The Austin Family

Busy

2011-10-25T22:17:00.000-07:00

We've been a little busy lately. Sadly 95% of the pictures on this post are from Shelby's blog because I never take pictures. Here are some pics to let you know what Kairi was up to this summer.
Picking wedgies

Watering the flowers

Swinging at the park

Casting spells

Ring around the rosie

Finger painting

Jumping

Rehydrating with LOTS of Capri suns

Intense fairy conversations

Getting confused

Saving the world

Hanging out

Turning three

Riding bikes

Grossing out cousins

Cousin time

Kairi had an awesome summer.

Catch up

2011-03-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

I just went through my camera and found some pictures that I had forgotten about.Kairi's Pirate face, she's saying arrr matey! She also does ninja moves...yep, my kid is awesome.

The other day she was playing a little too quietly in her room. When I went to check on her I found this. She told me that they were pretty glasses. A little while later she brought the pictures to me and she had put some more stickers on her chest.

For Valentines Day I made these white chocolate raspberry cupcakes...yes from scratch. Everyone seemed to like them but I personally thought I needed to add a little more sugar to the frosting.

Sometimes Kairi randomly brings me the camera and asks me to take pictures of us.

Here she is in her skinny jeans. They are adorable. They're so tight that she has a hard time walking around.

More random pictures of her falling asleep.

I love her little wedgie! Don't mind the mess around her.

M U S I C

2011-02-15T23:07:00.000-08:00

I used to go to concerts...a lot. When I worked at State Hospital I had Wednesdays and Thursdays off. It was perfect because Wednesdays were usually concert nights in Salt Lake. I would grab a friend and we would drive to Utah, go to the shows, then always head to Denny's because it is the ONLY place that is open in the middle of the night in Utah...then we would drive home, getting there around 3 or 4 in the morning. I had all day on Thursdays to re-energize for work the next day. I was pretty dumb then and am completely shocked that I never fell asleep driving home from any of the shows. It was always an adventure.
I've seen Andrew McMahon from Something Corporate dance on a piano, I've talked about religion with Andy Hurley from Fallout Boy, I've gasped as Bert McKracken of The Used stage dove off of a 20 ft. stack of Amps in a dress, and I've closed my eyes and felt so thankful that I was fortunate enought to be one of 20 people to hear William Beckett from The Academy Is sing an accoustic set. I've had some amazing experiences, many I've already started to forget, which is why I'm writing this now.
Most of the time if tickets to a show were sold out we would make the drive anyway and stand outside and wait till they would let us in. Usually they would keep you outside for the opening band and then charge you more to get in. I've been kicked in the face, stepped on and body slammed during shows, I've even left a few with shoe prints on my face. The pain was always worth being surrounded by the music.
It's strange to me that I no longer feel the need to go to concerts. My priorities have changed. My taste in music has changed...I've changed. I no longer fall asleep to my favorite bands, it was an adjustment falling asleep to silence, but listening for my child sleeping in the next room is much more important to me.
I don't expect this post to be interesting to anyone other than myself but if you are still reading, I'll leave you with one of my favorite poems. It's by Dan Arnold from A Static Lullaby

"...Of course I hear you!
You're the taste upon my lips when I wake.
Sometimes you're the only faith I have.
Searching...always searching for more.
I'm enslaved by you, but you make me feel as free as can be.
I want to touch you.
I'll catch your scent on the air and my feet don't stop, they can't stop!
We must keep dancing in your name!

M U S I C
The only air I breathe."

I love it, and I hope you do too :)

CHRISTMAS!!!!!

2010-12-29T12:24:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas this year! Santa came a little early so we were able to have our own Christmas before going and spending the weekend at my parents'. Kairi was spoiled rotten! Grammy and Bompa got her a princess table and chairs. She always has to sit in the "pink princess chair" They're identical, but somehow she knows if she is sitting in the wrong one and will go switch chairs!

They also got her this cute tutu and wings. She wears them EVERYWHERE! They got us a memory foam mattress pad and a bed frame. Our bed is so comfy that I never what to get out of it now.

We also went out to the annual Christmas Eve party at my Aunt Deona and Uncle Rick's house. I love going there at Christmas time. It's always so warm and cozy and decorated so fun. I got to see my cousin Casey who I hadn't seen in 2 years. One of my goals is to spend more time with her. We always have so much fun together. There was some amazing food at the party. But the best part were all of the treats. There were pies, hand dipped chocolates and truffles. My favorite were the white chocolate raspberry truffles that Casey made...yum!

Kairi wore her cute Christmas dress and I only got one picture of her in it.

On our way to to party!

I also gave my sister Sierra a little makeover before the party.

Kairi's sweet toys. Notice how almost all of them are Dora.

Dora dress up. She loves it!

Adorable scarf and gloves that Danny's parents sent me. I need to take a picture of the jewelry they made me too. I'll post that picture later.

Kairi having a heart-to-heart with her stick unicorn!

