Chocolate Christmas!! and cool stuff like that.....

Above is our beautiful Chocolate Christmas table before we dared to break into the goods, it was quite a sight and Grant snuck into the corner to strike a pose with his chocolate avocado pudding.
Me and Afton showing off all the beautiful deliciousness!
This is Afton's number one homie Finley Bee - she is such a doll. She's teaching Afton lessons on how to be nice, always coming up to hug her and share toys while Afton pushes her down, pulls her hair and steals the toy she's playing with. We love Finley and her beautiful Mommy Sarah.
Me and Sarah posed with Kyle Plummer who is sweet sweet Lucy's Dad, but he felt awkward being the only guy in the photo so we kicked him out and got Lucy's Momma Susie to be in our picture. These are friends from Burton who all had babies around the same time as me and we've stayed close. Love them loads
Mom's in effect - and I mean are those some cute babies or what???
Lucy Corey made that incredible 3 tier magic cake with home-made marshmallows on top, so insanely good, you can also see some of my coconut deliciousness and a peak of the French Mint I made which was kind of a show-stopper.
close up on cakes and the amazing "french mint" below
These are the party people who stayed late and raged to the wee hour of 9:30 with us. Love you Farrah, Jan, Chris, Lucy, Amy and Julia......oh and sweet sweet Ronin (who will be marrying Afton some time in the future)

These pictures we took before we got the rest of the red beads for our tree, so it's looking a little jank, but I had to show Afton in this dress, she's such a style star. And I'm still mourning the loss of the tree battle, but for being a fake, it's not bad right??


Justin thought my new eye-mask looked like a perfect baby bra, I told him that's crazy town so he proved his theory....and he's right, but it still makes a killer eye mask.


What a month it's been......or what a two months really since we've been super lagging on the blog train....sorry! I just wanted to let you all know that regardless of the fact that me Justin and Afton are all under the weather, we are getting through this difficult week like champs. There is just no way to stay sad too long when you're hanging out with Afton Grace King, she's non-stop comedy cuteness overload. Her new thing is bags, she must be carrying one at all times, and she fills them with all varieties of craziness, so cute you won't believe it, not as cute when she put a pregnancy test in my Cub Scouts bag that was only supposed to have a pinewood derby car and some badges, and you won't believe the places we've found tampons in this house. We finally put child proof latches on the bathroom drawers so her loot is going to be less interesting, but I'm sure she'll still find crazy stuff to tote around.

We are SO GLAD that we decided to have the 2nd Annual Chocolate Christmas Party despite all the goings on because it was super fun. Loads of people came, we went through a gallon of hot chocolate and all my treats were a raging success....not to mention the delicious goodies brought by others, so much fun and sooooo yummy. As you can see from the pictures the turnout was a little better than last year.

Love you all, looking forward to Christmas and we very much appreciate the kind words, thoughts and prayers on our behalf, we have truly felt them and love you back like crazy!

Cute and Spooky...

This post is ALL ABOUT THE VIDEOS so do what you need to do, put some headphones on, take a lunch break, somehow, you MUST watch the videos below. Below are a few cute pictures from a few weeks ago including her famous angry face- and it gets even meaner and mad-doggy-er than this!






Photo credits to Uncle Bobby of this cute pic with Afton showing off her style star steeze in Ali's sunny g's


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I had to post these pictures below from Halloween last year to show how much she's grown - it's insanity!

EXCITING TIMES! The last few weeks our crazy little lady decided walking is the word......FINALLY! She's now just raging, on a walking mission and it's so so adorable...except for the big fat lip that came after a splat on her face to the floor (let's just not talk about the mouth full of blood on Halloween because it's all just too scary, ironic, and sad). You MUST watch the video to see this girl in action, it's pretty amazing. Other cool stuff is going on too, I'm not nursing anymore (NyQuil, welcome back, I've really missed you with all my superfluous colds the last 2 years)! Which may seem to personal to share on a blog....but since when to I not share with my closest family and friends things that are much too personal? We went to NorCal for 5 whole days and had a BLAST spending time with all of Afton's living grandparents! She was loving her grams and gramps King - Rand was walking with her all over the house which she could not get enough of and since her first legit steps came the day we got home I'm convinced that his patient practice is what gave her the confidence to finally go there. My beautiful cousin Julia got married which was so fun and special and to see the Reid and family is just pure joy, they are some of the funnest people to be around on the planet. And you guys should have seen Justin's costume this year! He never ceases to out-due himself! (of course I'm joking, as you all know, he's not the costume type). October was good, but I have a feeling that November could be EPIC. Love you all!

