Two months of pink

Today is Ayla's 2 month birthday. Isn't she sweet? And to answer your question, no, I did not make this dress. It was the first thing I bought when I found out is was a girl. But I am flattered that you thought I made it. Every time she wears it to church, someone asks me that question. Just in case you were wondering :)

Ayla has finally outgrown newborn diapers and newborn clothes in the last month. She has an adorable fat roll on her thighs and one on her forearms too. She has started smiling and cooing a little. She doesn't cry as much, and she is content in the swing for more than five minutes....usually. In the last week or so she has started sleeping for about 7 hours regularly. For that I am SO thankful. I have really missed my sleep since she was born.

Today is also the first time I have been able to capture her smiling on camera. So I went a little overboard....just a warning. I know Dad loves to see pictures of the grandkids, so all of these are for him. But everyone who reads this can enjoy them too. In the above picture she is almost smiling. It's really hard to catch a smile at the right moment. I almost need a camera with a fast action shutter option.

There it is!!

She has her eyebrows raised like this a lot. I told Brady and Abby the other night that if her eyebrows stay like this much longer her face will permenantly stay this way. Hehehe!

And another smile with a coo too.

She's not really waving, but you can think that. She's just wiggly.

Do you see the dimples? I hope she keeps them when she's older.

I love the birthmark on her nose and upper lip.

Adventurous toddler

I'm in trouble now! Check out the video below to see what Gideon figured out he can do. It happened this morning for the first time. How long do you predict it will take him to fall off a chair and have to get stiches?

Family Home Evening

Stow-and-go seating is awesome. We can fold our seats down in the van and enjoy watching airplanes land in the comfort of a/c when it's over 100 degrees outside. They all loved it, but I think 18 month old Gideon loved it the best. You missed the tears of sadness when he had to get back in his carseat to go home. We pointed some out on the way home and then watched a few on the driveway. That made him feel better.

Sometimes I wish I lived in Washington and a quilt

                                    

Rain on Sunday, July 15th. It stopped all of a sudden right after this video ended. It only lasted about 20 minutes. I miss the rain so much. I think living in WA would be awesome because it eains so much. But then being soggy all the time has its drawbacks aas well. I guess I appreciate rain more now than I did in Idaho.

Full rainbow after short storm on Friday the 13th

Baby quilt I finally finished from our service auction back in February. The colors are much more vibrant in person. Cell phones don't take good pictures.

Fireworks

The best part about fireworks is watching and listening to the kids excitement. I had hard time focusing the camera in the dark. Sorry about the poor picture quality.

Our Independence Day

First, Ayla had a checkup on Monday. At 6 weeks old she weighed in at 8 lbs 14 oz and 21 inches long. She is as big at 6 weeks as my nephew was when he was born May 1st. I must have one petite little lady.

We started our holiday with a wonderful breakfast at our friends house, the Van Wagoners, with a bunch of other families. All the kids had a great time. Gideon loved running around with the other kids too. Brady slept the rest of the day since he worked the night before and had to go back again that night. The rest of us had a small dinner BBQ at Brady's mom's house with swimming after. It was my first time back in the water after Ayla was born. Gideon loved jumping off the edge to me and making big splashes. Ammon practiced his swimming like they do in the Olympics in the deep end. He has done really well learning to swim. Zenock had a good time squirting everyone with the squirt gun. Ayla got to hang out with Grammy on the patio. We finished off the night with fireworks - Brady's all-time favorite - on our street with the Van Wagoners and the Wolfes. I'll post a video of that in the morning because it takes a long time to upload from the computer. We all had a great time, even more so than normal because we got to share it with others.

Timeout

The boys had trouble listening and following cleanup instructions today. Their consequensce is no electronics of any kind for the rest of the day. Zenock asked if that meant his leapster too. YES! Then he said in his best whiny voice, "But I have to learn!!" I had to restrain my laughter.

Holiday time

Happy Independence Day! What a wonderful opportunity it is to celebrate the founding of our Nation! I also reflect on the great blessing it is to be a citizen of this free country. How grateful I am for the men and women who have sacrificed everything so that we can remain free. Thank you to every Soldier for the freedom I get to share with my family every day.

From Idaho

 Sitting on the lawn across the street from the airport

Letting Gid get the wiggles out.

The inards of our "new to us" minivan.

He wanted to get out so bad. The drive was fine for him until the last 2 or 3 hours. He had just had enough at that point. It took us 11.5 hours to get there, and about that long to get home not counting the 3 stops we made. The home trip was 14 hours.

