14 months old

This last month with Hallie has been a little trying. Don't let this cute face fool you. She's has been quite the little monster. (I really hope she doesn't start thinking that's her name.) It's that cute face that keeps her from being shipped off to live some place else.

Some examples of her monsterish ways....
(Sorry for the poor video quality and for those videos that are sideways..they were all taken on my phone.)

Ok...this one is only semi monsterish. Mostly cute. Helping herself to some cereal out of the pantry. One of the reasons we have to make sure all doors in the house are closed.

I'm going to blame all of the crankiness on her top two molars coming in, which makes 10 teeth...half way done with the teething! I hope the other 2 molars can come quickly so we can take a break with the whole teething thing for a bit before her eye teeth come in. I did take her into the doctor a few days before her 14 month birthday to see if there was more going on than just her teeth since she had been so cranky. He said everything else checked out ok. I wish it was more than just the teeth so we could treat it, but I guess not. At the doctor appointment she weighed 25.8lbs! I really thought once she started walking she would stall out in the weight gain department for awhile. I guess not. She only has about 2 more pounds and then she catches Grant. LOL!

Now I really haven't been trying to pull my hair out the whole last month. There have been some really good times with her too. Don't let all my previous complaining fool you. She is still super cute, super funny, and super smart. That girl is learning new things every day! She will just out of the blue start doing things. Like this for example...

Or this....

She loves to give kisses too. But it has to be on her terms. She doesn't do it much on command. She's a little stubborn that way. Grant is one of her favorite kissing targets. Can you blame her though? He's lots of fun to smooch on.She's a silly little girl and does things that make us laugh all the time. Whether it's a sound or an action if we laugh then she does it over and over again. She'll even laugh at herself once the trick is over and it's time to laugh. Silly girl.

She likes to honk noses. If you are holding her, there's a good chance she will honk your nose. If you say honk when she does it, it even gives her more excitement.She has also been cracking us up with her dancing. She loves to dance! Any time music is playing or someone is singing, she starts to dance. It is so funny. This video shows a few of her moves. She's strapped in her car seat, but just imagine how groovy she can get when she's not strapped in!

We find her reading books alot. She loves to look at books! Especially books with animals in them. She thinks most animals are Dodo's (dogs). She has the sound for dogs and horses down, well in her own little way :) We continue to work with the others as well.

(And if you're wondering what that large plastic thing is that she is holding with the books, it is my straight edge ruler for my rotary cutter. I've been doing a bunch of sewing crafts lately. She thinks it's fun to play with it.)

Her vocabulary hasn't grown a ton this last month, but she says nini for night night when she's tired or we're getting her ready for bed. She'll also find her favorite blanket and wrap up in it or lay on it and say nini. It's pretty cute. She says hi when people come over or when Jeremy gets home from work. She has gotten better at the other words/sounds that she's been able to say for a while now.
She's been a little picky eater this last month. I don't know if it's because of her teeth bothering her, or if her tastes are changing, but she's not loving some of the same things she used to, mostly her vegetables...go figure! Her all time favorite is still Vienna Sausages though!

We got her some cute sunglasses in the dollar section at Target. Love their dollar section! She looks pretty stinking cute it them. When she tries to put them on, she puts them around her neck. It's pretty funny.

Her hair is long enough for pig tails now! It's still not very thick, but it works and is super cute. She reminds me of Boo on Monsters Inc. when we do the piggies.One of my favorite times of day with her is when she is sleeping! Ahhh...I need a break from her craziness a few times a day! She keeps us on our toes. So nap time and bed time are when we try to get things done around the house. If I try to do things while she's awake, she is just too much of a little helper. In this picture, she had fallen asleep in my arms at church (which she never does). It had gotten really hot holding her, so I laid her on my lap. As I did so she took her cute, chubby little arms and folded them under her head. It was really cute! So glad I just happened to have my camera in the diaper bay that day.

Happy 14 month old birthday baby girl. Even though you make your mama crazy sometimes, I still love you to pieces!

4th of July

This year the 4th of July was on a Sunday. Since we live in Utah and the state basically closes down on Sunday, the 4th was celebrated on Friday, Saturday, and Monday. It made for a really long holiday weekend with a lot of activities.

On Friday we went to the Owlz game with Holly, Ryan, Dillon, Connor, and Mikkele brought her friend Shelby. We have gone to this game with Holly and Ryan quite a few times around the 4th. It's kind of our tradition. We like to go to the game right around the 4th or the 24th because they have fireworks after the game. The Owlz won, which was good. The kids had fun and the adults enjoyed the nice summer evening.

