Here are a couple of pictures that I took of our Baby Girl yesterday. She looks so cute in jeans. It's getting harder to get a cute picture out of her. She doesn't hold still for very long. I set her on the ground and she tries to crawl away as soon as she can. Then when I try to get her to look at the camera, she doesn't seem to care. She looks at everything except me. She's still a cutie!

Baby Girl and I had a Girls Day Out. We went to a local exhibit - Farm Animals. I wasn't sure how much our little one would enjoy looking at all the animals, but she loved it! It was set up so she could see most of the animals from her stroller. And we could get really close to most of the animals. They even let us pet and feed some of them. Baby Girl loved to point at all the animals. She would make a little screechy noise - which usually means that she likes what she's looking at. She loved to look from a distance, but got really scared whenever we got too close to an animal. She wouldn't pet any of them. If you look at the picture with the baby calf, Baby Girl is nervously looking at me, because she is getting too close. We saw all sorts of animals: horses, pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys, turkens. (Yes, turkens.) What's a turken you might ask? I've included a picture of a turken - and the sign that explains it. It was a beautiful day. We had a picnic on the grass. It was a fun girls day out! 

My little sister takes piano lessons just up the hill from where we live, so quite often her and my mother will come and visit us Fridays after the lesson. Jen and I always look forward to this because aside from catching up on all the home-town gossip it also gives Jen and I a chance to get out of the house for a bit while they watch Baby Girl.

My little sister is the youngest in the family and always complains that we take way too many pictures of Baby Girl, although this is probably true, I think she is just jealous that Baby Girl had more pictures taken in her first three months than my sister's entire life. So last Friday when Jen and I went out, I guess my sister felt the need to compensate for this difference and took a some pictures of herself on our camera. We did not notice the pictures until today so I thought I might have a bit of fun and post my lovely little sister's picture on the blog for all to see. This is however, the risk you take when secretly taking your own picture on other people's camera -- learn from her mistakes people! So we found the best picture we could, as not to embarrass my little sister, and posted it because we just have TOO many pictures of Baby Girl on this blog. Please enjoy and remember that when crossing the street to look both ways.

For our family outing, this weekend, we went to our County Fair. I enjoy fairs. I'm not sure why. It's usually really hot, and dirty. Nothing really fun to do, but I enjoy going to them. This County Fair is NOTHING like the State Fair that I grew up attending. It was very small. It was free to get in (my most favorite part). They had some food booths, commercial booths, 4-H booths, carnival rides and games, and animals. It was all very small. It was still fun to attend. They were even having a Tractor Pull (which was also free to attend). Have you ever attended a Tractor Pull? We watched probably 90 seconds of this one and I was bored to tears. Maybe others are more exciting. Maybe there was a reason why only 18 people were in attendance at this event! My 2nd most favorite part of the fair was the sign in one of the pictures. Morgan and Baby Girl are posing under the sign "Taxidermy and Fair Office". It described our little county fair perfectly - pretty redneck! It was nice, cool weather, and fun to just be together!

Our Baby Girl is officially crawling. She's started crawling a while ago, but now she consistently crawls. No more army crawling! Here's a short video clip of our baby crawling across the floor!

Good Golly, Miss Molly - our Baby Girl is already 11 months old! When did that happen? She is keeping us on our toes! She is officially into EVERYTHING! She doesn't hold still for longer than 45 seconds. She is crawling all over the place. She occasionally gets lazy and reverts back to her army crawl, but she mostly crawls the real way. She pulls herself to standing too. She tries to climb on everything. Just this week, she's gotten several bumps and scrapes - from her trying to climb something and falling down. I know it will start to happen more, but it still makes me sad. According to our home scale, she weighs 21 1/2 pounds. What a chunker! She loves to eat. We can't eat anything in front of her, without her wanting some. She acts like we never feed her. I think she would eat cheerios and animal crackers all day long, if we let her. She loves playing peek-a-boo and patty-cake. She sleeps 12-13 hours at night - and I LOVE it! Her naps are shorter because of it, but it's nice to have her in bed by 6:30.

