Our little girl

...is 6 months old today (the 14th)!!! She's growing up so fast! We're so grateful for her. She is seriously the sweetest baby ever. She's got such a cute laugh and she smiles all the time (except when I'm taking a picture because she's too interested in the camera). I just love her cute personality (even when I swear she gives me a "what are you thinking, Mom?" look). She loves learning and exploring new things (toys, foods, textures, sights, etc.). It's a lot of fun for us.

Here is a picture of Kaylee less than a week old followed by a bunch of recent pictures from my cell phone. I can't believe how much she's grown!

Kaylee and Daddy taking a nap. She slept with her arm behind her head back then too. Look how tiny she is!

Stylin' girl. Sometimes she actually keeps her sunglasses on for a few minutes before deciding to eat them.

Check out those thighs! Little chunk.

Bundled up for a walk.

This is one of my new favorite baby items, as well as Kaylee's. You put the food in the mesh bag and she can feed herself. She's eating her favorite: avocado.

Another sunglasses picture. These were some I tried on her while at a store, so I could send the picture to Joel.

On a walk again. Can you believe those blue eyes?!

Kaylee really loves her food! She had a lot of fun this day. After eating her avocado I poured some carrots on her tray and let her splash in them. She loved it! It was messy, but worth it.

P.S. We have a counter at the very bottom of our blog that shows exactly how old she is.

Nate's coming home!

My brother, Nathan, is getting home from his mission next Wednesday (May 21). I'm so excited! He's been a wonderful missionary serving in the Michigan, Lansing mission for the past 2 years. I can't wait to see him and for him to meet my amazing husband and daughter! He'll also be meeting 2 other nieces for the first time (Macee and Jinnie) and seeing Ryan for the first time in almost 4 years!

I've been trying to explain Nathan to Joel so that he'll know what to expect, but I don't think I'm doing him justice. He is very driven, but also loves to have fun. Here are a few pictures that are totally Nate...

This is one of my favorite pictures of Nate from before his mission. My friends saw Nate at a BYU football game and had to get a picture for me. I'm glad they did! Nathan loves BYU football!

Mom, I chose the picture you're crying the least in. Here's my mom putting Nate's nametag on at the MTC.

I have no idea who that other guy is or where this was taken. It's Nate and (I'm guessing) a companion on his mission.
This grosses me out, but I had to put it on. This is some guy skinning squirrels. Here's a quote from one of Nate's emails, "On Wednesday we got home from district meeting, and we had a message on our answering machine from a part-member family that they were cooking up some squirrel if we wanted some. So we went over there and had some squirrel for dinner. Squirrel stew to be more exact. It was actually really good...tastes kind of like chicken." Yuck!
Nate with 2 other missionaries in front of one of the lakes.

Poll

I have no clue why the poll choices aren't showing up. Joel and I have tried messing with the colors and everything, but nothing is working. If you highlight the options you can read what they are. (FYI: Curly is the 1st choice, Straight is 2nd)

Help me!!!

I need some major help with looking older. Yesterday I was at the temple for my cousin, Sara's, wedding and a temple worker told me I looked too young to be in there. I said something along the lines of, "yeah, I look young for my age." She responded with, "yes, but I mean you look really young. I would guess you were 14."

WHAT?!?!

14?!?!?

I'M 24!!!

It's not as though I was wearing some trendy dress or something. Actually, I thought my shirt and skirt looked quite mature. I was wearing makeup too, so it's not like that would throw her off.

I realize that someday I'll love for people to think I'm 10 years younger than I really am, but not now. Not when I have a baby and people think I'm a teenager.

This lady isn't the first person to tell me I look a lot younger than I am. A month or so ago a good friend of mine told me I can easily pass for a 16 year old. And a few years ago I always had adults looking shocked when they asked me which high school I went to and I informed them I was a senior in college.

So.... I need suggestions. What can I do to look older/more mature? Do I need to change my makeup? Clothes? What?

