more scott

the days of scott and me hanging out alone together all day are coming to an end as we prepare for baby #2 to become part of our family in the next month.  so i feel like i need to take this time to document every little moment we have together. 

the other day i took the scott man to the zoo.  yes, its winter.  but its open and i have a seasons pass so we made the venture.  and i'm so glad we did.  scott loved being outside running around.  and i loved the fabulous nap he took when we got home!

since we were one of about five other people at the zoo we made friends easily with this other little family that was on our shuttle.  (yes, a heated shuttle takes you around to the different parts of the zoo.  it is so nice.)  scott was in seventh heaven with his new little friends and all the animals. 

i have to say i think i liked the zoo more in the winter than at normal times of the year.  for one, there are a LOT less people.  two, you don't have to walk around in the smoldering heat looking at sad, heat stroked animals.  and three, you kind of feel like you're really out in the wild with all the snow and the dead trees and the icy water and the brisk winter air...  its pretty cool.  (this was a random pic i took to try to capture that "out in the wild" feel.)

this is when i caught scott trying to be a scientist.

i can't get over how cute he is.

so when bryan and annie came for new year's eve they accidentally left one of their daughter's dolls at our house.  well, it has turned out to be such good prepartion for scott's upcoming life change.  he LOVES this little doll.  he helps me dress her and then he puts her in the baby swing and buckles her into the baby carseat and has her sit next to him on the couch (as pictured).  its so adorable.  the only thing i'm nervous about is that he'll think that he can handle the real baby the way he handles the doll (which is often times by the head).  yikes.  i'm doing my best to teach him but i have the feeling i'm going to have to keep an extra close eye on him when the real baby comes along.  (thanks for the temporary learning tool bryan and annie... and whoever it belongs to!)

i usually don't write too much on this blog - its more about the pictures and little blurbs - but i have to say that i've been thinking a lot lately about how everything has turned out.  of course having our miscarriage a year ago was extremely difficult.  but i think about scott and his personality and i think it is a real blessing that he is older when this second little kid is entering our family.  i think he needed to be a little bit more mature to be able to get what was going on and be able to share his parents with his sister.  i'm not expecting the transition to be perfect.  i'm sure we all have a lot to learn.  but it strengthens my testimony of God's plan for all of us and how he knows us better than we know ourselves. 

the trick is... remembering that during our next big trial. :)

on the bookshelf!

some of you reading this blog may not realize how big of a deal it is to have your book on the shelves of any bookstore (let alone Barnes & Noble).  it may be a common assumption that if you have a book published its automatically sold in stores.  not so... not so. 

it is actually a huge deal and has been a really big goal of mine for a really long time.  tonight james and scott and i had our family home evening at the local Barnes & Noble to see if my book was finally in (they said they ordered it a week or so ago).  and it was! yeah!  so we covertly took a couple of pictures and here is your proof...

can we blame my puffy face on the fact that i'm 8 months pregnant???

here it is close up.  and here's a funny little secret... when we found it, only the bindings were showing.  we made room for the entire front cover to be out for everyone to see.  afterall, this is a must read!

and just because he's so cute and i can't help myself, here are a few good shots of the kid.

here he is with daddy's hat and his toy microphone gettin' down with the rapping like JZ.  okay - i'm not hip with the rapper lingo and i have no idea who JZ is but it sounds like a name a rapper would have.

and here he is with his chik-filet cow hat that our friends (the Lees) got him.  he just makes my heart melt.

and of course a video because he's too cute for just still photos... we're thinking of getting him a record deal.

the future scott palmer

computer geek or dance champ? you tell me...

