Before I got married, I was a firm believer that there is no such thing as a perfect match. I thought that there were probably a whole handful of guys out there that I could be perfectly happy marrying. No such thing as a one and only, and certainly no fairy tale endings.

Three years later... I feel a lot different about things.

Happy Anniversary, Babe :)

A VERY Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. It was so much fun to see Abigail get excited about opening her presents, and her excitement when she saw what they all were. She is still just ecstatic to get to play with all of her new things. Any time we are home, she is just running around giggling and playing. It has been a lot of fun. Here are just a few pictures of the madness on Christmas Day :) Hope you all had a great Christmas!

Special Day

Abigail's Uncle Sammy had a very special birthday last week.

He turned 8 years old and got to be baptized.

And as you can see, she is a quite fond of this particular uncle of hers.

We are proud of you Sam :)

A little run down...

This will probably be boring for most of you, but one or two might care what we did while were were in Texas for so long. Here is the run down.

We finally took some family pictures while were were all together. By we... I mean WE. My sister in law's dad was nice enough to come take the big group ones for us so we could all be in them. I don't have those yet, but I had to post this picture of my parents with all the grandchildren. It captures the essence of our family. Haha. This is why posed pictures don't work with small kids. Logan is my favorite... too bad he's nothing like his dad.

Gogurt is a wonderful, dangerous thing.

Gettin in a little workout at Mimi's

You can't tell by the look on her face here... but Abigail LOVED getting to play with her cousins.

This is my nephew Logan, zonked out after the turkey trot, with a candycane in his mouth. That was a rough 1K!

Here is all the Turkey Trotters! Kyle, Alissa, and Henry were there to support, but had already taken off when we took the picture. Big time props to Mimi and Pops who did their first 10K and to Annie and Logan for "winning the race" and getting blue ribbons :)

Here is Abi and her cousin Jacob and their matching Thanksgiving shirts. I had to make them shirts for the Turkey Trot. Had to. Can you tell that Jacob is actually about 10 months younger than Abigail? (is that right becca?) Yeah... same weight, same size clothes. He is delicious.

Yet again, the picture does not tell the story, but Abigail loved taking the four wheeler or one of the EZ-Goes (not sure how you really spell that) out to the pastures to see the cows. Bonus?? The dogs followed us out and chased the cows around a bit. She just ate it up. I think she's definitely got a little Texas in her :)

Where have we been?

Well.... I don't want to make you jealous with all the details. But lets just say,

we've had a FUN three weeks at our house.

I might be getting excited early, but I think since Abigail only woke up TWICE last night... instead of waking every hour, screaming in pain, I THINK we might be over it all.

If you are feeling jealous, I'm sorry- we should have come and visit you. It might have helped with the cabin fever.

Cows

Abigail hangin' out at the corral with the cows

I have lots of pictures from our trip. It was one of our most fun trips to Texas... I think that we think that every time we go :) I just keeps getting better. One of the best parts of the trip was taking Abigail out to see Papa's cows. We went out to see them every time we went to Nana and Papa's house. Then we went out to the main ranch to see the house that they remodeled this summer and yes, checked out the cows there- wild turkeys were a bonus siting. Then on the way home from there, we stopped by another one of Papa's ranches to see the new baby calves and their mamas. Abigail LOVES looking at the cows. As soon as she saw them, she'd just start mooing and pointing. Here is one picture of her, just about to jump out of the car window to get to them.

Boy, oh, boy... do I miss those sunsets

Begging...

The picture is unrelated to the post... our family at the top of the Space Needle on my birthday.

Abigail must share my fear of heights :)

I have a plea for any of my DFW readers :)

We are doing a Turkey Trot in Fort Worth on Thanksgiving morning, and will be pushing Abigail in a stroller. I don't want to have to bring my jogging stroller on the plane, I'd much rather just take our small umbrella stroller for traveling.

Anyone have a jogging stroller that I could borrow on Thanksgiving morning?

Belly Laughs

I dare you not to laugh while watching this one.

If you must... skip to the really good stuff starting about one minute into the video.

Laughing from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Professional Photographer

Abigail will be doing photo sessions for the holidays... slots are filling fast.

She's a Canon girl... just like her mama :)

What A WEEK

Courtney and Daniel came to visit last week and we LOVED every minute of it.

Especially Abigail...

She couldn't get enough of them :)

Lucky for us... we get to see them again on Saturday

... in the MOTHERLAND

CHEESE

I'm loving this face right now

How can you NOT love that?

Mary had a

... little lamb

Fill in the blank

She's got...

SASS

...a mind of her own

...mom and dad wrapped around her finger.

... spunk, and strength

and yes, she's got quite the attitude.

Ok, so Abigail was a little less than cooperative. I'm just glad we did get a few good ones. I'm tellin' you what though, that is one little girl that can put on a grumpy face like you would not believe. Lucky for us, she doesn't pull that card nearly as often as you'd think from looking at these pictures.

