Our Happy Home

Here's a few fun recent pictures.

2011-07-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

Lydia said her uncle David taught her how to stick these on her nose. She then taught her sister the trick. She also said her grandpa B. taught her to rub dandelions on her nose to make it yellow. Thankfully, she hasn't really tried that one yet.

Sorry about the side view. This is a picture of Lydia's Rapunzel hair. After she saw the movie a few months ago, she was obsessed with the movie. She asked to see it every day and she kept taking toilet paper off the rolls and making long beautiful hair for her to drag behind her. Where it broke, she would attach it back together with hair clips and bows. She would hang her hair over the banister from the kitchen down into the family room and ask if I wanted to climb up her hair. It lasted a LONG time (months) and we went through a lot of toilet paper but I thought it was very cute and creative.

Graduation day from her first day of Preschool. She did so well singing for the program.

The girls are starting to play and pretend so well together. It's really fun to hear what they come up with together.

The girls try on grandma's wigs. Love my girls!

It's been a while....here's an update

2011-07-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted because life has well, been kinda busy. Good excuse I know but it's true. Also the last few times I've tried to post I haven't been able to get the pictures to work, including today....and let's be honest, pictures are what I think make a blog most fun. If I can get the pictures to work I'll include them. Otherwise I'll just give you a little update on our fam. We are doing well. Our daughters are as cute as ever and growing up fast. Lydia graduated from her first year of preschool this year. She absolutely loved school and did so well. Emma is cute as ever and has such a loveable, silly, personality. She's a peacemaker and good example to her older sister quite often. We are also going to have a baby boy in just a couple months and we are so excited. We're busy getting the house ready and as many other projects as we can get done since life gets pretty busy for awhile after the baby comes. We are happy and enjoy spending as much time as we can together as a fam. So far this summer we've had some fun memories: going on a little trip to Lava Hot Springs with our good friends the Smithsons and the Webbs, Raging Waters with Reid's bro's and sis, A little getaway as a couple, a girls weekend with my sisters and mom, 4th of July festivities (parade, BBQ), and fun picnics to the park and our backyard. Above all, life is good and we are so grateful for all that we have.

We had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.....How about you?

2011-01-11T21:50:00.000-08:00

Yay! I got a new camera for Christmas which is sooooooooo much nicer than my other one. That also means that I can now update my blog. Which if you will notice the next 4 posts are updates. We've done lot's of fun things. Hope you enjoy! We had a special visitor come to our home. The girls were so excited that Santa came to our house to see them.

Sorry it's sideways. Just tip your head a little to the left. Ok there you go. Lydia had a Christmas program with her Preschool. We curled her hair up all cute and she looked adorable. She sang all of her songs so well. We could hear her singing pretty loud a couple times. One time as the song ended, she loudly held out the last word extra long for several extra seconds. It was cute...and funny! She's a good little singer!

Two adorable girls in their new Christmas dresses given to them by grandma and grandpa H.

Time to tilt your head again. Sorry. Two princesses sitting on the royal chair. We were able to go to visit the Treehouse Museum in Ogden. There were so many cute things to discover and play with there. The kids loved it!

We went there on New Year's Eve and we were able to make the kids party hats and they received confetti to throw and blowers to blow on the noon hour. and yell: "Happy New Year!"

Happy Birthday Princess!

2011-01-11T21:36:00.000-08:00

My little princess is another year older. Now a big 4 year old! I made her a princess castle cake, we had pink ice cream, and she recieved many princess gifts since she loves princess stuff!!!

We went to Boondocks in the morning to celebrate Lydia's birthday. Lydia had so much fun there climbing around in the kiddie cove, riding the carousel, and playing mini bowling.

Our princess in new birthday princess attire. Sure love this girl!

KuTe KiDz

2011-01-11T21:19:00.000-08:00

My little dancer. Lydia recently started a little dance group at a neighbor's house. She has learned a few things and just looks so cute! Not sure how to turn the picture around. Sorry.Ha ha! So funny! She actually enjoys wearing them and asks me to put them on her. But maybe I should invest in some that actually fit. Then Mr. Potato head can have his glasses back.

What a messy face! Kind of looks like a beard.

Play dough fun!

Fall Highlights

2011-01-11T20:41:00.001-08:00

Our big girl started Preschool in the fall and has absolutely loved it there. Her aunt is one of her teachers and she has made lots of friends and learned many new things. She can recite the pledge of allegience and show you many of her colors in sign language. She's been able to go on a field trip with her school about every month. She's visited the duck pond, toured the fire station (pictured above) and toured a library. Mom and Emma are able to come too which is fun to be able to participate with her on the activities.

We were able to go to gardner village with some friends to see all of the witches at Halloween time. The kids dressed up and looked so cute!

We had a nice visit with our good Friends the Fuhriman's. It's been such a blessing to have them as friends and stay in touch all these years.

We had fun drawing faces on our pumpkins for Halloween. Most of the pumpkins were grown in our own garden. Lydia drew faces on hers and Emma's pumpkins. She did a great job!

Our Halloween cuties. Pooh Bear and a Moo moo cow! Aren't they cute?

Family Photos and update.

2010-11-12T13:55:00.000-08:00

We have a wonderful neighbor and friend that was able to take some family pictures for us. I'm excited to share them with you. Here are some of the favorites:

It's been awhile since I posted last. Actually a long while. We are doing great. We are happy and love love love spending time together. We are so grateful for the wonderful marriage we have and two beautiful daughters that have come into our home. We feel so completely, wonderfully blessed. Thanksgiving time always brings on reflection in our lives and how much we truly have to be thankful for.....which is so much!!!! Reid recently started a new job at a new company. He's excited about the new opportunity and that it is closer to home. I'm so proud of my hubby and love him so much!

