Happy Birthday, Halle!

Today is Halle's birthday. I can't believe my little girl is three! I will now inundate you with pictures. It was a crazy pregnancy with three weeks of bed rest (starting 6/6/6, freaky). I went into the hospital on June 29 at 8:30 AM, and she was born June 30 at 5:13 weighing in at 5 lbs 8 oz, 18 inches. She's now 27 lbs, and 36 inches. My how they grow.

Working from home on bed rest.

Working from Jared's parent's house on bed rest (they were in Hawaii). Sweet Tito protecting me in the hammock. (May he rest in peace.)



Look how happy Grandpa Danny was! FINALLY, A GRANDDAUGHTER!

My mommy made this gorgeous dress for Halle's blessing.





Wow! TV!!


First Christmas
That's DISGUSTING!!! She had a bad cold, I guess.

First bikini


First Birthday - she took her first steps, 7 of them, the day before. First whole tomato, fresh from the garden. Jared gave her the WHOLE thing and she ate it all gone. Her shirt was a disaster. How did she do that to her shirt?
Halloween with Uncle Dustin and family in Texas. Not exactly into the trick or treating thing, so she just hung out on top of the stroller.
Eating snow. Helping clean the house. She still loves vacuuming.
Daddy has big shoes to fill.
Second birthday.

It apparently was a boring one.

First time riding a horse on her second birthday.

First time sleeping in her crib without a side on it, so it was a day bed. She fell out a lot...

First leotard because Paulette couldn't stand to see Halle go to gymnastics in a skirt and t-shirt. And somehow, her first week with the leotard, she actually did this, putting her feet all the way up to the bar

First big girl bed.

First painting.

You've seen all of the other pictures (and probably at lot of these as well), so I won't bother you with anymore.

It's crazy how fast these past three years have gone. I adore my sweet goober (yes, that's what we call her). I love it when I say, "Love you bunches" every night and she says, "Love you too munches". I love it when she comes up with things that I know I've never said such, as "testing, testing, 1, 2, 3" into her walkie talkie. I even love, "HEEEYYY! That's mine, not yours! Don't touch it, mommy!" It has been wonderful to be her mommy!

WHAT A WEEKEND!

I am SOOO glad this weekend is over. Here's how my weekend went:
Saturday 9 AM: Passports
9:30: Passport lady tells us they don't take credit cards.
9:45: Back to the passport office after driving to the bank for cash. $305 later our passport applications are in the mail.
10:00: Jared says, "We need gas, the gas light is on."
(Note we had a birthday party starting at 11:30 and no cake, ice cream, balloons, or food for it)
10:05: Jared gets gas while I RUN into Walmart to pick up the Mickey Mouse cake, chicken nuggets, and ice cream.
10:15: We pay and ask if they sell balloons, they do, but it is in the back of the store and we have to go to customer service so they can call someone to go to the back of the store to help us. We go back, ask for our ballons, and she has to go through some doors to the warehouse, it looks like, to blow them up.
10:25 WHERE IS THE LADY WITH OUR BALLOONS?
10:35: We FINALLY leave Walmart.
10:45: Luckily Loretta is waiting at our house, staring at a huge spider that has baby spiders all over its back. Thanks. She cuts the watermelon, cuts the carrots, and gets the water boiling for Mac and Cheese while I clean the house in a mad dash. Shane (Loretta's hubby) and Jared prep the backyard with two kiddie pools, a slide going into one, and our castle of chaos (aka a bounce house).
11:30: Children begin to arrive, and luckily we have finished just in time. Then Jared and I realize we still haven't wrapped Halle's smaller bday gift (Mr. Potato Head) which we have had since Christmas.
1:30: Children leave (don't worry you'll get pictures of the party later) and Jared's kind brother, Jory, stays to help clean up.
1:45: FRANTIC screaming and crying in the backyard, "BUT I WANTED ONE!" Halle has taken the balloons outside and released them all. Alyvia wanted one (and of course Halle did too). Luckily one was left inside and Alyvia got to take it home (much to Halle's dismay). We told Halle multiple times NOT to take the balloons outside our else they would fly away.
Cleaning continues...
2:45: Jared leaves for golfing, I put Halle in bed and I blog. Finally it's quiet.
4:00: Halle is awake already???? And she is totally grumpy. She needs more sleep, but doesn't want to. I turn on a show and continue blogging and fall asleep on the couch.
I'm not sure what happened here, I think just playing with Halle's new toys.
7:00: Someone from church comes over to practice a song with Jared (the choir director) that the choir is singing on Sunday.
7:30: Jared leaves for the REAL Salt Lake soccer game, which started AT 7:30.
7:30: I tell Halle it's time for a bath, then realize I haven't gone grocery shopping yet. SOOO not happy.
8:45: Put away groceries, Halle to bed. I continue to clean up the house from the party and folded laundry.
SWEET SLEEP!!
Sunday
6:05: Patch begins scratching and rattling his crate. WHY OH WHY??? I get up, let the dogs out, and feed them. Then back to bed.
7:00: Halle wakes up WHY OH WHY?? Jared gets up. I think THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU! but am too tired to say it.
8:15: I get up, and we have to prepare for church because we have to do sharing time (if you are not LDS you likely have NO idea what I'm talking about, sorry).
9:45: Get to church to practice piano duet, then to practice choir song (for which I have to play the piano even though I am not the choir pianist)
10:30: Church where I play the organ for all of the hymns, play the piano duet, and also play for the choir song.
12:00: Primary sharing time (we did a skit about Joseph being sold into Egypt and how he forgave his brothers)
12:45: Class time, we teach the 3-4 year olds.
1:30: Church is out, Jared has to go home teach 2 families, I go home and make dinner.
4:00: We leave because our community band is playing in the Provo Freedom Festival, which doesn't start until 7. Ick.
4:30: We arrive, only to realize that Jared has forgotten his tux at home. He turns around to come back and get it.
6:25: Pre-Program Performance begins.
7:00: Program begins. Speaker speaks FOREVER.
9:45: HOME AT LAST!!! Thanks, mommy, for staying here with Halle so she could go to sleep in her own bed (at 6:00!! crazy).
But, the craziness is not over yet.
Tomorrow we have work, Halle has preschool, and Halle has a pediatrician appointment at 5:30, then we have a concert (same band with which we had a concert tonight) at 7:00. Then after that we should have some peaceful evenings. Days not so much because at work we are closing the fiscal year and plan to have a lot of donations coming in and not many days to process them. Oh Joy it's only a 4 day work week. Hallelujah, I need a break. Friday we are horseback riding (I found somewhere that will take double riders so we can take Halle), and I'm getting my haircut, and hopefully the carpet cleaned. It should be a good day. Let's hope I make it that far.

