Funny Face

So, this is Jaycee's "It's just too bright out here!" face. She does it ALL the time even if it's really not bright, and there is no sun out. So I thought I should capture it on camera, and this is the best I could get.

Jaycee is 9 Months Old!!!

Wow! I cannot believe how fast time flies! Jaycee is 9 months old as of Feb. 6, 2009, and she is getting so big! She went to the doctor for her check up today, so here are her stats: 27.2 inches tall (35%) 17.9 lbs (25%) head is 17 cm (25%) Some fun things she has learned to do:

• Crawl...finally!
• Says, "dada" & "mama" & sometimes "ba" (ball)
• "Cruise" (what they do when they pull themselves up on things and walk around the room holding onto things). This she does ALL the time, even onto things we would rather her not pull herself up on.
• Jibber Jabber ALL the time (one of these days I will catch it on video, it is the cutest little voice you've ever heard).
• Will fall asleep all by herself in her own bed! She actually prefers this and will not fall asleep for us in our arms when we are other places, like church, etc.
• She finally has her 2 bottom teeth (they came in within like 2 days of turning 9 months old), I think her top ones are working their way through soon too.
• She dances to music, but differently than she did before...now it is by shaking her head "no." It's pretty cute!
• She has tasted real food, not just her baby food, although that is still her main nutrition. And she can feed herself her snacks, she does still struggle sometimes, but loves it when she can.
• She is finally getting a little hair on top. It looks like it'll be blond w/ possibly a little bit of her daddy's curl. Yay! :)
• She is still our little daredevil, also.....she likes to climb as high as she can on one of her toys, that is VERY dangerous, but refuses to stop even though we tell her not to, AND she has fallen from doing so!

She will be getting her pictures taken soon, by Aunt Natalie, so those will be posted as soon as we get them!

Bowling & Baptisms

So, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009 we were able to go down to Spanish Fork and spend the day with some of Ryan's family. His two youngest cousins were baptized, but not at the same time. Briley's was in the morning (and it was her birthday that day) and Blaine's was in the evening. So in between, we all went bowling to pass the time. It was a lot of fun to spend time with them all! They all loved Jaycee as you will see in the pictures, but that's not hard to do! :) We were very glad to be able to spend that day with Briley and Blaine, and we are very proud of them for making that decision. Congratulations, you two!

Just standing around playing with Jaycee!

Jaycee with Ryan's Aunt KarenKayden, Ryan & Grandma watching their teammate bowl while eating pizza.

Lovely Ryan!

Cute Jaycee with McKinley

Waiting our turn...Me, Ryan's Uncle Dave, & his Aunt Karen

Grandpa, Jaycee & McKinley...none of them bowled, so they were able to keep an eye on Jaycee for us!

Jaycee & Ryan's Aunt Lisa. Jaycee was sooooo tired at the beginning of the bowling, but would not go to sleep in anyone's arms, because she would rather fall asleep on her own in her bed. But eventually she got tired enough, that she finally fell asleep, and Lisa LOVED that it was on her shoulder!

Now it was Grandma's turn.

Briley (the birthday girl!), Grandma, and sleeping Jaycee!

Playing w/ Grizz

Jaycee was playing with Grizz so cute, she would even jump a little and laugh when he'd bark at her, but I didn't get that one on video, darn! I thought it was cute, so I thought I'd share it with you...

Unfortunately, a week or so after this, Grizzly Bear was lost. :( He was 12 years old, and we had him since he was 2 weeks old. He was a good dog, although some of you never thought he really was a dog. He could do many tricks in his younger years, like roll over, speak, shake, play dead, etc. He loved everyone, and he will be missed. Mostly by Mom, but he will be missed by others also.

SO BIG!!!!

So, pretty much over night, Jaycee started crawling, and standing herself up on things. She has been able to get herself around the room while sitting and maneuvering herself around, but she hasn't actually crawled more than like two steps at a time until this morning! :) She did however have a cute crawl sort of thing the other night when she knew her daddy was coming to get her, she started darting toward him and went about 4 or 5 steps, but we couldn't get that on video because she didn't quite know how she did it, and when we tried to get her to, she would just sit there.