Blogging trouble

2010-10-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated my blog for awhile because I'm having issues with downloading pictures from my camera to my computer. I'm not sure what the problem is, it's just not working. So I'll keep working on it and hopefully won't have to buy a new camera before I can post on this blog again. I'm sure everyone is on pins and needles waiting for me to post again....but sorry, until then you'll just have to wait...but hopefully not too long. :)

Bear Lake Vacation

2010-07-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

This year we wanted to make our family vacation simpler and a little closer to home so we chose to go to Bear Lake for a few days. As usual, it was beautiful there. We stayed in a condo close to the Marina in Garden city and had a wonderful time with our little family. View of Bear Lake from the visitors center. So pretty!!One of our cute backseat travelors. She was so excited to get to Bear Lake. She kept asking: Are we to Salt Lake yet? (Instead of Bear Lake)

Our other cute backseat traveler.

We actually enjoyed swimming in the pool at the condo MUCH better than swimming in the lake. It was so much warmer. The water in the pool felt great. The water in the lake was FREEZING!

All snuggled up and warm...

The girls loved playing in the sand on the beach digging holes and making sandcastles.

What could be more fun? The girls absolutely loved the beach!

We rented a little family bike with the little shade canopy's over the top and went on a little bike ride as a family. It was so fun! There was a little biking trail that we followed. We enjoyed the scenery and got a little exercise too!

You can't go to Bear Lake without getting a shake....especially a Bear Lake rasperry shake! Yum!

We went on a little family hike up the Canyon above Bear Lake. We hiked the Limber Pine trail. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the girls loved exploring.

Taking a little break......and a few pictures.

Lydia is our little collector. Rocks, weeds, sticks, you name it. Here's her little collection of sticks.

To end our vacation well, we had to eat at one of Reid's favorite restaurants: Cafe Sabor. He was in heaven as he enjoyed his Carne Asada. Delicious!

Hurray for Summer!!!

2010-07-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

We have been thoroughly enjoying our summer. From picnics, to parades, to BBQ's to swimming, to going to the park, and on and on. Summer is so much fun!! We are loving the warm weather and the girls love being outside! Two adorable girls taking a swim together. Notice Emma's face. No it's not chocolate. Emma enjoyed eating some dirt before taking a soak in the pool. We bought the girls a sandbox recently because they were playing in the dirt so much. They love the sandbox but they still love playing in the dirt :)It was freezing cold water. Somehow that doesn't matter as much when you're young.

What a cutie pie! I love the look on her face. Are we having fun yet? I love how she put her hat on inside out on top of her other hat.

Buddies!!! ........ Lydia and her cousin Tate..............jumping on the trampoline together!

Spring?!

2010-05-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

We have been thoroughly enjoying the warm weather (on the days that it has been warm). We have totally been enjoying soaking in the warm sun. Lydia loves playing in her new backyard. As a family we've planted a garden full of vegetables and put in 3 fruit trees. Our yard is bigger at our new house so we definately will have more yardwork...so it's a good thing we enjoy that sort of thing. It will keep us busy as bees....buzzz!! :) We've also enjoyed going to the park, going on walks as a family around the neighborhood, and just being outside...It's so refreshing to see the sun again and be outside in it. Guess who's potty trained? We promised to buy Lydia a bike when she was potty trained. She has been for several months now and we bought her a bike to celebrate her success. She's still figuring it out and needs our help...but she totally loves to feel like a big girl on her big girl princess bike.

Lydia and her buddy, her cousin Amber.

We had a family picnic a few weeks ago with my sisters and their families and my parents. It was perfect weather...I love picnics..... especially with good company.

Sisters! Love them!

Family pictures

2010-04-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

We got family pictures taken recently. We thought we'd share some of them with you. There were a few cute ones in the bunch.

Though she's looking away, I love Lydia in this picture.

That's all folks (of the ones we dared share) he he.

So silly!

2010-03-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

On Sunday as we were getting ready for church in the bathroom, Lydia was making silly faces in the mirror and told me that she wanted me to take a picture of her. So I grabbed the camera. As you can see, we didn't stop at one. She kept coming up with new faces and I had to take a picture of it. We had a lot of fun with this.

Such a cute silly girl!

Just Plain Cute!

2010-03-01T13:20:00.000-08:00

These are just random pictures taken around the house....They're cute so I thought I'd share! I'm sure you'll agree :) Too cute!

Emma loves to eat!!!

Our little cruiser....She's so close to walking. She just takes a few steps at a time before getting nervous and plopping down on her bum.

With all that hair, Emma has amazing bed head!

Beautiful Lydia! She's becoming such a big girl....and a big helper for mommy

Somebody's in trouble!

2010-02-03T19:58:00.000-08:00

This actually happened a few weeks ago but I haven't had a chance to post until now. All it took was a purple marker and a 3 year old. She was in her room playing during quiet time. Mom was loving having a few minutes to relax. Lesson to all moms: if you think you hear a scraping sound on your child's door that sounds like they are drawing on it, go check on them even if you don't think they don't have anything to color with. She's quite an artist wouldn't you say? She did quite a complete job coloring every wall, inside the closet, on the door, on quite a few of her toys, and even her face.

I love the look on her face. Do you think she knows she's in trouble?

Yes her pants are falling down almost to her knees. I didn't notice it when taking the picture. She's such a skinny girl, I have a hard time getting pants that will fit her and stay up and also be long enough since she's tall.