Jeremy and Hallie relaxing watching the game.

The kids (including Aunt Holly) liked to chase down the mascots and take pictures. They have 2 mascots...Hoot and Holly. Our Holly thought it was fun that they shared the same name. They look similar too, don'tcha think? j/k

Connor, Dillon, and Holly

Hallie, Shelby, and Holly

I don't know how we missed a picture with Mikkele and Holly. I think she was the camera man.

Holly got a hold of my phone and snapped some pics. In true Roberts form, I had to make a face when she took my pic.

Connor saying hi to Grant. It got a little chilly once the sun went down. So Grant was all wrapped up in a blanket.

And of course the fireworks after the game. They had a pretty good firework show. The kids enjoyed it. Grant loves the loud sounds they make. I thought Hallie would be scared of them because she doesn't like loud sounds. But surprisingly enough, she was fascinated by them.

Saturday we just hung out here at our house and did our own little BBQ. Jeremy had done a double fatal accident that morning and doesn't do well after those. So we just took it easy the rest of the day. I decided to throw together a little skirt for Hallie for church the next day. It turned out really cute if I do say so myself. :)Sunday we went to church. All of us were sporting a patriotic outfit to show our gratitude to our country. On the way home from church I found a neighbor's yard that had a flag right in the middle of a nicely groomed flowerbed, and just happened to have my camera in the diaper bag. So we snapped a few pics. As I took a couple of them, the wind picked up and so you can see the flag really well. It was awesome.

Not to brag...but I have some dang cute kids!!!

I had Hal model her outfit a little more when we got home. She's not a very cooperative picture taker. She kept walking towards me cause she wanted the camera. But I think you get the picture of how cute she looks in the high quality skirt I made her. ;)

Sunday evening we went over to Jeremy's parents house for dinner. We had a yummy Mexican dinner. I guess Mexican food isn't the most patriotic food, but it was still really good even if it was from the wrong country. LOL. Later in the evening we lit a few fireworks. Hallie wanted to hold a sparkler, but not by the right end. She kept wanting to touch the part that was burning. She's still too young to understand that it will burn her. It was fun watching her explore different activities. She jumped every time there was a loud boom, but always wanted more.

We hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday weekend. We are thankful for those that have fought for our freedom. Especially my Grandpa Jones and my brother Aaron. We are grateful to live in a country where we have so many freedoms.

Keep Reading!

I have posted 4 new posts in the last couple days. Make sure you keep scrolling down so you can see all of them. :) Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

13 Months Old

Hallie is now 13 months old. The months continue to fly by. She has really started to turn into more of a toddler/older baby this last month.

*She started walking a week ago. It's like a switch just went off in her head and said I'm gonna walk now. It wasn't just a couple steps it was half way across the room. She still crawls part of the time, but each day she walks more and more. Now her scuffed up legs and feet will start healing since she won't be dragging them around as much like she did with crawling.

*She loves water! We went to Seven Peaks last week and she had a blast. She only had a handful of near drowning experiences. :/ She definitely thinks that she is bigger than she is. She thought she could go in the deeper parts of the water and keep up with the bigger kids. Not the case. She looked really cute in her little ballerina swim suit that Grandma Roberts gave to her for her birthday. Love the chubby ballerina idea.

Playing in the stream in our back yard. This is one that we're really gonna have to watch.

*She is a silly baby. She is always making us laugh with the things she does. She started doing this and Mikkele thought she needed to join her. Funny girls.

*She went on her first 4 wheeler ride with Jeremy and the other kids. She was a little unsure. She's not a fan of loud noises. During Art City Days we got to ride in a hot air balloon, she did not love that. The noise of the burner was way too much for her. We got a picture of that, but forgot to pick it back up from the hot air balloon people. :(

*She is talking more and more. She says mama, dad, no, dodo (dog), Dell (Kell), K sound for kitty, makes a sound for dog and horse, and a small thank you. She jibber jabbers all day long and it's always at the top of her lungs. She is a loud little baby.

*She is perfecting her signs.

*She is still into everything!
*Her hair is getting longer on the top and in the back. Now if only the sides would grow. She has 2 different hair-do options. A pebbles type do on the top of her head, or a clip pulling her hair to the sides. I can't wait until we can do more with it. (Not that she'll hold still to do anything too involved.)

*She goes to sleep between 7:30-8:00pm and gets up when Grant wakes up around 7am. Most of the time I can give her a bottle and she will go back to sleep for another couple hours. She takes a nap about 2 hours after she gets up for the day. And she takes another nap in the afternoon around 2:00pm.

