Eight Months!

Can someone please explain to my baby that she's not allowed to grow up so fast! This behavior really is unacceptable. I swear yesterday she was just barely born, and now she's 8 months old!!! How did this happen?!? (I periodically think the same thing about my waistline). ;o)

Well, some milestones this month were as follows:
She began lifting herself on all fours (although very briefly) on the 30th of December.

By January 12th she was rocking back and forth on all fours.

She has become VERY good at scooting backward while on her stomach, but the poor thing can't figure out how to go forward. (Something that frustrates her to no end when there's a toy in front of her just out of reach). Don't worry baby. Patience. It will come. :o)

And, possibly the biggest news of this month (drum roll please)...her two bottom teeth broke through. (look closely in this picture, you can see them).
And these pictures are just some pictures I took today that I really like:
In these ones, I ABSOLUTELY love her eyes.Look at those baby blues! How can you not fall in love with this little girl!And in this one I love the nonchalant stick-out-your-tongue-while-you-play-with-a-rattle attitude. (wow, that was a lot of hyphens).And this is about as good as the Minnie pictures are going to get from now on I think. Minnie's getting too interesting... And tasty.
I love you Hannah! You are such a joy to me!

SO much is happening!!!

Note: For all my dear friends who are not LDS, I am going to be using a lot of LDS terms in this post. In an attempt to not make this post a million pages long, I've created links to definitions of some of the words I'm using. Hopefully this will help you know what the heck I'm talking about. :o) If you don't understand anything and are curious, feel free to ask me questions.

So as of Sunday, we are in a new stake and a new ward. (Along with the stake split, they re-drew the boundaries of our ward). We are in the Utah River Stake and the Sunset Park ward. We are really sad to be leaving friends in our old ward (I'm especially sad I won't be in Young Women's any more), but we are excited to make new friendships in our new ward.

Then, on Monday, the Church announced a new temple in Payson!!! Seriously, I can't explain to you how unbelievably excited I am for this!!!

On Sunday, I went to a youth fireside and one of the things the speaker did was show the video from the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. As I was watching, all the wonderful feelings from when we went to the open house , and when my brother in law went through the Draper Temple (another new temple) came flooding back.

In the video, some of the people were talking about what this temple would mean to them. As I thought about those people I thought what an awesome experience it must have been for them to go through the process of having a temple built in their area. I thought I would absolutely love to be able to go through that experience one day. AND THEN THE NEXT DAY President Monson announced a temple built in Payson! YAY!!! I'm SOOOOOO excited!!!

The sadness I feel about leaving our old ward is now way offset by the happiness I feel about this temple. I LOVE the Lord!

Financial Clerk

So Bart got a new calling. He actually got it a while ago, but I haven't found reason to blog about it...until now. He's the financial clerk in our ward. Yesterday he was at the church attempting to reconcile the books, and came home fuming about how somebody had done something stupid in a previous month, so it took him forever to figure out what the heck was wrong and fix it. I feel like we've connected in a way never before possible. :o)

I'm a mean mom

In a recent email to a dear friend I sent this picture with the following message...I have attached a picture I took today of my youngest having a rather hard time filling her diaper. I fully intend on including this in her wedding video montage one day.

His response: Motherhood has made you twisted and dark.

7 months

Now that she's almost 8 months I should probably post Hannah's 7 month photos. (Admittedly, the Minnie picture was only taken last week, so she was more like 7.5 months than 7 months, but we were in California without Minnie when she turned 7 months, and I forgot when we got home..until last week).

Hannah Happenings at 7 months:

-Forgot how to take a bottle (and fortunately re-learned how to before our 10 hour road trip to California)

-Began talking to herself before and after she takes naps (Addison also did this)

-Had her first solids

-Had formula for the first time

-Began pinching things with her thumb and forefinger

-Is able to sit alone for short periods of time

-Said her first word (Dada. She said it on 12/21, the day BEFORE Bart came back to Cali. He hadn't even been there for the week before and she said his name first. Moms never get a break.) ;o)

The Minnie pictures are getting a bit trickier. She's now aware of Minnie, so I can't get a picture of her looking at the camera. Oh well. You can still see how she's grown.

