Violet's First Christmas

For the first time ever, I decided I wanted to send out Christmas cards (I've wanted to in the past, but if you know me, you know I'm really bad at remembering these types of things). My plan is every December to get a family picture taken for our cards, and then we can keep one for Violet's scrapbook and see how much she changes year to year.

So we had John's sister Theresa come over to take some family pictures.


She took some of us with our dogs as well (one of those is the one we wound up sending out), but those are on my other computer so I'll add them in later.

So after getting the cards made, they sat on our counter for at least a week until I finally remembered to address them and send them out.

Oopsie! Some of them I never actually sent (like to family) because I figured I'd just give them out as I saw them...well some of those didn't get given until February! Did I mention I'm bad at this kind of stuff?!

So Christmas morning we went to John's parent's house for breakfast and gifts. Violet fell asleep right as gifts were starting, but we did manage to get a picture with all the grandkids.


From left to right are Natalia, sleepy Alex, Noah, Kate, sleepy/hungry Violet, and Anthony with Grandma and Grandpa S.

After Violet's nap, we went over to my parent's house for lunch (which was yummy!) and presents. I got season 10 of Friends! I'm up to Seasons 1, 2, 3, and 10! Now, back to Violet...she got a Baby Einstein Jumperoo (I'm not sure what it's actually called but I call it a jumperoo)! Here she is playing in it:

Disclaimer: These pictures are from January but they're of her in the jumperoo so I figure I can post them here!


Look at this cute face!


So then we headed back to John's parent's house for a poker tournament and Violet's gifts. Believe it or not, she actually acted interested in opening her first present! Of course, once it was open it's all she wanted and we had to open and show her the rest!

Here she is opening it:


Look at how many presents the spoiled princess got! (The Rubik's cube is Anthony's, I don't think she's quite ready for one of those yet!)


So, her first Christmas was really good and she really likes playing with (and in) all her presents! Thanks to everyone!

Still Catching Up

So, on with catching up!

Here is a picture of her in September playing with her daddy. She always found him so much fun, probably because I was still home with her and he was working. Either that or he's just more fun than me!


So, come October, we decided to go to the pumpkin patch (great photo opportunity!). Well, when we got there, Violet decided she was not interested in being sat on the ground by a pumpkin and instead, this is the picture we got.


With some help, I managed to get one where she wasn't just screaming, but you can still see tears on her face.


Not quite the results I had in mind!

Here she is in her Bumbo. I couldn't wait until she was big enough for this because it meant that I didn't have to hold her, but she could still be upright and looking around.


This is her in her swing the day she found the mirror above her head. She sat there and stared talking to herself in that mirror for quite a while!


By this time, she was already in daycare. Well, one day at work I got a message that there was something for me at the guard station. I go out there and this is what I found!


They sent me flowers with pictures they had taken of her in her first few weeks there! It was very sweet, and I was really surprised!

Alright, the next post will cover Christmas! More soon!

Violet's First Two Months

We'll work on catching up with some pictures!

Here's a picture of Violet when we got home from the hospital, her first journey in her carseat:


And here's the picture of Violet at one week old we used for her newspaper announcement:


And here she is snuggled up on her daddy taking a nap. I just loved these pajamas, they have little green frogs all over them and the feet look like actual little froggies! Too bad they were size newborn because she grew out of them too fast!



Here are some pictures of her playing on her blankets. I would lay her down on the blanket and take probably 20 pictures of her trying to get some good ones. I think I did this for just about every outfit she had so they would all be documented! And, since she was too little to do anything about it, I put little headbands on her! So cute!





From the beginning she was a very good baby. I would have to wake her up to feed her a lot of times. She found her tongue really early, and just loved it (and she still does to this day)!

This one, I just couldn't help myself. She slept best when she was swaddled, but she would always un-swaddle herself (even though I did the DUDU wrap from the Happiest Baby on the Block!). So, off to Babies R Us I went and bought her these special swaddling blankets called SwaddleMe that velcro in place. It was dark, so I had to use the flash, which she didn't really like since she was trying to sleep. But it was worth it because she looks so cute! Here she is sleeping in her crib all swaddled.



Here she is laying on the floor. I love this picture because you can see her big blue eyes! And you can also see her arm fat...she had the little baby rolls which were so cute.


That brings us through her first two months, I'll continue catching up later!

Some Background Info

I'll start the blog with some background information...

I am the oldest of 4 kids in the G family. My parents are Gary & Cheryl, and my siblings are Aileen (16), Andrew (13), and Arik (9). And yes, all our names do start with the letter A.

John is the 4th of 6 kids in the S family. His parents are John & Laurie, and his siblings are Traci, Kristen, Theresa, Tiffany, and James. Traci is married to Jeff, and they have two kids, Anthony (8) and Natalia (4), and another one on the way. Kristen is married to Ryan, and they have two kids, Kate (almost 2) and Alex (born in December 08). Tiffany is married to Wade and they have one kid, Noah (just turned 1).

That is our families! Everyone lives in Owasso, so we are very blessed to have them all close to us.

Now about us...
John and I met back in high school, we were in the band together. We dated off and on throughout high school, and started dating seriously June 27, 2002. We got engaged in October of 2004, and got married on August 13th, 2005.

We both attended the University of Tulsa. John graduated with a mechanical engineering degree in May 2006. I graduated with a chemical engineering degree in May 2007. After graduating, John worked for Baker Centrilift, before moving to his current job at D.P.Winch. After graduating, I went to work for Sunoco at their Tulsa refinery, where I'm at today.

We built a house in Owasso, where we moved to in August 2006. Joining us there are our three dogs:

Murphy and Daisy...

...and Smokey


In November of 2007, we found out we were expecting a baby! It was completely unplanned and therefore a total surprise, but we were very excited! Our original due date was June 27, 2008. After the ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy, our due date was pushed back to July 13th.

On July 19th, 2008, we welcomed Violet Alexandra into our lives.



She weighed 7 pounds 11 ounces and was 21.5 inches long.

Needless to say our lives haven't been the same since!