Grandma's Book

For Mother's Day I put together this book for my Grandma Marilyn. Everyone in the family contributed the journaling, thoughts and pictures. It was special for me to put it together and think about all of the people who love my Grandma, and what a special person she is. I hope that while she's at the Care Center she's in that she will be able to look at this book and feel of all of our love for her.

(I used this kit as well as this quick album for this project. I created some of the pages myself, and then used some of the quick album pages also.)

11 months old (and 10 months too....oops....)

I have tried to post pictures of Hunter every month on his month 'birthday', but I haven't been totally successful. I realized today that I never posted his 10 month pictures, or what was going on with him at that point. Oops - and my memory is pretty crummy - so hopefully I'll remember what was going on that month....

But on Wednesday Hunter turned 11 months old. WOW! This month he has changed quite a bit and has started being SO active! This kid moves and moves and moves. He crawls (army-style) EVERYWHERE, and as of recently pulls himself up to things. The wall, the furniture, over our bodies if we're sitting or lying down - climbs, climbs, climbs. Specifically he climbs in his crib - pulling himself up. However, he is not quite sure how to get DOWN, and so once he pulls himself up - he screams and screams until we come get him. We're not huge fans of it - but realize that someday he'll figure how to fall down on his own. (and actually yesterday he did it a couple of times and would cheer for himself when he'd do it. So cute!)

Hunter loves clapping, has started waving and kind of saying hi and bye (rough versions of it, occasionally). He also loves to clap when you say "YAY!" and raise his hands up high when you ask, "How big is Hunter? SOOOOO BIG!" He has 2 teeth, and more that are trying their darndest to pop through. He loves showing off those bottom teeth though with a big toothy grin. He also loves biting down on anything and everything he can (including my chin, cheeks, arms, etc).

Just recently Hunter has started to enjoy looking at books, and being less rough with them (to this point he would just EAT them, rip them, etc). He loves to flip through books with flaps, and small board books that are just his size.

As far as eating goes - Hunter will eat any and everything. His favorite flavor is banana. He loves mushed bananas, banana yogurt mushed bananas with cereal, mixed banana juice (at least he'll drink a little - that's more to say than he does with anything else liquid...), bananas mixed with berries, apples, pears, etc, etc. And he will eat any other baby-food too. He loves feeding himself little things - like cereal puffs (specially made for babies), and freeze dried fruits (specifically bananas and strawberries). Most nights he will eat and eat and eat - and we are the ones who have to stop because we think he's eaten too much. You'd never know it by looking at him though - he's still pretty small (around 18 lbs).

Hunter is still nursing. In fact, at the rate he's going - he might be nursing forever. I'm planning to have him weaned in this next month or so....but he's got other plans. He still needs to nurse to fall asleep - so I'm praying that he will find other ways to soothe himself to sleep. I had really hoped to get Gabe's potty-training under control before I started to work on the weaning (because it involves patience, and I don't have a lot of it right now) - so I am hoping that our progress can continue with Gabe's potty training. Wish us luck with this.

But this is our baby at 11 months. Next official update will be at ONE YEAR. YIKES!

(And here are pictures of Hunter last month - when he turned 10 months.)

4th of July

Well since we aren't close to any family (location wise) I always get a little sad on holidays like the 4th of July. I wish I was with everyone in my family having a BBQ, or something fun like that. But this year we were invited to spend part of the day with our friends the Haltermans and their whole family (most of their family lives in the area). We started out the day riding in the parade. The Halterman family own the Polaris dealership in town and so we all rode our rangers in the parade. Then we came home in the afternoon, relaxed, had our favorite bacon cheeseburgers (courtesy of our favorite hamburger joint Brad's Food Hut - YUMMO!) It might have seemed a little weird to BUY our lunch, not BBQ it ourselves, but we enjoyed it. I even took a nap - which happens like maybe 2 times a year.

Then in the evening we went to back to spend time with the Halterman family. They live clear out in the country - it's really quiet and nice out there. In some ways it reminds me of Mama and Papa's area - but more secluded. In their family there are 3 siblings, their spouses, lots of kids, a few cousins, and then Vicky and Randy - the parents (at least that live here, there are a few others out of state). So it was a crowd, but lots of fun. We had a tasty BBQ with kabobs, salads, corn on the cob, desserts etc. Afterwards we did some fireworks, the kids broke a pinata, and we came home. On the way home we got to see the city's fireworks start and drove over to where they were doing them. We were RIGHT there, and enjoyed the show. Hunter slept through the whole thing - we were amazed - it was LOUD and a few of them gave us goosebumps from being so loud!

