Trying new things

I remember this being a happy day with Rease and now we have arrived with Rhen: holding her own bottle. (Not that I don't love cuddling and holding her while she's eating, but now at least I have the option.) Sometimes it is so nice to just hand her the bottle and let her go to town on it. What a great thing to learn! Way to go Rhen!

She is also very easily distracted with almost anything, especially the camera and its flash.

She is also starting to sit up on her own. I don't remember at what age they should be doing this, but I feel like it has been a long time coming with her. For some reason she isn't much of a sitter - even when she's on our lap she would prefer to stand up. So I haven't pushed the sitting much until lately. She is actually getting pretty good at it when she wants to. Sometimes though she doesn't really try and just flops onto her back.

I remember Rease being at this stage for a long time. She didn't crawl or walk until almost 12 months so this sitting thing was awesome for me - I could leave her with toys around her and know she'd be in the same place when I got back. Rhen I'm afraid will be a different story. She is already trying to be much more mobile. She can almost get onto her hands and knees and she is a master roller and can get anywhere she wants that way. It's amazing how much different my two girls are. That's how is should be I guess!

5 years ago...

Today we are celebrating our 5 year anniversary. Wow! This post is dedicated to my sweetheart and the 5 year journey we've had...

Our wedding day. I know everyone says their wedding day was the best day of their life - I agree. We had such a great day: the weather was perfect. The ceremony was fantastic. The dinner/reception was so fun and it was awesome to celebrate with family and friends.

Since then we've traveled...

to Spain (for our 1 year anniversary)

Washington DC (our good friend Mike worked at the White House at the time and we had a fabulous trip because of him and his connections. We toured the West Wing, sat in the Presidential Box and watched the National Symphony Orchestra and went to every cool place there is in DC.)

Havasupai (which is now our yearly family trip and we love it!)

Hawaii

and Mexico. Thanks Josh for working so hard so that we can have so much fun!

Josh has run the Marine Corps Mud Run twice (yes he ran in a kilt!)

I've run 4 marathons...

Josh got accepted to Grad School! He will be done in April - wahoo!

We had 2 kids...

Rease in June of 2007

Rhen in March of 2009.

They are our pride and joy and we don't know what we did without them! Our life is better with our kids in it. (I asked Josh today what his favorite memory is from the past 5 years. He said that his favorite thing happens everyday - when Rease runs to him when he gets home from work and Rhen can't stop smiling at him because he's home. He really does love our girls! What a dad!)

and most of all - we've made it this far and still love each other!

Thanks to Josh I am a happy woman! Here's to the past 5 years and to the next 100 years we have together!

Jump, jump, jump...

Rease has just recently perfected her jumping skills. At first, she was lucky to have one foot come off the ground. Now however, she is a jumping fool. See for yourself the kind of air this girl gets...

A whole inch at best.

Future basketball star?

Canning

It's canning time at our house. Last week Josh was kind enough to go pick these tomatoes from his mom's neighbor's house so that we could can them. I think he thought that would be his contribution to the canning but he ended up helping me all night. It was perfect timing cause I just used my last bottle of tomatoes from last year.

Rease helped too - I found these in her big wheel basket after we were all done.

We did it all in our garage to try and keep the mess out of the house. As you can see, it took us into the night to get finished.

The end result. Next up - Pears and Peaches.

6 months

Rhen just turned 6 months old a few days ago. Where did the time go? Just a few facts about our girl...

1) I just recently went through the girls' closet. Rhen is now wearing 12 month clothes.

2) Rhen growls. It is the cutest thing and she will totally do it on command. If you growl at her, she'll growl back. (I think she learned it because we were always scaring Rease by growling at her. Rhen picked it up I guess.)

3) Rhen offically says "dada"

4) She is an eater - she loves any type of baby food or whatever else we give her to eat.

5) We haven't been in for her 6 month check yet, but I'm sure her stats are off the chart. She is getting too tall for her carseat. The straps are maxed out and she barely fits underneath them. She is the tallest 6 month old I know.

6) I think Rhen may be the sweetest girl ever. She has been such an easy baby and is happy all the time. If you smile at her, she gives a big smile back. The other day Rhen was crying and Josh looked at me and said "what' wrong with Rhen?" That's how good she is - she doesn't hardly ever cry.

We love our darling girl!