How about my hair? I just barely got it cut. It goes to my armpits. The hairstylist I found is an expert with curly hair, but you kind of have to do it curly every day to get the look she does (you have to train the hair). So here's a big question for everyone (I think I'll put up a poll about it): should I go curly or straight the majority of the time? Right now I do about half and half, which is nice to be able to do, but if I continue with it neither way (straight or curly) will look as good as it can. I realize it's hard to decide since my hair doesn't look amazing either way yet. If I finally decide between the two I can get the perfect cut for curly/straight hair, as well as train the hair to do the one I want.

Also, would coloring my hair help me look older? I finally have it grown out to my natural color and was trying to keep it that way since I'm the worst person at touching up my roots, but if color will help me I might be willing to do it. I've heard of a new style where you put lowlights under the top layer and it give the hair more dimension, but you don't have to worry about roots.

Please please please help me! I don't want to look 16 or 14 or even 19 anymore!

I can't look at the cake anymore!

Seeing the pictures of the wedding cake is making me crave cake something terrible. And not just any cake. That exact amazingly delicious cake. I've decided to do another post, so it won't be the first thing I see when I open the internet.

This is a cute video. As I've mentioned before, Kaylee loves her food. This is her trying a pickle for the first time. Notice her complete lack of a reaction (maybe she's saving it for when we give her a lemon).

YUMMY!!!!!!!!

It was a few months after our 1 year anniversary, but Joel and I ate our wedding cake.... and it was delicious!!!!! Thanks to my mom who took the time to wrap it perfectly over many hours, so it would last this long. I should have made it look more presentable for the picture, but I seriously couldn't wait to eat it. The sad thing is I ate most of the cake by myself within 3 days. Yikes! It was so good though!

I'm so happy with the cake we had. It looked cool, matched my wedding colors, and tasted amazing! Here are some pictures from the reception (notice how nice we were when we fed each other the cake).

Tagged by the Number 5

Brooke tagged me awhile ago and I'm finally doing it (read #2 on my to do list and you'll discover 1 big reason I'm so late in responding and posting in general lately).

5 things on my to do list...

1. Spring cleaning.
   
2. Find a new toy (exersaucer?) to keep Kaylee's attention for long periods of time (the swing isn't cutting it anymore).
3. Work on my gluten-free blog.
4. Sew some clothes for Kaylee and work on other fun crafts.
   
5. Get the dining room lights fixed.
   
   

5 Snacks I Love...

1. Cake truffles.
2. Fiddle Faddle. And plain popcorn.
   
3. Smoothies.
4. Pretty much anything chocolate, caramel, or toffee flavored.
5. Chips and homemade salsa.
   

5 things I will never wear again...

Most of these things have to do with my hair. Either I didn't wear weird things in the 80's or I'm not certain I wouldn't wear them again... scary).

1. Shorts above the knee.
2. Big scrunchies in my hair or on my wrist.
3. Layered colored socks (my main memory while wearing these, I was riding in the "Beast" van with my cousin Heidi and we were both wearing our socks this way... it was totally radical dude).
   
4. My bangs hairsprayed straight up.
5. Big bows in my hair.
   

5 Things I would do if I were a Billionaire...

1. Build a house with a fun playroom for the kids, a theater room for Joel, and a craft room for me.
   
2. Travel, especially cruises!
3. Get an awesome minivan (yes, I'm a geek and I want a minivan... I've already admitted that in a previous post).
   
4. Help out others. If anyone has seen Oprah's Big Give (it's the show I watch online while feeding Kaylee at 3am), what the people on there have the opportunity to do each week is my dream.
   
5. Throw parties. I would love to be able to throw big elaborate parties for family and friends. I'd have so much fun planning the buffet, decorations, entertainment, etc. I want to do birthday parties, holiday theme parties, and just because parties. I realize I can do them now, but it would be fun if money wasn't an issue and I could do whatever I could dream up.
   

5 Bad Habits...

Hmmm, where to start...

