My little Sarah

Little Sarah is 8 months old today. It makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy because this is my favorite time of babyhood but sad because I know that soon she will not be a baby anymore. She is trying to crawl but doesn't get very far. She can get up on hands and toes, hands and knees, and can even get up on one foot with one leg in the air, but those arms just stay glued in place.

If she does manage to move anywhere it is backwards or in circles:) Many people have made comments basically saying not to get to anxious about them moving because they are into everything. Well, I don't mind that because along with that comes a little more freedom for them and for me. Babies are so much happier when they can move from place to place and so am I because I don't leave a room and have a suddenly unhappy baby.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some of Sarah's very cute yoga moves...she does a very good downward dog ( I have no idea if that is the right name or spelling for the picture just below but that's my guess for now).

Out of the mouth of Emily

I try to remember to write down some of the funny things my kids say, but I'm not always very diligent. Here are 3 recent ones from Emily.

She can not for the life of her say Zip...instead is says "will you ips this"

She watched me changing the baby's diaper one day, then the next she said her bum hurt and she wanted some "..." on it. I had not clue what she was saying thus the ... Well I finally figured out what she was saying..."frosting." She wanted me to put frosting on...of course what she really meant was diaper rash cream:)

Lastly, when we are driving in the car and the sun gets in her eyes she says "Mom! The sun is poking my eyes!"

Another Holiday Excursion

My Grandpa's party was at his home in Dewey, a little town outside Prescott. The party was Friday, and so Thursday we went up early and stayed in Prescott at a hotel. We did this just for fun and to enjoy our little family. The hotel was nice and had a heated pool...including a heated kiddie pool. It was great! We went swimming Thursday night and Friday morning. The kids loved it. This was Sarah's first time swimming and she loved kicking and splashing.

On our way up to Prescott we stopped at the Anthem outlet mall to look for pants for Derek. At children's place they were having an amazing sale. We got Sarah's swim suit and 6 pairs of pants for $48 dollars. The swimsuit was the most expensive thing. The pants were only 4.99 a pair. When we saw that we had to stock up. We bought 2 pair in Derek's size now 2 for the next size and 2 for Emily's next size. I love when I find deals like that!

One thing I love about staying in a hotel is the free continental breakfast. This hotel by far had the best one. They had omelets, sausage, home fries, fruit, oatmeal, biscuits, waffles, muffins, bagels, cereal, muffins, danishes, juice, and toast. I loved it. I had two plates with omelet, home fries, and biscuits. I just enjoy the variety without having to cook the variety:)

Great-Grandpa Lamb's 80th Birthday Party

My Grandpa Lamb (the kids Great Grandpa) turned 80 on Dec 29th. My family all got together at his home for a celebration. It was fun seeing my cousins again. I don't even know the names of all their kids anymore. We had hamburgers and cake and enjoyed learning some things about my grandpa that we didn't know.

Here is Emily showing off her belly button and Grandpa holding Sarah.

Here is Grandpa showing my parents some old photos.

80 candles takes two people to light and it took 4 blows for my Grandpa to extinguish them all. He started blowing them out before we even finished singing happy birthday

Derek of course enjoyed playing with all the little boys. My favorite part was playing a game which had a ton of random questions about my Grandpa. My Grandpa had a stroke a few months back and can not talk clearly anymore. So during the answering of the questions he was a hilarious actor, acting out a lot of the events we talked about. I wish I had gotten them all on video, but I only got a few...oh well, that's life:)

If ye are prepared ye shall not fear...

...and if you are not you shall freeze, not sleep, have grumpy children all through the night, have 5 human beings in two sleeping bags - 3 of them small but wiggly...etc. The Tuesday following Christmas we went camping outside of Wickenburg in the desert. We prepared for everything except for the fact that the night temperature would drop to 25 degrees. Darrell and I zipped together and shared two sleeping bags with a blanket on top...still froze. The kids were in -15 degree sleeping bags, but had no padding underneath and had trouble staying in them...they froze (Well actually Emily slept in hers the best and did not join the rest of us until about 5am). The baby had not enough blankets to sleep in her pack-n-play so she slept with us. By the wee hours of the morning all of us were cramped in the two zipped together blankets. We hardly slept a wink and had to sleep with our heads buried in the sleeping bag to stay a little warm. We were up by 6 just to get a fire going so we could warm up. All in all it was fun.

