Siri Turns 1!

Siri turned 1 on July 6th. When I woke up that morning I hadn't even decided if I wanted to celebrate that day or not, but my mom seems to run the show around here, so we celebrated on her actual birthday. I whipped up some Red Velvet cupcakes, made dinner, wrapper her present and called it "good to go". 

Lighting a candle outside really isn't the best idea, but since she couldn't blow it out anyway, it didn't really matter. 

 She was the most interested in the sprinkles. She ate those first, then the frosting, then the cake.

 Sprinkles...

 Frosting....

 Cake!

 Her poo diapers have looked interesting today. That's some pretty powerful red food coloring.

 She got some new clothes from Grandma-Idaho, books from Grandma Ward...

 and a musical, talking, stuffed dog from Mom and Dad.

Fun party.

Let's see here...some fun facts about Siri...

-She has less hair today than the day she was born
-Her eyes are still blue, which I can't believe. How have we made two blue eyed babies when James and I both have brown eyes?
-She thinks she is the stair master, and in reality she actually is really good at them. I've stopped hovering around her when she is headed down the stairs.
-Siri only has two teeth, so I still get creative on her meals, since I refuse to buy baby food. She is on whole milk and seems to enjoy it as long as it's warm.  If it's the slightest bit chilly, she refuses to drink it.
-She doesn't walk, which is shocking to me because she showed early signs of it. She will stand by herself for small increments of time.
-She loves to "talk" to you. Her favorite thing to say is "Bah"! She'll yell it, say it softly, and growl it.
-She tries to say "I love you". No joke. Sometimes she says it more clearly than others, but for the most part you can tell she is trying to repeat it back even though it sounds nothing like "I love you".  I've also heard her say "Thank You" in much the same clarity. We've tried to get her to say other things, and she will make noises with the right amount of syllables.
-She love, love, loves to play Peek-a-boo. She'll play with anybody or anything. Dirty clothes?  Great for covering her head up with to pull off and say "BOO"!  If she doesn't have clothes, her blanket or the kitchen towel, she will use her hands. She's less coordinated with those, but doesn't seem to mind if she's just covering her cheeks before she says "boo"!
-She's got her dad wrapped around her finger. She has figured out how to prolong bed time if he is the one putting her down. She immediately initiates him in a game of peek-a-boo and she will laugh hysterically while playing. How is he supposed to walk away from that? Her sad little crocodile tears follow immediately his departure.

I'm sure there other fun facts about Siri, but they are hard to think of! Happy Birthday to our little girl, Siri!

Our Happy 4th

It seems like we make a habit out of going to Idaho for the 4th of July. I let James go by himself (with Logan) last  year because I was 9 months pregnant with this blue eyed beauty. 

 It's hard for me to imagine what she will look like with hair. One day I will know.

 We tried to get a couple of cute pictures of our family before the day got underway.
We went to the church in the morning to watch the flag raising ceremony and listen to a quick patriotic thought. After that we headed into town for the parade.

 The kids were invited to ride on, what they called, a "tractor train".

 They had to sit around waiting for a long time before the parade started, but they both refused to budge from their seats.

  This is James' sister, Kathy, and her kids. They got to ride in the parade too. 

We spent a few hours later in the day riding on James' brother, Matt's boat. Matt was so nice to take person after person on rides on the tube. I didn't take the camera, so you'll have to use your imagination. Anyway, we had a lot of fun, but we all got a little sunburned despite the fact that we had sunscreen on.

Dixie, James' Mom, got a package of fireworks that we enjoyed after it was dark. It really was a perfect day, in my estimation.

Logan loves going to see his Idaho family. He can't get enough of the 4-wheeler, motorcycle, tractor, and playing with his cousins. Nothing makes me more happy than seeing my kids happy. I hope you all had a great Independence Day.

Fun With Kids

Life isn't that exciting, and we like it that way. We don't do a ton with our kids, like take them to the zoo, etc. The "fun" isn't worth the yelling and gray hairs. Ok, so we do that stuff sometimes, but it just isn't the norm for us. We play at home and we like it. 

Siri has been getting into EVERYTHING lately. For example, Logan's underwear drawer.

 She won't leave a bow on her head for more than 2 seconds, but she will crawl around with underwear on her head.

 Maybe she is embarrassed about her bald head, so she covers it up.
Siri has also mastered the stairs. Up and down. It gives me heart palpitations to watch her, but it's better than a gate, in my opinion.

Last week, Jame camped in the back yard with the kids. I slept in the house, just so Siri wouldn't be alone. ;)

They stayed up till after 11:00 watching Tales From the Crypt. They loved it and Lizzy in-particular has asked numerous times when they will do it again.

Hair Band Concert

James and his friend bought tickets to see Def Leppard in concert, but on the day of the concert, his friend got really sick and couldn't go. I really can't say that the 80's hair band era is my favorite kind of music, but I didn't want the ticket to go to waste, so I went to the concert with James. 

First up was Leta Ford. She was horrible. She couldn't sing on pitch for the life of her. Luckily for her she had one fan there. He thought he was her drummer. Let your imagination go wild with that thought and you are probably pretty accurate as to how into her he was. 

Next up was Poison.  I think that was my favorite part of the night mostly because he was way better by Leta, and because I was bored by the time Def Leppard came out.

Here is a picture of Bret with his shirt on. James had assured me that he would probably be shirtless...so I was a bit disappointed. (Lest you think less of me, be assured that I was not really disappointed.)

 Look how happy James is to be at one of his favorite things - a concert.

 Def Leppard finally came out and that's when the crazies came out.

 I definitely had more fun watching the drunk people and the inappropriate dancers. James loved the music, and I am in love with James.

We found out the next day that James' brother was there too. He lives in Idaho, so we're sad we didn't see each other there. 

I think that was my first and last heavy metal concert. I'm glad I went just to say I did it because James has always wanted me to experience it. 

Logan's 6th Birthday

Logan has caught on to things a little slowly - birthday's being no exception. He was excited and happy for his 5th birthday, but his excitement building up to number 6 was a whole new ball game. His excitement had an effect on me and James, and as a result we did way more for Logan this year than any other year.

On his birthday itself my mom was hosting a wedding reception at her home, so that left us with just the morning to really celebrate. We decorated with balloons and streamers (including a big "6" balloon) and let him open his presents before James went to work.

 He got new clothes and candy from his Grandma Idaho.

 Money and an Angry Birds blanket from Grandma Ward.

 Hulk hands...

 and a camera from his parents.

 Instead of a cake on his actual birthday, I bought 6 donuts, and made a donut cake. He was pretty pleased with it.

 We took him to Chuck-E-Cheese's that night, per his request. It was CRAZY there, but the kids had fun, so it was worth it.

3 days later was his party. We had friends come over for dinner and to play.
Logan helped me make this pinata, and then he drew pictures of super heroes to put on it for decoration.

There was pinata fun and presents to open.

Then James brought out his cake. He asked for a hulk cake and I decided it would be easier to buy a hulk to put on the cake than to actually try and decorate a hulk for the cake. We left it as a surprise till we sang Happy Birthday.

I'm so glad I took this video of Logan. This was the first time he'd seen the cake with the action figure on it. His face is HILARIOUS. It shows how shy he really is. He couldn't handle having everyone see how ridiculously happy he was.