first ponytail

Her fine hair will lay flat on her head now vs the cute poof she’s had for months. This means it is long enough for some styling. B got her first ponytail. Right on the top of her head.

It makes her look so much older, doesn’t it?

That same day she also got her first bath in the big tub (instead of her smaller baby bath). She obviously loved it.

9 months

Sweet baby girl is nine months old.

We moved her up into 6-9 month clothes.

She is much more efficient at eating baby foods, but still gags and throws up when we give her anything with texture. She’s exploring finger foods, but has really only mastered puffs.

Look at this crazy hair from the trampoline!

Physical therapy once a week is going well. We love the PT who comes to our house once a week. She is rolling more and we are working on crawling and going from sitting to tummy.

She’s just so content it’s hard to motivate her to move around.

It was at the end of the day when I realized I needed to take her 9 month pictures. we tried to go outside in the grass. She hated it. She wasn’t having it inside the house either. I eventually took her to the trampoline where we got some smiles.

Another daddy’s girl. 

B didn’t know what to think when her big sister came to play in her bed with her. Layla loves going in to play with B on weekend mornings. She doesn’t usually climb in her bed, but she’s very good at entertaining her baby sister.

B loves playing with toys. As long as they are within her reach while she’s sitting. 

She loves to blow raspberries.

Kyler taught her to make clicking noises with her tongue. I keep telling him he had to be careful or she’s going to think we only communicate through clicks.

This little boy is still an amazing, loving big brother. He sometimes loves on her a little too much but she is patient and loves him right back.

This right here, my friends, is a game changer. She can now sit up in a shopping cart. 

Nine months has just sped by. We all love this baby girl!

2018 family theme: Seek the Good

(hand lettering credit goes to a sweet teenager in our ward who made this sign for me)

It is already May. Traditionally, I've done our yearly family theme post at least within the first two months of the new year. Month 5 seems about right for 2018 though.

Our family theme for 2018 is...
SEEK THE GOOD.

We want to remember that there is so much good out there in this world, but sometimes we have to seek it. Sometimes we have to deliberately notice the good in others and in ourselves. Sometimes the easy choice is to watch or listen to whatever the world or our friends throw at us, but it is so much better to seek for that which is good when it comes to picking the movies we watch and the music we listen to.  Sometimes we get so busy and distracted by life that we don't see all of the opportunities we have to do good. We can seek for opportunities to serve and do good for someone. We can seek to be closer to our Savior and to feel the Holy Ghost. If we seek for the good in life, we will find it.

We are also trying to focus our weekly family home evening lessons on the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet and what that teaches us about seeking the good.

We set goals during the first week of the year when we introduced this theme to our children.

Family Goals 2018:
1. at least one member of the family will attend the temple each month
2. at least once a week we will play a family game
3. we will learn more about our government in preparation for our DC trip
4. our family home evening lessons will be based on "for the strength of youth"

Layla:
1. read the scriptures each day
2. seek to use good words

Perry:
1. read the book of Mormon (with help) before being baptized

Kacin:
1. seek the companionship of the Holy Ghost by thinking good thoughts and saying positive and kind things

Kyler:
1. every night tell mom and dad something good that happened during the day (and if something bad happened)

Laura:
1. seek to make our home a safe haven and our family strong with weekly specific goals (I write these personal goals in my weekly planner)
2. use my time wisely, including reading 25 books this year

Eric
1. Exercise mind and body



I'm glad that our family has a focus each year. And I've loved thinking about this particular theme this year.

I found a spot to hang all of our yearly themes. I should've tried harder to put them up in order of which year we focused on each theme, but it worked out this way based on size of frame more than anything else. I love that we are surrounded by these themes as we eat our family meals.

You can find all of my past blog posts about family themes by searching family theme on the side search bar or under labels or here.

Saguaro National Park and International Wildlife museum

We made it to another National Park!

We took a day trip down to Saguaro National Park in Tucson.

The desert is filled with so much beauty, especially at this time of the year when the cacti are blooming.

There are 3 rattlesnakes that live around the visitors center. We only saw this guy. Thankfully we had a view from the other side of a wall.

It was an extremely warm day. We went on a short hike up to a little lookout.

We ended up seeing a lot of little creatures.

So as we were driving there we scribbled on a scratch piece of paper 14 things that the kids had to do or find during the day in order to get a treat at the end of the day. One of those things was to fight a saguaro cactus the same height as you. (Some of the others were ask a park ranger an intelligent question, find a cactus with 3 arms, etc)

Kyler was a super hero. He carried Perry for more than half of the hike.

I stayed with Perry and baby and my parents while E took the other three kids on a short hike to see the petroglyphs. Layla took my phone to take some pictures. 

While we were in the visitor’s center we watched a movie about the desert. Towards the end of the movie one of the narrator’s said “You are the desert and the desert is you.”

After a picnic lunch, we left the saguaros and stopped by the International Wildlife Museum. (We use the ASTC passport program to visit so many cool museums!)

So the museum has safari hats for children to wear and then Layla found a paper with pictures of animals at the top and names of animals at the bottom. This scavenger hunt kept her so very engaged as we toured around the museum. She recruited Grammie to help her find all of the animals, too.
Well, at the end of our walk through the museum she couldn't find the monkeys that were on the paper so she bravely asked the lady at the front desk where they were at. The lady was quite confused by her question. We explained a little more and come to find out that paper was not intended as a scavenger hunt--just a matching game. Ha! well, the scavenger hunt is a really good idea and it kept Layla super happy at the museum so I'm glad she used it that way anyways.


















Definitely not sure about the lion...





Or any furry animal she got too close to...










This was a perfect day adventure.