This is a video of our little climber that I took yesterday. She used our Love Sac to stand up. Then she continued to start climbing up the Love Sac! Today, she climbed up onto twice and started crawling around on top of it! She makes it so we have to be on the look out! She'll crawl up there, but she tries to crawl off of it too - and she would land right on her head, if we let her. This picture was taken of her this morning after she climbed up onto our Love Sac. She's just sitting back, enjoying her victory! I think this is just another piece of evidence that she is just like her daddy! Maybe she'll be a rock climber, just like him!

Baby Girl loves books. She loves when we read to her. She points at the pictures on the pages. When she plays in her room, she always crawls over to her bookshelf, pulls down her books, and 'reads' her books. She opens the pages and looks at the pictures. And she always 'talks' when she's looking at the books - just like she's reading them. It is so cute! Hopefully she'll continue to like reading when she gets to school.

I love the weekends! Mostly because Morgan gets to stay home with us! Saturday morning I made some cinnamon rolls. Morgan was in charge of watching Baby Girl while I did this. After my rolls were rising, I came into the living room to find Baby Girl sitting on Morgan's lap. Morgan had shared one of his Oreo cookies with Baby Girl. She had black cookie goo all over the place! What a mess! I think Baby Girl was in heaven! She loved it! He wiped off her face and hands, then handed her over to me. Her shirt had cookie all over it. And there was dried black cookie gunk still on her face. So, I gave her a bath and changed her outfit. When Baby Girl spends time with her Daddy, she looks like this picture! When she spends time with her Mommy, she is in a cute outfit with combed hair and smells clean and pretty. Baby Girl probably enjoyed the cookie with Daddy the most! 

During our family vacation, we were able to play at the beach at Bear Lake. We went there the first day we arrived at Bear Lake. Unfortunately, it was windy and kind of cloudy. The water was cold (but it's always cold at Bear Lake), and the wind was blowing. We put Baby Girl's feet in the water, and she loved to kick the water. We put her in her floaty and she loved it. She enjoyed splashing the water. She also kept trying to crawl out of her floaty and nose dive into the water. What a silly girl. We didn't stay too long, because it was kind of cold. Baby Girl didn't seem to mind the temperature at all. Then Saturday, Morgan got to play on the lake. He went jet skiing while Baby Girl and I took a nap. Then we went back to the beach on Monday. The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day to be at the beach. The water was still very cold. We just waded in the water. Baby Girl liked kicking and splashing us. We put her on the sand. She didn't like it at first. She just sat there and whined. We started pushing sand on her feet. Then she started to play with the sand. She grabbed a handful of sand and shoved it in her mouth (of course). You can see in one of the pictures, she has sand all over her face! We built a large sand volcano! And the best part of our time at the beach - NO ONE got sunburned! That never seems to happen! One of us always seems to get sunburned!

So, we got back from our Bear Lake vacation Monday night. Morgan didn't have to return to work until Thursday. So that means, we had all day Tuesday and Wednesday at home together! We spent most of Tuesday catching up on household things - mowing/watering the lawn, laundry, unpacking, relaxing. Then today we decided to extend our vacation a little bit! We traveled to Salt Lake for the day. Baby Girl fell asleep on the journey there. She was holding her blanket up over her head. She always does this when she's playing 'peek-a-boo'. I wonder if she fell asleep while she was playing. What a silly girl. We ate lunch at the Rodizio Grill, I've never been there. We had a gift certificate that we needed to use. The waiters kept bringing around slabs of meat for us to eat. It all tasted so yummy. We ate entirely too much food.

After lunch, we went to Red Butte Gardens. Morgan's brother, Dana, works there. He gave us the grand tour. It is such a beautiful place! So many blooming flowers and plants. It's a very nice place. The only down side, it was almost 100 degrees! That is too hot for me! But we got some cute pictures. The first picture is of a flowering tree (I don't remember the name of it). I thought it was rather pretty. The next picture is of Morgan and Baby Girl feeding the ducks. We bought some food pellets, and the ducks went crazy. They were definitely not afraid of people. They would eat food right out of our hands. Baby Girl thought they were funny. She kept giggling at them.

