She Has Arrived!

Sweet little sister joined our family on August 20. We were all very glad that she decided to make her debut a week before her due date!

Birth Stats:

7:01 am

7 lb 7 oz

20 inches long

Our first family photo as a family of 4...very telling. Little sister sleeping peacefully, Miss E and dad being goofy, and mom trying to look calm while whispering threats through her teeth!!! :) Just kidding, we are totally loving our new addition and are actually adjusting pretty well.

This little girl is an absolute angel! Heavenly Father knew what I needed when He sent her to our family. I am pretty sure that if I had another just like E, I may consider stopping at two children. This baby is so precious! She is a great sleeper (for the most part) and is quite content most of the time.

I cannot express how grateful I feel for the family I have been blessed with! I am completely smitten with my two beautiful daughters and I couldn't ask for a better husband to raise them with. While life is certainly not perfect (I'll save that for another post!) I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Summer Update

This blog has really taken a backseat to life since I found out I was expecting a baby in December and started feeling really nasty in January! Now that baby is due in three weeks, I guess I can update on our lives!

Memorial Day:

 Memorial Day was spent in Boise visiting my family. We were able to go up to my mom and dad's cabin and do some work there for a couple of days. On the actual holiday, the boys went golfing while mom, Kelsi, Miss E, and I went to the memorial flag display in downtown Eagle. Of course we had to enjoy the park and some shave ice afterward! Little Miss loved playing on the big park with the big kids.

JUNE:

 We began June with our attempts at potty training. Miss E had lots of rewards of drinks and treats. Sadly, now we're at the beginning of August and we're ready to give up. Hopefully all aspects of potty training will make sense to Missy soon, but as of right now certain things are a little difficult for her!

 Steve had a birthday! Our loving hubby and daddy turned 28. He had a fun time celebrating at his sister's house the day of his birthday. We went boating and ate lots of yummy food. We had a family party on the day after with even more yummy food. We sure love that guy!

JULY:

 The Fourth of July was spent with my mom and dad and sister. We were able to go to the Plain City festivities. They put on a great parade, which E still talks about. She got a bucketful of candy so she was in heaven! Funny enough, she still talks about being in a parade: there was a childrens parade, but she hated it. She made me carry her and/or her ride on toy for the whole thing. My dad left after the parade and the rest of us went firework shopping (another fav of the Miss), we checked out North Ogden Cherry Days, Tai Pan, and got some yummy Papa Murphey's. Steve was able to get off of work early to do some fireworks with us. Sadly, thanks to the wind, we weren't really able to enjoy the first year of aerial fireworks. Regardless, E thought it was fabulous! She screamed during and after each one and always said, "That was a great one Dad!" It was a really fun day!
I loved that my mom was able to stay for the whole week while my sister was at basketball camp. We did some shopping, visited family, and relaxed a bit. It was so fun! I love having mom here and I can't wait to have her here soon when Little Sister comes!

 The week after my birthday we headed up to Boise again for a last hurrah as a family of 3. We spent the week at mom and dad's cabin and had lots of fun...for the most part. We played horseshoes, watched movies, and loved our time by the lake. Sadly there were lots of problems with the new (to us) boat, so we spent our time at the beach. Steve was totally content with that, as he is pretty much a pro sand castle builder! We were able to go to the sweet movie theater in Cascade to see Harry Potter one night. It was nice to be able to go and not have to worry about Little Miss, since she was having fun with grandpa and grandma. Near the end of the week, Miss E got pretty sick and was stuffy with a miserably high fever. We got lots of snuggles, but wished she felt better. Of course she was fine the day after we got back home! Thanks mom and dad for a great (MUCH needed) vacation!!!

On the last Friday of July, Miss E and I needed to get out of the house. Luckily Ogden has a childrens museum that is super cheap on Friday nights, so we headed over for a little date. E loved having the place basically to herself. We hit every exhibit, but her favorite is always the England house because they have a fully stocked play kitchen. After the museum, we headed to Zeppe's for some fabulous water ice, my favorite treat!!!

I have lots more pictures and we did even more than this, but Blogger and I are apparently not getting along today...or I had overloaded the picture uploader!!! Just imagine, a couple more trips to Huntsville (Steve's sister's house), lots of time in the sprinkler and "pool" at our house, popsicles, gardening, kite flying, even more yummy food, and time with friends!!! It has been a great summer and we are looking forward to filling these last few weeks!

She's 2!!! (Six months late...)

I can't believe the day has come that our little Miss E has entered the land of the "Terrible Twos." She has taken this title to heart and embraced it fully! :) I am having a love/hate relationship with her independence right now, but I know that this stage will teach both her and I lots about life!!!

E's birthday was a lot of fun. I babysit my friend's two daughters on Fridays so Miss E had built in birthday guests! We took them with us to meet the fam for breakfast at Sill's Cafe in Layton. (PS If you have never been there/heard of the place...please look it up and go. It was so good!!!) Little Miss had lots of fun seeing her cousins (and squishing in tight next to them in a little corner booth) and eating yummy scones and pancakes for breakfast.

We spent the next few hours playing with friends and then E gave us a great present by taking a long nap. We had "yummy" Taco Time for dinner. Later Grandma K and Kelsi arrived to make for a great end to a fun birthday.

