A Garrison Cousin

This last weekend we finally got to meet my sister's baby. Baby Lea. She is so very sweet. She's the first cousin on my side of the family. So we did a photo shoot. Here are a couple of pictures.

St. George

After the blessing we went to St. George. Ammon had a meeting there on Monday so the kids and I were left to our own devices for much of the morning. I found a place called Jumpin Jacks. It was so much fun.

Cormac was a pretty difficult target to photograph in that kind of setting.

Azure was a bit easier. Sorry about the runny noses. Tis the season.

This is how she hides for peek-a-boo.

I wanted to wipe her nose and she gave me this dirty look.

When we met up with Ammon we had lunch and then visited the temple there to help soak up a little more sun before we headed north.

The boys were mostly interested in the construction project going on behind the temple.

This was our attempt at a family one. Not great, but what can you do?

Baby Blessing for Charolotte

We had a new niece born back in December. We still hadn't met her almost 3 months later. But the first weekend in March we were able to go out to see Charlotte Louise Dahl blessed. It was a lot of fun. Here is picture evidence of the good time had by all.

I was holding both Azure and Charlotte here. I look like I'm asleep.

But nope, I'm WIDE awake.

Azure was adored by everyone. Marcos and Ammon (the younger, not pictured here) really doted upon her. It was so sweet.

Going out to Nevada just isn't the same without Ammon's parents, but they got to join the party on Saturday night when we Skyped with them. Here are several of the grandkids enjoying Elder and Sister Dahl's company.

I think Azure might have curly hair. It's definitely blonde. I hope it is as pretty as her Aunt Jennifer's.

We stayed with the Johnson's. They were very sweet to host us. They are there on the far end of the couch (young Liberty, Marianne, and Robert). And we really enjoyed visiting with everyone else. I think Enoch has this expression on his face in almost every picture I have seen of him.

Cormac and Robert really bonded. They were good buddies.

Mark and Coralee had 3 grandkids born in 2012. Azure is the oldest and so far the tallest. Omar was next. He is the heaviest of the 3. Then there's sweet Charlotte; she is catching up with Azure fast. I'm afraid Azure's going to be the shrimp if we can't get her to gain some weight. But aren't they a fun looking group?

And so very good looking.

Azure Had a Party

I decided last minute that I wanted to have a party to celebrate Azure's 1st birthday. Ammon is just a good enough sport that he went along with it. We invited more people than our house could hold. So we decided to move the events outside. . . to the studio. What started out as not too big a deal - we'll just get a few friends together and have a pot luck - turned into Mom (that's me) deciding we needed a theme and decorations to match. I struggled with a theme. Azure so far isn't too interested in much. She likes cars, trucks, and trains. But mostly she loves balls. And she love, love, loves to throw. So I ran with that.

The desserts. We had an ice cream bar, cupcakes, oreo balls (a definite favorite), and cream puffs.

I found the backdrop idea on Pinterest (where all good ideas come from) and showed it to Ammon and said, "pretty please." Then I handed him a pile of balloons and crepe paper. Isn't he talented?

We had a bunch of tables all with balls for centerpieces. In the far corner (which you can't see here) we had a bunch of ball and car ramps and blocks for the kids to play with. I mostly love Cormac taking a break from helping Mom and Dad set up the party. Azure napped through most of it.

On the back wall I created a timeline of pictures from Azure's life from day 1 to her actual birthday (3 days before the party).

There were other pictures all over too. And of course a banner over the buffet. I made a yummy chicken alfredo (thanks Our Best Bites) and some spaghetti. Everyone else brought rolls and salads (all delicious).

Not too many people showed up. Certainly not what we were expecting. We probably could have fit in the house. But those that came were a lot of fun. And we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We especially enjoyed the food. It was pretty good.

This is Azure with Reagan. Reagan is 8 days younger than Azure. They spend a lot of time together.

Azure was a bit confused by the whole singing, candle, fire, cupcake scene.

And then someone else blew out the candle (as you can see there were many willing to go for it). I'm not sure she could have managed on her own though.

But she was one happy girl with all that chocolate and frosting to enjoy.

My friend, Joslyn, wanted to get a picture of her daughter with the birthday girl. Autumn smiled pretty, Azure kept trying to escape, and we had a whole herd of kids trying to photo bomb. It wasn't the most successful shoot, but it was funny.

Good times. Thank you to all who came and made Azure and us feel so loved. We had a wonderful time. Happy Birthday, Azure!

A picture is worth 1000 words

I've spent the last year trying to capture in words the personality of my little girl; sassy, a character, funny, mischievous, etc. But honestly it's really hard to explain. Then this picture happened:

Amen!

