Top Ten Words

A refresher for those of us who missed these lessons in the 3rd grade. It gave me a good laugh!

The Gateway to the West

St Louis has by far been our favorite place to visit since we moved out here. It is a short 3 1/2 hour drive and is the home of our closest temple!!

Abby and Travis (TJ's brother) were both here visiting last month. Infact as I was at the airport dropping off Ab, I picked up Travis! We took Abby to St Louis and then Travis just 8 days later. Needless to say, we have had our fix of that city for a while!!

It was HOTTT! With the humidity factor it was about 112 degrees the day we went with that. Im quite sure once we got to the top of the arch it was about double that with all the body heat going on. They pack people in there!! So yes, we (or atleast I) look like sweat bombs :)

Vew of the city from the top of the arch.

They have awesome replicas of the elevators you take to the top of the arch in the lobby where you buy tickets. They cram 5 people into these beauties!

My favorite part: the signs next to the elevators. They make you feel really safe about the ride you are about to take. But dont worry, these 44 year old, inefficient elevators that are approaching the end of their life will someday be replaced. For now enjoy your ride!

The waters of the Mississippi were so high, they came into the street that boarders the river. It was CRAZY! All sorts of huge diftwood were up on the street.

6 months already?

My little man is already a half of a year old! I hate that the saying 'time flies when youre having fun' always proves to be painfully true! Where has the last 6 monts gone??



At his DR appt on Tues he weighed 16 lbs 12 oz which still keeps him in the 30th% , although since he is short he looks much more plump than he really is. (sorry Isaac, looks like you may have my height, not your dads.)




Isaac started eating real baby food- no longer only rice cereal nonsense for him. The first day he had sweet potatoes he LOVED them and ate an entire jar. The next day, same food, he gagged down a half of a jar. He is a bit over dramatic at times. And at this point my mom is saying under her breath... 'gee, I wonder where he gets that from'.
My mom Skyped with us to watch him loving the sweet spuds his first day, but missed him hating them the second, so here is a video to prove that such strong love of food could turn to utter disgust in just 24 hours.

Teeth!

Isaac cut his first tooth on July 4th, followed shortly by his second tooth. For mom this proved to be the worst 1.5 weeks of his life so far. :) Teeth make him look so grown up!!

Ok maybe he still looks like a 5 month old, but this was a big step for me to accept!

And for grandma and Ashton we have a video of Isaac reluctantly showing off his new pearly whites.

I Love This Boy!

Thats all I have to say........ for now!

My {not so} friendly friend

Meet Woody. He is my little woodpecker friend....

This bird drives me CRAZY!!! He sits on the window pane of my back door and pecks at the glass. I was amazed when he actually let me take a picture of him. Usually picture attempts look somewhat like the picture below.

Any time I approach the window and attempt to take a picture he books it, but is always back a short while later pecking away! The bird on the ground is not the woodpecker, he is his one man posse. This little bird just follows Woody around. You can see Woody making his escape from me right by the chairs. As much as I hate these little fellas, they are kinda cute!

tricky tricky

Isaac learned this trick a couple weeks ago. He hates being on his tummy so the first few times he did it, it was out of anger. Then he just started doing it for the praise!

I cannot believe he will be 14 weeks old on Wednesday!

PS- I would just like to point out that this is my 10th post for this year which is 3 more than last year and tied for my 2008 total. Wow. Im just becoming an amazing blogger..... :)

Five Years.... and Counting

Today TJ and I celebrate 5 years of marital bliss!!! I cant believe it has only been 5 years !! TJ has been the rock in my life for the last 10 years and I just love him to pieces!


This is a picture from my 18th birthday... a minor blast from the past. I am just way too lazy to scan a picture, so you will just have to be satisfied with a picture of a picture. (Yes I am that lazy!!)

LOVE YOU BABE!

Two Trips to Utah...

The second week of March we ventured out to Utah so that Isaac could meet all of his family... or rather so they could meet him! He loved being on the airplane. The minute it took off he zonked out until we landed. The plane totally had the car effect on him!
Everyone was so happy to meet Isaac, but no one was a curious about him as Koda. He just kept sniffing the baby and then would come and sniff me and then go back to the baby. Koda normally loves so jump up on me, but the entire time I was pregnant he wouldnt. So finally after his last sniffing session between me and Isaac he came back to me and jumped up on my stomach. He never licked the baby or anything... just sniffed. He would sit in front of the swing and just stand guard. Then if Isaac would cry, he would come find me or my mom. It was so funny!

Isaac met his Great Grandma Betty and Grandpa Jim.... Great Grandma Rowell..........

Great Grandma Joani ......

Spence and Abby fought over who got to hold him the entire time. They are so cute!

Isaac also go to meet his two cousins Izzy and Deacon. Deacon is 3 months older than Isaac. They will have fun ripping up grandmas house together in a couple years!

Abby and Spence had prom while we were there. I had fun helping Abby get dressed and ready.

5 days after we got home from Utah, my sweet grandpa Blaine passed away. So within 7 days of leaving, we were back in Utah for the funeral. I was so glad to be able to go. The funeral was the friday before Easter, so we got to spend Easter with the fam, and we blessed Isaac while we were there (pictures of that soon!).

Here is a picture of Blaine probably about 20 years ago. I remember the day that I met him. I had just turned 6 and we were over at my grandmas house carving pumpkins and he came over. Since I was so young no one really told me upfront what was going on with him and my grandma. I did know one thing.. I didnt like the idea of there being someone else to take my grandma's attention! They were married the following January. I remember telling my mom afew months later that I didnt think that I would like having Blaine around, but it turned out that he was a pretty great guy and I like that my grandma was really happy! He has trully been a great grandpa and dad to my family and we will miss him terribly.

This is Blaine in June of 2008. He had been in bad health since April of 2005 when back surgery left him with a horrible staff infection. He was in the hospital for months and months and was left in a wheel chair. He made progress to use a walker to get himself from his wheel chair, to his stair elevator and to the restroom. But about 2 months after this photo was taken he went into a diabetic coma. Within a month he was given a week to live. They put him in a hospice care center expecting it to be a short stay. He amazed us all by living another 18 months.

I took Isaac to visit him right before we left Utah. This picture was taken 7 days before he passed away. He was so sweet. He looked at Isaac and said.. Oh I bet his grandma really likes him. Joani told him we were going to take some pictures so he needed to smile. So he smiled while we took a couple pictures. I then took the baby to change his diaper at the other end of the room. I looked back over and he was still just laying there smiling. It was sooo cute!

Joani with Blaine's 5 daughters.

Flowers from the Quorum of the Seventy presidency. (Blaine's daughter is married to Ron Rasband of the presidency)

It was so awesome to get to go back to Utah especially because Megan came too and got to meet Isaac!

Below: Sarah, Me, Abby and Megan. The funeral hadn't even started yet, but I had already cried off all of my eye makeup. Lovely!!!

Isaac got to meet his cousin Cade *name is probably subject to change!*. We watched the video of Megan's ultrasound. Quite impressive!

Sporting his Easter outfit...

The Easter Bunny found him at Grandmas house. Maybe next year he will get some candy.

Easter morning we headed over to Market Street for some delicious brunch. It was so much fun to spend time with all of my family (except Brett:() as well as Grandma Joain, my cousin Sarah, her husband BJ and little Braden as well as Sarah's brother Seth who I never see which is horrible of me to say since he does live in Missouri!!

My camera was out of battery by the end of the day on easter, but we finished the day off with a nice visit to Betty and Jim's and then onto see TJ's parents. We were so happy to be able to spend all that time with our wonderful family. We do love where we live, but miss being so close to everyone!