New Year's Eve

We usually go to Tami's house to ring in the new year so we were over there for the first part of the night. All the cousins and siblings were there and we met some of John's kids and their families as well. Let off some fireworks and Gram LOVED it. Gavin was doing something with the fireworks and I think he lit the fence on fire? Something crazy like that happened. Gavin is sooo predictable! Haha. 

After partying there we headed over the Ben Whipple's house. He always has THE best parties. They had an open bar (no alcohol) and all the drinks were named the funniest things. They were pretty good too. We lit off fireworks in the church parking lot directly behind their house. We were chatting with Josue and Elba talking about our tiny baby bumps and what our babies will be like. Gram was so in love with this night, until he realized it was wayyy past his bedtime! 

2013 was a pretty tough year for the Guthrie family, but I was hopeful that 2014 would be one of our best year yet!

Christmas!! 2013

Christmas Eve we did a progressive dinner with the Guthrie side, as we do almost every year. First stop, our house for some hot chocolate and family pics by our tree. We decorated our tree in white, gold, silver with black and white presents. Next, we all headed to Mallory's new house for appetizers, and oh man, she had the best food! Shrimp, cheese ball, chicken wings, ect. We didn't even need dinner after that! Then, we headed over to Ashley's new house for soup and bread bowls. How did I get so lucky to marry into a family that can seriously cook?! Haha.

The final stop was Grandma Tami's house for Christmas jammies and exchanging gifts. This year the girls received red and black plaid jams, my favorite. The boys got Coke shirts and plaid pants. Gram got little plaid monkey jams. We just played around and took pictures by her massive tree. I recruited her visiting teachers to help Gram and I put it up and decorate it as kind of a Secret Santa thing. Later she told me she knew it was me. Haha. She's a sneaky one! She also did a very sneaky thing. She got married earlier that day and didn't even invite us! Ha.

Well it was time to head home, put Gram to bed and finish wrapping the rest of the presents. I finished early but Gavin wrapped until 2 or 3 in the morning. He said she tried to make each gift look perfect. Lol. I woke up in the middle of the night to snap pics of our presents under the tree and lay out my boys' stockings. So beautiful the house looks with all the sparkle and gifts.

The boys woke up and we did stockings first, then exchanged gifts. Gram got the best gift he has ever received... his very own trampoline!!! We LOVED seeing his face when he saw it. Gav had spent hours on it the night before putting it all together. Ben Coombs came over to help, too. We spent a good part of the morning jumping and laughing!

We then got ready for the day and headed over to my parents house to exchange gifts. I told my dad what time we were coming and they waited allll day to open their gifts until we got there. It was actually was pretty cool to watch each person open every single gift, give hugs and take pics. Haha the way they open gifts takes a verrrry long time but it was cute to join in on the tradition once more.

That afternoon I'm pretty sure we went to go see a movie with our friends, like we usually do on Christmas Day. I can't remember since it has taken me almost a year to blog about that day!

Great holiday with my great family! I was about 4-5 months pregnant with our next addition to our family, too!

2013 Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving would be the first year without Sam so as a Guthrie family we knew it was important to still go to the traditional Thanksgiving Day breakfast. Bill, Sam's brother, also passed away from cancer this year so we were able to support his family as well. 

Gram had fun chasing his favorite cousins around (the Mackey girls) in the woods. The adults sat around the campfire looking at the ads for all the Black Friday deals as usual. It was a quieter day than the past Thanksgiving breakfasts but Gavin and Trevor were stirring up all kinds of commotion talking about the 80" flat screens that they wanted. Boys will be boys! 

After breakfast we went home to shower and went to Thanksgiving dinner at Tami's house. The boys were trying to figure out how to buy their big screens and the girls were planning out all the stores they were going to hit. I never go any where on Black Friday (the midnight shopping) because I am either pregnant or have a small baby to tend to. This year we just walked around San Tan Mall to see if they had any cool deals. We met up with Tami, Aunt Robin, Ashley and Mallory, too.

