Going on a bear hunt

Jake and I decided to head up to Cedar Breaks a couple Saturdays ago. We wanted to do a little hiking and have a picnic.

When we got up there is was freezing and raining! We decided not to go hiking there, after all!

But I did get a pic before we left:

{Doesn't Emmy look cold?)

Instead, we decided to drive home through Brian Head. As we were heading down Parowan Canyon, we found a little place to stop and explore. It turned out to be a great hiking trail. It had stopped raining so we headed out for an adventure!

{I can never resist taking pics of the beautiful things around me!}

Emmy has a book called "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" and that's what we decided to do - go on our very own bear hunt!

{There was this cute little bridge so that we could cross the river}

Emmy was so excited to find a bear! We kept going and exploring . . .

. . . and luckily we didn't find a bear :)

{These leaves were so cool! And I love that they had water drops on them!}

{Me and my girls! I love Emmy's pose here}

{Kate and her crazy curly hair}

We ended our bear hunt with a picnic on the back of the car. The girls loved it :)

I had big plans to do lots of hiking this summer . . . it didn't happen! But there's still time this year, right? We just need to get a hiking backpack to carry Kate in. Then we will be hiking fools!

TARZAN!

Last week, my brother's wife, Sony, came down with the kids for a few days of fun in the sun! {And dentist appointments with my bro-in-law}

We decided it would be fun to take the kids out to Tuacahn to see Tarzan.

It didn't disappoint!

{The kids before the show - they all match. The girls even have matching hair-do's}

{At Tuacahn before the show}

Sony made these adorable skirts for the girls, just for the show! She is amazing! Of course, I had to make matching flowers for the girls, too - see below for a pic :)

Me and my little peach!

Cats: starring Maddy and Emmy!
Tarzan: starring Ella, Grey and Dylan!

In the show, the monkeys and Tarzan fly over the audience. Emmy LOVED that! She would yell up to whoever was above us and say hi to them. She loved the show so much, she still talks about it and pretends that she's Tarzan and that I'm Kala all the time.


After the show - Emmy wouldn't get down so I had to be in the pic if I wanted Emmy in it - it was past all of our bedtimes so I agreed :)


The flowers that I made to match - aren't they cute?


The next day we decided to go to the lake. Do you think we have enough people on the tube???


The girls! Me, Linds and Sony {and Kate, of course!}

We {LOVE} spending time with the family and especially love it when they come to visit! And I love that we live so close to so many awesome things, like Tuacahn and the Utah Shakespearean Festival. There are a couple of shows I want to see at the Festival - I better hurry before it's too late!


P.S. Watch a great video on parenting HERE

P.P.S. Tonight, after Emmy went to bed, she started coughing. I went in there to check on her and she told me that her "throat was gonna come out". I love all the things that come out of her mouth. I have the BEST video to show of Emmy singing if I can ever get it to download. I've tried a few times and it never works. Maybe it's too big??? Not sure . . .

The lake, a parade, and other randomness!

WOW! This summer has seriously flown by. We have had so much fun this summer! One things I haven't been doing so much is blogging. Can you tell?

But I can't fall too far behind because I plan on printing my blog into a book and I need to make sure I add everything that I want to remember!

One highlight of the summer is that Grammy and Papa got a new boat! We call it the Bumble Bee because it is yellow. We love it!

Here are some pics from some of our boating expeditions:

Man, how I love this girl!!!

Kate LOVES being on the boat. And not only on the boat, but on the tube! She was smiling the whole time she was on there! And when we went to the lake this week, I took her out again on the tube and she was laughing and grinning from ear to ear.

Loving life on the water!

Man, how I love this girl, too!
She gets serious wind-blown boat hair. I love it!

Jake broke out the old wake board and had a blast . . .

. . . until he totally ate it! Gotta love getting pictures at the perfect moment - I just wish I could have gotten his face . . .

On the 24th of July, we went to our annual ward breakfast at 6:45 - yeah right, we weren't there that early! Our kids don't know what 6:45 am means. They speak the language of 8:00 or 8:30! But we were there by 7:15, I promise . . .

