The Latest and Greatest

Here are some goodies from a short day at Lagoon. We went in on free no-ride passes for Stake Day cause I couldn't really do much, being preg and all, but Jeff and I did get a few rides while Amie played in Laguna Beach. With her cousins, duh!



On the WILD Animal train. I think the most we saw was a camel.



Daddy love.


Us on the Merry-Go-Round. She's had a long day by this point.


What she did the moment we got off the carousel!


Cutie at home!


My poor hand after picking mulberries from the tree in our yard. Only 2 weeks later is the stain gone from my nails! I looked like a mechanic there for awhile. Ew.



Two bad-lighting attempts at showing you my mulberries. I make excellent syrup, if I do say so myself! (Too much work, though. I could never live on a farm.)


These are from the WestFest Parade right down the street. Amie and I went, it was her first parade. She loved it! She loves dancing to music and waving, so of course, she was in heaven! And she was so charming, she got lots of treats handed right to her. I let her eat one of the suckers... You can see the joy it brought her, and the sticky misery it brought me! Too cute, though. We had a blast.







These are from July 3rd. We went to Freedom Fest in Provo with my family. It was hot, and again, no rides for me, but we had a great time! We ate SO much good food (mmm, those donuts,) walked around, hung our as fam (everyone was there but Mal and Jason)and Amelie even got her face painted! I could NOT believe she would sit still for that, but the lady was (self-proclaimed) "weird enough" to keep her mesmerized, and she got her stars and stripes without a hitch. So cute!



She was being naughty. :)



And, finally, a video. Not much that's way exciting, but if you love Amie, you'll like the video. Just a few of the cute things she does in the mornings for me.

Drumroll please...

We're having another baby! Due somewhere around Feb. 17th, but we haven't seen a doctor yet. Amelie and this one will be about 16 mos. apart. It was sooner than we planned, but only by about 2 months. We're psyched!!!

S'mores, Bees Game and Races

Just a few of the fun things our family has done recently.
We went up Millcreek Canyon for Amie's first bonfire. (fire, really)


The view


Hanging out while daddy does all the work.




Playing anywhere she goes!


Look pink to you? That's right-we used strawberry marshmallows. Yum!


The perfect s'more can not be kept off of your face.


Amie's first s'more.


Pure heaven!


Jeff won tickets to the Bees game, it was Amie's first time.


She was so good the whole time! She even started to get the hang of clapping by the end.


We also got free tickets to some races at the oval. Can you believe they're driving around in things this big? (We did NOT take Amelie to that one-she would've died at the noise.)

Promised Amelie Photos

Found the camera! Here are some real cuties of Amie.

Amelie Update

Just some notes on my little beauty's progress. We haven't been to the doctor since last post, but Amie is most definitely heavier than 16 lbs. Her rear-facing car seat now tips to the side when we turn! (fatty) A little scary, but she's not technically big enough for a front-facing yet. She's a great sitter, though, and a fair size, so as soon as we get the car seat from my sister, we're going to move her up. I think she'll like it much better, though, she's quite the observer.
In fact, she's picked up some super-cute habits. The first is waving-when she sees you do it, she will too. She kinda just gives a twist of her hand that ends in the gay-man-flop. It's incredibly adorable and she gives a little smile when she does it. She's been doing that for a few months now. The other is nodding her head-this is my favorite. She can't smile or anything while she does it, she always has an intense look of concentration on her face. Usually, it's one very emphatic nod. I often catch her doing it to herself when no one's specifically interacting with her. It's not perfected, yet, though-many times we've tried to show it off, and it's hit and miss still. Lately, I see her staring in concentration when I stick out my tongue, then she'll reach to her mouth and feel for hers. I can't wait to see her do that!
Amelie has been excruciatingly close to crawling for weeks now, and I think it frustrates her the most. She will get on hands and knees every time you sit her down, and rocks back and forth. She moves backwards, sometimes, too. When she's on a hardwood floor, she'll slide around, but she just won't do it yet. What frustrates me, is that she gets tired of being on her tummy pretty quickly, but when I sit her back up... she just leans right over and gets on hands and knees again.
She's also quite the fan of pulling up on things (especially mom and dad.) She's been doing this for awhile now, too. She only had a few scary moments where she didn't know what to do, but otherwise it's all she does all day! She's not quite cruising yet, either, but she does move herself around from hand grip to hand grip, facing different places. Even though she's practically crawling, Jeff and I both think she'll pretty much skip it with how much she loves standing, etc.
She's really good now at holding her own bottle, grabbing little snacks, and she LOVES every kind of solid food and cup. Don't think it will be any problem weaning her off of the bottle.
That's really about it, though obviously, I could talk all day about her. She's almost 8 months now, and the joy of our lives!

And... I was going to add some adorable pictures of Amie here, but our camera is totally MIA at the moment, so... later?

Lake Tahoe

For Jeff's birthday this year, we took a short trip to Lake Tahoe with some good friends. Here's the highlights!


