Aubrey's Crawling!!

Well, sort of crawling. I guess scooting across the floor counts. She gets from A to B anyway.

Here's a clip of it.

All I can say is it's pretty early for us. She's not even 6 months old yet. My other girls were way older when it came to crawling and walking. I guess Aubrey just wants to be like her older sisters, who never stop moving.

She's a princess just like her sisters!

Here are a few other things that Aubrey's been up to. She started eating rice cereal. She seems to like it and has just recently figured out how to swallow without spitting it back out after every spoonful.And she has officially become our thumb-sucker. It's so cute!

I know I'll probably say otherwise in a couple years, but for now, it's just adorable, and if it gets her to sleep on her own then I'm fine with it.

Summer Vacation - Part 2

We continue our Utah vacation story by spending the rest of the week with Tyler's family. I felt like this was the best way to do our trip. Tyler has two siblings and his parents who live in Utah, so by making a large circle around Utah, we were able to see each family individually and spend time with them before all meeting up at Grandma and Grandpa's house. It was definitely the way to go. So we spent two days with Tyler's sister and family. We went to a splash park which all the kids enjoyed. There were slides that you could ride down with a kid in your lap, so Tyler took turns taking the older girls down. Abby got me to go down with her once and unfortunately I got in the wrong line, so we went down the fast slide. (I'm not a huge fan of water slides) But we made it and it was fun. Here are the cousins waiting to go into the pool. Don't you love how when one kids says "let's make a funny face" everyone loves to participate? It's hard to get them to take a regular picture after that. Here's Aubrey. She even got to feel the water, although it was a bit chilly for her.
The next day we got to spend walking around the old stomping ground of BYU. My brother showed us the new band hall, which is in the BYU stadium now that I never got to use. And we saw all the new buildings and landscaping that has taken place since we left 6 years ago. (where does the time go?!?) I made Tyler stop by this waterfall (which used to not be there) so we could get a picture.

I had no idea Tessa was making a funny face. So typical. Besides visiting the bookstore, we took the girls to the Bean Museum on campus which is full of animals. Even though I spent the majority of the time in the bathroom due to a blowout by Aubrey, the girls enjoyed seeing all the huge animals. And of course, I had to get their picture by something, so they chose the moose.

The next day we traveled up to the Salt Lake area and stayed with Tyler's brother and family for a few days. While the boys took a day golfing, the girls hung out at home. The kids played, ran in the sprinkler, and created their own games. Here they are jumping off the bed and onto the air mattress. I tried to get a picture of them standing up before jumping but as soon as they'd all get up, they couldn't wait to just jump, so all I could get were "in motion" pictures.

Once we made it out to Tyler's parent's house, we waited for all the families to join us. We spent the last couple days of our trip there enjoying time together with the entire family. The kids loved playing in the huge puddles in the driveway while the dads were away fishing for the day.

Here's Aubrey with her cousin Jacob. He's only like 2 1/2 weeks older than Aubrey, but I love to see how different they look. So cute to watch them roll around the floor together and just stare at each other with the look on their faces like, "who are you? I'm supposed to be the baby here." We wanted to go camping but with the busyness of the weekend (4th of July) and all the little kids, we decided to do our camping activites at the house, so we pitched tents in the backyard and let those who wanted to sleep outside do so. The three oldest grandkids and Tyler and his brother were the only ones who slept outside, but that included Abby so I had to get pictures of her first "camping" trip in the tent. She was so cute!

We got to cook tinfoil dinners and one of the fish that was caught. We also did some fireworks and roasted marshmallows for s'mores. So it was like a real camping trip. It was funny to see as the night wore on how the kids fell asleep one by one from youngest to oldest until only the last 5 awake were the tent sleepers. (and the moms making sure the tent sleepers were settled in)

The next morning was the 4th of July so we went to the city parade. It was fun, but very hot.

And it's not a family get together until you take pictures of the grandkids, so we got them all in red, white, and blue clothes and took some pictures. And with 11 grandkids now, it's hard to get one where everyone's smiling. You're lucky to get them all in the shot. This was one of my favorites that I took on my camera. Besides cousin Makaela with her finger in her nose, it's not a bad picture! :)

We had such a fun time in Utah, and making the drive to and from was actually enjoyable for me. We'll definitely be making that trip often, and it's well worth it.

