The Willoughby's

Something to document...

2012-01-27T08:46:00.000-08:00

So, Scott comes home from work this morning and asks me how Paige was last night. (We have had some problems with bedtime and her throwing tantrums lately)

I told him that she was good.

He said, "She is getting so cute, she just melts my heart everyday!"

We are truly blessed to have her in our lives, and so thankful for her sweet little personality. She sure is growing fast and and getting cuter and cuter everyday (if that's possible, cause she was the cutest thing from the moment that she was born.)

Just so thankful for my blessings!

Pictures and Thoughts

2012-01-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pics of the gender party that we had a few months ago.

I didn't get them all posted and wanted to get those up along with a few thoughts that I have had recently about the importance of family and the gospel!

GENDER PARTY!

Here is the box of balloons before we opened it...

We decided that we will do this fun tradition for any additional "Little Willoughby's" that come along. Paige loved it, and I think that it turned out to be a really fun way of telling her what we were having :)

Here we are right after we opened our fun box, with Paige holding a "BLUE" balloon!

We did a little hot chocolate bar for everybody that came, it was really fun :)

Here is a pic of one of our ultrasound pictures for everybody to look at and guesses of what we might be having. And no, it is not a gender shot. We looked through all the pics but there was not one that they took for us, so we thought that a side profile would still be fun.

Here is a close up... Can't wait to meet this little guy! We are so excited.

We even agreed on a name, which took a little convincing Scott. But, the name is officially:

DECLAN SCOTT WILLOUGHBY

We wanted to name our first boy after both of us.

Scott is the middle name because Scott is my maiden name and of course Scott's first name.

K, these are the most crazy balloons cause they didn't start deflating for the longest time...

They lasted almost 2 months! Paige loved carrying them around. We let Paige get a pink balloon while we were at the balloon place, hence the random pink balloon.

Crazy pose!!!

We let Paige play with the box for a few days after the party

She LOVED playing in that thing!!!!

"HI!!!!" So cute :)

HA!!

Love this girl!

We are so super excited for Declan's arrival...

Paige asks me each day if we can take the baby out. :)

She loves to kiss and hug him, and loves spending time cuddling him!

It will be an interesting adjustment with two kiddos instead of just one. But, I know that it will be worth it, and I am not doing it alone. I am so thankful that we have the opportunity to be parents. There is nothing better, I can't imagine life without my two little ones, even though one is not here yet. But, even up to this point every moment has been so worth it and I know whatever happens in the future, it will be such a wonderful experience to look back on all the memories.

Feeling him move, feeling the sweet sprit that is with you while you are carrying one of God's precious children... there is no other experience like it. And I will never regret it!!

I am so thankful for family and what a wonderful blessing we have to be sealed together FOREVER! And so grateful for the support of family!

I am so thankful for the plan of salvation and the knowledge that I have of God's plan for all of us. What a wonderful reminder it is for me everyday of our eternal purpose...

I am so thankful for every moment that I have to spend with my family and try to absorb as many moments as I can because they pass by so quickly and life is so precious! There are moments in each of our lives that remind us of that and show us just how precious life is! I know that we are here but a small moment in time, but oh... we are so important. I know that Heavenly Father loves each and everyone of us and he is aware of our struggles and he is there to help if we just ask for it. And sometimes that is the hard part... Asking. But, he will comfort us in times of trouble. He loves us so very much! I am SO THANKFUL for my many blessings and for the Gospel in my life!!!!!!

I LOVE YOU SCOTT, PAIGE, and DECLAN!

And all of my family... I can't imagine life without you!

Thank you!

xoxo

ASH

(& ;) mommy)

Baby #2 Reveal!!!!

2011-11-17T19:24:00.001-08:00

Tonight we had a fun little party revealing what we are having!

Watch the video below to see what we are having.

Drum roll, Please...

And...

It's a...

YAY!!!!

We are so excited for our new addition :)

October fun and Halloween!

2011-11-06T21:49:00.000-08:00

THE CORN MAZE AND PUMPKIN PATCH!

This month has been so fun! We went out to the corn maze and pumpkin patch. We had a blast! Here's a few pics of our adventures...

They had some fun things for the kids to play on.

Paige thought it was fun going under all the tires.

Going on a hay ride!

Looking out at the pumpkin patch.

Paige wanted to pick out a few pumpkins and kept trying to pick them up!

I'm pretty sure that she kept picking the biggest ones she could find :)

Out in the patch!

Found one just my size, Mommy! (we let her take it home, hey it was free!)

We also went through part of the corn maze. There was this bridge that we had to cross in the maze, it was really neat to look over the field of corn and the pumpkin patch!

At the top of the stairs with Daddy. Paige loves to ride on Daddy's shoulders, and most of the time that is just how she holds on... CUTE HUH!?!

Standing on the bridge, Paige loved looking over the edge at all the people below.

So, most of you that know Scott know that he loves teasing... Well, he kept hiding in the corn and would jump out and try to scare Paige. She wasn't to scared though, she mostly just laughed when he would jump out, it was super cute.

Here is a video... Not as good as in person, the best ones I didn't even get! Darn it! Oh, well.

MURDER MYSTERY DINNER!

Every year our awesome friend Barb puts on this super fun Murder Mystery Dinner party for Halloween. This year was Murder under the Big Top! It was so fun! We had lots of yummy carnival food and they even made a tent in the front room! So cool :)

Enjoying the night...

Hangin' with some of our best friends

Left to right: Jennifer, Adria, Scott, Me, Melissa, Mike

The theme was set in the 40's. My character was a lion tamer and Scott was the FBI agent.

The whole group together! Thanks for a super fun evening Barb!

PUMPKIN CARVING!

We were a little late on carving pumpkins this year, but we did get it done! A few days before Halloween we had a family night and carved away, Paige even helped draw her face on with a marker!

Looking in the pumpkin, she wasn't to sure about all the stuff inside. When we told her to start taking the insides out, she refused! She wasn't about to touch it! She kept saying, "EWWW!"

Scott putting his design on his pumpkin!

We have done this tradition since the first year we were married...

We look online for a design that we like and make a little harder carving, makes it a bit more fun now that we are adults. And we have loved it!

Paige and Mommy!

Paige loved playing in the bowl of slim, just as long as she didn't have to touch it with her hands she was fine. :) She would stir with her spoon and would tell us that she was cookin'! That's my girl!

Daddy helping Paige carve her pumpkin!

Paige thought it was so fun to pull the pieces out after they were all cut.

So after Daddy helped Paige with her pumpkin he convinced her that the insides weren't so bad and she finally put her hand in, WAY TO GO DADDY!!!!

Trying to put Daddy's lid on her pumpkin...

All done... I think she was a little freaked out, we took the picture in the dark with the pumpkin face glowing. After she saw it a little longer she thought it was pretty cool.

Here's our pumpkins all done!

Left to right: Mine, Paige's, and Scott's

TRICK OR TREATING!

For Halloween, Paige was Abby Caddabby off Sesame Street. Took a bit of time, but I think her costume turned out great, and best of all... Paige loved it! Mission accomplished! :)

Here's a picture at the ward "Trunk or Treat".

She was super cute!

Here she is with some of her best friends...

The Morrell triplets (they were the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty, aren't they super cute?!?)

Left to right: Carly, Madision, Paige, and Makenna

Paige and Madison holding hands... Aww...

Then some of our friends have a neighborhood Trick or Treating parade that they invited us to. It was super fun! Here we are headed off to the park for the parade!

Paige with some more of her besties!

Left to right: Me, Paige, Madox, and Brenna

Cute pic of us right before the parade!

Just hangin' out...

Waiting for the parade to start...

Scott had to go to work during the time that we would be at the parade so he wore his scrubs. He wasn't just dressed up as a nurse ;) This was the first year since Paige has been born that Scott has gotten to see her in her Halloween costume. It was so fun to have Daddy there! What a special treat.

Daddy "parading" with Paige and collecting all the goodies

Looking at her candy... See that purple hair! She loved it! Now when I put hairspray in her hair, she thinks its going to be purple. Funny!

Then after the parade we went out for a little trick or treating through our friends' neighborhood.

Some of our besties! Aren't their girls so cute!?!

Left to right: Me, Rylee (front), Barb, Paige, Mike, Josie, and Chloe (front)

Paige did a great job with all the trick or treating this year... Definately had way more fun this year than last. She loved Halloween!!! Everytime she saw something scary she would say "Oooo, SPOOKY!" and we practiced saying Trick or Treat, so she would say "Trick or Treat" to everyone for her candy. And she did! So stinkin' cute! Now if I could just convince her that she can't eat the candy all day long ;)

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Baby #2 is on the way!

2011-10-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

We are excited to announce that we will be welcoming baby #2 into the Willoughby Family on or near...

April 17, 2012

Paige has been really excited, and gives the baby kisses all the time!

Can't wait until our new little addition arrives! We are going in for our gender ultrasound on November 16th. We are going to announce the gender in a fun way! So stay tuned to see what we are having :)

Saying bye to Grandma and Grandpa Scott and First Offical Hair Cut!

2011-10-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

~ Visit with Grandma and Grandpa Scott ~

My parents just left October 3rd for an LDS mission to Atlanta, GA.

So, the week before they left, they came up to visit for an overnight trip. It was a wonderful trip, and it was so great to see them before they left! We went out to dinner to The Cheesecake Factory.

And just spent some much needed quality time together.

Here is Paige holding hands with Grandma and Grandpa Scott...

She absolutely loved having them come and wanted nothing to do with anybody else but them! :)

Waiting for our table... Wouldn't let go of their hands!

You can only guess what Paige had for dinner! SPAGHETTI! She was a mess, but she loved it!

Grandpa Scott, Grandma Scott, Paige, and I...

Saying goodbye! There weren't very many dry eyes when they left.

Paige kept waving goodbye to the camera when we told her that Grandma and Grandpa were leaving... We were all laughing! It was pretty funny :)

Finally, one picture without her waving... Smile!

Here is a picture that my parents sent us via email... Don't they look great with their missionary tags on!?! We love you Grandma and Grandpa! Miss you!

But, we know that you are doing a wonderful service and you are truly the Lord's Missionaries!

~ Paige's first official hair cut ~

A few weeks ago, we took Paige to go get her first official hair cut... Some of our friends told us about this cute little place for kids hair cuts, so we thought we would try it out! It was awesome! They have fun places for the kiddos to sit while they are getting their hair cut and they give them cookies and a sucker to eat too! We loved it and so did Paige!

Here she is sitting in a jeep... They had some fun merry go round animals to sit on, and other fun things, but Paige told us that she wanted to sit in the TRUCK! And sit in the "truck" she did ;)

She loved her sucker and was sooooo good! I couldn't believe it, I thought for sure that we would end up with a melt down and her totally freaked out, but she did great!

Scott waiting for her cut to be done...

They even put sparkles in her hair, and she LOVED it!

She still talks about wanting to get sparkles in her hair. :)

All buckled in and ready to go home... Enjoying that sucker! Awww... So cute!

Our crazy busy summer!

2011-10-02T23:22:00.000-07:00

Holy Cow!!!! Has the summer just flown by or what!?! I can't believe all that has happened since I last posted. Well, here we go.... your in for one wild ride! I have said it before and I will say it again... Total picture overload! Now, this might possibly be my LARGEST picture post ever!!!! AND I MEAN EVER!!!! We have had an incredibly busy summer! I will start off with the beginning of the summer... or spring, I guess ;) I will try and keep comments on each picture brief since I have so much to update on.

Little bit about Paige and how fast she is growing!

Paige is still exploring and getting into just about everything :)

And always doing something silly!

She loves to dress up! She LOVES jewelry and anything to do with princesses. Especially CROWNS! Loves them!

She got into my jewelry drawer and this is how I found her :)

She loves to brush mommy’s hair and “fix” it for me, complete with what else but... a crown! And sometimes piggy tails with no band she just wads my hair and twists and says “Pig Tails!” She loves having her hair in pig tails almost all of the time.

She went through this really weird stage at the beginning of the summer where she would pull her own hair out... OUCH!!!! At first we thought it was because she was pulling out her hair clips and bands, but even when she didn't have anything in she wake up from her nap with clumps of hair that she had pulled out. Here is a pic of one of the worst ones, the top of her head... she is facing to the left of the picture. We had to cover it up with lots of headbands. I am happy to say, it has grown back in and she is no longer pulling her hair out :)

Her favorite movies right now are:

Tangled (Explains the obsession with brushing my hair and crowns!)

Beauty and the Beast

Princess and the Frog

Little Mermaid (And she calls this “Arial!”)

Bugs Life

Nemo (Don’t think she will ever get sick of this)

And really anything with a princess or fairy in it, she is such a girl!

And she LOVES her morning cartoons! Word World, Curious George, Cat in the Hat, Super Why, Dinosaur Train, and Sesame Street are her favorites.

She loves chocolate milk, hot chocolate, cold cereal -and drinking the milk at the end all by herself.

She now drinks out of a regular cup by herself, and a pretty full one might I add! Still loves veggies and fruits. Her favorite foods right now are peas, corn on the cob ~wonder where she got that from ;), pineapple, oranges, and grapes. And of course candy, cookies and cake!

She is talking up a storm... Sentences of about 3 to 4 words. But, still very shy to new people or someone she hasn’t seen in a while.

She loves to dance... Love this picture of her and Daddy dancing in the kitchen! What a great dad!

She now helps say family prayers!

She loves to sing whether it is along with disney songs in the car, movies or primary songs. She can sing along with about half of the words, the last words in every phrase she can always remember.

My favorite to hear her sing is “I am a Child of God” she can sing this one almost all by herself. Melts my heart every time.

Her favorite songs are:

“I am a Child of God”, “Old McDonald”, and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.

