Hannah's First Camping Trip

At the end of April we decided to go on a mountain biking/camping trip with the members of my family who still live in Utah. Originally the plan was to go to Moab, but thanks to unpredictable weather Moab ended up being way too cold for camping that weekend. So we decided at the last minute to head down to St. George where the weather was supposed to be more reasonable. The last minute change in plans made the beginning of our trip a little rough. Jake and I found a campground that still had spots available, but we got there just after they had locked the gates for the night. After driving around St. George for an hour trying to find a hotel room (the Iron Man race was that same weekend and all the rooms were full) we finally found a place to stay. We were able to get into the campground the next morning, and the rest of the trip was a lot of fun.

We spent a day mountain bikinig. Two of my sisters are pregnant, so they and my mom stayed back and watched the kids. I ended up being the only girl. Luckily the trail we chose had different skill level options, so  the boys were able to do their crazy tricks, and I happily stayed on the easy trail.

Here are all the boys. I was really impressed with how fearless my dad was and how well he kept up with the others.

Here we all are after our ride.

This was Hannah's first camping trip. She loved being outside and exploring everything.

We spent part of another day hiking to some lava caves. Hannah loved being in her carrier.  

Here is the whole group minus my mom who was taking the picture.

This is a picture of my sister Heather inside the cave with the opening behind her.

I think we sufficiently wore Hannah out. I felt bad she looked so uncomfortable. Her cousin Weston decided to copy her and pretend to be asleep. It was pretty funny.

The boys were desperate to watch the Jazz playoff game one night, so we all jammed into a hotel room for the evening and crowded around the TV. We went swimming and stayed long enough to watch the game and then headed back to camp that night to sleep. 

Here is Hannah in her "bed" in the tent. She had a rough time falling asleep the first night, but did really well taking her naps and sleeping through the night during the rest of the trip.

Happy Birthday Jake!!!

Happy Birthday today to the world's greatest daddy and my best friend!

Crawling and Climbing

The day everyone warned me about has finally come. Hannah is officially a crawler and a climber! She is all over the place. It has been so much fun watching her explore everything, but it has also been a lot more work. Gone are the days when Hannah would sit happily on her blanket in the living room with her toys surrounding her and be totally content.

Hannah is also working on her third and fourth teeth (the top two). This has made her a little more grumpy, but I am always amazed at how consistently happy she is.

I have a video of her crawling, but am still figuring out how to put it on here, so for now here are a few fun pictures of what Hannah has been up to:

Hannah's first trip to the zoo with some of her cousins. This look on her face about sums up what she thought of the zoo. Hopefully by the end of the summer or maybe next year it will be a little more exciting for her.

Hannah loves sitting in the laundry basket while I fold the clothes. I think she thinks she is helping because she will pull out a piece of clothing, shake it around for a while, and then choose something else and do the same thing over and over. It is one of my favorite things Hannah does.

She also loves playing peek-a-boo while we fold the laundry.

I don't know if most babies sleep like this, but I think it is the cutest thing. Hannah sleeps like this every night. In the morning she always has big red circles on her knees and I always wonder if her legs fall asleep.

Hannah climbed in here one day and just stayed like this for 20 minutes while she played with some toys.

This is Hannah's favorite toy right now. She loves pulling herself up on here and exploring all the different buttons.

Hannah's first Easter

Last Saturday morning we heard Hannah babbling in her crib. We went in to get her up and found her like this. That was the first time she had climbed up and was waiting for us at the side of her crib. Now it has become a regular occurrence.

The last 8 months with Hannah have been so much fun. I love my little girl and I love being her mom!

Happy Valentines Day (a little late)

We celebrated Valentines day a little late this year. Back in February Jake and I decided we would put the money we would have spent on each other for Valentines Day toward tickets to see Lifehouse and Daughtry. (We bought the tickets around Valentines Day, but the concert wasn't until April).  Jake has always wanted to see Lifehouse in concert and we really like Daughtry, so we thought this would be the perfect concert to go to. It was a lot of fun spending the evening with my sweet Valentine and listenting to some fun music.  Lifehouse was a little disappointing, but Daughtry was great.

I made sure Jake and I both went equipped with our handy dandy earplugs to protect our hearing (it is the speech pathologist/audiologist in me).

6 Month Pictures

Thanks to a new camera, photoshop, a fun park, the DI, and some borrowed props we were able to take some fun pictures of Hannah at 6 months (luckily we took them a couple of days before she turned 7 months). Jake and I had a lot of fun experimenting with photoshop. I wish I could say Hannah thought the photoshoot was just as much fun. She was a trooper tolerating the different poses we put her in. Here is what we came up with: