California Love

At the end of May/beginning of June we spent
a little vacation in CA visiting my family.

We went to a wedding, baby shower, and mission farewell.  We also saw the play Wicked, spent some time trying to find my mom's twin brothers' graves, visited with friends, became parents to a 10 month old,
and ate a whole heck of a lot !  

Our days were packed with fun and I loved seeing most of my family and all my nieces and nephews together!  I love going to my hometown.

I never seem to remember to take pictures. But here are the ones I did take.

 Some of the nieces and a nephew

...this is the best one we could take.  haha

And what's behind curtain #1? ......

The DOGS!  Danica loved watching Ella and Sisco

A visit/dinner with Sarah, Jacob, and Nick

Bet you didn't know a bowl could be so fascinating! 

Wicked!

I've had Wicked songs stuck in my head ever since we saw the play!

(Well, actually I've been doing better lately...until we went to Walmart today.  In the baking aisle a girl was singing, "Wonderful.  They call me Wonderful..." Singing is a term used very loosely here.  It was awful!  I thought she was just speaking at first.  It made me laugh, but my ears still hurt!)

The AWESOME stage.  I loved the play!

Tyler got us private balcony seats.  So cool!

Hi mom!

I'm not tired!

Is that drool running down my chin?? 

Such a lady... pinky up and all!

Dani turned 10 months old on June 2nd!

What a crazy, happy girl!

This girl is learning more and more each day!

Words she says in her Danica language:

*Dad *Mom *Baby *Bottle *More (in ASL) *Hi *Bye Bye 

*(and for the first time last Wed.) Peek-a-boo

Danica is understanding a lot more too:

*She knows the word "no"....luckily that word isn't on the list above *She'll hold whatever up to her ear (or the back of her head) when you say, "Do you want to talk on the phone?" *She knows where to look when we say "outside." *She waves hi *She turns off the lights when asked, "Do you want to turn off the lights?" *She does the spider movements for "Itsy Bitsy Spider" *She loves to copy us

Dani's got talent:

*She's started singing (I'm pretty sure that's what she's doing... it's different than her talking) *She'll pull herself onto ANYTHING and start walking all around *She can stand on her own for a few seconds *She took 3 steps on Tuesday (granted it was basically her falling to the ground, but she's on her way) *She eats all sorts of food and loves to do it by herself! Earlier this month she even had the garlic sirloin at Tucanos and loved it!

Danica laughs at the most random things:
*dropping a pencil (or similar) on our coffee table *Tyler fake hurting himself *The beginning of my workout video... I think it's because she knows what's coming and thinks, "haha!  mom think she's going to look like them?... she looks so silly!"

Danica loves:

*Babies/kids.  She gets super excited and screams.  She scares my neighbor's daughter and makes her cry... it's sad.  *Shoes (still) *To watch... she's a people watcher and she loves watching the cars drive by *To be outside *Baths...she gets so excited when I turn the water on.  She even tried to lift her little bath tub into the big tub the other day.*To be a social butterfly *To smile :)

There's a whole lot more I could share... it's just fun to see her learning more and more and being proud of herself for understanding... but I'll stop here!

Vacation, all I ever wanted

We spent 2 joyous weeks in CA with my family for Christmas.

All of my siblings were there (which is rare) to celebrate Christmas and my dad's 60th together.

Here are a BUNCH of pictures from our vacation.

Plus a picture of my boots at the bottom that some of you had been asking about

On our way to Sizzler for my Dad's b-day

My dad has food in his mouth

So my brother, Jordan, came out randomly dressed like this wizard and FREAKED out all the kids.

It was hilarious!

Danica wasn't fazed though

We visited my friend Sarah and her little family.

Nick and Danica are only 2 weeks apart.

Before we knew it, it was Christmas Eve!

My sister, Laura, got giant underwear for Christmas

Danica's 1st Christmas!

