Pictures of the Week

I know, all our pictures of Amy are of her sleeping. But she is such a beautiful sleeper and once she gets up my hands are so full with two kids that I don't usually think to bring out the camera.

This is Amy's preferred sleeping position - arms raised above her head

Daddy has been working many, many hours with grain harvest and it has been taking its toll on all of us. Lately Amy has refused to be put down anywhere. Even if I am sitting right next to her on the floor she isn't happy. So when she was crying yet again about being left out during breakfast I decided to try putting her in the highchair which was still out because I had watched my friend's kids the other night.

What a great idea! She LOVES being able to sit up with us during meals and I have both hands free to eat and help Sam with his food. As you can see in this picture, we take extra precautions and stuff towels on either side of her to help her stay sitting up, but at least she can do it and she is happy.

Sam wanted his picture taken, too with his "Sammy cup" Grandma got for him when we went to Bear World during one of her visits. (He STILL asks to go on the train every time we pass Bear World)

Sleeping on our bed. Amy loves to sleep on our bed and though she sleeps better and longer when here, I am trying my best to resist the urge so that she will learn to sleep in her crib.

Don't ask me how this is comfortable, but he's asleep so it can't be too awkward :)

Amy fell asleep while having some floor time today. She was actually kind of happy (which is a huge relief) because she was able to turn from flat on her back to her side. Not too long before she will be able to turn completely over! My little baby is getting so big!

Amy's First Video

I don't know why it took me so long to take a video of Amy, but here she is laughing the best I have heard yet. This is quite an accomplishment for me to get laughs out of her - usually she only laughs for Daddy or big brother.

Our Week of Travel

Pictures are in reverse order again and since I only got pictures during Sea World, enjoy snippets of the story in between pictures. We flew from Idaho Falls to Mesa Monday night. This was SOOO nice to not spend 14 hours driving. I think I might kiss whoever came up with the idea! ;) Then we stopped off for dinner with my friend Renee and her husband Nick, who we haven't seen in a long time and it was so good to catch up.

Then we got up relatively early Tuesday morning and headed out for San Diego. The drive over went pretty well with the kids, considering we had been traveling the day before. We did family pictures with the Skousens at a beautiful college campus that I now cannot remember the name of, but it was beautiful. Then we enjoyed swimming at the hotel.

The next morning (Wednesday) we set out to spend our day at Sea World. It was fun to get to see several of the shows including the whales, sea lions and dolphins. Sam had a wonderful time seeing all the animals. Amy, however, had a really difficult day. Which made for a rough day for Mommy as well. Looking back, we realize that maybe the double stroller wasn't as helpful as first thought and that maybe a baby backpack/carrier would have been more beneficial .... but oh well. It will make for a great story years down the road.

Thursday was the wedding at the San Diego Temple. It was gorgeous!! I am extremely grateful to Shanna and Kurtis for watching ALL the kids so all the adults could go in for the sealing and be there to support Jake and Stacey. After the sealing everyone waited two hours for the bride and groom to come out. By the time it was our family's turn for pictures, the kids had had it. I am really looking forward to seeing the picture of all the kids from Jake's side with the bride and groom: Sam is standing out in front wailing, Stacey is holding Amy who is screaming, and Caiden is running out of the picture towards his Daddy. After the luncheon we all headed back to Hyder.

Friday was spent not really doing a whole lot. Just enjoying each other's company, snoozing and gearing up for the reception the next day. I was finally able to go bunny bashing with the guys, which was so much fun and I am glad I didn't miss out.

Saturday was a day of disasters but ended up ok. First the strawberries for the filling hadn't completely defrosted. Then the filling wouldn't thicken up properly. We had made the icing ahead of time and had thought we had done the math right and that a one and a half gallon tub would be enough for the 31 dozen cupcakes. It wasn't. So we had to run to the store and buy more ingredients to make double what we originally had made. We were also running into problems with the icing getting too hot and not keeping the shape. It finally did all come together and even if the cupcakes weren't perfect, they looked great. But needing to get the food for Sunday's dinner we were to plan, we left the reception during what we thought would be a good time. Turns out we missed the cutting of the cake, the dancing and the throwing of the garter and flowers. Oh well. After all the cleanup we still had a 2 hour drive home. Thankfully the kids fell asleep and didn't scream the whole way home.