Lydia found it's not quite as fun to clean up the artwork.

Holiday Fun

2010-01-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

We went out to Ohio for Christmas but totally forgot to take Christmas shots Christmas morning. But we still were able to get a picture of a cute Christmas elf and reindeer.

Celeste, Cristi, Emma, Lydia were all spoiled by santa. Must have all been good girls!

The boys spent most of the Christmas holiday swingin' hammers framing the basement for Reid's parents.

We had a fun New Years celebration with my side of the family. Sibling shot from youngest to oldest (left to right). This is all of us except our oldest brother.

This is the gang that made it to the New Years Celebration. We were excited to have so many of us together this year. We had a great time eating, playing games, eating some more, and just enjoying being together.

Cindi and Tom forgot what holiday we were celebrating, dressing up for Halloween?? Acutally it was part of one of the games we played. It was pretty funny. Can't remember the name of the game but it started with a Q. It was random but fun.

So much to be thankful for!

2009-12-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

I love thanksgiving! It was an inspired holiday to have us take a day to think about all of the many blessings that we have. As a family we truly feel so blessed and have so much to be thankful for. We feel like have all of the good things in life....our family, wonderful extended family,our warm home, food on the table, a job to support our family, the gospel of Jesus Christ, a living prophet, temples, ability to live in a free land, scriptures, such a beautiful world we live in, wonderful friends, modern comforts of life: automobiles, dishwashers, ovens, washing machines, electricity, airplanes, and the list goes on and on. I started a gratitude journal 2 years ago and it is a wonderful way to think about so many things that we have to be grateful for. On a tough day it is nice to be reminded of those things. There is So so much to be thankful for! For Thanksgiving this year we had a small group of family gathering so we decided to have Thanksgiving at our new house. I cooked my first turkey and it turned out great. My parents came as well as my grandpa V. and Reid's sister Celeste. It was a wonderful day spent with family. We are so thankful for our family. We are so happy and love each other so much! We love to spend time together and it has been wonderful to have had more time together recently.

We are so grateful for our daughters! They have brought so much joy and fun into our home! We can't imagine life without them.

Lydia has been really squinty with her smiles lately so this one she opened her eyes really big. Lydia turned 3 this last week. Has it really been 3 years? She is really growing up and becoming such a big girl. She is very petite but she likes to be called big. If you call her little, she will correct you. She has such a fun personality and is so sweet to her younger sister. We are so grateful for our beautiful Lydia.

Lydia is TOTALLY into princesses right now. She is constantly in princessland preparing to go to the ball with her prince and thus will only wear dresses.....So.... for her birthday it was quite fitting to make her a princess birthday cake. We had some technical difficulties with the cake falling apart as it came out of the pan...but it ended up ok and Lydia was very excited about it. As I was making it, she stood on a chair right next to me and kept touching the Cinderella doll's hair, her crown, her puffy sleeves, etc.

Halloween Cuties

2009-11-07T20:16:00.000-08:00

This year for Halloween Emma was a frog and Lydia a little cheerleeder. Aren't they so cute??

Love that smile!

Love that cheesy smile!

We taught Lydia to say rah rah rah! Go team! She loved it and made such a cute cheerleader.

Goodbye old....Hello new!

2009-10-21T14:28:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to do a quick post to show some shots of our home up for sale and some quick shots we took on the final walk through of our new home. We will be moving in on Saturday! We are excited and very very busy packing! Our new home will be a lot bigger with lots of room for our growing family and we're excited about a nicer, newer, safer community.

Where.... oh where did August go?

2009-09-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

Is it really September? Clear into September too! We have been so so busy the last couple months that time is going by faster than we can believe. We had an awesome vacation to San Diego, had lots of visit time with family as Reid's parents and Celeste came out from Ohio and stayed with us for a week and a half to get Celeste started for school at BYU. We've also been super busy getting our house ready as we are putting it up for sale. I'll give an update on that in the next post. Here are some fun pictures we captured.

Emma's first haircut! Her hair was getting so long that I cut her bangs.

On Labor day we visited temple square. Lydia loved playing in the water from the reflection pool.

Lydia and Emma are starting to play together and interact. It is so cute. When I sit Emma down to play, Lydia always wants to sit by Emma and play with her. It makes me happy to see that they love each other.

Lydia loves dressing up like a princess.

Lydia and her cousin Callie dressed up as princesses together. Lydia loved the attention she received from her older cousin.

Bath time is great. We bathe both girls together now which is fun. They're so cute in the tub together with their cute little bare bodies spashing and playing with toys. In this picture Emma is in her baby tub...but she's really outgrown it so recently she's been sitting in the tub She loves to kick and splash. Lately she keeps trying to lean over to suck on a toy and puts her nose under the water.

Lydia and daddy together on a bus ride at the little fun center close to our house.

Reid loves his mommy! See any resemblance?

Memories from San Diego

2009-08-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

We went on vacation as a family to San Diego California the middle of August for a couple of days and had such fun! We were able to go to Sea World several days, swim on the beach, and visit Todd and LaDuska who live there. They were wonderful to get us around and it was so good to see them. Sorry that I'm just getting around to posting about this. Here are some of the fun pictures. Emma with daddy and sea turtles in the background at Sea world.

LaDuska and I had to get a picture in front of the beautiful flowers

It was Lydia's first time to see the ocean. We went to Coronado beach to swim and enjoy the warm sun and beautiful surroundings. Lydia absolutely loved the beach. She didn't get in the water much but she LOVED playing in the sand....digging holes, sifting through it. covering her body, spinning in circles, etc.. all the while singing and talking. So cute!