My sister, Eileen, had a baby shower the morning after Christmas

Anna and I were struggling to take pictures that day

My mother and I

All the siblings and my Grandma, celebrating my Grandma's 80th and my Dad's 60th

Kalla celebrated her 10th b-day

Addalie turned 4. We all went ice skating that day to celebrate

The birthday girl with the 5 month old birthday girl...right before we noticed Danica had a very (to say the least) messy diaper

Danica likes to hold her bottles on her own now... she's still learning though.

Here's Keiran sitting in Danica's Bumbo. I kept finding the little boys sitting in it.  They loved it.

They would sit in the room all by themselves enjoying their seat.

We took Danica out to stretch during our trip back to UT and she instantly grabbed the steering wheel.

She drove us the rest of the way home.

Well here are my boots

The pictures stink, but one is dark brown and the other is black

Here's Dani at 5 months... and a couple days.

CA Vacation

We spent the last week in May in California. This is basically how our trip went (told with lots of pics):

Thursday, 21st - The lovely drive to Southern CA
(I slept most of the way)

Friday, 22nd - Tyler's brother Kirk graduated from Law School at Pepperdine in Malibu

Friday, 22nd at about 4pm - We made the lovely drive to Northern CA to my home town Elk Grove
(I slept most of the way...)
Saturday, 23rd - We went to my cousin Katie's wedding in the Sacramento temple. My sister Eileen and I went over to my other sister Anna's house and visited with her and her kids. I went shopping with Eileen, and then we all went to Katie's reception later that night.

Sunday, 24th - We went to church in my parents' ward and that evening we witnessed my oldest neice, Kalla get baptized by my brother Jordan.
Kalla's new Bishop made the comment that Kalla is following the Savior's example, but in a slightly different way. Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan, and Kalla was baptized by Uncle Jordan. It was a little corny, but it still made me laugh.

Monday, 25th - My mom, my sisters Laura, Anna, and Eileen and I spent the morning/early afternoon together and we went to Chili's for lunch. It was a a lot of fun and a great idea!
Then Jordan and his girlfriend Mandi, Tyler and I, Eileen and her friend Jennifer went to Rancho Seco and went rafting. It's a man-made lake by some nuclear power plants. Yes, the power plants have been shut down for years, but i bet there's probably some 3-eyed fish out there....??
Tuesday, 26th - Eileen, Tyler and I went to Rocklin to visit my Grandma and Aunt April. We played some Rummikub with Grandma and then April showed us all of her craft supplies and gadgets. It was so amazing. She does beautiful work.
Later that night, I had my baby shower at Anna's place. It turned out great. The food and decorations were fantasic. It was nice to see a lot of people I'd hadn't seen in a long time.
We got so many cute presents. We also got a lot of baby hand-me-downs from Anna... which was so stinkin awesome of her.
Wednesday, 27th - We went back to my Aunt April's house because she had more craft things to show me. We were there for 4 hours and I learned a lot of cool things and neat tricks while Tyler played some Rummikub with my Grandma. Then, that night Anna's family came over and had ice cream at my parents.
Thursday, 28th - That afternoon we drove down to Galt to visit my best friend Sarah Pierce and her hubby Jacob. Sarah made us pancakes (we've both been craving breakfast foods for a while now) that were so yummy (we want that recipe!) and we brought the fruit. Then we chatted and watched The Office together. Later that night, Tyler and I made dinner for my family. It was some tasty spaghetti!
Friday, 29th - That afternoon we drove to Martinez, in the bay area, and visited Tyler's uncle and his family. They served us an awesome Mexican dinner. That was a lot of fun and before we knew it, it was 9:30 pm.

no pics : (

Saturday, 30th - In the morning, my parents, Jordan, Tyler and I went to IHOP for some lovely breakfast food. That afternoon we went over to Anna's place and my sister Laura's family joined us for some pizza and icecream. The kids went swimming and then nephews got out their water toys and hosed Tyler down. He was completely drenched. It was a lot of fun!

Why didn't I take pics?? : (

Sunday, 31st - We made our way back to Provo exhausted from our busy and fun fun fun vacation!
And I'll add that I completely unpacked that night!!

Wow...I'm really surprised if you are still reading. That was quite the LONG post!