Wyatt has a tooth!

 

Wyatt's first tooth broke through a couple weeks ago. It is getting more visible all the time and the other looks like it might be coming in soon as well. Just this one little tooth sure has changed the look of his sweet little smile!

Father's Day 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am really quite pleased with myself that I actually remembered to take these pictures today! It seems most of the time I have good intentions but then I get distracted and forget. And you know what they say about having good intentions.... But today, I told everyone we needed to be ready for church a few minutes early so we'd all be fresh and not melt outside later in the day.

Our Father's Day today started out with a lovely breakfast out on the back patio. I made French Toast, cut up fresh cantaloupe, and made orange juice (the concentrate variety, not fresh squeezed). Everyone seemed to appreciate being out of doors for our meal and I think we'll do it more often. It was very refreshing to be out there in the morning air. Once everyone had eaten, we cleared the table and gave Jason his letters, cards and gifts. The girls each wrote him a note of some kind and I personalized my store bought card. I gave him two gifts: 1) a book called "Men of Valor" and 2) a bathtub caddy so that he can read in the bathtub. When he first opened the bath caddy, he looked at me and said, "Oh look, it a gift for Mom!" with a sparkle in his eye. I told him it was for both of us and he shouldn't feel bad considering he bought the RV the weekend of Mother's Day! In fact, when he bought the RV, I joked with him that it was "the best Mother's Day he'd ever had!" We both seemed to appreciate the inside joke but the kids were clueless!

I really am thankful to be married to a man who isn't afraid to show his love to our children. He is great at teaching them the ethic of work, but also does fun activities with them such as hiking, camping, shooting and just playing around on the floor at home. It has been interesting to watch Jason grow into Fatherhood. Now we both get to learn how to balance out life with a new baby, a blossoming teenager and the two kids in between. When we first started out as parents nearly 15 years ago, I don't think either one of us ever imagined that our family dynamics would look like this. I think both of us assumed our children would come in quick time, one right after the other, or at least within a couple years. But, God had other plans for our family and must have known that it was better to space our kids further apart. We always said we wanted 3 or 4 kids. When babies seemed to stop for several years after having Sarah, we thought we were done. Who knew that we'd be blessed again? I guess that means Wyatt is our "or 4" in talking about how many kids we thought we'd have. And we're SOOOOO glad he's here. Our lives have all been immensely blessed having him in our family these almost 8 months. Jason has told Wyatt before to hurry and grow up so they can go do stuff like playing air soft guns and of course eventually real guns and real bullets. You can't be in our house without having that in life at some point!

Happy Father's Day, honey! We all love you very much!!

 

More from our TN trip....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jodi and I have a mutual online friend named Joy, who happens to live not too far away in North Carolina. We all decided it would be fun to meet somewhere in the middle and have a chance to meet face to face since we've been friends online for a very long time. So, Joy and her cute family drove in and met us at the Applewood Farms restaurant in Pigeon Forge. We enjoyed a nice, southern meal here and got to know one another a bit.

After the restaurant, we drove into Gatlinburg, where we went to the Ripley's Aquarium. Joy's son was my little buddy all afternoon, and he especially loved Wyatt! Their family home schools as well, so it was neat to have that in common with them and it made me appreciate A-Man's questions all the more. It was a great afternoon spent together and I think we all really enjoyed ourselves!

Our Trip to Tennessee...May 2010

 

 

 

 

 

Since being pregnant with Wyatt last year and then since he was born, I didn't go to many places that required long travel. In fact, I think it is safe to say that I didn't leave Washington County except for one time up to Cedar City (an hour away) in the past year. Boy, I sure was getting ancy and desperately needed a diversion and change of scenery! So, Wyatt and I hopped on an airplane on May 12 and flew cross-country to see my sister, Jodi, and her family! We flew out of St. George to Salt Lake City, changed planes and flew to Atlanta, changed planes again and flew to Nashville. Then it was a three hour drive to Jodi's home in Oak Ridge. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that Wyatt had become spoiled after being held ALL-DAY-LONG since leaving home, and he screamed a good deal of the drive back to Jodi's because he was suddenly in his car seat again. And it was dark. And he was with unfamiliar people. Luckily he got happy again after a day or two at Jodi's and we were able to enjoy the trip!

Our trip out there wasn't a huge touristy trip. Mostly we stayed close to Oak Ridge and enjoyed visiting together. It was awesome to see my three nephews and how they'd grown since I saw them out here last year. On this particular day, Jodi took us down to the Clinch River to see row boat competitions at Melton Lake. This, of course, is something I've never seen and likely won't again since the rivers around here are itty bitty compared to this! The landscape was such a drastic contrast to the desert that I'm used to at home.

Wyatt's first "food"

 

 

 

 

I had every intention of waiting until Wyatt was closer to six months old to start feeding him solids, but by 5 months old he was practically demanding to be fed 'something'...even if it was only rice cereal mixed with breast milk! We'd had his high chair since he was 3 months old and he'd been sitting up to the table with us during meal times for quite a while so I decided it was time. He was a little unsure of it at first, but overall decided that it wasn't half bad! Of course, big sisters had to get in on his first feeding too. It was funny to watch Sarah trying to feed him, she kept turning the spoon sideways! Mealtimes were kinda messy back then, but for the most part these days, Wyatt just chows down whatever we give him. He's on stage 2 foods now and has had almost everything that is available. He's even had mashed avocado, which I never gave to my babies as a first food before. I try to feed him mostly the organic foods (Earth's Best) and last week I was fortunate enough to find it on clearance at Costco, making each jar cheaper than the cheapest baby food at WalMart. Once in a while I give Wyatt something naughty, like little tastes of ice cream, which of course he loves! It will be fun in the near future to give him more and more regular foods, but that just means my baby is growing up way too fast!

Easter 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter 2010 was also near Sarah's 7th Birthday. Rather than having a birthday party in addition to an Easter Feast, we decided it was better to have a combination get together at my Dad and Sherry's. We had the best time together that day.....eating, visiting and watching General Conference! Sherry had made this oh-so-delicious (but very naughty) coconut Easter cake! Just one tiny piece was more than enough, otherwise we'd have sick tummies from too much good food and a very rich dessert.

Sarah the SEVEN year old!

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah celebrated her 7th birthday in early April! It is hard to believe my baby girl who was once 5 lbs 9 oz and 18 1/2inches, turned into this spunky, smart and beautiful girl of seven years! Because we don't do school pictures being homeschooled, my kids get their pictures done on or near their birthdays every year. I'm actually a picture junkie and the girls LOVE getting their very own photo shoot. It makes them feel like models and believe me, they have zero problem striking a pose for the photographer. In fact, a lot of the time they like to choose their own poses and places to be photographed and give instructions to the photographer on what is what. Thankfully our photographers are also our friends and so they are fine with being bossed around by these little ladies! So these pictures were done on her actual birthday this year. After they were done we met Jason for lunch at the Pizza Factory so she could have a special date with just Mom and Dad (and of course Wyatt was with us!). We were totally stuffed but the server brought out a HUGE bowl of birthday ice cream for Sarah, which she was happy to share!