Quick trip to Utah

We went to Utah this past weekend. We left Wednesday after school and came back Sunday night. It was really fun, but a quick trip. David's mom, Camille, drew out for a big bull elk tag up in their neck of the woods, so David wanted to help her get it. No bull yet, but they still have 3 more days to hunt, so her and Jack are still hunting. He has lots of crazy stories to tell, and he had a total blast on the mountain. Since they were camping in pretty rough country and it got cold at night, us girls stayed back at the house and did what else? CRAFTS and ate lots of yummy food and stayed up way too late. Nicole (Sam's wife) came up too with her little daughter Camille (named after Grandma, cute huh?) and played with me and Isabel. We decided to make hairbows, and boy did we get busy. I should have taken a picture of the mess we made, but we had so much fun. It was so enjoyable to just relax, let the girls make a big mess of toys and all our ribbon at our feet and make bows with Nicole.

This is up Ephraim canyon where they went hunting. Isn't it beautiful with all the fall colors. I love this place, it is so much fun to go camping up there and we usually go cut a Christmas tree down up here too. Sadly this year, we won't be able to.
Little Camille and Isabel playing with all of Grandma's necklaces.
Isabel is 6 months older than Camille, but they are pretty much the same size. It was so fun to see them interact, even though Isabel was kind of a bully to her. She did like to pat Camille on her head, so much that Camille got sick of it!

Grandma was helping the girls put on lotion. Isabel loved to rub it in her hands and kept coming back for more! She even had to show daddy and shared with him.

We were trying to get a cute picture of them together, but as you can see, they weren't very amused by our efforts. Sam kept making these funny noises to try and get them to look at the cameras, but Isabel started scowling at him for being so weird. It was hilarious, Sam is such a character!

Grandma and Grandpa Bailey. They didn't get to see much of Isabel since they were hunting most of the time and she didn't start to warm up to them until it was almost time to go. But she loves her family. I am excited for my family to get to see her next week. She is so much fun!

Our happy little family. Can you see how exhausted David is? He was so worn out, but he said it was one of his favorite hunts, which I guess is the most important thing. Us girls had fun too, and we were worn out from playing so hard, early morning wakeups and sleeping in the same room as Isabel (she is a noisy sleeper and wakes me up every hour or so with all her noises and whining when she can't find her binky in her crib. Nicole and I had fun eating at our favorite chinese restaurant, attending a wedding of David's stepcousin, eating lots of yummy food at the house and staying up way too late to work on the bows and chat about nothing and everything. David's little sister Rachel was so busy because it was homecoming week. We saw her just a little bit every day and we helped her get ready for the dance.

Just kidding. She had to get dressed up in the 80's for a parade that the school did, so we helped her find this. Isn't it great, doesn't it take you back to the day?

We always love to visit family and are sad when it comes to an end. Next week, we are flying to Spokane to see my family over fall break. We will have a blast there too, so I will take lots of pictures.

My little Kyle

My bigger, little brother Kyle got home from his mission last week. I am sad that we weren't able to be there to greet him with a big 'ol hug, but we will get to spend lots of time with him when we go to Spokane for Fall Break. He was a great missionary and it was so fun to read his letters each week and watch him grow and mature into a wonderful young man. He has such a great testimony and I know he is setting a great example for our children just like all our other brothers (and sister, Amber!) have. We look forward to Isabel getting to know her uncle Kyle. He is always up for rolling around with the nieces and nephews and playing with them to the point of exhaustion (it is usually the kids that are exhausted by him:)

Good 'ol Kyle with my parents, can you tell my mom is excited to have her son back? Ladies, he's a looker huh? I am so excited to see him. My baby brother Caleb is serving in Mexico and will be back in Feb. 2010. They overlapped their missions by 7 months, so they won't see each other for a LONG time. They are best buds and have been connected at the hip since Caleb was born, so I know it is hard for them. But it is all worth it to serve the Lord! Way to go Kyle!

Here is the cute sign my niece, Corissa made. These are all the grandkids that live up in Spokane, aren't they so cute? Have fun with Kyle and don't wear him out before we get there!