This first video was on October 19th - the first day she took legit steps, which we have 4 videos of me and Farrah trying and failing to recreate for her Dad to see. She didn't really decide walking was the word until about a week after this which you will see below! Her first few real walks around are so insanely cute because she's just so proud of herself. Also I added in some adorable shoulder shrugging, peak-a-boo-ing and tape measure figure outing, because seriously people, I mean SERIOUSLY! Oh and I almost forgot my favorite one, Afton thought my hicups the other day were purely for her entertainment, it was really funny and super cute- CHECK IT OUT!
I thought the video of us on Halloween was so much better than the unflattering picture I posted that instead - it's a video party!!

summer......what summer??

I know I've been a really bad blogger, sorry guys! This summer was crazy and went by really fast somehow. It kind of never got hot which I loved, but I know a lot of people were not very stoked on that. One of the coolest summers on record actually. We had all sorts of adventures, went to Utah while Justin was on his annual surf trip. Afton got really sick and stayed sick for a month! But now she's on the up and up and still cruising like crazy, but this stubborn little princess refuses to walk....much less crawl. No news on why that is quite yet, but we're working on it. I finally have a minute to post some pics and videos from the last few months- I really recommend you watch those video's by the way- this girl is so good on camera it's just kind of ridiculous.

Anyone remember that awesome chair above that I had for 5 years with really ugly cushions? Well I FINALLY got it re-upolstered thanks to an enormous garage sale at Momma's house in SLC. Of course I wish Moms would have let me give her more of the profits but I'm super stoked on my chair!
Afton is now wearing a lot of her 18-24 mo. stuff which is so cute, but it's funny, she's crazy long and skinny, so King like, so what I wish I was like. Adorable!

This pic above really captures some of the magic in the way those darling curls frame that cutest face I've ever seen - such a doll!

This is Natasha's beautiful new baby girl Eliza May- she's such a little love bug - it was a treat to spend some time with them in SL
We made it to Honeyville early Sunday morning to visit Dad's grave, it was beautiful as it always is - and extra special to have my sweet baby with us. She had a thing for Daddy's grave which is kind of weird and kind of awesome.



These pictures in the crib are from when Afton somehow spilled brown, pink and blue on her white shirt, she was the most adorable mess ever!

Afton's new favorite thing to do is take a bath, when we go in the bathroom she stomps her feet enthusiastically, pointing at the tub saying "that, that, that!!" and squealing, she cries when we take her out - make sure you watch the video of her in the bath below - it's too cute for words!

I found the most darling vintage dress ever for her at this used clothing store by our house, she's such a style star, we both decided to wear vintage to church that day



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New Couch.........check!

So many of you have heard me complain about our living room with no couch- it's uncommon to have two living rooms, but this house is uncommonly awesome, so we had one that was in need of furniture. Of course you never want to buy expensive furniture for a house you're only renting (hopefully for a minimum of 15 years) but we needed something so we tightened our budget, and got this really pretty gray budget couch. Now our real living room, family room, parlor, whatever you call it, can seat loads of people and baby stuff plus a TV etc. and our fireplace living room is totally legit with it's own little couch chair situation. I know I know, so exciting you can hardly stand it.....I'm being facitious of course, but above are some photo's. I also posted a few of Afton doing her new favorite thing which is walking......well, not quite, but holding on walking, it's all she wants to do all the time, so cute and a learning experience for all the ways 1 year olds try to hurt themselves. I was in heaven last weekend with my Moms in town and it felt like such a dream state that I somehow never even busted out the camera! Thanks Mom for the food, shopping and endless fun, we love you and will find out what station is PBS for your next trip I promise! I think I threw one in of when Justin poofed out Afton's curly fro and one of the.......wow, can I even admit this,......Sketchers! I bought- I can't believe I'm on that level of Mom-ness, but I walk about 6-7 miles a day, so I needed something that can hang and isn't sneakers. I'm embarrassed for myself, although they are the least offensive looking Sketchers I've ever seen. Love you all~!

One year, smiling ear to ear

Afton's party was a dream - I can't believe how many people came! It was seriously so much fun to have the kids go nuts with cake designing, bubble blowing and Benito playing. Obviously Afton LOVED her first chocolate cake (she and I now share a favorite dessert). And I think Julia's lovely pictures really say it all. HAPPY BIRTHDAY GORGEOUS LOVE GIRL!!