Sunday we went to church where we doubled the number of attendees. Then spent the afternoon prepping food for an army. We did a mini Thanksgiving meal of turkey breast, rolls, corn, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, watermelon and apple crisp with vanilla ice cream for dessert. It was a great last meal together. Then Monday afternoon we drove back to take our two hour flight back home to Idaho. Sam loved the plane both ways, although he started having a meltdown during the last half an hour of our flight and fell asleep ten minutes before landing. Ugh! Amy did pretty well on both flights, but after each she spent some time spitting up and being fussy, so I think it took its toll on her.

But now we are home and Robert is starting grain harvest, which means late nights for a while so me and the kids are just kind of taking it easy not really doing much. We really enjoyed our time in Arizona and will not be taking 80 degree heat for granted anymore! :) Thanks to everyone who made our trip possible!

The whale show was freaking awesome!!

The only picture I got of Jake and Stacey the whole week.

Waiting for the whale show

Going down the big hill. In front is Shanna and Emma. Then Lisa and Kurtis. The Adam and Kayla. In back are Jake and Robert.

Most of the adults going on the Atlantis ride.

We're Back

Yes, we have returned from the land of heat beyond belief but are still recuperating (ok, so mostly it's just Mommy). Posts will be coming soon about our week of play with the Skousen clan!

Death by Chocolate

So today I entered the county fair's Death by Chocolate contest. I chose to make my Almost Too Much Chocolate cake with a few new twists and see how it went. When I dropped the cake off I wasn't too optimistic about a real contest because there was only one other entry in the entire adult division (there were three categories and then the adult and jr divisions). But when I came back for the awards part there were quite a few entries and I began to doubt because the others looked pretty darn good. To my delight (and as no surprise to Robert) I won first prize in the adult division and overall winner!! That earned me a total of $60 (it didn't cost anything to enter). Now I just need to decide how I am going to spend the money - probably on more cake decorating stuff :)

And an updated picture of my super happy little girl. She is three months old today!! She smiles more than ever now and laughs occasionally. Last night she slept for 10 hours - it was amazing! She fell asleep around 9 and I woke her up to feed her at 10 so I could go to bed, but she went right back to sleep until 8 this morning. I just hope this sleeping through the night is going to become habit because I love getting to sleep again! This week has been nice and busy with family dinner on Sunday, girl time for pedicures, dinner and frozen yogurt on Monday, swimming lessons everyday (which are now done thank goodness), helping the Potters pack up and get ready to move, the cake contest, and getting ready to fly to Arizona on Monday for Jake and Stacey's wedding in San Diego. Whew! So we will be MIA for a while, but loads of pictures of the special day, the 300 cupcakes I'm making, and Sea World will be coming soon thereafter!

Doing Just Fine

Well, here we are again catching everyone up on the goings-on of the Skousen clan. At times it feels difficult, but I know that is part of life and we just keep rolling with the punches. This week has been fun with Sam doing swimming lessons each morning and then hitting the free lunch in the park on the way home and all of us crashing for a nap when we get home. These two pictures from one morning when both kids had joined me in bed show how silly and cute Sam can be and how serious Amy usually is.

We were able to get the Potter clan together on Tueday night to go see Cars 2 at the drive-in - loved it! And last night Robert and I enjoyed a dinner with two other couples in our ward while Sam stayed home with a babysitter. Our ward is trying to help people get to know each other by putting four couples in a group and each couple gets a chance to host dinner at their home and after four months they change up the groups. It went alright for the first time around. I am excited to get to know other people in our ward and have a monthly date to spend time with my hubby and other adults.