After breakfast, we headed down the block for the parade on Main Street. We live in Festival City USA, which means we have parades ALL the time!

We had our niece, Ellie, for the weekend and Emmy had a blast with her! And Ellie is such a sweetie, it was fun having her with us!

Ellie, Emmy and Skye enjoying the parade from the princess and Dora chairs

Emmy and Skye were totally getting down! Skye had some serious dance moves!

We pulled out the pool and Emmy and Ellie had fun in the ice-cold water

They would take turns jumping and making big splashes

Sweet Kate!

At the Green Show at the Utah Shakespearean Festival

A few weeks ago we went up to the Chili Cook-Off at Duck Creek Village. It was fun, there were a ton of booths and lots of chili! Emmy and Ella got their faces painted. Emmy decided on a HUGE dragon that covered one whole side of her face. She looked so cute!

We cooled off that afternoon at the park. There is a little creek that runs through one of the parks in town and the girls love to go and play in it.

Kate playing in the creek

Emmy's beautiful dragon. She named it Moo-Shoo.

Notice the rock in Kate's hand? She was probably eating it right before I took this picture . . .

I have more things to blog about, but for now I am going to eat some zucchini bread and probably watch some tv :)

I Straightened Emmy's Hair!

I finally tried it - I straightened Emmy's hair! Doesn't it look beautiful?

The only downer? When she woke up this morning . . . it was curly!!! All my hard work gone!

I guess we'll stick to the curls from now on.

P.S. Go HERE for a fabulous giveaway for a Silhouette cutter!

Kate Isabella {1 Year Pictures & Update}

Here are Kate's stats from her 1 year well check:

{Weight} : 23 lbs 7 oz (88th percentile)
{Height} : 32 1/2 inches (Off the charts! She was above 100th percentile!)

She is SO tall! Everyone comments on how tall she is and the fact that she's off the charts in height just proves that.


Here is what Kate has been up to lately:

- She started walking! She takes a few steps here and there when she gets brave enough. And she L.O.V.E.S holding our hand and walking. Really just a finger will do. Anything to make her feel safe and secure while she walks. She doesn't need us to balance, just to feel safe. She'll be walking all the time on her own so soon. I can't believe how fast she's growing up!

- She's learning new words every day! Here is a list of the words she can say:
*Uh-oh

*Mama
*Dada
*Papa
*Bye Bye
*Yeah!
*Hi
*Cah Cah

- She knows a couple animal sounds - "Quack Quack" and "Woof Woof"

- She can point to her head, ears, nose, tongue and when you ask her if she wants to wash her hands, she starts rubbing them together, like she's washing her hands!

- She LOVES getting into EVERYTHING! She especially loves the garbage can (I'm always finding her with half-eaten tissues and used dental floss in her mouth {SO gross, I know!} so garbage cans have had to go up high so she can't get to them), toilet paper roll, Emmy's play food in her fridge and the books on Emmy's bookshelf. Pretty much anything that will make a big mess.

- She has {11} teeth. Almost 12! Her last molar is about to break through. Those molars are no fun.

- She loves to eat strawberries {her favorite!}, blueberries, applesauce and yogurt. She's a pretty good eater, she'll try anything, but getting her to keep eating is a challenge. She'll eat a few bites of anything, but then she starts chucking it all on the floor. What can I say, she likes to make lots of messes!

- I am in the Primary Presidency and Jake is in the Elder's Quorum Presidency, so we juggle her around between the two of us at church, which is hard right now since she always wants to hold our hand and walk. A Nursery worker volunteered to take her to Nursery and she loved it! Maybe they'll take her more often :)

We did a {photo shoot} for Kate for her One Year Pictures.

My dad and I both like photography, and between the two of us I think we got some pretty good shots. Of course, when you've got a subject as cute as Kate, it's not hard to get some good pictures. I'm still figuring out Photoshop (Photoshop Elements is so much easier for me to use! Anyone have any Photoshop advice?) so the editing on the pics isn't great, but like I said, Kate is cute so the pictures are great!

