Happy Pictures!!!

Uncle Sam has proven, yet again, that he is both more talented and sneakier with that camera than Mom is. Or perhaps he has it up to his face so much Zach just stopped paying attention..

Whatever it was, he has actually produced happy, smiling pictures of my happy smiling kid!!

Since you've been barraged with not-so-happy pics for a while now, I thought I'd share.

Blessing & Birthday

February was a very eventful month around the Reed house.

At the beginning of the month, we had LOTS of fun visitors for Beka's blessing.
Uncle Mike, Aunt Sharon and the kids came out and stayed at the house for a couple of days. Grandma & Grandpa Elsberry along with Aunt Keri, Uncle Kevin and their kids and Aunt Shel, Uncle Sam and Meghan all came into town. Uncle Greg flew in from Texas for the event and the rest of the Reeds were here for the happy day.

She was beautiful in her blessing dress and it was a wonderful happy occasion.








We then drove up to Monterey where the kids and I spent a week helping Aunt Michelle after her surgery and then Chad and his mom came up and spent the weekend for a little mini-vacation. Sadly.. I have no pictures.. you'll have to trust that we had a great time! :-)

Once we were back, it was celebration time again! Zach turned 2 on the Friday the 24th. How time flies!!

We had his cousins over for a BBQ on Saturday complete with balloons, cake & gifts. Of which, the balloons were definitely the hands-down winner. Again.. you'll have to trust me that he really was happy.. Still not wanting to show it on film. Sigh..

Christmas

We actually spent Christmas with the Elsberry Clan in Arizona. So, the morning we left, we had our own Christmas here with Zach and the baby.

Here's a look at what our living room looked like after Santa was done with it:



Zach loved his new train table and car ramp, but on that first morning, he loved his new tool belt and Little People Farm the most:








We had fun in Arizona playing with cousins and hanging out with family.

Here are the kids on Christmas Day right after church. They were so cute in their holiday outfits.


.

In spite of the insanity of a new baby and the transition that inevitably brings, it was a fun and festive holiday season at the Reed House. :-)

Newborn Pictures

In an effort to capture some newborn pictures of Rebekah, I got out the camera and took some shots when Chad and Zach were at church on a Sunday afternoon. She was a week and a half old, not terribly cooperative and I got frustrated early and gave up. I didn't even look at the pictures because I was convinced that they were not going to be good.

So.. weeks later I finally transferred them to my computer and guess what? There were actually a few good ones! Sweet! :-)

Rebekah

She is here!

Announcing the birth of





Rebekah Marie Reed
November 30, 2011
9:13pm
7 lbs 12 oz
20"

Halloween

We started off Halloween this year at our ward's Trunk-or-Treat on Saturday evening. Zach dressed up like a terribly cute puppy. I was curious how he'd react to the whole 'trick-or-treat' thing, since he's not a huge fan of candy (or so he lead me to believe) and hadn't really seen much of the stuff up until then.

After we had dinner, Chad took him out to the parking lot and apparently it didn't take more than once or twice for him to figure out to walk up, smile, get the goods, say 'thank you' and move on to the next one. He made the rounds (and ended up giving a good portion of candy to his cousins since his pumpkin got too heavy to carry) with a big ol' grin on his face.

As soon as we came back into the cultural hall, he was all about that candy. He knew exactly what it was and wanted all of it. So much for my belief that he didn't really like the stuff..

Then came the night of actual Halloween and we pulled that costume out again, he got all excited. We only went to a few houses in our neighborhood and the neighborhood across the way, but as soon as we went to the door, he held out his little pumpkin and smiled and then said 'thank you' once he got the candy. It was SOOO cute.

Because of all this candy now in our house, he's learned the sign for candy and asks for it all the time. The funniest part though, was when I washed his costume to put it away. He saw it, signed 'puppy' and then signed 'candy'. I asked him if he was ready to put it on and get more candy.. he got all excited and nodded 'yes'.. then I had to explain that it only really worked one day a year...

Balloon!!

So I was sitting there on the couch watching Zach play on the last Sunday in October. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a van with a trailer pull into the dirt 'road' between us and our neighbors. Since it's a pretty quiet street, I try to take notice of out of place vehicles, and this one definitely qualified.

The van read 'Hot Air Balloon Rides'.. wait a minute.. if that's a chase vehicle, that means..

Yup.. Hot Air Balloon landed in our neighbor's back yard.

How's that for a random sight on a Sunday morning?



Zach was SOOO excited (he loves all things that fly) and so Chad took him over and they watched it deflate and get loaded up.

(By the way.. the shot above was taken from my driveway.)