Also, the reason she's on a towel is because she was puking for a week. Not this past Monday, but the Monday before, as I went to Hannah's well baby visit I thought, "It's so nice to have Everyone in our family Healthy finally."

That night, Hannah started throwing up. Wednesday night Addison and I started throwing up, and Monday Bart felt sick. I will never think anything like that again. I jinxed myself.

I have a daughter in Primary!

I really can't believe that my daughter is old enough to be in primary! (For those of you who don't know, primary is basically the Sunday school class at our church for children ages 3 to 11). The day before her first day of primary, our primary had a meet and greet where the kids came and ate breakfast and met their new teachers. Addison had a blast.
On her first Sunday, she was a little hesitant. She wanted to go back to nursery (nursery is the Sunday school class for kids ages 18 months to 3 years old...really it's more of a play time with a snack, some singing, and a little lesson at the end...primary is much more structured). And can you really blame her? Nursery is fun! They have all those toys. Half the time when I dropped her off, I wanted to go to nursery...but I digress...At first, she wanted me to stay with her. Then her friend Mckensie came and sat by her. Ever since then, she's been fine! Thank goodness for friends who go through milestones with you! It was a relatively smooth transition. Whew. :o)

Reunion

Please ignore how hideous I look in this picture. It was a long day, and the picture has too much historical value not to post it.On January 2nd, some of my best friends from High School came to visit. It was awesome seeing everyone. Amor is now living in Kansas, Tabitha is living in Georgia, and Haas and I just don't get together enough, so it was so great that we were actually able to get together. We took this picture of all of us and our kids. I can't believe that just a few short years ago there were only the five of us. We're multiplying like rabbits!

New Year's

On New Year's Eve, we had our friends Tabitha and Jonathan (who were in town from Georgia) and Bart's brother and sister-in-law, Sam & Holly over. There were appetizers that seemed more like a meal, yummy drinks, literal music videos, and laughter for all. And, the best part about the whole night was that Bart FINALLY found an AWESOME hot wing recipe...okay, maybe that wasn't the best part of the whole night, but it was a huge highlight for me. I've had to endure plenty of nasty wing recipes. This one's a keeper. :o)

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures.

Fortunately, I remembered the next day when Eric and Addison built a snowman.

Ooooh, mean uncle!
Ahh, there's my snow baby.That's right, sculpt that snow body. I wish it was that easy to sculpt my body.

What are you doing to that snowman bro? Man, you need to go on a date.The finished product. I was impressed. It's definitely better than any snowman I've ever made. Although mine did have more bling. ;o)And the proud snowman builders with their masterpiece.

Christmas Day

And finally Christmas day.

My mom's Christmas tree was amazing...although I couldn't, for the life of me, find all those ornaments I made in elementary school. Maybe they were just hiding on the inside of the tree... ;o)
Our family in their Christmas pajamas. Addison changed pajamas because we had breakfast before we opened presents, and, well, it ended up all over her.Yes, her pile of presents is taller than she is. There are some advantages to being the first (and only one of 2) grand kids.My sister's present to Addison was AWESOME!!! She got a doll for her and then made clothes for my sister and her doll that match!!! Addison started putting on the clothes and didn't want to open the rest of her presents. She also got two other baby dolls. She calls them her babies, and this one the sister. She LOVES them!
I made a book of all of the General Conference talks of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (his favorite apostle) from the time we were dating until now. I put it into a book with pictures of family members, meaningful places and pictures, etc. to illustrate it. He really liked it. That made me happy. :o)

I also made a scrapbook for my mom. She also liked it, which also made me happy. :o)

Stacy got a Snuggie.

The best thing about her getting this was seeing BOTH my brother AND Bart wearing it (is that what you do with it..wear it?) over the next few days. And yesterday, Bart actually said, "I'm cold, we need to get a Snuggie." Wow, that was really on my short list of things I never imagined I would hear my husband say... and be serious about. True, he was sick and had a fever, but still!

Eric got this Nerf gun, and Addison LOVED it. This was a regular site all of Christmas morning.

