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.

Caleb and Hayley

I apologize for not having these pictures up sooner. My sis Hayley got married two weeks ago. I wish I had more pictures, but I am hoping that I can steal some from Hay when she gets hers back.

Hayley was such a beautiful bride and they had a great wedding day! We just love Caleb and are all so glad to finally have him officially part of the family!

Hayley made these cute tu-tus for all the little girls and they all looked darling.

Rease loves her Aunt Hayley and for weeks before the weekend (and still now since the wedding) talked about Hayley's "pretty wedding dress."

I wish I had a picture of the "famous" dance that happened at the wedding. Caleb and his brothers did a dance that was awesome! They dance at all the brothers' weddings and they continued the tradition with Caleb's. It's hard to describe and hard to even put into words how good/funny/original it was, so I guess you had to be there. Anyway, Rease loved dancing with Aunt Hayley.

We still haven't quite figured out how to break her of this habit - still the "cheese" face.

Dad, Josh, Rhen and our friend Greg - all looking good!

After a long day of playing, playing, playing...

Cookies

We make cookies almost every Sunday after church and Rease loves helping. Her job this week was rolling the dough in the cinnamon and sugar. It was a big job for a two year old but she did almost every one of them.

The best part about helping in the kitchen is that you earn the right to sneak some of the dough...Rease took full advantage of that right.

I used to love watching things cook through the oven door - I passed this on to Rease.

Nothing better than warm cookies and milk!

Toy time

Rhen loves her toys (they're actually Rease's - shhh don't tell her) and loves putting anything in her mouth. I set her in the highchair and she played and played and played. Plus, as you can see, she is getting her hair in. Josh has started spiking it up so you can actually see it. It is so blonde that when it's flat you can't tell that she really has hair. But it's there!

Shopping spree

I love coupons. It's a fact. Smith's was having double coupons this week so that makes couponing even more fun. Sunday night (at midnight so it was technically Monday) a few girls from my ward got together and planned out our course of action to get all the best deals at Smith's. We clipped coupons together and then headed to the store...in the middle of the night...

We basically had the store to ourselves - which was awesome! This is what you can do if nobody else is in the store... We spread out and made ourselves at home getting our deals.

This is the grocery bag car...

And this is what I came home with. Believe it or not, all of this only cost me $4.27.

This is why I love coupons.