The kids went through a whole bag of Marshmallows by the time we left on Wednesday morning. They just ate them straight out of the bag on sticks...they didn't want them toasted.

Here is a very cute picture of Sarah and a very sad one of Emily. Something about Emily...she is a very cute girl but can trip very easily, and she had a very bad spill Wednesday morning. She was walking and tripped landing face first onto a very large rock. Luckily no broken teeth, just a lot of blood, a VERY swollen lip, and a whiny girl.

Dinner Tuesday night was a healthy combination of hot dogs and potato chips. This is me cooking them on the new stove Darrell bought just for these types of excursions:)

Tuesday after we stopped at our camping spot we went for a walk. We were camped near a small creak of running water...usually dry most of the year. We found a small cave filled with the finest sand. The kids loved playing in it. This was probably their most favorite part of the trip. Derek made a little building with sticks and leaves...actually I did the leaves:) It was fun watching them draw in the sand. While we were in the cave we heard a VERY loud BOOM. It made my heart skip a few beats. The kids were frightened for a while and wanted to go back to camp. Darrell suspects it was a mining blast...boy was it loud in the canyon we were in.

The picture on the right is probably one of my favorites. I took a dozen others of the same pose and then Derek got bored and goofy and I snapped this last shot. Of course what you can't see is the girls crying 2 seconds later because Derek was gripping them so tight and wouldn't let go:) But I'm glad he got a little goofy because the picture is great!

Christmas Away and Christmas at Home

Christmas morning is so much fun with kids. I especially enjoy the great reactions I caught on video. But for blogging purposes I just have snapshots. Our kids were a little odd on Christmas morning. They didn't wake up until around 7:00, and then they played in their rooms quietly for some time. I then got up to see if they wanted to open presents. Derek responds "after we play with legos." What!? This from a kid...Derek...who was begging to open up presents on Christmas Eve. So we waited another 10 minutes or so and then they were ready:)

Derek had a plentiful Christmas. Here he is displaying a Tonka Road Carpet that I found at Walmart and his Worker outfit and tools that he received from Grandma and Grandpa Brimhall.

Sarah is holding a teething toy she received. She thankfully received 2 pairs of pajamas this Christmas, one from mom and dad and one from Grandma and Grandpa Lamb, because if you notice in the picture, the toe seems have weakened and her toes pop through:) Emily is displaying her box of cereal and a few books. She has loved her cereal and wants it every day...only one more bowl left as of today...yippee!!!!

Later on Christmas day we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Lamb's house. Here Sarah is wrapped up beautifully for Christmas. Isn't she the most adorable gift ever:) Then of course there is a picture with Sarah standing in Grandpa's hands. My dad has done this to all of us kids and continued with the grand kids. Emily was the only one who wouldn't do it. She has never been a lion at heart, even from when she was a baby. Sarah on the other hand loves being tossed in the air and showing off her standing tricks.

Lastly here is a sweet picture of Sarah and cousin Makenzie. I hope they will be good friends as they grow up. Well, Christmas was great and I loved having Darrell home for a few weeks, but I for one am glad the holidays are winding down because I'm ready for a break:)

I'm sooooooo tired!

While spending time in Snowflake this December I took a very cute picture of Emily. We were eating dinner and she was throwing a tantrum about what we were eating, and she didn't want to eat. I removed it from her tray and ignored her whining. It quited and soon she was sound asleep! She was sooooo tired.

Darrell sat next to her and said "Emily, eat your dinner." She drowsily opened her eyes long enough to whine "no" and then went back to sleep with a very pathetic looking frown on her face.