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!

Notre Dame Weekend!

This past weekend I decided to surprise James and plan a little road trip.  The Univeristy of Utah (our alma mater) was playing football against Notre Dame and we have some good friends that live there so we made the three and half hour drive to South Bend, Indiana!

The first night we stayed in a hotel in Sturgis, Michigan (thanks to my mom giving us some of her credit card points so it was free!)  Scott LOVED playing in the hotel pool with daddy.

 

The next morning we met up with our friends Heather, Russ and Hannah Cramer.  Russ is getting his MBA at Notre Dame so the took us on a tour of campus.  I have always wanted to see Notre Dame ever since I saw the movie RUDY! RUDY! RUDY!



this is a photo of the grotto.  its a pretty famous place where catholics go to pray.  i actually ran into an old work buddy here (jaimee farrer).  what a small world!

this is the basilica - the catholic cathedral. 

we did A LOT of walking while we were there but scott was a trooper with it all.

 

Luckily we got a great babysitter for scott while we went to the game. It was raining and the utes played terribly but i enjoyed getting a snack and hot chocolate duing half time!

even though the Utes lost we still had a really good time.  many thanks to Russ and Heather for getting us tickets and showing us around!









new blog!

one of the suggestions that my publisher gave me was to create a blog or website for me an my book. i'm still figuring out the website world but in the mean time i created this blog that includes information about my book and basically my journey of writing it. check it out at www.nataliepalmerbooks.blogspot.com

thanks!

so many things!

i can't believe how much has happened over the past few weeks! between halloween festivities, my mom coming to visit and scott being irresistable to take pictures of.... i have a lot of catching up to do! (i threw in a bunch of miscellaneous pictures on this blog because i'm getting to the point where i'm just not sure i'll ever do another scapbook besides a blog scrapbook and i don't want to miss out on these memories.) here we go!

i love this picture. i can't tell you how many summer/fall days we have seen scott just like this. riding around our condo complex on his little trike, looking up at his favorite thing... an airplane.

there's this really pretty little pond area in our complex that scott and i love to walk to. our favorite thing is sitting on the grass and throwing pinecones into the water. this is scott with his collection of pincones.

this is our tree and behind it is our rock and behind that is our pond. but the fountains are turned off for the winter and the leaves are dead and the grass is cold and wet. we'll miss you little pond... until next spring.

across the street from our condo is the westlake recreation center which is the home for most of the community events. including the very popular pumpkin hunt. this is a pictur of scott and i mentally preparing ourselves for the hunt. there were a lot of competitors!

and here we are with our prized pumpkin. i was a little more excited about it than scott was. (i' still not sure what he thought was going to happen, but he was NOT happy about it.)

after the hunt scott bounced on bouncy castles and took a look at a real live helicopter. it was an awesome day.

for fhe one night we carved pumpkins with our friends sarah, nick and mitchell. its been a while since i've carved a pumpkin but as you can tell... i still have the touch. (you can't get much more basic than the triangle face.)

while us girls were furiously carving, the boys were trying to bake some of the pumpkin seeds. (emphasis on the word "trying". :) )

and the little boys (who were both utterly disgusted by the pumpkin guts) kept themselves busy with some of sarah's apple dessert.

nothing like pumpking carving and apple deliciousness to spice up your halloween!

the best thing that happened to us lately is grandy keyser came to visit! she had a conference in columbus ohio for work so i drove down to pick her up. i dropped scott off to play with brody (which he was ecstatic about) and then my mom and i went to the columbus temple.

thanks to my good friend anne who watched scott. (at least the mom's are looking at the camera.)its amazing how much these boys still love being together even after some months apart. the second they were together it was like no time had passed at all. the week leading up to this scott would periodically shout, "i want brody!" the toddler brain is incredible.even though my mom came in october she wanted to have thanksgiving dinner with us. i was elated because it has been a good three or four years since i have eaten my mom's thanksgiving dinner. i'm sure she tried to teach me in the past how to make all her famous goodies but this year i REALLY paid attention. it was delicious!as always, my mom spoiled us while she was here. we took scott to the disney store (his favorite store on earth) where she got him some toy story figurines and this cute shirt. scott was in heaven. (she also got me that cute maternity dress in the photo above.) we also took mom to kirtland ohio (which is about a half hour drive) to see the church history sites. first we went on a tour of the kirtland temple. and then we went to the Newel K Whitney store. i always have the best experiences when i'm on the LDS visitor site while listening to the missionaries tell me what happened on that very spot. we truly had a wonderful day.