Man, since I last posted I can’t believe how much she has grown! Oh, she is getting so big. I can’t believe it. Anyway, on to the pictures and months and months of updates shall we...

Here are some Easter pics...

Paige going on her very first Easter Egg Hunt. She was a bit intimidated by all the kids running around grabbing eggs. And ok, let's be honest... I pretty much picked up ALMOST all the eggs for her ;) But it was fun!

Easter morning... Going out to hunt for her easter basket. A fun tradition in my family growing up. The Easter Bunny always hid our baskets outside and we would have to go look for them. We decided that we would continue the tradition.

There it is... In the tree! Paige was pretty distressed that it was in the tree.

Checkin' out the goodies!

Paige loved her Easter Egg Basket, she carried it around with her everywhere for weeks after Easter.

Visit with April (Scott’s Sis)

We had a great visit with Scott’s sister April & her kids. They came to stay with us for a few weeks while they were moving to Oregon. Jay, April’s hubby, had to start his new job and so we didn’t get to see him :( But, It was so fun to have family stay with us! Paige loved playing with the kids, it was a lot of fun. And of course, as I was looking through our pictures, we only have one picture of their stay! Darn it! April if you got any I would love to have them!

Paige playing with Calvin...

We had a few Birthday Celebrations and Visits from My parents...

Since Scott and My birthdays are only a few days apart, we usually celebrate together. So, we planned a birthday date together, Thanks Sharon and Brent for helping make that happen :) Great birthday present! We had lots of fun.

Scott wanted cheesecake for his birthday. Here is scott enjoying a piece before he headed off to work.

And my parents always take each kid and their spouse out for their birthdays,

so they drove up to Boise and took us to my FAVORITE resturant... Tucanos! Ohhh... so delish! Mmmm...

Thanks Mom and Dad!!!!

Scott didn't want to have them sing Happy Birthday so he asked the waitress if we could just let Paige play with the tambourine. She LOVED it!!!

She even showed Grandma and Grandpa how to play :)

Paige crawling around on the kitchen table before Grandma and Grandpa left...

Grandpa sure thought it was funny!

Love it when they visit! Paige loves Grandma and Grandpa! And we do too!

Father’s Day...

I wanted to do something fun and memorable for Scott for Father’s Day.

So, Paige made a cute shirt for Daddy for Father’s Day!

Here she is getting ready to paint... So stinkin’ cute!

Painting, she LOVED it!

All Done!!!

Giving Daddy his present... Daddy LOVED it!

Mmmm... Daddy's favorite cookie!

RANDOM Summer Pics...

Went to the park lots and even had some picnics!

Went to a local Parade... Paige loved it! There was lots of music...

Paige’s 2nd Birthday and a Visit from Sharon (Scott’s mom)...

My baby turned 2 at the end of June! Wow, has time flown by... We had so much fun and so many visitors. Scott’s mom flew all the way up from Arizona to come and visit us, My parents and niece, Madison, flew from Texas to come for the party, and lots of friends came too! It was a blast! Paige loved it! And Paige loved her birthday cake and thought it was pretty cool that it was just for her. And now every time we have cake she says “Paige’s Birthday Cake!”

Here are a few pics from the party...

Paige sitting in front of her cake

Some of the visitors

Blowing out the candles and cutting the cake!

Yumm!

We caught Paige licking one of the tiers, that became Paige's cake!

Opening presents... Thank you everybody, Paige loves every single gift that she got.

Scott, Grandpa and Grandma Scott and I went in on a kitchen for her birthday, and she loves it!

Playing with her birthday goodies after the party has left.

Grandma MacDonald got her a puppy purse with lots and lots of fun things inside. Paige loves it and wants to take it with us every time we go shopping! It's getting a little dirty, not white anymore. Oh, well! Well loved right!

Here’s a few pics visiting with Grandma Macdonald! Thanks so much for coming Sharon! It was so great to have you here. Paige absolutely LOVED Grandma! We went out for ice cream one evening and Paige had a blast.

4th of July

So the week of the 4th of July was a crazy and busy one... My brother, Dustin was getting married on Saturday, the 9th, so I decided that I would travel up on Sunday, the 3rd, to go a little early... since I was making Dustin’s wedding cake and everything else that was going on that week. My brother, Kyle, and his family came up for the wedding from Texas and my Mom’s birthday was on the 5th and we had family pictures on the 8th... so there was a lot going on.

Scott had to work most of the week so he came up later.

The 4th...

As kids, my family always had a tradition of going to the Melleluca Fireworks Show in Idaho Falls.

I loved it as a kid and still love going to visit and see the show.

Having fun with the fam and hangin’ out before the show!

Love this one of my brother, Jared, and Paige! Priceless!

Jared playing with the kids.

It's getting dark, the show is about to start!

Paige loved the fireworks, she thought the “lights in the sky” were so awesome!

Telling mommy about the "lights in the sky"!

Mom’s Birthday...

July 5th

Here are a few pics from my Mom’s Birthday, almost all of the family was there it was so fun to have everyone together!

LOVE YOU MOM!!!

A favorite family tradition... "Annie, Annie, I Over"

Everybody just hangin' out...

Singing Happy Birthday!

Family Pics...

We had Family Pictures done on Friday, July 8th, while everyone was together.

There were lots of good ones!

I will have to put those on another post. This is already getting really long!

Dustin’s Wedding...

My brother Dustin was married July 9th, 2011 at the Rexburg, Idaho LDS Temple to Becca Young.

She is super sweet and we are excited to welcome her to the family! It was a beautiful wedding!

Waiting outside the temple for the couple to come out...

The lunch-in:

Unfortunately, I didn't get any other pictures of the lunch-in besides this one after it was over and the family was cleaning up. The kids did a cute little performance. They even let Paige participate! I didn't get to see it, I was gone picking up the cake, I would have loved to though. Children are so precious! They are so super cute!

Setting up the cake...

The Reception:

Here are a few random pictures of the week...

So cute! Stuck in the tube!

Paige loved picking and eating Grandma and Grandpa's peas. Oh, Paige... Do you really need a cookie and peas at the same time. Two of her very favorite things! :)

Paige was hanging out in the barstools like this and I just had to snap a picture.

And some other really cool news...

My parents just put in their mission papers, so that is SOOOOO exciting! They will hopefully get their call soon! :) YAY!!! ***(UPDATE... Since I wrote this, they received their call and are leaving for the MTC tomorrow, October 3rd.

They were called to the Atlanta, GA mission!)

YAY!!!! Miss you already!

So that has been our CRAZY summer! And it did calm down some after the wedding. With the exception of about 6 cake orders that I have done, almost one every week since we got home... Maybe my next post I will post some pictures so you can see some that I have done. But, we are now on the down hill and definitely slowing down! Time to finally RELAX! And I am getting so excited for fall to come, it is the start of my very favorite couple of months...

from about October to December!

Ahhh, I love the holidays!

Random Pics and Family Update :)

2011-03-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

Here's just a few random pictures of us lately...

Funny picture with Daddy! Daddy was sharing his popsicle with Paige... I love that he is even helping show her how to lick! ;) Funny Daddy!

Oh man, does Paige ever love her baby dolls, really any baby for that matter. Real or doll, she loves them all! She is always trying to feed her babies...

And always wants to cuddle with them... So adorable!

As usual Paige is always wanting to help! Here she is sweeping the floor... the second you pull out the broom she wants it and starts trying to sweep the floor, and then it is impossible to get any "real" sweeping done :) Oh, Paige!

Here she is trying to help Daddy replace light bulbs... she can actually climb up a few steps on the ladder before I totally get freaked out and pull her off!

While Chad and Emily were here Emily's brother came to visit. They just had a BRAND NEW baby! Paige was in Heaven let me tell you! She just wanted to hold that cute baby all night, didn't want to leave Aunt Emily's side...

Here she is telling everybody where the baby's eyes, nose & mouth were...

And of course she had to help feed the baby!

BEST PART EVER!!!!

Another Paige "being Mommy" moment~

Oh, she would take them everywhere if we would let her!

Ok so back at the beginning of February we decided to add to our little family and get a puppy.

Very spur of the moment!

For those of you who are thinking about getting a dog, just a word of advice... REALLY THINK ABOUT IT!!!!!! I do not suggest just getting one the way we did. A little too sudden! Scott has always wanted one (he has never had a dog as a pet before!) and we thought that it might help Paige. To ease the hole that Chad and Emily's family would surely leave when they moved.

Paige has loved her and is always trying to play with her. Here she is putting a necklace on the dog, why wouldn't Izzy want to wear a beautiful necklace? ;)

She sure is cute... She is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever Mix. I'm still trying to decide whether I like her or not, I have my moments! (The dog, not Paige) It has been funny watching Paige with her though. We heard that you can use a spray bottle to try and train a puppy not to do certain things. So, when she is doing something that she is not suppose to, we spray her and say "NO". Man, Paige is very perceptive! Recently, Paige has been chasing the dog down and pointing the spray bottle at her (mind you, Paige cannot spray the bottle) and saying "NO, NO, RA RA!" She calls Izzy "Ra Ra" because that is the sound dogs make :) Funny girl, so cute!

Paige is always trying to put on our shoes...

my favorite is when she tries to put on Scott's!!!! It's pretty funny!

And let me tell you it isn't easy walkin' in those shoes! :) Sure is cute though!

Paige pushing her babies around in the stroller!

Have I mentioned that Paige LOVES babies? Cause I don't think I have ;)

Paige has a serious sweet tooth! Mmmm... I wonder where she got that from!

(Scott is more of a fruit guy, so when you ask him if he wants sugary candy or something like that he will usually decline! I know weird, RIGHT!?!)

Paige got some candy from a friend for Valentines Day and she LOVED it, and her mouth was really green ALL DAY!

Enjoying a chocolate chip cookie, a usual at our house on Sundays!

We got to spend some very needed special time with Grandmas and Grandpas this past week!

We got to skype with Scott's family in Arizona last Sunday. Paige loved seeing her cousins, Aunt Emily and Uncle Chad, and of course Grandma and Grandpa MacDonald!!!!

And we just enjoyed a wonderful visit from my parents this past week! It was so fun to have Grandpa and Grandma Scott here! We planted seeds, went out to eat, went to the park and fed the ducks, and just hung around the house and enjoyed spending time together... all of which I forgot to take pictures of! Why do I always forget my camera?!?! Paige didn't want to leave Grandma's side... Every moment she could she wanted to spend it with with Grandma. When she woke up in the morning she wanted to know where Grandma was and when she laid down to go to sleep she wanted Grandma there! We read scriptures every night as a family (Paige version of course, with picture scripture story books... :) we do what we can! She loves it, so we figure she is small enough that it is more exciting for her that way.) And when it came time to read, Grandma and Grandpa where the only ones who were allowed to read to her! So funny!

Thanks for being such Great Grandparents!

We loved seeing all of you whether in person or on skype it was great!!!!!!

Signing Out...Happy and Enjoying life!

The Willoughby Fam! :)

Thanksgiving and Christmas!

2011-03-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

WARNING! WARNING! Another picture overload! :)

Our happenings during the holidays...

WOW!!!! The holidays seem such a blur!

We were so excited to host our very first Family Thanksgiving this past year! We had lots of fun visitors come... Scott's Brother Chad and family (Emily, Cooper, Hadley, Rigley, Claire, & Macy) and his sister April and family (Jay, Quinton, Calvin, & Jenna) came to visit and have Thanksgiving with us. OK, I have to admit we did not have Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving... Scott had to work Thanksgiving, so we did it a day early. But it was still wonderful! And no one seemed to mind :)

Here's a great pic of Chad and April... and do you see those cute little turkeys in the background? Emily (Chad's wife) made turkey bags for all the kids and when they did something of service they got a feather to put on their turkey throughout the week and on Thanksgiving they got a surprise at the end for all their hard work! :) So cute! Thanks Em! Paige even got one, she thought it was so cool... And she LOVES the coloring book she got, colors in it all the time!

Kids keepin' busy while they were waiting for dinner to be prepared...

By playing games and just having fun!

The table is set and ready to go... Now where's the turkey?

Scott got to carve the Thanksgiving turkey for the first time... He was a bit nervous, but he did an awesome job! And let me tell you that was one yummy bird. And if anyone is wanting to brine their turkey next year let me tell you I am brining my turkeys from here on out! Mmmmm :)

"Can you carve the turkey any faster... We are hungry!!!!"

Here's everybody eating dinner, it was so fun to have the house full and everyone enjoying each other! We sure missed those who couldn't make it! We love you guys! :)

Paige loved it and I think that is the last time she has had mashed potatoes, because she has since decided that she hates the texture! Little stinker! We had so much fun and it was a wonderful Thanksgiving, Thanks everybody for coming to visit us!!!!! We live far enough away from family that we don't get to see them very often, so it was awesome to see them and Paige loved spending time with her cousins and aunts and uncles!

Chad and Emily's family stayed with us for a little while after Thanksgiving while Chad was looking for a job. And what a wonderful few months they were!!!!!! Chad just graduated with his MASTERS in December (Way to go Chad!!!) and we told them we would LOVE it if they came to stay with us! We were hoping that they could get a job here in Boise so that they would be close, how cool would that have been?!?!?!?! But, much to our disappointment they received a job offer in Arizona and moved there at the beginning of February :( I still get pretty choked up when I think about them moving so far away... But we are excited for his new job, and Scott's mom lives in Arizona too so they are still close to family and we can visit both of them when we are down there! WE MISS YOU GUYS!!!!

Anyway, here are a few of our "adventures" we had while they were here...

Getting ready for Christmas!

