Easter!

We made sugar cookies with our friends, the Ballards, (that's right... they are friends with us... aren't we cool?!!) We didn't get to make many because Kailee was ready for bed and Hadlie who was supposed to be asleep was not going to bed, so we called it a night! I spent the next morning cooking the rest of my sugar cookies and decorating them... aren't they cute!

Nana sent Kailee a little Easter basket and some plastic eggs, so of course we gave it to her and she had a ball... Mommy and Daddy ate her candy though! :)
"Should I keep this green egg... or go get that pink egg?"
I got this basket for Daddy mostly so that Kailee could play with it and that she did. She mostly just puts it over her head, lol.

Yeah for having a wonderful husband!

Not long ago, Jared started bringing me flowers home quite often, for no reason other than HE LOVES ME! First, they were white daisies, then pink tulips, and now these blue/magenta daisies (they were actually dyed). I have to put them behind the couch in front of the window if I want them to get any sunlight and it's great because Kailee can't get to them! Now that it's getting warmer, I love having flowers; it makes me feel like Spring is finally here!

Our Beautiful girl!

This outfit Julie Beck got her for her b-day; too bad you can't see the pants, but isn't she cute with a bow?!

Here, Kailee wanted so badly to participate in Mommy's workout, so I have her the light weights, and as you can see, it's pretty heavy for her. JK. She's actually crying (whining) because she didn't want the weight, she wanted me to read books with her, lol. So, as with anything else, I quit early to play with her!
Kailee always leans her head back on the couch and just chills there smiling at me or playing with a toy.
I am making girl #2 a blanket. Here is the very beginning of all the work I'll put into it. I'm pretty excited about it. It's going to have a 2 borders and a beautiful and soft pink, minky backing. More pics. to come!

FRIENDS

We had the Ballard's over for breakfast one Saturday morning after us girls went on a walk with the babies and Shawn and Jared went jogging. It was a great morning. Isn't Hadlie an angel face?

Here is Leighton, always putting the moves on Kailee. As you can see, she doesn't mind!
Leighton is sooon going to have a little sister so his parents are teaching him to be very gentle and loving. He softly pats Kailee on the back, gives her hugs, and kisses her tons! He's a sweet boy!
This is the fun Caterpillar Granny got Kailee for Christmas!!

Walking!

Kailee's been taking her first steps since about 11.5 months, but for the longest time, she's been so chicken to walk without holding our finger; as soon as we would let go, she would sit down. Now she freely lets go and enjoys walking off away from us. Though she still often falls. She can take a good 10-20 steps at a time. It's pretty cute! She loves walking outside, playing on the playground here in Wymount, and pushing the stroller. She is a fun baby to have around! As you can see from this video, Kailee enjoys daily dragging all of her books off the shelf and all her toys out. When she goes to sleep, I clean it all up so she can have fun doing it all over again. Maybe soon she'll understand the concept of cleaning up with me!

"Yellow"

Kailee randomly started saying "yellow" one night, so I got a video of it. She wouldn't eat, she just wanted to yell at Mommy for a while repeating "yellow". It was pretty cute. I know it's a long video, just listen to the beginning unless you are a grandparent!! I know long distance grandparents want to see every second of her that they can, hence the long video!

We're pregnant... and it's a GIRL!!

It's true! We kept it a secret for as long as we could! We wanted to wait and tell our parents when we found out the gender. That was especially easy to do with my parents since they live across the United States. Jared's family, on the other hand, we see all the time, so when I started showing, they found out! My Mom was in shock and did not believe me at first. She is so excited and just laughs at how deceiving I have been! My Dad said "you're kidding," lol. Jared's Mom was excited that we are keeping up the girl tradition in the family, so far, there are only girl grandchildren! Jared was so sure we were having a boy, so when the ultrasound guy said it's a girl, we just laughed... we both could not stop grinning. We are so thrilled Kailee will have a little sister. I just think Jared's greatest fear is having all girls and no boys, lol. It feels so real now that we know the gender and we will probably name her Ali, Alli, Ally... we haven't really thought about spellings yet. Maybe even Ally Anne Critchfield. Oh... the due date is July 27th! I will scan some ultrasound pictures in soon; I left them in the car!

Pizza time!

A couple weeks ago, Kailee had pizza for the first time. She ate a whole slice; I was so proud of her! I cut it in pieces and she chowed down. As you can see, it's all gone.