Gabe spent the 4th of July in Logan with his Grandma Tammy and cousins. It was sad to not have a part of our family with us - we missed him, but know he's having fun with everyone else. I want him to have a great time, but in a selfish way I wanted him here with us. I know he would have loved being in the parade, waving at people and riding the ranger. He would have also loved playing with all the kids at the Halterman's. I guess it's good for me to have moments like this where I miss him - it helps remind me how important family is, and that I want our family to be together for important events. I also want him to have experiences with his cousins and grandparents too...so it was a toss up.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the day. They aren't the best pictures...in fact they ended up pretty lousy. (anyone suggest a fantastic point-and-shoot camera?) Oh well, we'll still remember what fun we had - right?

The latest for The Blind Guy

Well the latest thing in our family is Cory's new shop he's building (or rather - having built). It's in a commercial space in town (as opposed to where his current shop is - in the back-yard). This space will eventually have a showroom, upstairs offices, storage, rental space for our friend's blind cleaning business, workshops for the shutter business Cory's buying and who knows what else. But some of you have asked to see pictures, and although these don't give you much of an idea of the size, or much else - I'm posting them. We'll keep taking pictures as we go. Already things have changed since Cory took these pictures on Wednesday, I think he said they are done framing now.

This is an adventure for us, and the biggest change in our business to this point of owning it (for 4 years). It will change how things are run, as well as hopefully help us to make more connections with customers and things. The space is located close to several similar type businesses (carpet, home technologies, etc) - so we're hoping he can feed off of that business. It will also hopefully help get a space that isn't involved in our house, so we can 'leave work at work'.

Wish us luck!

5 things tag

• 5 Things I was doing 10 years ago:
  
• Working at Mayberries in Orem, UT (a smoothie shop)
  
• Working at some horrible telemarketing job (don't even remember the details of it - other than it stunk.)
  
• Falling in love with Cory
  
• Making plans to move back to Rexburg to be with Cory. We were pretty sure we were wanting to get married, but needed to spend some quality time together.
  
• Spending every chance I got on the phone, or visiting Cory on the weekends.
  

5 Things on my to do list:

• clean my kitchen floor
  
• clean my bathrooms
  
• do my hair and makeup
  
• unload the dishwasher
  
• get my behind off the computer and stop wasting time!
  

5 Favorite snacks/foods:

• DIET DR PEPPER - COLD!
  
• Cashews
  
• Chocolate - but I don't like semi-sweet or dark chocolate. I'm a huge fan of milk chocolate
  
• Chips and salsa from Los Hermanos in Lindon, or Chili's
  
• My new favorite is Rumbi Island Grill. I ate there for the first time this week with my dear friend Jessica and it became an instant favorite! Amazing salad.
  
• Ok - pretty much anything I don't have to cook myself.....especially in the summer time.
  

5 Things I would do if I was a billionaire:

• travel all over the world (visiting family more too)
  
• pay off our house and business debt
  
• buy a house/cabin in Driggs, Idaho and a condo on Maui
  
• Pay for my children's missions and college (and other unfortunate children too)
  
• donate to the church and humanitarian funds
  

5 Bad habits: (I can only list five?)

• not exercising enough
  
• eating too much - specifically emotionally eating
  
• being negative and hard on myself
  
• judging others
  
• I have very little patience
  
• (This list could go on and on and on....see #3)
  

5 Places that I have lived: (most recently)

• Cedar City, UT
  
• Rexburg, ID
  
• Detroit, MI
  
• Spanish Fork, UT
  
• Cleveland, OH
  

scrapbooking

UGH - if I only spent 1/2 as much time actually SCRAPBOOKING as I did searching for cool new scrapbooking goodies - I'd be 100% caught up! But alas - shopping for the stuff is 1/2 the fun! So I thought I'd pass on a few more finds with you all.

Wild Weekend - free kit.



Little Dreamer has 1$ wednesdays - they have something for sale for just 1$ every week. Here's this week's deals:



Cute FREE template - check out her blog:



Cute brag book. I'm still a sucker for anything with Daisies on it. This book looks super summery to me. (and 50% off!)

I love this gal's templates. And she has a 50% off sale right now - so snatch some up!

haircuts and some coveting....

Time was overdue for the boys (and me) to get haircuts. I didn't have time to get mine cut too - but the boys got trimmed up, and look snazzy. I love my boys with short hair. It isn't as much that it's short - as the fact that it's cleaned up. I like short clean cuts around the ears and necks. And I have an appointment to get mine done on Monday too - so I'll be much happier then!

When she got done with Gabe's hair she offered to put colored gel in his hair. He loved the idea at first, but as she was doing it he wasn't so sure - got a bit nervous. But since he's come home he's been showing it off, wanting pictures, and insisting we tell the grandma's that he got his hair cut and that it's blue. Hunter's isn't blue, but it sure is cute!

(Edited to add: There wasn't a lot of it - but the blue stuff was tough to get out of his hair tonight in the tub! It took a LOT of scrubbing!)

Hunter also started waving and saying hi last night. It was so cute! He was at it again this morning, now if I could just get him to do it when I have the camera around....

And lastly - I must admit that I'm coveting one of these little beauties here:


A scooter with a side-car. Pretty awesome huh? And think of all the gas I'd save!