Happy Birthday, Hannah!

Our baby girl turned one yesterday.  Poor girl, she has a tooth that is taking awhile to poke through, so she had kind of a rough birthday.  It was a little strange celebrating her birthday just the four of us, as Nathan's birthday is near Thanksgiving and usually ends up being celebrated in Billings with lots of family, but we made the best of it.  Our generous families sent lots of gifts and birthday wishes, so here are some pictures and a video so they can see the fun we had.

Hannah's presents, much more exciting to Nathan than Hannah, of course.

 The birthday cupcakes, complete with the "1" candle.  Nathan was so excited by the sprinkles that he opened the container and spilled half of them before we even got out of the grocery store...









Here is a video of us singing happy birthday to Hannah.  Since it was just Jared and me singing (with a little yelling from Nathan for good measure), I'm not sure why she started crying.  I didn't think we sounded that bad!

Hmmm, maybe life isn't so terrible....

The very first thing she did was pull the top off the cupcake.  It's the best part, right?

I love how Jack is in the background, scouting for toxic chocolate cake crumbs.

At this point she was starting to enjoy herself, see how she is smiling behind the fistful of cake?

The happiness was short-lived, I'm afraid.  Off to the bathtub!

Nathan was more than willing to let us take pictures of him enjoying his cupcake.  I will spare you the pictures where he showed us his chocolate covered tongue.

She was much happier after her bath.

Opening presents:

She loves this purple puppy toy.  It talks and sings and says her name.

Poor Jared, he really was there, just behind the camera the whole time.  Here he is holding Jack, who is getting big, by the way!

At Nathan's first birthday, we announced that Hannah was on the way.  I have no news of that kind this time, which is fine because this "fur-baby" gets into enough trouble to keep me on my toes!

newborn

3 months

6 months

9 months

We love our daughter Hannah, and couldn't imagine our lives without her!  This next year should be exciting as she learns to walk and talk.  We are so blessed!

1 year

Wordless Wednesday

Reaon #392 why I was excited Hannah was a girl: Disney princesses

These shoes belong to a little girl I babysat yesterday.  Aren't they adorable?  I  am very excited to be able to introduce Hannah to the world of Disney princesses.  Maybe someday she too can have her own pair of Cinderella glass slippers aka jelly shoes.

Spaghetti dinner

We had spaghetti for dinner last night, which made for some cute pictures of Hannah.

Nathan insisted I take pictures of him, too.  Isn't it funny how he posed for this one?

I think he looks just like his dad and uncle Matt in this picture.  I'm pretty sure my mother-in-law has pictures of both of them as children with this same smile...

The kids were goofing around together this morning and I just had to take this picture.  I love watching them play together, it makes me glad we had them so close together (20 months).

Great shop

This is a picture of all the groceries I got yesterday for a grand total of $11.55: three bottles of bbq sauce, three bottles of mustard, two bags of pecans, two ears of corn, two cans of mandarin oranges, toothpaste, pasta, 1.5 pint of ice cream, two pounds of cherries, a box of popcorn, a bottle of salad dressing and a bag of potato chips.  I love playing the grocery game, especially in a big city!  The retail price on these groceries was over $55!  I stock up on what is on sale, combining sales with coupons, then make meals out of what I have in my cupboard from previous sales.  My goal is to not pay full-price for anything and not to have to go to Walmart to stay in my budget.

Blessings

Our Family Home Evening topic tonight was gratitude, so I thought I would share a couple of the blessings that we are grateful for right now.

After over three years of marriage, we feel we have arrived.  Last week we got our first real kitchen table.  A family in our ward is being deployed to Japan and were selling this beautiful table for a great price.  They even delivered it to our house in their Suburban!

We have been eating off a small wrought iron patio table with only two chairs and using our piano bench and office chair for extra seating, so this really does feel like a luxury.

This picture gives you an idea of the size of the old table, although this was Nathan's second birthday last November and since then he has graduated to a booster while Hannah uses the high chair, making the seating arrangements even more tricky, particularly when we had company!

Our friends also gave us a kiddie pool.  We put it on our patio and the kids are having so much fun!

Hannah continues to love the water.  She has two adorable swimsuits this summer, I love clothes passed down from friends!

Jared decided to lure Jack into the pool with a bowl of food.  He wasn't too sure about the water, but being a dog, he'll do anything for food!

Nathan "reads"

Here is a video of Nathan helping me "read" a Diego book we got from the library.  He loves this book and asks me to read it with him several times a day.  Disclaimer: the words he is reading are pictures with the words underneath them.  :-)

4th of July cookies

I made 4th of July themed sugar cookies for the families that Jared and I visit/home teach.  They turned out pretty cute I think.  I used my mother-in-law's amazing sugar cookie recipe which always turns out cookies that are beautiful AND delicious, both important qualities in a cookie, in my opinion.

When Hannah saw her big brother licking frosting off the beaters, she decided to try to climb up him and steal a taste.

June activities

Where did June go?  It flew right by!  Other than my husband having to travel over Father's Day and our birthday, it was a fun month.

Earlier in the month, some of the the moms in our ward and I took our kids to Belleview Park.

It is a public park in Englewood that has a petting zoo and train to ride.

Nathan loved petting the sheep.  They were busy eating and making appropriate animal eating noises, which Nathan found amusing.

"Sheep is silly," he is saying to a complete stranger standing nearby in this picture.

He was a little afraid of the calf, but eventually pet him after I demonstrated that it was harmless.

My sister Holly came to stay with us on Tuesday, the 22nd until her flight to Germany on Thursday, the 24th.  We had so much fun, walking 16th Street Mall and going to the Denver zoo.  However, when I was pulling pictures off my phone, I realized I only took one picture the entire time she was here.

Funnily enough, it wasn't even of her, it was of a peacock at the zoo!

Last weekend I hit a great fruit snack sale and Nathan got to experience his first "fruit by the foot."  It was a hit!

We had a couple of big rainstorms over the weekend also, and spotted a gorgeous rainbow from our back deck.

The pictures don't do it justice, I have never seen a rainbow with such vibrant colors!

Earlier this week I took Nathan and Hannah to a park near our house that has a splash park.  They loved it.

Hannah loves to crawl in the water.

So that was our June in pictures!