Milestones

Kamryn is now 6 1/2 months! 

She likes to taste what we are eating and drink from our cups.  She'll eat just about anything!  She still has a hard time with chunky things, but if it's mashed up well enough she'll eat it!  She loves her green veggies!

She has now started rolling onto her tummy to sleep.  And she loves to have things to cuddle with.. hence the blanket and stuffed animals in her bed!  She just loves them!

Her first Popsicle!  It was a very messy ordeal but she sure loved it!  Today she also tasted her first french fry!!!   

I can lay her on the floor and she will roll to get to the things she wants.  She hasn't mastered it yet and will sometimes roll the wrong way, but has started catching herself going the wrong way and then she goes the other way!  Way cute to watch her little mind think!

She is an official sitter!!  She can sit on her own for a really long time, play with toys, watch the kids, see things differently.. she only tips over if a toy is too far away and she is reaching for it or if she gets pushed by an older sibling! =)  Also sometimes she will have been sitting for a while and she will cry because she doesn't know how to lay down and she is tired of sitting!

The hair on the top part of her head is so long!!!  It is fun to put little clips or pony tails or bows in!

And this is what happens if I don't put a clip or something in!

Last week she got her FIRST TOOTH!  She is getting to be such a big girl and she is still so happy and such a joy to have in our home!!  I think she is always smiling!  However, she has become quite the mommas girl and I end up carrying her around in the above shown sling and I love it!!  I love having her close to me!  I love that she loves me so much!  Ya.. it's a little annoying when I want to leave her with a babysitter (or even Nik) and she cries the whole time, or if I want to put her down so I can get dinner ready and she wants to be held, but it's not going to last forever and I'm just loving it that she loves me so much!  She is very calming for me and makes me so happy!  Who wouldn't want to carry a little ball of happy energy around all day long?

Camping AGAIN!!!!!

Lets just say we love having friends that are really good at camping!! =)

Don't get me wrong... we could manage on our own if we had to, but it is nice to have those extra things like a camping stove, shade cannopy, chain saw, axe, a really big tent (instead of our little 3 person tent) and of course it is so nice to have the company of good friends!!

For Labor Day we headed up to Blue Ridge Reservoir.  So much fun!  We stayed in a campsite and we had a really good spot because we weren't close to anybody else!  It was almost like winging it in the wild!

The kids really love camping!!  They were so excited! 

Ian got to shoot a real gun for the first time!!  He loved it, but was also mad that Dad wouldn't let him hold the gun by himself.  We tried explaining that he wasn't big enough, but he kept saying that now he was 4 and 4-year-olds get to shoot guns all by themselves.  Pretty funny!  He still had a blast!

Nik doesn't get to shoot very often, but he really loves it.  It was so nice to have another guy there for him to shoot with and throw the clay pigeons!  There were also some girls that Nik and John go to school with there and one of them could also throw the clay pigeons really well so both boys got to shoot at the same time!  It was fun!

Playing in the dirt... one of the favorites of camping!!  Both kids get so dirty within the first hour of camping... but I usually don't clean them up until it is time to go to bed!!  What kind of mom would I be if I expected them to stay clean while we were camping? =)  Ha ha  It is really funny how dirty they get though!!

One of my favorite parts of camping is that the kids get to be kids!!  They are able to wander and play away from us a little bit and go exploring.  They kept pretending to go on hunts and look for animals.  There weren't any other kids this trip so they played with each other or begged one of the big people to play with them.  In this picture they were behind the tent and we could hear them talking together and laughing and talking some more... I peaked around and asked what they were doing and they were "playing Primary!"  What good kids!  Ian was teaching Miranda what he learns in Primary!

Now we have a tent, and we all fit in it (barely) and this trip John and Courtney had a big tent for us to use.  It was so nice to have room for all of us to sleep comfortably!  It was pretty cold so we all ended up cuddling close, but we didn't have to and that was the good part!!  It was like a mansion!

The last couple of times we have gone camping the kids wake up so happy and excited to be there!  It's like they wake up and remember where they are and get excited all over again! =)  They love the fire and sleeping in sleeping bags and throwing things in the fire and running around.

Kamryn did really good too!  There were lots of girls wanting to hold her and she is such a mommy's girl right now that she fought it, but did pretty good letting them hold her!  She is still such a sweet baby!!

Camping is definately one of our favorite things right now!! =)

Slide Rock

We had the FUNNEST day! (is that a word?)

 Since Nik has the week off of school we decided to drive up to Sedona to visit Slide Rock (apparently a big tourist stop... there were people there from EVERYWHERE!!).  It is basically a river with slippery rocks that you slide down!  So fun!

 My girls!

 Ian is flexing his muscles for Grandma!! =) 

(it always works to get him to take a cute picture!)

 The water was SO COLD!!!!  But it felt so good!!

(once you got used to it!)

 Miranda wasn't a huge fan of getting in the water... this was about as far as she got most of the day, but she still had the time of her life!!  She was very worried that the water would take her flip-flops away!  And she about died when her floatie blew into the water and it got carried down the river a little ways before it was rescued!

