It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Wes and I got our Christmas tree early Saturday morning while we were Christmas shopping. Last year I went to all the craft stores the day after Christmas and got super cheap ornaments, ribons, stockings, and a Christmas tree skirt, so I was really excited to decorate! The was the first year I've actually decorated a tree of my own. Last year we didn't have any ornaments so we just put some lights and candy canes on our tree (it looked pretty ghetto!) This year I'm very pleased with the finished product, so I made Wes take pictures with me after church in our Sunday clothes! Of course we had to get one with Mitzy in there, and in order to get her to sit still we bribed her with food, so she isn't really trying to bite Wes's hand, she really wants the food he's holding!
Jen made these "believe" blocks and I scored them in a white elephant gift exchage, they are so cute!
We don't have a star or angel to put on top, so we had to settle for a bow.

Thanksgiving

I absolutely love Thanksgiving, not because of the food well I like the food too, but because I get to spend so much time with my whole family!! It was so great to be home with everyone, I just love my family so much here are some pictures from last week.

We have an annual "Yankee Swap" with the whole family. This year Trevor brought this creepy half body and one arm pillow thing!! That was by far the funniest gift!!

When we were younger my dad used to turn on "Jeremiah was a bullfrog" and we would all dance to it, so we turned it on for the grandkids! We were all dancing and the kids were so funny! It was pretty cheesey but so much fun!

Benson and I dancing

Dad even decided to play a couple slow songs

Sunday morning before church Christian gave Drake his baby blessing. After that we put the camera on the mantel and set the timer so we could get the entire family in one shot!

All the grandkids in their matching PJs from GrandmaAmelia and Drake, the newest additions

Amelia and I. That was after we gave, well I gave her, a bath. The family said that I just man handled Amelia because I'm so used to handling newborns! Really I'm just not as nervous about handling them as people who don't handle them every night for a living!

Amelia and the cute headband Chelsea got her.

Everyone but Jena around the table for Thanksgiving dinner.

Wes and I on the deck. I have the best family in the world!!

A Watch Dog?

Well I'm not sure Mitz will be that great of a watch dog. She's really funny, she'll bark at stuff and has a pretty menacing bark but then when it comes toward her...she runs away!! This bottle even seems to freak her out!!

Turkey Tops

These are some of the awesome girls I work with! One night I found these adorable turkey scrub tops online for pretty cheep, so a bunch of us decided to buy them. Then Jen, our extremely organized charge nurse (see "this is my munchkin land" blog and you'll see what I mean by organized) called each of us and told us to wear our turkey tops, obviously we had to get pictures!!

From the left me, Jennilee, Trinity, Steffany, Jen, Ashley and Dr Fine (and yes that's his real name, not a nick name we gave him!)
Kelly our surgical tech has to wear the hospital scrubs so we forced her to wear the turkey hat for a picture. Dr Fine wanted to wear the hat for the picture, he even wore it into one of the deliveries!! Have I mentioned before that I love my job?!

6 Months Old

Well since we haven't had kids yet my blog entries are about our dog! She is six months old now and we have her in an obedience class. She's doing pretty well so far. This was her first experience with snow. She couldn't really fully enjoy it do to the fact that she got fixed 2 days before. All she wanted to do was run around and eat snow, but we had to prevent that because she wasn't supposed get her incision wet or be too active. But she was really cute!!



Here's a shot of her incision. We felt so bad for her when she came out of the vet's office, she could hardly stand up straight because of the anesthesia! She doing much better now though.

Getting ready for Winter

Wes spent Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning cutting wood in preparation for the long cold winter, what a man!

The Portland Marathon

Wes and I ran our first Marathon in Portland on October 4th. It was a great 1st time marathon to run there were aide stations every couple miles and there was so much support from spectators! I was really nervous for it because I only made it up to 16 miles in my training and I was supposed to get up to 20 miles. It went pretty well though, I was able to jog all 26.2 miles, I knew if I started to walk I wouldn't be able to start running again! My time was 4 hrs and 13 minutes, which was better than I thought I would do. I was pretty sore for the next couple days, but I think I would do it again. I think the training sucked more than the actual marathon! If there is a next time I really need a training partner!