Poor Paige was really sick during December. She had a fever on and off for about a week, a rash (from the fever), and a chalazion (a plugged duct in her eye lid), so she felt pretty crappy! We watched a lot of "Finding Nemo". And when I say a lot, I mean a lot! I think she watched it like 3 times one day, cause she didn't feel like doing anything and how can I say no to my poor little sick girl when all she wants is "Fishy, Fishy?"

This picture just makes me cringe when I remember how miserable she was. And to top it all off, I am pretty sure that Paige got almost all of Chad and Emily's kids sick too! It was a crazy couple of weeks! Sick people everywhere :) Thankfully, neither Emily nor I got it so we were able to take care of our kids!

Havin' fun decorating the tree!

Oh, how I love Christmas!

I hate taking down the tree when its all over, but the holidays are SO FUN!!!!!!

(oh, and see that dark green wall in our family room in the back? I have been wanting to paint it since we moved in a year ago and just never got around to it. It made the room feel so dark and small... well, it is now a very cheerful blue! And I LOVE it!!!!!! YAY!!! It makes me feel so happy! I will have to post some pictures soon)

I grew up in Idaho and as a kid we always had tons of snow in Southeast Idaho. Well, apparently Boise doesn't get much and when it does snow it melts within a matter of hours! Let me tell you this was a BIG disappointment for me when I found out. One of the things that I love about Idaho the most is the snow! I LOVE IT!!!!! Anyway, we only got about two really good snow falls and our first one was right around Thanksgiving it was beautiful! And so fun! The kids built a snow man... complete with scarf, hat, coal buttons and a carrot nose. They did an awesome job!!!! And it was so fun to have a snow man in our front yard.

Aren't they so cute!?!

The neighborhood kids and some of their friends were being pulled on a sled behind their dad's pickup and every time they would go by the kids would throw snow balls back and forth, they had a ball!

Making sugar cookies with mommy!

Paige loves to help do anything and everything! She just LOVES to help!

We took Paige to go see Santa, she wasn't too sure about him! SO FUNNY!!!

This picture is a keeper! ;)

So this was the second snow fall we had that was pretty good. Right around Christmas, Paige loved it! She thinks the snow is sooooo fun! She loves to just stand there while it is snowing and tries to catch the snow flakes while they are falling down!

Making a "LITTLE" snow man.

Have I told you just how much I love this girl!?!?!?!?!

She had so much fun! She is just awesome!!

Ok, so on to Christmas!

Scott and I were so excited for Christmas this year, because Paige is just old enough to kind of understand it and get excited about the presents and the lights and everything. So she really enjoyed it! We spent Christmas with my family this year and it was SO FUN to get together!!!!! Almost everybody was there this year. (We missed you Kyle and Michele!) We had a fun Christmas Eve party. Complete with a White Elephant exchange, great food, and games. We did a dance party on the Wii and Paige thought it was so fun!!!! She was dancing right along with everybody! She is so stinkin' cute!

We stayed at my brother Seth's for Christmas Day and opened presents there.

Here is Paige opening her stocking! Santa brought her "Beauty and the Beast" and it is now officially her favorite movie... she is always asking me if she can watch "The Beast, The Beast?" Oh, thank you DISNEY another wonderful film! I have needed a break from "Finding Nemo" great movie, but she wanted to watch it ALL the time!!!!!

She loved putting her hand in and pulling out the surprises inside.

She had the stocking all the way up to her armpit to get the stuff from the bottom!

Time to finally open the presents!

Mommy and Daddy even got stockings!

See that cute little stocking? Scott made that for me the first Christmas we were dating. Oh, the memories!

Grandma and Grandpa Scott got Paige a talking baby!

She loves it! She loves BABIES!!!!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Everybody taking their turns to open Christmas presents!

Another little baby that Mommy and Daddy got for her that goes in the tub! We originally had it wrapped for last year and she ended up with so many presents that we just kept it an extra year... smart thinkin' Mommy and Daddy! Cause she loves it! Probably way more than she would have last year. She loves helping "the baby" take a bath, she washes it off with the rag and washes her hair and everything!

Reading the book that Grandma and Grandpa MacDonald sent!

She LOVES books!

She would spend all day reading if we would let her. She is starting to really get into reading books to herself which is great. Its so cute to listen to her babble on about the pictures.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Christmas?!?

It was a great day, and not because of the presents...

But, there is nothing like having those you love around you!!!!

And breathing every moment in,

because if you blink you might just miss it!

FAMILY, I LOVE YOU!!!!!! XOXO

Disneyland!

2010-12-26T20:35:00.000-08:00

Here comes my blog overload... I am really, and I mean REALLY, behind on blogging.

So readers beware ;) There are lots of pictures!

Back in October (2010) my side of the family (Ashley) "The Scott's" went to Disneyland for a family trip. Unfortunately, not all of the family was able to go and we really missed those who couldn't be there. Scott had been once before when he was a kid but didn't really remember much, and I have been to Disneyland once and Disney World 3 times. So this was my 5th time going to a Disney park. And was I excited? You bet!!!! I was just as excited to go as all the other times if not more, because it would be the first time with Scott and Paige, and I couldn't wait! If I had my choice to go anywhere in the world it would be one of the Disney Parks!!!!! It really is one of the happiest places on earth. We had so much fun and Paige absolutely LOVED it! I wasn't sure how she would be and if she would even notice that we were at DISNEYLAND... But, she sure made the trip worth every minute! :) And Paige even got to go to the beach for the first time! Here are a few... ummmm... I mean a TON of pics from our trip! :)

This was a common scene during nap time. Normally she will only fall asleep in her crib but we lucked out and she slept great for us during naps. (If we put her sunglasses on) I guess what other choice did she have. :) Right!?!

On the Merry Go Round!

Paige absolutely loved it! Look at that big grin! Super Cute! Both of them ;)

My two favorite people in the whole world right there!

There were so many shows that we got to see and Paige loved them all. Here she is at the Mickey Mouse Club House. And yes, she was so excited that all we could get was a blurr. She was jumping up and down, singing along and clapping... the whole sha-bang!

On the ride "SOARIN" with the Fam! Takes you over California on a hang glider. We took up a whole row! And there were still some adults out with some of the kids that couldn't go on it. Thank you everybody for helping out with Paige so that Scott and I could go on some rides together. Sorry I am cutting off your face Dad! I promise I didn't know :(

They had so many awesome parades! The floats and costumes were insane! And Oh, the BUBBLES....

Paige was in heaven!

She loved chasing after them and she had an absolute ball... Only thing we brought home from Disneyland was a bubble gun. And ya, she thinks it is totally awesome.

She cries every time we put it away :)

Another pic of the Merry Go Round... One of Paige's favorites.

Really, can I say favorite? Because she loved everything!

Getting ready to go on "WOODY'S ROUND UP" One of my personal favorites, So fun. It was a 3D video game with a ball gun that you shoot at tons of different targets. And you compete with the other people in your car. Paige didn't keep any of the 3D glasses on for long. She just loved to take them on and off!

Tryin' on the hats after the ride :)

In the underground cave of "A BUG'S LIFE"...

She thought the glasses were so fun!

Here's some of the Fam waiting to see the show. So cute with their little bug glasses on!

This was how most of our pictures turned out. Scott or I were always trying to get Paige to smile for the less candid shots... Funny Scott! :)

LOVE THIS ONE!!!!! This has to be one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip! Paige thought it was so cool to crawl around in the little holes and under the tree roots.

You can't even see all of us... cause we stretched down the row so far! I got in trouble for taking this picture. Just as I snapped the shot the lady said

"NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY!"

Oopps!

Waiting in line with for the little kiddie bug ride with Grandma and Grandpa! While everybody else was riding the more "EXCITING" rides ;)

And really the little kids loved it, so it was exciting!

For the artistic person that I am... We came home with so many pictures like this.

I LoVed looking at all the amazing artwork that makes Disney so incredible!!!! I just can't believe all of the awesome things that surrounded us! These were giant clovers that were as tall as trees to make you feel like a bug... AWESOME!!!!

Riding in the bug ride... My sister in-law, Carrie, and my nephews, Payton & Jaxton.

Hi!!!

Riding on the bug ride with Grandma and Grandpa.

Thanks for riding with us... We love you!

Paige loved it, she kept saying Oooooo.....

Ya, here's another one of "those pictures" I was telling you about. This was an arch that you walked under. So awesome, I wish I could do something like that!

Coolest job ever!

...besides being a mom that is! ;)

This was a really cool room... For the life of me, I can't tell you just were it was, can't quite remember. But it was full of all sorts of really neat hands on activities.

We spent a lot of time in here waiting for "CRUSH" to start.

The adults even liked it!

Look at all the artwork and creativity that was in this room.

One of our only family shots!

I know... one of those things you don't think about until you come home and you realize you just took all the pictures of your kids and didn't take very many with you together!

While I was on another ride, Scott took Paige over to a little play ground and she had a ball! Scott said she kept running away from him and hiding in this tunnel.

Doesn't she just look mischievous?

Funny girl!

Waiting in line for "IT'S A SMALL WORLD". Paige couldn't wait!

Look at the perfect trees! WOW! Everything is perfect!

On the boat riding in to "IT'S A SMALL WORLD"

Paige REALLY couldn't wait. She was so excited!

There are so many more pictures from our trip... But these were just some of my favorites! We really did have so much fun and I can't wait until we can go back!!!!!

Hopefully, we will make it a family tradition! :)

Here is a video of Paige in "IT'S A SMALL WORLD"... Singing along and clapping!

Beach

2010-12-21T10:58:00.000-08:00

Paige's first time at the Beach!!!! We went to the beach on the last few days of our trip. We didn't have anything that we were doing on Sunday after we went to church so we got out of our Sunday clothes and went to walk the beach at sunset, it got dark pretty quickly so we didn't take many pictures the first evening. But we had to take in the moment! So here are the few that we took:)

Uncle Dustin collected sea shells for Paige, so sweet!

Walking out to the water for the first time...

Paige loved the water, all she wanted to do was go stand in the waves.

Only regret... no family shots! It was either Scott or I holding the camera. It wasn't like we had my family there there or anything to take some pictures of us ;) Silly me I didn't even think about it til we got home.

Paige and mommy!

Since we didn't get to go swimming on Sunday we took some of the kids to the beach on Monday for a fun beach day! Seth and Tara had to leave early.

Paige had a blast!

The water was a little cold, but Paige still loved it (even with all the teeth chattering)

She loved filling the sea shells full of sand and using them to draw in the sand

She was mad at us because we wouldn't let her draw in the sand for this picture :) HaHa!!! But we did get her on video messing it up after the picture was taken! (at end of post)

Paige's cousins dug this cool hole in the beach that was full of water. All Paige wanted to do was go sit in it! Sorry boys! They were really sweet with her and let her play with them.

We loved drawing in the sand...

Especially Paige!

So funny!

Havin' fun with a body board!

One of our only pictures with Scott and I in the picture... Thanks Carrie!

Sooooo Tired after all that playing in the sand!

Everybody cleaning up and leaving the fun at the beach... and the end of our trip :(

Here is the video of Paige... She is soooo DANG cute!!!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! (I know I am a little slow)

2010-10-31T20:43:00.000-07:00

So last year was sooooo much easier to take pictures of my kiddo in her Halloween costume! She just laid there and I could take all the pictures that I wanted. This year was another story... I chased that girl down forever trying to get a good shot! I couldn't get the little stinker to hold still long enough to get a good picture, oh well. At least I did get some even if they aren't the best.

As usual Scott worked all Halloween weekend, so he totally missed out in seeing Paige in her costume and Trick or Treating. But even though we missed Daddy we had tons of fun!

Here's my cute little Strawberry Shortcake:

(these are for you MOM! :)

Only way I could get her to stand still...

Running away!

Look at that cute face!

So this is the run down of what we did for Halloween this year...

A few Saturdays ago, October 23rd, Scott and I went to an awesome Murder Mystery dinner that our friend Barb put on! It was so fun! Our two characters were secretly having an affair and Scott proposed to me during the evening... How many times can a girl say that she was proposed to by her husband twice! So fun!

Formal Shot...

Playin' our characters...

My brother Seth and his wife Tara and their kids happened to be up in Boise for Tara's niece's soccer game, so they offered to watch Paige for us. THANKS SO MUCH YOU GUYS! You are awesome! We really appreciated it. Then they stayed over at our house that night and we watched a movie and just hung out. It was a fun day!

Friday we went to our ward "Trunk or Treat". Which was amazing! Probably the coolest one I have ever been to. And Paige won "Best Girl's Costume" (in 0-5 yr age group). She got a fun little prize complete with Halloween socks, candy and a light-up skull head that she played with for the rest of the evening, she thought it was pretty cool.

Then Saturday we went to some of our friends "Trick or Treating in the Park". Oh the girls all looked so cute! Yes, all of Paige's little friends are girls (here in Boise anyway)... maybe one of these days one of us will have a boy, but for now we are still havin' fun with just the girls! :)

With one of her best buds... Brenna! Cute girls!

Her other best buds... Rylee and Chloe~

I didn't pick-up any candy for Paige... She had a few pieces at home (and REALLY... who is going to eat the candy... Her or Scott? No, ME!!!! Since Scott doesn't really like candy and Paige won't eat much, I tried to get a very minimal amount, I still think I got too much!) Anyway, so what did she do?

She ripped into the girl's candy!!!! :) Oh, Paige! Sorry girls ;)

Then after we went over to Mike and Barb's for some homemade root beer! Super yum! I don't normally drink carbonation (tummy aches), but I absolutely love root beer! It is my one weakness when it comes to soda. Oh, and was it good, totally worth it! Then we decorated some Halloween Cookies after. We had so much fun! And Paige loved it!

Fall Has Arrived!

2010-10-25T16:11:00.001-07:00

Fall is officially here! YAY!!!!

And I LOVE it!

Fall is so beautiful with all the leaves changing, the smells & the fun activities.

