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!!