Kailee loves to get into anything she can reach. I often catch her taking out all of our magazines. She's developing a love of the Ensign at a very young age!
Kailee also loves to play in front of our mirror in the hallway. She will stand there and talk to herself for like 20 minutes.
Kailee's favorite spot in the house is probably her bookshelf. She takes all the books off one by one. As you can tell, she often reads upside down! It's so cute watching her look through books and talk to herself.
The lighting is bad here, but it's Kailee snuggling Daddy! It's Daddy's favorite thing to do when he gets home from a long school day. Of course, he prefers if I'm snuggling them too!
Kailee loves to play with friends. I babysat her friend Emery and they had a ball. I can't imagine Kailee 20 months old, but I know it will come all too quickly :(
Just as a side note, Kailee now says "please," though it sounds more like "peas." It's too cute.

Dress up!!

Jared and I are taking Kailee to Kiddie Kandids for her free birthday 8 X 10 portrait for date night tonight! We are so excited. I had a few outfits in mind, so we played dress up so Mommy could see how the outfits looked on her. Nana bought her most of these outfits and though they are summery, they're the cutest outfits we have. :)
I love the hat with this one!

I love the dress, but it definitely needs ironing.
Kailee refuses to wear headbands now and she can kindof wear bows... until she discovers they're there... then she takes them out. I'm still trying to figure out where to put the bow considering there's not much hair on top for the bow to go, lol. You'll have to bear with me!
This outfit Alissa John got her for her birthday. It's so cute, though a little big right now. Which reminds me, I forgot about an outfit my friend Julie got her for her birthday... we have more dress up to play!!


Danget, she found her bow!

A visit from my Aunt Michele!

My Aunt Michele from L.A. came to visit us and to go skiing, of course. Her hubby, Uncle Burt, had too much work to do to tag along, but of course we wish he had. It would have been hilarious to see him ski!!
She came in last Friday and we went tubing in Soldier Hollow. We skied on Saturday at Sundance and we dropped her off in Park City to ski on Sunday while we visited Jared's Grandmother, all to find out the ski slopes closed because of lightning. :( On Monday, Aunt Michele treated me to a manicure and pedicure, lunch, and a facial and massage. It was a heaven on earth day! We actually had lunch with my friend Janine! Monday night we ate my delicious crock-pot burritos and called it a night. Tuesday, my auntie went skiing in Sundance again since she didn't get to ski in Park City and then we ate dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. Kailee ate a whole slice of pizza! Then she went back home on Wednesday. She actually took a cab because Kailee was so sick; I didn't want to go through her crying the whole way there and back. She was just miserable. I took her to the doctor that morning and she had a virus, a sore throat, and an ear infection. It was a good thing my aunt got a cab because after Kailee woke up from a 3 1/2 hour nap (which is very unusual) and ate lunch, she threw up everywhere; that would have been horrible if I had to deal with that in the car. Poor girl. I'm actually sick now with a virus as well. No fun. :( I hope my aunt doesn't get sick from hanging around us.
Isn't my aunt beautiful!
This was the fireplace in the lobby of the hotel my aunt stayed in. As you can tell, Kailee adored her great aunt!
Thankyou to all of the babysitters that made my aunt's visit so wonderful. Jenny Jones watched her while we went tubing, Jared's family watched Kailee when we went skiing, Janine Adamson watched her during our manicure/pedicure, and Holly Rader watched her during our facial/massage. Thanks a billion!!

Skiing with Aunt Michele!

My Aunt loves to ski and snowboard, so she came to Utah mostly to see us, :) but to ski as well!
Jared and I are definitely beginners. My aunt bought us lessons so we wouldn't kill ourself, which would've been very likely since there are like cliffs with no rails everywhere. My aunt actually wet her pants from laughing so hard at Jared; he had some pretty spectacular falls!
My aunt skis all the advanced slopes, but was nice enough to join us on the easy slopes for a little while!
We topped off our ski day with a nice cup of hot chocolate! It was delicious! Jared and I are so mad we had not yet skied in Utah (though we've been here 5 years), especially now that we're about to move. :( We're glad we got to experience the fun with our Aunt before we move to Texas!
This is my aunt in front of Bridal Veil Falls! The waterfalls were frozen; it was gorgeous!

