Yeah for new cousins!!!!!!

We had a great day today! We woke up to find out Isabelle got a new cousin. Sharon and Joe finally got their little girl. They haven't named her yet, but it will come sooner or later. Baby girl came 3:39ish this morning and has quite an amazing story of her birth. Everyone is heathy and doing great. We went to go visit them this morning at the hospital. Sharon looked amazing! The baby sure looks like her brothers. Dang Cute! Isabelle loved her new cousin and tried to touch and kiss her. They have many years of Polly Pockets to come. Only being a few months apart, I'm sure they will have lots of fun growing up together. :)

Ideas for something quiet....

It's currently 8:37 in the am. (Yes, I know by now everyone else has been up for hours, but not the Ward household, no one functions for they day until 10.) Isabelle just went back to sleep. The dog has been let out, but since been locked back up so he realizes it isn't exciting to wake up before 10. Of course, Mike is still snoozing away. I have 1 hour before I'm meeting my neighbor for the workout video of the day. I'm determined not to go back to bed. I have been lately, and I just wake up crankier than I laid back down. What should I go work on? This has been happening to me lately and I want to get a routine going. I want to improve the cleanliness of my home quietly for an hour before anyone gets up. I'm sure I could vacuum or do laundry and everyone would continue to sleep through it all, but it's quiet and I don't want to disturb the silence. It's so nice. So here's my question....what's your favorite quiet house chore (other than blogging, of course)?

Boating and 2 babies

We finally made it out on Utah Lake. This is Izzy's first time on the boat (out of my tummy, that is). It wasn't much of a trip out. We weren't out long. We really just toodled to make sure the boat was ready for the season. Mike did wakeboard, of course. We bundled up the babies and they had a blast once they were out of the wind. It was fun to be on the boat again. It brings back so many fond memories of when Mike and I met and the summer we dated. I'm going to miss this boat, purely for sentimental reasons.

Last week, I babysat one of my old roomie's babies for a few days. Maren is just a couple months older than Izzy and we had so much fun. The girls had a great time having a playmate and Maren got used to Jake after just a few hours. They are almost on the exact same schedule with feeding and sleeping which made it heaven. They would both just play on the floor together and have a grand old time.

Florida!!!

We just got back from HOT Florida! The morning we left, it snowed, and the day we came home, it snowed. We enjoyed the warm weather and beach away from home. Isabelle finally got to wear her summer clothes. Turns out she's already almost grown out of some of them. I refuse to buy her any long sleeved clothes in April, so we're improvising. Anyway, Florida was beautiful. My family had a family reunion. David and Liz planned it and it was amazing! We had a grand old time. I love spending time with my family. My dad's parents were also able to make it. We had so much fun making memories.

Isabelle was perfect on the planes, all 4 of them. The very last one she struggled falling asleep for about 20 minutes, but other than that she smiled at everyone and sometimes people didn't even know there was a baby behind them. :) We were lucky and able to have a seat for her on all but one flight. We were able to stick her in her car seat and she just slept.

We rented "the mansion" which included a private pier and a swimming pool and hot tub. Isabelle preferred the pool over the ocean, but I think it was purely water temperature related. She looked adorable in her little suit and just kicked and giggled! It was so cute!

We had so much fun and were sad to come home. I'm ready for Summer!!!!

P.S. If you click on the picture, it gets larger and you can see Izzy's teeth! They're so cute! This is also her new scrunchy smile face. It's hilarious.

Growing up!

Isabelle still loves her baby swing and doesn't mind the occasional nap in it. However....

We went to play at cousin Collin's house and he has a big swing. Isabelle had the time of her life! She would squeal and smile so much. I haven't tried the baby swing since. I'm interested to see if she'll go for slow speeds again. She's growing up so fast!

Never a dull moment!

Isabelle is so hilarious with her faces. She has discovered her tongue, teeth, and lips. In the process she makes the funniest faces. I love to just sit with my camera and just take a gazillion pictures. Here are last night and tonight's results. Click on the collages to see them larger.

So exciting, SOMETIMES!

