November

For the Month of November here is what happened.

Lynlee has been going into the doctor for her weight and slow growth every month.  I originally made an appointment with this one office for a specific doctor, but the day I needed the appointment was full.  I ended up with a different doctor and for a couple months I was frustrated.  Then that doctor left the practice and I made an appointment for her November appointment with the doctor I wanted.  I was so incredibly happy with this doctor and I know feel that we are getting somewhere with miss Lynlee.  We did the allergy tests and she has no allergies!!!! So now we are going to try and give her high calorie drinks (the soy ones because she is still worried of how her body reacts to milk.). She had her first Soy drink yesterday and she LOVES them which I think is a good thing.  Doc said we could slowly introduce milk back into her diet, but slowly.  Anyways, that post spilled over to yesterday's appointment. I am just excited that we have a good doctor who is willing to try conventional methods before sending her to a specialist.

Lynlee mastered walking and tries to run now and falls, but it is so darn cute.  She loves girly things like putting on necklaces, carrying around her purse and she loves shoes. She will go into our closet and pull out all of our shoes (mainly tries on mine) and will carry thing around. She loves to get into her headbands and put them on her arms and walk around showing everything.  She is shy when people first meet her, but seems to warm up really fast.  Definitely at the stage where she clings to mom and dad in public, but has no problem talking to people as long as mom and dad are around.   She has become so smart.  We just love her to pieces.

Anyways,  Matt has been doing well with his job.  His company isn't doing so well, and we are a little worried about it's future.  That being said we are keeping are eyes and ears open for some new employment prospects and possibly going back to school.  The parts he most enjoys about his job is when he feels like he contributed something.  He also seems to be a step above in understanding excel and LOVES teaching them how to use it (his boss now really likes to use pivot tables).  I love the fact that Matt can talk to me about what he is doing and I understand.  I really do enjoy that we have very similar educational backgrounds.

Nothing new with me except that I get the awesome opportunity to stay at home with our little girl and help her learn new things.

We had some old college friends stop by for a night on their way to California.  It was good to see Matt and Tara Nearants and their cute little girl.

We decided last minute to go home for Thanksgiving.  When I say last minute I mean Matt came home Tuesday night and said he didn't have to work Wednesday and I was like "we are just going to stay here it is to short of notice to go home".  Wednesday morning I just wanted to go so bad I called up my Mom and said we were coming.  It happened all so fast and I think I was a great decision.  My whole family including Mitch and Lindsey from Kentucky were there with our cute new niece.

Lynlee was grumpy hence why her face looks the way it does.  Lynlee and Alex are 4 months apart. 

It was fun to spontaneously go home for Thanksgiving we did the drive in 10 1/2 hours it was pretty remarkable (that is excluding the 1/2 hour total of all our stops for gas and lunch).  Matt and I have fallen into a system of he and I switch driving and it makes the trip much more enjoyable.  We got lucky with not having to take trixie either.  Our friends down the street agreed to come let her in and out and feed her (seriously I still feel like I should pay them).  They are basically the most awesome people I know.  Thank you Jordan and Kyla.  Not looking forward to the drive to Utah this time for Christmas because we have Trixie and traveling with her can be such a pain. 

That was the Month of November.  I am sure there is more, but I just can't remember.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone.  Love the Sheltons

Halloween

So this year Halloween was low key around here.  Something I actually perfer.  I am not a person to throw a party.  Anyways,  this year I made a costume for Lynlee which is something out of character for me.  I am becoming more and more domestic everyday.  Here is what it was........ a money bag.  You may ask the question "Why?", because one night while Matt and I were scrolling through ideas of themed costumes we ran across robbers with a bag of money.  It was fun to dress her up and I am pretty proud of how the money bag turned out.  Matt and I only dressed up for our ward Halloween/Trunk or treat party as robbers (didn't get a picture of us all together).  We put Lynlee in her costume for all Hallows eve though.  She didn't get to show it off to many trick-or-treater's because she got tired and grumpy.  I snapped a couple pictures though before we sent her off to bed.

Our loot :) I love her costume :)

LOVED playing with the candy bowl.

Many might wonder if we took her out door to door and the answer is no.  We would only be showing off her costume and her overwhelming cuteness to get candy that we would have to eat.  So we decided to save ourselves some calories we would just show her off at our door :) I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween.  

Uncle Mitch!!!!

So a couple days after Matt and I got married on July 30th 2009 my brother Mitch moved to Louisville, Kentucky for medical school.  We saw him five months later for Christmas.  So the last time I saw him was December 2009.  Matt and I have since moved to Mexico and back and then to Arizona.  In Arizona we moved four times.  Within those moves we had a beautiful baby girl Lynlee Nicole Shelton.  So when my brother called telling me he had an interview for a residency here in Phoenix I was so EXCITED!!!  We hadn't seen each other for almost three years.  He got to meet miss Lynlee for the first time at one year old :)

He came into town on Oct. 25th (couple days after my mom left).  He was gone that night and a big chunk of the next day for the residency interview stuff, but he decided to stay an extra day to spend with us.  Friday night we went to dinner and on Saturday we took him around the grounds at the Mesa Temple and then we drove out towards a lake.  He wanted to see a Saguaro (the iconic cactus) in the wild.  That is something that is native to this area.  It was so much fun so hang out and talk.  It didn't feel like we hadn't seen each for that long.  Her are the few pictures I remembered to take while he was here.

Mitch, Me and Lynlee

Yes the wind was blowing and my hair looks a little scary :/

Another family picture.