She came running out of the bedroom so fast that this is the first picture I could take!

The tree before Kairi got to it. Yes that is a trunk full of dress up stuff.

Here is the necklace/locket that I got from Casey during the white elephant game from my last post. I didn't get a super good picture of it but it's a bluish green. I love it!

Chistmas party/Camera thieves!

2010-12-22T11:12:00.000-08:00

We finally got a new camera! Danny and I were having fun taking random pictures with it. We had our family Christmas party last week and had such a good time. We played Christmas Bingo for presents and combined that with white elephant. I ended up with a super cute locket from Casey! I'll have to post a picture of it later. We also had a huge dinner with 3 types of yummy soup. I left the camera on the end table and when I came back I had all sorts of exciting "gems" on it!

My lovely Mother doing a pig nose!

My nephew Easton contorting his body.

My sister Shelby's butt...I'm guessing Joe took this one!

Joe and Shelby, not quite sure what Shelby's face is doing! ha!

One of the white elephant gifts was buck hunting for the wii. For the record, I am amazing at it. Mom even tried it out.

Kairi and Reese shared this chair eating ice forever. My parents got a new fridge a while back and all of the kids love to eat the crushed ice. They run out all the time.

Describe your Grandparent's house

2010-12-21T16:59:00.000-08:00

I spent most of my childhood at my Grandma Betty's house. Her yard and garden were always immaculate. There were always deer and rabbit and gnome figurines throughout the yard and front steps. In the back yard on the porch they had cream and orange lawn chairs that would swivel and rock and a little wire table that sat between them. We would often sit out there and have picnics while we watched the hummingbirds flying around and the neighbor's horses trying to steal apples off of the apple trees. There was also a garden swing and a rust-red swingset. Off to the left of the yard was a giant mural painted on the neighbor's garage. I believe it was a picture of mountains and trees with deer in it. In front of the mural was the "grotto". Don't ask me what a grotto is, I'm pretty sure that only grandparents know. From what I could tell it was a section of the yard that was covered in tree bark and surrounded by pine trees with more gnomes and deer scattered throughout. To the right of the yard was the bird feeder and a winding sidewalk that led to the shed (which always looked like a little house to me). In the spring, on each side of the sidewalk, hundreds of flowers bloomed that were taller than me.
I used to pick dandelions and pine cones for a penny each and once I was done we would head to the store to buy penny candies or ice cream as a reward.
Inside the house was just as well kept as the outside. When you walked in the front door and looked to the right, you would see a shelf full of bells. Each grandchild and great-grandchild had their own bell. There were a LOT of bells. Each of them were unique. Mine was a short, fat white one with flowers on it. Inside each bell was a paper with the name of the person whose bell it was.
To the left of the door was the living room. With green carpet and brown recliners. There were 3 huge windows overlooking the front yard that I would spend hours decorating with various window stick-ons. Grandma had stick-ons for every season.
You could usually find Grandpa Earl in the front recliner in his overalls, cowboy boots and a hat. He always had a toothpick in his mouth and a crossword puzzle in his hand. Grandma's recliner was back further and was propped up to make it easier for her to get in and out of. We used to get buckets of warm water and soak our feet for hours while we watched tv and munched on apples from the apple tree.
The coffee table had TONS of photo albums piled under it jammed with thousands of photos of family. I used to love looking at them and finding my baby pictures. The top of the coffee table was always piled with pictures of all of the grandkids. Christmas was always great because the tree was covered with small picture frames that had pictures of each grandchild. It was so fun to look for myself on the tree. I remember dusting the house was always an ordeal. I had to do it in sections to make sure everything was put back in it's place. I remember thinking, "Why am I dusting when there is NO DUST". But it always made everything look nice and shiny.
Behind Grandma's chair was the toy box where Wrinkly the dog lived. He was my FAVORITE stuffed animal ever. In front of Grandpa's chair was a desk with all of the coloring books and notebooks tucked inside. On the other side of the desk was another built in desk where the phone sat. The phone was a rotary phone which I thought was the coolest thing ever. There was also always little notepads and tons of pens right by the phone to take messages.
To the right of the desk was the kitchen table. There was a dividing half wall between the table and the stairs. There were always flowers and plants all over on it as well as tiny animal figurines that I loved to play with. My favorite was the frog. Behind the dividing wall was another mural painted on the wall, I believe it was of a lake. There were curtains framing it, making it feel like a window.
Downstairs was always terrifying to me. I was sent down there frequently to get everyone a treat. The downstairs freezer was always filled with ice cream bars from the Schwanns man. There was also another set of couches and all of the seasonal decorations that were not in use at that time. Grandma had decorations for EVERYTHING. Grandpa's shop was downstairs, we did not get to go in there unless he was in there, and under the stairs was a tiny room where he made bullets (I think) I wasn't allowed in there either. There was a huge magnifying glass that I thought was fun to look at in there.
There was also a spare room that had saddles on stands in the middle of the room, I loved climbing on the saddles and pretending I was riding a horse and playing on the rowing machine that was next to it. But not for too long because I was convinced that the basement was haunted!
I had so many great memories at my Grandma and Grandpa's house that I could probably go on forever. But I will stop here. Next time, I'll describe my Grandma BoDean and Grandpa Gaylen's house.

What were Sundays like when you were a kid?

2010-12-12T14:31:00.000-08:00

Sundays at our house were usually pretty nice. We would all complain when we had to get up in the mornings, even though we would get up several hours earlier each Saturday for cartoons. If it was Fast Sunday I would always have a bowl of cereal poured and be ready for my first bite when someone would remind me. That happened a lot. In hindsight, I probably should have just looked at a calendar every Sunday just in case. Our family had our usual area that we sat in every week. I had a lot of friends in my ward so I loved when their families would sit in front of or behind us so we could make silly faces. The best days were when I could sit by a friend and color or play hangman or connect the dots. Sadly, I didn't pay a lot of attention when I was young. My poor Sunday school teachers probably hated our class. We were rowdy and didn't listen and when we did listen, no one would answer questions. I didn't because I was always worried that I would answer wrong and feel stupid. I'm amazed at how well my class that I teach now behaves. They always listen and answer the questions. I'm blessed to have had 3 amazing classes and in 3 weeks I'll have a new group. Hopefully they'll be as great as all of the others have been. When we would get home from church it was usually nap or rest time. I don't remember exactly what we did for the remainder of our days but the best days were when we would have company over for dinner or go to someone's for dinner. Sometimes neighbors would bring treats over. Sundays were always great days.

What was the silliest thing you ever did?

2010-12-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

This was a hard one to think of. I've had lots of silly moments throughout my life. I guess I'll go with what I thought was the funniest when I was younger. My cousin, Sara and I would spend hours recording "news casts" on my karaoke machine. I still have tons of the tapes. We called it "On the Road News" and we made up a theme song and all of the voices for different people we were interviewing. If I were to listen to them now, they would probably be pretty lame but when we were recording we thought we were the funniest people in the world. We would have to stop the tapes and re-record parts where we were laughing too hard.
Eventually, we graduated from karaoke to video cameras. One of the videos we made was a cooking show. We would pretend to make a cake from scratch and as we were counting measurements we would get "sidetracked" and add way too much or too little of each ingredient. We also made sure that in the background of each shot you could see the cake mix box. We thought we were pretty funny.
Probably one of my favorite movies we made was starring all of my Barbies. We spent forever setting up the doll house and making a script. We even had opening and closing credits. These were all pretty funny, but I think I would have died if someone else would have seen them.

Describe your Childhood Bedroom. What was the View from the Bedroom?

2010-12-10T21:31:00.000-08:00

I shared a room with Cody until I was 10 when we moved into my parents' current house which is probably 3 times larger than the old house. Shelby was the oldest and was lucky enough to have her own room. When we were very young I remember we had wallpaper with frogs and different animals in the woods. It always reminded me of characters from the Wind in the Willows. When we were a little older we got to remodel. It was the greatest thing ever. I can't exactly remember the carpet, but I want to say that it was gray-ish. We took down the wallpaper and painted the walls white with gray and two shades of blue stripes in a fun design. We thought it was pretty fancy. I think they were trying to make the room a little more boy friendly since Cody was getting a little older and our room was littered with girly toys. We had a bunk bed against the wall on the right. We would switch bunks every few months so nobody felt left out (top bunk was the favorite) Whoever got the top bunk would lean over the side at night and do puppet shows for the other one. Cody was the best at the puppet shows and would keep us entertained for what seemed like hours till we would fall asleep. In reality it was probably only 30-45 minutes. Our closet was on the left side of the wall and our on the far wall was my huge wooden dollhouse under the window. When I wasn't playing with Barbies in the dollhouse, I would cover it in blankets and make a pretend saddle and ride it like a horse. We also had a huge toybox that was yellow and orange that I believe was on the far wall. Outside of the window was about 10 feet of grass, a tree or giant bush, and a tall red fence. Most of our yard was in front of the house. There wasn't much to see out our window. I do remember in the summer we would have to go to bed early. It would still be light out and we could hear neighbors outside laughing and playing. It was so hard to go to bed on those nights. It got harder when Cody was old enough that he didn't have to go to bed as early as me. It was lonely, and scary. Even though the living room was right outside of the door, if Cody wasn't in there I would get scared. He was always good at making me feel better when I was scared at night.