Isabelle notices EVERYTHING! She sees it and grabs it and then tries to get it to her mouth! Her face is so cute when she concentrates. Isabelle's now at the age where she's impossible to have on our lap while we're trying to do something. She mauls all the cards when playing games, not to mention screws up anything in reach. She pulls my plate off the table when we're eating. The list goes on. It's such a fun stage when we're playing together, but has it's challenges other times. I've loved watching her figure things out. She enjoys chewing on a bottle or sippy cup of water and has the coordination to get it in her mouth by herself over and over again. She really likes to grab my glass of ice water and give herself a bath, I mean drink. She's at the classic immobile baby stage and it's SO much fun! I have a feeling the immobile part will so be gone soon, so I'm enjoying every second! Isn't she so cute being Mike's partner?

Teeth, for real this time!

Isabelle has the weirdest teeth! At 7 weeks, she got a molar, yes a molar. She had all four molars as white spots in her gums and one actually came through and the other 3 went back up. After about 2 weeks, the molar went back up. Then about a month ago, she started to get another molar, but it didn't poke all the way through. We were wondering when she would actually get the normal teeth in the normal order. She was chewing on Mike's finger in Sacrament Meeting when he whispered a painful, "Ouch!" After further investigating, we found she has started to get her front two bottom teeth. She was sick last week from a cold, but during it all was also teething. Poor Baby! No wonder she was quite so miserable. On Sunday they had both cut through. Well, today I noticed one has gums over it again. Who knows what is going on! Anyway, the point of the story is, she officially has one bottom tooth and maybe another one.

Easter weekend with my family!

I've been so blessed this year! I usually only see my family about 2-3 times a year since we're so spread out, but this year I've gotten to see them a ton!!! I LOVE IT!!! Matthew and Jill are here at BYU, so I see them about once a week/2 weeks. Two weekends ago, the three of us went to Boise to visit my brother, Danny and his family. This weekend, my sister, Melanie, and her family came to see us from San Diego! Jill spent the night too, and Matthew came up every day. It was a blast! We played tons of new games, which is our usual with Melanie and Sam. We did our family traditions with egg hunts, dying eggs, and of course LOTS of chocolate. :) We enjoyed a great dinner at my aunt's house and had a fun weekend just goofing off.

Sammy, 6 and Nathan, 5 one request was to go play in the snow! They wanted to make a snowman and have a snowball fight. We took a drive up American Fork Canyon to find some snow. We had a grand old time. Jane cried the whole time. Nathan only had fun if he was throwing the snowballs and not getting hit with them. Samuel just loved every second, but was the first to call it quits. Andrew had no idea what was going on. We had a fun snowball fight, and slid down the hill. After about 20 minutes all the kids were done. It was pretty funny.

I loved this picture of Isabelle with her daddy. She sure does love him!

Here is Isabelle with Nathan, 5. Melanie with baby Andrew, just 3 weeks younger than Izzy. Jane eating an apple. And, Isabelle and Andrew. They had fun grabbing at each other's faces. Isabelle was happy drugged up on Tylenol.

Jill is such a fun Aunt! We love her. She loves all her nieces and nephews and they have such a fun time with her. This cute photo opportunity ended up like....














This! Pretty Entertaining!














The only bad part of the weekend was Isabelle was miserable. This is pre-Tylenol. :( She got sick the night before Melanie's family got here. She had a gunky eye for about a week, but developed the drippiest runny nose possible, a nasty hacking cough, and a fever to top it all off. She stayed home with dad for Easter Sunday and I went with my family. So much for a grand first Easter! This was her cute Easter dress this year, a sleeper! Maybe next year!

Jake's getting BIG

The top row was the night we got Jake. Look how TINY and cute!

10 signs you know your dog is big:

10. He eats 10-12 cups of dog food daily.
9. You lose during tug-of-war. (In my defense, 4 weel drive is better than 2.)
8. He gives your a pretty hard spankin on your bum with his tail.
7. He can get himself in and out of my extra deep bathtub.
6. He can burn his nose on the stove when bacon is cooking.
5. He sits comfortably with his bum on the couch and feet on the floor.
4. You can't hide toys on the top of the fridge because he can get them when he's on his hind legs.
3. If you don't wipe the sides of your counter top, your dog can lick it clean.
2. He can reach the ice and water dispenser in the fridge. (Luckily he hasn't figured out how to push the button YET!)
1. You need MULTIPLE grocery sacks to clean up the yard. (I'm glad it's not my chore to do :) thank goodness for husbands!)

Jake just turned 8 months old and still has lots of growing to do. Not to mention lots of learning to be more obedient. We can't wait for him to be as obedient as good old Toby was! We love Jake and are glad we got him when we did.