*She is a good eater. She will eat just about anything we put on her tray. How else do you think she gets her budda belly? Some of her favorites are green beans, strawberries, bananas, vienna sausages, PB&J sandwiches, carrots, and yogurt.

She is such a fun ball of energy! We love having this little girl in our home!

dōTERRA

About 6 weeks ago I was introduced to a company called dōTERRA. At that time, I was very skeptical of most natural healing type medicine. Hallie had recently finished a 10 day course of antibiotics for an ear infection and her ear started oozing again. I was really frustrated with all the trips we've made to the doctor and the multiple rounds of antibiotics that she has been on for her ear infections over the last 6 months. I mentioned my frustrations to a friend and she recommended I try some of her essential oils. Even though I was a little leery, I decided it wouldn't hurt to try. The worst case scenario would be that it wouldn't work and we would be heading to the doctor for another round of antibiotics. To my surprise, after ONE treatment, the oozing had stopped completely. We never had to go back to the doctor, her mood improved because the pain was gone, and the gross oozing/smell was gone!!! After that I was hooked! I knew I wanted to learn more and experiment more. So I decided to sign on as an Independent Personal Consultant (IPC). Since that time I have learned SO much and still have so much to learn. I have also used the oils to benefit our family in so many ways. Some ailments we have treated are ear infections, sun burns, bug bites, mosquito repellent, constipation, burns, mood enhancement, immunization support, upset stomach, calming fussiness, knee pain, stiff neck, headaches, congestion, difficulty breathing, coughing, cuts, eczema, and diaper rash just to name a few. While we wouldn't go to the doctor for all of these, sometimes the over the counter medications we have just don't work as good as we would like. The oils worked for all of those ailments and even more! I am excited to be able to help take care of my family quickly without spending as much time in the doctor's office. Another thing I love about this company is the support from the leaders of the company. I have never felt alone while building this business.

During the month of May, our team had a contest. Those that produced the most would get to go to a retreat training meeting at a cabin in Park City. And I was able to go. I was 2 days packed with intense but uplifting training by some of the best leaders in the company. I am very lucky to have had the chance to be able to attend. We stayed at this fabulous cabin outside of Park City. It was an amazing environment and helped all of us grow closer together as a team. Thanks to Jeremy and Natalie for watching the kids so I was able to attend.

The cabin we stayed in.

A different angle of the cabin.The view from right above the cabin.

The view from our cabin.

If you have any questions about any of the products or the business, please let me know!

Cheer Clinic 2010

Mikkele participated in the Springville High School Mini Cheer Clinic again this year. This year Rietta was in her group. They are the two cute girls in the blue shorts amongst all the other girls. They had a great time learning the cheers and dance.
During the performances Hallie was really cute! She was dancing and cheering too. I wish I could have gotten some video or pictures of her, but it's kinda hard since she was sitting on my lap.

The kids also get to participate in the Art City Days parade. My mom showed up for a surprise visit right before we were going to walk over to watch the parade, so Mikkele hadn't seen her yet since she had to go over to the parade staging area early. Here's a video of her surprise as she was walking in the parade and saw her grandma on the sidelines.

Hallie's Birthday Party

Hallie's birthday party was a lot of fun. We decided to do a cat themed birthday party because she is obsessed with our cat, Sparkey. As i was doing a google search for cat cakes, I stumbled upon a recipe for a kitty litter cake. I thought it was hilarious and knew that I had to add it to our menu. Since it looks a little unappetizing (well maybe a lot), I decided I should probably have a regular cake as well, and of course Hallie needed her own cake to dig into as well, so yes, I made 3 cakes! All of the cakes were made from scratch and without eggs in them so Hallie could eat them. This was my second attempt with the egg replacer. I think the cakes turned out really yummy. The only thing I could see a difference in was the fluffiness of the cake. These cakes were a little more flat.

Kitty Litter Cake

Cat Cake w/ toasted coconut for the fur.

Hallie's personal cat cake

Singing Happy Birthday

Aunt Lisha a.k.a The Pooper Scooper

Hallie was pretty timid with her cake. It really took some convincing to get her to dig in and eat it. And even then she wasn't as aggressive as Mikkele was with her 1st birthday cake. She really doesn't like to be super dirty.

Present Time
She got a lot of fun summer time clothes and a few really cute toys.

Aunt Lisha gave Hallie a tutu and demonstrated how not to wear the tutu. Thanks for the demonstration Lish!

Hallie knows how it goes.

Mommy and the birthday girl

Having some fun in the grass and watching the other kids play.

Check out that Budda Belly...so funny

Yay for Hallie the big birthday girl!

Happy Birthday Hallie May! We love you!