Summer Vacation - Part 1

We took our summer vacation to Utah last week spending time with my brother, some of my extended family and with Tyler's family. We had a great time! I have so many cute pictures I'm going to have to break our trip up into multiple blogging entries. This entry will include the drive out west and the time we spent with my family. So our first story begins at the very beginning of our long 2-day car ride. We hadn't been in the car very long when Tessa starts fussing and whining. And if you know our Tessa, she can be quite loud when she's upset. When we finally calmed her down, it wasn't even 5 minutes later when Aubrey started to cry and I looked back and saw this:

That's Tessa for you. She's plugging her ears because she thought Aubrey was being too loud, but it seriously was like 2 minutes before this that she was the one making all the noise. Too funny.

Abby's favorite story to tell anyone about our trip is the waterfall and bridge found in our hotel. It was pretty cool. The little waterfall and small stream was actually in the hotel and our lucky room was only accessible over a little bridge. The girls loved it even though we were at this hotel for only a couple hours to sleep and they didn't even get to explore it all that much. We had to at least stop for a picture.Our first stop once in Utah was to my Grandmother's house where we met up with my aunt and cousins and their families. Two of my cousins had babies shortly after I had Aubrey, so we had to have a photo session with the three cute girlies.

Can you tell my Aubrey is the oldest? She's only "slightly" bigger than their girls right? Right. The older kids had fun playing together too. Here they are playing croquet, which is the game I always remember playing at my Grandma's house when we'd visit when I was kid.

And finally, more entertainment from Tessa. I was holding Tessa on my hip and talking to my Grandma when Tessa decided to pretty much bear hug my Grandma around the face while still clinging on to me with her legs. Luckily, I had my camera in hand and whipped it out for this cute pic:

Thankfully, my grandma survived the squeeze, but man alive, check out those baby blues. Gorgeous!

Now you may think this is an adorable face, but don't be deceived. Behind the beautiful blue eyes and curly locks is a daredevil girl who's already learned to fight for what she wants. And when she's not happy, beware the "evil eye." I have now taught her to do this on command, so it's pretty funny when she goes from adorable smile to evil eye in a split second. Luckily, I caught the split second for all to enjoy.

My brother thought it was hilarious and wished he could have been the one to teach her this talent. Every time he saw Tessa, he'd ask to see her "evil eye" and just laugh and laugh. And to add to the pleasure, he tried to tell Abby to roll her eyes and say "whatever" whenever I ask her to do something. Thanks John! You've got to love uncles. :)

Trees, Birds, and Whales

We had some random events occur in our lives the past couple of weeks, and luckily I got pictures of some of them. So, we start with TREES because it was the most devastating. We had a quick storm rush through last week that inlcuded very high winds. The girls freaked out thinking a tornado was on its way, but we were fine. However, the tree in our front yard was not.

No tornado came through, but the winds did and besides taking out our tree, it also blew things around our backyard. We ended up with our neighbor's plastic pool and Tyler's grill blew all around the porch and ended up in the yard with a broken door. We saw some fences down in our neighborhood, so I guess it could have been a lot worse for us. We count our blessings it was just our tree and grill.

Next, comes BIRDS. Tyler promised the girls a birdhouse, so we went shopping. Abby wanted a rainbow one, so we bought two cheap houses, one for each girl to paint herself.

They had fun painting them, and Tyler came home from work and put them in the backyard. Now they spend a lot of time looking out the window waiting for the birds to come (Tyler included.) We haven't seen any birds at the houses yet, but I'm wondering if part of that has to do with the fact that we used washable paints and after our spinklers went off, some of the paint has washed off the houses and mixed in with the food.

Hopefully, the birds will come soon. We'll be watching and waiting.