It was so much fun getting to see Mitch.  It was fun because Matt and Mitch have never really had the opportunity to hang out and talk and they got to.  I am a little bummed because Mitch wanted a picture next to a Saguaro and so we hiked out to do so and I forgot the camera and my phone.  It was a cool cactus too. Lesson learned.  Such a fun weekend :) Yes the following day Matt and I came down with the flu :( Glad it waited to hit until after Mitch left really early Sunday morning.  

Grandma Mendenhall Visits

In October my mom (Grandma Mendenhall to miss Lynners) came to visit.  We love having visitors and these past few weeks have been full of them.  On October 17th my Mom flew into Phoenix.  It was Lynlee's birthday on the 1st of October and she wanted to be here for that, but didn't have time off of work until October 17th.   We were excited that she was able to come.  I was slightly depressed we didn't have any family around to celebrate her birthday with us.  So I kinda made this a birthday weekend for Lynlee.

We went shopping, walked around downtown Scottsdale and hung out for the first couple days and then on Saturday we went to the zoo.  I LOVE the zoo.  Anyone who knows me knows that it is an obsession I have.  I am trying to pass on the love I have for the zoo to Lynlee.  I forgot my camara so I didn't get very many pictures.  I got a couple off of my mom's camara so here are some pictures.

Getting used to having Grandma around. She used to cry everytime I left her, but she was being so good for Grandma and would even let Grandma hold her :)

Being shy.

Last time we went to the zoo this same monkey posed for pictures.

She Loved the petting zoo area.

I wish I got her face she had a really cheesy smile.

We got another picture, but it was blurry.  Lynlee was getting tired and grumpy.

We got two great family pictures when she came.  I like this one because it shows we live in the desert. The zebra in the background is just an added bonus.

So this was taken the morning before my mom left.  I had just rolled out of bed.  I put on a shirt and got Lynlee dressed. Matt was all ready because he was leaving for work. I would put the picture on that shows all our bodies, but then you would see the shorts I sleep in haha something I will spare you all.

My mom flew out on October 22nd.  It was really nice to have her here.  Made me a little sad that we don't live close.  I want to live close someday so that Lynlee will grow up knowing her grandparents.  Right now we are experiencing life just as our little family :)  We will end up back close to family :) 

One YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness.  My little girl is one years old I can't believe it because time has gone to fast.  I am grateful that I have been able to stay at home with my beautiful little girl and watch her grow and develop.  At the one year mark here are only a few of the things she can do.

• She LOVES when her daddy comes home she will go to the the garage door and wait.  So cute.
• When I bring out her stroller for our walk she screams with joy.
• Has mastered climbing up and down the stairs and opening and tearing every thing out of cupboards :/ Don't know if this is my favorite phase.
• Today her favorite thing was to sit down and then stand back up.  She is able to walk (walked all the way across the loft many times), but still prefers crawling which I am okay with. 
• LOVES her books.  She will flip threw the pages and read the story to you.  
• Still not in love with her carseat.  I am thinking that will change when she can face forward.
• Starting to get hair and the back is curly. Really blonde hair so most people don't notice.  
• So smart.  Has started moving some of her toys to certain places to crawl up to higher places.
• Knows that she isn't supposed to do some things. Such as going into our bathroom and opening the cupboards.  She will start crawling that direction then look back at me to see if I am paying attention.  

There is more and I could go on forever, but most of it is developing a little more onto what I have written on past posts.  I decided to get professional photographs of her.  Here are some of my favorite ones.

Loves her Tiger.  Everytime she sees it she goes crazy.  Also it has helped her to recognize a tiger in some of her books.

Her foot touched the grass and she wasn't a huge fan, but dad brought out the tiger just in time to give a beautiful smile

I love this girl.  Favorite for sure.  She has four teeth on top, but the two on bottom seriously make this an adorable picture.

So glad I went with a safari theme.

Probably one of my very favorite pictures next to the toothy smile one.

Our little one exploring the world.

Look mom no hands :)

She hated the cake so much.  Which I thought was funny because she LOVED the cake we made for her.

I love this picture because it truly captures how she felt.

Tried to get some good ones though so I hid yogurt bites in the cake which she LOVES.

She LOVES balloons. 

Shoving a yogurt bite in not cake haha :)

"Seriously?" What a great face.

"Done?"

She hated the cake.

The balloon makes everything better.

First touch of the cake.  Notice holding onto the balloon for moral support haha :)

Sorry the last pictures were out of order, but I loved all of her pictures and wish I could have put them all up here.  I am in love with our little girl and think she is the most beautiful thing ever.  Being her mom has been awesome so far and I know it will just get better, but I am nervous for her to grow up.  Well, I will babble on forever about nothing so I hope you enjoy her pictures.  

Party!! Party!!

Alright so since we don't live close to family, and just moved to the Phoenix valley, I stressed so much about throwing Lynlee a first year birthday party.  I originally decided it would be just Matt and me with Lynlee smashing into a cupcake.  That changed when I decided to invite the few people that we know in the Phoenix valley (like a total of six families).  Well only one of the them was able to make it to the party.  With it being the people we knew best I decided to still go through with doing a small party and at a little later time.  That meant that our neighbors that we met two weeks earlier were able to stop by for a few minutes which made it feel like more of a success.  Lynlee had two little friends she could play with. Here are the pictures that I took of her decorations.   

Her simple decorations.

I really wanted to make this owl cupcake creation.  Cute right!!? Can you tell which owls Matt did?

I made a homemade banner.

She was so excited

She LOVED her cupcake which is funny because she HATED her cake smash session for pictures.

Yummy!!

Even though not a lot of people came to her party I feel like now we have made a great memory for her birthday.  We love our little girl and can't believe she is growing up so fast.  She has accomplished so much in her first year :)