Love this shot of the two brothers talking and loving being together.

Coronado beach

Lydia's first guitar lessons with Todd. She loved exploring his apartment.

Lydia loved the rides at Sea world.

Our two little cuties riding in style at sea world.

Emma snuggling up with her aunt LaDuska

Lydia loved the special attention she recieved from her uncle Todd and Aunt LaDuska. They were so cute with her.

Life is good!

2009-08-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

Reid's favorite saying is "Life is good!" and we believe that it really is. We have been blessed with the good things in life: our little family. We are so grateful for our two beautiful daughters. Yes, there are hard days but also so many special moments. I love to check on each of them in their beds sleeping before I lie down at night and when I look at them, no matter what difficulties we faced that day, I see how peaceful and beautiful they look, and I have to smile and feel truly grateful for the opportunity of being a mother. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing.
Emma is starting to enjoy playing with toys and she reaches for everything that she can get her hands on.

Emma does this funny little thing where she sucks on her tongue to comfort herself.Can you see how dirty Lydia looks in this picture? We went to grandma and grandpa B's house a few weekends ago and Lydia had so much fun! She jumped on the trampoline with her cousins and she played in the trees in a little pretend house with her cousin Amber and she dumped tons of dirt in her hair. Aren't little boys the ones that do that sort of thing?

We celebrated my dad's birthday and had a little party for him with my two sisters and our families. We're so grateful for Grandpa B. He's such a good man!

Summer Days......are the best!

2009-07-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

We love summer! Now that the weather is warm, we have enjoyed getting outside for some fun activities. We've had fun picnics, barbeques, trips to the park, carnival at the park, the community parade, a trip to the zoo, taking strolls around the neighborhood, and just enjoying time together relaxing. We forgot our camera for most of the things we have done. But there are a few fun pictures that we have taken when we remembered our camera.Lydia makes a new friend at the zoo! We had a great time at the zoo looking at all of the animals! Lydia is still talking about all of the animals at the zoo and the noises that they make and how they eat (this is how we've gotten her to eat some days telling her to eat like a bear or like a lion or one of the other animals she saw at the zoo).

Lydia and Emma enjoying their ride in their strollers at the zoo.

We got out Lydia's little swimming pool and though the water was cold she had so much fun playing in the water. We didn't even have to dump out the water after. She had a great time emptying it herself with little watering pitchers and buckets watering all of the weeds in the garden (he he).

Emma is getting so cute and chubby. She loves her cute little toes. She is always grabbing at them. They are a great pacifier too :) She loves to suck on her toes. She looks like she'll roll over soon as she grabs her feet and tips to the side.

Our beautiful little baby girl Emma! She is growing up so fast! It's amazing!

Emma is happy as can be after a good nap. So is mommy. Gotta love nap time. Especially when both kids are napping at the same time! One of my favorite times of the day. That means me time! Yipee!

A fun weekend!

2009-06-15T12:55:00.001-07:00

We went on our first overnighter getaway since Emma came into our family. We drove up to Logan and we had a great time! We stayed with grandma and grandpa B. and we were able to fit a lot of fun things into our weekend. On Saturday the grandparents watched the girls so that Reid and I could go to the Logan temple. For dinner we grilled yummy steaks on the barbeque (Reid was in heaven) and then we took Lydia to a park in Riverheights called Ryan's place. This park had so many unique and fun things for the kids to play on and Lydia had a blast! She's been talking ever since about going to grandma's house and going to the castle park as she calls it.

This is the lastest picture of our little family. On Sunday we were able to attend a baby blessing as my sister Charee's baby Davin was blessed. It was wonderful to be with her and her little family for that. My other sister and her family were there as well as my parents. It was so nice to spend time together with family and it was hard to pack up to leave and go home.

Charee and I have the 4 youngest grandchildren in the family for our parents. Lydia is just 10 months older than Tate and Emma is just two months older than Davin. Such cute kids!

Darling little babies! Emma is quite a bit bigger than Davin right now. What a difference two months makes at this age!

Yay! Summer is here!

2009-06-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

On Memorial day we were invited to a swimming party in my aunt and uncle's pool. The weather was really nice that day and we were excited to spend some time in the sun! Lydia had such a fun time! She got so cold after awhile and her whole body was shaking as she shivered but she wanted to keep playing in the water.

Lydia thinks it's great to run through the sprinklers in our front yard.

What a little cutie! Emma is growing up and getting so big....so fast! It's been so fun to see her little personality coming out lately. She loves to talk to us in her little gurgle language and she coos and laughs as we talk to her. Emma is such a good baby. She is so peaceful and calm and happy. We love her so so much!

Such a little lump of love!

2009-05-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

Emma likes to be swaddled when she sleeps. She looks so cute and cozy all wrapped up.When my sister in law came out to visit for Emma's blessing, she called Emma a little lump of love. That couldn't be more true. She is so full of love. She has been such a blessing in our home and we love her so much. Sometimes when I am having a hard day (Lydia is in her terrible two's, so we have had some hard days!), to spend a little one on one time with Emma helps to calm my frustrations.

Emma is smiling a lot now. She has such a peaceful, happy temperament. She is starting to play with the toys in this chair and stares very intently and seriously at the little smiley faced guy. She also smiles and coos at him. She is such a cutie! It's so fun to see her develop. She's found her hands now and is starting to swat at toys and even my face the other day!

This last month

2009-04-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

Lydia adores her aunt Celeste. When Celeste and grandma H. came to visit, Lydia wanted to be with Celeste all the time. She called her "Lest" She followed "Lest" everywhere and wanted Celeste to play with her and read with her. Lydia is looking forward to seeing "Lest" again this summer.