And finally, WHALES. The summer has finally arrived and with that comes swimming. We bought Tessa a whale pool for her birthday so we were finally able to set that up and the girls have gotten good use out of it, using it almost every day. Here are a few shots from their first trip in. Aubrey even had a turn. And I also have to include a blurb on the girls, specifically Tessa. She loves being a big sister. Her latest adventures as the big sister inlcude giving Aubrey a doll to cheer her up: NICE. But they also include Tessa using Aubrey as her own paper doll where she gave Aubrey a necklace and... wrote on her with pen! NOT NICE.

(but funny)

Abby's Dance Recital

So nothing makes you feel all grown up more than when your daughter has her first dance recital! We spent a full day, and I mean all day, doing dance recital stuff. All morning at the dress rehearsal and all night with the performance. But it was well worth it to see Abby all dressed up and performing. She did an awesome job. The audience was full and she wasn't scared at all. She was the leader of the group, leading her class on stage (since she was on the very end - no tall genes in our family) but she did all her dance steps and she smiled a lot. What more could you ask for?

We weren't allowed to take pictures with a flash during the rehearsal or performance, so unfortunately all the pictures we have of Abby on the stage are really blurry (our camera's no good without the flash). All of our pictures were in between numbers and after the performance. But at least you can see how cute they are. Abby did the class with two of her best friends, Maisy and Lexi. Here they are after the performance.

Their number was titled "Texas." Can you tell? They danced with cowboy hats. It was so cute! They also participated in the finale where they had to wear all black. I took this picture while we were waiting during the dress rehearsal. At least they had a nice outside area for the girls to run around during the long morning. We signed Abby up for dance next year. She seems to like it that much.

Great job Abby.

We love you!

Aubrey's Blessing and My Birthday

The day finally arrived! May 24th!! We blessed Aubrey. And the special treat was that it was on my birthday! So not only did I have the present of a beautiful daughter in her beautiful white dress but also lots of family to celebrate with. Tyler's parents came down from Utah and brought Tyler sister's, Tiffany and Tara, and also Tiffany's four kids. Abby and Tessa were looking forward to this part the most - enjoying time with their cousins! Here's Aubrey in her very own beautiful blessing dress!

Here's the family. This was the best shot we could get since Tessa was bound and determined to run off.

Here's the whole family that was able to be here. Here's those cousins. They had so much fun this weekend playing, running, swimming, and doing whatever else to entertain themselves. And for five little girls, they actually did really well together.
And for my birthday, Tyler and the girls got me the two best presents I could think of:

1. A freezer - YEAH - finally!! On the waiting list from last year, we finally got one, and put it to use immediately when we bought four ice cream containers for a dessert night.And...

2. DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) for the Wii. I love this thing. A total surprise from Tyler, and I was very happy about it.

And for my yummy birthday cake (I started cutting it before the candles - oops) can you guess how old I am?

If you guessed 29 you're right! It's the cheap way to do birthday candles. Instead of buying a new number this year, Tyler came up with the math equation 28 + 1 for my birthday cake. Pretty clever if you ask me! :)

Thanks all of you for your birthday wishes and compliments on the blessing. It really was a great birthday and blessing day!!

Mom's Old Toys

My parents left a mystery bag at my house this weekend, and only said, "we've been holding this for you for years. It's some of your old things." So, the girls and I opened the bag to find out what was inside. It brought back many memories for me. It was full of my old barbies and clothes, cabbage patch dolls and clothes (which I think consisted of some of my own baby dresses), my little ponies, and a few other random toys.

The biggest (and by biggest, I mean BIGGEST) discovery we found was my old Cricket doll. If you've never heard of the Cricket doll, don't worry. It took me awhile to remember I even had this doll too. But seeing the tape player in her back brought it all back. This "life-size" doll actually talks complete with moving mouth and eyes! Check out the size of this thing...Almost the same size as my two-year-old. And yes, I noticed. Isn't it weird that this doll that I had over 20 years ago is a pretty close resemblence to my Tessa?!? Look again:
Blonde, curly hair, blue eyes, small, petite frame. Yes, I know it's weird - and that's before you even mention the whole bride of chucky scariness going on that Tyler and my brother Scott both have already pointed out. :) Oh well, the girls like her. More toys to add to our ever-growing collection. It's nice to know that all that money that was probably spent by my parents on these toys of mine could be used again in this house full of girls.