Favorite Childhood Pastime

2010-12-10T21:03:00.000-08:00

When I was little my imagination ran wild. My play area spanned from the bunk bed in my room to the couches in the living room and even under the overturned banana chairs that we used as caves. Each area was a designated home for my barbies, figurines and dolls. It didn't matter that my toys were mismatched and that next to my Daisy Duck McDonald's toy, Barbie looked like a giant Amazon. I still loved them all. My favorite thing was when Cody would let me play with him and his Ninja Turtles. I would try to bring Barbie into our playtimes, but Cody refused to play with such girly toys. He would occasionally give in if we named Barbie April O'Neil. One year for Christmas, Cody got a Teddy Ruxbin doll. It was the coolest thing we had ever seen. It came with a story book and a tape that you put in his back. He would read you the story and his mouth and eyes would move. Looking back, it was actually pretty creepy. I loved when Cody would let me play with it, or when I would sneek onto his bunk and listen to its stories when Cody wasn't around.
Shelby had this sweet Fievel doll. It was huge and so soft. Again, I loved playing with this or sneeking into her room to play with it. Obviously I REALLY liked toys that were not mine!
Then one year for Christmas or my birthday I got the Casey Robot. Best toy ever!!! It was basically the same idea as Teddy Ruxbin, but better because it was all mine! There were fun buttons on it and a story book. Casey-bot taught me what the color indigo was. I don't remember anything else that it talked about but it would go through the rainbow and would say that indigo was her favorite color because that's what color she was. I'm pretty sure that indigo was my favorite color for a while after that.

Stealing Casey's ideas :)

2010-12-09T10:01:00.000-08:00

My sister-in-law, Casey has been blogging a lot lately. I love reading it! She is an amazing writer and definitely paints a vivid picture with her words. Very fitting, since she is married to my brother, "The King of English" Both are amazing writers. Anyway, Casey has found a journal called "A Mother's Legacy" which asks questions about your favorite things and childhood memories. I thought that this would be fun to start doing as well.

Favorites:

Flower: Tiger Lilies, Roses, Bright Colorful Carnations, Bleeding Hearts (they remind me of my Grandma Betty) The funny thing is that I love tons of flowers but I would rather not be given them and I definitely can't grow my own. I didn't inherit my Grandma's green thumb.

Perfume: Happy Heart by Clinique

Color: I have so many favorite colors but whenever my friends or family see bright green, they say it reminds them of me.

Hymn or Song: I Know That My Redeemer Lives, I have too many favorite songs to list, anything by Brand New. When I listen to them, I can just close my eyes and become part of the music, it's an amazing feeling.

Book: Again, I have a lot of favorite books. Currently I am loving "The Hunger Games" series. Maybe that's because I'm reading it right now. I have a habit of making the book that I am currently reading my favorite so it is constantly changing.

Scripture: Mosiah 4:27

Dessert: Molten Lava cake at Chilis or Birthday cake(store bought with whipped topping)

Vacation Spot: Coeur d'Alene to see Danny's family.

Type of Food: Italian

Sport: Softball

Leisure activity: Reading, watching movies, playing with Kairi, games.

Halloween

2010-11-15T14:10:00.001-08:00

We went out to my parents' house for Halloween this year. Danny had to work again (surprise) so it was just me and Kairi. We were going to go to their ward Halloween party but instead spent all weekend installing the kitchen, dining room, and hall floors. I'm now an expert at installing these :) This is a pretty crappy picture but the floors are awesome.

Atrion came to play with Kairi a while ago and they were eating pb&j and watching cartoons. It was super cute so I had to take a picture.

Kairi found my boots in the back of my closet and decided they were pretty fun.

Kairi with vampire teeth. These things make kids so slobbery, I finally had to take them away from her.

Kairi was a blue elephant this year. It looks a little like a bunny. We went to trunk or treat at our church and Kairi was a pro. She got to the point that she would just walk up and hold up her hand. Then she would throw the candy in her basket and put out her hand again! Almost everyone gave her extra candy because she was so much smaller than almost everyone there. She was pretty excited about her treats!

TWO!!!!!!!

2010-10-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

Kairi turned two last week. We had a family birthday party for her and my mom, who was turning 29 :) I was so sad because I forgot my camera, and so did Shelby. Luckily, Bompa came to the rescue with his camera!
Cody and Casey got her a sweet little Dora house with a Dora and Isa that live inside. She carries those around everywhere with her. You can tell from the picture that I was REALLY excited!

Grammy and Bompa got her a sweet new coat that she would prefer to wear all the time. Even if she's sweating to death. I had to hide it till it gets a little colder. They also got her some adorable clothes.

Her little princess cake Danny got her. There were princess rings in it, she couldn't believe that!

Shelby got her an awesome shopping cart that she piles full of stuff every day and runs up and down the hallway with.

We got her Dora bath toys and some other little things.

All of the kids were helping Grammy open her present! Melissa and the kids got Kairi a soft Dora doll and Dora's baby brother and sister dolls. I don't have a picture of that because she got them a little early. She Loved all of her presents and had a great time. Thanks everyone for making her birthday amazing. We love you all!

Dress-up

2010-10-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

Yep, my child is wearing nothing but a Dora backpack!

Lately Kairi has found some of the weirdest outfits. She loves dressing up!

She found one of my shirts and put her arms in the sleeves and wore it around like a jacket. My favorite is that she looks like an old man in a robe with boxers on and a beer belly hanging out!

