looks like set up in our house.

A family picture by the side of the road before starting the search.

Here we are with our tree, newly discovered, shortly before we cut it.

Matthew and Naomi pose in front of the tree set up in our living room right after we got it home.

Here's the final product. A beautiful tree fully decorated and lit. We've really been enjoying it.

November random pictures

Here's a few more random pictures from November

Naomi playing with the plastic flowers on the basket we received (filled with goodies) for Pastor's Appreciation Month in October.

Our growing kitties Misty (head on right) and Thunder (head on left) sleeping together on the Family Room sofa.

Naomi sharing her toys with her Great Grandma Hallsten.

Thanksgiving

After we bought our house we decided it would be fun to host Thanksgiving this year. We weren't sure how many people would actually be able to come but we went ahead and invited both sides of the family. Much to our surprise pretty much everyone within a day's drive decided to come. When we added it all up we ended up with 32 guests (35 total people).

That was too many to squeeze around tables at our house so we got permission to use Faith Bible Church to host the main meal. Everyone who came brought food to share which left us with just the turkey and whipped cream. All in all it wasn't much more work than putting on our own Thanksgiving by ourselves would've been. We had a great time.

After the main meal we took a break for people to visit and/or go to the park. Some of the guys even played some touch football. Then everyone met back at our house for dessert where we enjoyed a variety of pies and hot drinks (and cookies for the kids). The weather was beautiful which allowed us to use our back porch for additional seating and while it was a bit snug everyone was able to enjoy their dessert just fine.

We had a wonderful time. It was so great to see so many family members and have them meet each other. It was also neat that everyone got to see our church, our house and a little bit of our new home town. Thanks everyone who came for making it such a great celebration of God's blessings in our lives.

We were having so much fun we barely got the camera out. Below are a few pictures that Emily snapped at dinner. If any of you who were here have some good pictures from that day we would love to see them.

(from left) Emily's Aunt Laura, Dad, Keith and Mom, Beth

(from left) Matthew's grandparents (mom's parents) Alice and Don Gibbons with their son-in-law, Dave and middle daughter, Lori

Matthew's sister Christy and her husband Andy with Matthew

Matthew's Dad, Tim, Mom, Kathy and brother-in-law Andy
Emily's grandparents (Dad's parents) Hap and Beverly Hallsten with her uncles Roger and Tom.

Matthew's sister-in-law Shandela and Great Aunt Miriam.

Walking (for real)

Naomi took her first unassisted steps came on Saturday night, November 20th. By Wednesday morning (November 25th) she was walking on her own a fair bit. Here's some video of her walking while we were setting up for the big Thanksgiving Day shindig at the church.