Playing Catch-up

Since I haven’t updated since Emma’s birth (which was Sept. 27, not 26… I need this reminder because I was telling people the wrong date for a few months. Whoops. Glad Joel’s mom is better with dates than I am and corrected me. Now I need to change it at the doctor’s office…) and Emma is almost 6 months old, I figure it’s about time I let those of you who care know what’s going on.

First, an update on my family members because holy smokes a ton is going on with them! (I’m going to update on their kids, spouses, everything for those high school and college friends who know my family, but haven’t heard much in awhile.)

• In January my parents moved to London. Crazy, I know. Pretty awesome, though. It’s for work and they’ll be there 1-2 years. We miss them, but are so happy they get to have this adventure. Yay for Skype! And for blogs.
• Kim doesn’t have any big changes happening to her, but that’s okay. Living in Chile with your family for 6 years as an ex-pat gets you off the hook for awhile. Her and Dave now live in Minnesota (gorgeous!) and have 4 darling kids.
• Brooke and Shaun just had their 5th child, Shaun is graduating from BYU in a few months and they’ll be moving to Texas for his job!!! Crazy, huh? New baby and moving within two months of each other. Exciting stuff! Emma and her new baby, Kenzie, are about 6 months apart. Love that .
• For those who don’t know, this is where I fit in. We had a baby in September, so that’s pretty exciting.
• Ryan and Rosa Lee have a cute 2 1/2 year old, Liam. Ryan’s graduating with his masters next month and they’ll be moving to St. George for his job. He’s doing landscape architecture. If you ever want to see some of his work, visit my parents backyard. Amazing!
• Nathan is a science teacher in St. George. Seriously, how crazy is that?! His students love him and Kaylee loves being able to tell everyone that her uncle teaches science (she’s obsessed with science and wants to be a scientist when she grows up).
• Paige and Colton had their first baby, Lillia, in January! She has Paige’s eyes and is absolutely adorable. Emma likes to eat her. I do too. Can’t help it when babies are so cute and yummy. They’re living in my parents house while my parents are in London.
• Kelsi is engaged! Her and Colby will be getting married at the end of April. We really like Colby and are so happy for them. Helping her plan her wedding while my parents are away has been a lot of work, but it is fun. I’m glad to finally be able to get the wedding planning bug out (I was majoring in recreation management with the plan to be a wedding planner for a few months. After a short internship at Thanksgiving Point I changed my mind and did recreation management youth leadership with an emphasis in therapeutic recreation).

Now on to my little family (and this one comes with pictures):

Emma is almost 6 months and as cute as can be! She is a really sweet baby. She just likes to be held all. the. time. Makes it hard to get much done. Good thing she’s adorable! She’s rolling around and getting close to sitting up on her own. She absolutely adores Kaylee and Logan and they feel the same way about her. They even like sharing their stuffed animals with her:

Kaylee and Logan love going to the library. Logan’s favorite books are the graphic novels (comic books). Joel loves when we get them, as well.

Note: This is the first (and only) time we’ve put curlers in Kaylee’s hair. We put underwear on her head to keep them in place. She thought that was awesome. (The curls turned out cute… we just haven’t had time to do it since).

We went to St. George for our anniversary in February. Emma wore her first swimsuit! It was my swimsuit as a baby. My mom made it . (BTW, we went swimming indoors. It SNOWED that weekend in St. George and the wind was FREEZING! It was still fun, though.)   

The kids were thrilled to visit Nathan’s classroom! Especially Kaylee, since she wants to be a scientist when she grows up (Kaylee wanted Logan to be her science assistant, but he wants to be a detective, so now her cousin, Connor, is going to be her assistant. Hope he’s okay with that…). 

They’re all going to be good students someday.  

And so is “The Other Dave.”  

Logan had a hard time figuring out the microscope. 

We hiked on the red rocks at Pioneer Park (love that place!). 

I stayed back with Emma while Nate and Joel took Kaylee and Logan up “the narrows.” The guys couldn’t make it (it’s really, really tight), but the kids were already way ahead of them… so they went up without any of us and Joel and Nate ran around and met them at the top. There were some nice girls in front of them that helped them through. The kids thought it was the coolest thing! 

They loved just climbing all over the rock, too. 

I was taking pictures on valentine’s day and the kids asked me to take this picture to show that they love each other.

Emma LOVED food the first time she had it. Ate it easily, no faces, no spitting it back out.

Kaylee is weird like her Uncle Dave and a sleep mask doesn’t bother her. Also, check out the book next to her: she’s reading Junie B. Jones. Smarty pants.

Isn’t he handsome?

Just like his daddy

Besides the things from above, and the big events from the past 6 months (Christmas, Halloween, birthdays, etc) we’ve been keeping busy with every day life. I knew three kids would be busy, but it seems really busy. Not harder or anything. Just much busier! There seems to be at least one kid always needing my attention. It’s good though. They’re good kids.

Kaylee and Logan are in joy school and loving that and the new friends they’ve met there I’m loving it too. Darling kids, good values taught, and awesome new mom friends for me. Joel is keeping busy with work, his calling (elder’s quorum counselor), and Quick Wits. I’ve been running a produce co-op every other week, I teach the 7 year olds in primary (fun calling, especially since I have an awesome team-teacher), planning Kelsi’s wedding with her, and trying to figure out health stuff (if anyone has any favorite paleo recipes, please share!).

Life is good!