Christmas this year was unique - very different from any other year. Extra special though. Definitely one we'll never forget. How neat to get to celebrate the birth of our precious little girl as we also celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Here's a random assortment of pictures from Christmas. We had lots of fun!  The best part of the day was getting to bring Mailya home. (We got home at about 11am). I loved enjoying Christmas as a family!

Alex and Jess w/ Maliya

Opening present. Cole had a great time this year! He was very meticulous - had to get every last piece of paper. Notice the bottomw pictures with the foam blocks. Cole has played with those for hours - thanks a ton Grandpa and Grandma Gandola!!

Cole snuggling with his and Maliya's pillow pals (thanks Grandma Lexie and Grandpa Jack!).  Cole LOVES to snuggle with animals, so these were of course a hit.

Family photos

Sweet sibling time in jammies from Grandma Lexie.

Maliya's first bath at home

Cute Maliya

More of cute Maliya

More presents!

More jammie shots

Boys Beware!!

Maliya and her pillow pal. I think she likes it.

Thanks to our family, who helped make Christmas extra special, even from so far away.

A few sweet sibbling moments:

• Cole loves to hold stuffed animals up to his face and say 'ohhhh...'. He also loves to have you hold animals up to your face while you and he both say 'ohh...'. When we first brought Maliya home, we had her in her swing. Cole walked up to her, put his very favorite animal (Lion) up to her, and said 'ohh..'  How sweet of him to share his favorite animal!
• Last night I helped Cole brush his teeth and then told him to go say goodnight to Maliya, who was in her swing.  He walked right up to her and tried to pick her up out of her swing w/ both hands. It scared me a little, but was so precious. I still wonder what he was doing though. Maybe trying to put her to bed?
• Today Cole and Nick were sitting on the couch watching football, and Maliya was sleeping right next to them.  Cole decided he wanted to hold Maliya, so Nick helped him do so. (This was a surprise since  often Cole doesn't want to touch her or really look at her, when asked.) Nick kept trying to take Maliya from Cole, but he wouldn't let him. He just wanted to sit and hold her while he watched the game. 

I have so many pictures I want to post! It's getting late though, so I'll just finish off the hospital pics and I'll do the Christmas ones in a day or two.  Oh, and speaking of that, Merry Christmas!!

First, three adorable pictures of my two kiddos together...

I love how excited Cole looks!

So precious

Daddy-Daughter cuddle time

Cole entertaining himself at the hospital.  He's done a lot of that since our first visit in November and has been such a trooper!

Sporting her cool bili shades...just had to keep up with her brother:)

Her first clothes from home...a precious, snuggly premie outfit from Aunt Meggie

Maliya and Uncle A!

Ready to go home (wearing a cute premie outfit from Grandma Lexie)

She looks so small, but actually not quite as small as we'd expected.  I'm pretty sure Cole looked smaller, if you can believe it. Also, her head stays up in the car, while his always hung down over his neck during car rides (so sad).

This was Cole the day he left the hospital for home (1 week old). Who do you think looked smaller?

Merry Christmas!!

We hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas!

First, thanks to everyone for your kind comments. We're pretty excited to have our baby girl here and were excited to show her off  a bit:)

Second, thanks to Nick for posting all of the pics and for taking care of EVERYthing.  Nick, you're definitely husband of the year 10 times over...you are my rock and I love you! 

And finally,  just wanted to let you know that she finally has a name!  It was a tough, but we've decided on Maliya Gandola. (Muh-lee-uh).

More details to come when we get home from the hospital. Merry Christmas!!

Presenting Baby Girl Gandola

Baby girl will have a name by the end of the night so sorry for now.  Here are a few pictures to see, hopefully they are ok.  When Lynnie can, she will blog properly on all the details.

I have the BEST sisters ever!  (I've known it for a long time, and probably should've mentioned it sooner.)  Girls, I just love ya tons and want you to know it!

