Monkey Hugs

Rhen is such a hugger. Josh calls her hugs "Monkey Hugs" and he seems to be the recipient of them more often than mommy is. This is him getting some lovin from Rhen.

18 month stats - Rhen

Rhen is 18 months old!

And you know what that means? Nursery!

Here are her stats from Dr. Erickson:

Height: 34.06 inches - 97%

Weight: 23.94 lbs - 45%

Head: 18.8 - 81%

One thing I can say about our Rhenner is that she is very tall and skinny. Sometime when I look at her, I can't believe how much she's grown up. But boy do we love her and her energy. She keeps up moving and always makes things exciting around our house. My favorite things about our 18 month old:

- Her kisses. She will randomly come up and give kisses on the cheek or lips. Or if you are holding her hand, she'll lean over and kiss your hand while you're walking with her. She is a lover girl and I love her hugs and kisses!

- Her clumsiness. Rhen trips, tumbles, falls or stumbles at least 20 times a day. I don't know if her coordination just hasn't caught up with her height yet, but she is always on the ground and we find a new bruise on her daily. But she's a tough girl and rarely cries when she falls. Josh has taught her to "jump up and rub it out." So that's what she does. She a tough girl.

- Her crazy hair. I don't know another kid that has worse bedhead than Rhen. She wakes up with hair all over the place and all I can do to tame it is drench it with water - then it's semi-manageable. Blonde and crazy - what could be better?

- Her love for everyone. Rhen is a people person and loves to be around anyone and everyone. She loves to read with Papa. She loves to cook with Mommy. She loves to goof around with Daddy. She loves to shop with Grammie. She loves her aunts, uncles, cousins and everyone else she's around and gives big toothy smiles to anyone who will take one. She is lovable and that's the best part about her!

Running shoes

I bought Rease he very own pair of running shoes. She is so proud of them and thinks she is so grown up now that she has running shoes "just like daddy and mommy." She'll run up and down the hall just to show you how fast her shoes can go. I caught her lining all our shoes up by each other and had to snap a picture of this cute girl.

Fish Food

As you can probably tell, Rhen is a little mischievous one. She has recently been opening and closing the fish tank lid just for fun. She helps Josh feed the fish every morning but never gets to do it by herself. Well, one day she decided that they needed more than just the normal fish food - they needed a Treat! Josh and I were sitting across the room and telling Rhen to get away from the fish tank. It wasn't until 5 or 10 minutes later when Rhen kept saying "cookie" over and over that we realized she had actually fed the fish a cookie.

By the time we discovered it, the cookie was waterlogged and had started to crumble all over the place. Josh got it out with the net, but there were cookie chunks floating everywhere by then. The fish were going crazy with their new treat, but I think they all got sick. Their tummies were all bloated and we seriously thought they were not going to make it. But the next morning we woke up to our 6 fish still alive and kicking.

Rhen was very proud of herself and the fact that she got to "feed the fish."

Since then we have started to tape the top lid closed. No more treats for these fish!

Pigs in a blanket

I often find pictures on our camera that have been taken by Josh days or weeks in the past. I can tell that he and the girls have a lot of fun during the day. This is one particular instance that I found that may not have come to pass if I had been the one home with Rease and Rhen. I find that I am too often in a hurry to get the girls "dressed and ready" for the day and that I don't let them play and use their imagination before I take charge. Anyway, this particular day, Josh wrapped them up in their towels after the shower and let them make funny faces at each other. What a fun and good dad to have around! I know they love him so much and I love the moments that are captured on camera when he's home with them!

Pigs in a blanket anyone?

Mess

Some of the best things about Rhen - snotty nose, messy hair and those big blue eyes! I love this girl!

Red Mango

We took a trip to Red Mango for family night. This is one of our favorite places to go for a yummy and healthy treat. My favorite is the pumpkin flavor which is a seasonal flavor for fall/wintertime. Whatever flavor we get though, we always enjoy it - especially with family!

