First Ballet Class

These videos are to cute for words. Watching her do ballet, in her little leotard and slightly too big shoes because they dont make a small enough size, was possibly the happiest morning of my life. Im so excited to take her every week in 2012!!









 She only asks to go to ballet class about 12 times a day now :)

Snokards

So it only took me a year to finish Greg's stocking 

(well it was in my sewing box from jan-nov this year)

The goal last year was to do one for each of us, same pattern just different fabric for each person.

Today Tate and I went to Target and picked out some for ourselves.

She insisted on getting the tiny one :)

5 Years

Greg and I celebrated our anniversary on the 9th of this month, it's so crazy that we have been married for five years! Half a decade! A year longer then highschool is. (For some reason I always measure things by the length of highschool)

In those five years we have accomplished alot. One beautiful daughter, two graduations, 3 moves, and alot of learning about love and family.

I'm so grateful that i found a man as hardworking, kind, and sexy ;) as Greg. And so grateful that we were able to be married in the temple, sealed together for all eternity. It gives me so much peace knowing we will be able to spend eternity together as a team. Whatever challenges we face, we are together. Whatever happiness we find, we can share it with each other.

I hope he knows how much I love him and how appreciative I am for everything he does for me. He is an amazing husband and a rockin' dad.


How we celebrated:

Had to get a pic of this sweet mullet

O Christmas Tree

We decided to get  a real tree this year, the first real tree I've ever had. We got  permit to go out and cut one down ourselves, and I was so excited!

We recruited Greg's brother Tyler and my sister Sierra, and started the journey out to Vernon to find our tree.

Long story short, it took much longer then we anticipated to drive out there,

it was about 25 degrees outside, which was also not anticipated.

Greg carried Tatum kangaroo style for most of the hunt,

fell onto a cactus as a result of  unsteady balance with Miss kangaroo going down a hill,

and had to take off his pants in the 25 degree weather to pull the thorns out.

The trees were far and few between,

and so were their branches.

a close up, ouch!

Finally we found one

 It's small, not very green, and doesn't have much of a smell to it,

but its our very own.

And now we have a pretty funny (hindsight) memory to look back on!

All decorated, and Tate showing her new sock monkey ornament

Well, we are well on our way to having a "big kid" on our hands.

we've been bottle free for a few months now, and last week i decided the binkie had to go. one night, i think it was tuesday, i put her to bed without it. i got her a sippy cup to hold and told her she was a big girl and binkies were for babies. she has asked for it a few times with minimal whining, but as long as i say "you're a big girl remember" she is fine. she has been harder to put down for bed the last month, so i figured if i was already dealing with a little crying and mom... mom...... moooom.... MOM!-ing, i might as well get the bink out of there and over with.

next week, or maybe the week after i will be attempting

dun dun dunnnnnn...

potty training! ah!

i went and got a few books from the library since i have no idea what i am doing. one turned out to be a how to teach your infant to use the potty book- not helpful. the next is potty training in one day. i'm reading this one through and i think i'll do it. basically you have to dedicate a few hours of one on one complete uninterrupted attention, demonstration with a doll, and treats and praise for a good job. it sounds like a fine method, we'll see if it will really work in a day though.

i am excited to let her pick our some big girl panties!!

our Halloween was a success

even though i really wanted to choose Tate's costume myself, something cool, not a fairy that 5 million other little girls were sure to be, but she was persistent.

and she was the most adorable Tinkerbell out of all 5 million, so thats something.

we stopped by the library for their trick or treating so we could meet up with Greg on his "lunch break". what's up with not closing early on Halloween t-mobile?

Peter, Tiger Lily and Tinkerbell

 Greg was also going to be the crocodile, but since he was working all night, and hadn't been able to go to any of the other dress up events we went to this year i didn't make his costume. i don't think he was to disappointed.

then we went around the neighborhood with our friends the Cuevas and got more candy then any two year old should ever have.

also the adorable Bartlett girls got to join us. their lucky parents are on a cruise this week. how fun for them!

above we have: Queen Riley, Iris the monkey, Tate as Tinkerbell, Superman Noah, a Tanya flower, and Ivan the ninja. we love our friends <3

Wordless Wednesday

We're So Glad for Aunties

Baby Wearing

The past few weeks we have been babysitting my good friends little boy 3 days a week. He is just 2 months old, and such an easy baby! (At least in our 5 hour increments). Tate LOVES having him around too. She is really gentle with him, and has a great time finding things for him to look at, or helping him with his binkie. Our only struggle is keeping her from pushing him while he is in the swing. It's a nice thought Tate, but we don't want him to get whiplash :)

I've also been getting more use our of my baby slings since he's been around. I didn't use them as much as I wanted to with Tatum, I always forgot I had them. She was just carried around in her car seat. No fun! But having 2 kids around I've realized my next baby will probably spend every day in a wrap. It so convenient to have them close, and still be able to do everything that involves keeping up with a toddler.

