Like Father...like daughter

Yesterday Jeff took Kaylie to teach her to have a love for golf. They went to the FBR open here in Scottsdale and watched the pro's. They saw all the big name players practicing for the tournament this weekend. Chris DiMarco (if you are not a golf fan, one of the top players) and his wife even came up to Jeff and Kaylie to say hello, sign her ticket and tell Jeff she was beautiful. I am sure glad they had a fun time on their first daddy - daughter date.

Here they are watching the players hit at the driving range



Here they are...that is Stuart Applebee in the background


Watching golf makes your mom sleepy too baby girl

Are you sick of this...












Could you use a little more of this...


Maybe a trip to vist us in AZ is in order....you are always welcome, the guest bedroom is ready, and the pool is getting warmer everday!

Fabulous AZ finds

So I know I have been MIA for almost a month....it has been BUSY here....but here I am again. Just wanted to share some of my top new finds since moving here to Arizona.

#1 Shane's Rib Shack....if any of you have had smokehouse in Orem, it is like that only more messy and more delicousousness.

#2 Chick-Fil-a....most of you are probably thinking about that disgusting booth in the mall, but here they are free standing restaurants like a Burger King would be. I could write an entire post about this place. We don't eat Wendy's nuggets anymore. The chicken is so good and stands alone, but then they have a Polynesian sauce and a house sauce that are finger lickin good as well. And they are so tailored to kids here. On Tuesdays they get a free 4 piece meal, fruit cup and juice, they have little sanitizer towelettes to wipe down hands after playing in the play area, and they even give you kids place mats for them to eat off of.

#3 Smoothie King....I know they have these all over, and their smoothies are delicious, but they get a mention for also giving kids free smoothies. One day a week they have parent appreciation day, and if you go in with your kid, they make them a smoothie to, on the house.

#4 Woody's frozen yogurt...we just found this place since the second move, and it is going to be hard to keep ourselves from it... especially since it is only a 5 minute walk from the house. If any of you Wasatchers remember Carolines frozen yogurt at the Tri-Mart, this is what it reminds me of. They have 8 flavors of yogurt at a time, but there are always new flavors to try, andthey charge by the ounce so you can get more or less....more please.

#5 Marshall's Home Goods...this is like the best TJ Maxx you have every seen. The one here is so nice, and it is the size of a Walmart. They carry high quality brands ( I have seen Seven Jeans there for 29.00), but my favortie stuff is in the home section. I could honeslty spend hours, not to mention a lot of money in that store.


Hey, what can I say...I like eating out and I love a bargain.

Please scroll down to the bottom of our blog and pause the music player....you HAVE to hear this. Our little girl knows her dolphins and speaks their language too. To bad she won't be running into any porpoises out here in the desert.

We went home to Utah for week for Christmas and enjoyed every minute of it. It was so fun to watch Kaylie and have her first Christmas. We loved getting to spend time with family and we definitely got our fill of snowy weather. Hope everyone had a merry Christmas too!

All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth!

Number one is up and number two is on it's way. Two front teeth for christmas are certainly in order. I don't think she will be wishing us "merry christmas" however...with or with out teeth, that is just to much for an 8 month old to say

blog problem

I am having this problem when I try to post pictures. Instead of uploading the picture when I am writing the post, it uploads all the computer languge for it. It makes it so I can't arrange picts and text the way I want. Someone please help. what do I do so it shows the picts

Phoenix Zoo

We thought we would try out the zoo, now that Kaylie is a little older and it is finally cooler out here. The zoo is huge,and Kaylie took it all in. She was just about as intrested in all the other kids running around as she was with the animals. You can see in last picture...it was a lot to take in.

At the last minute, we decided it would be best if we just stayed home for Thanksgiving. I was sad we could not spend it with family, but happy that I got to spend it with the two favorite people...Jeff and Kaylie. We did all the traditionals...Jeff played turkey bowl football, kaylie and I watched the parade on TV, we made ourselves a turkey dinner. It even rained, and we all went out for a walk in it after dinner. It was a very low-key, but wonderful day.



