September 2012

Ok, yes I know it is the 22nd.... But here is our family update for September! : ) September was actually a slower month for us compared to all the previous Summer months. It started to cool down a little bit, Travis worked hard to help get 3rd crop up in between rain storms. We did get a little on some hay that was down but not enough to damage it. We felt very blessed. It has been a *scary* summer for hay farmers. Mostly in the month of September we just enjoyed watching the kiddos get a little bigger. : )

Suzy, Travis' sister, had a little girl in July so we went up to Salt Lake for her baby blessing. The same Sunday, Tom and Natalie blessed their little girl who was also born in July so we were able to make it to that one too. It even worked out for us to be able to meet up with some of my family in the evening before going home. It was a lot of fun to see those that could make it.

The girls and I had the opportunity to be in Parowan's Labor Day Parade. We rode on the float of one of our Paragonah friends that do a pumpkin patch every year. Dani had a lot of fun. They also invited Kevin, Sara and their kids so Dani was running around with her cousins waving to everyone! Charleene slept through the whole thing! I completely forgot my camera though... : (

I did a lot more dehydrating this last month as well. I got 2 40 lb boxes of pears and kept the dehydrators going almost 24/7 trying to get them all done. Travis ate a lot of them through 3rd crop. It's nice to have them as a snacking option. We are definitely going to have to do more next year! (And expand the dehydrators to take more trays...)

Cute little Charleene turned 4 mo old and learned to roll over from her back to her tummy. (She's been rolling from her tummy to her back since she was 2 1/2 mo old.) She is now MOBILE! Dani would pretty much stay in one spot on a blanket on the floor and roll back and forth. Not this little munchkin! I'll put her down in the middle of the floor, walk into the kitchen to get a drink of water, come back and she will be under the piano! She finds herself in all sorts of interesting places, under the futon, under a chair, across a support bar for her swing. I just laugh. She can't wait to get up and run around with her sister. She is a very happy, smiley baby and we just love her more and more as her little personality comes out.

Dani just LOVES her little sister! She says her name pretty well and always wants to play with her when she's on the floor. We have to stop her from sharing her food and she's still working on wanting to share Charleene's toys with Charleene. Apparently everything in the house was her's first so it's still her's.... : ) She is a sweet girl though that wants so badly to be good. We'll get there.

Dani is learning to communicate more and more clearly what it is that she wants and needs. She gets frustrated hearing "no" all the time so we try and set up situations where she can make her own decisions and feel like she has some control. She loves to sing and dance. She just cracks us up all the time. What a precious little girl. (She even comes and gives me unexpected loves! How much better does it get?)

Septemeber was the big launch for my Facebook page and Etsy shop. I decided to branch out on my own from my sister-in-law and it turns out that we have both been far more successful separately. {FB link is HERE and Etsy is HERE} I did spend a lot of the month making hats, legwarmers and boot cuffs. Dani likes to "help" and always has to have a piece of yarn and a hook when I am working. : )

She still takes the occasional random nap in random places. At least she stayed nice and warm in the sun coming in through the window. Haha!

Charleene got her first taste of food this month. We skipped the rice cereal this time around. She was getting all the iron she needed from me and rice made Dani really constipated so we just went to oatmeal. She LOVES it! She struggled with it a little with her tongue for the first week or so but she's doing pretty good now and basically inhales it! : )

Dani learned how to blow her own bubbles! Yay!!!! I am finally keeping oxygen in my head! Haha, she loves them so much and has so much fun blowing bubbles and then counting them and telling me just how many she got. She is growing up so fast!

We had a little funny "nap time" the other day. I was nursing Charleene and Dani wanted some cuddles too so she snuggled up next to me and they both fell asleep.... Ummm... guess I won't go do dishes, I'll just cuddle me cute little ones and enjoy it! : ) Travis made it home just in time to get a picture before Charleene woke up.

Charleene had her 4 mo check up this month and did really well. She is down on the lower end of the charts for everything except for height. She is definitely our tiny little girl and we love her!

 

That should bring us all up to date for now! I'm excited for Halloween in a couple weeks. Hope all of you are doing well too! Love from all of us to all of you till we can see you again!

