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. :)