I couldn't figure out how to delete this blurry pic.

She's pretty fancy.

Zoos and Parks!!!

2010-08-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

We went to the zoo the other day with my Mom, Shelby, Casey and the kids. We had a great time. We had a picnic at the playground first then we went and looked at all the animals. It was the perfect day to go. Kairi wasn't too excited to sit in her stroller, instead Reese sat in it and Kairi pushed her!

Kairi spent most of the time leading the way for us. She's too independent for her own good! She HATES holding our hands, sitting in strollers and sitting in shopping carts. Everytime we walk into a store she throws a fit because she thinks she needs to be able to wander wherever she wants.

Pretty much every animal she saw, she thought was a dog, cat, or horse!

The other day I went out to Casey's and spent the day. We went and had lunch in the park and came back to their apartment and visited for quite a while. It's so nice and relaxing at their apartment! It was a great day!

I LOVE Atrion's face in this picture! He was having so much fun! We had the park all to ourselves, which is wonderful because I hate when bigger kids are always playing rough at the parks and the little kids can't do anything.

Kairi thought climbing UP the slide would be a good idea!

Every time she would climb to the top she would say weee over and over. She thinks slides are called weees!

This is Kairi's FAVORITE thing at Marcus and Melissa's house! She will ride on it all day. Can you tell by her face that she a BIT possessive of it?! She would live outside if she could.

Pink Glasses!!!

2010-08-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

I realized that I never put up a picture of my amazing Pink glasses...I know, you're jealous!

The other day Danny was playing with Kairi in her room and after about a half hour I realized it was way too quiet. I found this, I think he's getting a lot done don't you? :) When I walked in, Kairi was hitting him in the head with the barn and he didn't even budge!

This is how Kairi fell asleep the other day. She loves reading her books!

And this is how she fell asleep the other night again! She still had her first bite of pizza in her mouth and had her fork in her hand in a death grip.

This picture isn't great but she dug through the DIRTY laundry and found one of Danny's socks and put it on then put on her Dora shoe!

I just love this picture of little Reesie sleeping at Grammy's.

Cheesy smiles!

Found the carmera cord!!!

2010-07-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

Danny finally found the camera cord...again! I really need to start hiding things from Kairi a little better. Kairi is 21 months old now. I can't believe how fast time has gone! She is such a little stinker and gets into EVERYTHING! She loves to climb on things. She repeats everything we say and do. Sometimes I find her mimicking body language and facial expressions. She LOVES her shoes and is always putting everyone's on. She also likes to change her stuffed animals' bums and put shoes on them! We find her hiding in the weirdest places. This is in our t.v. stand. About 2 seconds after this picture was taken she closed the door on it and got stuck! She can't help but dance when she hears music or when you tell her to shake her booty! She also claps and yells yay after everything. Her favorite is after each hymn and prayer at church.

Of course, she is amazing at eating spaghetti! She looks like an oompa loompa in these pictures!

I'm so glad that this dresser didn't fall on her. Danny hasn't yet realized that when he gets her dressed in the mornings he needs to make sure all the drawers are COMPLETELY closed!

Emmett came over for a sleep over the other night and was so excited to sleep with our ninja turtles sleeping bag and pillow! Kairi got a little jealous and climbed over him and tried to shimmy her way into the sleeping bag. When she couldn't shimmy any further, she laid her head back and pretended to be asleep. Emmett kept telling me to get her down, there wasn't enough room for both of them because he's a big boy! He's so stinking funny!

Here's a few random pictures of places that Kairi falls asleep. She shoves all of the blankets and pillows she can find in between our couches and climbs back there.

This is her on the laundry before I could fold it...she's very helpful.

Hamburgers

2010-02-25T13:01:00.000-08:00

Kairi climbed up to the computer desk and started eating Emmett's hamburger like a dog while he was in the bathroom! Needless to say Emmett got a new hamburger and Kairi finished his!

Pretty happy with herself.

I made the fingernail polish make-up that Shelby did for Reese and Kairi loves it. She climbs up next to me and watches me do my makeup super closely and then she copies everything I do! Don't mind her hair I think she had just smeared cereal all over in it!

The other night she woke up coughing and choking and I brought her out to the living room with me. After a few minutes she got up and ran into where I thought was her bedroom. I waited about 30 seconds and followed her. I found her dead asleep on the very edge of my bed with her feet and bum hanging over the edge. She was sooo tired!

Kairi's room

2010-02-16T20:50:00.000-08:00

When we first moved into our new apartment my sister-in-law, Melissa came over and decorated for us. It looks so good but my favorite part is Kairi's room, she made it so stinkin' cute! Here are some pictures of her wall. My sister Shelby took all of the pictures that are hanging on the wall and my other sister Sierra made the cute happily ever after sign above the crib.

Danny found the camera cord!

