Violet 8 months

Violet turned 8 months old yesterday. I can't believe she is getting so big. The time flies so fast. It seems like just yesterday we brought her home from the hospital and now she can crawl up all the stairs. She loves playing with her brother and being in his room. She loves eating anything she can find on the floor and tries really hard to keep us away from her mouth when she's found something. She can wave and says  "Ma Ma" and "Da Da". She loves laughing and is ticklish around her neck. She loves crawling around and being outside. She pulls her self to things and is determined when she wants something to find a way to get around it even if we put obstacles  in her way. She loves taking baths and splashing in the water. She really likes to eat carrots and her puffs, but she doesn't seem to like peas at all. She is 19.6 lbs and just keeps growing. She's so fun to have in our family. We've just enjoyed every moment with her. She smiles and brings us joy. We love you Violet!

Violet at 6 months

It's been so fun having Violet in our family. These are some of the things that she likes to do

 She loves playing with her Brother. Sometimes she even pulls his hair and gives him big wet kisses. 

 In the last month she has learned to sit up on her own. It's fun for her to play with the basket of toys she has in her room. She'll spread all the toys out and I put them back in the basket and she does it again. She's also great at grabbing things and loves to put anything she can in her mouth. When she's laying on the floor she's starting to scoot herself toward the toys she can't reach. 

Violet loves being outside and going for a walk  

 She loves swinging on the swing. It's nice that she'll sit in in for a few minutes while I work in the yard. 

 One of her favorite things to do is walk around in the kitchen in the walker. She can move so fast and get anywhere she wants to get. She's even started to grab things that she can reach. 

 We went swimming with her a couple of times. She loves splashing and kicking in the water. 

 She can't feed herself but she's getting pretty good at holding her spoon and so far she's tried eating rice cereal, bananas, squash, carrots, apple sauce and some cheerios.  She's also learning to hold her own bottle. 

 Besides swimming she loves sitting in the tub splashing around and grabbing the toys. She squeals and has lots of fun. She squeals really loud too. 

  She loves being held, gives great hugs and kisses & sometimes it even sounds like she's saying Ma Ma when she's upset and she needs me. And today it sounded like she said Ba Ba for bottle. She smiles a lot and has her first tooth on the bottom. 

 Dan calls her Sweet Pea

We love our Violet 

Summer Fun For June

This Summer has been so busy and fun. I wanted to be able to do something fun with Tanner and Violet besides just cleaning the house and working in the yard. It got really busy too. This is some of the fun stuff we did as a family in June.

 Going to church together as a family. Some Sundays were easier than others. Tanner doesn't always like to go to class he still wants to just be by his dad and Violet she just likes to be held. But she does better when she can fall a sleep in her bed. 

 We went several times to the Curiosity Museum. Tanner loves playing in the water. One Monday we went with Ben's family for FHE and another time we went with with Krisde's and Amber's family and many other times with just us. 

 Violet doesn't like playing in the water. 

 We also went with Grandma Bonnie to the Living Planet Aquarium. That was great. Tanner just went from one tank to another. I liked the sharks the best. It was kind of fun walking underneath them. 

Playing games with Grandma Bonnie

Surprising my dad by helping in the yard while he was out of town

Tanner made some caterpillars out of egg cartons

We also went to the Monte L. Bean Museum at BYU. It's amazing with all the animals they have. 

Dan's Grandpa Dee was put in the hospital so we went to visit him in Nephi. He was really glad to see us. 

Violet and Tanner doing some exercises with their dad. 

Celebrating Father's day. Violet and Tanner sure love their Dad. 

One of Dan's friends came to visit us so we went to the park to for a picnic and let the kids play on the toys. Tanner loves playing on the playground equipment.

I took Tanner on a date - just him and I. We went to Cabela's and played the shooting game and looked at the animals. Then we went to Johnny Rockets for some dinner. Tanner loved the mini hamburgers and the chocolate shake. 