We had Little E's birthday party on Saturday with more cousins, grandparents, great grandparents, and friends. We had a fun Tiny Party for E, which was great, except for the shot glasses for drinks. I think a few people cheated and got big cups.

Miss E is getting bigger and more fun each day. I am not sure I would be this challenged with one child, but I certainly didn't realize how much fun and love I would have for her either. She is talking like a mad woman and has learned lots of fun new tricks like climbing out of her crib (resulting in a big girl bed), opening doors (resulting in child door handle covers), opening caps (lots of spills), starting the dvd player (another love/hate situation), and finally understanding what she means when she says "I love you Mommy Daddy!" We sure love this girl!!!

Stats:
Height- 35 3/4 inches 90th%
Weight- 26.7 lbs 45th%
Head- 48 3/4 cm 75th%

2 1/2 Update:
This girl is getting so big!

She has totally embraced her two year old self. She is moody and emotional while being wildly silly and fun.  Potty training has taken all summer so far and is still not really working out, we have reverted back to diapers to encourage her to "pass stool," if you will. Her talking has exploded, she jabbers all day long. Most of the time we can tell what she is saying, but there are still many times that language causes big misunderstandings around our house.
Some favorite things:
Things to do: play babies, pretend, tea parties, watching all of her shows
Shows: Angelina Ballerina, Max and Ruby, princess movies, Dora, Backyardigans, Care Bears
Foods: FRUIT SNACKS, PICKLE CHEESE TURKEY (sandwich), spicy drink (soda), apple juice, milk, chicken nuggets, fruit, popsicles
Songs: Primary songs, all of her show theme songs, Kukaburra, How Much is that Doggy in the Window, Green Speckled Frog song

A Little Young for Makeup

This is the face of a child caught doing something naughty. Let's just say that she hasn't opened my makeup since. (Actually, I scolded her a little and put her in time out, I think she was most embarrassed that she was caught!)

Circus Parade

 At the end of September the CIRCUS came to Salt Lake. Being the super fun (aka CHEAP) mom that I am, we did not get tickets to the actual circus, but instead headed down to the Gateway for the free, fun parade. Little Miss was so excited! We waited for about an hour to stake out some great seats right in the front row and had a blast.

 The Police department was there to keep the peace between the animal rights people and the soccer moms. Since they weren't too occupied with that job they passed out clown noses, signs, and stickers. We had lots of fun with our nose. E didn't ever really want to wear it, but loved when I did. I felt super cool, by the way.

 Blowing kisses to the pretty ladies on the horses.

 Screaming NEIGH to all of the horses. We had the police woman standing by us laughing pretty hard.

 So excited about the fun parade. It helped that the elephants were THISCLOSE:

This picture was taken with me leaning back in my seat so I could actually get the elephants in. They were so close. At first E was freaked out, but it took about .5 seconds for her to get over it and want to go ride them!

This was such a fun day! I hope I remember to do it again next year!

Yummy Summer Tomatoes

This summer we had a small raised box garden. It was so fun to be able to head out to the backyard when I needed produce! Our tomato plant was huge and produced tons of fruit. Little Miss especially loved going out and picking fresh tomatoes and eating them right from the plant. One day Michelle came to hang out and shared a huge red tomato with E and laughed as Miss E gagged through a few hard green ones. This makes me so happy because I really don't like tomatoes. I love them in stuff, but not alone, so I love that Michelle can share this love with her!

August

We had such a fun, whirlwind summer, we knew that it had to go out with a bang. We decided to take one last trip of the summer and headed to Washington again.

While we were there Steve's parents volunteered to watch the monkey overnight so we could go celebrate our 5th anniversary. We headed to a cute little bed and breakfast in La Conner, WA. This town was so cute! We ate a delicious dinner at a fish restaurant right on the water. After dinner we went out for a drive over Deception Pass. This picture doesn't show very well how high up this old bridge is from the water! It was so beautiful and a much needed getaway!

 One of our favorite traditions when visiting Steve's home is to go to the C Shop, a candy store right on the harbor. Miss E was lucky enough to get her very own treat: a chocolate covered marshmallow cone. It was such a mess but she loved it!

 I love the beauty of that area! A family friend was back in town the same time we were so several families met down by the bay (...where the watermelons grow...) to have a barbeque and to catch up. It was so fun! I only wished we could have stayed longer but our sweet child was extremely tired and GROUCHY so we had to head home.

 We also happened to be there the same week Steve's sister graduated from Western Washington University with her Masters Degree. It was so fun to cheer her on!

 Julie also was playing the community theater's production of Arsenic and Old Lace. She played one of the crazy old aunts. The play was hilarious and Julie did an awesome job!

 On our way back home we were able to stay with my family overnight and for most of the next day. We were pretty excited that my aunt and uncle and their family also were visiting at the same time so we celebrated by going to the pool. After a summer of hating big pools, Miss E had a fabulous time.

 This whole trip was such a wonderful way to end our summer of fun. Although I know Steve doesn't ever look at the blog, I had to take a (Seriously So Blessed) moment and say how lucky and blessed I am to have such a wonderful husband. He is so perfect for me and is such a compliment to all of my quirks! Happy 5 years and here's to an eternity more!!!

Awww weren't we cute, and young, and naive!