Brian Head Family Reunion - Day 1

FYI - I have 119 pictures just from day 1 alone. Be prepared for lots of pictures, maybe not so much typing. Last week we went to Brian Head (a ski resort in southern Utah) for a family reunion with Jared's mom's side of the family. Her siblings and dad live in San Diego so they drove here for this. They rented this really big cabin that sleeps 26 people and has 3 kitchens. It was really nice and if you needed some alone time it was easy to find some. Note: a reminder that these smalls pictures on the blog just don't do the pictures justice. You should really click on some to see the beauty or fun of them.

The first day we woke up and Alyvia (Halle's cousin) and Halle got in the indoor hot tub. It was warm like a bath, not hot like a hot tub should be. It was perfect for them. They had fun splashing around.

I love this picture of Alyvia that I got. The light is reflecting perfectly onto her.

Then it was time to get ready for the day. The night before they found this butterfly outside and it still hadn't flown away. We tried to kindly take pictures of it. It didn't fly well and occasionally tried to get away until we put it on Halle's flower on her head. Then it just sat still as ever.

We finally left the butterfly alone and headed out for some site seeing. There were some lookouts just up the road so we stopped at a few of them.

She really didn't want to take any pictures, see the sad face?

She tried to please me with this quick cheeser.

I tried to get more pictures, but she just wasn't having any of it. Don't I look pleased?

Ryker found this awsome picture spot in the trees where the sun was hitting the spot perfectly. So then we decided we should take lots of pictures there.

This is Ryker:

Then it was time for the next lookout...and more pictures of course.

Janae and Keria (sorry, again, for the bad spelling) did a good job entertaining Halle in the car.

Vivian decided to look like a rock star.

On the way back to the cabin for nap time we saw a deer.

After nap time it was time for a birthday party! It was to celebrate Halle's birthday, Justin's, and Jory's (though he wasn't able to make it in time).

Here is everyone sitting together.

We watched a video from Cancun where Joan, Janae, and Janine (sorry if that's spelled wrong) got to spend time with dolphins. Janae was a pro, Janine and Joan were just hilarious to watch. Joan even thought so herself.

Then we played a game where you had to guess what name or profession was written on your back. Kristie thought she was pretty funny (she's the one that came up with the names).

Halle got her nails painted by Janae while we played the name game.

Then we played a game where you had to suck through a straw and collect as many skittles as possible. We did a few rounds of that, but we don't know who won because everyone ate their skittles between rounds.

Grandpa (Great Grandpa!) even played.

Our last game was a game we play every Christmas Eve at Joan's house. She reads a story about Johnny Right and the Right family and every time she says right or left you pass the presents. Everyone ends up with a present and still exchanges at the end, but it's fun. I think Halle ended up with more than she should have though...

Then we ate and it was time for cake and ice cream. Halle gets a little shy when people sing to her, but she did a great job blowing out the candles. She got some cool presents from Aunt Janine like walkie talkies, a new dress, and books.

This is Halle's great grandpa. We love him dearly and always cherish the time we get to spend with him since we only see him once or twice a year. I was so proud of her the whole weekend because she wasn't nervous around any of the family, even though a few of them hadn't seen her since she was born. So, that was day 1. Look forward to days 2 and 3, as well as lots of other random pictures and some from Halle's Mickey birthday party we had today.