Cancer-causing chemicals found in Baby Wash

My friend, Kate, mentioned on her blog that she heard on the news that baby bath wash can be harmful to our little babies. So, it looks like Johnson and Johnson, Huggies (the brand I use), etc. baby wash, all contain harmful chemicals. Because these cancer-causing chemicals are a contaminant produced during manufacturing, the FDA does not require them to be listed as an ingredient on product labels. You can read more by following this link: http://www.breastcancerfund.org/site/pp.asp?c=kwKXLdPaE&b=2483603 So, what now? Kate found a baby wash at Target called California Baby that is non-toxic, etc. So, I'll be headed to Target this weekend! Because who knows how much bath water babies swallow a year!

President's Day Weekend!

Since coming to BYU, it has been a tradition of mine to visit my aunt, uncle, and 4 cousins who live outside of Boise, Idaho every President's Day 3 day weekend. I broke tradition last year due to Kailee's birth, but made up for it by going the Thanksgiving before and in August of this year. This is my Aunt Vicky in the picture. Yes... another person in the world very much like me. Why do I say that? Well, she's so fun and cool!! lol We decided to workout together Monday morning before we left and my Aunt Vicky came out of her bedroom not in the expected leotard, but like this... lol. The funniest part was her hair. If you look at the picture below she looks like a 10 year old in an older body. She is so funny. As you probably can guess, we spent most of the weekend giggling. All we seem to do is laugh together. She has a great family. The oldest, Kelly Anne, (5'4"...maybe) is 21, goes to BYU-I and got engaged on Valentine's Day... Yay! I'm so excited; looking at wedding dresses with her made me want to get married again (still to Jared, of course). Ben is 19, 6'4, goes to BYU-I, is about to turn in his mission papers, can't get the ladies to stop chasing him, and is great at the piano and singing and maybe guitar, Jason is 17, 6'5, with a girlfriend (whom he kisses... yuck), and is very musical as well, including the guitar (I think), and McKinsey (14) is 5'9", is her mother's clone...GOOFY... lol, she loves volleyball, basketball, singing, socializing, and not giving all the guys chasing her the time of day!
Here is my sweet southern Belle, Aunt Vicky, who can't believe her kids are growing up so fast! Uncle Ken sure was lucky to snatch her away many years ago!!
Here we are trying to dance some calories away!
Aunt Vicky tries to look tough when doing her punches, lol.
Here we are kissing our muscles, except Aunt Vicky turned to me and said "how do you kiss your muscle?" Apparently she's not as experienced as I am. I grew up with one of my brothers always flashing his muscle in my face and kissing it, so occassionally after I workout, I'll do it to Jared, which is pretty funny considering my muscle is hardly visible. This visit, I failed to get pics of the rest of the family... sorry!

LOVE is in the air!

Here is Kailee and Drew (I think... I always get the boys confused) playing happily together!
It seems that Kailee is most often playing with boys these days... I hope that changes before she hits 16, lol. These are my friend, Emily Kate's boys! Drew and J.T. They are so cute. Kailee seems to get along with J.T. better because he's so chill and mellow like she is. But who knows, her preferences in guys changes all the time!
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! It is our tradition to go to the Olive Garden (or another Italian restaurant like Macaroni Grill or Ottavios) on Valentine's Day... Last year we went to Ottavios while my Mom babysat Kailee (Kailee was only 5 days old!! Time sure does fly) It was fun to have Kailee join us this year. She loved chowing down on breadsticks and some of Mom's chicken con brocolli pasta dish! Though we asked for a high chair, once we sat down they said a high chair in the lane is a fire hazard so we'd either have to try a booster seat, hold her, or wait for a table.... it's Valentine's Day... we had already waited 45 minutes even though we went at 4:15... so we decided to try a booster seat. We turned the seat towards Dad so she didn't slip and fall under the table. As soon as Jared sat her in it, she climbed out into his lap, lol. So Dad held her most of the time while Mom cut up everyone's food!
This is me with my new hair cut! Thanks to Julie Beck's recommendations ( I went to her hair lady!)
Mommy doesn't have a red shirt (except for her Christmas sweater which she already packed away), but though I don't look very festive in this picture, I do have a pink lace undershirt on that you would be able to see had we gotten a full body pic. So, you'll have to imagine! Daddy and Kailee are matching though! We saw this young single couple while we were there and the guy was wearing a pink shirt with a red jacket over it and the girl was wearing a red shirt with a pink jacket... it was quite a site. I won't tell you what Jared said, lol. I wont' make fun too much though, I could see Kailee and I doing that in the future, lol.