(this is how i found him, i swear.)

happy thanksgiving...christmas and... new year!

i promise i have a good excuse for not blogging since pre-thanksgiving, never getting my christmas cards out and providing james with the smallest christmas he's ever known...

can i just blame it on being pregnant? 

at any rate, i have a lot of catching up to do!

here we all are the weekend before thanksgiving for the tree lighting ceremony at crocker park. 

there were a TON of people there.  we saw the giant tree light up, lots of fireworks and we stood in line FOREVER to see santa afterwhich scott (of course) wanted nothing to do with him.

this is a video of the tree lighting.  the end is so sad because scott got a bit freaked out by the fireworks.

thanksgiving weekend was extremely chill.  we mostly hung out around the house and just spent time together.  it was SO nice!  we rearranged scott's bedroom in an effort to start getting ready for the baby.  this is james and his little helper putting the changing table together.

james and i made the perfect thanksgiving dinner together.  and what made it even better was that scott was napping while we ate it so we REALLY got to enjoy it!

when scott woke up we fed him some turkey and put up christmas decorations.  he loved helping me with the christmas tree.  and i quickly learned that starting this year all breakable christmas decorations get put at the tippy top of the tree.

this is just a funny and random picture of my little scott man with his plastic puppy.  he really does have days where he has to take this dog everywhere.  i took this picture on our way out of the ymca.  you can be sure that i wasn't the only one there that was entertained by him.

okay, it really was cute enough that you have to see the video too.

early on in december we spent a weekend in columbus. we stayed with our jones buddies and scott was in seventh heaven.  can you tell that he loves this kid?

since we were going to be heading to utah for christmas we had a pre-christmas christmas morning.  scott came down to a brand new "Cars" table (from grandy keyser) with a castle and "guys" to play with (from Santa).  i was a bit worried that the new toys would throw scott off his morning routine (he's very particular about his routine in the morning).  But he LOVED his new table and toys and still (three weeks later) its hard to pull him away from them. 

he even wanted to eat christmas breakfast at the table (and he still eats there whenver we let him.) our iowa friends will be happy to know that all of his "guys" have names.  there's a devin, a ryan, a james and a daddy oh, and one of them is just named bo-boy... brody maybe?  not sure. 

we finally made it out to utah where we had a fun week with all our family.  grandma palmer fed us lots of delicious treats including these cute gingerbread men that she decorated with the kids.

on our way up from salem to draper we stopped in american fork to have lunch with our good friend ryan.  he introduced us to jcw's and i can't believe i've lived in utah my whole life and have never eaten there.  i've been craving it ever since!

i think scott would agree that hanging out with the real ryan was better than just playing with the small plastic guy named ryan.  we tried seeing devin and shalise too but sadly it didn't work out.  hopefully next time!

up in draper we were able to squeeze in some time with our mauger friends.  scott loved hanging with cute alex on the big chair watching scooby doo.

for christmas eve eve my mom treated us all to a fun night at the lion house and temple square.  we had our own room and our own waitress and a ton of delicious food and fun.  thanks mom!

then on christmas eve we got together to exchange gifts, tie blankets for the needy and just talk and have a good time.  my favorite part was chatting with the girls while my mom did our nails. 

then we headed back down to salem for the rest of christmas eve and christmas day. 

scott loves all of his cousins but he and allie have a special bond.  i think it has something to do with the fact that they can barrel each other to the ground and they both think its funny.  allie is one tough cookie.

i had to get a shot of scott at the airport.  even though he's been on way  more airplanes than a two year old should ever have to be on... this was the first time he really got it.  he LOVED watching the planes and getting on the planes and he even sat so well in his very own seat with his very own seatbelt.  he was so cute when the flight attendants would bring around his pretzels and drinks.  he'd set up his table with his snack and his "guys" and he was good to go for a while... which was a huge relief to us!

and this is scott about point 5 seconds after we landed back in cleveland and got in our car.  it was a fun, busy and exhausting week!

since we were back in cleveland for the new year we had bryan and annie up to celebrate with us.  it was really good that they came because i think scott was going through withdrawals being away from all of his cousins.  we're so lucky to have them close by!

unfortunately in rained most of the weekend so we spent most of the time watching movies on the couch...

...and eating! 

big thanks to all of our family for making the holidays so great. 

happy thanksgiving

merry christmas

and

happy new year!