 PAGING FIRST RESPONDER NIK... after we ate lunch and hiked back down to the river several people got hurt.  One man fell and cracked the back of his head open, one girl broke her ankle, another girl injured her foot, and another little boy fell and chipped his tooth all at about the same time.  When the man fell and cut his head open not many people did anything.  One woman offered ice and several others were very concerned and wanted to help, but just didn't know how.  Finally when he was able to sit up and he was bleeding Nik ran up and got the Ranger.  When he got back down the boy fell and chipped his tooth and there was Nik... a DENTAL STUDENT... standing right there.  I was happy to see him use his skills!! =)

After that most people started being careful again.

Now this is where it gets good!  As we were getting ready to be done for the day I wanted to go down one more time.  BUT I really needed a friend to go with me.  She didn't want to, but I convinced Miranda to go with me.  Earlier she had said "It might be a loady (little) fun, it might be a loady (little) cold."  She was not exactly happy to go, but I made her! =)  In a nice way of course!

 It was so cold, but she actually did have fun!  And she didn't want to do it again!

 Thanks for being my friend down the slide!!  I think she was proud of herself!!  And I was proud of her too for being so brave!

 My little lizzard... warming himself on the rocks!!

 It was really a perfect day!!  Nice weather, fun slides, and we finished it off with gigantic ice cream cones!!  How could it get any better?

 Just then... we watch a rainstorm come over the mountains and head toward us.  The sun was still shining so it reflected off the raindrops and was so beautiful!!!  We were glad we had already gotten out of the river as it rained pretty hard for a little while!

 Another smile for Grandma! =)

 This little thing did so good and is always such a joy to take anywhere!!  Everyone is always commenting on what a good baby she is and how sweet and happy she is!  She wasn't quite big enough to go down any slides this year, but maybe next year!! 

We left the park at about 4:30 and they were both asleep by 5:00pm!  Ian was so worn out that he didn't wake up until morning!!  I love when that happens because it means we had a really good day!  And we did!

Happy Birthday Ian

Well... My sweet Ian turned 4!!!

 We started the day off by opening ONE present!! =) 

 This is his AWESOME Transformers pinata!!  We bought it about four months ago because he saw it at Wal-mart and just had to have it!  It has been tempting him in my closet all this time!

He was so excited about his pinata that we did that very first after our friends arrived!!  Everyone took a good few swings.  We even let Truman (the biggest and oldest) wack it as hard as he could five or six times, but it still didn't crack.

 Then we let each of the kids pull one of the strings on the back (the way it is supposed to be opened) and it still didn't break open so Nik had to just tear it open and dump the candy and prizes out!!

These are our friends!!

 Next we did a little art project.  We painted watercolor pictures with q-tips!  The kids seemed to like this part!

 Next was presents!  He got spoiled that's for sure!

THE CAKE

 This cake:  It was going to be awesome!!  Ian and I made 3 cakes... all different colors.  One green, one blue, and one orange.  We stacked them and stacked them, sticking them together with frosting and raspberry filling.   Nik made a marshmallow fondant and we covered our awesome cake tower.  AND THEN... it started melting because it is so stinking hot here in Arizona!  I put it in the fridge as soon as I could, but it was too late.  So I let Ian put the figurines wherever he wanted them and we decided it was the planet that "Zurg" lives on and Buzz and Woody were saving the day! =)

It still tasted GREAT!!

 Blowing out the candle!!  Ian had a little help! =)

 After our friends left we ate lunch and had a little "family party" where Ian got to open the presents from us and his Grandparents.

 He got a new pair of shoes and when he opened them he said "Yes, I've been wantin these for ever!!!"  I was glad.  I don't know if you remember, but last year his birthday was not so exciting for him.  He had opened all of his fun presents while we were visiting family in Utah and then the presents he had from us were mostly clothes and things he needed.  After opening them he said "those weren't good presents."  I was bound and determined to make this a better birthday for him!!  So as you can imagine I was pretty happy when he got so excited about his new shoes!!

Covering his eyes while we bring his big present in!

 A BIKE!!!!!!!

 The first thing he said when he opened his eyes and saw his bike was "It doesn't have training wheels."  And it didn't.  We decided to get him the bigger size and just buy the training wheels separate so that he would last longer on it!  He opened his training wheels next and then we were set!

 Awesome new helmet from Grandma... it came with a cool bell that we put on his bike too!

 And of course he had to go for a bike ride even though it was SO HOT (like 108 hot) and he loved every minute of it!  Miranda was also excited for Ian to get his new bike because now she gets to ride his little tricycle!!  She also loves riding in the carriage!!

 And we finished the day off by watching Aladdin and making popcorn!  He had a great birthday and I was so relieved!!  Thanks to both sets of Grandparents for helping make it a very special day!!  All of the pictures where he is smiling were for you... I'd say "Ok, this one is for Grandma so smile", and he would!!  He is not big on getting his picture taken lately!

We love this little guy so much!!  He is such a smart, talented, funny kid!!  He makes friends wherever he goes and is always asking questions!  He loves to do projects and can always make Kamryn laugh!  He loves to play transformers with Nik... they are always flying around the house getting bad guys (or being bad guys!!).  He is doing so well in preschool and loves going!  He cries every week because he doesn't want to go to primary, but then every week when we pick him up tells us how much fun he had!  The other day Miranda had done something to him and then apologized and he said "It's ok, I forgive you."  I can't wait to see what he learns and does in this next year.  We love you Ian!!!!!!!!  Happy 4th Birthday!