2010-02-13T20:56:00.000-08:00

So I haven't updated in forever because when we moved the camera cord got lost in one of the many boxes and Danny finally found it tonight! I no longer work at Samuels. I just recently started as the manager of the Summit apartments which has been going really well. It has been such a blessing for us and I'm so glad that Casey suggested me for the job! I am finally able to stay home with Kairi and am no longer missing out on time with her. I also have lots more free time. The only problem is that now I need a hobby. My problem is that every time I get bored I want to go shopping. I'm supposed to be chipping away at my credit card bills and not impulse buying! Now finally some pics of Kairi.

She constantly pushes herself into tiny corners.

Here are a couple of Christmas pictures.

She got into the roll of wrapping paper!

Spaghetti.

OatmealSleeping in the ottoman

Birthdays, Fairs, and Vacations!

2009-10-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Kairi's first birthday! We had her party today and had tons of fun. We are so glad that so many of our friends and family were able to come! Kairi is growing up so fast. She loves stuffed animals, running around, dancing and just being silly! She has so much fun playing with all of her friends and cousins. Kairi is so curious about everything, she just has to figure everything out on her own. She climbs on anything she can and then dives off of them. When she finds something she shouldn't have she brings it to us to show us and as soon as she's close enough that we can reach it, she throws it the other way and laughs! She loves to play with the remotes and when we give her one without batteries somehow she figures it out and won't play with it! When she sees and animal or something she loves she flails her arms and starts screeching and giggling! We love our little girl so much she definately keeps us laughing!

While I was frosting her cake today she ran into the kitchen with an empty bottle crying. I got her a new bottle and about 2 seconds later she was out cold...yes, that's our kitchen rug!

Kairi wasn't to excited about opening presents, as soon as she got the first gift out she kept playing with it and Danny had to open the rest for her!

While we sang to her she just kept looking around smiling and confused. I'm sure she was wondering why everyone was gathered around her.

She also wasn't too excited about the cake, she was just daintily picking at it. She had about 4 bites and was done. I guess my baby doesn't like getting dirty!

When she was done she just started slowly spitting it out, that's the only way she got dirty.

Kairi and Daddy taking a nap. She loves to cuddle up as close as she can to us.

We went to the fair when it was in town, This was the end result. We really tired her out. She crashed before she could get her ice cream.

She LOVED the petting zoo.

But wasn't too sure about getting very close.

Bath hair.

At the end of August we went to Coeur d'Alene to go to Danny's sister, Rachel's wedding. We hadn't been there in two years and were so excited to go! We had a lot of fun and it was so good to see everyone! The above pic is what she did most of the way there.

On the way home it was way better. When Kairi is in her carseat she always pulls the visor down and rests her legs on it so she can play with her feet. She's so funny!

Fun new stuff!

2009-08-17T21:55:00.000-07:00

Shelby has taken quite a few cute new pictures of Kairi for me over the last couple of months and there are a ton of them but here are a few of my favorites.

The picture below is where you can pretty much always find Kairi...climbing up on me! She's turning into such a mama's girl. I can't walk out of the room without her throwing a fit. She also has three teeth now and has been trying her hardest to walk and climb on everything! The most steps she has taken at once is five steps!

The other day I was cleaning out our closet and found all of our wedding cards, I started looking through them and found a $50 gift card to Bed, Bath and Beyond! I have no idea how it got left in there but I was so excited! So today I went shopping with Melissa and found some fun stuff! I got a cubby type thing. (below) I also got these little wall flower things that tack onto the wall! I cant wait to put them up. Melissa took me to Craigo's for lunch and it was super good. Thanks Melissa for going with me...I had a ton of fun!

Shelby has gotten me really into crafty stuff lately and I keep copying her ideas! I made the picture frame bow holders too!

4th of July...and some other stuff.

2009-07-07T15:54:00.000-07:00

I have a new hobby! Shelby showed me these and they are so much fun! They're hair bows...if you couldn't tell from the pictures. I'll have to take some pictures of Kairi wearing some. She's wearing one that Shelby made in the outside pictures on this post.

We have had a lot happen lately. Sadly, my memory card for my camera was full and I just got around to copying all of my pictures onto a disc. So hopefully I'll keep up on pictures a little better.

Kairi is now 9months old!!! She's getting bigger everyday. She is into everything and is completely fearless. She climbs up, falls down, and climbs right back up again. She is not afraid of the dark, she regularly wanders into the dark bedrooms. She is also standing on her own! She's tried to take a step every once in a while but ends up faceplanting on the floor. She still doesn't have any teeth but she's been acting like they are on their way soon.

At the beginning of June, our niece Grace, was baptized so we had most of Danny's family here. It was so great to see everyone. Danny's been super homesick lately and we're so excited to be able to visit everyone in Rathdrum at the end of August for Rachel's wedding!

I just got home from Island Park the other day. We had a lot of fun. We did a lot of relaxing, which I needed. It was pretty hard to keep track of Kairi there because everytime we set her down she went straight to the stairs as fast as she could! She's very good at climbing up them, but about halfway up she gets super excited and jumps up in the air! Luckily we were always their to catch her.

