My Babies

My baby Ava turned one year old and we finally went to get her birthday picture taken. Thank you Kiddie Kandids for the free 8 x 10. She is not the easiest when it comes to posing and smiling for the camera. I thought she looked so pretty. These are my favorites.
I have another new baby that I'm LOVIN! I asked for a Shelf Reliance for our food storage for my birthday. Scott surprised me with it and I was so excited. Scott set it up on Friday night and then we had a special time together rolling all of our canned food into their slots. I felt crazy (and Tawna and Scott thought I was) for being so giddy about this, but boy was I excited! I really, really, really like when things are organized. It calms me and makes me much happier. I was thrilled to see all of our canned food in it's designated spot. I am happy to be able to glance at the shelves and know exactly what I have and what I need (#10 cans of rice, beans and dried milk). I'm glad that it rotates my cans for me. It's great to be able to shop case lot sales and buy cans in bulk and have a storage place for them. And I thought the magnetic labels were so cute. Welcome to our home my Shelf Reliance. We are so happy to have you!

Conference Weekend

We had a great conference weekend, as usual. Conference weekend is always a good one. I used to think it was so relaxing and inspiring, it's not so anymore with two little kids, but it's still nice to be home together trying our hardest to relax and be inspired.

Our friends (that have girls the same ages as ours) invited us up to their cabin for breakfast, conference and a hike to Donut Falls. It was really raining so the hike didn't happen, but the breakfast sure did. It was DELICIOUS!! The canyon was beautiful. It was such a nice place to be Saturday morning. Conference was on, but really we didn't hear much. Thank you TIVO!Aaron made everything on the grill. AND he put Sprite in the pancakes to make them fluffy. The rest of Conference was spent at home. When Scott left for Preisthood session, we (the girls) made pizza and seriously watched movie after movie on TV.My veggie pizza! Turns out Tawna likes all the food I get for the girls.Bryce joined us on Sunday and I'm not sure he was prepared for the entertainment portion of Conference at our house. This is Brie in Ava's 3-6 month polka dot bikini. She danced around saying, "This is not modest."(I'm sure you'll be wanting this back Laura.)The usual picture of everyone asleep "watching" conference.
I guess it's all about watching a session, then the food, then a session, then some more good food. This dinner was a unique one for us. Elk. Our hunting friends, Mark and Trisha, gave us an elk roast from Mark's latest hunt. They told me how to make it and it was REALLY good!!

Famous Photographers

My sister-in-law and brother, Sarah and Landon, are awesome photographers and now they are famous in our house for it! They have been just kind of learning and playing around with this hobby of theirs and they are good. And now we have matted, framed pictures on our walls to show it.

For Father's Day I asked Landon and Sarah to take a picture of Mt. Olympus for Scott. It turned out great. Really. It's gorgeous. I finally got a rusticy looking frame that I love and it is hung! It looks really good in this room.We also had them take our new family picture before they moved back to Virginia. We drove up the canyon to a spot I like and they snapped away. The setting was beautiful, everyone was in their cute matchy clothes, but we had two very grumpy girls. We had pulled Brie from her bed and Ava was ready for a nap. It was awful. One or both was crying or whining the whole time. So, I found a family pic that was great of me and Ava and another that was good of Scott and Brie. The brilliant Sarah Allred put them together in photoshop to create the perfect family picture. It's the one at the top of our blog now. Amazing that she could do that, no?

And now we have newly updated pictures on our family wall. A new family picture, new one of Scott and I and new ones of the girls. Thank you, thank you Sarah and Landon!

Primeros Pasos

Is Ava walking? Well, not quite. The girl has been standing up and clapping for herself like she is the best show in town for a few months now. Don't you think she would want to take off and walk and run with Brie? No, she'd rather stay close and be in my arms.

Ava will now take a few steps. She has taken as many as it takes to get across the room to whoever has their arms out for her. Her mode of transportation around the house is still crawling though.

Brie and I were having Ava walk back and forth between us. She would drop down to her knees and start crawling and I kept calling her a little cheater. Brie thought I was calling her a Cheeto. That is now what Brie calls her - Cheeto!


(Please turn down your volume so you don't hear my high pitched shrieking cheering. I had no idea I could sound like that.)

Tuna Malinda

We have seriously lucked out. My younger sister, Tawna, came to live with us! Tawna is 19 and finished high school a year ago. She was working and hanging out in Bakersfield and then decided she wanted a change. We offered her our guest bedroom in the basement. Utah is a fun place to be for a young, single LDS person, so she decided to come!

It has been a dream for us. Honestly. Tawna is the easiest person you could ever have living with you. She never leaves a mess, she is so fun to hang out with and talk to, she is sooooooooooo easy going and she is AMAZINGLY good with kids. It's great for me to have a friend during the day and it is awesome for Brie and Ava (and me) to have someone else to play with. When we go out she takes one girl and I take the other. Around the house she helps the girls if I am busy with something else. She is so good at seeing a need and taking care of it. It really is soooooo good to have her here with us.