During this time my brother, Howard, was in town with his new fiance, Seneca. They stayed a couple nights with us and a couple nights with my parents. Howard is always fun to hang out with because he brings the party to my parents house! Seneca fits right in with the family so it was good seeing her as well!

We're Having a Baby Girl!

The very last present Gram opened up at his birthday party was a bunch or shirts saying, "Big Brother" on them. Secret is out!! We are having an other little bundle of joy! I was almost 14 weeks at that point so we were in the "safe zone" as I call it. Everyone was shocked and kind of confused. Haha but everyone was very excited for us! 

I was able to find the midwife that delivered Gram on Facebook and followed her to her new office, MomDoc Midwives in Gilbert. How crazy is it that she moved to an office just 5 minutes from my new house?! I was so excited when I found out that I had a chance of using her again. 

I remembered when I first figured out I was pregnant. I was nauseous for 2 days and on Sunday I woke up, rolled out of bed and headed to Walmart for a pregnancy test. I thought it was a good excuse to go to the store on Sunday, I just HAD to know!! So after the test was positive I gave it to Gram to surprise Daddy with. We woke him up and Gram handed him the stick. He didn't read it correctly and thought I wasn't pregnant. Dang it. After I explained that I was he was very excited for us!!

At our 18 week appointment we had our 2nd ultrasound and they told us it was a girl!! I think all the hormones made me cry because I was so scared to have a girl! (I was scared that I would have a hard time bonding with her because I have always had trouble connecting with other women.) I was trying to be tough so everyone wouldn't bother me about why I was crying. It took us until the next day to share what the gender was. After that I started getting VERY excited to have a little princess of my own!

Gram's Monster Party!!

My little monster is growing up! I can't believe he's already two years old! Which now that I think about it, that's not very old. He's still my baby.

We of course had to throw him a HUGE monster bash! I love throwing parties but I especially love throwing parties for my little prince.

I thought a monster theme would be perfect for this little man to kick off his terrible twos! Haha. It also was cute that his birthday is right before Halloween.

I had an awesome time planning his party and getting everything ready. We had everyone over to our new house for a monster bash. The party was from 4-6 but our last guests didn't leave til 9! It was that fun ;) We had food and desserts to match the theme: Monster Smiles, Monster Teeth, Monster Cookies, Monster Fingers and Toes, Ect. He had a big, green monster cake with several eyeballs sticking out of the top! Then I had made little brightly colored cupcakes with shifty eyes to match. We set up a bounce house, tables and chairs outside. There was even face painting, too! 400 of our closest friends and family attending this celebration. Now that I'm writing this all down it seems a bit much for a 2 year-old's birthday party!

It was all worth it seeing Gram strut around like he was the coolest kid in the neighborhood (and duh! He is!) His little ego puffs up and it's the funniest, cutest thing. I love my little guy more than words can express, so I was glad to see he enjoyed being the center of attention.

After playing around and enjoying some yummy food it was time to open the gifts! Gram got so many great presents including a bike, race cars, new clothes, jammies and many more. At the end of the gift giving Gram opened one more gift bag that had shirts saying "Big Brother" on them. Yep, it's true, Gram is going to have a little baby sibling!!

On Gram's actual b-day I took him to the pumpkin patch with our friends Meagan and Jane. They had bounce houses, hay rides and pumpkin decorating there! He loved the hay rides the most since it was his first time ever on one.

I'm so glad I was able to make Gram feel so special on his big day! I live for making that kid happy.  

Jeep Grand Cherokee 2014

July 31st, 2013

Gavin bought me my first real car!! 

I have never picked out my own car before. Gavin usually does that (because he's the man and all) but this time I got to choose my dream car and go down to the dealership and pick it out! 

It was time to get me a "mom car" aka SUV so we began the search. Of course I didn't really need an SUV with my one child, but Gav just likes to have all the nice things. We went and looked at the Pilot, 4Runner and something else. Then when we went to Jeep we just KNEW this was our vehicle. 