I just love everything about it. :)

OK! So it is about time for a post!!!!! Haven't posted in forever! As always, we have been super busy! Can't imagine how busy we will be when we have multiple children!

A few weeks ago we went to a pumpkin patch/corn maze here in Meridian. They had all sorts of fun things to do... We walked through the corn maze, picked out some pumpkins, looked at the farm animals, played in the corn box (kinda like a sand box, but with corn kernels), and scott even shot off some corn cobs in a corn shooter (Paige didn't like the the loud bang sound that it made, so we only did that once :) But we sure had fun!

Here's some pictures of our corn adventure...

Paige absolutely loved the corn box!

She really got into playing and watching all the other kids :)

Here's a pic of Daddy playing with Paige!

Love this shot! We took some pictures looking out one of those figure thingies. This one was a scarecrow, so cute!

Picking out our pumpkins...

So since it's fall all the leaves have been falling off our trees. They were getting a bit out of control so I went out with Paige and started raking them up. Plus I thought that Paige might have fun playing in the leaves. And that she did!!!! She thought it was so cool :)

She loved having her legs covered and then kicking as fast as she could to get all the leaves off her legs and feet.

Once I finished raking up one pile, Paige would go the pile I just finished and play in the big mound. To say the least I probably raked up the piles a good half dozen or more times :) But it was so worth it!!!!!

At one point she just laid down in the middle of the pile and started throwing her legs and arms around, throwing the leaves everywhere! She LOVED it!

I got some pretty cute shots.

This one is kinda creepy... she is totally zoned out! HAHAHA! :)

Love these!

So adorable!

Lovin' every minute!

OK! So I am offically in love with the stage that she is in right now! She is starting to cuddle more, and LOVES just about everything (with the exception of food :/ little stinker!)

Right now she absolutely loves to draw! You give her a something to color with and a piece of paper and she will color forever! I was working on my talk for church a couple of weeks ago and she sat there next to me coloring for a good half hour. She loves to have us help her draw different shapes, letters, and numbers. Her very favorite shape (or picture, I guess) is a smiley face. She laughs every time we draw one for her. So fun!

So excited to be coloring!

And of course still getting into everything!

We have this drawer full of cookie cutters (like 100 of them) and she loves to take them all out and back in and sometimes she even wants you to stand right there as she hands each one to you. And we usually find her climbing in and out of that drawer to reach the ones in the bottom better... I know what you are thinking, don't worry it is the bottom drawer! And she is very talented in getting in and out without any incidents. I will have to take a picture of her doing this before she gets board with it, so I can post one :) !

Paige Now:

Walks (she can but she just prefers not to, little stinker!)

Draws/Colors

Still LOVES books (her favorite right now is Frosty the Snowman, man do I get tired of singing that over and over! Cute book, but she likes to read it over and over, so after about the 6th time, I am definitely ready for a new one :)

Goes to the fridge and tries to open it when she wants her milk

Shakes her head when we tell her no

And says...

Mama

Dada

Ampa (Grandpa)

Mmmm

Bye

Fishy

Uh-Oh

Digh (Light)

Eye (as she points to her or someone else's eye)

Eaaa (ear)

Nana (Banana)

Aco (Taco) -scott just recently taught her that one

and I'm not sure that she has ever even seen one, let alone know what it is :)

Emo (Elmo)

Carecow (scarecrow)

Speaking of scarecrows... we bought a cute little scarecrow for our front porch because every time Paige sees one (usually at the craft store) she gets really excited and starts saying "carecow!". Well, little did I know how obsessed she would be about the one out on our front porch. She was so excited that we had one of our own, but she was so concerned about it being outside. She just sat there next to the front window pointing at it and saying "carecow? carecow? carecow?" over and over and wouldn't leave it for quite some time. That has now died down some but oh, how funny that she was so concerned about that scarecrow!

Anyway, all is going great here. Staying super busy! We just got home from Disney Land last week. When I get a few minutes to sit down and pick through our favorite pictures I will post some! This has been one of the first times since we got home that I have had a few minutes to sit down and write. Well, Paige is up from her nap... so until next time :)

Mommy's little helper! And silly pictures :)

2010-09-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

Our past week has been pretty uneventful. It's been a nice break from our extremely busy summer! I have decided to start selling my bows and some other items that I make on a website called Etsy. I have always kind of wanted to do it, but for the past couple of years I haven't gotten up enough nerves up to actually do it. Scott finally gave me the boost I really needed to start. I couldn't ask for a more supportive husband. He is always wanting me to do the most I can with my talents and encourage me to grow and develop them. So, I finally did it! I am so excited, but a little nervous... I hope that I don't get too sad if it turns out to be a dud :) But, in Scott's words "How are you ever going to know if you don't even try?" And hopefully, it will give us a little bit of "fun" money if it does OK. Anyway, that's just a little about what's going on with us... Now for the fun part, PAIGE!

Oh, what a personality our little Paige is developing! She is so busy... always into everything and wanting to be in everything that she can't! She imitates just about everything that we do. She loves to fold her arms, not for long, but when you ask her to fold her arms she does. She loves to hold our fingers as she walks, won't do it on her own yet. Oh well, they all grow at their own pace don't they? :) She loves to sing along with the primary songs in the car, so cute! She now knows where her nose and tummy are. Although, when she points to her nose it goes straight in her nostril and she thinks that it is hilarious! She also thinks every animal is Moo. We have been trying to work on animals and their sounds, so she points to anything that is an animal and says Moo. We are working on that one. She does know the difference between an elephant though. She LOVES the sound an elephant makes. She tries to imitate us doing it (sadly, Paige does a better job at it than Scott does, Sorry Scott!:) ) We were sitting in church today and she actually pointed to an elephant that was in her Noah's Ark book and made the sound. So cute, I smiled all over! I was a proud mom!

As far as eating goes, we have finally found a meat that she will always eat, no matter her mood. Turkey sausage links... Thanks for leaving those Emily! And she absolutely loves frozen peas. I know frozen, kinda weird. It's probably feels really good on her little teething gums. Here's a pic that we caught of her this past week. Pea on her nose! She was sticking them to her face. Always doing something silly! :) What a girl

So, the other morning I heard Paige making some noise on the baby monitor. It was a little early for her so I laid there hoping she might fall back asleep. She did get very quiet and I just felt like it was a little to quiet, for those of you who are parents you know what I mean. They are up to something, so I went to go check on her. And of course, what do I find...

We have a canopy above her bed and she somehow got her little fingers through the two slats in the back of her crib and fished the tulle back through the two holes, pulling it all off the ceiling. I knew she was being too quiet! But what could I do but smile and think these are the moments that I love and will always remember!

The other day I was cleaning the kitchen and was wiping down the fridge. It's incredible how much your children truly watch every little thing you do. Paige was sitting on the floor watching me and as I finished she approached me and reached for the towel. So I gave it to her. I turned my back to start on the dishes and I turn around and she is "cleaning" the fridge. What a fun moment!

She did this for about 20 minutes. That is a long, and I mean LONG, time for Paige to do sit and do anything. After she got tired of wiping down the fridge, which she did a mighty good job I might add, with the exception of the hand prints from her left hand :) she proceeded to play with the towel putting it over her head. She was chasing me around the kitchen looking for me with the towel over her head. When she would find me she would LAUGH so hard! She even ran into the cupboards a couple of times, which made us laugh even harder!

Mommy's little helper!

Paige loves her whole grain pancakes... I don't know if I have ever mentioned, but if Paige likes something she says Mmmm after taking every bite. That is a very usual occurrence around our house and I love it! So cute!

Silly girl, posing for the camera

We don't have cable, so we only get the public stations. And one of the stations that we get is PBS, I absolutely love it! It has so many awesome learning programs for kids. Paige loves Sesame Street! It comes on every weekday at 10 am. If she is not already all down for her nap, she loves to sit and watch it. This, surprisingly, is about one of the only things that I can get her to sit and do for longer than a few minutes at a time. She will literally sit there for almost the entire show, until Elmo's World at the end. And sometimes she will even watch all of it. Here is a picture that we got of her a few days ago... she was sitting there on the floor looking very uncomfortable and so I got her some pillows. Awww... these are the moments!

Have I mentioned how much I love being a Mom!?!? :)

Our Summer So Far...

2010-08-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

We have had a pretty busy summer so far. We have had lots of visitors...

Over the 4th of July Scott's brother, Chad, and his family came to visit. Scott's dad lives up in Washington and wanted to surprise Chad and come for a visit while they were here. So we had a full house :) Here's a few pictures from their trip:

Paige had a ball with all the attention that she got. She was a spoiled little girl for a couple of days! Here's the girls jumping on the tramp with her.

Uncle Chad and Aunt Emily were so fun! And I know what some of you are thinking... no, that is not an alcoholic beverage that Chad is drinking. It's a Root Beer :)

All the grandkids with Grandpa and Connie (Scott's dad's wife).

Here we are on 4th of July Sunday! I forgot to take any pictures of the little firework show that we had at our house. Scott and Chad went and bought a bunch of fun fireworks on Saturday and we lit them off on the 4th. We thought that Paige was going to LOVE all the fireworks... cause she loves lights of any kind, but oh were we wrong!!!! Paige was not to excited at all about the noise they made and it really scared her. It didn't really help that everyone else in our neighborhood was letting off fireworks too. So needless to say, Paige and I spent most of the show in the house.

K... so I don't know how well you can see this picture, but it was so funny I just had to post it! A few days after everyone left we finally recieved our new bedroom furniture, I know bad timing huh! We now have our old furniture in the guest room so that when we have family and friends visit they can sleep on a bed instead of an air mattress. Sorry everybody that came to visit in the past couple of months that you weren't able to sleep in a bed :( Oh, well we have one now... so all are welcome to come stay with us anytime and you have your very own comfortable place to sleep! Anyhow... Paige was sitting in the room with us while we were moving furniture and this is how we found her. She was blowing bubbles and she got a whole beard full! Man, it was way bigger than this before we were able to get the camera, about half of the bubbles popped! Kinda gross but CUTE!

A few weeks ago my Mom's side of the family had a family reunion. So Paige and I were able to car pool down to Pocatello with some of our friends (THANK YOU Zach and Kimberly!) and stay with my family while Scott had to stay in Boise and work. While I was busy doing something, Paige hung out with my Mom while she was getting ready. Paige was watching my Mom put curlers in her hair and she wanted to have some too. So, my Mom put her hair in curlers!

While I was visiting with my family my brother, Seth, took us boating! They have a SWEET boat! We had so much fun! I hadn't been since before Paige was born, and let me tell you, It isn't as easy after you've had a baby! :)

Here is a pic with my brother, Jared, a few of the cousins, Skyler and Mason, and my sister in-law, Tara (Seth's wife), surfing in the background.

I wasn't so sure that Paige would like wearing a life jacket, but she did great! Just sat and enjoyed the ride! Here's a picture with Me, Paige, Tara, and Mason just chillin' in the boat!

It was absolutely beautiful when we were out... Here's the kids out on the tube.

When I got back to Boise Scott and I took Paige to the Zoo... unfortunetly she had a little bit of an allergy attack when we first got there. We where just walking around and I looked down at her and her face was covered in red bloches and her eyes were watering and her nose was running like crazy! We hurried and moved from the location that we where standing in and within a matter of minutes she was just fine. We have found that if she sits in the grass too long that she has the same reaction. Poor thing! We hope that she won't have to deal with allergies for her whole life and that she will grow out of it, we'll see.

Lookin' at the giraffes with Daddy!

I think that this was her favorite part of the Zoo... Paige loves anything involving water. They had these misting things that blew out of elephant trunks on the sidewalks. Paige absolutely loved them!!!

We also took her to the waterpark that is just a few miles away from our house. Paige loved it! We went with a few of our friends, Mike and Barb and their girls. We had so much fun!

Paige and Mommy going down the slide.

Paige and Mommy waiting at the bottom of the racing slides. We couldn't go down most of the slides with Paige, she's still too little. And Barb couldn't go either, she was expecting. But we had lots of fun watching the boys and the little girls race together!

Scott, Rylie, Cloe, and Mike finishing their race down the slide!

I'm sure that most of you Mom's out there know what these are! They have these cool miniture water fountains at most splash parks, well the kiddy pool is lined with a bunch of these! Paige LoVeS lOvEs LoVeS them! She could spend all day just feeling the water.

Because Paige liked them so much a few days later we took her to the free splash park near our house to play in some. She sat there and played with them for almost an hour, I'm sure that she would have played all day if Mommy and Daddy hadn't been melting away in the heat!

So this past week Scott and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. We really wanted to go to Hawaii for our 5th, but with finances (buying a new house) we decided that we would wait until next year too to that. We still had fun though! We dropped Paige off in Pocatello and my brothers and their wives took turns watching her for us while we went on a little get-away to Salt Lake. We stayed at a nice hotel, went out to eat, went to a session at the temple, watched a few movies (at the theater no less! Haven't done that in a while! You know how it is with babies) enjoyed the temple grounds, and went to Lion King on Broadway. It was a wonderful little trip for us the only thing that I regret is that we didn't take any pictures. Everytime we went out we forgot the camera. And the one picture that we did manage to take didn't even have either of us in it! Oh well, what can I do about it now.

So here is the one and only picture that was taken the view from our seats at the Lion King we did have pretty good seats if I do say so myself! We were in the grand balcony in the front row, it was awesome!