Long noodles

I realize that I have lots of pictures of Rhen eating - this must be her favorite pastime because she's in her chair all the time. Anyway, one of my girls' favorite lunches is "long noodles" aka Ramen noodles. Josh puts a big pile on Rhen's tray and it's gone before you know it. She is our good eater and will gobble up anything we put in front of her.

Colors Concert

Every year my family gets tickets to see one of our favorite local bands "Colors." Josh is never too thrilled to go but always joins us because he knows I love to go. We took Rease with us this year and she had a blast running around and dancing to the music. These are the only 2 pictures we got of the night and I had to include both of them (even though they are basically the same picture) because I think Rease is hilarious in them. She has been on this kick of making "crazy faces" in pictures. Aunt Hayley has a picture up in her house with Caleb's family and they are all making funny faces. Rease thinks it is the funniest thing ever and now wants to make a "crazy face" whenever the camera is around. What a nut!

We had a great time and the weather was perfect! And just for the record, I heard Josh singing to a couple of the songs and he even clapped once. Hey, it's progress!

Dutch Oven Cookoff 2010

We were invited once again to Josh's cousin's house for their Dutch Oven Cookoff. We love going to get together with our favorite cousins and catch up but we also love it because there is always such fabulous food! This year was even better than last year.

Rhen couldn't wait until the hot stuff was done, so she started to sneak the finger food. I caught her in the act.
Rease had a blast playing with the kids.

A few of the yummy dishes that were made:

Pork loin wrapped in bacon...

Asiago chicken...

Spicy chicken...

I didn't get a picture of them all, but some of the other dishes included hamburgers and french fries (yes all made in the dutch oven and fabulous!), scallops with mango sauce and fried chicken.

Thanks for the wonderful night of food and friends!

100 miles an hour - Rhen

I got home from work one day and Josh looked exhausted. I could tell it had been "one of those days" and I was pretty sure it had to do with our little disaster girl Rhen. He showed me the pictures he had taken of her in just the past hour - she is a crazy nut.

Why does every kid love pulling out the whole toilet paper roll? Rhen loves wasting toilet paper, wipes and anything that she can get her hands on...

After she wasted all the toilet paper, she headed to our bedroom...
We have a big mirror hanging on our wall. Rhen loves it because it's low enough that she can see herself in it. She looks at her hair, plants fingerprints all over it and even dances in front of it. She'll grab onto it and sway back and forth with it like she's dancing with it, which is what she was doing when this happened.

Yes, she pulled the mirror right off the wall. Luckily the bed is close enough that it hit the bed before it could land on her. Josh said she got a little startled by it but I think she got over that quickly.

As Josh was trying to get the mirror back on the wall, Rhen couldn't help but make one more mess while she was at it.

Not that spilled milk isn't something that happens daily, but I think Josh just didn't have the patience for one more thing that hour. It was still there when I got home and I gladly cleaned it up for him.

I love my sweet husband for all he does, but mostly because he can handle days like this and still love our girls to death. Our Rhen wears us out but boy is she fun!

Chad and Britt's visit to Utah

Chad, Britt and the boys came to Utah to visit over Labor Day this year. We love having them and the girls love having their cousins around! We did so many fun things while they were here. I'll try and get through everything we did together!

Grandpa and Grandma Iverson happened to be coming through Utah the first night that Chad and Britt were here. We met them, along with Chris Judy and their kids, downtown for dinner. We ate at the Garden in the Joseph Smith building. It was good food, but mostly great to have such a fun get-together with family!

Grammie and Papa were nice enough to let the kids sit on their table, so us parents could get in some good chat time.
After dinner, Nolan and Rease had a blast looking through the big windows at the temple and the city below.

These 2 cousins are so cute together!

The next day, we spent the day and night at the cabin. I didn't get a lot of pictures of us while we were there but did snap this cute picture of Nolan and Rhen getting a "ride" on the hammock.

We made dinner in the dutch ovens and then Papa and the kids did the dishes. They are such good helpers!

That night, Josh and Rease decided to sleep outside in the tent. Rease loves "camping" with daddy, even if it is just outside our door.

