This and That

Hey! It's been a while...I suppose I should update the blog, huh? :)

Since my last post, some fun stuff has happened!

* Danny's sister, Kristy, and her husband, Trevor, and their friend, Nathan, came to visit us! They will be up here in Twin Falls this summer so they were here looking for some housing. Trevor and his crew will be selling The Living Scriptures in the Twin Falls area. While I didn't get any pictures (sorry!), Jane had lots of fun seeing them. We are excited that they will be up here this summer.

*Jane turned 9 months old!! I can't believe it's been that long already. We went to the doctor's and Jane is doing great. She's definitely chunked up since we've started her on solids!! Luckily, Jane didn't have to get any shots this time. :)

*Jane got her first tooth! The day after her dr's appointment, she was sitting and playing when all of a sudden, she grabbed my thumb and put it in her mouth. Bam! There it was! It was a shock to me because it wasn't there the day before at her appointment!! :) She just looks so cute with her 1 tooth (Danny thinks I'm crazy for being obsessed with her one tooth, haha). I don't have a picture of it because she'll hardly let us even look at it, let alone take a picture of it.

*My brother, Stuart, came up from Logan to visit!! His main purpose for visiting was to take some pictures of Jane, but we also had fun catching up. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great (rainy & cloudy), but we were able to get some really good pictures. The rain let up enough for us to get some good outdoor shots. I'm really excited to see how they turned out. Jane really LOVED the attention from someone new :) 

Hanging out with Uncle Stu!

* Danny turned...26!! Danny was somewhat sad to be turning 26...he kept lamenting that he is now closer to 30 than he is to 20. Oh, well. It's not really much different from 25, right? ;) For his birthday dinner, we went to Johnny Carino's on Saturday the 29th, which was super yummy. We also watched Jack Reacher, which was a pretty good movie. Sunday the 30th was his actual birthday and we celebrated with some yummy french toast and Raspberry Yum-Yum. It was very good! He got some lovely birthday cards from family and a fun shirt (see below) and some music from me. Here are a couple of pictures from his birthday:

This is the shirt I bought for Danny...I think it's very fitting! :)

He got them all out in one blow - I hope he wished for something good! :P

*General Conference was this past weekend and it was very good. I enjoyed all of the talks and it gave me some insight on what I need to work on. We felt a bit lazy and lounged around most of the weekend, but I got some fun pictures of Jane and Danny...she enjoyed watching conference while cuddling with Daddy!

She loved watching this way...propped up on Daddy's legs!

*Jane has started eating a few more new things: Cheerios, honeydew, cauliflower, and Ritz crackers. So far, she likes them all. The cauliflower isn't her favorite, but she'll eat it. We're lucky that she's pretty easy-going when it comes to trying new food. :)

*Jane has also started saying 'ba-ba'. It's really cute! She's also started blowing raspberries at us...it's very slobbery, but way funny. We are always laughing when she does it because it's so cute!

*Jane isn't crawling yet, but we're making progress. She can move around (albeit slow and usually accompanied by crying) and she's getting faster. We keep giving her lots of tummy time and I think she'll get it soon enough :) Right now, she gets around by moving from her tummy to her side, then uses her foot to push up, then gets back on her tummy...so it's slow, but she's getting somewhere! :)

That's pretty much it...we've gone on a few drives around the valley to familiarize ourselves with the area, which has been fun as well. Here are some other random pictures from since my last post.

Daddy tickling Jane!

Her hair is starting to actually grow out...as you can see, she's got a mini faux-hawk! Not quite as bald, but still not much hair up there.

#selfie

Goin' for a walk!

Crawling on Dad!

"Look how tall I am!"

Eating crackers...she's a little messy!

Went for a walk on CSI campus....it was a chilly day!

This girl can stand up now!

Recent Events & Our Weekend in Utah

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted...and honestly, we haven't been up to a whole lot. :) At least, we don't think we've been up to a whole lot. Nonetheless, here's what we've been up to!

Jane
*Jane is just loving this good weather we are having (aside from this past Monday...more on that later). I try to get us out on a walk every other day or so and Jane seems to love it! I think she enjoys the fact that she can see pretty much everything now that she's sitting in the stroller and is not just seeing me/Danny. Here are some pictures from our recent walks:

This one was from today. Although it was sunny, it was still a little chilly :)

Hanging out at a nearby park!

*She's also been eating LOTS! Luckily for us, Jane likes most everything we've given her. Since last time, we've introduced her to sweet potatoes, which she has liked quite a bit. We've also been giving her Puffs and she's gotten quite good at picking them up and feeding herself. She's getting to be quite a chunky girl!

Making a mess at lunchtime!