Rexburg Air Show. We have sure missed going to this every year.

He likes the planes too.

Ayla was inside my wrap. We had a great time.

Brady blessed Ayla at my parent's home on Saturday, the 16th.

Brady's side.

My side.

Stealing a drink from someone's unattended water bottle.

My sister Kacey, and her daughter Lizzy.

2 newest cousins. Konnor was born May 1st and towers over Ayla. He was blessed on Sunday the 17th in my sister's ward.

Great Grandma Deitz.

Eating lunch at a park before going to see the dinosaurs in Ogden.

Gid loved it.

Okay, everyone loved it.

Our butterfly casualty.

Visiting Idaho was awesome. I wish we could go back sooner.....or just make it easier and move there.

Entertainment in the am

Our tv finally died. It's been going out for a while, and I guess yesterday morning was the last straw. It won't turn on anymore. So we had to be a little creative with our time. I gave the boys a can of shaving cream and filled the pool with water at 9am yesterday. They loved going swimming in their jammies and playing with the "snow." Today I have no shaving cream, so I wonder what we will end up doing to stay entertained while Brady is sleeping.

Thanks Pintrest!

I love pintrest! I pin clothing and refashion projects all the time because they are just so cool! I love that an old shirt can be revamped into something new. Thanks to a suggestion from a friend and pintrest inspiration, I took some of my plain tshirts and painted some of them using a freezer paper stencil and some fabric paint. I used my silhouette to cut fabric images for a couple more shirts and just ironed them on - like a homemade applique. Suddenly my old shirts become new again!

I made a moby wrap for Ayla a little while ago. I got a little extra fabric on purpose so I could make a skirt out of it - inspired from pintrest. Last night I went to project night at the church, it's a night once a month when we can set up the big tables and spread projects out to work on from 2-11pm. Everyone brings their kids and we just have fun. I made my skirt last night during that time. I didn't really follow a pattern. I used a skirt I already had for the origional template, adding ruffles were I wanted them. I love how it turned out! I pinned two skirts I liked and combined their design to get my own. The top phone picture is mine - I couldn't find my camera - and the bottom two were my inspiration.

We love our sister!

Ayla is a wonderful baby. She sleeps pretty well for the most part during the night, and the boys just love her. Gideon loves ON her though. He asks to hold her then gives her a cuddle like the picture above. I think it's funny that when he cuddles something he always sucks his thumb. He also loves to stand on the bassinet and pat her head if he can reach it. Ammon and Zenock have been very helpful with her too. Sometimes they hold her for a minute while she is crying so I can finish doing what I need too before I feed her. Ayla definitely has a mad cry. If she doesn't get what she wants fast enough she has no problem letting me know she has no patience to wait one. second. more. She passed her birthweight by her first checkup at a week old. She was 6 lbs 8 oz then. We all love our baby!!!!

I want to give a HUGE shout out to my wonderful Mother!!!! She came to stay with us for a week so that Brady could go back to work. I am so glad she could come help me. I could not have survived and followed the doctors orders if she wasn't there. She was a huge help with Gideon and taking Ammon to and from school. She took me out of the house for the first time to get some errands done. We went to Walmart and Costco. Isn't that adventurous? I was just happy to get out of the house. A week without going anywhere except from the parking lot to the doctor's office and from the parking lot to Baskin Robbins is tough. I am still getting used to having 4 kids to cart around when we go somewhere as a family, but thanks to my wonderful husband, it's not so bad.

On that note, I am VERY thankful for my husband. I am thankful we have such a trusting, strong relationship. I am thankful we are often on the same page about a lot of different things. I am thankful he is willing to change our children's diapers and do the grocery shopping. I am also thankful for all the time we have spent researching minivans on the internet together. He was able to purchase a "new to us" minivan on Memorial day without me (since I wasn't feeling up to going anywhere yet). It just happened to be the same day as the 13th anniversary of our first date way back in high school. So technically I got one awesome anniversary present.......but we would have bought a van regardless of the occasion just because it was necessary. Apparently the law doesn't approve of 6 people traveling in a 5 passanger car!! We are all excited to take the van out on its first road trip in 2 weeks to Idaho. Six days with my husband is going to be amazing after he has no days off for 2.5 weeks so that he can take more time off to go to Idaho. I am really excited about having so much space for our stuff. The boys also get to take their bikes, which will be extra fun for them when we get to my parents house. Another reason to go north is to escape the summer heat for a while. It's been over 100* way too much already this summer. Yesterday it was almost 110* and still 105* after the sun went down. I might turn into fried chicken before the summer is over.