When I saw her crawling this morning, I wondered if she'd do it when I tried to get her to, and she did! So of course I had to show her off to both her grandmas and her daddy when he got home! It's somewhat of a funny crawl, but it works and it's so darn cute! :) It sort of reminds me of a monkey! What do you think?!?!

It's amazing to me how much she can basically teach herself! She is getting so big!

And So it begins....

Little Miss Ariel Kayani turned 1 year old today!!! They had a party for her and it was lots of fun! I can't believe how big she is getting. She walks around, is a very huggy girl, and is kinda shy. She had lots of family, who love her very much, there to celebrate with her.

Here is her cute cake made by her mommy!

Posing with her cake.

She was fascinated with the fire, and ALMOST grabbed it! eek!

Eating her first piece of cake, and loving it! :)

She loved it so much, she had to lick it off her fingers!

Here are the 4 stages of the first year of life.....Aubree is still relying on everyone else to hold her up, she lays really well on her own; she is 3 months old! Sierra can sit up on her own, but sometimes tumbles over still; she is 5 1/2 months old! Jaycee is learning to crawl, makes all the movements except for the actual crawl; she is 8 1/2 months old! Kayani walks all over the place; she is 1 year old! It's kinda fun to see the different stages, and how different they really are, when once they pass about 18 months, they'll all be at the same stage from then on! :) The video kind of demonstrates the stages also.

Aubree is such a smiley little girl, I LOVE IT!!!! She'll smile at anyone, at anytime, she is truly a happy happy baby!Jaycee posing as if she really knows how to crawl. ;)Almost all the grand kids with Grandma. Unfortunately Talon made some bad decisions, so he was not in the picture. But I love how this shows all their personalities...Owen being an absolute goofball; Ethan just posing all cute like; Kayani getting into whatever she can; Jaycee trying to stand on her own and NOT looking at the camera; Sierra looking down at Ethan cause she has to watch everything; & Aubree just chilling but also observing everything!

It was a wonderful day being together, having breakfast, and letting the kids play together!

Pretty Toes!!!

So, I painted Jaycee's toe nails for the first time! They are pretty cute! :) It was so fun too! She was really good while doing it, even though she has always been and always will be a kicker, she did really well holding still. She wanted the fingernail polish, so I gave her another bottle I wasn't using and that kept her busy enough that she didn't grab at the one I was using, so it turned out fine. I painted mine also. So here are some pictures of our pretty nails! :)

Her toe nails are so tiny, but it still wasn't too hard to paint them.This is kind of a funny picture, but she is showing off her nails so I thought it would work!These are just to show you that she is constantly moving and won't even take the time to pose for a picture anymore. We can't leave her alone on a couch or chair because she loves to scoot right to the edge and look over it! OH BOY!!!This one is just to show that she is finally getting some hair. Sometimes we put gel in it and it looks pretty cute. I can't wait till it's long enough to actually do stuff with it! :)

Basketball Party

So, for Ryan's birthday, we didn't get together with anyone until today. We had all our family and some friends come over to our church and play some basketball games. The boys played a couple of real games while the children and ladies played in the corner with the five little girls who are all in such different stages of life right now! It's pretty fun to see!

There's Kayani, who will be one in one week...she is petite but walking all over the place and doing pretty much everything on her own. Then Brooklyn, who is 9 months...she has always been the bigger of them all, and has been making crawling motions for about 2 months now, and just barely learned to crawl, but will walk all over the place if you're holding her hands, and she takes giant steps. Jaycee is next and she's 8 1/2 months...she is also pretty petite. She can get on her hands and knees, but then she just moves backwards. So she moves around on her bum instead. She did just barely start getting up on her feet instead of her knees and it helps her to go forward. She also loves to find things to pull herself up on to stand, and can stand on her own for at least 10 seconds, but then she gets nervous and either dives on you if you're close, or plops on her bum. :) Next is Sierra, who is 5 1/2 months...she can sit up if she has a little help just behind her, but not quite on her own yet. Last, but not least, Aubree, who is 3 months old...she is still so little that she just sits there with her big, cute cheeks and stares and smiles at everyone and everything! :)Such fun little girls!