When we got back Scott's Dad was at our house to meet us! He took a 2 week vacation to visit all of his kids. He drove his motorcycle the entire way! We took him to the water park while he was here, played games, went to Tucanos, and did a few other fun things. Here's a picture of the boys just relaxin' in the sun:

Sadly... Paige is not much of a cuddler. I am, so it's kinda hard for me :( She is always going, going, going! And has other things on her mind. But, we have found that after we go swimming and she is a little cold and you wrap her all up in a towel, she will cuddle with you for a few minutes... Here is Mommy's moment of bliss :)

Now for a little update on Paige. She is growing and changing like crazy! She now has 5 teeth, lots of hair, sleeps for like 12 hours at a time... ahhhh can you say awesome!?! Talks all the time (in "baby talk" of course- it's really cute! We love it!), pulls herself up onto anything and everything and walks along. No walking yet but we have a feeling it will be anyday now. She does stand for a few seconds at a time. She has completely mastered the stairs, she can climb up or down. She goes down on her tummy and most of the time she just slides down from stair to stair as fast as she can! She loves to play in the tub, and is getting more and more picky about food all the time... oh, what a pain! She used to eat anything that we gave her. One day she will love something and the next nevermind!

Now for the fun part... PICTURES!

When we got home from our trip in Salt Lake we were getting Paige ready for bed and I pulled her hair bands out and this is how crazy her hair was! FUNNY!

Like I said she climbs up on anything that she possibly can... Here she is on our coffee table that she climbed all by herself. We have since moved it out of our family room, more room and safer for Paige.

Paige in her toy bin! I walked out of the room and she was standing next to the bin and when I walked back in this is how I found her!

She gets into everything!!!!! This is a common ocurrance at our house, unloading the cupboards.

Playin' with the salt and cooking spray. Man, I can barely keep up with her now days. As much as we would love for her to walk, I just can't imagine that she will start off walking... running is more like it! :)

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY PAIGE!!!

2010-07-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

Paige turned 1 on June 27th!!! Almost 1 month ago... Paige's birthday happened to land on a Sunday, so we did her party on Saturday, June 26th. We had some visitors and it turned out great and we had so much fun!!!! My brother Jared and his family came down from Pocatello and stayed the weekend with us. They arrived on Friday, June 25th and they stayed until Sunday night, June 27th. And my parents came on Saturday and stayed a few days too! It was so fun!!!!

Here's a few pictures of the event:

We did a BBQ out on our back patio... my wonderful sister in-law, Carrie, made all of the sides! She is AWESOME! Couldn't have done it without her!

Opening presents...

She wanted to play with each thing that she opened and couldn't figure out why we were taking them away. She got a little upset with us. "What are you doin' to me... you just gave me that and now you are taking it away, so not cool!!!"

The cake... This was only my second attempt at fondant, and I rolled the fondant a little too thin so it didn't turn out the way I hoped. You know perfect! But the cake itself was to die for... I did a chocolate cake and creamy oreo filling. Mmm.... I might have to make that again before the next big birthday rolls around. We gave Paige the top BIG cupcake for her to eat.

Singing "Happy Birthday!" and blowin' out the candle!

She really liked the cake!

Oh, the mess!

But oh, so fun!!!!! :)

Tonight as I was writing this post I was thinking about all the wonderful memories that we have had with Paige so far. I was looking back at all the posts that I have written since she was born and oh, how the memories started flowing back. Being pregnant with her and feeling her move, the day we brought her home from the hospital, giving her her first bath, the first time that she smiled at us, the first time that she really looked at us, holding her tiny little body in my arms for the first time. I could go on and on! Wow, what an impact she has made on our lives!!!! We absolutely love you Paige! Can't imagine life without you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAIGEY K!!!

In Loving Memory of Grandma Longmore

2010-07-21T22:06:00.001-07:00

Wow, have we been busy! So much has happened in the past couple of months. Between lots of birthdays, a funeral, the 4th of July, and family visiting... I am going to break the updates into a few posts so it is not so long... so there will be a couple more in the next few days.

I will post where we left off last:

*For those of you who do not like to read long posts, I am sorry, well not that sorry;).

This is my journal... so this is where I record my feelings. And this will definitely be a LONG post :)

May 31st was my birthday. And I thought that I would be spending it alone. Scott was scheduled to work on that day and my family lives about 4 1/2 hours away. So needless to say I didn't think that I would be having a very eventful birthday this year. To my surprise, I was in the kitchen making some hot cocoa mix when there was a knock at our front door. I went to answer it and there was someone standing there with a bouquet of Happy Birthday balloons. It was my niece Madison!!! I couldn't believe it, I was so excited! I asked her how she got there and then my parents came around the corner, she had ridden down from Blackfoot with them. I wasn't going to celebrate my birthday alone after all! And it was wonderful to see my family. Scott needed to go to work at 2pm so we were discussing where we would be able to go to lunch so that we could get home in time for him to leave. Then he informed me that he had switched shifts with someone so that he could surprise me. SURPRISE!!! So we decided since we didn't have to be back at any certain time we could go to Tuscanos... Mmm... have I mentioned how much I love that place ;) Anyway, after we ate we came home and Scott had another surprise for me. He had purchased a cake and we had a little party! It was great. Unfortunately, my parents had to go home early that evening so that they could get back home. But it was a wonderful surprise! I had a great birthday! Thanks everybody for making it such a great one!!!!

The following weekend, June 11th-12th, my Dad drove back up to Boise because his brother, Rusty, had a truck show that he was involved in. It was nice to spend time with just me and my Dad while he was here. Scott was working most of the time, so my Dad and I and Paige went to see the trucks and we rented a movie to watch. My mother was planning on coming up but she had called me a few days before and wasn't sure whether she would be coming or not because her mom wasn't doing very well. She decided to stay home so that she could spend time with my grandmother and be there in case she passed away. I was going to drive back with my Dad but decided to stay in Boise. Later I regretted not going. I would have liked to have spent some time with my Mother and seen my Grandma. I kept calling my Mom all week to find out how my Grandma was doing. She called me on Wednesday morning, June 16th, telling me that my Grandma Longmore had passed away early that morning. She said that the funeral would be on Saturday, June 19th. I have included her obituary at the end of this post.

It was definitely a relief for her and our family. My Grandma Longmore hadn't been doing well for quite some time. For about the past 10 or so years my mother and her sisters had taken turns caring for her and for the past couple of years my cousin, RaeLyn, had been taking care of her. They just couldn't bear to put her in a nursing home. My Grandma Longmore is one of the sweetest, kind and most Christ-like people I have ever known. She just radiated with the spirit. She was about as close to perfect as a person can get. She loved her family with all her being. I always knew how much she loved me! There was never any question in my mind about that. She always treated each of her grandchildren like they were the most important thing to her. And they all were! Nothing was more important.

During the process of the funeral and viewing it was mentioned multiple times about how happy Grandma probably was that her family was just loving being with each other and the kids were just running around having fun.

Before my Grandma's health got to the point where she needed to be cared for, one of my sweetest memories of her was a time when she was babysitting for my parents. She taught me how to make a milkshake by hand without a blender, I will always remember that moment. And every time I make a milkshake by hand I think of her. :) I remember many trips to go visit Grandma, She loved chocolate and she always loved to share! Every year at Christmas Grandma always made sure that she gave each of her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren a gift. I remember the socks that she so painstakingly chose for each and everyone of her many grandchildren. Oh, how I looked forward to those socks every year. I loved to open them Christmas Eve, they were my Christmas socks and I always wore them to bed and woke with brand new socks to wear for Christmas morning. I even remember one year in particular that she gave all of the girls a baby doll, the kind that have soft bodies and the eyes that open and close. As her health deteriorated she was unable to continue this wonderful tradition, but I know that she would have loved to continue if she had been able. She gave so much more than just socks and presents... She taught us all what it means to be Christ-like. Through her example she taught my mother who in turn taught me how important the gospel is and how important family is. Next to my mother she is the greatest example of the woman that I hope I can become someday. We will miss you Grandma and WE LOVE YOU SOOOO MUCH!

Here's a pic of Grandma with Paige... this was the very first time that they meet, shortly after Paige was born. The 4 generation Picture. Love this one!!!!!

It was such a beautiful service. It was the best funeral I have ever been to. My Mom gave a talk and some of her brothers also spoke along with a cousin. Every talk that was given was incredible and the spirit was so strong. There were two special musical numbers: one by the grandchildren and the other by the great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. It was a wonderful moment to stand up there and sing for my Grandmother. And what a neat experience to be sitting in that audience looking up at all of my extended family when the greats and great-greats standing up to sing. They filled the entire stage... Honestly, I had a hard time holding back tears during the entire service but that moment was WOW! What an impact my Grandma had on all of her children and grandchildren. My mom and I put together a map of all the places that her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have served LDS Missions. She truly has impacted the world through her example!

Since the funeral landed on the same weekend of Father's Day we were able to spend the day with my Dad and Scott was able to celebrate his very first Father's Day. Here's a pic of Daddy and his little girl on Father's Day morning. She is wearing "I love Daddy" jammies by the way, planned it perfectly so that she could wear them on Father's Day :)

Scott had to return to Boise for work on Monday so I decided that I would stay behind and spend some time with my family. We had a lot of fun! Here's a picture that we took while we were there. Paige with her cute piggie tails... she had just woken up from a nap so they are kinda crasy. We just started being able to put these in in the past month. SO CUTE!

We went bowling and just spent some needed family time together.

Paige has discovered the piano that sits in my parents front room. Here is a picture of her trying to play... so cute :)

Before we left for Blackfoot for the funeral, we had a short visit from Scott's brother, Chad, and his family. They were on their way up to Washington to visit family and stopped by our house and stayed the night to break-up their trip a little bit. It was Cooper's birthday on the day that they arrived so we had a little birthday party for him. It was so fun to see them. Although we were sad to see them go so fast, we knew that we would be seeing them in a few weeks for the 4th of July weekend, so that made it easier to say bye.

Over the past couple of months through the funerals of both of my Grandmothers I have grown a greater testimony of the Gospel and what a blessing it is in my life. I am so grateful for the plan of salvation and the opportunity that each of us have to be with our families forever! I have been truly blessed to have the wonderful family that I have and can't wait to be together with them again someday :)

The following is the obituary that appeared in the Friday, June 18th, 2010 Blackfoot Newspaper:

Estella May Longmore, 99

Estella May Anderson Longmore, 99, of Blackfoot, died at the home of a granddaughter in Pocatello on Wednesday, June 16, 2010, of causes incident to age. She was born Oct. 8, 1910 in Moreland, the only daughter of Ernest and Millie May Neel Anderson. When she was just two years old, her mother died in childbirth. She was raised in Moreland where she attended Moreland High School until 1928, and on her 18th birthday, Oct. 8, 1928, she married Lester George Longmore in Coltman, Idaho. She was sealed to him and their eight children in the Idaho Falls LDS Temople on June 24, 1947. Estella was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout her life, and served faithfully for many years as a teacher in the Sunday School, Primary, the Relief Society, and as a visiting teacher. She also was a long-time member of the choir in her ward. She enjoyed attending the temple. She was a lifelong homemaker, and her greatest love and concern was for her family and friends. Her entire life was spent showing that love to all of us. She was a wonderful mother, grandmother and example to all. For many years, an annual Christmas tradition was for her to purchase, wrap and give gifts and cookies to each of her numerous posterity and their spouses. Following the death of her husband on April 30, 1973, she resided for most of the remainder of her life with her children. As her health began to fail, she was lovingly cared for by them, and for the past year and a half, she has lived in the home of a granddaughter, RaeLyn and her husband, Rdale Price and family in Pocatello. Estella is survived by her children, Mardene Gough, Vonda (John) Fisher, Melba (Donald) Nilsson, Diane (Robert) Parkinson, and Carolyn (Don) Scott, all of Blackfoot; and by Gary (LaRae) Longmore of Pocatello; Dean (Connie) Longmore of Mapelton, Utah, currently serving an LDS church mission in the New Hampshire Manchester Mission; and Ronald (Jean) Longmore of Idaho Falls. Also surviving are 4o grandchildren, 138 great-grandchildren, and 28 great-great grandchildren. She has a total of 273 descendants, including spouses. Besides her husband, parents and stepmother, Iretta Anderson, she was preceded in death by her brothers Lloyd, Raymond, Arthur, Golden, Joseph, and Lawrence Anderson; a sister, Madlyn Lodefink; a son-in-low, Don Gough; a grandson-in-law, Gary DeGiulio; granddaughter-in-law, Winnie Fisher, and a great-grandson, Jeremy Stocking. Funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 19, 2010, at the Blackfoot 4th Ward LDS Chapel, 520 N. Shilling Ave., with Bishop Paul Yancey conducting. The family will meet with friends and relatives from 7-9 p.m. Friday, June 18, 2010, at Hawker Funeral Home, 132 S. Shilling Ave. and from 9:45-10:45 a.m. at the church prior to services. Interment will be in the Riverside-Thomas Cemetery. Condolences may be sent to the family at: condolences@hawkerfuneralhome.com

Moving In and Birthday Time!

2010-05-30T21:37:00.000-07:00

(*Pictures now added- July 22, 2010*)

OK SO WE PACKED OUR CAMERA CABLE... AND CAN'T FIND IT SO NO PICTURES! SORRY, I HAVE BEEN TAKING THEM AND I CAN'T EVEN POST THEM :( Oh well... as soon as we find it I will add the pictures.

Man, has the past week been full of stress and excitement... We moved all of our stuff from our apartment to our home these past couple of weeks. Man, we have a lot of stuff! Once again my wonderful father helped us move for the 7th time. We've been married 5 years and we have moved 7 times WOW! Hopefully it will be a while before we move again. ;) Since Scott works such long hours and consecutive days in a row we had to time our move in-between his scheduled work days. So it all started Tuesday May 18th. Scott had one of his buddies, Cameron, help us move almost all of our boxes (I thought... then came Thursday and Friday... think again!) on Tuesday. We loaded up his truck and trailer full and headed to the house to unload. We just put them all in the garage and headed back to the house to finish packing some more boxes.

