Favorite Pictures of the Season

December has been a crazy month. The first three weeks I had finals....crazy, crazy finals! I feel bad because from Thanksgiving to Dec. 14th, I was preoccupied with pre-boards, lab finals and lecture finals; neglecting my household and wife/mother duties. And besides a mishap with overdosing on DayQuil and being stoned for my Orthopedics final {which was short answer btw...I'm sure my teacher loved my answers} I managed to end the year with flying colors. One more year and I will officially be Dr. Shelton!

And to stop tooting my own horn, Dan has been pretty busy himself. He has finished up his course work and he is now a Chaplain for the Military {Army Reserve}. The day after I finished my last final, we flew up to Utah and Dan was set apart as a Chaplain by Elder Evans of the 70. And since we were already there, we took advantage and spent some well needed time with family.

Now we are in the final countdown before reality starts up again next week. This has been my last school break {there are no breaks in the last year of school} and so I have been taking full advantage of sleeping in and eating like crap! Thank goodness tomorrow starts a New Year full of good habits! Here are a few {OK many} of my favorite pictures of the season.

Henry with his "Papa" and "Gee"

Auntie Rachel made Henry this cute warm hat!

No major holiday is complete without a tantrum {or two or three...}

Someone's eyes are bigger than his stomach!

Family :)

Great Grandma Kirby with all of the great-grandkids {minus the one in Whit's belly}

Quinten's best Christmas present

Henry and his "up up"

"Cheese"

Poor Ivy,
Being a dog is "ruff!"

{I love Annaka's face!}

My parent's new dog- Gibbs

I had to make a trip to Temple Square. I hadn't been to Temple Square in around 6 years. I was so excited for Henry to see the lights. Unfortunately he was sleeping most of the time, and I had to force him awake.

The Shelton's {minus Jason's family :( }
Yes, Ray is sitting in the baby stroller

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope that you all have a safe New Years Eve.
See you in 2011.

TWO!!!

Where did the time go?

White Christmas

This is by far my favorite Christmas song.

Oh how Bing Crosby can just bring the Christmas mood into our home. His voice brings me back to this nostalgic childhood, where we would go to my grandmas, eating pine nuts and Hersey's kisses, playing in the snow until our noses froze, and watching White Christmas as the snow fell outside. Oh to be a kid again.

Holiday Reads

For the past few years I like to read a "Christmas" book during the weeks leading up to Christmas. It's been a fun little tradition that I've created for myself.

Here are some of the books that I have read over the past few years.

I haven't picked out a book yet for this year-any suggestions?

Universal Kindness

Happy Thanksgiving {a day late}.

This is our newly adopted turkey, Daphne.
Isn't she precious?

Daphne was left in filthy, unsafe conditions on a farm in upstate New York, when she and a group of broiler chickens were confiscated by the local SPCA after a number of the birds in their flock wandered into the road and were hit by cars.

Daphne was underweight, tormented by internal parasites, suffering from foot and keel sores, and so dirty that you could barely tell that her feathers were white. Daphne was in great need of medical attention when she was rescued. Thanks to Farm Sanctuary Daphne has a second chance at life.

As Vegetarians we have been accused of caring too much for animals.

We have been told that we care more about animals than we do humans.
I never have understood where people come to that conclusion. I don't think that they understand that when you become compassionate towards the most lowly animal, like Daphne, you become even more compassionate towards all of God's creatures.
It's not human kindness but universal kindness.

Saint Francis of Assisi, is our family's patron Saint {he is the Patron Saint of Animals after all}. He said, “If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.”

Human kindness is all around us; My BIL Jason was overcome with human kindness last week walking in the Susan G. Komen San Diego 3-day for a Cure. I was showered with kindness when I was sick, and I can mention numerous other times when kindness was unselfishly given to me and my family.

Universal kindness, is a little harder to come by; people don't see adopting a turkey for Thanksgiving as being kind, they see it as being weird.
Yet, opening your life to animals is one of the most compassionate and kind things a human can do.

On the other hand I have been disappointed in humans today.
It being Black Friday and all.
I hate how we prioritize "stuff". {And it seems like it is getting worse and worse every year}.
I don't care if you're Christian or not, but this whole -I have to wake up at 2am and run through the store like a crazy woman, pushing people out of my way, so I can get a lame DVD for $1.97- seems the exact opposite of human kindness.
It just doesn't seem right to me, the day after we celebrate all of our many non-materialistic blessings, we go capitalistic crazy. Where's the kindness in that?

Oliver

This is my great grandpa Oliver Granger Williams.

I don't really remember him that well. I do remember his house and his raspberry bushes (which has now been turned into a grocery store parking lot.)

I remember his girlfriend Pearl and going to his house after he died.

But most of all I remember his white flowing, poofy hair.

{my great-grandpa Kirby, me and my great-grandpa Williams, 20 years ago!}

When I was pregnant we didn't find out what the sex of the baby was. So naturally we had picked out boy names and girl names. We loved the name Henry for a boy and we were considering Olivia for a girl; a play on my grandpa's name Oliver.
{I'm sure you could have figured that out, but I felt you needed the explination.}

Well {spoiler alert!!} we had a boy and named him Henry.

Some how, thanks to genetics, Henry has inherited certain characteristics of my family. (Or should I say past family members have been reincarnated in Henry).

It seems to me that Henry has inherited great-grandpa's white billowy hair.

Maybe we should have named him Oliver.
It's not too late to change it, is it?

A photographer in the making

Man, I love this kid! I can't believe how big he is getting.

He's not a baby anymore...

In fact he has turned out to be quite the little stinker, who is a crazy tornado that gets into everything and destroys the house faster that I can keep up. He pushes the dining room chairs up to whatever he wants now, cleaning out drawers and discovering fun things to play with...including my camera. Nothing is safe from this little monster! I took out my camera tonight to see this:

And 124 other photos. Mostly of the carpet. And of Myla. And where was I when he was taking all 124 pictures? Honestly I don't know....not taking a nap-I can tell you that! Here are a few of my favorite untouched pictures that Henry took {and I so graciously named}.

Table

Daddy's shoes {and mini fan}

Myla's bum with a collection of linens

Escape

Hide-a-way {or the escape from Henry}

Mama {I know I said I didn't know what I was doing or where I was....obviously I was sitting on the floor}.

Sunset Myla

Wet Kisses

I hoped you enjoyed Henry's photography portfolio. I thought it was so sweet!