6 months

My little miss Virginia Lynn is 6 months old!!!
Can you believe it?! I sure can't. I don't know where the last 6 months have gone.
They definitely flew by quicker than than they did with just one kid!

I don't have stats on her, because her appointment isn't for a couple days, but I do know she weighs almost 18 pounds!
She has 3 teeth.
She's trying desperately to get herself up on all fours in to crawling position.
She loves to role and scoot around on the ground.
She almost always goes to sleep around 9pm and doesn't wake up until after Hayden in the morning, and even then she almost always gets her diaper changed and a bottle and falls back asleep for a couple more hours.
She loves to make lots of noise by jibber-jabbering, yelling, or giggling.
She loves to watch bright shows on TV and will yell if you put it on mute. She really likes Baby Einsteins.
She still hasn't figured out how to properly use her tongue in order to eat solid food, but the few times we've tried, she has not been a fan of anything except for watermelon and ice cream.
She loves to smile at everyone.

4th of July FAMILY

4th of July = food, fireworks, picnics, BBQ's, Luaus, and of course FAMILY & FRIENDS!!



This is Julie. Julie is our best friend from college. She was my roommate and a "little sister" to Dirk. She's the coolest person ever! She finally kicked her roommates out of her condo, so we were able to stay with her for the weekend and it was so much fun (though not long enough!). It was lots of fun to see her interact with Hayden and Ginny. She's amazing with kids (an elementary teacher), and is quite goofy! p.s. she's single ;)

This is Ender with the sparklers. Ender is my nephew and is a pretty darn cool kid. He's rather quiet, but if you listen closely, you'll notice he's quite goofy and fun! I didn't get any pics of his brother Po'okela- but he's lots of fun as well! In fact, the Luau we went to was at his grandma's house, and was filled with lots and lots and lots of food. Then just when you thought it was gone or you were finished, even more food was brought out!

Ginny bean trying on her new sunglasses. She was NOT a fan! She sure looked cute though!

I did NOT get enough lovin' time in with this little guy! He is my very newest nephew, Enoch, and his momma with the yummy nose is my brother Brinton's wife, Josephine. She was glowing with pride for her new little guy all weekend long :)


2 of the 3 (Erin's will be coming soon!) 2010 grandbabies!

My sister Erin will probably kill me if she sees this, but sadly it is the best picture I got of her all weekend! She is due with her first baby in August! I can't wait! She looked radiant and beautiful all weekend :)

This is Lars. He doesn't work very hard to look cool. He just is. Lars is Dirk's best friend/old roommate from college. We liked him so much we decided to hook him up with my sister Erin, so he's now in the family! Lars and Erin will be sticking with the Scandinavian name thing his family (they're Danish) has going, and will be naming their son Thor Bjorn.

Dirk and Ginny relaxing at the 4th BBQ we had in 3 days!

Ginny discovered watermelon. She devoured it as best she could, while getting juice and snot all over the place!

Dirk's parents decided last minute to drive up to UT so Grandpa could meet Ginny! We went to lunch and visited for a bit, and that was it, but it was so good to see them! I LOVE this picture of them :)

Sorry, I can't help myself... Another one of the Ginny bean :)

Ginny got to meet Matthew who was born one week after her. Matthew's mommy is Julie's cousin Pam, who I just recently met last year, but I totally should have met her years ago!!

awww.... cute little family <3

Hayden and Dirk at our very first BBQ of the weekend!

Enoch again. Love this little guy! He was ALWAYS sleeping!

Hayden helped Julie make some brownies as Ginny watched and wondered when she was going to get a taste!

These two love birds are so cute together! This is my cousin Kathy Washburn and her fiance Nathan. They will be married in August and I think everyone at the BBQ just loved watching them off in their own little world.

No trip to Utah is complete without a visit to my mother's grave. Especially the week of her birthday. I told Ginny about her, while at the same time feeling silly, because I'm sure Ginny and my mother have already been well acquainted!

4th Festivities

Just so you know, I'm going to have some picture overloads for the next few posts :)

4th of July is one of my absolute favorite holidays. Over the last few years, I've had some pretty bummy Independence Days... Like in San Antonio, where it didn't really seem to exist!
It's fun and all in Montana (in fact I LOVE it in MT), but my true love for the 4th was realized when I was a little girl living in Provo, UT.
The place is chalk full of Mormons and Republicans. The combination of the two makes for quite a lot of patriotic festivities!
When I was little I used to watch the fireworks from the BYU stadium of Fire from our rooftop. I always dreamed of getting to go some day.
We'd always get good seats at the parade in the morning. My mom, being a former teacher at Timpview High School, would always get an array of cheerleaders stopping in front of us to give my mom a special cheer! To a little girl, that was pretty magical and my mom was a celebrity :)

This winter, when I found out Carrie Underwood was performing as the main act for the Stadium of Fire, I quickly explained the magic of the Stadium of Fire to Dirk and convinced him to let me buy tickets before they sold out (which they did, rather quickly!).
I know Dirk is patriotic, but I honestly didn't know if he'd like sitting in the huge stadium for hours on those hard and CROWDED bleachers!
Thank goodness for me HE LOVED IT!!!
He said it was the best firework show he'd ever seen! He even loved all the pre-Carrie Underwood stuff, and yes, he likes Carrie as well, so it was perfect.

He was very proud to stand up and sing his Army song when they honored his branch of the military.

























The parade was a little difficult to take pictures of because of our location near a round-a-bout, some of the parade was far away and some was much too close. And they moved FAST! Way too many pictures to bother tweaking my lighting/contrast ;)

Here are some of the highlights of our favorite parts.

I love the bagpipe bands!!
Hayden loved the Curious George Balloon
Dirk loved the HUGE Polynesian band, complete with a cowbell a the end!
High school bands with terribly tacky and HOT uniforms.
Beautiful saddles
And and very talented girl doing tricks on a horse!









I have no idea why these pictures are not formatting correctly, so sorry for the jumbled up mess!! Hopefully what you're looking at here is a picture of Hayden concentrating on the beat of the drums. He loved all the bands and was clapping, stomping his feet, and nodding his head to the beats.
I love the gorgeous old cars!
A Provo parade is not complete without the BYU cheerleaders!

Lots of tributes to local fallen soldiers. Lots of tributes to veterans. With each one passing we and everyone around us, stood, clapped and cheered our loudest! For the Army ones, Dirk and I shouted the loudest "hooahs" we could manage (we even got some of our friends to join in and help us!)
Ginny had a lot of fun looking at all the neat things passing by.
Lots and lots and lots of fire engines! This is the city of Provo's very first from 1917!
Of course he loved the fire engines!

For Me, Fireworks NEVER Get Old!