Here is Jeff carving up the turkey....he did a good job cooking that bird









Like mother, like daughter...we love turkey!



There are so many things in my life that I am grateful for, but my great husband and sweet girl are at the top of my list.

Garbage or Gold?

Is there someone you know, that it feels everything they touch turns to gold? Well lately I feel that everything I touch turns to garbage. From big things like the house we are renting in Arizona going into foreclosure, to little things like ruining cupcakes that I made with a box mix and everything in between. There used to be a book when I was a kid called " Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." and I feel like I have been living mine own version of this book over and over agian. Ugggh!
Then my new favorite pick me up song plays on pandora and Jeff and I run and dance around the kitchen while Kaylie laughs hysterically at us. Later, on our first cool feels like fall day, Kaylie and I get under a blanket and fall asleep cuddled together in the middle of the afternoon. This is golden...maybe things are turning around.

I just love this picture of Kaylie and her great grandma Wood. It is just captures how truely sweet my grandmother is, and how much she loves each of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Kaylie is 7 months old, and they finally got to met. It was under sad circumstances, my grandfather passed away after a battle with cancer and we went to California for his funeral. We miss him dearly, but know he is in a better place and isn't in pain anymore. I only wish he could have met Kaylie. He would have had so much fun with her. Both my grandparents have been such an example to me in my life and I love them so much.

Our Halloween Fun

We had so much fun this month, and I took so many pictures of our Kaylie that I had to post more. For actual Halloween Kaylie and I went to trunk or treat with the Luke's...we love that you live in AZ too! We had a great time riding a hay ride and seeing all the trick or treaters. My favorite part of Halloween is seeing all the cute kiddy costumes, and there were a ton of kids there. The best part of Halloween was picking Jeff up from the airport though, we have been lonely this week while he was working in Wisconsin.

Happy MC-Halloween!

So it is Halloween in two days, I am am just now getting my decorations out. Mostly because I was using a lot of my stuff to decorate the trunk or treat I already posted about and I didn't want to set it up twice. Also because Halloween just snuck up on me...it is like 95 degrees outside still, so my mind says it is August. I find it premature when I am at the Walmart and there are orange and black and candy everywhere, and then I remember it is October . I guess I have to look to the seasonal aisle rather than the seasons to tell me what time of year it is.
Some of my most favortie halloween things are things I inherited from my mom that we had around the house when I was a kid. The first is chicken mc-nugget trick or treaters. Yes, chicken mc-nuggets....I am pretty certain they were happy meal prizes. The pieces of their costumes come off and can be interchanged. The second are these plastic buckets that I like to use a luminares and line walkway on halloween night. I have 15...that is 5 of each face...one of each for every child in my family. And, if I remember right, a happy meal came inside.
I have these cravings for a simple mcdonald's cheeseburger sometimes...ketchup, mustard, pickles, processed cheese and the thinnest beef pattie . I feel like when I was pregnant, I ate pretty much only .89 c cheeseburgers from mcdonald's the entire month of Nov. Don't judge me, please. If they still came with such awesome prizes I don't think I would have any reason not to eat cheap cheesburgers all October.

Yabba-Dabba-Do!

I hope you can tell who we are ...maybe a famous prehistoric family - the Flinstones? I am actually really proud of these costumes. One reason being that I only spent mabye $10 total on all three, and mostly becuase they did not require me to sew anything. I have this fear of sewing machines...a fear and a complete inability that causes me to avoid them at all cost. Who know you could make three halloween costumes by cutting, gluing and tieing. Wilma's dress is made of three old pillow cases that I cut apart ,Pebbles skirt is tied together, and Fred's shirt is made of peel and stick felt...sooooo easy! We are at our ward's trunk or treat that was on Saturday. I was called to be the activity leader in our ward like the day we moved in soI am so relieved that it is over with, and hooray that it went so well!

