Violet is 9 months old!

I can't believe how much my little baby is growing up! This past Tuesday she turned 9 months old! She is changing and growing in so many ways. When I took the picture below she was desperately reaching for the camera. Moments later she landed flat on her face. Poor Girl!
Violet can be so super happy at times and other times she is so cranky that we resort to walking outside for an hour. She often likes walks! She is sleeping pretty well during the night. She absolutely loves eating solid foods. She prefers real food over baby food. She has tried corn, bread, oranges, green beans, cheese, fish, chicken, turkey, peaches, bananas, eggs; really I could keep going with this list. She loves to eat!

She is still nursing, even though she decided to go on a nursing strike a couple of weeks ago. She got scared after she bit me and I said "ouch" really loud. Every time I'd go to feed her she would cry and turn away from me. It took some coaxing and patience, but eventually she came back to me. She is very sensitive and can be very stubborn.

Violet is on the move. She does a sort of army crawl thing and can sit up. She has also started pulling herself up and standing. We had to lower her crib and take down her bear mobile. She babbles a lot and started saying "da da". I don't think she knows what it means, but Wes loves when she says it anyways.

She is getting so tall, and she is getting a lot more hair. She has four teeth now, which she likes to use to bite things, including our ankles and toes when she is roaming about on the floor. Wes said the other night that perhaps we should have named her Sunny from The Series of Unfortunate Events.

She really is getting her own little personality. We absolutely adore her!

Wes is Growing Up

Wes turned 31 on September 14. We celebrated by ordering pizza and making rice crispy treats. He will always prefer rice crispy treats over cake! We gave him on gift a little early, The Office Season 6. He was feeling stressed and Wes and I love to laugh and unwind by watching the episodes. He also got the musical Buffy CD and the soundtrack to Dr. Horrible's Blog. The pirate eye in the above picture was intentional, so it gets to go on the blog! Ha ha!!

This past weekend we also bought him the PS3 Move package and a few games. We have all loved playing with it! All of Wes' gifts help him laugh, unwind and be distracted. Which has really been needed recently. Happy Birthday my Love!!!

Dinosaurs and the Birthday Boy

On Saturday, September 11 we went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point for Cedric's birthday party. I realized while preparing this post that I didn't manage to catch my little nephew in my camera lens. SAD! I really should have because he is the cutest little guy and I just love him to pieces. We had a fun time hanging out with him and touring the museum.

Violet's favorite part was the mirror! She just babbled at her reflection.

Lydia and Adelle really enjoyed playing in the water and sand tables.

Violet tried it, but when she started eating the sand the experiment quickly came to an end.

My brother Phil loved it as well and he got right in there with all the kids. I love him :)

The kids then dug in the sand pit to find dinosaur bones. Did I take pictures...NO. Wes did manage to catch Violet hanging out on the rocks thanks to my help. My excuse. Babies grow fast. That's why there's more pictures of her. Really it just happens. I do love all my children the same amount.

From there the kids and Phil made plaster molds and we enjoyed food while Cedric opened his mountain of presents! The museum was shooing us out so we couldn't stay much longer, but it sure was a fun day and Cedric seemed to really enjoy it!

Ribbons at the State Fair

There is a girl at work who always enter items into the State Fair. I decided that we should follow suit ourselves. I figured with all the stressful things going we could use something fun. We entered the Civil War dress that made for me back in 2008. I blogged about it before http://thoughtsofliz.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-civil-war-costume.html. I entered the White Rabbit that I had made for Violet's Room. I blogged about it here http://thoughtsofliz.blogspot.com/2009/11/making-new-friends.html.

When we went to the fair we were quite pleased to see we both won a ribbon. Wes won Second Place in the woman's costumes. It was fun to explain to people admiring the dress that Wes had made it. I think they were quite surprised that it had been made by a man.
I was shocked that my little rabbit won second place in the Stuffed Animals with Clothes Category. He has some flaws so I didn't think I would get anything. I think Wes and the girls were surprised as well.

It was so much fun to see our items displayed that we may make it a new family tradition. The girls want to enter something next year as well. There is everything from art, to sewing, to cooking to photography...the options are almost limitless! Ellen and Erica joined us at the fair and we had a lot of fun hanging out with them.

We enjoyed looking at all of the entries in all the different categories. Did you know they even have scrapbooking?

We were hungry so we got an overpriced dinner. Hey it's the fair right? We couldn't pass up the animals. The girls LOVED seeing the sheep, goats, pigs, bunnies and pigeons. They didn't care much for the cows.

Violet got very excited. She even "baaaaaaad" at a sheep. The pigs made her laugh so hard. I love the age of discovery she is at!

On our way out of the Fair the girls stopped at the KSL booth. They got a chance to read the news and did wonderfully!!

Lydia said she just might want to be a journalist. I love my girls :)

A Blog for my Dad

I've decided to start a blog to talk about my dad and post thoughts I have about him. I've been thinking about doing it for a little while now, but today I finally did it. Come over and check it out.

http://www.bobgandyblog.blogspot.com/.

Crazy for Art at the Magna Arts Festival

On August 27 the girls and I headed to the first Magna Arts Festival. It was a very windy day, but the girls and I decided to walk to the festival. Wes was sick. He had just gotten back from his grandfather's out of state funeral and had finally been struck with the cold that was going around our house. Poor guy.

The festival was small, but fun. We stopped at the Utah Art Museum truck and the girls placed a tag saying what they would do with the giant ball of twine.

The girls also took some time to make their own chalk drawings.

Violet watched on and got a cranky before finally falling asleep in the stroller.

Adelle's chalk art drawing had lots of purple and a blue smiley face.

Lydia drew a bright landscape.

The girls enjoyed this booth by Cheryl Velasquez the Paper Artist! She showed the girls how to make handmade paper.

We bought a couple of journals from her. The pages from one of the journals were coming loose so she brought me a brand new one this week along with some extra paper and cards! Love it! Here is Cheryl's blog http://papelespeciallyforyou.blogspot.com/

The girls loved buying art from Manelle Oliphant. I have followed her blog for awhile. You can see her work here http://manelleoliphant.blogspot.com/

Lydia also purchased some really cute, cherry earrings. We had a fun time even though we were pretty hot and tired when we came home. I am looking forward to next year though and hope we can all make it!

School Days

Both of my girls were excited to start school this year. Adelle is going to a different school than last year and she gets to take the bus! Even though she is on the bus for almost an hour she absolutely loves it!! She is quite the social child so the she enjoys visiting with her friends. Whenever I ask her how school went she says she can't remember. After coaxing her I usually get the most information about lunch and recess. She says her class if fun though. She gets a new "job" every week and her teacher sends her home with fun projects every so often. The first project we had was to find a pattern in our home or yard. She was even sent home with a disposable camera so we could take a picture of it. We bent the assignment a little and decided to go for a walk where we found the yellow and blue pattern of the high school track. I am excited that Adelle is enjoying school this year and that she isn't bored. Lydia is a 6th grader if you can believe it! She is quite grown up and mature. She has the same home room teacher as last year which helped with the beginning of school anxiety. She really likes her teacher and was especially glad she also has her for math and even for science currently. She has decided to take Violin lessons again this year. The only problems we've had so far is with some of the social issues with certain girls. Why can girls of this age be so mean at times? Lydia and I have had a lot of good discussions and I've given her lots of hugs. I remind her of how much we love and appreciate her. I know it probably isn't quite the same. I think she will rise above everything that is happening though.

I am so proud of both of my girls and can't wait to see what this school year will bring.