I could go on and on about how wonderful my sisters are, but instead I'll just mention one fun thing they just recently did for me.  They were all together over Thanksgiving and made some super cute and fun crafts (they're cute and crafty like that).  They sent me a picture of one of the crafts and I fell in love with it - decided right away that I wanted to make it, but didn't know how or when I'd get the supplies.  Well, when Megan came to visit a couple of weeks later, she brought me a surprise.  Because I'd missed out on the sister crafting spree, and because I was home on bedrest, my sweet sisters decided to lend me all of their extra supplies so I could make the crafts too.  Wasn't that so nice of them?!  I had so much fun making those crafts, thanks to them, and now I have two new cute Christmas decorations. Thanks girls!

Here's the first one - made from a DI frame and some Christmas ornaments (I know, not only are my sisters cute and crafty, but also super creative and thrifty). I decided to try making mine a little different from theirs, just to see what would happen.  I probably shouldn't have - theirs turned out a lot cuter.  Oh well. I didn't glue anything down, so maybe I'll change it for next Christmas:)

And the second, made from another DI frame, scrapbook paper, and buttons.  So fun!

And now onto Cole....

While I was at a dr. appointment yesterday, Nick and Alex found Cole playing at the computer, a definite no-no.  Little stinker!  Oh, and he was crying in the picture because Nick had just taken away our camera, another no-no for sure.

He always manages to redeem himself, though, by his supreme cuteness and his goofball personality.  He was a really good boy all day long, and last night he really turned on the charm.  Nick and I had a blast playing with him, especially after he requested these sunglasses.  He had a lot of fun wearing them and putting them both of us.

A few new words/actions of Cole's:

1. 'Mamma'. He used to just say Ma, and only sometimes. Now he says Mamma all day long and I love it. It's so precious to hear his little voice say it. 

2. 'Apple'.  For some reason he loves saying this. Maybe I already mentioned it...sorry, it's just so cute.  He focuses really hard on saying it and will usually repeat it 2-3 times.  He can't quite figure out the 'p' sound, but other than that he does a good job.

3. Uh-oh.  I know I already mentioned this, but now he'll walk around with his hands in front of him, turned upside down, saying uh-oh, as if he's lost something.  We're not always sure what he's looking for:)

4. West-Side.  Nick taught Cole how to make a 'w' with his fingers.  He didn't really think Cole had learned it, but he did, and he's really good at doing it.  Nick will say 'Cole, do west-side' and within about 1/2 a second Cole will whip his fingers into a w.  Pretty funny.

5. Spanish.  Cole's in the process of teaching himself Spanish.  He has a little toy (a table) that sings songs, counts, says the ABC's, etc. He absolutely loves this table, and recently discovered that it's even cooler than he thought because it has a Spanish setting!  He gets the biggest kick out of changing it to Spanish and listening to it talk to him in this new language.  It's so funny to hear the ABC's in Spanish and look over an see Cole staring at me with a huge grin on his face.

And to round things out....good news....I'm 36 weeks today, woo-hoo!

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Happy Sunday

I love when Nick gives Cole a haircut & always have to show off his new do:)

My boys are goofballs & have so much fun together.  It doesn't take much to entertain them!

And finally, the real reason it's a happy Sunday

(just kidding...the real reason is that I actually went to church today & it was wonderful!  This next item was just icing on the cake...)

Pizza Factory Twisted Breadsticks

I tried this copy-cat recipe today. I think I got it from my cousin's blog (thanks Brooke!)

 I love P.F. breadsticks and it completely thrilled me when these ended up tasting pretty darn close to the real thing.

Bread Twists

1 T. yeast
2 T. sugar

1 1/2 C. warm water

1 T. oil

1 tsp. salt

3 1/2 C. flour

Flavoring

3/4 C. melted butter - divided

3/8 tsp. granulated garlic

1/2 tsp. dried rosemary leaves

1/4 tsp. Season All

1 T. Parmesan cheese

Other

8 - 1/4 inch wooden dowels cut into 18 inch lengths (craft store)

or 8 - 12 inch skewers

Mix the yeast, sugar and water and

let sit for a couple of minutes to dissolve

the yeast. Add the oil, salt and flour and

knead by hand or with your mixer with a

dough hook for about 5 minutes.

