On this day...

On this day in 1954 my mom was born. Happy birthday Mom. Thanks for birthing me and raising me, and all that good stuff.



On this day 10 years ago I REALLY wanted this guy to kiss me at midnight. BTW, he didn't...



And at 11 am this morning our little peanut turned 11 months old. What?! Where did the time go? I can't believe my baby is almost a year old. I say this all the time, but every day I fall more in love with her. We're having such a good time watching her grow up and discover the world. Last week she took a few steps (from a supported standing position). She's still quite unstable when it comes to standing on her own, though. It will probably be a month or so before she starts walking around instead of speed crawling everywhere. She signs eat, more, milk, ball, waves good bye/hello, and claps when she gets really excited about things. Eating solid foods is an ongoing battle-- I think we have a picky eater on our hands. Hopefully, by her first birthday she'll be an adventurous enough eater to try some birthday cake. In the meantime Scout doesn't mind eating her leftovers (that she tosses from her high chair). Roo has yet to say her first word, but she babbles all the time. We often hear her saying "mama" and "dada" (although we're pretty sure she doesn't attach any meaning to them). The best milestone news by far: our girl sleeps for 12 hours straight at night-- no more early morning snack feedings. Yay!

5 years

Wow! It was five years ago today that I became Mrs. Brandon Linford. Thanks for the memories, honey. Here's to many more happy years to come...

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Just a quick Christmas post:


Baby bear inspecting the boxes.

In an effort to save money and cut back on the hassle of holiday travel we decided to spend Christmas in Houston. Even though we missed our family, we had a wonderful time together here at home.


Roo's favorite activity: attacking the tree.

Christmas Eve was filled with newly established traditions: making Grandma Ruby's spaghetti dinner, reading the story of the birth of Christ, singing Christmas hymns, and individually dedicating gifts to the Savior (to help us remember we share each one out loud and then write it down on a piece of paper and put it in our stockings), watching Elf, assembling toys, and playing Carrcassone.


She's probably wondering why we hung toys on the tree. (Or why there's a giant tree in our front room)

Then on Christmas morning I patiently waited for Ruby and Brandon to wake up so that we could check out the loot that Santa left and have a yummy breakfast together.


Scout already attacked and destroyed the poor little green duck she's holding in her hand. Good thing Santa brought lots of ducks!

We spent the rest of the morning playing with Ruby and enjoying one another's company.


Ruby loves, loves, loves what Santa brought her! She begs Daddy to push her around the house every day.

In the afternoon we had a wonderful southern style turkey dinner with our neighbors (our "Texas family") and played games and ate way too much desert with our friends.


We were surprised at how excited she got over this toy (even before it was out of the package). I guess Grandmas know how to pick 'em!

It was a wonderful holiday-- probably the best I've had in a long while.


Forget the snow-- this is my idea of a white Christmas!

I hope everyone else's Christmas was just as special and memorable.

The joy of Christmas morning: wearing new clothes and playing with new toys.

Santa, Baby!

Yesterday we took Ruby to see Santa. She loved the jolly old fellow and was all smiles. When Brandon picked picked her up she started to cry. I guess she wanted to stay and visit for awhile. Christmas is going to be fun. We can hardly wait for it to arrive!

In Case You Don't Have Any Plans ...

Hey All,
We know that a lot of you in the Houston area are far away from your extended families. If anyone is going to be in town on Christmas Eve you're more than welcome to join us at our place for dinner and festivities. I'll be making my Italian grandma's homemade spaghetti and we'll be reading the Christmas story and playing games. If you're interested just give me a buzz...

Winter Break

Brandon, Ruby, and I just got back from our yearly winter trip to Utah.


Ready for the company party. It reminds me of the pictures your mom takes before you go to a school dance.

While we were there we took advantage of the free "family babysitting service" and packed in a lot of baby free activities-- company party, skiing, hot chocolate run, sushi dinner, and the Nutcracker ballet.


Ruby Roo and Aunt Chelsea at the Sky Room.

Lest you think we only pawned our precious babe on the family, we should note that we did enjoy spending lots of time together with our families.


Ruby enjoyed her lunch at the Sky Room, too.

The highlights included lunch at the Sky Room (brings back memories for all of the BYU alum who once had dinning plus cards) with Chelsea, Dad, and Mom; sledding with Mom, Grandma, and Molly the dog; looking at the beautiful snow outside, and hanging out on the couch eating way too much food.


Baby Bear's first encounter with snow (we brought it inside on a tray since it was cold and dark outside).

The night before we were set to come home everything turned sour.


Roo's first sledding adventure.

I came down with food poisoning (probably from the sushi?) and Ruby's souvenir cough was sounding really bad.


Baby girl loved sledding. Can you tell?

We decided to delay our tickets home and while I was on the couch recovering from hours of vomiting Brandon took Ruby to the doctor.


Family fun in the snow.


Poor baby's souvenir cough had caused a souvenir ear infection-- lame souvenirs, I know. Next time I'm praying that my baby doesn't pick up any kind of viruses while we're on vacation.

Tormenting our baby with Mom's Christmas decorations...

Anyway, we eventually made it home and are now rushing to finish getting ready for Christmas (It kind of snuck up on us this year).


"Brandon, I think my exact words were, 'we don't have enough clearance in this car to make it home on the back road."-- Chelsea "No, I'm not stearing while you push. This was not my idea."--Jenn Later... "I'm not apologizing. It was a fun adventure and I'd do it again."-- Brandon.

If all goes as planned we'll have a tree within the next 2 days and then all we'll have left to do is bake, visit Santa, and wrap presents...

Bethlehem City Live

*This is a post for all of ya'll who live in the Houston area.*
Last night Brandon and Ruby and I drove up to the Conroe Baptist Church's Bethlehem City Production. If you have a family and you live in the area you have to go! It's a free "drive through Christmas experience." Basically, when you arrive they have live Christmas music being broadcast over the radio (so you can listen in your car or roll down your windows). They deliver hot chocolate and candy canes to your car to keep you occupied while you're in line. Then just before you enter Bethlehem city they give you a cd that narrates your journey through 22 important scenes in the life and ministry of Christ. Each scene has live actors and many of them have live animals. It was very touching and reminded us of the beautiful reason that we celebrate Christmas each year. As long as we're in Houston, it's a new Linford family Christmas tradition.
Here's the info if you're interested in making the trip (about 20 min drive):
West Conroe Baptist Church
1855 Longmire Road
Conroe, TX 77304
December 10-13
6:30-8:30 pm (we recommend getting there early)

I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

Ahh, sleep training...
I have to admit that we've been pretty lucky with Ruby. She has consistently slept for at least 9-11 hours at a night since she was really young. Until last week she was waking up every morning at either 3 or 5 am for a bottle and then going back to sleep until 6:30. Not bad when you consider that she went to bed at 7 pm. However, the early morning feeding was starting to wear on me and my friend (bless you Lesley) reassured me that Ruby is old enough to give up that feeding. So, I went back to Ferber's book for advice on how to break the habit and started decreasing the amount of milk that she got at each early morning feeding. Finally 2 nights ago we went cold turkey. She still woke up at 5 am and cried for milk, but after 15 minutes she gave up and went back to sleep until 7 am (which is an ideal wake up time for Mommy). She did the same thing again this morning, but I have faith that she'll eventually stop waking up and crying by the end of this week. When we've accomplished our mission it really will be a goodnight!