We're Home

One thing my Granny and GrandDad taught me as a kid is to enjoy the little things. Since I've become a mom I've tried even harder to do that. I've heard a saying that we try to give our children what we never had growing up, but in the process forget to share with them what we had.
One thing we did a lot when I was a kid, we would go on drives. Just drive, no real direction, just here and there, but somehow always back to our house. Today after a stressful day of work, and Heidi Anne being happy enough, Char and I just drove around town and up to the campus.
We talked about where we were a few years a ago when we first moved here, how lost we felt then. As we drove in our car we talked about the months we didn't have a car and only traveled by bike, bus, or just walking.
We drove by the cemetry where I used to jog, and clean away the mud and grass that had hiden the tombstones of infants who had passed away so many decades ago. Char pointed out today it was a way for me to grive for the three babies we had lost to miscarriage.
It amazes me how much we have grown together and grown to love this place, from that one Saturday in August a few years back to now. This is where we know all the roads, the best places to get a sandwich (Old Grist Mill) or pizza (Fire House), the local activites that happen here, like the Pumpkin Walk or Baby Animal Days, where Heidi Anne loves the parks, and feeding the ducks that live by my work, or the mean geese at First Dam.
As a child we moved around a lot and for the first time in so many years.....I've found a home, we're all home.

Hoppy Easter

We had a fun Easter, it was Heidi Anne's first Easter. We celebrated it on Saturday with my sister, her family, and my younger brother and sister.

We cheated and used plastic eggs for the babies and put baby cereal in the kids. The babies loved it! We wanted them to get the idea of "Find an Egg and get a treat" but we didn't want them full of sugar!

KaiKai and Heidi Anne Enjoying their Easter Egg Treats

We got all the kids Camo Sun Hats as part of their Easter Baskets. Kaikai got pink, Heidi Anne purple, Brea got green, and Maleia got blue.

Heidi Anne and her sunhat.

We got the little girls matching Easter baskets. They got an Easter bunny, easter rubber ducks, easter books, magnitic paper dolls, bubbles, bouncy ball, and a cute wall hanging, (they each got their own. The next day we got matching Easter books from my Aunt Deb!!The baskets below are the ones we got for the older kids. They loved their baskets too! Maleia got flip flops, nail polish, coloring book and crayons, and a pretty necklace. Braedin got a football, the 20 Q game, and some little lego sets.

Afterords we had a fun dinner with ribs, salad, rolls, and mashed potatoes. It was great!

By the way the 20 Q game is really fun!!

Baby Animal Days!!!

We went to a local heritage center where they bring out all of the baby animals and let Kai Kai and Heidi touch them and have a good old time.
My brother in law got the girls matching outfits. SOOO CUTE!!




There were so many diffrent types of animals and critters.
Kaikai in a Pig Pin, this little piggy was having a dream and snorting.






Heidi Had A Little Lamb, which she was afraid to pet at first.







Rebekah holding Heidi and watching Kaikai, while they are watching a baby goat drinking water. I'm taking the picture.






Big Calfs, Heidi kept calling them Cats, Cats.











A little family of goats, which everyone just loved. They were soo cute.

This was the boys favorite part, Turlte Town, everything from baby turtles, rattlesnakes, big boas, and a huge snaping turtle.

Breading with some turtioses.
He got to throw a tomahawk with Rhett (Braedin it the target once and Rhett twice). He also shot a bow and arrow, which he hit right on target.
They got a ride in a Model T, sit in a hand cart, sit on a tractor, talk to Mountian Men, and just run a round.
It was a blast and we were there for 3 hours. Everyone had fun, except Maleia, her main complaint, "It's muddy, and I smell like a horse." Apart from that it was a blast! There was something for everyone to do. I just loved watching Kaikai chase little goats in the pin. Or Heidi just happy and looking all around.

Ready for the Next Round of the Refiner's Fire

Sorry I haven't been on much, just stressful family things and work--it's billing you know.
I have learned one thing about trails, it can either tear a family apart or bring them closer. It also shows how much you can handle.
Charles calls this the refiners fire, just perfecting or preparing you for more to come.
There is so much turmoil in the world, not just in the news but everyday life, I bet anyone reading this has a family member or friend with cancer, or has lost their job, or has a loved one dying.
Sure this time has been hard, stressful, and above all else trying. Yet, most of our family has come closer, there have been people that have helped or things that have happened that were answers to our prayers. Also we all learned how much we can handle, and trust me it's a lot.

Wipe Escapade

I had turned my back for a moment to check on something, but when I turned around Heidi had gotten into the wipes and started pulling them out. Rather then getting upset over Heidi getting into them I got the camera and took this video, then tried to salvage as many wipes as possible.

Where's Heidi?

Heidi loves playing peekaboo on her own terms, and cannot be fooled.

Heidi's Headshake

Heidi has learned a new trick, she loves to shake her head back and forth when she gets her hat off and this is a fun video of it.

Bath Time

Heidi is a fan of bath time now, she used to hate it.

Now she loves bath time and splashing and being generally silly.

She especially loves getting her head scrubbed. She loves her bath toys.

