Two Peas in a Pod

It's so fun watching Ruby grow up. The similarities between her and Justin are amazing. Can't you just see the resemblance?! Justin's hair used to be blonde like hers too until we cut it. I wish we could get it back! Oh well! Ruby is even doing the army crawl like Justin did and I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't walk until later like he did too. At nine months, Justin still can't get enough of her and is such a good helper with her. Their body compositions are very similar too. At Ruby's 9 month check up she weighed 16 lbs. (10%),was 28 inches long (60%) and had almost an 18 in. head circumference (80%). Long and skinny, just like Justin. If only she were as good a sleeper as Justin was, he was sleeping through the night at 9 weeks. As for Ruby, well, she's getting there...

Has anyone seen Justin?

Today when I went to pick up Justin from school he wasn't there so I took home this cute Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer instead!

Holiday outfits

I decided to not go with the traditional red and black this year for their Christmas outfits.

It's always nice to mix it up right!

I got a steal on Christmas shirts this year on Black Friday. I always feel guilty buying something that will only be worn a few times a year but not this year! The kids all wore them to our ward Christmas party.

Eight months!!!

Wow! I can't believe it! They really do grow so fast! She is rolling all over the place and it is a challenge to keep all the little things off the ground with Justin and Isabelle around. She is very attached to me, more than the other kids, which is difficult sometimes but I feel very blessed that I have someone who's whole world revolves around me. She is really sweet and since she's sleeping through the night it makes life much better for me!

Turkey Lurkey

One boring Sunday afternoon, when the kids were out of control, I decided we were going to make a turkey and each day until Thanksgiving we would each add a feather of something we were thankful for. We ended up not doing it every day but we still ended with quite a good amount of feathers. We each had our own colors. I was orange, Justin started out as green but then wanted to be brown, "like Dad," so Dave is also green and brown, Isabelle is red, and Robyn is yellow. I think we will do this every year now. The kids really loved it and it was a good reminder of why we celebrate Thanksgiving.

Halloween

Halloween was a lot of fun this year! It's taken me forever to post it because I wanted to dress Ruby back up and take an actual picture of her costume but I never got around to it. I made her and Isabelle's outfits. Isabelle was supposed to be Tinkerbell but refused to wear her wings so everyone thought she was a princess. Ruby was a cat and I made her a cute tutu to wear over her onesie. Justin was Superman and wore his costume for weeks before Halloween and still continues to wear it at least once a day. I'm glad i'm getting my money's worth out of it! Robyn was the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.

Don't you love that face!?


Enjoying the candy

Really enjoying the candy!

The whole crew- we went with the Bradshaw cousins this year, who all looked very cute!

The Pumpkin Patch

Reasons why we love the pumpkin patch...

Good quality "Daddy time"
The tractor ride

(Although Isabelle ended up freaking out and not going on it)

The maze

Petting the animals



Finding and decorating the perfect pumpkin

and pretending to drive the tractor



This is our third year going to Mother Nature's Farm and it is a fun family tradition that we look forward to every year!

More Sedona Pictures

Nothing like waking up and being able to stare out at the beautiful red mountains!
This was the view outside our room, Steamboat Mountain.
Oh, how I wish I could go back!

Sedona Birthday Trip

Dave and I headed up to Sedona for a night to celebrate my 30th birthday. That's right, I'm 30 now! We had a great time and the only real problem was that the trip wasn't long enough! We stayed at a cute bed and breakfast with a great view of the beautiful red rock. Dave had planned for us to go on a two hour horseback ride which I was so excited for but it actually turned into an 8 hour adventure! It started with a two hour jeep tour (which I really could have done without), then we were picked up and taken to another place for our two hour horseback ride and then we were dropped off at a cowboy dinner/theatre show at the Blazin' M Ranch. It was a great time but a very long day. The company Dave did it through was called "A Day in the West," but he didn't know it would literally be a whole DAY! I guess he didn't read everything that was included.