Scott had to work on Wednesday, the 19th, and so I tried to do as much packing as possible with Paige trying to be right in the middle of it. It's a good thing that I didn't pack her in a box with as much as she got into :) My parents came up Wednesday night to come and help us move, they stayed until Sunday. It was wonderful to spend time with them. I swear, without them we wouldn't have been able to move! My mom watched Paige for us while we moved more boxes, furniture and cleaned our apartment which was a huge help! And my Dad helped carry box after box after box up and down a flight of stairs and cleaned most of our apartment with us. THANKS MOM AND DAD!!!!

Thursday, the 20th, we had a few of our friends help with the big stuff,

Thanks Cameron, Zach and Mike!

(Our kitchen packed to the hilt with boxes)

Then on Friday, the 21st, we cleaned the apartment and officially moved everything out. That night we went out to dinner with my Uncle Rusty and his wife and daughter and a few of his grand kids. They live about 15 minutes from us in Caldwell.

On Saturday, the 22nd, my parents took Scott and I out for our birthdays. My parents have a tradition of taking out each of their kids and their families out to dinner for their birthdays (and even the spouses on theirs). Where Scott and my birthdays are just a few days apart, Scott's being on May 28th and mine on the 31st, we get a joint birthday dinner! We went to this super yummy restaurant here in Boise called Tucanos. It's an all you can eat Brazilian Grill. YUMMY!!! My favorite place to eat. They even brought us out ice cream Sundays and sang to us in Portuguese. And of course with all the moving I forgot to take the camera for pictures. I didn't really get any of the past couple of weeks with all the business and just slipped my mind. Other things to think about I guess, huh? :)

And speaking of birthdays... I can't believe in just a few weeks my baby girl is going to be 1 year old!!!! Where did the time go?

Sunday, the 23rd, we went to church and I swear my parents always know someone wherever they go. They knew at least 3 people that were in our ward either through someone else or they had a previous relationship of some kind with them in Blackfoot or Snake River. I guess that's what happens when you live somewhere your whole life and so did your parents. Anyway, fun to see connections with people, it really is a small world. After church we had dinner and they left for Blackfoot. I always feel like anytime we visit with family or friends it is never long enough. :)

Since Scott had to work on his birthday... we weren't able to do a party or anything. Here's a pic of Scott on his birthday enjoying his birthday cake (he loves fruit, so we had a lemon pound cake with strawberries and whipped cream)!!

Here's a pic of Paige being so good walkin around in her walker while we unpacked!

And this past week all we have done is unpack, unpack, unpack. So far we have the kitchen completely done, Paige's bedroom, our bedroom and the living room unpacked... No decorations up anywhere yet, so even though those rooms are unpacked they still aren't done :( I have a feeling that it's going to be a while yet before we are completely settled. Anyway, and Scott is going on his 4th day of 10 hour shifts in a row, really it turns out to be more like 12 hour shifts, cause he leaves the house 30 minutes before his shift starts and then when he leaves the hospital he has to discharge his patients so he always goes about a half hour over and then 30 minutes until home again... tomorrow will be his last consecutive day in a row for the a few days. YAY!! These 5 days in a row are the hardest cause we barely see him. When he gets home he sleeps and is up for about an hour or so, eats, gets dressed and goes again. Anyway, we are excited to have a couple of days to spend with him until he goes back to work!

Today, Scott was able to go to part of church with us. He left after sacrament meeting and Paige was not her most pleasant self to deal with at church today, trying to crawl everywhere and screaming if she doesn't get her way... man, I am hoping that she grows out of this stage pretty soon. She does have her moments though, she has quite the personality!

Something fun she has been doing... she loves to climb stairs. We have a small step down from our kitchen into our family room and she loves to climb up and down them. She's got the up figured out but the down is face first. We are working on that one but it usually turns into a some type of summer-sault face plant thing. Doesn't even face her. She just keeps going and going. We have to sit right there if she is going down to slow her down and help her cause it is just "GO FAST and NO TURNING BACK" for her. She has started crawling a little bit on her hands and knees. She just needs a little more practice and I think she will be crawling like a pro in no time. She has gotten so good at her army crawl I never thought that she would even normal crawl. She pulls herself up on anything and everything that she possibly can and even walks around while holding onto an object. Paige loves being outside. We go for walks in our neighborhood a few times a week and go to the park. After our walk today we sat outside on our front lawn this afternoon while I was talking to my mom on the phone and she just crawled around picking up everything and showing it to me... didn't even try to eat anything which was great! She is starting to be more choosy about what she eats, if she doesn't want it right then she throws it on the floor, we are working with this one but OH is it frustrating! She is also pretty much weaning herself off milk, she just is not interested past a few sips of her bottle. The rest of the bottle is like pulling teeth. I'm sure it's because she eats more now and it doesn't taste as good as everything else. I bought her her first toothbrush (I've been using one of those finger brushes up until now) and she loves it, so cute!

Anyway, that's what's been going on with us lately... :)

We are officially Home Owners!

2010-05-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

We closed on our house this past Thursday... Wow, what a feeling of excitement, total relief and fear all at the same time. I didn't think that I would be that scared at purchasing a home. Scott keeps telling me jokingly that there is nothing that we can do about it now, we bought it already. Scott's just excited. He's not stressed at all but what can I say, look who I married- he's not a stresser. Me on the other hand... think again!

And I know, I know, I AM very excited... it's just all the extra stuff that goes with owning your own home. The stress part... you know what if something breaks? We can't just call the landlords, WE ARE THE LANDLORDS!!! Is this the point that I can finally officially exclaim "I AM AN ADULT"? I am pretty sure that that came with being a parent, but in case I have forgotten and gotten too comfortable with that, now I am positive that I am an adult. :) The pros definitely outweigh the cons though.

Back to the we are very excited part! I am excited about learning how to garden and take care of the plants and flowers (that I will be planting very soon, yay! The yard definitely needs a little TLC), painting, decorating, the lawn, and the extra space!!! Wow, can I just say I am excited about the space! To be completely moved in somewhere finally. We have been in boxes the past 5 months, so it will be exciting to open them up and see what we have forgotten about that we don't really need since we forgot about it and everything. HaHa! :)

Right after we got the call on Thursday that everything was good to go and the house was ours we went right over. It was really fun to walk through OUR house and see dream about all the fun things that we can do to it. Paige loves all the extra space too. Every time we are over there to work on the house all she wants to do is crawl around. She sees all the room and just wants us to put her down. And I don't mean that in a subtle way, she is practically jumping out of our arms we can barely hold on to her. And she loves the grass! Didn't think she would care for it much cause we have never put her down on grass but it's just another new discovery for her and she loves to touch and feel it.

Here's a picture of Paige playing in her playpen while I have been busy with the house. She has been so good!

Friday we had the carpets cleaned in the new house. Scott worked on Friday so Paige and I headed over to the house to "work" on the flower bed out front. Can I just say I totally underestimated the amount of TLC it needed. It is so overgrown and I can't tell what are weeds and what are plants. So I called the most savvy gardener I know... my Dad and asked for some suggestions of what to do. His answer: "Ash, your just going to have to start over from scratch. Just tear everything out." Not the answer I was hoping for, so it looks like I have got some work to do. In addition I still need to paint all the base boards and a few rooms before we move in on Thursday. Fun projects coming my way!! :) I was able to weed the bed out by the driveway though... it is not overgrown so I will be keeping what is in there. YAY! Some good news!

Here's a couple of pics of the flower garden that I will be ripping out, this really doesn't do it justice... it is in way worse shape than this picture looks!

Saturday there was a huge garage sale here in Boise. It is called Idaho's Largest Garage Sale. It was at the Expo Center and there were hundreds of vendors there. Unfortunately we weren't able to find anything to promising. Just a few wrenches and a caulking gun. It was a fun morning though. That afternoon I went over to Sears to purchase a fridge. The previous owners took theirs with them. I got a sweet deal on a Maytag fridge that was being clearanced because it was a discontinued model, it was about $800 less than it's regular price. They will be delivering that to our house on Monday so that we have a cold fridge to move things into on Wednesday and Thursday. So excited!!!

Today we went to our new ward. Scott had to work so he was going to leave right after sacrament meeting. While Paige and I went to the rest of the meetings. Well, Paige had other plans, or should I say Paige's digestive system had other plans... She blew out all over her dress and mine so we went home early with Scott and got her all bathed and cleaned up. Wow, I really look up to all you multiple children moms. I don't know how you do it! I am sure that when I get there I will be more of a pro. But today one was all that I could handle. :) LOVE HER THOUGH!

Anyway, Paige is learning more and more everyday. She pulls herself up on things now. Her favorite toy at the moment is a little toy piano that she can pull herself up to standing and play it. She loves to turn the "music pages" back and forth. Too cute!

Here's a couple pics:

Check this one out! She tries so hard to stay standing. Her little legs just slide out from under her and pretty soon she is standing like this. Funny huh?!?

She has become such a good eater. She will eat anything. She especially loves to eat anything that she can pick up with her fingers. Her favorites are pineapple, kiwi, grapes, cheese, goldfish crackers, and avocado. And she just had Lasagna for the first time today and she loved it! Each day is so much fun and I am loving every new stage, just wish it would go by a little slower!

My plan tomorrow is to go over to the house and paint the base boards and trim and hopefully a few of the rooms... wish me luck! :)

EXCITED!!

2010-05-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

YAY!!! Tomorrow is "The Day"... can't wait :)

Fun Stories and Mother's Day!

2010-05-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

Last week Paige and I were driving to the store and I had the primary songs playing in the car. The song "If You're Happy and You Know It" came on and I could hear her clapping in the back seat. Then I realized that she was clapping because it was saying: "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands..." Wow, little did I know that she was paying such close attention to what was going on! Now every time I play it or even sing the song she gets really excited and starts clapping with the music. So fun!!!

I forgot to share another fun story... a few weeks ago on Easter Sunday, Some of our friends, Mike and Barb, invited Paige and I over for dinner because Scott was working. We had Easter lunch with Daddy and dinner with the Hermies! Anyway, Barb had made some yummy steamed veggies and I gave Paige some of the veggies to see if she would like any of them. She loved the cauliflower! Or so I thought :) She just kept shoveling it in. So I just kept giving her more and more. Much to my surprise, I went to give her a bite of something else and out poured a bunch of small pieces of cauliflower. Little girl hadn't swallowed any of it! She was just storing it in there like a chipmunk! :) I put my finger in her mouth to empty out the load of cauliflower and out came about half a dozen little pieces. Then while we were cleaning up I put her on the floor and saw a peek into her mouth, and there were even more she still had in there!!! All in all there were about a dozen pieces that I emptied out.... mmmm... doesn't this mean I am on road to all sorts of "funny" kid stories!

Here's some cute pictures that I have taken of Paige lately:

Paige was being so funny in this picture. She had just gotten done with her bath and I was getting her ready for bed and she was being so silly! She was just laughing like crazy.

She is into everything!!! Some of my exercise equipment that she loves to play with.

Anyway, on to the events of the past week. This last week Paige and I worked on the gifts that we were making for Scott's mom and my Mom for Mother's Day. I was able to get Scott's Mom's gift in the mail just in time for it to arrive there on Friday. And we decided that we would deliver my Mother's in person since they live within 4 hours of us. So, down we drove to Blackfoot to surprise my Mom for Mother's Day. We had so much fun!! It was so wonderful to see my Mom and celebrate the wonderful woman she truly is! I hope that someday I can be as good of a mother to my kids as she was to her children. Saturday night my Dad picked up take-out Chinese so that my mom and I wouldn't have to cook on Mother's Day. It was so nice to be able to relax and not have to make dinner. We were only able to stay overnight. We left on Saturday morning and came back late on Sunday night. It was a quick trip but a fun one! On Saturday, before we left Boise to go to Blackfoot, Scott and I went to this discount LDS store and bought a book on CD that we could listen to on the way down. Usually I read while he drives but we had (and still have) both been pretty under the weather and I didn't want to over strain my voice and make it worse. We bought the next book in the series that we have been reading The Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites, we have really enjoyed them! I also saw some large beautiful clocks with a quote about family that were 50% off and so Scott got me one for my first Mother's Day. He also wrote me a very sweet letter that he hid in the glove compartment for me to read on the way home on Sunday night :)

We signed our closing paperwork for our house today. Which totally freaked me out. Are we really mature enough to own our own home? It's incredible the amount of things that you never think about. On a good note though, we get to close on our house a day earlier than we thought!!! We are so excited. We thought we could stay away from driving past the house until we closed. Think again! We are just too excited. It was kind of a surreal experience when we drove past our house today. They were moving out and the garage was completely empty! Wow, is it really going to be ours in 3 days?!? 3 days, and I haven't even started packing yet. Good thing we have our apartment until the 21st. Anyway, lots of fun things happening here. I will definitely post some pictures of our house when we get moved in. Here is a picture of the outside...

Tooth #2 and Clapping!

2010-04-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

Paige is growing like a weed! She just got her second tooth, and has now learned to wave at people and clap her hands. She also tries to sing along with me when I sing to her. And to top it all off she just turned 10 months old yesterday!!! I can't believe it! My baby is almost 1 year old, time just goes by too fast!! She is almost crawling... she army crawls everywhere! She moves so fast. She uses her forearms and toes to push herself forward. Here are a few pictures of me trying to take a picture of her and the second she saw the camera she was off! Moving too fast for me to take a good picture of her. Just thought that it was fun, I didn't really have any pictures of her crawling yet :)

Finally the picture I was trying to take!