This is what we see much more of :

Every picture has a story

... and this one explains those bare feet.

If you can imagine this, we were in a bit of a rush to get out the door to get our family pictures made, and I still had to stop by Target to get Abigail a shirt to wear under her sweater. Anyway, I had Charles grab her shoes on the way out the door. As I quickly ran in to Target, I was momentarily tempted by a cute pair of brown boots that would have been so cute with Abigail's outfit. I hurried along to get a shirt reminding myself that, her mary janes were really cute too. So I passed up a perfectly good reason to buy Abigail another pair of stylin' shoes, that she does not need.

As we were getting out of the car at the park for pictures, I started to put on Abigail's shoes. One shoe... then, confusion. Now, as you may have seen in pictures, Abigail has a ridiculous number of shoes, in large part due to the fact that we hit the jack pot of all hand-me-downs from her styling twin cousins Annie and Chloe. Well, among her loot, are not one, but two pairs of very similar black mary janes. The only difference is that one pair has three little hearts on them that you hardly notice. Either pair of shoes would have done the trick. Heck, even one of each would have been fine, as long as they would have been for two different feet.

2 different shoes, both for the left foot.

And thus... bare feet in the pictures. Very, very CUTE bare feet.

What makes the story even better, is what happened the next day at church. I got Abigail all ready for church, arrived early... no rush this time. I put her shoes on before we left the house. Perfect match-- the ones with the hearts today. Of course on the way to church, she took one of the shoes off, the left shoe, so I grabbed it and put it back on as I got her out of the car. As we were sitting in Sacrament meeting, Charles so lovingly pointed out that our dear daughter was wearing two different shoes. Turns out the other shoe had been left in the car.

Woops. Guess I'll stop teasing Charles.

HELP!

the picture is unrelated... but one of MANY that we took out in the beautiful fall leaves yesterday with our buddy Scott

I need costume ideas! Abigail is taken care of, for sure.

For Young Women this week, we are putting on a carnival for the Primary kids, and you guessed it- I have to dress up for the first time in a LONG time. My default has always been to throw on my cowboy hat and call it good.

But then again... I also used to have boots to go with that. The things we give away when we are pregnant and nesting...

Anyway, we also need costumes for a party we are going to on Friday night.

I just suggested Kermit and Miss Piggy to Charles. He gave me a look like- "Oh no, I'm not falling into that trap."

What can I say, he's learned well in our time together :)

When I grow up...

... I want to be just like my Daddy.

Charles hurt his back last week playing basketball. He crawled around Thursday and Friday, until we got to the chiropractor. Then he improved to walking with a cane for the rest of Friday and Saturday. Well... he used the cane whenever Abigail wasn't using it to help get around.

Where did Charles get a cane on demand like this? Don't worry, his brother Andrew had one on hand for such an occasion as this. He must have gotten it when Charles turned 25, you know... just in case :)

My little sicky

Abigail had the flu last week. It was not a fun week for her :( I kind of enjoyed all the snuggle time we got together, but I was happy to see her start to run around and giggle again. She's still not back 100%, but she is doing a LOT better. She had a 103 temp for 3 days before it finally came down. Now she is just sleeping a TON. Saturday night she went to sleep at 6, and slept in until almost 10 on Sunday morning... when WE woke her up.

She was VERY attached to four things: her pacifier, her 2 "dolls"- as pictured,

and to my delight, her mama :)

This is when she had started feeling better and at least wanted SOMETHING

to do other than lay on me and look at the wall for hours and hours.

I knew she was on the mend when she started laying there with me and slowly pulling the blanket over her head to play peek-a-boo with me to pass the time.

Showin' her off

I was trying to get Abigail to go through all the words she says now. I forgot some, according to Charles, I forgot the best ones. I'll have to try again later. For now, listen to her go! My personal favorite... tickle tickle tickle :)

Talking from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Owwie

Owwee from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Yum

If this doesn't make you want to dig in to some fresh corn on the cob...

I don't know what will.

Accessorize

She's learning the fun you can find in adding a little flair to an outfit.

Cute little granny

Anything with holes are bracelets.

Sunglasses are a must

She's not pampered, I promise...

The headband, and ONE shoe look... so hot right now.

Abigail is all about the accessories.

Girl can Jam

Last night Abigail figured out how to get music playing on my iPod. She carried it around with her like her own personal boom-box. She'd hold it on her shoulder or hold it up to her ear. It was really funny.

Jammin to the Ipod from Charles Himmer on Vimeo.

Creative

Abigail is getting creative with finding ways to stay busy while I cook dinner. She tears through the tupperware spreading it all over the kitchen in no time at all. She has found that the measuring cups are fun to bang together... for a few minutes. But yesterday, she realized that the bottom drawer is easy to open, easy to empty, and REALLY fun to climb inside.

In fact, last night she climbed in, and I couldn't find her anywhere.

Can you find her? Where's Abigail??