Overwhelmed

You know that feeling when you are way behind on your blog and you are too overwhelmed to start? Then it gets worse because you keep putting it off? Yes, that is where I'm at. We've had a very interesting 2013 so far. Not necessarily in the way we would have liked. Here's the scoop.

Cormac started school. Here he is on the first day.

 After the first week he started taking the bus. He loves the bus. Which is good because it's very hard for me to send him on it. In the morning if I tell him the bus is coming before he eats breakfast he won't eat; he's too excited. So I usually get him all ready then set up a chair so he can watch out the window for the bus. Then he starts yelling, "The bus, the bus. Hurry. Run, run."

Because Cormac is in school Azure sometimes gets the bathtub for herself. She loves bathtime. When she hears that water running she gets so excited. And if you deny her that bath heaven help you.

Then it got cold. "Dirty cold" as Ammon would say. We grew some pretty impressive icicles.

Ammon and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. It was lovely. We had dinner and made reservations and arrangements to stay in The Grand America (where we stayed when we were first married) for a night. It was going to be a few weeks off, but we were looking forward to a night away.

 So our start to January was really nice. Then we all got sick. First the kids got colds. Then Ammon got it. Ammon ended up with laryngitis. So he stayed home from work a few days. Just when we thought he was on the mend Saturday of that week came and both he and I were hit hard. Luckily we live in an amazing neighborhood. We have awesome neighbors who tended our kids and brought in meals. We felt so very loved. Ammon had the flu, I had body aches and a nasty cold. It was awful. That same day we noticed a serious drop in water pressure. Ammon made sure we weren't flooding in the basement, but beyond that we were too sick to do anything about it.

Sunday we were a little better. Ammon looked into it more and it turned out our water line was broken. We determined that the best course of action was to replace the entire line. Luckily we are related to some real handy folks. Ammon's brother Enoch and family came to our rescue. So we decided that Thursday we would replace the water line. We were supposed to stay at The Grand America on Friday night.

For the next 3 days it dumped insane amounts of snow on us. Thursday dawned sunny and fairly warm (at least compared to what we were dealing with). Unfortunately that meant mud. In order to connect the water line Ammon had to tear up the carpet in the living room. That's when I packed the kids in the car and went to a friend's house. I was all kinds of help.

All day Thursday Enoch drove the backhoe and Ammon hooked things up. At about 9:30 that night we had running water and a big trench. I went to turn on one of the toilets and it was not working. Turns out we didn't have cold water on that end of the house.

This used to be my front lawn.

Filling in the trench.

Anyway, the next day we decided to postpone our weekend getaway to the following week. Ammon and Enoch finished backfilling the trench and then we waved goodbye to our heroes. Thanks again Enoch Dahl's we so appreciate you. Ammon took the rest of the day off. He was so exhausted. It should be noted that there were other hiccups and things along the way. Not to mention none of us were completely healthy at this point.

That night I started throwing up. I was so thankful we weren't in a hotel. Ammon took extremely good care of me and the kids. He also managed to run a line from the laundry room to the other bathroom so we would have cold water. All was well. After 4 days of no running water we were all back up and running.

The next few days I started feeling better, at least my stomach was. But all of us still had this nasty cold. Wednesday Cormac came home from school and looked awful. And I felt awful. We went to the doctor: sinus infections for all 4 of us. Cormac had an ear infection as well. Miserable. So we postponed our weekend getaway yet again.

The next week we started feeling better. Life was looking like it may return to normal. Then we found out that our poor neighbors were having plumbing issues. And it was our fault. Apparently we had destroyed their sewer line when we dug our trench. So Ammon took Thursday off and spent the entire Valentine's Day digging a hole by hand, cleaning out the line, and repairing it. He's my hero (and he mopped my floor for me for Valentine's Day - there's no quicker way to my heart). I was worried that our weekend would be spoiled yet again, but he managed to get it all finished in time.

Friday night we had the most wonderful time. The kids stayed with our good friends and had a wonderful time as well. It was our first time leaving them and I was nervous, but it was perfect. So, for the moment we are all healthy, happy, and plumbed.

I think that we are truly blessed. Yes we have had a rough go here the last little while, but we have had so many people step in to help that it has been so humbling. We are so thankful for wonderful friends and family.

And because a blog post by me wouldn't be complete without excessive amounts of pictures of my children for your viewing pleasure allow me to present the following:

Happy playing by herself (I was happily taking pictures and avoiding the laundry that needed folding).

 Azure loves to sit in these little totes. It cracks me up. And Cormac can't resist getting in the picture if the camera comes out.

Say cheese. We are working on getting this boy to smile in pictures.

 I just adore these two. They make me so very happy. I'm a lucky mom.