*She is not crawling yet, but we are working on it. However, whenever I try to put her on her tummy, she just rolls right over to her back and gets frustrated when I keep putting her on her tummy! :) I'm kind of glad she's not mobile yet, but at the same time, I know she should be working on crawling :)

*This past week, Jane has started doing this little dance when she's sitting down. It's more like rocking back and forth, but it's really cute because she does it when she's happy/excited!

Vanessa/Danny

*Our ward's Young Men and Young Women had their combined activity last week which was the miniature golf course I talked about in my last post. Danny said it went well and everyone seemed to enjoy the 'gouda' golf hole :) He even had cheese for people to sample! Here are some pictures of their course:

The course started on the stage...

...went down through a 'twirly-loo'...

...through the 'swiss cheese' box Danny made...

...and up the ramp, into the whole!

*This last weekend, we went down to visit our families. It had been a while since we had seen them! It was lots of fun. 

On Saturday, Danny, his dad, and our brother-in-law Trevor went to the Sportsman's Expo in Salt Lake City, while I went with Jane, my mother-in-law Mardee, sister-in-law Stephanie, and her two kids (Russ & Ruby) to City Creek Mall in Salt Lake. I had only briefly walked through it once before and Stephanie had never been so we went to check it out. Despite the chilly & breezy weather, it was a fun trip! We ate Kneaders and visited the Disney store & H&M. I only got one picture of the trip and it was only of Jane...I need to get better at taking more pictures! Oh, well...here it is.

She's enthralled by the fountain!

That night, we enjoyed an amazing steak dinner and time together at the Clayton house.

*On Sunday, we visited my family. After church, we hung out, played with Jane, ate some yummy food, and caught up on what was going on with each other. It was a lot of fun! Again, I only got a couple of pictures, and only of Jane. Can you tell I just love her?! :)

It kind of looks like she has elephant ears in this picture. Normally, when we put a burp cloth on her head, she instantly grabs it and takes it off her head. But this time, since she had a toy to play with, I guess, she just left the burp cloth on there! How cute :)

*St. Patrick's Day was fun! We all wore green (we didn't want to get pinched!), but the biggest news of the day was the CRAZY weather! It was SUPER windy that day here in the Magic Valley. I guess Twin Falls normally does a St. Patrick's Day parade, but that was cancelled because of the wind. They also had a couple of semi-trucks tip over on the Perrine Bridge and another bridge that goes across the Snake River.

Here is an article about that day...there's a video showing one of the semi's tipping over. Luckily, no one was injured! The wind was so crazy the night before, too (after we got home), that it woke me up a couple of times. 

Anyways, here's a picture of Jane and I sporting our green (sorry, no pictures of Danny this time! haha)

First Word?

So, this past week, Jane has started saying "ma ma" all the time! We aren't sure if she's said her first word (Mama) or if she's just babbling. Either way, it's super cute. Every time I pulled out my phone to record her saying it, she would stop and just look at the phone, so I covertly recorded her saying it while she was playing...

Cute, right?! :)

Jane turned 8 months old this past week!! Seriously, where has the time gone? She can't be this old! :) She is getting so big and this age is so much fun! She has her next appointment this month.

Just wanted to note a few other little things about Jane that she's been doing lately before I forget...

*Danny noticed about a week ago that Jane will all of a sudden be interested in whatever toy your holding, even if she had no interest in it 30 seconds earlier. We've been testing this out recently and it's quite hilarious. She'll just be sitting there, playing with a toy and I'll be sitting there by her. I pick up another toy on the ground and just start playing with it, and she then drops the toy she had and reaches for the one you have, like, "I'll take this one now, thank you." It's super funny.

*Just today, she started blowing raspberries (kind of). It's like she's trying to make an elephant sound with her mouth. It's really cute!

*The weather up here has been pretty good these past couple weeks. It's only rained a little, but mostly it's been warm and sunny! We have started taking walks and it's been very refreshing. Here's a cute picture of her after our walk today:

Her cute face just melts my heart! ♥♥

*The other day, Jane and I took some 'selfies'. She liked looking at herself on the phone, but didn't really smile. Nonetheless, it was still fun and here's the best shot!

 *She's also gotten pretty good at feeding herself Puffs! She's getting that hand-eye-mouth coordination down like nothin'!

*Lately, when we're playing, we've been putting a burp cloth on her head. She instantly stops what she's doing and slowly reaches up and pulls it off her head. We got a picture of that, too!! She just looks so adorable.

Not much going on with me and Danny lately. Danny's been enjoying working with the teacher's quorum in our ward. Apparently, the YM/YW are doing a miniature golf course for a combined activity. Each class and the bishopric has to do a design a hole for it. The teacher's class is doing a cheese-related hole, since Danny told them he can give away cheese to the participants of the course! We will post some pictures when the event goes down. :)