My horse's name was George and Dave's was Sonny. They were best friends. Apparently, they always go on the trail together because they need Sonny to keep George from getting too far behind! I love horses and anytime I get on one the whole world seems to be at peace for me and there isn't a care in the world. The only present that could have been better was a horse of my own. One day...

The Blazin' M Ranch had some cute stores to shop in and lots of great places for some photo ops.

It's not easy to get a good picture of yourself using an iphone!

Thanks Dave for planning such a wonderful trip and thanks Bob and Marta for watching the kids for us!

We're goin' country...

In preparation for our horseback riding trip we went to Shepler's. Justin had more fun than you could ever imagine and it made me so happy to see how much he wanted to be a little cowboy!

The cutest cowgirl ever!

Isabelle kept yelling "Ni hao" from the t.v. show Kailan instead of yee-haw. It was so funny!
Justin got these sweet boots and a hat that says, "Justin Boots" on it. He really wanted a cowboy hat so I guess that will be next.

Future Rock Stars

Dave must have taken these with his iphone since they're not the best quality.

So long ghetto car!!!!

Dave is finally getting a new truck and I am so excited to get rid of this piece of junk! I can't believe Dave has driven it around for so long and that it hasn't broken down yet. It's going on 200,000 miles! I guess they really do build those Japanese cars well.

Ruby 6 months

I just can't get enough of this little face, with her not quite brown but not quite blue eyes. Maybe one day she will pick a color but she is still just so adorable!

Justin's First Soccer Practice

Justin was so excited to start soccer. He pretty much wore his shin guards everywhere when he first got them. He loved the bag that I got for him to carry his ball around in too. He calls it his "BYU ball" because it is blue and white... I've taught him well.

The star athlete

Isabelle has a great time too and it's hard to keep her away from the big kids. She just wants to play soccer with them too!

Annual Tucson Trip

Every year Tucson has a big reptile show that Dave likes to go to. This year we decided to go down the day before and stay the night. We were grateful that Dave's parents decided to join us too. I didn't make it to the show this year, only Dave and his dad went, which I wasn't too sad about but we all went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum again. Last year we went for the first time and we all love it so Dave decided to make it an annual trip. It really is such a neat zoo, even though it's called a museum, especially if you have a fourth grader who is learning about all the animals during Arizona history. It is definitely worth the trip to go down there!

I don't remember what this flower was called but I think it is beautiful! I think I need to plant a bush in my yard!
Dave's parents and Isabelle
Justin's favorite part was getting up close and personal with this Mountain lion. We were literally inches away from him. Luckily there was the nice strong glass to separate us!

They have lots of fun stuff for the kids to do, including this giant tortoise to play on.

St. George/Pine Valley

Over Labor Day weekend we went up to St. George to visit my parents. It was nice to relax and be able to go outside without melting. The highlight of the trip was going to a small town about a half an hour away called Pine Valley. It's famous because it has the oldest operating chapel for the church there. They give tours and it was really neat to hear the history of the place. When it was built in the 1860s there was only one person who really knew how to build and he only knew how to build ships. So the chapel ended up having many features that a ship would have. The ceiling is the coolest part. It looks like the bottom of a boat! Afterwards we went and had a nice picnic by the river up there.

Ruby's First Cereal

My doctor told me to start feeding Ruby solids about a month and a half ago and I am finally getting around to it! I'm always very hesitant to start because it really upset Justin's stomach the first time and I don't want to go through that again! Ruby seems to be doing fine though and I actually think she enjoyed the whole experience. Maybe next time we can focus more on her actually keeping the cereal in her mouth instead of pushing it out with her tongue.

Why am I sitting in this chair Mom? Where's my bottle?

Justin is such a good helper with Ruby. He can't seem to get enough of her!

She's not quite sure what to think .


Unfortunately, she's not smiling because she likes the food. All you have to do to get Ruby to smile is smile at her, so she's just smiling back at me.

Eventually, she grabbed the spoon and just wanted to chomp on it.


And then she'd finally had enough.