for he's a jolly good fellow...

He is finally here. Crystal and Jake had there baby boy Monday, and boy is he a cutie. I can hardly stand not being out in UT to see him and already have big plans to meet him soon. I think the next best thing to having a new baby around your house is having your sister have a new baby around her house. I couldn't be more happy for them. Congrats you guys.




Any resemblance between the cousins?

Samuel

Kate
Kaylie

AWAY FROM HOME

It's never easy leaving a beautiful wife and amazing little girl at home, even if for just a short week. It makes it even harder with Kaylie being at that age where everyday brings something new and exciting. I keep thinking of that commercial where the Dad keeps taking pictures of the stuffed monkey until he gets home. Well, I haven't purchased a stuffed animal (who knows, maybe tomorrow!) but this is my attempt to check in at home and let my girls know how much I love them!!!

In order to get a visual, the picture below (The one above is of Kaylie in my chair at work in Scottsdale)is a picture of the back of the clubhouse here at Oneida Golf and Country Club in Green Bay, Wisconsin.



As you can tell, this isn't exactly the prime time of year to be visiting out here. And as you can see, I'm not out here golfing!!! I am pretty sure the high today did not get above freezing and I heard that Scottsdale was around 85 degrees!!!

Anyway, I just want my precious wife to know how much I love her and miss her. She truely is the greatest wife and mom anyone can ask for. She has done an amazing job raising our gem of a little girl and I am very excited to get back on Friday to see them both.

Love ya tons!!!

More than mom blog.....

I realize that the past few weeks have been even more uber momifed than even they normally are....so for all you readers out there who would like something to read that is more intresting than playgound gossip, check out these blogs...amazing women who somehow seem to have it all, and do it all... well. Plus the images on thier pages are amazing.

www.stephmodo.com

www.designmom.com

www.jordanferney.blogspot.com

www.ohjoyblogs.com

inchmark.squarespace

katiedid.squarespace

Tales of Motherhood

This post is indulgent, but I could not help myself....I am in love with my little gilr today. And since her dada is away from us right now, I thought he might enjoy this post as well. It seems everyday our Kay grows up so much and I wanted to capture the last 24 hours.

1. Kaylie came with me to primary yesterday, where I attempted to play the piano and occupy her simutaneously. She showed me...she know just what to do with pianos and when I would play, she stood on her tip toes and played the keys as well. Then one of the teachers took her and held her while we had music time. They were all sitting in a circle, and I could just see it on her face how delighted she was to be with all the big kids. Every minute or so, she would look over at me to make sure I was still there and then she would giggle when she saw, that I saw, what a big girl she was.

2. We went to the grocery store today where we ran into a girl from our ward. After stopping to say hi and talk for a second, we went our different ways. " See ya later...bye...and kaylie is waving her little bye bye hand without being promted.

3. Kaylie has an stuffed elephant in her bed and when I put her down to sleep I pull his tail and he makes a song. I put her down for her morning nap and she slept for an hour and a half. I was just thinking that she had been asleep a long time when I heard her musical elephant start. I went in to find my girl rocking her stuffed puppy and of course making music from the elephant to help him fall asleep too.

Today it is fun to be mom.

itchy itchy..scratchy, scratchy...

Day one down...ten to go, or so I am told. We were looking forward to a long three day weekend, a celebration of Kaylie's 10 months and valentines. That is until we woke up Friday morning to find a spot covered daughter. Do kids even get chicken pox anymore? I thought since the vaccine was so popular, it wasn't so commonplace. Apparently infants carry their mothers antibodies for chicken pox for around 9 months, but are not eligible for the immunization until 12 months leaving a three months window where they are vulnerable to the virus. And poor miss K. picked it up somewhere just in time. It only furthers my feeling that Arizona is like a second world country at least in some areas and especially when it comes to the healthcare system....another post for another day. In the meantime has anyones kids had the pox, and if so what did you do to soothe them? She is actually handling it quite well, itchy, but not fussy about it...though she is not sleeping well. We did make a stop to the Walgreen's on our way home from the pediatricians to stock up on oatmeal and that pink anti-itch lotion...and of course a princess tea set since we are feeling sorry for ourselves today.

Happy Valentines...

I took some picts of kay for valentines day and added some text with an editing feature...I like the block one especcially, but look at those eyes too!

Drive-In Movies

Jeff and I went to the movies for the first time in 10 months. In pre-Kaylie days we would go and see the latest shows once or twice a month for fun or if for any other reason so we could be in the loop when we taught the high school kids Sunday school, but we are more likely to Redbox it these days. That is untill our recent drive in discovery. This weekend we went and saw "He is just not that into you" and "Seven pounds" at the double feature drive in movies. We put up our beach chairs, filled the back seat of my Rodeo with pillows and blankets and watched the newest releases. At first Kaylie was excited to peek out the window and watch, but when she got tired we just put her to sleep in her make shift bed in the back of the car and didn't have to worry about disturbing the other movie-goers if she woke up or cryed or whatever. It was only $6 for both shows and we could bring our own treats....fabulous!

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