We got up bright and early the next morning so we could be the first ones on the lake - we got there at 7:00 am. We spent a fabulous day at Deer Creek - which is quickly becoming our favorite spot to boat. The water in the morning is perfect glass and usually we are one of the only boats on the lake until about 11:00.

We got these awesome pictures of Steph doing her thing on the wakeboard - you go girl! I didn't get many other pictures of skiers/wakeboarders, but Josh, Caleb, Justin and dad all had their turns. Dad is a great skier and loves having the perfect water to ski on. This particular boating trip though was not his best. He was on his last run and took a hard fall trying to jump the wake - he had a hard time getting up. After being back in the boat for a while, we realized that he was not okay and wasn't saying much. He later went to the doctor and found out that he had broken three ribs on that fall - no wonder he was in pain. That's the end of skiing season for him!

Rhen and I spent some time on the shore and she entertained herself throwing rocks into the water - so fun!

Back at the cabin after a long day on the boat - just relaxing in front of a movie.

The next day Grammie set up an appointment at our local fire station to have the kids go through a tour of the fire truck and station. It turned out that they were pretty scared and shy and didn't quite know what to think of this big truck and all the crazy fireman clothes. This is the best picture we got of the kids and the fire truck.

Rease was trying to be brave - you can tell she isn't quite sure what to think. She kept saying that she didn't want them to turn on the loud noise. I finally realized that she is scared of the siren and was afraid they were going to turn that on when she was around.

Rhen climbing in the fire truck.

And this is her favorite cheesy face.

This is where Rease spent a lot of her time, because she was being shy and scared of everything.

Rhen tried to cheer her up but it didn't do much good.

She really just wanted to be by herself, so she found a new place to sit.

We finally did talk Rease into going inside the fire station with us and getting her own fire hat. She was okay once we were inside and away from the fire truck.

These were the nice firemen that showed us around. It ended up being a great tour and the kids had a good, fun experience.

Later that night, Chad made his fabulous home-made pizza. He learned how to make authentic pizza when he was on his mission in Italy and believe me, they are the most delicious thing you will ever taste.

Hayley was in charge of cutting the cheese into small pieces.

And Rease helped roll out the dough.

What a good cook we have! The pizza turned out amazing as always and I don't think there was even a crumb left over.

We also took a trip to the dinosaur museum while they were here. I have actually never been and we really enjoyed it - it is an awesome place!

And the kids enjoyed themselves and loved all the crazy dinosaur skeletons.

There is one part in the museum where they let the kids "dig" for dinosaur bones. It was super cute and fun for the kids to do for a while.

Rease liked to see all the different types of animals.

This is a crazy big turtle skeleton! We had a great visit and learned a lot of new things!

One of my favorite things to do in the fall is go to the BYU football games. Dad got enough tickets for us to all go while Chad and Britt were here. We left the kids with babysitters and spent the afternoon tailgating and cheering on the cougars!

I was in charge of cooking the brauts.

And we always try to watch the band as they are coming into the stadium.

It was a fun game and especially fun to all be together! The weather was perfect and the cougars won!

Justin and Steph had us over for a bbq one afternoon. They always have so many delicious, different types of meat for us to try out. This time they decided to do shiskabobs and had about 6 or 7 different meats to choose from. Plus all the vegetables you could think of. It was delicous and fun to try all the meat they had. Just a few of the shiskabob creations...

Grammie and Wyatt.

Uncle Chad and Wyatt.

The best part of Justin and Steph's house is the yard. It is a perfect place to spend a summer afternoon and there is a sandbox for the kids to play in - what could be better? They had a blast! Thanks to Justin and Steph for hosting a fabulous bbq for all of us!

We also celebrated Nolan's 3rd birthday while they were here. Britt invited her siblings that are living in Provo up for cake and ice cream and we had a fun time celebrating with Nolan.

Happy Birthday buddy!

As you can see, we had such a great time and packed as many fun things into one week as we possibly could. Unfortunately I don't think it was a very relaxing vacation for them because we were always busy - but boy did we have a fun time with them here! We love you all and can't wait to see you again! Thanks for coming to visit!