Iron County Fair 2012

The fair this year was great! They had some really good, fun vendors and we really had a great family day! This first picture is of Dani and a couple of her friends, Josh and Ben, looking at the pigs at the petting zoo. I was really surprised how many animals Dani knew just from looking in her books. She was running around on the straw bales saying, "Mommy, it's a chickie, Mommy, it's a ducky, it's a rabbit - RIGHT THERE!" Haha, she is one smart girl!

Travis and I got to go dancing again this year. We put the girls to bed and then left the monitor with Kevin and Sara. Sara said Charleene fussed some and she helped her fall back asleep but other than that they had no problems and we were so grateful to them for listening for them so that we could go. It has been probably since last year that we got to go dancing and it was so much fun!

Most of these pictures are from the rides that Dani went on. This top one is of Travis and Dani on the Farris wheel. Dani called it the swing. She loved it! Waved at called "HI" to me and sister every time they went around.

This next one is of Dani on the bikes. She really couldn't get enough of these silly little loop rides. Around and around with the biggest grin on her face.

This is how Charleene spent most of the fair. ; ) Either asleep in the stroller or in the infant carrier over my shoulders when Dani needed a turn in the stroller.

This was Dani on the boat ride. She loved that bell on the front. With all the kids doing it the sound was deafening! Dani would just grin, look around and pull on that string some more. Silly girl.

Won't be too long I'm sure of it before she is doing this for real!

The slide was Dani's favorite last year and she had to get in a couple slides this year too. Dani even got to pick the color when her and Daddy got to the top.

This poor girl's heart just BROKE when we were out of tickets and it was time to leave. She kept crying to go on one of the rides and we would have to tell her no so she would ask about another one with the same response so she would ask for another, and on and on. She just didn't understand and she thought she must have done something wrong. It was very sad trying to help her understand. Nothing seemed to help - until she discovered sno cones! Oh my goodness all was right in the world again. It must have been one of the most amazing things she has ever eaten because not many foods get the qualification of being "nummy good!"

Five minutes after leaving the fair grounds we turned around to see this --

She had so much fun. It was so good to get out as a family and enjoy a day together. Dani has asked me for the last several days, whenever she is getting in the car. "Go boats, slide, car? Ok? Fun Mommy, the boats, slide, car." Can't believe this kid's memory. I have to keep telling her no, we're going ___. She gets a little resigned look on her face and says, "ok." Seriously it has been almost a week and she still wants to go again!

We're excited for next year when Charleene can ride some of the rides with her.

August 2012

Wow! Where did the month go! I can't believe it is time to update you on our life again. This first picture here is what has become the "norm" in our house. Dani and Charleene cuddling on our bed while Mommy gets "ready" for the day. I say "ready" because sometimes that means just putting on clothes. I consider that accomplished some days. ; )

We started out the month by attending some friend's of ours baby shower down in St George. It was so much fun to see Kory, Sheena and their little girl, Mikel. We don't get down there often enough. It was really good to go see them.

On the 5th one of Travis' cousins had a baby blessing for their daughter Kaydee. Kaydee and Charleene are only about 4 days apart. It's going to be so fun watching all these little girls grow up together!

Travis and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary on the 9th. Can't believe it's been 4 years! Seriously feels like we were dating yesterday. We took the girls with us and went down to Denny's. It sounds silly but Denny's is kind of a special restaurant to us. We we there on our first date. It was the only place open after dances in St George and so both of us frequented there a lot.

The Ipson reunion was this month (Travis' mother's family.) They had it out at Panguitch Lake this year. There was a man that took everyone on a really neat tour of the area and showed them where Travis' great-grandpa (I think) lived and some of the area that was named after the Ipson family. I'll have to make another post later with all the pictures that Travis took with information about the trip cause I didn't go. I wanted Travis to be able to pay attention and get to see everything that he wanted to see without me bugging him to help me with the girls. We did go up to the camp out for a day though, so see family and visit. Dani spent the day following Daddy EVERYWHERE and doing EXACTLY what Daddy was doing. She had a walking stick that was just a little too short for her and she would bend down to make sure that it was touching the ground every time she took a step. It was so funny. Travis helped her find another stick and she just followed him around everywhere with it!