Hello I'm Issss

Heidi Anne does so many cute little things
She says:
Dada--which is dad, (a lot)
Issss--which is Liss--aka mom (a lot)
Yeah--while clapping her hands together (a ton)
HI (on occasions)
Actions She Does:
She shakes her head No
Plays her own little version of Peek A Boo
Waves HI and Bye (different waves)
When she's hungry she opens and closes her mouth
She also taps her bottle with her hand when she's done drinking
And as always has the cutest smiles with little dimples
Rolls around (she thought about crawling today, but that didn't work)

Crazy Weekend Weather

Its seems you can tell when billing begins at my work, I do less posting. Anyhow we had a busy week, just running errands, like shopping, and going to Gossners (which we LOVE by the way). If you're ever in the valley you have to go to Gossners. The weather was SOOO nice on Saturday, we planned on taking Heidi Anne to the park for the first time, but after many errands, she became so cranky.
We thought "Okay, we'll take her to the park and feed the ducks tomorrow". Well, as anyone that lives up here knows, it was freezing cold on Sunday. We were only able to quickly feed the family of ducks that live by our office, because it started to rain. (Cute ducks, we feed them every few days during our lunch breaks, I bet I over feed them.)

P.S Heidi Anne has learned to shake her head No and to play Where's Heidi? As soon as we get those on video we'll post it. Char is trying right now to capture it, but she is a stubborn little girl sometimes.

Clapping Trick Video

This morning we were trying to get Heidi Anne to do her hand clapping trick. After Char left to start the car, Heidi Anne started clapping. When he came in, he tried to get her to do it and I walked by and said "She did it right after you left, great now your making a liar out of mommy" and as soon as I walked away Heidi Anne started clapping.

Snakes

I took advantage of Melissa in her postpartum state and convinced her that it would be a good idea to let me get a snake.

Here he was when we first got him!

The only problem was Snakes grow up. So I had to build a new snake enclosure.

Now boots is this big!

Ni Hao

I've been playing Mandarin Chinese since I was pregnant with Heidi Anne. Well last night we had the Ipod playing people speaking Chinese while we were cooking dinner with Heidi Anne in the high chair.
It was going over basic greetings "Ni hao" (pronounce it like knee how) (Hi) "Nimen Hao" (Hi to a lot of people). Like any good “so you want to learn another language” tape it does the pauses so you can reply. So we hear "Ni hao".....and then from the high chair we hear Heidi yell HI!!! and she was waving to the Ipod.
We were so shocked. We just looked at each other. I don't know if anyone will believe us, heck if both of us hadn’t been in there I don't think we would have believed one another.

Baby Shoes From Around the World

Charles parents travel a ton. Lately they've been bringing Heidi Anne little baby shoes from different counties. We're thinking about starting her a little collection and one day displaying them in a shadow box with a story of where they each came from. So if anyone goes somewhere can you bring back a little baby shoes for Heidi girl? Here is her collection so far: These cute little booties are from Guatemala--Same with the cute hat belowThese little pink leather shoes are from Morocco

Finally these adorable pink satin shoes are from China
Not a bad start for only being 8 months old. I think it'll be a cute little collection, something very unique for show and tell when she's in Kindergarten.

Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy

We had a great weekend. We got up at 5 AM and we went down to Salt Lake to let my sister and her husband have a breakfast date for 8:30 am. We watched the girls and they had so much fun playing together. Rebekah and Rhett watched Heidi Anne while we ran a quick errend.
Then the four of us took the girls to the aquarium at 11:30 We have more pictures on the Flickr account, there is a link conveniently on the side bar of the blog!

Kaikai had a blast. This is her looking at the Coral Reef Exhibit

Above-Char, Heidi and Me in the Amazon Exhibit-Below the Piranhas

Below are some pitures of and eel and jellyfish
After that we went to McDonalds for lunch. Around 3:00 we visited Chars Mom. Then we had a fun get together with my side of the family at 5:30. We left Salt Lake at 7-ish and got home around 9:00pm. It was a Long but very fun day!!

Look Who's Talking

Char got some video of Heidi Anne saying Dadad, and a few other babblings this morning.

She is soo fun!!

Valentines Day

We had a fun Valentines weekend. Char got me a pretty Chinese Painting and some books, (The Federalist Papers, Unsung Heros of the Revalution, and the "Real" Founding Fathers series.
I know I'm a geek. But I love it!!
It beats what I heard on the radio today. I listen to this talk show, and the day after Valentines the host has a fake "Couple of the Year" awards. Basicly some guys forgot it was Valentines until it was to late and so the host calls the wives and has this mad lib like letter that he reads to them. In hopes the guys get out of the dog house.
Well it was super funny this year because a few guys didn't know their wives listened to the show as well, so the jig was up.
Makes me happy that even though Valentines isn't a big deal to me, Char still makes it speacial.
One things for sure well never be on the "Couple of the Year show!" ;)

Playing Blocks

I am having way to much fun with this camera!! Another Heidi~Anne Movie. This time it's her playing with her blocks. :)

This Is A Test

And only a test. Hehehehe. Here is my first video of Heidi Anne. (Special thanks to my sister who gave me a totally awesome camera for my birthday, with video capabilities).

This is a little video of Heidi Anne giggling, she's being tickled by Dad-Dad. Which is offically her first word. Hopefully we'll have video of that soon too.

4th Picture In 4th File Tag

1) go to the 4th picture folder
2) go to the 4th picture in the folder
3) tell 4 things about that picture
4) tag 4 more people

4 things about this picture:
1) It's Heidi Anne
2)She's two months old in this picture
3)She is in her bouncer, which she just loved and would sleep in all the time

4)This was taken at her "Terrified of the Camera" phase.