The Holidays

So it's official. Abi is crawling. It happened just a week or so before Christmas. She was trying and sort of getting it for a little while. One day I just decided to show her what to do and it was like the light bulb went on. She's been crawling ever since. That was a fun early Christmas present Kevin and I got.

Christmas was a lot of fun. When I was a kid I never understood why my parents didn't care about getting presents. I knew what Christmas was really about, but still under all of my pretending that I didn't care about presents, I really did. Now that I am married and have a child of my own, it all really makes sense. Christmas morning is all really about the kids and, although Abi is still a little young to really know what's going on, she still had fun opening presents, and that really makes it all worth it.

This is us Christmas Eve. We had Christmas the night before at our house because of some family members' work schedules. It was still fun.

Here's Abi opening some of her presents...

and helping Grandpa open some of his.

Of course what's a holiday without the grub? This year we all made a dish to share. We all thought it was so much fun, we decided to make it a yearly tradition.

Abi's favorite was the chow mein.

The next day, Christmas, the three of us headed over to my parents' house to visit and open presents there. We had the opportunity to talk to my younger brother who is serving a mission in the "Baltic" mission, which consists of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. When we arrived, my grandparents were there and everyone was crowded around the newly-purchased phone fully equipped with speaker phone capabilities.

It was hard to talk one at a time (I expect that's from the excitement) and we spent most of the time repeating ourselves, but it was great to speak with him and it was kind of exciting to know that we would see him in person in just a few months when he arrives home this spring.

The best part was when my nephew, Rowan, understood what we were doing and started yelling into the phone. Abi saw Rowan and started to yell and bang on the table. So cute.

Archibald's

Yesterday Kevin and I had a night out with his brother Aaron, sister Lisa and friend Todd. We went out to dinner at Archibald's Restaurant. The restaurant is located at Gardener Village in West Jordan, Utah and, although I have been to Gardener Village in the past, I have never eaten at the restaurant. I have to say that the food was delicious and I had a great time. Anyone who has been there also knows that Archibald's also has a shop where they sell home decor and other household items. The style is sort of like antique and Americana and very cute... but way overpriced. Maybe I'm just cheap. The building used to be a flour mill over 150 years ago and was converted to a restaurant/shop in 1990. It's also on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today my younger brother Justin was ordained an Elder so my Grandparent's came up from good ole San Pete. We had lunch with them at my parents' house and was fun to visit with them. Afterward Kevin's sister Angela and her husband were at our house for dinner. Angela found some fun dollar finds at the store and gave them to Abi. She got a pair of sunglasses and some holiday tights. She looked really cute, so we took some pictures.

And, of course, Oakley had to get in on the action.

Movie Madness and More...

So, I went to the movie and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It wasn't as crazy as I thought it was going to be, but there was a ton of people there. Plenty of people had festive shirts, as was expected, and there was plenty of screaming during the show when any particular vampire or werewolf showed up on screen both half naked and clothed. I guess it doesn't take much to get some girls all "crazy-d up." There were also some interesting comments made by some interesting people. First, there was some confusion as to the whereabouts of the "express concessions" at the theater. Some guy tried to tell us that the express concessions were the little stands down the hallway by the individual theater doors, when we were trying to tell him that there was actually a kiosk where you order and pick up the order at the main window. He kept insisting that we were wrong. He was so sure... so sad. Also, some girl, who probably reads books with her eyes closed, was convinced that the Italian vampire, Jane, was black. Now, who's read the books? Is Jane black? No, she's not.

The shirts turned out great and it was fun to be one of the weirdos. Although I was uncomfortable for another reason. Well... here's some pictures of Mel and I.


Cute, right? Well yeah Mel looks cute, but I look like a sausage stuffed into a blue and red casing. Does a camera really add ten pounds? Or does my mirror lie to me every day? I swear I don't think I looked like that before I left my house and my shirt definitely did not feel that tight. It's what I get for having a baby and not doing anything about it afterward. I guess it's time to buckle down and start losing some weight... maybe. Anyhow, aside from my embarrassing evidence, I had a really great time.

I also went and saw this show again the next day with my husband, Kevin. He was a little sad that I went to see it without him the first time.

But this is all old news, right? I mean, the premiere was almost 2 whole weeks ago. I'm just slow at getting things updated. In the meantime, there was Thanksgiving, which we spent down on my grandparents' farm. It was nice to see my family and of course the food was great.

Also, Abi is getting bigger every day and she is starting to crawl... well, sort of. She can get up on her hands and knees, that part she has down. She can also move her legs forward and back, but her arms are a different story. She can't seem to balance on one hand enough to pick the other off the floor. Instead of using her hands, she just lets her elbows buckle and falls head first onto the floor. This gets her a couple of inches, so technically she is mobile. This morning she inched her way to the dog bowl. It's fun to watch the milestones.

Confessions

Tomorrow is the release of New Moon and I have to admit that I love the Twilight books and I am going to the midnight show tonight. Now I'm not one of those crazy people that goes to all the events or waits in line overnight for a book or movie release. I don't want to marry Edward (or Jacob for that matter) nor do I wish my name was Bella. I do, however enjoy the books and I even mildly enjoyed the movie, mostly to giggle at the cheesy-ness. The only reason I am going to the midnight show was because there was an extra ticket and I was invited... though I am very excited. I even bought a shirt to wear (like those crazy people that are sure to be there).

I'm going with my sister Mel and her in-laws, and she decided since I had a shirt, she needed one too, though she wanted to make her own. She came over to my house to make it and I thought we could get some ideas from other shirts they sell online. While we were searching for quotes and pictures, we found some really funny ones. Here's a few of our favorites.

This one's classy

And the winner is...

Well, there you have it. I will be sure to take pictures of the festivities tonight and share them. Hey, is it getting cold in here, or is it just... vampires?

Blogging for Beginners

Okay, so I've never done this before, but everyone's doing it so it can't be that hard, right? I have actually been wanting to start a blog for a little while now to keep everyone updated on how our family is doing, I think I've just been too lazy to start. So here we go; our first update.

Life at the Armitstead house is normal. Kevin is working hard at Monticello Academy teaching Chinese to 4th through 9th graders. I'm hanging out at home taking care of the baby. Abi is growing up fast and is 7 months old already. Life's pretty good.

We live in the basement of Kevin's parent's house right now and we are currently in the middle of a construction zone. There is only 1 room finished in the basement, which the three (well, four really if you count Oakley) of us live in. The plan is to finish the basement where we will have a bathroom, kitchen-ette, living/TV area and a second bedroom for Abi. Things are rolling along steadily and I'm very anxious to have things all finished. Not to say that I'm not grateful for the space we do have (I am extremely grateful for a place to live) but it will be nice for everyone else that lives here to not have to share as much space with us. Especially the bathroom. I have way too much crap, ask my brother and sister-in-law.

We have a tradition with the Schmidt side (my family) where every 3rd Sunday of the month we all get together for dinner. Yesterday was that Sunday and we had Thanksgiving at my parent's house. My mom always likes to do one dinner just for us. I basically just like to sit around after dinner is through and visit with my Mom and sisters. It's nice to catch up and is really surprising how much there is to catch up on even though we live so close to each other. Abi also loves to visit with her cousins.

So, there was my first post. Ahhhh. Feels good, almost like I accomplished something.