Binga Bows Giveaway!

I am doing a fun giveaway over on my Binga Bows blog!

You can see my blog for the details, but here is what I am giving away:

and



Hurry over and enter! This one is for ALL women!

P.S. See below for my post on Jackson Hole!

Jackson Hole, WY!

YEE-HAW!

We had a WONDERFUL family reunion with my family in Jackson Hole, WY last month.

It was a serious blast! How could it not be? We were in one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is one of my favorite places ever.

WARNING: This post has a lot of pictures. I was watching a movie while I was downloading them, so I didn't realize how many I was downloading. I would normally split it up into two or three posts, but I wasn't going to download all of the pictures again, so hang in there!

The first night there, we got to our condo (a three-story, five-bedroom condo. We all got to stay together! It was so much fun), cleaned up a little and headed off to town. Grammy bought all the grand kids cowboy boots and we each bought our kids cowboy hats. Can't be in Jackson Hole without your boots and hat!

Then it was off to the Bar J Chuckwagon for dinner. We ate an authentic cowboy meal and got to watch the Bar J Wranglers sing and perform. The kids absolutely loved it.

The girls (don't judge - we had traveled all day so my hair looks less than fabulous, even though I was hiding it under a hat).

Emmy and Grammy

The fam

The boys

Grey and Emmy were totally dancing and enjoying the music!

Can I tell you how much I LOVE this picture? Emmy was getting down and I happened to take this pic at just the right moment!

My dad took this pic. Isn't it beautiful?

The next day, Friday, we went to the Alpine Slide, something we do every time we go to Jackson. Emmy wanted to go down the slide with me! She usually picks Jake for this kind of thing, so I felt special and it was fun to go down with her.

The ride up to the slide. I have such a handsome husband and such beautiful daughters! (I can't leave Kate out of that statement!)

On the way down, Jake caught up with Sony and Maddy. Sony said that Maddy kept pulling on the brake, so they had a slow ride down!

Emmy had so much fun going down the slide! She was laughing and singing the whole way down!

The kids in front of the condo (minus Grey and Kate) with the Tetons in the background

My brother brought his VW Vanagon and the kids all loved riding in it! The back seats face each other (see Grey's feet in above pic) and there is a table that pops up in between the seats. The kids had so much fun riding together in Uncle Matt's Vanagon!

Friday afternoon we went to downtown Jackson. It is full of lots of shops - it looks like an old western town. And there is this park in the center with the famous Antler Arches! So we had to get a family picture in front of one of the arches.

We all went on a carriage ride. The kids and uncle Matt sat on top and the rest of us sat inside the coach.

On Saturday we went to Yellowstone. We started at the Hot Pots (is that what they are officially called? That's what I always call them). It was SO cold! We didn't spend too much time there, but it is always a cool place to stop.

Then it was off to Old Faithful! How can you go to Yellowstone without going to Old Faithful?

We got there right after Old Faithful went off so we had an hour and a half to wait before it would go off again. So we went into the lodge and ate ice cream and hot chocolate!

The kids had fun watching the mist from the geyser and watching all the chipmunks run around. that night we sent our parents to see "Annie Get Your Gun" in town as a thank you for such a wonderful trip. The rest of us played games and relaxed at the condo.

Sunday was our last day in Jackson. Our condo was in Teton Village and they have a corral there where we usually take the kids horseback riding. This was Emmy and Kate's first time horseback riding!

Kate loved the horses!

Linds, me and Sony

Matt and his family, Jake, Derek and Dylan all left after horseback riding. These were the girls that were left! Plus Dawson, but I think he was taking a nap during this picture. We relaxed and went back into town for one last walk around town. We were going to go to church but we couldn't ever find out what time it started. When we did find out, it was too late and we had missed it!

The ride home was definitely an adventure! It was me, my sister, the two babies, Emmy and Ella. Our 9 hour ride took at least 11 hours. But we did take a detour to the Cheesecake Factory (why not???) and the mall :)

We had such a GREAT trip and can't wait to do it again! Thanks, mom and dad!