Celebrating January

In some ways the month of January can be kind of a let down. The holidays are over and it's back to work, back to school, and back to everyday life. But I was thinking about it, and the truth is that I LOVE my everyday life...so getting back to it is not such a bad thing. While I miss my kids and Dave like crazy while they are away at school and work...we end up having so much fun when we are together it makes it all O.K.
So our January was awesome. We took advantage of the gorgeous weather (most of the month the temps were between 65-70 degrees) and spent a ton of time outside. We took a couple of day-trips to some cool places in our area, did a lot of bike riding, and spent a lot of time at the park.

Oh, and Eden had her first bubble bath...
Like I said, this month was awesome.

Day-trip #1: Lake Las Vegas

Pretty cool...

This picture is funny to me because it is so bright...we

are staring strait into the sun. If you notice Emily is literally

holding her eye-lids open for the picture...and Justin is doing the

smart thing and just looking the other direction.

The view

Sad that we couldn't go ice skating.

There were cool fountains all over this place.

Emily is such a poser...she didn't even have money to

throw in...she just saw that I was about to take a picture of her

and she pulled this pose really quick. She's funny like that.

Day-trip #2: Hoover Dam

Very cool...

Holy cow, that's steep.

Awwwww.

Dave showing Justin where Megatron used to live.

(Justin hasn't seen the movie, but he has a picture

book based on it so he knows all about how the U.S.

government hid Megatron in Hoover Dam until he escaped

and was eventually "befeated" by the Autobots.)

Family picture. (Thank you Nice Stranger for offering.

Dave and I would never get family pics if it weren't for

people like you...we never like to ask. :) )

This bridge is going to span that huge gap that runs

parallel to the dam. It is gonna be so freaky to drive

across when it's done! We can hardly wait.

We took this picture of the same bridge two years ago.

It's kind of cool to see the progress...

The kids got their first real bikes in December.

They've had so much fun riding...

Emily didn't get training wheels with her new bike. We

told her she was 7 and needed to learn how to ride without them.

I expected it to take awhile for her to figure it out...but she

learned within half-an-hour. Dave and I were so proud.

(The whole stopping and starting thing can still be a little tricky for her though.)

We took A LOT of trips to the park this month.

Here are a few pictures from just one of them.

Eden flying at our favorite "butterfly park."

She really loves to swing.

Monkey

Airplane

Angel

7 Months and Loving It

So Eden is approx. 7 1/2 months old now. In just a few days she will actually switch to the "almost 8 months" stage...and pretty soon after that she actually will be 8 months (yikes!). So I thought this would be a good time to do a 7-month-old post for our baby girl.
Here's a quick summary of Eden at 7 months...(I'm gonna make it much shorter than last month).
Loves sitting up and rolling around. Not crawling (yet). Happy. Sweet. Funny. Chubby. Doesn't like to fall asleep anywhere else besides her own crib (which makes 1:00 church kind of challenging). Super curious. Super wiggly and squirmy. Loves to talk. Still a good eater and starting to eat some table foods (like tiny pieces of pasta, cut up green beans, etc.). Loves going on walks in her stroller. Loves to swing. Loves her family.

Daddy Time...

Sister Time...

(looking at each other in the mirror)

Brother Time...

Our Sweetie...

By the way, laundry baskets make great playpens.

Eden loves to sit in here and contentedly play with her toys.

She's safe, and contained, and happy and it's been really

convenient for dinner making and laundry folding and things like that. :)

Sleeping Baby...

(there is nothing sweeter)

Sleeping baby getting slightly woken up by

a mommy who couldn't resist kissing her...

(sorry honey!)

Don't worry, she went right back to sleep...

Could it be we have a kind of blue-eyed kid?

I never would have thought...

This is the face she makes whenever I

come towards her with a wet paper towel to clean her

face after she's done eating. I call it her "scrunchie face."

She knows what's coming.

I think it's pretty funny.

Ready for a walk...

Some funny (and cute) faces...

The end.

Eden's bobbling

So, my Christmas posts were supposed to be my last posts for awhile. I had planned on taking a little blogging break after having such a busy month of posting. But then, on Sunday night, something big happened. At least something big to us. Eden started bobbling. And by bobbling...I mean babbling (you know the cute baby talk babies start doing around this age...their repetivitive ba, ba, ba's and da, da, da's.) So why do I call it bobbling? Because that's what Justin calls it and it sounds so much cuter. :)
On Sunday night, right before bedtime, we were all laying on mine and Dave's bed in our pajamas playing with Eden. Then, out of nowhere, she just started going nuts with her talking. She's always been a very vocal baby...lots of happy squealing and airy oooohs and aaaahs with a consonant sound thrown in here and there. But this night was different...it was the first night she really started with the full out babbling. We all were cracking up and Emily ran to get the camera to catch the moment on video, and I'm so glad she did. So I have a couple short clips to show off Eden's new found voice. :)
The first one was taken on that first night when it all started...it was just way too dark in our room for the video to show up good, we only had one little lamp on and our digital camera doesn't have a light for video. So I took one more the next morning when we had a little more light. They are both really short...so enjoy!

Emily and Justin thought it was so cool when Eden started making her cute noises on Sunday night. I explained to them that what Eden was doing was called "babbling" and that it is what most babies do while they are learning to talk and soon all those little noises will turn into her first real words. Well, when I said "babbling" Justin heard "bobbling" and he has not been able to stop talking about it ever since. I can't tell you how many times the next day he said things like "Eden sounds so cute when she bobbles, huh Mommy." or "Eden is the best bobbler.", and "Eden just loves to bobble." I just can't correct him...it sounds too sweet. :)

Christmas in Logan

We really had such a wonderful Christmas! We started our holidays with a trip to Logan to spend a few days with Dave's family. We had so much fun while we were there! Our days and nights were filled with...

Reading Christmas stories with Grandma...

Playing with fun cousins...

Ice skating...

The Nativity play...

Opening cousin presents...

New friends...Justin had a blast playing with his

2nd cousin Jax that he doesn't get to see very often.

They were best buds right away.

Dancing around the tree at

the Gutke family Christmas party...

This is one of my favorite traditions. Every year the new

babies of the family get to dance around the Christmas

tree while everyone sings.

Eden got to share her dance around the tree with her

cute cousin Ridley who is just two months older!

Opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa...

(thank you so, so much...the kids love their toys!)

Eden all cozy in the blanket Grandma made her!

Here's the video of Eden dancing around the tree...

We had such a wonderful time with our family in Utah! Thank you all for everything!