Our visit to Utah

Just Kaylie and I flew out to Utah to visit for a few days. Mostly I was missing my family and craving the fall season in Utah. We had a lot of fun, especcially Kaylie. There were so many people for her to play with and my parent's spoiled her course. And you really can't beat Heber in the fall can you? I went a little picture crazy...sorry if there are to many. The picture to the left is Kaylie on our flight. She is becoming pro at this airplane thing. We had a whole row to ourselves on our flight there which made it so easy. The flight home wasn't as wonderful....I finally gave Kaylie and tootsie pop to calm her down. She loved it!

Kaylie and her grandma playing the chase game and Kaylie and Brielle playing...Brielle was curious about Kaylie's hat, and Kaylie was really curious about what is on Brielle's head, (that is hair baby girl, one day you'll have some too.)

A four generation picture and a picture of Kaylie and her grandpa and great grandpa. She was so fascinated by great grandpa daryl's deep loud voice.



Kaylie's cousins take her on a walk to the river. She was loving facing forward in her stroller and I was loving that she got to wear some of her cold weather clothes before she grew out of them.



We tried to take pictures of the Kate and Kaylie together on two occasions. It is amazing how two girls that are a half exact gene match can look so different. And I know... enough of the cute pink hat.

My baby is 6 months old!

I can't believe Kaylie is 6 months old already! She is the light of our lives, and it has been so much fun to watch her as she learns new things and is becoming her own little person. In honor of her half birthday, this post is all about her....aren't most of my post just that anyways.

Top 10 nicknames:

1. "_____ bear". Fill in the blank + bear...angel, littlest, baby, whatever you like.

2. " bear bear". I know this is sort of the same thing as above, but we use this more than even her real name.

3. "sister". No this isn't an announcement! We called crystal, sister when we were growing up, and now I find myself calling Kaylie that. Can also be combined into "sister bear" and yes, we read the Bersteain Bears.

4. "girlfriend" Said like a "sister" would say, and I mean a sister from "the hood" not the kind above...oh I am so suburban it is disgusting.

5. "kaylie schmaylie". I know, creative with the rhyming aren't we.

6. "monster". said with affection.... almost always

7. "pretty girl". Well, isn't she

8. " polywog". given to her by her gramps, because of her love for water. Who knows a polywog better than a "carp".

9. "little piggy." one day a boy she is dating will read this and it will embarrass her. I only bring this one out when she is eating.

10. "kay kay". I am trying harder to not say baby words like "baba" and "doggie", but sometimes this slips out like a baby version of "kaylie".

Top 10 things Kaylie likes:

1. Toby; the dog

2. Sleeping in our bed; we aren't winning this battle, more in another post.

3. Watching t.v.; she is mesmerized by the picture but we don't let her watch it really.

4. Water; pool or bathtub, she take it either way.

5. Peek -a-boo; she like to be the one who is hidden.

6. Ice water in a glass; not to drink, just to hold or put her face against...it really is hot here.

7. Her feet; she like to play with them and eat them.

8. Being tickled

9. Having her ears cleaned; so much so that sometimes I stick my finger in there to calm her down.

10. Rolling over; she just learned this and every time she does it she smiles big and waits for applause.

Top things Kaylie doesn't like:

1. Getting clothes on; I have let her wear her pjs all day on multiple occasions so I wouldn't have to ruin her mood.

2. Sleeping in her own crib; really what are we going to do.

3. Peas; will gag until we stop them coming.

4. 9:00 church; she was so easy at the 1:00 time, now at least one of us is in the lobby with her at all times...we have yet to make it past the sacrament being passed.

5. Sitting in her carseat; except when she is really calm.

6. Bottles or pacifiers; she has done a complete '180 on these compared to when she was first born.

What a Day!

Yesterday was such a great day! First off it almost feels like fall this weekend. I know most of you Utahns are watching the snow fall, so when I say it cooled off I mean it wasnt warm enough to go to the pool. We also didn't have anything planned, so it was a day of looking for fun. Up first, the park. We found it by accident. Kaylie was screaming to get out of her carseat so we just pulled over into the first parking lot. She must have known what she was doing, becuase she loved it! The swings, this frog, the slide.