We got to go down to Vegas and see my sister, Lauren, and her husband, Ben. They have just moved there and we are so excited to have them close. While we were there Dani got to play dress up with some of Ben's Mongolian clothes. She had so much fun!

Charleene even got to wear a hat! We had so much fun visiting with them and the girls were GREAT on the drive!

We got to have dinner with an old dancing friend, Heather, and her husband as they came through town. It was good to see them. We don't get to often enough with them up in Idaho.

We also had the Laub family reunion this month. So many of the pictures turned out blurry for some reason so I just left them off. It was a busy and crazy day but it was good to visit with family.

We had a salamander set up temporary residence in Sitka's water bowl. We've been getting A LOT of rain recently. Almost every afternoon. I have no idea where this creepy, slimy, little guy came from (nope not a fan of wet amphibians) but we assumed it was the water that brought him. He must have gotten brave enough to venture off again because he just disappeared. (Either that or Travis decided to do me a favor lol).

We had a ward dinner with some super yummy dutch oven chicken, potatoes and cobbler. We don't ever miss this ward dinner. They always do a good job and it is always super yummy! Dani and Daddy had some fun on the playground right next to our ward's meeting house. She sure loves to climb, swing and slide!

Dani has decided that she doesn't need naps anymore. The fact that I disagree from time to time means nothing to her. Lol. There are about 2 days a week that we find her like this at about 5 in the afternoon. Most days she makes it till bed time just fine (a little fussy but we live.) Then there are these days. ; )

Dani had a dentist appointment at the end of the month. Poor kid was not so excited this time. I don't know what freaked her out but she did not want to lay down and let the nice dentist look in her mouth. I kept telling her that if she would let him brush her teeth she would get a balloon. She cried and squirmed through it and finally earned her yellow balloon.

 

Charleene is a little ham! We love just sitting her up on our knees and just watching her smile. It sometimes takes over her whole face. She coos and "talks" to us all the time. Dani plays with her more and more when she is on the floor. Charleene can roll from her belly to her back going either direction and is so close to rolling over from her back to her belly. She is a great baby!

 

Dani amazes us every day with her understanding of numbers and letters. She can recognize all of her capitols and all of her lower case letters that look like the capitol form - no matter where she finds them. We will just be driving along and she will shout out that there is a "C right there" on a billboard or something. She tells me how many she wants of something, what color it is etc. Her sentences aren't structured very well yet and she sometimes has trouble communicating what she wants but that little head of hers is sure ticking away!

 

It was a good month. Busy for sure. Somehow we need to figure out how to slow things down a bit. Anyone have any tips? We'll take them! Haha We're on our way into 3rd crop and praying that we can get a big enough break in the rain that we'll be able to get it off the field without too many hiccups. Please keep us in your prayers if you would. It has been a dicey season. Thanks!

Dani 2 1/2

 I also did some pictures of Dani a few days ago. I haven't edited these yet so some of them will be cropped and color adjusted but these are some of my favorites. I can't believe that my sweet girl is going to be 3 in just a few more months!

Charleene 3 mo.

 I don't care what you say - I have one dang cute kid! My sister-in-law, Sara, helped me do Charleene's 3 mo pictures. I made the bear hat and diaper cover. These just turned out so cute, I had to make an individual blog post so that I could share my favorites with you.

 Gorilla pose lol

This is Charleene's "I'm going to EAT you" face. I'm so glad we got it!!

The rest of July 2012

Charleene is getting good enough with her head that I can now prop her up in Dani's lap. Dani LOVES IT! She asks all the time to "hold it." {We're still working on the fact that Charleene is a person} ; ) They are so cute together! Charleene just smiles and grins and tracks Dani all over the room. It is very sweet.
I don't know how we survived the month! Looking back we had A LOT going on! Travis took Dani out to New Castle for a Farm Bureau dinner. I really wasn't feeling well enough to go so I stayed home with Charleene. Travis said they had a great time on their little Daddy/Daughter date.
There were some complications with my delivery and so I had to have a D&C. Unfortunately I was led to believe that I would come home and feel fine. They cautioned me to not over do it and just take it easy for a day. Well here I am thinking I'm still going to be able to be "Mommy" when we get home and the discharge nurse walks in to tell me that I will most likely feel pukey and dizzy all day and may not even remember most of it.Ummm... kinda didn't prep for that. Sara and Grandma Laub traded off helping with Dani while I was at the hospital but Travis was going to go back to work when we got home and I was going to have both kids.
We were so blessed to have Whitney and D.J. basically give up their afternoon and help us by watching the girls while Travis got some things done. We were so so very grateful for their service seeing as how I basically slept the ENTIRE day! Lol Thanks guys!

