Family Pictures

We got our family pictures back. YEAH! My sister, Jennie, came into town the beginning of June. We took the opportunity to get family pictures taken. Seriously, the last time our family had nice pictures that didn't involve wedding attire was before my mission. You don't want to know how long ago that was...if you do know how long ago that was, let's keep that a little secret, eh? I like people to think I am younger than I really am!

We went to the ampitheater across from Timpanogos Temple. There was a concert (oops) so we couldn't really go into the ampitheater, but there was a beautiful lawn surrounded by green bushes and trees that we used.

Sidenote: Maria is an amazing photographer. You can check out her site here.

Here are some of my favorites!

Can you believe how big this little guy is getting?!?

This is my sister, Jennie's family.

This is my brother...yes, he was spoiled being the only boy AND the youngest!

Papa (Grandpa) seems to be a magnent for the grandkids to pile on top of.

My sister Beth.

This is my sister Amy and her family.

My cute little family. I LOVE this picture!

Again, with my family...

I love this picture too!

Mi mama & papa (Ai nohno oh pahpa)

Here are a few of us all together. We sure have grown from the family of 7!

The sibs. My dad always said he wasn't going to fill up his

backyard with girls to get his boy...but...he loves everyone

of us girls!

Look What E Learned!

It is official...my baby is growing up.

E has been crawling for about a month now. He has been fascinated by the stairs in our home (which, by the way are steep, narrow stairs,) and it has worried me.

Saturday, we stopped by to visit with Grandpa Jack. We were sitting on the back lawn/porch, chatting, and eating a few strawberries. Sidenote: Grandpa Jack's strawberries are WAY better than store bought and E LOVED them! Anyway, E was crawling around and used one of Grandpa's stairs to pull himself of to standing. This is what followed:Yep, once he tried, those stairs were easy for him! Shoot, now I really have to watch him inside the house to keep him away from our stairs until he learns to go down.

You can't visit Grandpa Jack without getting a picture with him! Aren't they a cute pair?Saturday, E went to the Freedom Festival Baby contest. By the time I got him judged, E was tired, rubbing his eyes and not as happy as he normally is. While he smiled at the judges and didn't have a meltdown, he didn't laugh at them, as he is known to do. That is ok, I know my little guy is a cutie and he has a smile to melt your heart. Here are some pictures from the event.
Lately, E has decided to be independent. That includes feeding himself. Most of the time, I can trick him into thinking he is feeding himself while I help out. Others, I am not so lucky. The picture below is when I was mostly lucky and E didn't insist on feeding himself until there was not much left. It resulted in him not being as messy.Yesterday was Father's Day. I just have to say that I am lucky my little guy has such an AMAZING dad. E loves his daddy! Sometimes, I think Mike is E's favorite. Occasionally, I may get a teensy bit jealous that E saves his biggest smiles and laughs for his daddy, but that jealousy goes away quickly when I realize how lucky I am they are such buddies. Yep, I am pretty sure that E is going to be following his daddy around everywhere and then I am going to have two power tool junkies on my hands. Oh, what is a girl to do?

Thanks Mike for being such an amazing, awesome, spectacular dad!

Does this fit?

Does this not fit the wonderful weather we have been having so far into June?

Camera Cord

I have found the camera cord! (YEAH!!) Now you will inundated with adorable pictures of a cute little guy.

E loves bath time. Anywhere he is in the house, when he hears the
bath start running, he comes a-crawlin'. He loves playing with his
bath letters. We have discovered they stick to him when he is wet...

E also loves his little red whale. It is always one of the first
toys he grabs in the bath. Hmmm....the red letters are the second
thing he goes for...maybe it is the color red?

This is the picture of all cute baby pictures. It is one of my
favorite pics.

E LOVES his grandpa. Mike & his grandpa are able to get
the biggest laughs out of E. I wish I had gotten a picture
of the kiss that E gave his grandpa, along with the long
drool line connecting them afterwards!

If you want to get a laugh, toss E up in the air. It is 100% guaranteed.

E does NOT like grass. Occasionally we can trick him and if
he sees something he is very interested in, he will crawl over the grass
to get to it. On Sunday, we visited graves. At the first one, I put him
down on the grass. This is how he sat until his little abs couldn't
take the workout any longer. It was a good couple of minutes.

Now that E is crawling, he loves to get into things I didn't have to
worry about before. He especially loves getting into the baby food
we keep in his closet. He tries to eat them.

Sometimes, it is really fun to just let E go when we feed him.
It is also generally easier if he is distracted and thinking he
is feeding himself to get him to eat. He is definitely asserting his
independence early. You might not want to kiss this messy face,
but can you deny the cuteness of it?

I love sleeping babies. There is something so innocent and sweet
about watching them sleep.

Do you remember the post where I talked about E eating different things?
This is the picture of the clementine orange he ate. He loved it!

Daddy likes to give E different things to eat. E likes it when daddy gives him
different things to eat. E really loves it when daddy gives him Oreos.

I may be biased, but I think I definitely have a cutie on my hands!

My New Life

Is there no greater message than this?