Cover and let rise until double.

Divide dough into 8 equal parts, about 4 oz. each if you want to use a kitchen scale.

Lightly flour your hands and roll

the dough into about an 16-18 inch

long "snake". Moisten the top of your

dowel or skewer and begin wrapping

the dough around loosely. Moisten a little where the breadstick will end too.

Pinch to secure the dough at the top and bottom. Leave about

5 inches at the end of the dowel, if you are using the longer dowels.

Hang over the edge of a 9x13 inch cake

pan with all of the dough inside the pan.

Let them rise until doubled.

Brush with 1/4 C. melted butter.

Heat oven to 375. Bake at 375 for about 15- 20 minutes or until just golden.

Meanwhile mix the remaining 1/2 C. melted butter, seasonings and parmesan cheese.

When the breadsticks come out of the oven, brush them with the seasoned melted butter mixture.

YUM!

A few fun Cole facts:

• He started to say 'thank you' a couple of days ago, and now he says it all the time - yay!  I'm not quite sure what he says. It sounds a little bit like 'kay-kay' (guess he associates good things with your name, Kayla!).  He's very polite and says thank you not only when you give him something, but also when he gives you something.
• He often walks around w/ his hands behind his back (jazz fingers!). Usually it's when he's about to get into something he knows he's not allowed to touch.  It's cute, and it's a great warning!
• He started saying 'Grandpa' (sounds a little like bah-bah) and has also started copying a lot of the words we say.  He's really working hard on 'apple'. Whevener we say it he'll say it a couple of times. It's cute to watch him concentrate really hard on forming his mouth correctly.

I just finished another project (thanks to Meg for your help!).  My sister Megan was invited to participate in a Busy Bag Swap and was so sweet to extend the invite to me as well.  This swap has got to be one of the coolest things I've heard of (along with the FHE lesson swap that Meg invited me to do a couple of months ago).  22 different girls have been creating small activities that can fit inside a gallon-size storage bag over the past month or so.  (I made animal matching cards that can also be used as a memory game, to learn colors, and to work on animal names and noises.) We're all responsible for delivering them to the girl in charge by December 16th at the latest. She'll then divy them out and we'll all end up with 22 different activities.  I'll then make or find a cute bag to put them all in, and voila, I'll have a Busy Bag.  I can take it with me to church (the whole bag or just a few activities), pull out different activities to keep us entertained on cold, snowy days (or bedrest days!), etc.  So cool!  I can't wait to see what activities the other girls have made.

We normally put up our Christmas decorations over Thanksgiving weekend, but this year we were a little preoccupied (by a really fun visit to the hospital).  We're obviously a little behind and were actually tempted to skip decorations all together this year.  Luckily we quickly got over a Scroogie tendencies and decided that we really couldn't go a year without a tree!  Today we spent some family time putting up a very limited amount of decor (tree w/ twinkle lights only and outside Christmas lights), and I'm so glad that we did.  The tree alone makes it feel more like Christmas and it's fun to watch Cole's fascination with the twinkle lights.

 

Megan and Ryan were in town this weekend (which was really a lot of fun - thanks guys!).  They delivered a busload of present from my fam in St. George and Cole quickly discovered that presents are really fun to open!  Luckily, Meg gave me a great idea - to stack the presents on the mantel above our fireplace.  It's a great way to keep them away from curious eyes and hands, and it's kind of a fun decoration:)

 

Cole is officially a Big Boy now because he's the owner of a brand new, super cool Big Boy car seat.  We figured we'd better get him one, since someone else will be needing his old one pretty soon.  Thanks to the advice of Meg and Ryan, we chose this fun seat that changes into three different seats, including a booster, and will last Cole the rest of his car seat days.  Cole loves it, in and out of the car:)

And finally, I had to post a picture of this adorable quilt my mom sewed for our baby girl.  This is only about 1/4 of the quilt, but you get the idea.  Isn't it SO cute?  I love it.