We didn't really do much of anything on the 4th. I got myself and Kairi all dressed up in our cute 4th of July attire and then couldn't get Danny to get up. He really needs a day job. So we headed over to Cody and Casey's for a bit. On the way home it started hailing on us! I had planned on taking Kairi outside during the Poky fireworks but the ground was soaked and she was out cold before they even started. The top two pics my sister Shelby took a few weeks ago, she's amazing, and if anyone needs their pictures done look her up! http://www.fizzielimephotography.com/ The other pictures I took on the 4th of Kairi in her cute outfit Melissa got her! I couldn't get her to stay far enough away to get a pic of the entire outfit but the bottoms are capri's with buttons on the bottom...Adorable!

I'm a slacker

2009-05-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

I am horrible at updating. I figured that until something exciting happens im my life I'll just post tons of pictures that Shelby has taken. The video at the bottom is when Kairi fell asleep in her swing. It's super dark and hard to tell but her face is hilarious when she looks up!

Kairi "talking"

2009-03-26T22:09:00.000-07:00

First cereal!

2009-03-04T16:50:00.000-08:00

Kairi had her first cereal yesterday and she did not enjoy it. Her facial expressions are so funny! And if you can't tell we have rock band on in the background. Always expect to hear a video game of some sort at our house!

Where have we been!?!?!

2009-03-02T22:56:00.000-08:00

We haven't been doing to much the last couple of weeks. We had a pretty uneventful Valentines day. I had to work and when I got off Danny had to go to bed. But he did hand me some money and tell me to go buy myself something fun. I ended up spending all of the money on Kairi but it was fun anyway. I got Kairi an adorable outfit and some of the cutest shoes I've ever seen! I also found a play kitchen that I had seen at Christmas for like $80 and I was so sad that it was so expensive but when I went on Valentines it was on clearance for $30! And there was only one left! Last week I got super sick and went to immediate care. I had a fever of 102.9 I tried so hard to keep Kairi from getting it but sure enough she did. It's sad because she hasn't been herself and you can tell she doesn't feel well. But I think we're coming up on the end of it. I'm so glad mom and Sierra could come help take care of her so I could get better. Thank you guys. I love you! We also took Kairi to the dr. but they said she has a virus and that she just has to ride it out. Poor girl. Kairi has discovered her feet and it's so funny because she tries to eat them and when she does make it in her mouth she gets a super disgusted face. Apparently, her feet don't taste too good! She also loves to make sounds. When she gets whiny she goes "mamamamama" over and over. It's so funny. I'll try to tape it and post it soon. I'm so excited for tomorrow. Cody and Casey are going to find out what their having and I can't wait!!! Also, I get to get my hair done tomorrow so I'll have to post pics of that.

4 months!!!

2009-02-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

Holy smokes! I can't believe my baby is already 4 months old! She had her 4 month checkup today and everything is going great. She weighs 14 lbs. 2 oz. and is 24 1/4 inches. She's getting huge! She is still loving her hands. She chews on them all of the time. She's been super slobbery! She loves to laugh and when she gets laughing too hard it comes out as grunts or squeals. She has to be able to see someone all the time or she gets mad, it makes it hard to get a lot done unless she's asleep. She's getting super chubby thighs and it's funny because most of her pants are getting too tight but are still long.
I LOVE this dress and tights. I bought the dress at once upon a child when I was 7 months pregnant! I have been waiting forever for her to fit into it.

It's been a while

2009-01-14T16:18:00.000-08:00

I've decided that I'm not very good at blogging. I go for weeks without updating so here's a little catch up. New Year's Eve Danny and I went to Marcus and Melissa's. It was so much fun, we had pizza and played games. We love going over to their house we always have such a good time!Sometimes my husband likes to wear this hobo hat! He was so excited to get it and he wears it all the time! We always get such weird looks when he does.
Trying to take a picture. Danny was way into his game. I don't think he even realized what I was doing.

Rockband!

On New Year's Day Dad decided that we would do a family Iron Chef. We had a blast. The secret ingredient was chicken. I made a super easy creamy chicken soup. I got the recipe from Melissa and it one second place! If you know me then you know I can't cook so this was a huge achievement for me. These are some of the other dishes. Everything was so good. Mom and Dad made chicken cacciatori complete with home made noodles. Shelby brought a yummy chicken salad. Cody and Casey brought chicken bundles(I wish I had some of those right now)

The winner was these amazing bacon wrapped chicken pieces. Terri, Jen, and Amanda brought them. Everybody was disappointed that there weren't more of them to go around!

Bompa and Kairi on New Year's Day. She's holding the bottle up herself.

Kairi is now 3 months old! It's gone by so fast. She's just getting huge. She loves to suck on her hands and anything she can get ahold of! She's been "talking" a ton, and she loves her baths. This girl absolutely loves being naked! I should probably be concerned about that. She's also rolling over like crazy. I put some videos of her rolling at the bottom. They're pretty dark but still cute.

