A Day With Grandpa

My dad came down today from Salt Lake and we spent the day together. We met at my sister Tawna's house and went out to lunch. After lunch, we went to the Museum of Art at BYU and enjoyed looking at all the beautiful art. There was a modern art exhibit...and well, I'll be honest, I just don't get it! I mean a bunch of boxes sitting on the ground? But hey, who am I to say what is and isn't art.

After that we wandered around campus and the bookstore. It was such a beautiful day to be outside. Tawna works on campus so we stopped off to say hi again. Chloe found Tawna's mug of pens and had fun playing with them. However, some of the pen caps came off and Chloe ended up with pink and yellow highlighter all over her outfit. Oh well, at least she had fun.

We ended the day stopping off to see my sister Amber at work and then headed home. Overall it was a fun day spend with my dad!

Cascade Springs

This past Sunday we took a drive through the Alpine Loop to look at the Fall leaves. After the drive, we met up with Devon's family for a picnic dinner at Cascade Springs. Yes we know that it is Fall and cold outside but hey, that's what jackets are for!

The drive was absoutly gorgeous! I love Fall in Utah. The mountains are so beautiful and the trees are so colorful. Once we got to Cascade Springs, we walked around and waited for the rest of the family to show up...becuase if you know anything about her family, you know they are always late! By the time everyone got there it was about 6:30, the sun was setting and it was getting really cold.

For some reason Aaron and I were the only ones who realized that it would be cold in the mountains and thus we were the only ones who brought sweaters. So, during dinner everyone was huddling around trying to stay warm and enjoy their food. Luckily my mom had brought a blanket that we could wrap up in, but unfortunatley it fell on the ground and was covered with leaves. This didn't bother Tawna though, and she wrapped up in it leaves and all!

Amber (Devon's sister), Lisa (her cousin) and Kelly (a friend of Amber's) were so cold that they ended up wrapping themselves in the table cloth. Lisa was especially cold because while she was carrying down the jug of lemonade, the lid came off and it spilled all down her legs. But, overall we had a great time and enjoyed spending time with family!

The beautiful Fall colors

Aaron , Devon and Chloe

Peter and Janelle Ehat

Grandpa, Grandma and Chloe

Big Girl

So, Chloe is finally becoming a big girl...well, at least she thinks she is! Here are a few reasons why:

She absolutely hates laying down while she is awake and all she wants to do is stand up. She knows how to get us to help her up by looking for our hands, reaching out for them and then pulling herself up. It kills us how smart she is. If she can't see one hand you can see her trying to look all around and behind us trying to find it.

She recently outgrew her baby bathtub and now gets all of her baths in the kitchen sink. When we rinse her off, she loves to play with the stream of water coming out of the faucet and she always tries so hard to grab the water. Aaron and I can't help but laugh!

She also loves to eat! If it is something she wants to eat, her mouth opens as wide as it will go. After one bite, before we can even get more food on the spoon, her mouth is wide open again. It reminds us of a baby bird. However, now that she has her first tooth (believe me, I know...ouch!) all she wants to do is eat "real" food. She loves to eat Cheerios, bread and whatever else we give her.

It is so fun to see how she is learning and growing and we can't wait to see what she'll do next...our guess is that crawling will be her next big milestone.

Chloe's First BYU Game

On Saturday, we took Chloe to her very first BYU football game. When we left the house there wasn't even a hint of blue skies and in fact, one couldn't even see the mountains for the thick, gray clouds...so we obviously took cold weather clothes for Chloe. Well, about five minutes into the game the clouds gave way to clear skies and 80 degree temperatures. It was beautiful, but with no sunscreen and no hat for Chloe, improvising shade to protect her from getting sunburned was needless to say an interesting adventure throughout the afternoon.

The Cougars offense didn't play their best football in the first quarter, and this made Chloe quite grumpy. However, things started clicking for the Cougs in the second quarter and throughout the second half and this put Chloe in a much better mood...it was either that or the bottle and nap she got.

Overall, she did great despite a rough and fussy start and it ended up being a very fun family outing. We hesitated to buy season tickets this year, but I think Chloe did good enough at the game that next season we'll consider it. By the way, for those of you living under a rock, the Cougars completed their second straight shutout by smearing Wyoming 44-0 in front of a sell-out crowd.

Cute Baby Contest

Our local Wal-Mart had a cute baby contest today and guess who won the cutest baby title in the 0-1 year old age group? None other than our beautiful little Chloe. There were about 20 other babies, but of course Chloe was the cutest. We won a $25 gift card to Wal-Mart which we will obviously spend on Chloe. I know it was just Wal-Mart, but it was still big news in our house.

6 Month Photo

We took Chloe in to get her six month pictures taken and here is how they turned out! She wasn't very smiley, but we got a couple of great pictures anyways.

Labor Day Weekend in Moab

So, we went down to Moab over Labor Day weekend with Bob and Barbara Ann and had a great time.

This first picture is of Chloe eating a baby biscuit we gave her to keep her entertained one night during dinner...though I think that we were the ones who ended up being entertained.

These next pictures were taken at the top of Hurrah Pass. We decided that on Sunday we would take Chloe on her first off-road Jeep ride on a nice little trail that took us up to a point that overlooked the Colorado River.

Here is a slideshow of of the guys hitting the trails in the Jeeps.

First Week of School

Well, I have finished my first week back at school and so far it is going pretty well. I have five of the same students that I had last year, so that makes life a lot easier. Aaron is excited because I get to come home with some good stories again.

It is sooo nice to be part time this year. It is especially wonderful since Chloe is having a hard time with me being gone. She is getting better every day, but you can tell that she misses her mommy. She starts out everyday and Grandma and Grandpa's in a terrible mood, but I think by the afternoon she realizes that life's not so bad and she cheers up.

By the way, lately she has started to make a "ma ma" sound...it just melts my heart. Now I'm working on getting a "da da" sound out of her!

25!

Today was my 25th birthday (yep, I am finally a quarter of a century old). The day started off with Aaron surprising me with a delicious cake from the Provo Bakery and Chloe surprised me by sleeping in until 8:00 a.m.! We thought it would be fun to have cake for breakfast, boy were we wrong. We both felt sick afterwards, but it was good while we were eating it.

Then we went and had Chloe's six month pictures taken and got some really cute ones. I was surprised that we got so many cute ones because she was not in a smiley mood. We get them in a couple of weeks so keep your eyes out for them.

After the photo shoot, we drove up to spend the rest of the day in Salt Lake City. We walked around temple square, the church history museum and up to the state capitol. No matter how fancy of a restaurant Aaron offers to take me to, I just love the Olive Garden, so of course we went there for dinner and Chloe gave me another birthday present by sleeping almost through he entire meal...it was so pleasant! Speaking of pleasant, the weather was in the mid. 80's, which is insane for August but we weren't complaining.

The day ended with a little shopping and opening up Aaron's present to me (a Cricut electronic paper cutter...I have wanted one for a long time so I was really excited to get it. Don't I have such a great husband!). Overall it was a wonderful birthday.

Chloe's Tongue

For the past few weeks, Chloe has been working on discovering her tongue. She will stick it out and then pull it back in over and over again. It is pretty dang cute because her tongue is so teeny.

If I stick my tongue out at her she will either stick her tongue out at me and smile or try to grab it.

We were able to get a pretty good shot of her with her tongue out. Enjoy!