Emma was blessed on Easter Sunday. She looked beautiful in her blessing dress. It was so neat to have her blessed on Easter and to have so much family be there for the blessing. It was a special day!

Lydia loved her new pink Easter dress and she looked so cute in it.

Our little family on Easter Sunday and Emma's blessing day. Nice shot I know. After trying to get a good picture, this was our best one. Both kids weren't too happy. Lydia didn't want to sit still for a picture. She wanted to go play with her cousins.

Grandparents that love Emma very much!

Newborn shots

2009-04-01T13:55:00.001-07:00

My friend Lucinda came by to visit and took some darling newborn pictures of Emma. Lucinda does photography and did such a great job. The pictures turned out so well. These are some of my favorites. Thank you Lucinda!

We're.....adjusting...and here's some recent kiddo pictures.

2009-03-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

Emma's first bath. She loved getting her hair washed. She looked so relaxed.

Pictures of Emma when she was one week old. We love our sweet, peaceful Emma!

Lydia loves her baby bear! (She even has a song about him). We hadn't gotten a picture with him yet and he is her best friend! So here he is! She is very attached to him and she takes him all over the house with her and gets quite upset when she can't find him. He's getting a little scary looking but the washer does wonders with all he gets put through.

Welcome Little One!

2009-02-21T12:50:00.001-08:00

Take a look at that hair. Perfect for a mohawk. Long and dark. Just like her mommy's was as a baby.

Both mommy and baby are healthy and doing well.

Proud older sister Lydia holds her baby sister Emma.

Here are some pictures of the newest addition to our family. Emma was born this Thursday night. She was two weeks early. She weighed 7 lbs 4 oz and was 21 inches long. She is such a sweetheart and we are so happy to have her join our family.

Draper Temple Openhouse

2009-02-15T12:53:00.000-08:00

Lydia and I had the opportunity to go to the Openhouse of the Draper temple. We were very excited to have the opportunity to go. Lydia was really excited to go and before going she made the comment to me that she was "going to the temple to marry mommy." It was cute but I explained to her that she'll want a handsome boy to take her there someday.

Lydia with her little friend Brayden who went with us through the openhouse. They're just a year apart in age.

Lydia tried to wander off alot during the tour but she seemed to really enjoy going. As we got in the car to leave afterward, Lydia said that she wanted to go see another temple. It was a neat experience to show Lydia the temple and teach her the importance of going there. I hope that she felt something there.

Cookie time!

2009-02-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

Lydia often likes to put on her apron and try to cook with mommy which is often quite interesting. But Lydia had a lot of fun baking cookies with mommy for our Family Home Evening treat. These were about as simple as you can get. We took the dough out of the refrigerated package, rolled them into balls, and cooked them. Wala! They were sure good and much easier cookies to make with the help of a two year old!

Our Anniversary...early

2009-02-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

Since the new addition to our family will be arriving the same week as our anniversary, we decided to celebrate our anniversary early. We left Lydia with grandma and grandpa B and we spent a few days in Cache Valley, just spending time together as a couple. We had such a nice time.

We stayed in the Providence inn, a cute little bed and breakfast, the same place we stayed the first two nights of our honeymooon 5 years ago. We stayed in such a cute and cozy little room. It was really fun to go back to the same place where stayed when we began our marriage.

We enjoyed going out to eat to some of our favorite places in Logan such as Juniper Take Out and Cafe Sabor and of course we had to stop at Charlie's for some ice cream for dessert. We did some shopping around town and watched a movie in our room and just relaxed and enjoyed our cute little room. We had a wonderful time and were grateful to be able to get away together and celebrate five wonderful years together.

Lydia's new dress

2009-01-19T12:50:00.000-08:00

I don't claim to be much of a seamstress, but with the help (alot of help) of my friend Sarah, I sewed this little dress for Lydia. She wore it to church and she looked really cute in it. Lydia likes it of course because it's pink. I'm thinking that I might also attempt to make a little outfit for the baby. Wish me luck!

Funny but cute!

2009-01-12T12:37:00.000-08:00

This picutre makes me laugh. It's funny but cute. She smiles for the camera and chews on her doll at the same time. What talent! I thought we were done teething a few months ago but for whatever reason, Lydia is chewing on everything. Maybe her teeth are still moving up even though they've all cut through???

This picture cracks me up. Lydia broke her ball with all of the squishy legs (I don't know what they're called). Before throwing it away, daddy put it on Lydia's head for a funny hat. She thought it looked so funny and didn't want to take it off.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

We enjoyed a New Year's celebration at my sister Cindi's house with her family, Charee and her family, and our parents. We had good food, we enjoyed visiting, and played some games together. It was a fun party with family!

The two pregnant sisters showing off growing pregnant bellies! Charee is just two months behind in her pregnancy. She has another little boy to be born in May. The babies will have fun together being so close in age as cousins.

Christmas shots

2008-12-29T12:50:00.001-08:00

We forgot to take many pictures on Christmas but we got a few. Lydia really enjoyed Christmas this year. She was cute how she handed the Christmas presents under the tree to everyone and said "open." On her gifts, she got impatient and wanted us to help her open them so she could see what was inside faster. Here Lydia is with her favorite gift: a Little People pet salon.

Mommy and Lydia in front of the Christmas tree. We celebrated Christmas with grandma and grandpa B. this year. We had a nice visit and enjoyed being able to spend Christmas with them. Lydia loved looking at all of the ornaments on the tree especially the nutcrackers. Grandma has a collection of nutcrackers too and Lydia loved looking at them.