The inside is beautiful and has a clean look. Not to mention the largest touch screen on the market ;) My favorite color is black so I was ecstatic when they had a black on black (with leather, eek!) Jeep in stock!

So... I didn't realize we were actually buying a new car, especially when our cars were in great condition. It's always just fun to look around. One night I thought we were going to Chandler mall for date night then Gav said he just wanted to talk to the guy down at the Jeep dealership. We went there and after they got to talking I guess we were getting a new car?? Haha luckily Gav has great judgement and got us the perfect family car because I should have been paying more attention for such a huge purchase. That's where husbands really come in handy :)  

Needless to say I have been very appreciative of Gavin and his hard work. He has been loving his career choice as a loan officer at Academy Mortgage and all his hours there are paying off! Thanks Gavin! We love you and our "Jeep car!" 

Robert Samuel Guthrie

2012 and 2013 have been rough years for the Guthrie clan. My sweet father-in-law was diagnosed with brain cancer in July of 2012. This came to us all as a very big shock because he was only 56 years old. He passed away exactly a year later from the day he was diagnosed.  

He has been an incredible example of what it means to truly be selfless and have unconditional love for others. He was an incredible spouse who would do absolutely anything for Tami. He spent his life remodeling and fixing up their homes just to make her smile. He would go to the ends of the earth to help any of his children or in-laws and pretty much did just that very often. Sam would always give you a rough time about him having to go fix your car in the middle of the desert at midnight but he was secretly loving having to help. 

He had an extremely strong testimony of the church and lived his entire life according to our beliefs. He served a mission in New York and married Tami in the temple. He had a Christ-like love for his children and showed them that as he parented them. 

Gram had a special part in Sam's heart and Sam in his. They loved playing around together or just snuggling watching TV. Sam called him "Cowboy" and Gram called Sam "Pop Pops." They were the sweetest little buddies and will be again in Heaven. 

We love Sam and the legacy he left behind.

Life in Gilbert

So we have absolutely enjoyed our lives in Gilbert. Our house is perfect and so is our neighborhood. We have quite a fun ward here and no one ever wants to move out of the neighborhood. When families out grow their original home, they buy the bigger house down the street! It's that great of a ward. 

We have made some pretty great friends here and Gram loves all the kiddos in his nursery class. He's finally to the point where he can be left alone in nursery to play and not cry for his parents. He loves it so much that during the week we sometimes play "nursery" or "school" and do all the activities he does in class. His favorite right now is singing. He loves "Sunbeam", "Popcorn Popping","Wheels on the Bus" and "Jingle Bells". 

Our neighborhood has an incredible park down the street which we go to several times a week. Gram asks me everyday if we can go to the park that day and if I tell him otherwise he says, "No, park!" 

We have lived in our house for 9 months now and we are finally starting to feel settled in! It's a lot of work decorating a house and buying the necessary things but it's starting to look pulled together. In our previous homes I have always decorated with a lot of red since it was my favorite color. In this house I went with mostly neutrals like black, white, grey, silver and gold. I have been loving these colors lately so they are spread throughout the house.

It has been a big change living 30 minutes away from our families but it has also been very fun focusing on our little family! I'm so grateful for how hard Gavin works at his job and that it allows me to stay at home full time with Gram. Life is good. 

Christmas 2012

I never posted this blog post from last year's Christmas and here it is Christmas time again! I'll post it anyways!

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday! We had a blast as usual but this year was even more special to me. My little sweetheart is so intelligent and energetic so it was a blast seeing all his reactions to our Christmas Day!

We started our family time together Christmas Eve as Gavin was off work. We went to pick up last minute things and do a ton of present wrapping. Christmas Eve is always our day to celebrate with the Guthrie side of the family. We do dinner together (usually homemade soup) and open pajamas from Grandma Tami and a little gift she includes in everyone's pj gift box. 

