Sunshine, YES!

We love when family comes to visit! Abbie 'swung by' on her trip back from Australia.

Grandma and Saw weeding the tree ring.

Oh how we LOVE our sunshiney Saturdays!

Mother's Day Week

Whew what a week! We've had snow, hail, rain, and wind along with some sunshine. We've really pushed to finish the basement apartment and after long hours and lots of help it's looking great! I had no idea all the work that goes into construction! We slept in it for the first time last night. We're so excited about our new place (and to get Sawyer back on a routine)! The poor lil guy has been a little 'off' and has been waking up throughout the night, but I know I can't complain because we had a great run there for a few months. He LOVES carrots and squash, but wasn't a fan of sweet potatoes (he must have gotten that from his dad :) And his food has to be warm or else he shutters in disgust.

He's very interested in EVERYTHING. No more jewelry for mom or holding him while working on the computer. He seems really close to crawling and will get up on all fours and rock or do the plank to build up those crawling muscles. He's gone forward a couple times, but mostly he's in reverse.

Mother's Day was pleasantly relaxing. After church everyone gathered out at Sara's house for a nice dinner of baked ziti. George got me an awesome gift - a custom spice rack. It's a work in progress and he's making it out of small glass milk jars. It'll be a great functional antique in my kitchen. I'll post a pic of it when he's done. Sara and I sewed some pillow covers for grandma...a sewing project that was amazingly simple and fast...gotta love that.

And the best part was that Mac, Steph, Dave, and a couple of their friends came over to visit! They lured us outdoors to do some rock climbing and Kaden and Sadie even got up on the rock with the help of Uncle Mac & Dave rigging harnesses for them.

David climbing in Kolob - to give you perspective, the rope coming off the rock is vertical.

You're so cute Steph! (p.s. SO glad your hospital visit was short - like I said you're only allowed in there if you are working! Oh yes, and please start blogging again!)

Mackenzie scaling the huge wall.

Kaden was a star!

Sadie was all smiles :)

Even Grandma Louisa got up on the wall, yes!

Hi Gush!

I was a little nervous to climb and thought I'd have super soggy muscles - after all I'd been living in Florida for a year (no rocks to climb there) and was prego and puking til this winter - my excuses and lack of exercising could go on and on, but it actually wasn't as terrible as I thought. I'm gearing up for some serious work outs starting next week once we're settled.

Grandma has the touch! During the rain shower these two were hiding under a rock for shelter and Sawyer fell asleep in her arms.

While we rock climbed Sawyer got his daily dose of minerals :)

That's all for now - I'm amazed I even got a post up with how busy things have been around here and considering I don't even know where my camera is half the time. We'll get settled and unpacked tomorrow and hopefully back to 'normal'.

Half a Year!!

A quick photo taken at 6:30 a.m. today.

Morning snuggles are the best!

What a memorable six months this has been! It's unbelievable how the time has flown. (Once they're on the outside it goes MUCH faster! Why can't pregnancy be like that?) We've got such a fun handsome baby on our hands and are so blessed to be Sawyer's parents! To celebrate we cut Sawyer's hair for the first time. He had some serious long wisps over his ears, and a nice tuft on the back of his head. George has been wanting to cut his hair for a couple months now, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. It seemed like once we cut his hair he wouldn't be a baby anymore, so I was putting it off.

Can you see his hair in front of his ear? Haha, so cute!

Sawyer also got to try some yummy? rice cereal. Oh yea we party big time around here :)

The verdict?

Delicious!

But really it's not, I tried it...can't wait for him to be able to try some real delicious food!

This is him saying "da-da-da" while eating and spitting everywhere. I can tell it's going to be messy around here for the next while!

6-month-old stats

Weight: 19 lbs 14 oz - 86%

Height: 29 1/4" - 99%

Head: 18" - 96%

He rolls tummy to back and back to tummy. He sits up on his own, and although he sits pretty well, he still takes the occasional face dive. He prefers to stand and if you give him your fingers or shirt or something to grab he'll pull himself to a sitting position and then to his feet. He loves the high chair. He's not a crazy slobber machine, but slips out his fair share (we can still make it on one bib/day just fine). He'll jibber-jabber to himself if no one is entertaining him. His latest is sticking his tongue out while saying "da-da-da". When you lay him on the floor he scoots backwards. He's trying real hard to crawl and gets up on his knees. He likes to bang his hands on the table. He goes nuts in his jumper. He still blows out of his diapers almost every day. (We've tried bigger diapers, but that doesn't seem to be the issue.) When he's sitting in your lap he rocks back and forth and belly bumps anything in his way. He is such a smiley, happy baby. We're so thankful for Sawyer and absolutely adore him!

Happy Easter!

Sara had the brilliant idea to dye eggs this year with natural dyes (see cutting board in pic) The dyes consisted of red and yellow onions, beets, coffee grinds, red cabbage, turmeric, hot peppers, and carrots. The coffee grinds made the eggs look exactly like natural brown eggs. The onions and red cabbage were our favorites and yielded the deepest hues. Mom also had a fun idea to put rubber bands on while dying to make some sweet stripes.

A sampling of our naturally-dyed eggs

After the 'hunting'

A favorite painting that hangs in our home.

{Painted by local artist, Jared Barnes entitled The First}

It's incredible to think of our resurrected Savior. How grateful we are that He is Risen.

Happy Easter!

Sweet Baby Soy

Helping Mom with the laundry this morning :)

Aunt Alethea surprised us with a visit yesterday and is here for a week, woohoo!

Great Grandma High and Great Grandma June LOVED butterflies. This mobile used to be June's {a present from Abbie} and now my mom has it, much to Sawyer's glee :)

Baby Sawyer getting a lesson on the Baby Grand by Grandma Louisa.

Sawyer likes his high chair! We're getting ready for solids starting next week.