I think this is a darling picture of Lydia. They're hard to come by these days because she hates it when we try to take pictures. She won't sit still and she runs off. Once again we had another fun Christmas. We hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas too!

It's Christmas time!

2008-12-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

This last week we put up our Christmas tree and our Christmas decorations. As a family we put up the Christmas tree together on Monday night. Lydia was a great little helper and handed all of the ornaments to mommy to hang on the tree. She liked looking at each different ornament and talking about each one. The rest of the Christmas decorations Lydia and I put up together. She was fascinated by everything and it was fun to have her be a part of it.

Lydia and the snowman are about the same size! When I got out the snowman and a big nutcracker that we have, Lydia was afraid of them. She would stand in the corner of the room and look at them suspiciously. But now she loves them and likes to talk to them and play with them. Lydia loves Christmas this year and it's been fun to see her excitement.

On Friday night after we put Lyida to bed, Reid and I had fun building gingerbread houses together out of graham crackers. We had a great time and we really got into our creations.

Our little turkey is two!

2008-12-01T12:15:00.001-08:00

Our sweet adorable daughter is now two years old! The last two years have been wonderful. She has brought so much joy into our home with her cute little personality. She has been such a happy, energetic, curious, spunky, and sweet little girl. We can't imagine our lives without her. She has been so much fun and we are so grateful to have her.

Lydia's birthday was on Thanksgiving this year so I decided to make her a turkey birthday cake. He's a little scary looking, but Lydia loved him.

Lydia did a great job blowing out the candles on her cake. We celebrated her birthday at grandma and grandpa B's house with lots of family. Lydia had so much fun playing with so many of her cousins over the weekend.

Lydia ate all of the candies off of the cake but wouldn't eat the cake or ice cream. In this picture, I told Lydia to smile and show us her pretty eyes, so this is what she did. It's been pretty hard to get many good pictures of her lately.

What's cooking?

2008-11-18T19:32:00.000-08:00

Lydia likes to cook with mommy. She likes to put on her own little apron and stand up to the counter to cook too while mommy is fixing dinner. This fall we had tons of tomatoes and Lydia had so much fun pretending to cook with them, putting them back and forth into different cups and stirring them with little spoons. The whole time she talks and sings while she is cooking! She's such a cute little chef in the making!

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-04T20:00:00.001-08:00

Lydia was a darling little cow for Halloween this year. We took Lydia to our ward's Halloween party the weekend before Halloween. We went as the farmer, his wife, and our cow. Lydia clung to us the whole time at the party because all of the different costumes scared her. On Halloween, we went trick or treating to a few houses and then went to another Halloween party. Lydia was scared at the party again because she didn't know what to think about all of the weird looking people she saw. Lydia did love the candy she got in her pumpkin bucket though and she would not put it down. She kept looking in at all of the candy and saying "MORE!"

My canning adventure

2008-10-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

We had so many big beautiful tomatoes in our garden this year.

So, this year I ended up canning alot. I didn't plan it that way, it just sort of happened. Every year I can one batch of peaches because Reid loves canned peaches and they're fast and easy. So I got together with my sister Cindi and we had a good time canning some peaches together. We also had some extra fresh ones which are sooo good! This year we planted four tomato plants in our backyard and they produced millions of tomatoes. More than we knew what to do with. I've constantly been asking people if they would like some tomatoes. I've also been thinking of any and all recipes that I can use my tomatoes in. I decided that this year I definately needed to can some tomatoes and I canned two batches of tomatoes and a batch of salsa. The tomatoes were fast and easy but the salsa took a little more time. Then a co-worker of Reid's said she had some apples and pears that she was trying to get rid of and asked if I would be interested in canning them. I said "sure" since I'd never done them before. So I did a batch of apples and a batch of pears. They were tiny though so it was very time consuming to do the apples and pears. I'm glad to be done. Judging from the pictures it doesn't look like I canned as much as I did, but I was proud of my efforts especially because of the time that was involved with the apples, pears, and salsa. Now we have some extra food storage, it was prepared for my family with love, and we'll definately enjoy eating it all up!

Our fun weekend with family

2008-10-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

Lydia with her cousins Josh and Callie

How cute is she! Lydia had a blast playing in the reflection pond.

We had a great weekend with family this weekend! Lydia's grandma and grandpa H. came to visit for a few days and we had a great time visititing and spending time together. Lydia warmed up to grandma and grandpa quickly giving them hugs and wanting to be around them.

On Friday Reid took the day off of work (yay!) and Camille, Josh, and Callie drove our way and we went to temple square as a family. We walked around the temple grounds and visited some of the visitors centers together. Lydia was excited to go see the temple. Lately she's been putting her purse over her shoulder and sits on her toy car saying she was going "bye bye" to go to the temple like mommy and daddy do. So it was a neat experience for Lydia to be close up to the temple. She kept pointing at it saying "temple." It's always a wonderful experience to go to temple square and we were glad we could do that together.

On Saturday and Sunday we drove to Logan and spent a few days there visiting, eating way too much, and enjoying our time together. On Sunday Josh was ordained a deacon by grandpa H. We are proud of Josh and we were glad that we could be there to support him.

The Ultrasound

2008-10-10T20:04:00.000-07:00

I'm about 19 weeks along now and I am definately now showing that I am pregnant. Especially as the day goes on I get bigger and bigger. Has anyone else noticed that? We had the ultrasound yesterday and ever since then, we've being seeing PINK! Yes Lydia is going to be having a little baby SISTER to play with. I couldn't believe it! I was just positive the baby was going to be a boy! Almost everyone guessed that it would be a boy as well. There were only about 3 people that thought it would be a GIRL. We are tickled PINK though to be having another little GIRL coming into our home! Little GIRLS are so much fun!