Both these pictures were taken in the middle of mile 25 we were pretty excited to be done!!

My New Nephew!

I think he looks a lot like Savanah when she was a baby!

Drake Christian Russell was born Sept 15th, 2009 at 11:44, he weighed 7 lbs 4 oz. Unfortunately Christian was in Chicago and couldn't get back until this morning, so he didn't get to the delivery. My mom, Emy and Heather's friend Jen were there to support her! Both Heather and Drake are doing great!

My job

Well it finally happened I got a regular shift on the maternity floor!! I'm going to have 30 hours a week scheduled all the time now, and I'll get health benefits, sick time payed vacation and all the wonderful things that come with an actual position instead of being supplemental. I just wanted to mention how much I love my job. I love helping deliver babies!! Some nights when I have patients that I really bond with it doesn't even feel like work!! Over the last month I've actually delivered 3 babies before the doctor even got to the room! The patient tells me they are having some pressure and I go to check them and the baby is crowning!! A few nights ago my patient couldn't feel anything at all, she was complete, but didn't feel where to push so we turned off the epidural to let it wear off. I kept checking under the sheet to make sure the baby wasn't crowning! Sure enough my patient still couldn't feel pressure, but I looked under the sheet and... there was the baby's head! The doctor made it for after the head was out, but he just let me finish delivering the baby anyway. Really I think I have the best job in the world!!

A High Mountain Lake

Wes finally had 2 days off in a row so he wanted to make the most of it. We went to a high mountain lake near Kellog Idaho and camped for a night. Wes was in Heaven! He caught a rainbow trout on his second cast!! He was so excited, he got another really small one, but after that he just got bites. In the middle of the night we heard a moose wondering around our camp and in the water next to us. I was really freaked out, so Mitsy and I got in the car. We figured out that Mitsy isn't going to be the best watch dog, because she didn't make a peep!! The next day we saw the moose pretty close up, and again I was looking at it from the car, but Wes was out getting pictures of it!

Wes in his element

This is how much Wes loves our little Mitsy!!



A proud fisherman!
For the most part I was taking the pictures so thats why they are all of Wes!

Schweitzer Mountain

Last week Wes and I went to Schweitzer Mountain with Jen and Joel. We had a lot of fun enjoying the beautiful outdoors and spending time with good friends. Here are a few pictures of the trip.

More news...

Well Wes's Jeep has been in the shop for on and off for the last 4 weeks and nobody could figure out what the problem was. So for the last couple weeks we've been looking for a good deal on a subaru. This morning Wes found a sweet deal in Elk Wa which is about an hour away. So we went and took a look at it and found it was an even better deal than we thought. It has leather heated seats, power everything, tires that only have about 5,000 miles on them and is in great condition. We couldn't pass up the deal so we bought the car! Then this afternoon we got a phone call and found out the jeep was only going to cost $250 to fix! Wes is still thrilled about the purchase, I on the other hand am feeling a little buyers remorse, but it will be nice in the winter to have 2 four wheel drives cars. Anyway so it's been a really big week for Wes and I!

(Sorry the pictures are little blurry)

A New Addition...

No, I'm not pregnant. Wes has been talking about getting a dog forever and I've been postponing it for as long as I could... but I finally gave in. We found a four month old Airedale for sale and decided to bite the bullet. I told Wes this was his Birthday and Anniversary present since they are both coming up at the beginning of October. She's really adorable, but I'm still unsure about the being a dog owner! When thinking of names Wes came up with Mitts because her paws are so big, but to make it more girly we decided on Mitsy.

Asleep in the kitchen

Her first bath

Look at those paws! She kind of looks like an old man with a beard!

Cute picture

This is just a cute picture that Jena took last time we were all in Olympia, isn't he the cutest?!

Pictures at Banks Lake

All the girls

Benson, Chelsea and I

Everybody crammed onto the boat