Anyway, most of us were all able to play a round of lightning, the long version, so it lasted quite a while. But in the end, Cody won, it was a pretty fun game with 13 people playing. It's fun when it lasts so long, and to have small wars and big ones! :) We had slidey pie for dessert and then were able to get home in time for me to get to work!

Happy Birthday Old Old Man!!!!

Today was Ryan's birthday and he turned 25 years old! A quarter of a century old, phew that's an OLD man! :) Even though he's old, we still love him very very much and are so grateful he is a part of our lives today! We are so blessed to have him as a father and husband. He is a wonderful, caring and loving person and we couldn't ask for a better priesthood holder in our home! Thank you for all you do for us, Honey!

Sunday was his birthday dinner at his mom's, she made him chicken fried steak, potatoes, corn, and baked beans, and it was all yummy! Here are some pictures of him with his ice cream cake and one of his presents, which is a bacon crisper. He'll use that many, many times! He LOVES bacon!

Today we didn't have any sort of party, the three of us just hung out and went to dinner at The Training Table. Here is him opening his presents...First I gave Jaycee the present she got for him, and told her to give it him, and this is how she reacted. She must not have wanted to give it up! :)

She finally decided to give it to him, but notice the wrapping paper....princess paper. Jaycee picked it, and it's basically the only one we had other than Christmas paper, but I thought it would still be fine. :)So, this is what my Mom, Misti and I got him. The golf bag he's been wanting ever since he started working at Eagle Lake Golf Course almost a year ago. It is a REALLY funny story behind it all, but it's super long too. Just know that Ryan had NO IDEA he was getting it, but was planning on getting it for himself with his Christmas and Birthday money. And actually almost bought it before I did, and ruined the whole thing! It was quite frustrating, but in the end, I won, and got it for him without him knowing and him thinking it was already sold and could no longer buy it, so he was a little sad about it. Anyway, I surprised him with it and this is how he reacted! It was a GREAT surprise, and he was totally shocked! It worked out perfect! I'm so glad he is so happy about it!The whole view of it. Don't you like the green color? I think it's pretty great!Not a birthday cake, an apple crisp sort of thing, and the candles look a little sad, but it still tasted good!

Jaycee also turned 8 months old today! She is getting SOOOOOOO big, it's so fun to watch her grow and develop. She's been experimenting with the crawling motions, so it'll be any day now! Which is actually kind of exciting! I know most people don't want their kids to crawl because then they can get into more mischief, but I just think she'll be so much happier being able to do things on her own, it'll be fun. She also pulls herself up on things ALL the time, now. And if you stand her up, she'll stand for a few seconds, but sometimes she shakes a little from nerves I think. She'll either dive forward onto you when she's done standing, or she'll plop down on her little bummy! It is such a fun ride having her in our lives! I personally am so very grateful for both my wonderful husband and my beautiful little girl in my life! I don't know what I would do or where I would be without them! They are two of the best things that ever happened to me!!!! I LOVE YOU BOTH TONS & TONS!!!

Happy New Year!!!

We went to my Mom's for New Year's Eve and played lots of fun games. Misti had some friends over, but the rest was family.

Misti and her friends were downstairs when the New Year came, so we all bombarded them with silly string at midnight! It was pretty fun! :)

Us at Midnight

Mom and Mary's first picture in 2009!

This is how Jaycee spent the new year.....sleeping!

After the silly string mess, they came upstairs to play their games.

Our first family picture in 2009 after Jaycee woke up! She liked to put the noise horn in her mouth, but obviously didn't know how to blow, so it looks like she was!

She liked the noise makers and kept shaking them back and forth, actually making them ring! It was pretty cute!