Christmas morning Gav and Gram woke up to stockings Santa had stuffed! I was sooo excited to see their reactions and to catch our little crazy babe on our video camera!! Haha we love that boy more than I can express. They got some cute things: shampoo, hair product, tooth brush, Pez toy, toddler cookies, socks and some of their favorite munchies. 

[Christmas Eve]

{Christmas Morning}

After the boys were done with their stockings, we went up stairs to join the Guthries. We got Sam and Tami printed photos of the photoshoot we did around Thanksgiving. I bought an extra pic for us of the pic of Pop Pops holding Gram! It's the sweetest thing ever. Tami got us a chandelier and pots and pans for our new house. Woot woot. Gav got me Urban Decay eyeshadows, a makeup brush kit and converse high tops! I got him pics blown up of our family photoshoots and some new clothes. 

Later that afternoon we went to the Thruston's house for more gift giving! My grandparents were there as well. It's always fun to see them and joke around with everyone. It was especially great to see my brother Howard. We only get to see him 2-3 times a year! The rest of the week we got to spend a lot of time with him before he drove back up to Utah. 

This Christmas was the best holiday up to date since Gram is older and it's suuuper fun watching him enjoy all the hoopla! 

Our First House

After going back and forth between deciding to rent, to buy, to rent, ect., we finally bought our dream home! It really is our dream home... one story, the garage is in the front of the house, it has a separate living and family room and it's on a good sized lot! 

We are in Gilbert now close to the San Tan Mall and freeway. I was very nervous to move to Gilbert since we don't have our immediate family out here. But oh man am I glad we did it! I absolutely love the neighhood, it kinda has a California feel to it. I love our new ward and neighbors. I love being right next to a mall and several parks. I love being soo close to everything especially the freeway. We may never want to move!!

We closed February 6th and got the keys that afternoon! After that I loaded up my little car several times (while Gavin was working) and made trips to our new house to move as many things as possible! I was just too excited. The next  night at like 10pm we brought over our mattresses and slept in our new casa!! It was so nice being on our own for the first time in a year and a half. 

We didn't have a refrigerator, washer or dryer so the first week or so was a little rough! We survived off pb&j's and Chick-fil-A. So Valentine's day our fridge shows up and the next day off to Walmart I go to buy real food! Needless to say I've been cooking every meal since. Two and a half weeks after moving in our washer and dryer arrived. I've never been so happy to do laundry!

This has been the most ideal experience being fist time home owners and I can't wait to make many great memories here over the next few years!

Thanksgiving Weekend with the Thruston's

So much happened this week with allll the family in town, it's hard to write it all down! I didn't know my older brother Howard was going to be in town so I had planned to spend so much time with my sister-in-law Hanna since she came from outta town, too. When I found out Howard was here I tried spending as much time with him as possible. He always brings the family together and we have such a blast with his spunky personality! 

To sum it all up we just came over and visited, went to Scottsdale mall for some Black Friday shopping, had family photos, went out to Table Top Restaurant and made breakfast together on his last morning here. So much fun, the time always flies way too quickly! We will be glad he will come down from Utah again in a few weeks for Christmas!

(It was Fifi's b-day on Thanksgiving. Cheesecake Birthday Cake, Oh Yeah!)

(My Gorg Sissy, Honore')

[My bro Howard who we don't get to see often enough!]

{The Birthday Girl, "Mommy's Daddy" and Mr. Gram}

{Just a little peek from our family photos}

(Supporting our Friends, the Candland's, @ Table Top's Opening Night)

[Proof that Gav and I DO Go Out!]

{Sunday Morning when Howard was Leaving}

Phoenix Zoo with my Guthrie Sisters

Hanna's family came to visit last week for Thanksgiving... so going to the Zoo was a must! Ash let us all use her guests passes, thanks Ash! We love the Zoo because how often do you get to see a Lion on a Tuesday morning?! For some reason I thought Gram wanted to be held or walk around the entire trip, then as soon as I put him in the stroller at the end, he crashed. So typical. My nieces and nephews are the cutest, craziest, most well behaved kids you'll ever meet. So glad I have got to see all of them as much as I have!!