and this is just a photo of james that my mom snapped. i love it because this is what he looks like every ay when he gets home from his rotations. cute dress shirt and tie with his fancy white coat and stethescope. he's going to be such a handsome doctor!

a few more little outings with grandy took us to the movies, out to dinner, the ymca and the lake erie beach (though it was way too cold to get close to the water.)

and when we weren't running around scott was soaking up all the attention at home.

the thing that took the most time while she was here was SHOPPING for a king size mattress. yes, my mom realized it was time for james and i to stop bumping noses in our queen size bed. so for an early birthday/christmas present (for the next five years) se got us this awesome mattress. it came in a box so it took a few days to flatten out but that is normal and it is SO comfortable now! and the best part is that james and i can sleep without breathing in each others faces. its true... a LITTLE distance realy does make the heart grow fonder. :)

sadly, grandy had to go back to utah but luckily there were plenty of halloween parties to distract us from her absense. this one was with some of the girls in my ward. all the kids were so cute and surprisingly cooperative for the picture. this is the longest scott had worn his lion costume up to this point. i was amazed!
scott was cheesing it up.... i think he was trying to impress the girls.

this is the best shot that my friend mckenzie took with her camera. i can't believe they all sat there for so long! L-R: hannah petersen, madeline harding, shana's two kids, abby nielsen, scott palmer, ella nielsen, cailyn davenport and brinkley davenport. i'm sure i messed up a bunch of those names but they're close.)

i had to throw in this picture from babysitting my friend loni's boys. this is grant and he and scott have so much fun together. they re a week a part in age, both blond haired and blue eyed and scott LOVES playing at "hrants house."

then we had a ward "trunk or treat" party the night before halloween. scott refused to wear his lion costume so we put him in last year's costume. the pants went to his knees and his cute little belly was showing all night but he looked SO cute! this is scott with his dinosaur friend mitchell.

here are a couple cute vidoes of him in the costume parade:

after the trunk or treat we had our friends derrick and crystal lee over for a monopoly night. i was SO excited. i LOVE monopoly... until i got stuck with stupid properties and went bankrupt! james ended up winning. grrrrrr.

finally the night of halloween arrived and we were able to take scott trick-or-treating for the very first time. (we were going to go last year but it was FREEEEZING). we just took him around to five of our little old neighbor friends. they loved seeing scott since he's one of about three kids that live in our entire complex.



this is a picture of us with our cute neighbor pete. he's always walking around and we'll feel safe knowing he has his eye on everything that is going on. :)

this is our other neighbor lynn. she has showered us with all sorts of helpful items since we moved in. we really lucked out with our neighbors.

after our brief trick or treating journey we came back to the house and ate popcorn and candy while watching "bedknobs and broomsticks". it was so fun and all james' cute idea. i love hanging out with our fun little family.

and i had to include this picture for a pretty obvious reason.

this picture is up for two reasons: 1. because i love seeing how much fun scott has with his dad and 2. because grandma palmer mailed scott this cute halloween shirt and he refused to where anything else for three days (he probably still would want to wear it but i finally hid it so i could put it in the wash!)

and this random little photo is of scott and i at panera bread. it is our most favorite place to go these days. (for those of you that don't know, panera bread is sort of like the midwest/east coast equivalent of einsteins bagels... only a little bit better.) the warm, delicious smells of bagels and soup tickle our toes and we take any opportunity we can to go in there for a panini and soup or a bag of cinnimon crunch bages. (i'm hungry just thinking about it!)

and i had to include this shot of scott with the orange bucket on his head. it is a very strange day when scott hasn't at one point put this bucket on his head and run around begging us to find him. he really thinks we can't see him if the bucket is on his head and its so rewarding for him to be able to peek underneath it and show us where he's hiding. this kid really is a barrel of fun.
the moral of this very LONG blog is...

Life is Good.