On Monday, our last day of vacation at Bear Lake, we went to Minnetonka Cave. I've never been there before. It was a fun break from the beach/swimming part of our trip. It took a little while to drive to the cave. When we got there, we found out it would be a 90 minute tour. I just hoped that Baby Girl would stay happy for 90 minutes! The temperature of the cave was 40 degrees. Luckily we brought jackets. We loaded Baby Girl into the carrier. Morgan decided that he would be the pack mule! It was actually pretty interesting. And Baby Girl did so well! They said there was no food or drink allowed in the cave, but I smuggled in a container of Cheerios to occupy Baby Girl. As long as we were on the move, we didn't need the treats. Baby Girl enjoyed climbing all the stairs. She would reach out her hands and giggle as Morgan climbed up and down the stairs throughout the cave. Whenever we stopped and the tour guide was telling us about the cave, that's when Baby Girl got a little impatient. I would secretly shove a Cheerio in her mouth while the tour guide wasn't looking! It reminded me how out of shape I am, as we climbed 444 stairs in to the cave, and 444 stairs out of the cave. It was a highlight of our vacation!

We just got back from our family vacation. It's the first time we've been away from home for longer than one night with Baby Girl. I was a stress case when I was getting ready for our vacation. I tried to think of everything we could possibly need, and with a baby - that is a lot of stuff. We got everything packed and ready on Thursday, so we could leave bright and early Friday morning. We went to Bear Lake for Raspberry Days. Morgan and I have been to Bear Lake quite often since we've been married. We actually met at Bear Lake during Raspberry Days four years ago. So, it's a fun place for us to be. This was Baby Girl's first trip there.

We stayed with Morgan's very generous Aunt Chris and Uncle Bob. They have a cabin at Bear Lake. A large portion of Morgan's family was also there. Parents, sisters, grandparents, aunts, cousins. It was a full house. Loads of fun. We stayed there Friday and Saturday night. We got to do so many fun things. We went to the beach a couple of times. Morgan got to go fishing. Morgan also went Jet Skiing. We got to visit with old friends and family members. We played games. We relaxed. We ate too much. Then on Sunday, my dad, step-mom, sister, aunt and uncle came to Bear Lake and we stayed with them in a condo. It was fun to spend time with family. We came home Monday night. One of the best things was Baby Girl was not people shy around all these new faces! It was fantastic, and allowed me to relax a little! In fact, Sunday morning, it was just Morgan, Baby Girl and me for half the day, and Baby Girl was super clingy and fussy. Then when we got around new people, she seemed just fine! I think she preferred the crowds. Yay! What a relief.

These are just a couple of random pictures from our vacation. I'll have to post some more in upcoming blogs. The first picture is during Baby Girl's lunch. This was at Morgan's aunt and uncle's cabin. Her face is a mess, but her eyes are so beautiful. There is a reflection from the windows in her eyes. The second picture is right after lunch, but before nap time. She was starting to get a little ornery. She's adorable, even when she looks like slightly angry! The third picture is after we went swimming. Baby Girl had sun screen still in her hair, so it was easy for her hair to stand straight up. Then the 4th picture is Baby Girl with her styling new tennis shoes. They were a struggle to get on, and she didn't really like them on, but they are cute. She tried 'walking' with them, and she kept tripping over them. This weekend, Baby Girl decided that she LOVED to go 'walking' -  where we hold her fingers and let her walk. We've done this a lot before with her, but she didn't seem to care that she was walking. But over the weekend, she decided that this is the funnest thing in the world. She just gets so excited and wants to 'walk' ALL the time! What a silly girl. She's also more consistently crawling. She still gets lazy and ends up army crawling a lot, but she is actually crawling for real - more and more. She also learned how to pull herself to a standing position. I thought she was on the move before - but look out. She never sits still! 

Anyway, we had a fantastic vacation, and we are glad to be home! We spent a day just recovering from our vacation! A special THANK YOU to those we stayed with for our vacation! We enjoyed our time at Bear Lake.