Our Christmas Season so far

(By Aubree)

We've had fun preparing for Christmas. A couple of weeks ago, we decorated for Christmas. This is only the 3rd out of the 8 Christmases we've spent together that we've had a tree, and it was especially fun to have Clara around for it. She was a "big" help!

Before

After

Our Lladro nativity set, guarded by the reindeer.

Our Fisher Price nativity set that Clara loves to play with, and that's good because it keeps her away from all of the other more breakable decorations.

Our little Christmas Village. We weren't able to put up our complete collection, but it's a really fun thing to decorate with.

Our lit Christmas tree.

Last Saturday we had our ward Christmas party. It was a breakfast and any kids under 12 were invited to wear their pj's. Jeff's sister Wendy and her husband Chase were able to go with us because they had spend the previous night at our house before they left for their cruise. (Jealous)

Santa came late, but we were able to steal a quick photo with him and Mrs. Claus before we left. Clara was too interested in his fuzzy sleeves to look at the camera.

She really enjoyed playing with the other kids and babies.

We hope you all have a safe and very merry Christmas!

Check This Out

(By Aubree)

My friend, Kasey Sanders that did our family pictures just made a photography blog. Check it out!

http://kaseysandersphotography.blogspot.com

Family Photos

(By Aubree)

My dear friend Kasey Sanders was nice enough to take our photos not too long ago. I love how they turned out. Thanks Kasey!

If anyone would like to contact Kasey to take your photos, contact me and I will put you in touch with her.

I have to brag a little, I made all of the knitted stuff you see here. Both of our hats and my scarf!

You can see where Clara got her gorgeous blue eyes from...her dad! They're an exact match!

Nine Month Update

(By Aubree)

Okay, this post is about three weeks past due, but better late than never right? I just can't believe that she's nine months old, that's practically a year! I don't think I've gone a day without thanking Heavenly Father for my beautiful little blessing. She is so much fun and makes us laugh all the time. We love her more than words can describe.
Clara had her nine month check up on the 6th and here are her stats:

28.7 inches long (95%+)
18.4 pounds (50%) That's the first time she's been under 90% on height or weight!

Here's what Clara's been up to:

-She took her first "step" tonight, kind of. I didn't see it, but Jeff said it was more of a pivot of the foot. But even so, that's hard to balance on one foot even for a second, for a baby!
-She gives the best kisses if she's in the right mood!
-She gives high five.
-She says mama and dada, and I think she really is starting to understand what they really mean.
-She loves, loves, loves to climb. We have a wall made of boxes and storage containers so she wont fall down the stairs. She doesn't even care about the stairs anymore, she just loves to climb on the boxes, and then onto the ottoman, onto the chair and then onto the couch. That's her favorite thing to do this week.
-She loves music. When she hears music she will stop what she's doing and smile at me, and I'll say "dance" and she bounces up and down, and sometimes will try to sing.
-Something I've never mentioned about her but I've always loved is that she has the most genuine smile. She has a sparkle in her eye when she smiles.
-She's started to do this fake laugh when I laugh at her or she thinks I laugh at her. I think the reason she does it is because she wants me to laugh again, which I do just to make her happy.
-She's never been that into toys, but one of her favorite games is when all of her toys are in the box, she will pull all of them out one by one.
-Another game she thinks is fun is dropping everything onto the floor. Her sippy cup while in high chair, a paper that's on a chair, etc.
-She will eat just about anything, she's not very picky which is fabulous. It makes me feel like she's getting a lot more nutrition than if she just ate the same thing every day.
-She has the two teeth on the bottom, and just got one on the top about 2 weeks ago.

Fall Pictures

(by Jeff)

A few days ago, Aubree and Clara had a photo session in the fall leaves. I thought the pictures were too cute not to share.

Yellowstone Trip

(by Aubree)

We have been trying to figure out where to go on vacation this year. Our choices are limited with Clara because she's still too young to leave with anyone, and she's not old enough to really enjoy what's going on. So we figured we would try to stay fairly close to home, and that's why we decided to go to Wyoming.

We left last Wednesday night and stayed at Jeff's parents' house so we could get an hour out of the way. Thursday we left for Alpine Junction where we met up with Jeff's brother Ben and his family who were camping out just outside of Alpine Junction.

We enjoyed some beautiful views

We thought this was really pretty with the fall colored trees and the snow frosted Pine Trees.

As you can imagine, it was extremely cold. And yes, that's Clara. We had three different people call her a boy because of her blueish/purple jacket. It has hearts on it for heavens sakes! :) Plus I didn't put any bows in her hair the whole time either.

Ben took us on a ride in his ranger. On the ride my eye started to tear up and all of the sudden it went blurry. I later realized that my tears had frozen onto my contact!

We didn't last very long, so we went in their camper and played games while the kids (Wes, Clara, and Kelsey) watched a movie. Wes and Clara didn't last very long at all.

That night we stayed in Alpine Junction. We stayed in a little cabin that a hotel there rents out. It ended up working out really well. We really enjoyed our stay there.

On Friday we headed out for Yellowstone. It ended up being a LOT longer drive than we realized, and Clara let us hear all about it both ways.

Old Faithful

While we were waiting for the geyser to go off, we saw the most unusual animal that I bet none of you have ever seen!
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A pink bear!

On the way back, we stopped at West Thumb Geyser Basin to see the thermal pools.

While we were there, we saw a group of elk. There were probably about 20 in the group.

On our way out of the parking lot, there were a bunch of people that were stopped taking pictures, and we figured it was just a bunch of females that we had seen earlier. But when we pulled past the cars, we saw this bull elk that was right next to our car! So we pulled forward and took a picture. It must have been an old elk because it walked like it had arthritis and look at his antlers! They're huge!

A pretty waterfall on the way back.

We're kind of lucky that it took so long to get there, because on our way back the sun was settling and it was the perfect time to take pictures of the Grand Tetons and other beautiful mountains.

This one was actually taken on our way up.

It was a beautiful sunset that night.

Saturday was our last day and we spent it in Jackson Hole. We met up with Ben and his family again. We first went to Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. Then we went to lunch at Jeff's favorite BBQ place, Bubba's. And we finished off looking around at the many shops.

We had to take a picture in front of one of the famous antler archways.

We ended our trip by spending the night with my parents in Grace, and then had lunch at Jeff's parents house. It was a great trip!