We went several times to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. This time we went with my friend Alicia and her kids Kaylee, Austin and Collin. 

Tanner had a great time at the Zoo. We saw the new Africa Animal exhibit and we rode the train and played in the water. Tanner had fun being with his cousins. 

Thanksgiving Point Dairy Days. It was great learning about cows, and riding the cow train. They ran out of ice cream other wise we could have made our own. But Tanner loves stopping at the restaurant and getting an ice cream cone. Yum! We did that almost everytime we went to Thanksgiving Point. 

Tanner and Violet after Dairy Days. It started to Rain so we ate our cones in the car. Violet loves doing things with her older brother. 

We didn't make it camping this year but we had a great time roasting hot dogs, giant Marshmallows, and starburst's at Grandma Jan's house in the back yard. We got all sugared up and smelled like campfire.  

Violet got to go to her first Lehi Parade. I am glad my mom went with me. It was fun. We also went to the Lehi boutiques at the park to see what kinds of things they were selling. We always like buying books. 

During Round up week  they had some specials at Hutchings Museum in Lehi. I hadn't been there since I was younger. It's changed a lot and seems to have more things in it. Tanner thought it was great to see all the fossils, rocks, and bugs. We even went to the reptile show on the front lawn. We got to see snakes, and lizards and a other reptiles. 

I didn't take pictures of everything that we did, but we really had a fun and busy June.

Rice Cereal

I gave Violet some Rice Cereal yesterday- she loved it. For the last couple of weeks I've noticed that she looks at us when we are eating and has started to grab things on the table and stick them in her mouth. She's ready for food. She just turned 4 months old and the doctor said that it would be fine since she seems interested. 

 Her first bite----

Yum!  That was good

Trying to feed herself. She's doing a pretty good job of holding the spoon 

Tanner was very excited that she got to eat rice cereal for the first time. 

 She tried to grab the bowl a couple of times while we fed her

 Violet and her dad

What!  There isn't any more. 

Actually Dan scared her when he made a weird noise but she really was upset that she ran out. We mixed up two servings for her. She loves eating rice cereal. 

Violet 4 months old

Violet turned 4 months old on June 26, 2014. She's been so much fun to have in our family. She's loves to smile. She weighs 15 lbs and is 25" long. She just keeps growing so much

At 4 months she doesn't really like to lay on her stomach but is getting better about it

She spits up a lot so we are always changing our clothes

She giggles and laughs and loves playing with her brother 

She's starting to give wet kisses and loves to be held

She's so snuggly and loves it when you hold her to fall asleep
She can hold her bottle if she needs too, and has started making mouth movements when we eat. I think she might be ready for some rice cereal.
She wakes up happy and smilie from her naps- she doesn't like to take the nap but is always glad when she can be up and see what's going on in the world
We love our Violet and are so glad she is in our family. 

Bean Museum at BYU

I have never been to the Bean Museum at BYU and Dan has always wanted us to go. After they did the remodel we finally went. It's pretty amazing. I had no idea what was going to be there. All of the animals are are real skins they had stuffed. It's pretty amazing seeing them up so close. 

 Tanner with the Rhino and the Giraffe. They have 2 giraffes out in the main lobby 

 A hippo- some of them even have scratches on them from when they were attacked

 Tanner, Rach and Violet by the bears

 Dan teaching Tanner about the Animals in the wild

 That's a big elephant- not me but the actual elephant 

 This butterfly exhibit was made out of actual butterflies 

The same with this beetle exhibit. 

 What a bug would look like if it were bigger- so gross

 The Tiger from the Zoo - 

 Violet riding on the Zebras. For some reason I always feel sad when I see a stuffed Zebra. It makes me feel bad. 

Attack!  It's a pretty neat exhibit and Tanner has talked about it several times since we've been there. He wants to go back and it's a free exhibit for anyone who wants to go. We went on June 11, 2014