My New Life

Blessings

I have always known about tithing, paying 10% to the Lord. Growing up, this wasn't a hard concept for me. The Lord gave you everything, so why should it be hard to return 10% to Him? While I have known this, I haven't always been the most faithful in paying my tithes. There have been a few years here and there that I let myself falter.

The last 2 years, I have had the blessings of paying our tithing paid out. These last two winters, Mike has been laid off. Last year, I had mostly quit my job to student teach. That left neither of us really working. I have never been so poor in my life. It was scary. But we made an effort to pay our tithing faithfully. It amazed me that even though we didn't have any extra, we had enough money to meet our basic needs and my parents were able to help us out in other areas.

This year, I was working while Mike wasn't. We were blessed to not need to rely on family to help us through this winter. Again, things were very tight, but we had enough for what we needed. It always seemed that if something came up, such as having no food in the house, or needing a bigger car seat for our fast growing boy, something happened. I got a bonus at work that paid for the car seat we needed and helped us stock up on some much needed food supplies.

We have truly been blessed and taken care of. It would seem that our needs have been met at every turn. I will admit it is hard to write out that check for tithing when in the back of your mind you are thinking of things your family needs. These are not wants, but needs. Yet, the check is written and paid, and the needs are met. How can you deny the hand of the Lord in that? He blesses those who do as he asks.

We were blessed again last night. Between E being born, my prenatal care, and having no insurance this winter, we have racked up quite the bill at the doctor's office. We have been lucky to have my mom be the billing supervisor at this office, and while we have been slowly but surely (ever so slowly it seemed) paying off this bill, it seemed to always grow with needing to go in for this or that. Yesterday, our doctor was talking to my mom, asking us how we have been. She told him we have been fine. He asked if Mike was back to work.

"Yes, but he doesn't generally work if it rains, and it has been raining quite a bit lately."

He then asked how our bill was doing.

"Well, they are paying it off, slowly, but they are working on it."

The doctor than looked at my mom and said, "Why don't you just make their bill disappear."

Words cannot even express the gratitude we feel. While we have been able to pay a little towards it each month, it sometimes seemed like it would never be paid off. This is another blessing, that I feel, is directly related to us doing as the Lord asks us. The next time I am asked if it is worth it to pay tithing, I can honestly respond, Is it worth it to not pay?

What?!?

I know babies like to eat everything. I am learning just how true this is. In the past weeks, I have caught E eating; paper, dirt, cinderblocks, dog bone, whole clementines.

The paper is normal. Who hasn't heard of a baby that doesn't like to crinkle, crumple, and taste paper? We are learning that we have got to place all paper up higher than we think E can reach, and since E is learning to pull himself up, this is getting higher and higher every day.

The dirt, I guess that could be considered normal also, especially if you spend a lot of time outdoors or have plants in your house. E isn't quite crawling yet, but he has definitely learned to get around. I put him down the other day, he is playing quietly. Next thing I know, he has moved 3-4 feet to our plant and is eating the dirt out of it. The plant is now on a chair, where the dirt will hopefully be safely out of reach for the next little bit.

Cinderblocks. This is a new one. I have never heard of any baby eating a cinderblock. Maybe E is sharpening his teeth? When Mike and I put a loveseat upstairs, we had to cut the legs off to get it through the tight spaces. Even then, it was difficult to get up the stairs. Once up, because it didn't have legs, Mike felt it was too low to the ground and put the loveseat up on cinderblocks to raise it up. Yesterday, Mike and I were up watching a show. E was squirmy and kept wanting down, so I put him down on the floor. He entertained himself and then all of a sudden, I heard a scraping sound. What the...? I look down and E is trying to bite the cinderblock! By the time a got him, I think he managed 3-4 tries. Hope it tasted good.
When I am doing anything, I generally put E on his floor in his bedroom to play with his toys. Well, this also happens to be where Jake takes his rawhide bones to chew. Don't ask my why he loves to be in E's room. A couple of weeks ago, E was playing and every 5-10 minutes, I would check on him and he would be happily playing with his blocks. Well, one time, I walked in and E is happily chewing on Jake's rawhide. DISGUSTING! I snatched the bone away and threw it away. I didn't even give Jake a chance to take his bone anywhere else. I guess E is just doing his best to build a strong immune system in his first year.

Clementine oranges happen to be everywhere right now. I splurged the other day and bought some (mostly a splurge because Mike doesn't generally eat any of this yummy food I buy, so if I buy it, it is for me, and lately E.) I had been taking sections of the clementines and cutting them up and giving them to E. He thoroughly enjoys them. Well, on Saturday, Mike gave E a whole clementine to play with. He didn't think that E would break into it. Well, he did. It is a good thing he was sitting on the wood floor and not the carpet. This is the result:

(Note: I was going to post pictures of the clementine that E demolished, but I cannot find my camera cord. Pictures will come soon. Hopefully.)

(Note 2: I always thought, "How can you lose your camera cord?" whenever somebody posted that they couldn't post pictures because they had...now I understand.)

(Note 3: If I don't post the pictures of the clementine, please remind me, cause they are just too cute.)