 {Penelope, Caelan, Sleeping Gram, Quinn, and Truman}

[Caelan, Ainsley and Addie]

Mexico for Veteran's Day Weekend

We have amazing friends. Seriously. 

This past weekend we went to Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) with our friends Josh and Elba. They didn't even mind we were bringing our baby. So they are our new Godparents!! Haha. We had such a blast with them and I didn't even feel left out that I was the only one who doesn't speak Spanish! Lol. 

We drove down Saturday morning and went straight out to check out the beach! It was a little chillier than we had expected but beautiful nonetheless. We order those killer quesadillas they serve at the resort. I would drive down to Las Palomas Resort every weekend to get those quesadillas if I could; they are THAT good. 

We went to Al Capone's Pizza Sunday for lunch since it's a little tradition now. I highly recommend going there. After that we went into town to check out those little shops full of Mexican trinkets!! My favorite. We almost got knock-off handbags, ect. but the prices they ask were ridic! We could buy a used Louis Vuitton in the states for their price! Next up, nap time. Gram was exhausted so we let him nap back at the condo while Josh and Elba could enjoy the beach. We picked up some DVD's in town so we watch those all night and ate tonsss of candy and room service. It's funny, you try to lose weight to look good FOR vacation then gain it all back while ON vacations. Lucky for me, I didn't have any time to lose weight for a last minute vacation, so I just came back "softer". Haha, time to hit the gym!

Monday we checked out of the condo and went into town to look at more trinkets and get breakfast/lunch/Thrifty Ice Cream. We had fun on the drive home chitter chatting with our friends and giving Gram suckers to make him happy. 

Loved every minute with my boys and friends in Mexico!! Here's some pics to explain the trip. A picture's worth a thousand words... and I don't feel like typing!

{Friends that bathe together, stay together}

(Hola, Amigo!)

[Thrity Ice Cream and Shrimp Cocktail]

(Al Capone's Pizza)

{Woohoo! Ice Cream, Ice Cream!!}

(Pajama party on Tia Elba's head)

("Oh gosh Mom, I just ate half a Snickers!")

{Suitcase ride on Tio Josue's bag!!}

Thanks again amigos for an incredible get away with you!! We love ya!

Gram's 2nd Halloween

"OK guys, let's go trick-or-treating!!"

Last year, Gram was only 10 days old when we went out on Halloween. He was an adorable newborn bear. This year he was a tough, ferocious dinosaur!! Rarrr! (He even grawls, too.) We went out trick-or-treating before we went to the annual Whipple Halloween bash. Gram grabbed his cauldren, RAN down the street and followed his fellow neighbor kids to collect that candy! I was so surprised to see him act like he knew what he was doing, that he knew to go to people's houses. He trick-or-treats like a champ! He got quite a bit of candy for the 3 or 4 houses we went to, probably because he was so cute. 

After that, Isaac, Gram and I walked home to pick up Gav to head out to the party. The Whipple party is always a blast. They make their famous Santa Fe Chicken soup along with other soups and serve them in pumpkin bread bowls. They also make homemade donuts! So cute. We visited with our friends while Gram ran around with Lydia Tran and Addison Whipple. Those girls are too sweet. All in all, this was a super sweet Halloween for my precious little love bug. Happy Halloween everyone!!!

{I wasn't exaggerating about him running down the street! We couldn't keep up.}

[Dino and his favorite boxer uncle Isaac]

"What? That's it??"

{Not sure why we keep going to people's doors}

[Three generations of Guthries]

(Grandpa Sam and Grandma Tami)

{Kyle, Natalie and baby chickie Amelia}

(Gav, Gram, Addison and Uncle Ben Whipple)

(Partied Out)