And doesn't Tatum look cute wearing her baby doll? She is going to make a great big sister one day.

The Artist

Day two of not leaving the house. Not by choice, just nothing to do and no money to spend. I dug up some art supplies from the back of Tatum's closet/ the place everything that doesn't have a place goes. Tatum absolutely loved painting with water color. She could have sat there all day painting, not a care in the world, chatting about puppies (i think), see above video.


 Only mean old mom cut off the fun after about a half hour. I don't know why but sitting there watching/"helping" her paint was really hard for me. I never thought I was an fastidious person. But watching her paint over the same spot over, and over, and over until she had worn a whole through the paper was really frustrating. I kept asking her to paint on different areas but she just kept on painting over that same spot. Then she was trying to use the white paint, on white paper. Nothing was showing up. I told her the white one doesn't work on this white paper because it's the same color. She didn't care. She went on trying to get that white paint to work. Over and over. Also she would dip her brush in the water, then in the paint, then back in the water, then into the same color as before... Then back in the water.... Same color. How many times do you need to do this before you actually put the color on the paper? You're wasting the paint!


This was all said in my head. I'm trying to paint a picture here of how crazy my brain was this mere 30 minutes. I kept thinking to myself, it doesnt matter if she uses up all the color, we don't use it anyway. It's her watercolor, and we can always buy more. Probably from the dollar store! It's ok if she wants to try the white. What does it matter. This is art, it can have a whole in the middle if she wants. Calm down. This is fun for her.

But man it was seriously giving me anxiety! Weird.

Wordless Wednesday

Better with Age

I saw this photo over on NieNie's blog and I think it is the cutest picture ever. Doesn't he look dashing in his pilot gear?

                                       

President Uchtdorf is my favorite apostle. Maybe because he reminds me a lot of my Papa- they both have white hair and accents. Or because he has a really great sense of humor. I like to laugh during my conference sessions. Also he just seems to speak about things that directly apply to me.

And on the subject for cute white haired men, have you seen this video on YouTube? :)

And just for fun, here's a picture of my cute Papa. Helping my favorite lil cousin Joneaux get some snacks. We've got a lot of cute men in our family!

*Its not fair, men age so well.  They seem to get more handsome and funnier with age. While women, I guess its hit or miss on the cuteness, but why do we get so grouchy?

Shows

A new season has started, yay for one more mindless thing to do! Ok, I usually try not to watch to much TV because it is lazy and I could be using my time for much better things, but those previews just suck me in sometimes! And I have been really good about keeping my house clean (what? yes I have been washing the dishes after every meal, and cleaned the bathroom 3 weeks in a row!) so I feel less guilty about watching all the new shows in the evenings. My lineup for the season is this:


Monday- Parenthood- I've seen past episodes of the show randomly. So I don't always know what is going on, but I like the characters, and I feel like its real. Like things that happen would actually happen in real life.

Wed- Modern Family- The funniest show. Period. And it's a clean funny. Phil is my favorite, “Only we touch our women when they don’t want us to!”  “I will only be checking ‘somewhat satisfied’ on my comment card!”
. But I want the old Lily back

Thursday- The Office - We all knew the day was coming, no Michael. I was wondering what the show would even be about without him, but i was pleasently suprised by this seasons premiere. First off yay for Pam being pregnant again. I'll pretty much watch anything that has to do with pregnancy/babies. And the planking was pretty funny. I don't know about Robert California, I didn't watch the last season, was he on that one? I do know that I like Andy as manager, especially when he stuck up for all the losers on California's list. Way to go Andy.

Also PanAm, which I think comes on on Sundays? I watched the pilot online yesterday and it looks pretty good. I liked the costumes and the glamor of flight in the 60's, and the actors aren't bad.  Recognized the co-pilot (don't remember his name) from the dumb spinoff season of Scrubs (didn't like the show, but I did like the actor), and I've liked Christina Ricci ever since The Adams Family. I didn't expect   the undercover secret service work from the commercials, so that was a fun and intriguing twist.