1. Nail biting.
2. Interrupting people (sorry everyone I've done this to and will do it to in the future! I'm working on it).
3. Shoplifting. Okay, not really. Well... not really on purpose. And it's only happened twice, so it's not really a habit. I just need to look closer under the carseat in the cart when I take Kaylee shopping. Two different times I've gotten out to my car and found a little 99 cent item in the cart when I lift Kaylee out (jell-o and car lightbulbs). Talk about frustrating! Don't worry, both times I went back into the store and bought the item. Even though it was an accident I still felt like a criminal.
   
4. Procrastination. And getting annoyed when someone reminds me about the thing I'm procrastinating. I always get to the things I need, but I have to be in the mood or I won't do it.
5. My curiosity. It's pretty bad. I like to know details about things. Even when it has nothing to do with me. "Curiosity" is actually a nice way of putting it. "Nosy" is more accurate. My "nosiness" does seem to go in waves though. Sometimes I want to know details to everything and sometimes I couldn't care less.
   

5 of my favorite toys...Nostalgics

I still have every single one of these toys. I couldn't give them up, so now my girls get to play with them :).

1. Polly Pockets (back when they were tiny). I have a lot, but Paige might have more.
2. Barbies. Kim, Brooke, and I even had a Barbie room for awhile. It was awesome! We could set up all of our Barbie furniture and just leave it there for days.
3. Dolls. I couldn't choose between 6 toys, so I combined my Cabbage Patch Doll and Strawberry Shortcake Doll into one.
   
4. Love-A-Lot Carebear. She's the pink one with 2 hearts on her tummy.
   
5. Smooshies. Does anyone remember these?! I have yet to find someone (besides my family) that remembers these, which is weird because they always had commercials for them the year I got them for Christmas. Here is a picture I found online of one I had (her name was even Beth):
   

CTU: Provo

Howdy,

A couple of friends of mine made a feature-length parody of 24 and it's finally ready for public viewing. I got to play a small role in it, so they asked me if I would help spread the word to my friends across the web.

And so I spread: http://ctuprovo.com/

That is the official website where you can get information and such as well as download the entire movie and watch it in the comfort of your own home.

You can discuss the movie and/or ask any questions you may have in the comments.

Here's their synopsis from the site (with my own, personal embellishments) to help wet (whet?) your appetite:

By "24" fans for "24" fans. CTU: Provo is a hilarious look at what happens when a small town branch of the Counter Terrorist Unit is confronted with an actual terrorist attack. With the help of some diehard fans of the "24" show, these hapless agents attempt to stop a horrific environmental catastrophe. Along the way, they'll discover what a slick oil tycoon has to do with all of this as well as try to save the life of an important politician. Featuring beloved entertainer Donny Osmond, radio personality Jimmy Chunga, acclaimed actor Rick Macy and members of Divine Comedy (BYU's premier sketch comedy troupe), CTU: Provo is sure to entertain fans of "24" as well as those who have never seen the show.

Enjoy!

For your entertainment...

Sorry we haven't posted forever! Last week we were in Cedar Hills at my families house staying with Kelsi while my parents were in Germany. We had tons of fun, but with hanging out with family, friends, and playing the Wii there wasn't much time for blogging. I did discover some new YouTube videos that I absolutely love though! Paige, Ryan, and Kelsi showed us the ones with the cute kids. Joel showed them the Tarzan and Jane one in return. I love them! Enjoy!

This one is my absolute favorite! SOOOO CUTE!!!


Kelsi and I had this stuck in our head all week. It's awesome!


Kids are so funny!

Kaylee loves her food!

Kaylee loves new foods! Her favorite is her apple juice. She guzzles that stuff down like there's no tomorrow. She practically holds the bottle herself even! I don't have a great picture of that, but here are some other great food pictures...

Okay, she's not really drinking this rootbeer freeze, but she certainly wished she was.

This is from the first time she ate rice cereal. We have video of it, but it's pretty long and has me and Joel talking too much on it. She loved the cereal, but wasn't very good at eating it that way yet, so most of it ended up on her shirt and face. She is now an expert!

Messy girl! We were so excited to give her real food we forgot a bib.

Kaylee looked really interested in Renae's (Joel's mom) water, so we told her to go ahead and give her a drink. She couldn't get enough!