We didn't think that we were going to find out if the baby would be a boy or a girl during the ultrasound. The baby was curled up in a little ball and the umbilical cord was in the way. They tried several things to see if the baby would move but nothing worked. So we scheduled another ultrasound in two weeks and we left. We were putting Lydia's jacket on in the hall when the lab technician came out and said that she needed us to come back in because she hadn't recorded the baby's heartbeat yet and she needed to make sure that was done. So after she did that, she tried one more time to find out what the baby was and this time she had success. What a relief! I would have had a hard time waiting two more weeks. There were a couple areas that she still couldn't check because the baby was curled up in a ball so I still have to have another ultrasound in a few weeks to finish checking everything that needs to be checked. Then we'll know if everything looks ok with the baby. What an amazing experience it is to be able to see your little baby with the ultrasound. It makes it so much more real that there really is a baby in there.

What a deal!

2008-10-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

I went shopping with the grocery guru and bought all of this food for $37.75 (tax included). It's a little hard to see all of it in this picture, but that is 40 items for that price! I was pretty excited. We had the grocery guru come to speak to our enrichment and he gave us some tips on saving money while grocery shopping such as planning our menu for the week, and what we buy at the store based on what is for sale in the store ads. Then to save even more money, you use coupons. He gave good ideas on how to organize our coupons as well so that you don't clip them out and have a big mess of coupons which never get used (that was all too common for me). He offered to take groups of us interested to the store and I was amazed at how much money we saved. On the store receipt, it showed that I bought over $100 of groceries for $37. Not bad eh? We thought we'd try this out for awhile and see if we can save a little extra money on our grocery bills.

Our Conference weekend

2008-10-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

We had a birthday celebration for mom. We love you mom!

Lydia and her cousin Tate had a great time playing the piano together

Lydia's cute cousin Tate reading the paper with grandpa.

We drove to Logan for the Conference weekend and had a nice visit with my parents. While we were there we celebrated my mom's birthday and had a nice dinner and dessert etc. Lydia and Tate had so much fun playing together. Tate is now walking and kept trying to follow Lydia around. One time Lydia tried to give Tate a hug and they both fell over with Tate falling on top of her. It scared both of them, but it was cute too to see Lydia be so loving with her cousin.

Conference was as wonderful as ever and we enjoyed to hear the counsel given to us from our leaders. We hope that we can do better and follow what we were taught this weekend. We are so grateful that we have this guidance in our lives every six months.

What's your vote?

2008-09-30T12:57:00.001-07:00

Is Lydia going to have a baby brother or sister?

We are going in to the doctor next week on the 9th for an ultrasound and plan to find out what we are having. Take a minute to cast your vote on what your hunches are by leaving your vote under comments. Will Lydia have a little baby sister or a baby brother? After we find out what we are having we will fill you in on the big news and you will be able to be given a big fat reward of the satisfaction that your vote was correct! So hurry now and cast your vote! We're counting on you!

Some cute shots!

2008-09-30T12:42:00.001-07:00

Lydia enjoyed eating her cheerio necklace we made together. She ate more than she strung onto the necklace :)

Lydia enjoys eating nuts with her grandpa Barfuss. Hopefully she won't turn out as nutty as her grandpa :)

Lydia enjoys climbing into little tiny boxes. Don't mind the nose picking. Luckily she's growing out of that phase. For a while there, it was a constant thing.

What a messy face! Lydia doesn't look too happy about it does she?

What a beautiful girl! I love her gorgeous blue eyes and smile! Look out mommy & daddy!

A favorite place for Lydia

2008-09-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

One weekend we decided to go to a place close to where we live that has some indoor rides for children. There are two rides that Lydia is big enough to ride: the carousel and a little balloon ride that lifts you up into the air and spins. After going there once, Lydia has been in love with the place. She has talked about it constantly saying "ride the tiger...teeth" (it had big teeth), or "ride the boon (balloon)......daddy." It's been fun to get into little conversations with her about it there and the different animals on the carousel. She has asked to go again and again....so being the loving parents that we are (and big softys too), we have taken her there about 5 or 6 times now on the weekends. She is in heaven when she is there and shrieks and runs towards her rides as we walk in the door. Her favorite animals to ride on the carousel are the tiger, the kitty (or killy as she pronounces it), the "zeebe" (zebra), and the chicken. She loves to walk around the carousel and point to all the animals and name them. You can see in the pictures how excited and happy Lydia is to be on her rides. As parents we love to see this and it makes us happy too.

Oh Those Summer Memories!

2008-09-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

Lydia is playing grandma Higley's piano during our trip there in June. What talent she had playing with a toy in her hand even! :)

Lydia loved swimming in her new swimming pool this summer. Don't you love the cheesy grin?

Lydia is sporting some cool sunglasses as we drove up to the Higley reunion in Idaho for the 4th of July weekend!

Lydia and I spent a day at Bear Lake with Uncle Bret, grandma Barfuss, and Lydia's cousin Kiera. Lydia had a blast! She loved to dig in the sand and splash in the puddles. She was adorable!

We spent a day at Hogle zoo. We couldn't get Lydia to smile in any of the pictures because she was tired, but she was fascinated by all of the animals!

Lydia loved to play in the back yard this summer on her swingset and slide. Lydia had her teddy bear stuffed up her shirt in this picture.