Then we last minute decided to find some sort of pumpkin patch. I found one on the internet that said something like" pumpkin patch, hay rides, petting zoo, children crafts, food, music..." Sounded pretty good. Well there were eight pumpkins sitting on a hay bale at a full fledged dairy farm. They did have a couple things, and Kaylie didn'y know any better to be dissapointed. It turned into be so much fun just watching her enjoying everthing so much.

This girl takes her pony rides seriously folks

She grabbed everything and wouldn't let go...this pumpkin, the tractor wheel, the horn on the saddle.

I loved this pict...they both had such great expressions

What are you watching?

Have you been watching good t.v? Last week ABC called it National Stay at Home week because of all the season primeres. Thankfully becuase of TiVo, we don't have to stay at home to catch all our favorites, but Monday nights that is where you will find this family. We call it "good t.v. night". We are following Chuck, How I met your Mother, CSI: Miami, the Office and Grey's anatomy. Chuck starts tonight, and it might be our favorite...hilarious. What are you watching?

Our International Traveler!!!

So Kaylie is only 5 months olds, and already traveling internationally. Okay, not really, but we did have a fun road trip this past Saturday. This past weekend, our friends Amy, Preston, and cute Autumn came down from Salt Lake to visit. On Saturday we took a road trip to Nogales Mexico and crossed the border!!! We stayed just long enough to bargain with some of the locals (see the pinata purchased by Preston below), take a few pictures, and that was it.

Kaylie and Autumn are only 3 weeks apart and Kaylie loved having a playmate around the house for the weekend. Whenever she got close enough she tried poking or grabbing her cute friend. Thanks for paying us a visit Jensens...we had fun!

Mesa Temple

We found the mesa temple today. It is actually only like 15 minutes away. It just kind of appears. We are driving through downtown and then there it is. It is pretty in its own sort of way....not palacial like most temples I have seen. It is more like a washington monument meets mexican ruin. Looking at the picture above it kind of reminds me of what a temple might have looked like in ancient times. It was fun to walk around the grounds, obviously with Kaylie we couldn't go inside. It is wonderful though how even just being on the outside of the temple you can feel the spirit.

Top Spot

So we live in Arizona now. Sometimes I forget this, I guess I am still getting used to the change. When I do remember it, I think that it is okay that we do. For those of you that I talk to regularly you may remeber a time when I wasn't okay with the fact that we were going to...live here I mean. There are things that I like about here and there are things that I miss about Utah, but here is home so that is that.

I have been in the process of unpacking our things and everything that goes into movin in. I was unpacking a box that was our office stuff; jeff had packed up the boxes of office stuff and I came across a paper that was from several years ago, on the bottom it said 2005. It was a quiz we took on the internet, from a website www.findyourspot.com. I can kind of remeber doing this and we must of been in our St.George apartment. Anyways the website ask you all sorts of questions about what you like and need in a plave to live and then gives you your top 25 places. Many of you have probally done this and if you haven't it is kinda fun so you should.

Funny stuff... reading our list, mind you it is 3 years old, it says that fountain hills, AZ is our number one place. Fountain hills is about 12 miles north of where we are now. That being the case, we decided we had to visit it this weekend. It is famous for having the largest fountain in the world. It is a very small town (think Heber 15 years ago) and kind of isolated from the rest of the towns by the mountains. It is quaint and pricey and I don't know how it made it to our number one top spot, but it was fun to check it out.

Lucky for us we already live in our number 2 spot...scottsdale, AZ. If only I had known it was our number two spot before we moved...maybe I would dragged my feet a little less.

Happy 29!

Happy birthday Jeff! We hope you are having a great day and want you to know what a great husband and dad you are. We love you soooo much. Thank you for all you do to take care of us. Sorry you have to go to work on your birthday...come home soon so we can celebrate!

Love,

Amy and Kaylie