*Oh and New Girl. I love Zooey, and the previews looked pretty funny. Meant to watch it on the premiere night, but I forgot which night it was on. When I went online to watch it I found that FOX makes you wait 8 days after the air date to watch it online? Lame. So I missed episode 2 too (couldn't watch it without seeing the 1st one), and I am now stuck in a vicious cycle.
 Anyway, I finally watched the pilot and I have to say I was disappointed. Most of the funny lines were already played in the commercials, and it didn't flow very well. I'm still trying to decide if some of the characters were funny or just annoying (rude guy that takes his shirt off all the time). I'll give it a few more weeks and see if it gets any better.

What we've been up to

Trying out Instagram on our new iPad!

Lunch with the adorable Iris

Free icecream at Coldstone

Face paint at the puppet festival

And right now Tate is taking a 4 hour nap, gasp! She's had a pretty bad cold the last few days and I think it has really worn her out. Poor honey bear.

Bill Bill Bill Bill Bill!

Science rules!

Today Greg Sierra Tyler and I went to see Bill Nye (the science guy, duh) speak at UVU. He gave a presentation on changing the world, and did a Q & A session, and he was totally awesome :)
There were soo many people there, and even though we were almost late Sierra and I were able to sneak up to the front (benefit of being small) and got the best seat! The boys got stuck in the back, where they couldn't hear him speaking at all.
Because of the close proximity He and I had a conversation (sort of), and we made direct eye contact!

Conversation between us - paraphrased:

BN (giving his presentation) : ... See this is back in the day before we could communicate with anyone we wanted whenever we wanted. There was no facebook or twitter. No instant communication.

ME: WHAT?! (loud enough for the whole auditorium to hear)

BN: Yes! Crazy huh? How did we ever live back then? What did we do... Look where we were walking?

Oh Bill.

State Fair 2011

They had the cutest farm activity for kids. Tate had to put on an apron and get a basket, fill it up with corn to feed the cow. Milk the cow. Put milk carton in her basket, pick an apple and put in basket. Plant a seed, then pick the vegetable you planted. Get an egg from the chicken coop. Etc etc... At the end she "sold" everything she collected and got a farm buck to buy a treat. She picked the rice crispie.

We had a blast!

Wordless Wednesday

What?

This girl is so big.

For some strange reason I felt like it was time to take off that crib side and make her a big girl bed yesterday.

Before

After

After, After, After, After

It took a few extra lullabies, which only added an extra 5 minutes onto our bedtime routine, and she stayed in her bed all night!

Greg and I put a few pillows on the floor after she was asleep, just in case she fell during the night. As far as I know she didn't need them.

She woke up at 6 this morning, cried a litttle, then fell back asleep.

At 6:30 G heard some whimpering coming from her room so he went to check and found her, with her owl blankie, standing in her doorway. I think she wasn't quite sure if she was allowed to leave her room or not. She got into bed with us after that and we all slept till about 7:45. What a good morning!

Nap today was about the same. A little extra tucking in, and one more song, and she stayed put.



This morning I got the nice surprise of Grandma and Grandpa taking Tatum to the Sheepdog Championships and Festival, where she had a blast. In her words, "Dog jump in water! Got all wet. Milked cow!"

I was supposed to work, but we were slow and my shift got cut. So I moseyed around Barnes & Nobel, ate a delicious spinach and artichoke quiche, and got a cute wall hangy thing for my kitchen at Pier 1.

Just another day in my awesome life :-P

Is it Fall Yet?

I'm a summer girl. At least I used to be... no I still am. I still love the swimming, sundresses, snow cones, sandals (apparently this is a list of things that start with "s"), and the smell of sunscreen. I love when the temperature rises out of the bleak lower half of the thermometer and I can bring out the shorts and get a tan. I love my summer vacations, getting to spend a few weeks with my family across the country. I love lounging at the beach and being able to get in the water without freezing to death. I love a lot of things about summer, but lately I've been craving Fall.

I'm craving leaves that change color. Boots and comfy jeans. The couple new sweaters I got for my birthday. Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (I actually bought a tub of them this week). I'm ready for crisp air, and a hot apple pie.

September is such a teaser month. Its just starting to get a little cooler outside, but still too hot to bring out any of the aforementioned fall apparel. There is nothing to celebrate, my birthday is past and there is still a whole 60 days till Halloween. When you're in school its the beginning of the year, and that's fun and exciting. But I've got 3 more years until I can go back to school shopping.

The only thing fallish for me this week is that I have a cold. thumbs down.

I guess I need to get some strictly fall decorations. Putting out my witches, jack-o-lanterns, and pilgrims seems a bit premature, but I'm ready for some color in our living room, and on the front porch. What are September decorations? Apples?

Summer, I love you, but it's time to go.
Now please enjoy some pictures of a cute cute girl and some leaves.

Look how little she was just last fall!