Summer is a time of barbeques, swimming in the sprinklers or pool, and going on walks to take in the beauty of nature and somehow be a part of it. Summer is a time of family reunions, family vacations, and picnics in the park or in the mountains. Summer is a time of going to the beach, the lake, the zoo, the parades and summer celebrations in the park. Summer is a time of planting a garden as a family, working on the yard, or just enjoying a warm summer evening outdoors doing nothing but enjoying the moment. I have so many wonderful memories of summer, both those made this year as well as so many others made throughout the years. Some of my fondest memories were made with the least effort or preparation to plan. It's not so important the money spent or extravegance of the activity, but more just being with those that we care about.

Some of the memories this summer that stand out to our family are:

1: Our vacation to Ohio where we had a wonderful visit with Lydia's grandma and grandpa Higley. We enjoyed visiting, shopping, working, eating, swimming, laughing, a birthday party for grandpa Higley, and just being together!

2: We had a fun day at Hogle zoo. It was so fun to see Lydia recognize the animals that she had read so much about in books and and to realize that they were really real! Lydia would make the sounds that they make. She also loved the ride on the train.

3: We had a fun fourth of July weekend where we were able to visit family both in Idaho at the Higley family reunion and in Logan during uncle Bret's visit. In Idaho we were able to see aunts and uncles Reid hasn't seen in years and visit with them. We had great food and hospitality as we stayed there and Lydia had such a fun time playing with the toys and ouside in the yard. In Logan we had a black birthday party for Bret's 40th birthday party, a musical recital with grandma Barfuss playing her violin and Lydia's cousins playing their musical instruments, we went to the cruise in parade with the classic model cars, and spent a day at the beach at Bear Lake. Whew! That weekend was packed but fun!

4: We enjoy picnics! We spent many summer evenings at the park with a picnic dinner. Lydia enjoyed playing on the swings, in the sand, and going down the slides. Picnics in the back yard on a blanket on the lawn are fun too and we enjoyed several of those too!

5: We went as a family and Uncle David to Raging waters. The guys had a great time going down the slides and us girls had fun dipping in the kiddy pools.

6: Lydia's Grandma Barfuss came to visit for a few days when Reid went on a business trip. We were able to go up Milcreek canyon on a picnic and a small hike. We enjoyed being up in the mountains and their beauty. It was a beautiful drive and outing.

7: Going on walks around the neighborhood (very slowly) with Lydia picking up all the little rocks and pebbles she could find. She loves rocks! She loves to pick them up and hold them. I am constantly throwing rocks back outside that she was holding in her little hands.

8: Planting our little garden this year was really fun. We dug up more area for our little garden and we actually have a very successful year of tomatoes! We are very excited! Many of them are still green, but they are big and I plan to try to can them when they ripen.

9: Playing in the backyard on the swingset and in Lydia's kiddie pool or running through the sprinklers has really been fun! It's so much fun seeing the excitement for life through a child's eyes! It brings out the child in us again which is great!

10: We went to the West Fest at the park and really enjoyed strolling through the park taking it all in and just enjoying the festivities. We walked around to see all of the vendors selling things, bought a few things, and bought us some dinner and ate as we enjoyed listening to one of the singing groups performing. We had a great time!

We are grateful for the wonderful memories we made this year as a family and look forward to many more in the future. Oh the memories of summer!

Party Time!

2008-09-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

. . . . . . . . The birthday boy, Tate with his mommy and daddy!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . Lydia and her cousin Karlee!

Family Picture. Dr. Seuss was the theme of the party. Click on the picture if you would like to view it better.

. . . . . . . . . . . Dad looked great in his crazy hat!

We went up to Logan for the weekend and had a fun Dr. Seuss themed birthday party for Lydia's cousin Tate who is turning one! My two sisters and their families and my parents were there. We all dressed in our best Dr. Seuss outfits and had a little picnic outside in my parents backyard. We enjoyed watching Tate open his birthday presents and dig into his birthday cake. I didn't take pictures of the cake, but Charee made a cute little birthday cake for Tate to dig into and one for the rest of the family. They turned out really cute and Tate had a great time squishing the cake between his fingers.

Lydia had such a fun time playing that she didn't want to take time to eat or sleep! She loves her cousins and kept following them around everywhere so of course if they weren't eating or sleeping, she didn't want to. She just loves other kids! Lydia started saying some of her cousins names too. I was impressed! We had a great weekend and as always, it was wonderful to spend time with family!

Daddy's Little Helper

2008-09-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

More and more, Lydia likes to show her independence. On Saturday while Reid was mowing the lawn, Lydia wanted to "help" daddy to mow the lawn. At first she followed him around as he mowed, but she soon wanted "up" so daddy gave her a piggy back ride on his back. Lydia soon got wiggly and bored and wanted to help push the mower. It was very cute to watch. Daddy had to go very slowly as he mowed the lawn this time, but Lydia was excited to be a part of helping daddy push the lawn mower. Together they did a great job!

Recent Pictures Taken of Lydia

2008-08-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

These pictures were taken of Lydia over the fourth of July Holiday. Lydia wasn't feeling too well and didn't want her picture taken but we were able to still get some fun shots while she was playing. These are some of my favorites! Thank you Lucinda! (See her photography web site posted under favorite blogs. She does great work).

New Blog!

2008-07-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody! I'm now a blogger. I'm just new at this and learning. I'm excited to keep in touch better with family and friends this way. I hope to keep ya'll posted on all of the happenings in the Higley home.

This is a picture of Lydia playing with her cousin Tate or "baby Tate" as she calls him. Over the Memorial day weekend, we drove to Logan and visited grandma and grandpa Barfuss, Charee, Aaron, and Tate. We had a nice visit with them.