Family Pictures

We had some family pictures taken a while ago. The woman who took them was great and her price was also fantastic! Here are a few of them:

The photographer brought an assistant that was great with Little A. We really enjoyed the shoot.  A few weeks later we got this package in the mail along with our CD of pictures. 

Inside was this enormous print. It's gorgeous! I love it and can't wait to get it in a frame!

If you are in the Cache Valley area and want a good photographer I recommend her. Her name is Aimee Campbell and her website is www.aimeecampbellphotography.com.

Anniversary/Mother's Day Trip

We went to visit Allan's side of the family over Mother's Day weekend, which is also our anniversary weekend. We wanted to be there to talk to Allan's siblings who are serving missions, and I also had a Sister Missionary reunion. It was a really busy weekend.

We started by going on a date. Allan's sweet Mom watched little A for us for most of the day so that we could celebrate our 6th anniversary. It kind of started out horribly. First we went to the Temple to do sealings. We do this every year. It's nice to be reminded of our marriage covenants and remember the wonderful day we were married. Once we got to the Temple we discovered that our Temple recommends had expired a few days previously. Epic fail #1.

We decided to just head to our favorite Thai restaurant for an early lunch. We got there only to discover that it was closed for the month of May! Epic fail #2. Awesome.

Thankfully we remembered another Thai restaurant and went for lunch there instead. It was really good. About 5 minutes after we entered the restaurant it started raining. Not just a little, a huge down pour! We'd left the umbrella in the trunk (Epic fail #3) so we just hoped that it would let up when it came time for us to leave. Unfortunately it didn't. Allan ran through the rain to get the umbrella while I waited inside. He was completely drenched! It looked like he'd taken a shower in his suit. Poor guy. 

After that we went looked for a place to change our clothes so Allan wouldn't be sopping wet the rest of the day. We found a random church building that was open and crashed some sort of missionary district meeting or zone meeting. We made a quick change of clothes and headed back out. The wind had picked up while we were inside and covered our car with tree droppings. It was pretty thick, Allan had to pull out the snow scraper to get them off. 

Then we walked around Temple Square and some of the area surrounding it. When we were dating I lived a block away from Temple Square, and we spent a lot of time there and the surrounding area and parks. It was fun to reminisce.  We are so blessed to have such a happy, loving marriage. We've had an eventful six years of marriage and have grown closer and more in love for it. I feel so blessed to have Allan as a husband, and he says that he is still trying to figure out how he ever got a lady as wonderful as me.

Even though our date didn't go as planned, it was still very nice to have the day to just be together.

The next day I went to the sister missionary reunion. I served in the Illinois Chicago North Mission. It was such a wonderful experience and I worked with so many great women. It was really good to see them again, catch up on their lives, and talk about the people we'd worked with. Sadly I don't have any pictures yet.

Mother's day was a nice relaxing day. We spent a lot of time with our family and got to talk to Allan's brother and sister who are serving missions.

Our New House

We moved in over Memorial Day weekend. (I know, I am WAY behind.) Before we moved in we replaced the carpet with laminate flooring and painted. Here are a few pictures of that.

Little A came and helped sometimes. She didn't really like it though. It was too noisy for her. Occasionally we could appease her by giving her something to help us, such as a ziplock bag of screws or an outlet cover. She was very proud to hold them for us and give them to us when we needed them.

We still aren't finished painting the molding and doors, we need to put the baseboards in and we haven't started on the basement yet. But, we sold the hot tub, installed central air conditioning, replaced two toilets, put rain gutters on, and did some work on the yard.

It is a 6 bed 3 1/2 bath home, about 3200 square feet.

The back yard is pretty big, we've loved playing in it.

The living room before:

And after:

Master Bedroom before:

And after:

more of the master bed:

Little A's room before:

And after: (we are planning to still add a chair rail and pink stripes. It will look like her original nursery)

Kitchen:

Pantry and laundry room: (There is a laundry room on the main floor as well as the basement)

Little A's bathroom:

Food Storage room:

Garage: (The garage has it's own heater, it's quite large and heats up the garage in about 5 min. Allan loves that!)

We love our house! It really turned out so beautiful. We've really been enjoying the extra room too! A BIG BIG thank you to all of our family and friends who helped us work on the house and take care of little A. We couldn't have done it without you!

Catching Up

We took the opportunity to go to the Temple in April. A good friend, who I hadn't seen in over 10 years, took care of little A for us while we went. It was so nice to go and such a blessing that my friend could care for A. I'm afraid little A was kind of ornery though :( She slept really well on the way home though!

