My Baby is 1

The first excitement of the month came with Tessa's birthday on September 1st! She is growing up so fast. She has six teeth (two on bottom and four on top). She can crawl and pulls herself up standing. No walking yet but I’m sure she will be up and running before too long. This lack of walking does prevent her from getting into everything!!! I’ve even seen her get up on her tip toes trying to get something she wants. She has to be strapped into grocery carts and her high chair so she won’t go tumbling out. In this regard she is a lot different than Kylie. Her lack of fear has me on my toes!

Lake Powell Baby!

We were lucky enough to sneak in a family vacation at beginning of August; a five day trip at Lake Powell on Aunt Becky and Uncle Kelly’s houseboat. The temperature during the week was perfect and we had a lot of fun swimming and eating wonderful food. Here are a few of the highlights of our trip:

Solo Swimmer
You can definitely tell our little girl is growing up. Kylie usually uses a floatie ring while swimming at Cherry Hill, but we bought her a little life jacket and she swam by herself without anyone holding her...a major accomplishment for our "scaredy cat."

Chichmunks
Above where we anchored the boat was very rocky but we could see little chipmunks or “chichmunks” as Kylie likes to call them scurrying from rock to rock. Little Isaac had a pellet bb gun so the boys put out bread and lured the chipmunks out and then would shoot them…kind of cruel. Well one of the chipmunks was huge, like a small groundhog (so it probably wasn’t a chipmunk) but it would just sit there eating as they pinged it in the head. But to Kylie’s disappointment they didn’t sing or talk (like the Chipmunks in Alvin and the Chipmunks :))!

Sleeping Under the Stars
Kylie absolutely loved sleeping on top of the house boat under the stars. She even noticed some of the stars were moving. We sang Twinkle, Twinkle and I tried to explain to her how to make wishes!

Grandma DaDean
My kids are lucky to have such wonderful grandma’s. At Lake Powell Grandma LaDean put her heart and soul into doting on our kids (who were the only grandkids there). She slept with Kylie the first night, helped her pick up shells off the beach, got her food, and was always there to help with Tessa. What an awesome grandma?!

Tubing
Kody was a real sport at Lake Powell and even participated in Tube Wars with all the other boy cousins who are in high school. This “sport” consisted of two tubes behind the boat. One larger tube with 3 boys on it and then another smaller one with 1 boy on it. The object for the boys was to knock the single rider off the tube. The object for the driver of the boat (Kelly) was to get everyone off the tube. There were some major spills and falls for the spectators in the boat to enjoy and my cousin Michael, who is amazing, has learned how to flip the tube (essentially pulling a 360).

Dance Party
What vacation is complete without a dance party on the top deck of the boat. We got crazy, funky, and low, low, low, low! Kylie had so much fun! Her dancing can best be describe as contorting her limbs at weird angles (what can I say she gets her moves from her dad :))!

Vacation to Island Park

We were lucky enough to get away this month on a vacation to Island Park, Idaho. We along with my sister’s family, and another family friend’s family rented a cabin on Bill’s Island. The cabin was wonderful; newly built with 6 bedrooms and 3 ½ baths. We had 7 adults and 9 kids ranging from 9 months to 10 years old. The weather was crazy! It rained and snowed every day we were there.
The first day the girls explored the cabin and were excited when they discovered a room in the downstairs that had 3 bunk beds. What a wonderful room for a sleepover! After getting the girls to bed the adults decided to try out the Hot Tub!
The second day we went into Yellowstone through the west entrance. The snowy weather had one positive that being that we got to see a lot of buffalo and elk. We tried to see some mud pots but the weather was so cold we decided to return to the cabin and let the kids go hot-tubbing.
The third day we decided to try Yellowstone again. Rainy weather made it possible to see many animals up close. There were buffalo right in front of us on the road and we even saw some bears.

October

We've Had a great October! The addition of our Tessa has really made this month a special one for us.
This first picture is of Tessa in the Tub. At two weeks old she had some "Colic" (I think it was acid reflux, but am not quite sure). For the next 5 weeks she was sad during the time she was awake; I felt so bad for the little thing. The only time she was happy was during her bath. She would smile and coo...needless to say she was the best bathed baby in the neighborhood. I am happy to report that I think she is growing out of whatever it was she had and is now a happy baby.

Halloween was a lot of fun. Kylie was so excited when she realized that all you had to do was say "Trick or Treat" and people would give you candy. She was a "Tiny Mermaid (The Little Mermaid)." Funny Story: We trick or Treated to a couple houses in Grandmas Neighborhood...only 3 out of 9 answered their doors and gave candy...so Aunt Becca and Amy thought they better take Kylie out of the ghetto and into the "Nice Neighborhoods." The payout was much better she got full size candy bars, cheetos, playdough and a licorice rope.

After seeing many cute blogs I decided to try one myself!