Dad time

I wanted to let you all know how amazing my husband is. First of all, he is the busiest person I know right now. He is taking a class this semester that requires about 20-25 hours outside of class homework time. So on top of working a 40 hour week and driving to Layton one night a week for his 3 hour class, he now has homework almost every spare minute that he finds. I know he is exhausted and probably wonders why the heck he is doing it sometimes, but we sure appreciate all he does for us. Us three girls are well taken care of because of that man! More than anything I love Josh because of the dad he is to our girls. He loves spending time with them and this is often times what I find him doing when he gets home from work...

They love all the time they get with him! He makes a huge effort to hang out with all of us before the girls head to bed and before he starts on homework.

He is the best dad and we just wanted you all to know how much he means to us. We love you daddy!

Learning

The other day, the girls and I were waiting for Josh to get home from work so we pulled out the sidewalk chalk. I wrote down the numbers 1-5 and a few shapes and I was quizzing Rease. I held a chalk in my hand and asked her "what color is this?" Then I would point to a number and say "what number is this?" Same thing with the shapes. She was getting so good at answering most everything right - (the numbers are the hardest, she always skips five and goes right to six.) Anyway after doing this for a few minutes she picked up one of the pieces of chalk and said "mommy, what's this?" My turn to be quizzed!

Rhen enjoyed the afternooon with us too.

Oh my goodness - what a crazy 2 months we have had. Updates first on why we have been absent from the blogging world.

My sister Hayley got married in August - which was a wonderful day with lots of family and friends that we love to just hang out with. My brother and sister-in-law and their two darling boys were here and we had so much fun playing with them and the kids. My grandparents from out of town were here along with Uncle Mike and our friend Lorraine. Everyone crashed at mom and dad's house and it was a blast being with everyone. Hayley and Caleb looked so good on the wedding day and we couldn't be happier for them!

The day after Hayley's wedding, I started working full-time. Not because I wanted to - believe me I would much rather be home with my cute girls - but a position at dad's office became available and I had to take the time to hire and train a new girl. Lots of drama, lots of me filling in up front and having to figure out what the heck I was doing as I was going, everyday dropping my kids off to Grammy's, Heidi's, Lisa's or whoever else could watch them, and 5 weeks of working full time later, we found a new girl and I got her trained and everything. So as of this week, I am back to being a stay-at-home mommy! Wahoo! Best thing ever! Seriously, I did not realize the difference it makes in my life and in my kids' lives to have me be at home with them. For the past 3 weeks or so Rease has been snotty, crabby, whiny, clingy, and crying, crying, crying about everything. We blamed it on the terrible twos and both Josh and I said to each other that we can't wait until this stage passes. This week, since I have been home again, she has been 100% better. I have to believe that she just needed some structure and knowing that her mom wasn't going to leave her again and again. She is back to her sweet self and I love it!

In the middle of all that, our new computer broke and we had to send it into the shop for repairs. Two weeks of no computer means two weeks of no blogging.

Alas, here I am and I have so many pictures to put up.

Let's start with these of Rease...

Rease is a big girl now because she doesn't sit in her highchair anymore but on the stools with mommy and daddy. She doesn't need help eating either - she always tells me "I do it myself." Okay then. That's how this cheese ended up on her nose. She didn't know it for a long time but once she figured it out she promptly took it off her face and put it in her mouth. Why waste it?

This is another thing that got put on hold the past two months. Rease is a very willing potty-goer. It's just me that hasn't been into it lately. She no longer wants to go on her potty - she wants the "big toilet." So here she is..

And this is the face she pulls when she is really trying hard...

A few weeks ago Rease helped Josh clean the garage. I was doing some other project in the house and when I walked outside, this is the outfit I found Rease in.

We still can't get her to pull a normal face for the camera.

She loves helping Josh - washing the car is one of her favorite things. In this case, the cooler will do.

Little sweetheart.

Last, but certainly not least, the spaghetti face. Rease saw me wearing this shower cap one time and since then she always asks to wear it. I don't think she realizes that the cap is supposed to keep her hair dry. She just thinks it's a cute "hat." This is one night after spaghetti dinner.

What a face!

We sure are glad to be back to normal life around here!

Tub

Rease loves swimming in grammy and papa's hot tub - she calls it the "tub." Mom's neighbor Kim took these cute pics of her one night swimming with papa.