Since Paige is army crawling and getting into things that she is not supposed to... Like all of the exciting cords we have plugged into the walls, breakable window blinds and dangerous stuff that homes come with that are not child safe we broke out the play pen. When I am doing the dishes, cooking or cleaning and I have stuff in and on my hands it has become too difficult to try and chase after her. So we have put all of her toys into her play pen so that I can contain her and she can safely play while I am busy and unable to closely watch her. We were worried that she would hate it and think it is a prison, but she loves it. She loves to press her face against the mesh sides and make funny faces at us. It is hilarious!!! Man, it is incredible how hard you can laugh at a 10 month old! Here's a few pictures of this funny event:

Here's a video of Paige clapping. I was feeding her the other day and saying "yay!" and clapping after she took bites... and then to my surprise she just did it on her own and just kept doing it over and over! So I video taped her. Plus Scott was at work when she did it so I wanted to show him, and the next day I showed it to him and had her do it for him. He said it is one of the cutest things that he has ever seen and I have to agree with him. I think it might possibly be the cutest thing that she has done so far! I have to tell you... I was so happy when she first did it my cheeks where hurting cause I was smiling so much. What joy children bring into our lives! She definitely has brought a joy that I never thought possible into my life. She is so cute :)

Love her!!!

Did some fun stuff this past week... Dreaming mostly!

This past Saturday we went to the Farmers' Market here in Boise. Wow, this is the biggest Farmers' Market that I have ever been to! We went last summer with our friends Zach and Kimberly and it was so fun, so we decided that we would go since they just opened it up last week. We will definitely go back a couple of times this summer, especially since the summer veggies and fruits haven't even come into season yet!

Drove past our house about a dozen times... can't wait! We are getting so excited. I am sure that the people in the neighborhood think that we are some kind of stockers!!!! We just can't help ourselves. We decided that we just might wait until we get those keys before we drive past again, so it makes it a little more fun and the neighborhood doesn't think we are freaks! haha! :) It just doesn't seem to be coming soon enough, only 2 weeks left to go! We let the sellers have an additional 15 days before closing... so 45 instead of 30 days like usual. They needed a little extra time so that they could find a house, so this is dragging a little for us... Oh, well I guess we will be that more excited when it gets here!

We did get a phone call on Friday from our realtor stating that the appraisal came back and it was appraised at $5 thousand less than what we offered. So, we were kinda freaking out about whether this was going to be a bad thing for us, since a bank won't give you a loan for more than a home has been appraised for. We were afraid that the sellers would come back with an offer that we couldn't do, but we received a phone call Monday morning saying that they had lowered the purchase price to the appraisal value, nothing else changed. Needless to say it was a little bit of a stressful weekend but it ended up being a great thing for us. We get to pay $5 thousand less than we thought! Yay!

We also went to quite a few garden centers on Monday and dreamed about all the fun plants that we can have in our flower beds We also went and looked at all the "exciting and fun" (essential) equipment that we have to have to have to go along with our house... Lawn mower, weed eater, power tools, gardening tools, fridge, hose and etc. Unfortunately, we can't spend all of our extra money we have set aside for furniture, dang it!!! We have to be responsible!?!? Oh, to be an adult! We will be able to get some furniture which will be fun, but all the other things that we need outweigh furnishing the entire house. So, we will have to wait for some of our more expensive furniture dreams. Although, I guess Scott is kinda excited about the power tools and lawn mower :)

Anyway, fun, exciting things happening! Hope it goes by fast! :)

In Loving Memory of Grandma Scott

2010-04-19T08:26:00.000-07:00

I try to journal every Sunday, well as you can see I haven't posted for about 2 weeks!!!! We have been extremely busy here lately. The past couple of weeks have been some pretty emotional ones, of both excitement and sadness...

At the end of March after waiting and searching again, we found a home located in Meridian that we really liked. This one was a regular sale, thank goodness! That other house was a mess. We put an offer on it and they accepted! We will be closing on it on May 14th. We are pretty excited.

Then sadly, I received a phone call from my parents on Easter Sunday, April 4th, that my Grandma Scott was not doing very well. I then received a phone call a few days later on the morning of April 7th from my Dad, telling me that she had past away around 7:30 that morning. She suffered from Alzheimer's Disease, and had been sick for the past couple of years. She didn't really know who any of us were anymore, so our family saw it as a blessing of relief for her. We will miss her and we love her very much.

Memories of Grandma: learning to crochet, playing Chutes and Ladders, drawing at grandma's kitchen table, listening to her toy Mother Goose tell us stories, playing with her wooden Noah's Ark, frying donuts for the boys early in the morning when they were over working at her house, one of the 2 hardest working people I have ever known (the other being my father), gardening in her flower beds, picking lots and lots of raspberries, walking through the fields and crossing canals with my brothers to visit her and grandpa, waking us extra early (like 4:30 am) when she watched us when mom and dad where out of town so that we could make it to school by 8am ;), watching "Saturday's Warrior" with grandma, watching her spend hours and hours quilting and crocheting, her beautiful graduation quilt she made me, and a rolling pin that she told me that I just couldn't live without (Because she told me that every wife needs a good rolling pin. I still have that rolling pin and it has helped make many rolls and pies! mmm...) her homemade bread, rolls, noodles, canned everything and anything!!! And can't forget my dad's favorite... raisin filled cookies! Oh... so many wonderful memories! Love you Grandma!

The following is the obituary that appeared in the April 8th Blackfoot newspaper:

Frances Ruth Scott, 88

Thursday, 08 April 2010

Frances Ruth Scott, 88, of Riverside returned to her Heavenly Father on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at her daughter's home.

She was born January 5, 1922 in Thomas, the first daughter of Francis and Genevieve Hawkes.

Ruth grew up in the Pingree area and attended her first few years of school there. She later graduated from Moreland High School. She also attended a couple of years of her high schooling in Idaho Falls. Ruth met her husband, Lamond, in 1938, shortly after he moved to Pingree with his family. Ruth and Lamond dated for about a year and were married on April 19, 1940, in the Logan Utah LDS Temple. Ruth and Lamond started their lives together farming in the Pingree area. They purchased a farm in the Riverside area in the late 40's. In 1965, they bought a small country store, "Scotties Market", in Riverside and ran it for about 30 years.

Ruth worked as a cook at the Wagon Wheel Cafe and The Thomas Merc, assisting with the finances to raise her growing family of eight children. She raised a large vegetable, strawberry and raspberry garden in addition. Her gardening skills taught her children how to work. It was difficult for the kids to keep up with her as they worked alongside of her with the harvesting and canning.

Ruth was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving faithfully as a Primary president, Relief Society president, Primary and Sunday School teacher and visiting teacher. She served a Family History Mission for the church in Salt Lake City, Utah. Survivors include four sons, Donald (Carolyn) Scott of Riverside, Rusty (Peggy) Scott of Caldwell, Alec (Joslyn) Scott of Riverside and Barry (Raela) Scott of Riverside; son-in-law, Charles Hieb of Pocatello; daughters, Patricia Pugmire of Riverside, Jeri (Dennis) McBride of Pingree and Sharla Mickelsen of Riverside; brothers and sisters, Virginia Charlesworth, Afton Shawver, Orva Nelson, Vernial (Doris) Hawkes, Jay (Joyce) Hawkes, Brent Hawkes; brother-in-law, Rayo (Doris) Scott; sister-in-law, Phillis Scott; 37 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren.

Ruth was preceded in death by husband, Lamond; daughter, Sandra Hieb; son-in-law, David Pugmire; brothers, Mertin and Rowland Hawkes.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, April 12, 2010, at the Riverside 2nd Ward LDS Church, with Bishop Williams conducting. Family will meet with friends and relatives from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday, April 11, 2010 at Hawker Funeral Home, 132 South Shilling Avenue in Blackfoot, and for one hour prior to services at the church. Interment will follow at the Riverside-Thomas Cemetery. Condolences may be sent to the family at condolences@hawkerfuneralhome.com

Here's a picture of Grandma with Paige shortly after she was born last summer. She loved holding her even though she didn't know that Paige was her Great-grandchild. I can still remember the day and moment this picture was taken, such a cute picture. I wasn't able to make it to see her before she passed away, Scott had to work and by the time he had a day off she was already gone. So when we went to visit with the family this past week my Dad asked me if I would like to go in to the funeral home to see her before the viewing, he needed to make some last changes to the program that would be printed for the funeral. When we got there one of the workers took me up into a room so that I could have a moment with her. What a wonderful opportunity this was for me! I had felt so bad that I wasn't able to make it to say goodbye and having that moment to be there, I was able to have closure. I got her all to myself for a brief time. What a testimony building experience. Standing in that room looking at my beautiful grandmother, what a beautiful and strong spirit filled that room. I knew that I would see her again and I knew that she loved me. What a sweet moment! And oh, how thankful I am for the Plan of Salvation, for the blessing of eternal families and to know that I will continue to live on after this life. I just thank God everyday for the wonderful blessing of my own amazing family and what a privilege I have to be in their presence every single day!

The weekend before my Grandmother's funeral my niece, Makenna, was in "Oliver" at the Mystique Theater in Pocatello. We had already planned on going down to watch the play and had tickets to see the show. So we stayed in town for about a week so that we could go to the funeral. Here's some of the cousins: Mason, Skyler, and Caitlyn, Scott, Paige and Grandpa waiting to go in to watch the play.

Our seats at the show. Unfortunately, Paige didn't do so good, so Scott spent most of the show out in the car trying to get her to go to sleep. And in the process of waiting, he also fell asleep :)

Makenna did such a good job! She was one of the orphans. Doesn't she look soooo cute!?!?!

My brother, Kyle, flew up from Texas for my Grandma's funeral. It was so great to see him!

Here's a few Easter pictures...

Paige got a book about Jesus and a Children's Primary Songs CD from the Easter Bunny. Sad, NO candy! Maybe next year Paige, when you can have candy!

Paige reading her book about Jesus. It's actually a really neat book. It came from Deseret Book. It talks about the pre-earth life, the creation, Christ's life, and his Resurrection and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ visiting Joseph Smith.

I made this really fun bread for Easter Dinner. (In our case Lunch, cause Scott had to go to work at 2pm.) I think it turned out really neat. And I think that I will make it every year. I think next year I will do lamb too... it's fun to start our own little family traditions :)

Quick Update

2010-03-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

Not too many updates, but here's what went on this past week...

Still waiting on the house and we are now looking at new homes to see if we can find something else while we wait. We did look at this one house that we wanted to place an offer on cause we fell in love with the house, but when we called to put in an offer we found out that there were two other offers on the table and they had met the asking price and we couldn't compete! Oh well, at the time I was pretty bummed but I'm sure that we will find something else and everything will work out.

Since Paige got her tooth she likes to bite on everything. This is something that she does now... We practically have to yank the spoon out of her mouth! So she did this forever the other morning so I grabbed the camera a snapped a few shots.

So funny!!!! :)

So anyway, Scott worked Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this past week so Paige and I ran some errands and finished some fun projects while Scott was working. Scott had Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday off this past week. It was great to have him home to spend time with us. Although, it went by way too fast!

Thursday we went to look at houses and then we spent some much needed relaxation time as a family. It seems like we have just been going, going, going lately! So the down time was much needed! This past week we have become addicted to watching episodes of Lost, we had never even seen it and had heard that it was really good. It is like one giant movie, it definately doesn't feel like we are watching a TV program. You just can't wait to watch the next one. We discovered this website, Hulu.com, that you can watch TV episodes on for free. We bought a cheap cord from Walmart that attachs from our laptop to our TV so that we can feel like we are watching it for real. It's awesome! Who needs cable!!!

Friday we spent the day going out and looking at homes again and then later that afternoon we went out with our friends Zach, Kimberly, and Brenna. It was so fun! They took us to this really cool burger type joint in downtown Boise (and for the life of me I can't remember the name of it). It was actually on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. How cool is that!?! It even had a car inside the resturant that has a table in it that you could sit and eat in. Then after we ate we went to Goodies (another really good joint here in Boise) and had some ice cream! Yummy! And of course I forgot to take our camera to document. Next time! Then we went back to Zach and Kimberly's for some fun games. Haven't done that in a long time. It was such a fun family double date.

Saturday Paige turned 9 months old! Can't believe how fast the time has gone by. I tell you what it sure seemed a lot longer when we were waiting 9 months for her! :) Also on Saturday Scott went golfing with Zach and the girls went to the fabric store... then we went on a walk together. It was a fun friend filled weekend!

It was so nice to have Scott home today! He was able to go to all of church and it was so nice to have him there to help out with Paige. And enjoying our last night together before he has to go back to work tomorrow. And for this upcoming weekend... We are so excited for General Conference! I love General Conference... I just get so exited!

Something else that we discovered these past couple of weeks... Paige has offically become our very own little human vaccum! She picks up everything! And by everything I mean EVERYTHING. The littleist crumb and she will find it! Can't believe it. She has also started to pick at our wicker baskets that we have her toys stored in. I need to think of something else to put them in that she can't rip apart and eat... something that she can take the toys out herself, any suggestions???

So, until next week... :)
sorry for lack of pictures this week :(

Visits from friends and family

2010-03-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

This past week we had some fun visitors!

On Monday our friends from Twin Falls, Sam and Angela, came to visit. (I'm kicking myself now because I forgot to take pictures while they were here.) They were in Boise visiting some of their family for Spring Break and stopped by to see us. We went out to dinner with them to Texas Roadhouse... Funny story!!! Because we went on a Monday it was "Kid Day" and so they had some fun things for kids going on. They had an ice cream station set up where the kids could go get a scoop and put on their own toppings and there was this armadillo thing wandering around... you know like the hot dog outfits that people wear for fairs and baseball games. And I didn't see one single child that wasn't totally freaked out by the stinking thing! :) Paige included. It knelt down by her and stuck out its pointy finger (scary!!!). Paige looked over at Scott and I wide-eyed and was like "what the heck is this thing... please get it away from me!!!" Scott and I both said that it was rather scary and we would be scared of it too, it looked like some kind of monster! :/

On Tuesday Scott's brother in-law, Jay, was in town and stopped by for a visit. Scott and Jay went golfing and they had a lot of fun! Scott hasn't been able to go in a while and so it was a nice break for him.