The proper way to wear a backpack...

Isabel loves to play with her little backpack. She will put lots of toys in it, and then "attempt" to put it on. If you notice, she doesn't usually wear it in the normal fashion. Since she can't zip up the backpack and gets mad when I try to, all the toys dump out while she tries to put it on. This makes her a little frustrated, so she takes it off and puts the toys back in and tries it again with the same results.

This was the little bath lounger we used when Isabel was a newborn. It is a soft mesh chair that helps them lay in the tub. Isabel found it in our upstairs linen closet (note to self: do not make any shelves in any closets lower than 3 feet off the ground so things are out of reach for small hands). She found out quickly that it is a very comfortable seat when she needs to just "chill" at home. She drug it into every room I went into as I was cleaning that morning. It included dragging it down the stairs and trying it in the living room and dining room. She entertained herself for quite a while with her new chair and her pinwheels. These are a favorite right now as she walks around trying to blow on them and is constantly shoving them in our face to make us blow on them. I think I am gonna pass out if I have to make those things spin anymore!

Road rash and cute pics

I fell on Saturday and this is what I did to my daughter: I was holding her and walking to the car. I took a step off our porch steps and stepped halfway on the cement and halfway on the grass where there just happened to be a big hole. So we were catapulted forward and I didn't even have any time to try and recover my footing. We face planted it. I was holding her on my hip and I banged up my left elbow and knee pretty bad trying to stop her from slamming into the cement. Well her arm was underneath her, trying to save herself since Mommy isn't much help and she rubbed her skin off. It was the saddest thing and I almost started crying seeing her so sad and hurt. Now if you ask her about her owie, she holds her arm out and points to it and says "owie" and gets a pout on her face.

The baby is fine, it was kicking right after it happened and has been happily moving around since then, but I was pretty shaken up. My adrenaline got going so fast that when I was trying to clean her up afterwards, my legs were bouncing her up and down on my lap. Oh yeah, I managed to get the right half of me covered in mud and grass stains from my right side falling on the grass after 2 days of rain. So we were pretty messy and scared, but we managed to get cleaned up and go do our grocery shopping like we had planned.

Here are some more cute pics of Isabel. She was patient enough to let me try something new with her hair. I think her bangs are too thick, so I have been wanting to grow them out. I don't know if I will succeed, but I like having the hair out of her face. When she gets her hair all done for the day, she likes to look in the mirror and smile at the cute little girl she sees. Sometimes she will even stand in the bathroom sink and kiss the girl in the mirror.

This little girl LOVES books. We went to the library last week and got a bunch of books for her. She had lots of fun there. She would get a book of the shelf and go over to the couch and look through it. Then she would grab another and keep looking at them. It is so fun to watch her when she really concentrates on what she is looking at. Sometimes she will sit still and let me read a book to her, and other times, I can't even start reading a page before she wants to turn it to see what is on the next page. I hope this love of books continues as she grows up. For now, I think we will make the trip to the library a regular activity. Plus, I got to check out a book and I actually found the time to read it all the way through (great book, I love that Mary Higgins Clark). Now I just need to be that dedicated to reading the Book of Mormon.

Notice she wore two outfits in one day. This is because we had a little accident while running errands. She gagged on some food while we were finishing up her lunch in the stroller before we went to a few stores at the mall and she threw up her whole lunch! It got all over her clothes and the stroller. So we had to strip her down to her diaper and take her to the bathroom the cleanup. I was just going to go home, but with gas prices so high, I knew we needed to make our trip count. So what did I do, I just went and spent money and got her a new outfit!:) She needed another pair of pants for winter anyways. I did get some funny looks walking from one end of the mall down to Target. I think people thought I was a crazy mom to let my kid hang out in her diaper at the mall. I felt pretty bad, but I am sure one day I can laugh about it!

Tinkerbell Chair

We got Isabel this little chair and she loves it. She loves to pick it up and carry it to all sorts of different places in the house and sit in it. She even sat her teddy bear in it and gave it her blankie and said "night night" to it like it was going to take a nap. It is the perfect size for her and she has lots of fun reading books in it.