K6 is the adviser to the high school dance team where she lives and needed help judging the tryouts, so I headed down to help out with that. It was a lot of fun, I haven't done anything like that in a few years. I love dance and am grateful for my sister and cousin who keep me involved in it.

In this picture A is wearing a crocheted dress that my Grandma S made for my sisters and I. She is SO cute in it and it's perfect for the cool mornings here.

I gave little A a sippy cup of milk and one of water to see what she would do. She sat happily in the kitchen alternately drinking water, then milk, then water, then milk ha!

You can tell in this picture that we have been really busy. The desk is piled high with paperwork and mail, and the floor is covered in A's toys. While I was cleaning up after taking this picture I found a dead bug underneath all of the paperwork on our desk - ew! One day the insanity will end, and I'll have a clean house again right? I don't mind the toys, they make me happy, but the rest of the clutter and icky stuff I'd rather have under control again.

I finally decided to buy some hair ties for A's hair. It's been long enough for a while but I knew she wasn't going to like having her hair done so I just kept putting it off. When I got them I decided to do pigtails instead of a ponytail - gotta break her in the hard way right! She did pretty well actually and the pigtails are SO adorable! She fights me a lot more now than she did the first time, but her hair sure looks cute!

A also finally grew out of size 1 shoes!!! She is officially in size 2. The pink tennis shoes she's wearing in this pic are her new shoes, handed down from her cousin P! They are adorable! A loves to chew on them.

I also put little A in a swing for the first time. I tried a couple of times before this, but the swings were always full. She really liked it, but if I went too fast her face would go a little green, and she'd gag a little. I texted AG to see if motion sickness ran in their family, but it doesn't. I think A just needed to get used to it. I still take it slow for her, but she is starting to handle it better and she really enjoys it.

A likes to carry things in her mouth while we walk around. She loves the lion puppet (in the picture) because it tickles her! She also likes to walk around sucking on Cheer Bears arms, chewing on her sock monkey, and especially loves to chew on her socks. She has always preferred soft things to hard things.

A has a curl in the back of her head! She has a spot in the back that is blond and just to the right of it is a curl. It's the only one she has, and it is so cute!

Allan's company is mining under the water table right now and they want an engineer there at all times while they do this so he had to work over the weekend. We went to visit him for lunch on Friday and Saturday. We had so much fun; it was good to see him in the middle of the day, and it was a nice adventure for little A. She loved Allan's desk and tried to help him with his work by typing on his keyboard.

A sat in one of the big office chairs to eat her lunch. She thought it was so fun! She also loved having her daddy walk her around the mine office.

We also went to visit my mom at her new store. My mom is an interior designer, and she set up a shop in a nearby tourist town. It's doing really well so far. She has some really pretty stuff in her store! A really liked the chairs...and some very breakable vases (that thankfully didn't break).

A decided the other day to put her jacket on all by herself! She got her arm in all by her self and then quickly took it off. She hasn't showed any interest since then though.

Little A has been a really big Mamma's girl lately. She doesn't want to leave my side and will go to no one but me. So, this night when Allan got her to play with him it was amazing! They were dancing and laughing together! So cute!

This cute outfit is another hand-me-down from cousin P. I love the tutu!

It took us a few weeks to get A's Easter basket from Nana and Pops.When we finally got it A loved it. She still plays with the little chick basket and likes to have me put things in the eggs so she can shake them. She really likes to chew on the sock monkey's arms and legs and swing him around by the tail.

The dress A is wearing in this picture is one of mine from when I was little. Se looks SO cute in it. I love how it brings out her eyes.

A and Allan were sharing a snack. She loves raisins, it is probably her favorite snack right now.

I love this outfit! I love the bow, it cracks me up, and the matching socks are just fantastic! This shirt Allan and I got at an adoption conference. It says "adoption: adored and loved by both of my families". And it's very true! Although in A's case it should say by "all" of my families.

One of A's favorite things to do lately is walk around carrying Allan's lunch box. We pretend that she's going to work. She seems to like the challenge of keeping it up off of the floor and avoiding getting caught in the strap. She is always very proud of herself. :)

We celebrated Mother's Day visiting Allan's family. It was an Anniversary, mission reunion, mother's day, talk to the siblings on missions trip. It was a lot of fun and also exhausting. A enjoyed scaring her cousin J again, and she loved seeing her Grandma. We really enjoyed skyping with M2 and SG. A was asleep but woke up for a quick hello to both of them. We are excited to welcome SG home soon!