You'd be sitting somewhere talking to someone, and turn around to be face to face with this little girl in a fancy faux fur lined coat with a mischievous smile half hidden behind the Nerf gun that was aimed straight at you. At first it was just really funny/cute, but by the end of the day I think all of us were ready to strangle Stacy for getting Eric that gun. Still, good memories. It was a wonderful day.

Christmas PJs

Another tradition of ours is getting presents from "Eve" that we open on Christmas Eve. They always just happen to be pajamas that we can wear all the next day. Here are my sisters and I donning our nighttime apparel.

Amy is noticeably absent. Did I mention I miss her!?!?!

And here's my brother in his lovely PJs serenading us with a little ditty. I bet you didn't know he was an accomplished pianist. So accomplished in fact that he can make the keys move, even when he's not touching them. I know, impressive.

I think the highlight of the evening this year was when my mom opened the packaging of Addison and Hannah's pajamas. As she pulled them out she gasped and then started laughing. They were little boy's pajamas! Te he he. Oh well, they were cute, even if they won't be using the little pocket in the front any time soon. :o)

I must take a break from my holiday posting

And show you this picture of my youngest.I have been trying to capture this face of hers for quite a while, and finally was able to do so. I absolutely love it. I can't believe how well she is able to COMPLETELY hide her lips! It reminds me of a "bitter beer face" post card I saw in Germany on my study abroad...in fact, I think I might have sent it to Bart. I'll have to ask him.

Anyway, Addison used to attempt to do this, but was never quite as effective in completely hiding her lips. She also pulled her chin down more which resulted in a look I affectionately called her "piggy face." Ahhh...I love my babies.
Speaking of baby Addison, check out the cheeks on that girl!

I keep telling people Addison's cheeks were even bigger than Hannah's, but I must confess, lately I was starting to doubt. This picture cleared up any doubt I had.

Gingerbread Houses

So last year after Thanksgiving we made Gingerbread houses. This year we did it again, so I guess that makes it a tradition right. :o)
Eric, Don't do that, my daughter doesn't know you're just joking and not really licking the gingerbread house.See!Oh well, I guess they survived. Here's the finished product.

Christmas with Amy

So before Amy left on her mission, we had a little mini Christmas for her. Amy made this adorable cross stitch for Lisa. As I was gushing over it, my dad asked me, "You've done cross stitch, haven't you?" I said, "Oh yeah, I've started tons of them." Te he he, completing things isn't my forte.

And this is a picture of my favorite Christmas tradition. Every year our family reads Christmas stories every day in December before Christmas...well, TRIES to read every day before Christmas. My dad is always the one that reads them, and he ALWAYS cries. ALWAYS. I love it. My first memory of this was when I was in high school. My dad was reading Davey and the First Christmas. My brother was at that age where he got into EVERYTHING, and wanted to help with EVERYTHING, and always managed to do more damage than good. He was the sweetest boy, but man! I remember a time where EVERY SINGLE meal he would spill his drink. EVERY SINGLE MEAL. My poor mom. We started making bets on how long it would be before his drink spilled. The person who guessed the soonest was the one who usually won.

Anyway, my dad was reading this story, and about half way through he started tearing up. I knew he was thinking about my brother. So sweet and trying so hard, but just making everything worse than before.

Ever since then I have ABSOLUTELY LOVED hearing my dad read/tear up while reading Christmas stories.

It was a nice little pre-Christmas Christmas. And even better because Amy was there with us. I sure miss her!!!

Ward Christmas Party

The evening we got to my parents house in California, they had their ward Christmas party. Amy's farewell was the next day so a lot of my family was there. We were able to get this 4 generation picture with Hannah, me, my mom, and her dad.

Addison got to see Santa again this year (although no sitting on Santa's lap...too high of a risk for lawsuits...lame). She asked him for the exact same thing she asked him for last year when she saw him: a candy cane. He happily obliged.

Merry Christmas

Originally uploaded by Bart's Rebecca

Okay, so I know I haven't blogged for a while, but I have our memory card from Christmas now, and as soon as the pictures are uploaded to Flickr, I'll start blogging away. I just wanted to post a little picture I took of one of my mom's adorable ornaments....more soon to come.