Brielle pretending to put Tawna to bed. She tucked her in with all of these stuffed animals. The other day Tawna was sick, but she let Brie pretend to do her make up and hair while she lied there.
But unfortunately, she is not here to hang out with me during the day or to take care of our kids. She had to get a job. She got one pretty quick just because the lady fell in love with her. One little girl called her Willy Wonka. She works at a chocolate and candy shop. She makes chocolates, cotton candy, pulls taffy, all of it. Doesn't that sound great? The shop is really close to home too.

Tawna with her first pay check. Yahoo!
Tawna has also started going to a few different singles wards to check them out. She has a cute friend that has gone with her to institute and FHE and ice cream socials. So, yes, she is fully into the singles scene now. And we are hoping she continues to make good friends, enjoy her job and be happy here with us.

Tawna headed out the door to the ice cream social.
Brielle (at the bathroom door while Tawna was getting ready) BEGGING her to let her come to the ice cream party too! Seriously. She had her shoes (slippers) on, bag in hand and was DESPERATE for Tawna to agree to take her.Last night we went up the canyon for a picnic dinner and a short FHE lesson. The fall colors were already gorgeous. We had a good time. It's nice to have Tuna Malinda as part of the fam.Tawna and Ava chowing on their egg salad sandwiches.
The lesson.The princess.
The snaggletooth.

Hot Air Balloon Ride

I have always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon. I've seen when hundreds of them go up in the early morning and it always looked so fun and romantic to ride up into the sky in one. Scott gave me a hot air balloon ride for my birthday!! Yeah!! (He also gave me the Shelf Reliance I asked for for our food storage, but that is less romantic.) He tried to schedule our ride for the fall so that we could see some autumn colors in the mountains.

We drove up to Park City at 6am and had apple cider with everyone at an AMAZING lodge before our balloon was ready to go at 7am. Scott got to hold the fan in place as they blasted fire (hot air) into the balloon to fill it up. There were a few other balloons going up with us. We all climbed in the basket and took off. It was the coolest feeling to float higher and higher just looking out over a basket. I loved it. We traveled around over the mountains and Park City for an hour. It was early morning and so pretty.

This is just as we were going up.
We followed the freeway for a little while. Cars were honking and waving. Scott was spitting down on the freeway below and following his spit to see how long it took to float down and land.The shadow of our balloon on the hills.
When the hour was up, the pilot looked around for any clearing he could find and just went down. We landed on the side of the freeway. I expected it to be pretty scary and bumpy, but we floated right down to the ground just like we had gone up.
What a fun morning! Thanks for a great birthday gift Scooty! There is another check for my list of things I've always wanted to do.

Ava's First Birthday!!

Ava turned one!! We went to her one year old Doctor's visit this week and she is the perfect little one year old. Dr. Brian says she is progressing great and is healthy. At one year old, Ava weighs 15 lbs. 12 oz., is 28 inches long and her head measured 17 cm.

Soooooooo, she is perfect in every way, but still has a little bit of a weight issue. She is WAY off of the charts. I'm trying even harder to calorie pack her diet. Anything I offer her is full fat (which is hard when I'm trying to do the opposite for me). I smother everything with butter, put Carnation Instant Breakfast in her milk, giver her lots of cheese, try to get her to eat Avocado, etc. etc. Anything I can do to get more calories in her. We'll see.

Ava's birthday happened in installments. Her actual day was in Boston. We took the kids to the Children's Museum that day. They all played and had so much fun. That is the funnest place for a kid (and a Scott) EVER! She really loved the crawler area where there were little toys and the whole place is padded. We had a real birthday for her when we came home. We let her open the present we got for her in the morning. She loved the rocking giraffe for a minute, but then was screaming mad and begged to be helped off. I think she is warming up to it though.That evening we all had a delicious steak dinner after going to the State Fair. Then came the pink cupcakes with sprinkles (Of course. That's all we do around here.). She put on a good show and liked eating the cupcake, but LOVED spreading the frosting all over her head!* Ava is a mama's girl for sure. She clings to me and will go to no one else until she warms up to them, but usually wants to be right back in my arms.

* If I am not holding her, she has her arms wrapped around my legs as I try to move around the kitchen or wherever else I need to go. If I leave a room she cries. She's always been this way.

* Ava is learning to communicate. She waves (like she is in a parade) and says "hi" to everyone. She is also learning to sign "all done", "food", "drink".

* She will stand up by herself and loves to clap for herself when she does and expects everyone else to do the same. She will not take a step though.

* Ava has never taken a bottle and does not want to drink milk. I am trying to ween her from nursing. Tonight was her first time really wanting the bottle of milk and drinking it. I hope it continues.

* She sleeps great at night from 8pm to 8am. She still takes two naps, but they are always short. Never more than an hour and usually 40 minutes. She really does not give me much of a break during the day.

* Ava always smiles big when Scott walks through the door and is so excited to see him. She also LOVES playing with Brie and thinks she is the most entertaining thing to ever happen. I love watching it.

We adore little Ava Potata!