My friend and I have started a running program called Couch Potato to 5K and it has been going pretty well. I have NEVER been a runner but decided to give it a try anyway. I don't particularly like running still, but it feels great to get outside and exercise with a friend and amazingly I hae been able to keep up with the program, but we will have to see if it lasts. The picture above is how I found Amy one day after I let her sit on the couch for a minute - she fell asleep sitting up. I love the cute little finger creeping over the edge of the blanket :) Robert's boss at work left, so he is facing a promotion which is a good and a bad thing. Good in that we are looking at a significant raise, but bad because he anticipates it to be quite difficult through the end of the year and it is already proving to be true! But once he is able to get good people in the important positions he feels that things will be better than ever and he is excited to help facilitate these changes in the company.

Amy's Blessing

Here I am finally getting around to putting up pictures from Amy's blessing. It was a great day. We had family from both sides in attendance.

We forgot about pictures until after church and everyone was hot and tired (we didn't have our window AC unit in yet) but oh well.

So serious! The headband was made for Amy by Aunt Lisa and the dress (which barely fit thank goodness!) was made by Robert's mom from the fabric left over from her wedding dress (which she also made). All three daughters and all granddaughters except Kaylie have been blessed in this dress.

Sammy and Daddy

Amy during church.

Pioneer Celebration

Tonight my friend and I braved the crowds and took the five kids to our stake Pioneer Celebration where we enjoyed a picnic dinner, two wagon rides, horse rides and petting/milking a cow. The kids had a blast and it was fun to get out and do something different.

Sam and Josh on their mini horses. Didn't get a picture of the cow because my camera died, but this was the highlight for the kiddos.

Amy's Stories

Amy's first story happened last week. I had decided to take Sam to the free lunch at the park in Rigby to see how it was compared to Rexburg's. As I was slowing down and moving over to make a right turn, a guy was trimming his lawn. A few rocks hit the car and just as I was about to turn, BAM!! The window next to Amy shattered into a million pieces. I slammed the car into park before we were really even stopped (poor car) and ran around to her side and just started yelling and shaking and anything else you can imagine a panicked mother would do if her 2 month old baby was covered in glass. Thankfully the guy was really nice about the whole thing. He calmly pulled Amy out and gave her to me to check over and hold while he cleaned up all the glass from the car and carseat. His renter's insurance covered the damage and his agent was able to find us a glass place that could fix the window first thing the next morning. It was really scary at the moment, but now I realize it really wasn't that bad. I'm glad she was ok and that the people had insurance that would pay for the damage because it really was an accident and the guy felt horrible. One we definitely won't forget!

Amy's other story for today happened today when we were eating lunch at the park. Smiles have become more abundant lately, although she seems to light up most when Daddy is holding her. While Sam was eating, I was trying to get some smiles since she was awake and Sam hopped over to my lap and started mimicking what I was doing (he does this all the time, saying what I am saying to her in the same tone of voice -too cute!) and suddenly Amy looks right at him and not only smiles, but starts to laugh! Seriously! Kind of a giggle/chuckle - it was so adorable!!! Of course neither Sam nor I could get her to really do it again like she had the first time, but it was priceless to see her light up and respond so much to her big brother. These pictures are from her napping today and are only a sampling of the random positions I find her in while sleeping. Amy is such a blessing to our family, I can't imagine life without her!

Splash Park

Yesterday my friend and I decided it was about time we took the kids to the Rexburg splash park. I told Sam he could go if he laid down to rest for a few minutes and promised I would come lie down with him after I fed Amy real quick. 10 minutes later I came in to find him like this.

Amy ready to go swimming for the first time. She didn't really swim, I just kind of dipped her feet in the water, but she seemed to like it ok. This swimming suit is the one I wore when I was a baby and my family went to Lake Powell in Utah, so it was fun to put it on Amy.

I was trying my darndest to capture her pretty smiles that have become more abundant lately. I think I will try when Daddy is home because she always smiles lots for him. A Daddy's girl already!

Riding on the carousel before going to the splash park.

Johnny and his beautiful blue eyes.

Lilly wasn't really in the mood for pictures

It was the perfect day to go to the splash park with it being comfortably warm with a slight breeze.

The kiddos all done with swimming, but had lots of fun. Sam and Josh will be doing swimming lessons together in about a week - it will be cute to watch!