Nursery Time!

It has happened. Isabel is 18 months and is in the Nursery at church. It started out great. We let her wander down the hall at church until she found the room with all the toys and she went in all by herself. David had to sub in nursery because all the women needed to be in Relief Society for the Visiting Teaching Conference Lesson. So she did great with him in there to have as moral support.

Well after Relief Society, silly Mommy had to go and ruin things by poking her head in to see how her sweet daughter was doing. Isabel saw me and instantly jumped up off the floor and bee-lined for the door. I tried to close it and she instantly started screaming, afraid of me leaving her. Don't try and tell her she was fine without me cause she won't believe it. So I stayed for a minute and she wandered off to go play again. So I snuck out and went to Sunday School. About 15 minutes later, David and Isabel came and got me out of S.S. He said she noticed I had left again and went nuts. She wasn't content anymore, so he came to switch with me. I took her back and she played fine, as long as she knew where I was at all times. If I moved while she was playing, she would look up to where I had been and would start crying, thinking I had left her. Woops on my part! We will see how it goes next week. Now I know what NOT to do. I think I will just have to send David and butt out myself!

She has really grown up a lot in the last few months. Here are some of the things she has learned and been up to lately:

-She is expanding her vocabulary. She doesn't say a ton of words, but she tries things that you say to her. Her common words are: please, mama, night night, baby, doggie, cheese, hot, swing, up, and sippy. She signs eat, water, more, please and waves and says night night when she is tired

-She is in love with babies. If she sees a little baby, she runs up to them, points at them and says baby and giggles and gets so excited. I am hoping this enthusiasm is still around in a few months.

-Isabel still loves music. If there is a beat, she will bounce to it and dance around. She does a head bob when we are listening to music in the car. She has started to try and sing along with us. She will start doing jibber jabber singing that she will try and mimmick to what the song sounds like.

-Playing outside is one of her favorite things to do. With Fall and Winter approaching, I am a little nervous about what we will do all winter, especially with a newborn keeping us indoors a lot. She loves the swings and sprints towards them when we go to the playground. She likes to climb up the stairs on the toys and slide down the twirly slide. I get a little nervous because the stairs are really steep and she is so high up there, but she has done great so far.

Here's some amusement for the Fam!

Well family, I thought I would post a pregnancy pic of me at 26 weeks, since you don't get to see me balloon up in person! I have actually been feeling great so far, no Carpel Tunnel Syndrome yet! I was talking to my mom a few days ago, and I just want to say that I am glad I wasn't pregnant 25 years ago. She said the dr.'s encouraged her to gain just 20 pounds with her pregnancies, and let's just say I would not fit into that category. It feels great to be nearing the end of my second trimester, but at they same time I get nervous that it is coming up so fast. I have been having insane hotflashes the last few weeks, I guess I have a preview for what is coming in 20 more years:) I have also been having the strangest dreams, they make total sense while I am having them, but then I wake up and think of explaining them to David and don't because I realize he would think I have gone completely nuts. So I just forget about it and look forward to the next night of crazy dreams.

I love feeling the baby move. Not knowing the gender is great because I always have something to daydream about and try and picture what it would be like to have either gender join our family. On the other hand I am a bit anxious because I can't get some of the things I want to be prepared. I will just have to go shopping over Christmas break when David is home.

We can't wait for this baby to come and see how Isabel interacts with her sibling. We feel so blessed that Heavenly Father is sending another little spirit to join our family.

I'll get it!

Isabel loves to play on the stairs. I was cleaning up breakfast and she wandered off. I heard her over by the stairs. Then I heard a clicking noise and kept seeing the stairway light go on and off, on and off, etc. I went to see what she was doing and this is what I found with a big grin and a giggle because she was so proud of herself. I am just glad she didn't fall!

We were sitting on the porch, enjoying a nice yummy popsicle after dinner. We had the sprinkler on and she was having fun with the water. She is so much fun and brings David and I so much joy. We are very excited for her sibling to come and bring even more love and joy in our family. I love watching her learn and grow and just hope I am doing the best job that I can with her. She just melts my heart!