Meeting at our house at 7 am. Jessica was positive Milo and Marissa would be late. I thought she gave them such a hard time they wouldn't dare. The truth? They had a 5 wk old and a 3 yr old, what do you think happened?


It was such a loooooooooong drive that Amelie found many new occupations. (It ended up being 11 hours there instead of 8.5... we had 2 infants.)


Just chillin' at a little pit stop.


Our gorgeous family at the gorgeous lake! Beautiful weather, but the water was freezing, so we just played and saved the swimming for our condo.


The whole crew. Jeff, Amelie, Nikki, Amos, Jessica, Caleb and Milo, Marissa and Bella.


Poolside fun!


Amie taking a break from splashing around to read by the pool. Rainbow Fish-good read.


Hot tub daddy!


???


There was an excellent walk through the woods right across the street from us. Fun!


First time on Daddy's shoulders!


Fun!


The fam at the condo.


Pretty view on the way home (couldn't get the best shot.) You'll be happy to know it was significantly shorter on the way back.

Of course, our blog has remained quite neglected, so hopefully, I'll be doing lots of little catch-ups here in the next few hours or days. I think I'll start with Memorial Day weekend. We kicked it off with a little lunch at Red Robin. Here's a few winners from the Amie round.



Then, after Jeff got off of his graveyard shift on Saturday morning, we loaded up the car and drove to his family's lakehouse in Delta. He only got to play that day, then drive back home for his next night shift. He didn't even get to swim or anything cause the weather was bad that day. Amelie and I stayed and bunked in a room with Steph and Tanner. I think we all kept each other awake. Sunday, we went to church, then a few went out on the waverunners, but just when it got to me, an INSTANTANEOUS storm popped up and we moved it inside.We watched some movies, played some games, and ate lots of food. The next morning, the weather was better and i got to take Amelie out on the waverunner! She seemed to like the waverunner a lot, but hated when it got really loud (so we went really slow.) And she wasn't the biggest fan of the too-big lifejacket either. Some cute pics though. (She was obsessed with Grandpa Vern.)









On our way back, we had lots of car trouble. Luckily for me, Jeff was at my parents' house, so he was only like 20 minutes away and picked us up. Then we had BBQ at my mom's. Amelie had her first corn on the cob and loved it!!

Um....

This is Jeff. Nikki was determined that I contribute to our blog so here it goes. Not a whole lot has happened since Nikki last wrote. Ami had another Dr. appointment. She now weighs almost 16 pounds. She also has a gigantormungus head. She was in the 91st percentile of head size.(it runs in the family). I've been working days at my job and I freaking love it. I will be switching to nights here in a week or so because we bid for shifts every four months and I don't really have any seniority at the department yet. I've also been going to school. I hate it but I'm almost done so I just grit my teeth and bare it. Nikki is still working with her dad making Chalsa. The stuff is freaking amazing. Every time Nikki brings some home I devour it like I might die without it. Nikki is also doing a great job of taking care of the bug. Ami can sit up without any help now( as in if you sit her up she doesn't usually fall over) and she laughs and smiles allot. She sure does love her daddy. We went on a trip to Midway Utah for my weekend(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and we had a blast. We swam, ate, played games (Nikki beat me at scrabble and I destroyed her at Monopoly, she beat me at skip bo but I beat her at phase 10. The tie breaker was ping pong so needless to say I am the champion). We also went to this crater thing that was actually just a big pile of dirt. It was pretty funny. So that's pretty much it for now we're just tooling along and have a great time.

You got the pictures, now the words.

What have we been up to lately? Nothing too exciting, really. Jeff is finally on his own at work for real. He is loving it, though his shift is sometimes a little boring (I think that's a great thing.) He's working days, but Fri-Mon, with Tues-Thurs off. It's sad having him gone all weekend, and it gets us both really confused on the days. The great thing is that he's home by 4:30 everyday and that he gets to use his lunch break to go to church on Sundays! I'm really proud of him.

Amelie is now almost 18 pounds, yay! She gains like crazy, but still is a bit small (relatively.) She is almost 5.5 months now, and just fitting into her 3-6 mo clothes. She's laughing a ton now, and almost sitting up on her own. She still falls lots. She has been sleeping all the way through the night now, about 4 nights a week. It is amazing!!! As for solid foods, she LOVES them! (I guess solid is a relative term, though, right?) French fries and anything tomato are her favorite... but then, everything that goes in her mouth is her favorite. EXCEPT baby cereal, of course. One thing that I am particularly excited about lately in the Amie arena, is that she just had a cousin be born, AND has 3 friends on the way! Lots of our close friends and family are pregnant, or were, and I love it! It feels very conspicuous being the only one with a new baby.

As for me, I'm pretty much just living life. I'm cooking with my dad, who's starting up a food business, and I catered a 2-day film shoot for my mom. (Perhaps my next endeavor will be culinary school-I can't stop at one thing!) Otherwise, I'm just playing with my daughter and wishing my house was cleaner! Life's good!