Dani loves this hat! She has to wear it whenever I wear one {which basically breaks down to any day that I am too lazy to do my hair.} ; )

Charleene had her 2 mo appointment this month and passed with flying colors. She is definitely tiny but healthy and developing well. She wasn't super excited about the whole immunization thing but took it like a champ!

LOVE THAT SMILE! I'm pretty sure it was Dani she was looking at...

Travis has been such a great help to me this month with all the fun medical stuff I've had to deal with that Dani and I decided to make him some brownies. Dani loves to stir and helped me mix the batter. Although I would have to say that her favorite part was more likely to be the clean-up of the spoon! She was a little confused at first and thought that she had to eat it off like she would soup or cereal so she had it tipped in her mouth straight up letting it run off in her mouth. Once she had an "ol' pro" show her how it's done though she caught right on and licked that spoon CLEAN!

Travis and I went up to Ogden for Farm Bureau's Midyear Conference. Usually his parents attend this one but they were out in New York on vacation and so we were given the pleasure. : ) We left Dani with Kevin and Sara {seriously you guys are adding up the rights for a BIG favor FAST!} for a couple days and went up to Ogden with Charleene. It was a lot of fun. And we got to hear from some pretty interesting speakers. Dani did really well. She was so excited to see us when we got home, but Kevin and Sara said that other than a couple of mishaps she did really well. We were really proud of her. The thing that was really cute was that she gave Travis and I hugs and kisses and was really excited to see us - right up until we pulled sister out of the car seat. At that point it was ALL ABOUT CHARLEENE! So very cute, giving her hugs and kisses and talking to her. It took us forever to get through her bedtime stories and prayers because she would stop to jibber jabber to Charleene. : ) She must have missed her!

On our way home we made a few stops. My Grandpa Bates and Grandma Arletta hadn't met Charleene yet so we stopped and had lunch with them. It was really good to see them!

Next we stopped to see Travis' cousin Tom and his wife Natalie. They were in the hospital following Natalie's c-section. Dani and their oldest, Jaycee, are only a week and a half apart and now these two, Charleene and Jocelyn are 2 months apart {almost to the day!} Our girls are really blessed to have so many other little girls around to play with!

Next we stopped and saw my mom. We were really sad that we missed my dad, he had to leave for work before we got there. But my sister, Jessika, came over and it was good to see her too.

We finished off the month by completing second crop. Luckily without any rain! We've had hit and miss storms ever since we finished. It was so so tall!!! I wanted to get some pictures of Dani out in it but her and Charleene both had fevers for a few days at the end of the month. She was way to fussy to put up with much other than watching Monster's, Inc. So we didn't get any. I'm going to have to try before 3rd crop.

Apricots!!

We have a lady in our ward with an apricot tree and she allowed us to come get some. Sara and I headed down, her kids helped for a minute but then had a karate class in Parowan so it was just Sara, me, Dani and Charleene. Dani was actually a huge help at first. She would let me hand her all the ones that I was gleaning off the ground {most were still pretty good} and she would walk them over to the basket and set them in so gently. Well, she's 2 and she doesn't watch where she steps so on her back and forth treks she squished her fair amount of apricots. She didn't mind at first {probably because she didn't notice} but man as soon as she realized they were there - She LOST HER MIND! This kid does not like to be dirty!

Sara had a great idea to give her some wipes and let her clean up the apricots herself. She thought that was a GREAT idea! It was so cute!

We ended up with a good amount of apricots and were really grateful that we were able to share in the surplus!

Charleene mostly just slept... ; )

 And she was DONE! Once she realized she couldn't get all the apricots off {She even sat in them so there were some on her skirt and she was freaking out!} She's so cute when she does though!

When we got home we got her all cleaned up and she helped me get them all arranged on the trays so that we could dehydrate them. SO YUMMY!