Wednesday was St. Pattie's Day! And we all put on our little bit'o'green and headed out. We ran some errands and went to the park to fly our kite and see if we could sneak a turn on the swings. Paige loves swinging! There is this awesome park in Meridian that is always packed. It's got everything... swings, tons of "big toys", musical instruments, and this cool swishy ground under all the play equipment.

Sadly to say there was not a single swing available and we were on a time crunch cause Scott needed to go to work at 2pm so we decided we would try out the slides... Paige was not impressed. But, I did get cute picture moments with daddy! We also took out our kite that my dad gave to us a few years ago for our birthdays. It is awesome! We love it, we have taken it out many times and we have so much fun flying it. The day was windy enough when we first got it out, but moments after getting it into the air the wind died down. So I didn't take any pictures. We did get enough attention from some little kids for the few moments that it was up though, and they came running over to watch, much to their disappointment when we couldn't get it to stay up.

Scott had the day off on Thursday so we just relaxed all day, and enjoyed our time with Daddy!
Took this picture of him and Paige when we were getting Paige ready to go to bed. My parents got her this super cute T-shirt while they were in Mexico on their cruise. Thanks Grandpa and Grandma Scott.

She loves it, she loves books and it has a mouth that opens and closes just like a book. Super cute! It's still a little big on her, so for now we are using it as a jammy shirt. Fun huh!?!

Friday Scott worked so it was just Paige and me. We ran some errands and I worked on some craft projects. We had rented some older movies from Hastings for Paige to watch, you know the classics that we watched when we were kids Thumbelina, Beauty and the Beast, and Bug's Life. So we watched one of them, which at this stage Paige can only sit and watch for about 20-30 min increments at a time. But I enjoy watching her see them for the first time.

On Saturday, Paige and I went out with our friends, Kimberly and Brenna. We went to Hobby Lobby. Which is one of the coolest stores ever! It is so affordable for my "something a little extra budget". It was so fun! Paige and I get so lonely when Scott works his long shifts. I don't really know about Paige, but I sure do! I stay busy, but lonely... so thanks for going with us Kimbo and Brenna! :) I even got some fun stuff to make an Easter Wreath with... gonna work on that tomorrow while Scott is at work and Paige is napping. Yeah, for adult time!!!! Then when we got home from shopping I put Paige down for a nap and made lasagna to take over to Scott at work. It was so fun for Paige and I to have dinner with Daddy! I used to take him lunch all the time when we lived in Twin, but we haven't had many opportunities to go visit him her in Nampa, where he just started his job he's never really sure when the best times are for us to come visit. But, I think now that he's been there for a while we will be visiting more often.

And of course, today we went to church. Love Sundays! It's such a needed break from the rest of the normal weekly stuff. It's definitely my spiritual revamp for the week. :)

I finally finished Paige's dress that I have been working on for the past couple of weeks. She was able to wear it for the first time today for church. I made a matching bow and she looked so cute! I am going to make her another one for Easter Sunday.

This past week I gave some cubes of cheese to Paige. She loves cheese! And because she got her first tooth last week, she bit a piece off!! Can you believe it! We were so proud of her! Her first BITE!!! It's kinda little in the picture, but I swear there is a bite out of it! ;) Something funny Scott said this past week regarding her tooth... "That things not a tooth is a jagged shard!"

Scott's been working a lot of 12 hour shifts this week. He goes on these stretches where he has like 4 or 5 in a row and then a few days off. We did get his new rotating schedule and it looks like we will have some 5 to 7 day breaks in there which will be awesome! Maybe we can plan on doing some fun things during those breaks. :) I am hoping that we can plan something fun for our anniversary this year since it's our 5th! And this way we can plan around his schedule and he doesn't have to ask for time off.

Hopefully next week we will have some updated news on the house... once again more delays. If we don't hear anything by next week we are going to start looking at more homes. Don't want to miss out on the 8,000 dollar tax credit!

First Tooth & Visiting with Family

2010-03-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

This week has been a fun and eventful one! We got a phone call from our Realtor stating that we would be finding out about the house this week... they needed to do some more paperwork at the bank so it would probably take just a little longer. Bummer... still waiting~

Anyway, hope to hear soon.

Paige now sits up all by herself with no assitance! Way to go Paige! It's nice to feel like we can just leave her on the floor by herself playing with her toys and she won't fall over.

Scott had Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off this past week so we decided that we would take a trip up to Blackfoot to visit the Scott family. We arrived in Blackfoot pretty late in the evening on Tuesday. Poor little Paige was up the whole night before sick so we didn't get there as soon as we thought that we would on Tuesday! We wanted to make sure that she was feeling better before we left Boise. We think that she must have eaten something that didn't agree with her tummy, I felt pretty bad I have never seen her so sick :( We went through 4 different changes of clothing (for both of us!) and 2 baths and a few loads of laundry trying to clean up. Anyway, it appeared that she was feeling better, so we decided to make the trip. It was so fun. Wednesday my Dad took Scott ice fishing... Scott took the camera and was supposed to take some pictures, but as you can see none were taken. Oh well, maybe next time! Then we meet them in Pocatello for dinner. My parents called some of my brothers and sister to tell them that we would be in town, so they met up with us for dinner. It was so fun to see all of them and Paige's little cousins! When we got back to Blackfoot that night, Scott and I rented a movie from Red Box and got some ice cream and went back to Mom and Dad's and watched the movie and had ice cream. Then Thursday we just hung around at Grandma and Grandpa's and went to a play that was being put on by the Snake River High School called "Simply Modern Milly". The students did a great job and from what I got to see it was pretty good. Paige wasn't very good... so I missed most of the second half. Then we drove home Thursday night, we thought that it would be the best option since Paige would probably sleep the whole way home. We got home about 2:30 am on Friday morning. And Scott went to work on Friday at 2pm.

Here's a few pics with Grandma and Grandpa!

Paige loves to play with anything and everything...

she is playing with Grandma's string on her jacket. Cute!

Paige started to feel more like herself by the last night that we were there and was in a happier mood. She loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, aunts, uncles and cousins.

FUNNY!!! So, this picture didn't turn out the way that I hoped that it would. This is me attempting to take a picture of her tooth that has finally broken through... It was too funny so I had to post it. Isn't it cute?!?

Here's another picture of Paige playing with Daddy's hat. Paige loves it when Daddy is wearing his hat. She wants anything and everything that we have. Like I said she is getting so curious. The other night she was playing next to the glass doors by our patio and pulling up the carpet. She was pulling out pieces of the carpet! Paige!!! She picks up every little thing that is on the floor. We have to be really careful about anything that is left on the floor. Because she WILL find it!!

Paige loves playing with her toys! She will literally do this for hours! She loves to unpack her toy basket. She takes out the toys and plays with each one, when she is ready for the next toy she just takes it out. When the basket is empty she then proceedes to play with the basket.

It's so fun to watch!

She now plays peek-a-boo with us! She will pull a blanket up above her head and then pull it down waiting for us to say "PEEK-A-BOO!" She showed this to Grandma and Grandpa Scott while we were there. So fun!

I gave a talk this Sunday in church... Scott gave a talk a few weeks ago and miss understood the bishopric member and thought that he was asking us both to speak. So we both prepared talks and arrived at church and his name was the only one of ours that was on the program. So we asked them if I was speaking also and sure enough... It was just Scott. Funny! So they asked me to speak this past week since I had a talk already prepared. It was a great experience and I think it was the most prepared I have ever been for a talk,

next to seminary graduation that is :)

We have a busy week planned... Friends and family visiting and hopefully more news on the house, so more to come next week!

House News and Weekly Update

2010-03-07T20:29:00.000-08:00

There are so many exciting things that have happened this past week...

We found a home that we really like. Its 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, built in 2006, hardwood floors in the kitchen and entry, 2 car garage, bonus room, and almost 2,000 square feet, and in a great neighborhood! We made an offer on February 23rd, and we are waiting, waiting, waiting... It's a short sale so the bank has the final say in the acceptance at closing. The bank doesn't really have a time limit, unlike that of normal sales. Unfortunately, there is no telling whether we will get it until the day of closing. We recieved a phone call from our Realtor this past Thursday telling us that it looks pretty promising and we have a really good chance of having our offer accepted. We should find out sometime next week (fingers crossed!). Short sales are definately more of a process that's for sure, but the reason that we finally chose to go ahead and make an offer was because it is a really good deal, that we don't want to pass it up. Anyway, that is some exciting news. Hopefully, we can stay excited...

We think that Paige might start crawling here pretty soon. She has been rolling around like crazy and has figured out how to turn any direction that she wants. If she sees something in front of her that she wants, she scoots her body forward to get it. She hasnt figured out how to push herself up to her knees yet, but she does an army crawl thing and pushes with her toes and arms. We video taped it, but I'm sure that it is just footage that only mommy and daddy find fun. It was like 2 or 3 minutes long of dragging an item across the floor and her scooting forward to get it. She is learning something new every day it seems like!

She is getting so good with her hands now. Here's a picture of her "reading" her favorite book. And no, we did not set this up... she lays on the floor like this on an almost daily basis looking at her book. Scott said he has even seen her flip it right side up to look at the pages when its upside down. We read it a few times a day, so I am sure that she know exactly which way is up and how the pictures are supposed to look. :)

She did something so cute tonight... before I laid her down for bed she was eating her night time snack in her high chair and started looking at her hands; holding them up in front of her face and closing her fingers. She was smiling so big everytime that her fingers closed. I think that she is figuring out that she can control them to do what she wants. She is getting better and better at feeding herself too! She picks up food with her index finger and thumb now and rarely misses her mouth. Last week we bought her some Goldfish Crackers (the baby size) and she loves them! She crunches them with her gums and chews them up.

We got this fish for Paige for Christmas that swims in the bathtub. You wind it up and it's tail wiggles back and forth and moves in the tub. Paige loves it! She follows it around in the tub trying to catch it. So, I took a picture of her holding "Nemo" after her bath. (we call it Nemo, cause... well... just look at it:) She loves to chew on it. This reminds me, her first tooth is almost broken through! I can see a white dot on the bottom left front part of her gums.

And yes, I know absolutely nothing about the technical terms for what the tooth number is, so stop laughing Davis! :)

This was the best that I could do!

Saturday (yesterday) Paige and I went for a walk in our neighborhood. The weather has been beautiful her the past couple of weeks. Saturday it was almost 60 degrees, so we thought that we would get out and enjoy the weather a bit. Scott was at work, so after our walk we went out to our playground at our apartment complex and I put her in the swing. She thought it was pretty cool. She had so much fun. She would get so excited when the swing was coming forward towards me. I realized that it would have been a good idea to take the camera out with me after the fact, so I didn't get any pictures, darn it! When we go out this week I will definitely get some to post next week! So cute!

Just thought this picture was fun. This was taken this past week, right after breakfast. Paige was sitting in the high chair like this watching me clean the kitchen. She was just chillin'. You know that almost tired kind of way.

This past Wednesday Scott and I went on our second date since Paige was born. We hadn't gotten to celebrate Valentine's Day because Scott was working that whole weekend. We had some of our friends watch her for us so that we could go out. Kimberly watched her for us during the day while we went to a session (I hadn't been to the temple since before Paige was born!). And then we took her over to Mike and Barb's while we went out to dinner. It was great to get out and go on a well needed date! Paige even loved getting out and having a couple play dates with all our friends kids. Thanks so much you guys for watching her for us!!!

Scott got a full-time postition at the hospital, so he works about 4 -12hour shifts a week. I get pretty lonely and need something to do, not that I'm not busy enough with Paige :) I just needed some adult time, so I have been doing a lot of sewing lately. I made 5 super cute bibs that my awesome friend, Chantel, showed me how to make. And I have been desperately wanting to make one of those shopping cart covers. I had a pattern that I had purchased, and decided that I would make one! It was so fun. I took a look at the pattern and didn't quite like how cheapy it looked so I did some research and made my own pattern! Complete with pocket and links for toys. I was so proud of myself, it turned out awesome!!! I love it! It took me 3 days, but it was worth it. And it gave me something to do while Scott was at work. We use it everywhere we go. I put it in the shopping cart at the store, in the swing at the park, anywhere you name it. I am currently working on some cute dresses for Paige, so we will see how they turn out, I am making the patterns myself because I don't really care to use the store bought patterns. Its a lot more fun and satisfying to make something that is 100% you! It's been a fun hobby. Thanks Mom for teaching me how to sew, putting me in sewing 4H and taking me to all those sewing classes with you! Those were some fun memories we spent together, and now I can even make neat things!

Paige loves her jumper... she just recently figured out how to jump!

Anyway, that's just a little bit about what's been going on around here lately.

Awesome Mini Photobooks!

2010-02-28T17:55:00.000-08:00

So, my sister in-law, Emily, started an etsy shop and sells these super cute books! She designs them all herself and can be used for different occasions. She will customize your order or you can purchase one of her adorable pre-made books. They are so convenient and you can even have them out for display because they are small enough to put on a shelf or table. They open up to an accordion or origami style so you can see all your pictures. They are marked with little tags that tell you where to put your pictures... How awesome! It takes the stress out of trying to design a scrapbook page yourself. Just paste your pictures and your done! Super easy and super cute.

Emily, way to go! The site looks so great :)

You have got to check them out on her blog:

http://weewilloughbywonders.blogspot.com/

You can also see her stuff on her etsy shop too: http://www.etsy.com/shop/weewilloughbywonders