CHRISTMAS!!!

2008-12-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

On the morning of christmas eve Danny and I opened our presents to eachother. It was kind of rushed because I had to leave for work. Danny got me a super cute shirt, a game and tons of candy. He did a great job on christmas this year. Then I went to work until 3:30. There are so many people who wait till the last possible second to get their gifts. It was so busy at the mall. After work we headed to my Aunt Ona's house for the annual christmas eve party. It was super fun because nobody had seen Kairi in person yet. My cousin Casey, is in massage school and gave me an amazing massage during the party, it was so nice because I've been super stressed and tense lately. After the party we headed out to my parent's house to stay the night. I woke up at 4am because I was freezing, there was a HUGE storm and the power had gone out. So I checked on Kairi to make sure she was warm enough and then bundled up and went back to bed. At 7am I could hear my parents walking around so I got up and called the power company. The outage was affecting over 8,000 customers! Luckily, as soon as I hung up the phone, the power came back on. We had to wake up Kairi so we could open presents. She was so sleepy and didn't quite know what was going on. It was a super quiet christmas because everybody was snowed in. Usually we have a huge breakfast with the whole family, but no one could make it. It was just me, Danny, Kairi, my parent's and my little sister Sierra. Shelby and Joe got snowed in, and Cody and Casey were in twin falls with her family. Mom and Dad got us a sweet ottoman and a cocoa latte machine. We love them. I've had so much hot chocolate lately now that we have that machine. Thank you mom and dad! Kairi got some super cute toys. Sierra got her winnie the pooh finger puppets that are adorable and shelby got her a very cute outfit and stuffed bunny. mom and dad got her a music and lights projector which we love. We got snowed in at my parent's and stayed another night. It was nice to be able to spend so much time with them. Kairi's reindeer hat! I found this at once upon a child a couple months ago. There's an outfit that matches it. Thanks mom for insisting on buying it!
Danny took this pic the other night. I love how blue her eyes are in it! And her old man hair!!!

Danny and Kairi opening presents.

Christmas eve we decided to open Kairi's present from us. I'm wearing the shirt danny got me!

It's a 3 in one gym. She has a blast with it. It sings and she can kick it!

Spending time with Daddy

2008-12-22T16:52:00.000-08:00

Every night before Danny leaves for work he holds Kairi on his chest and makes her laugh. These were all from last night.

This one is my favorite! She loves to stick out her tongue!

Kairi loves to give Danny kisses....so sweet.

Here's another one!

2008-12-21T19:49:00.000-08:00

Wow, sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. Everytime I would try, it wouldn't upload my pictures. So here's a bit of an update. Kairi is getting huge! She is so smiley and is always giggling! She had her two month shots a few weeks ago and she did pretty well with them. They made her super tired and fussy for the day but she bounced back fast. She has still been sleeping through the nights. At her last Dr. appt. she weighed 10 lbs. 14 oz. and was 22 inches long!

On November 30th Danny blessed her. He did such a great job! Most of Danny's family were able to make it here for Thanksgiving and were able to stay for the blessing. It was so great to see everyone. We missed you Alex and Jennifer! We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house with Danny's side of the family too. It was so fun to be with everyone! Kairi's blessing dress was amazing. Grama Cari made it for her. And Auntie M (Marilyn) made a beautiful blanket for her. It's at the top of the page. I couldn't get it to load in the correct order.

Kairi with Grama Cari and Grandpa Dan. She was screaming when Danny and I were trying to get pictures with her but as soon as they picked her up she was fine!

A couple weeks ago it was Sierra's birthday so we all went out to my parent's and made sugar cookies! That is my favorite thing to do during the holidays! Here's Reese getting into the blue frosting!

We made so many cookies...it took forever to decorate them all.

Here's one that Sierra made it looks like it's sticking a tongue out! We had a ton of fun! Hopefully my computer will continue to work and I can update more often.

HATS!!!

2008-11-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

Grama Cari made some adorable hats for Kairi a while back and I just haven't gotten around to putting pictures of them up yet. Today I was bored so I had to take some. There are tons more hats but Kairi was getting mad so I had to stop. Thank you grama Cari! We love you!

2008-11-14T16:10:00.000-08:00

The other day our friends Melissa and Paul came over with their two cute little girls. We had a ton of fun. They brought pizza and we made cookies and visited.

This is their sweet baby Madison next to Kairi. Maddie is two weeks older than Kairi and she is such a good baby. I don't think I even heard her fuss the whole time they were over!

I couldn't get both of them to look at me at all. Look at Maddie's cute chubby cheeks!

Their two year old Bailey is a doll. She kept kissing Kairi and saying, 'Mama, I kiss.' It was too cute!

Kairi was having some tummy time, this was towards the end when she got too tired to hold her head up!

I had some really bad lighting in this one so it looks like her eyes are two different colors but I thought her little grin was adorable.

Thanks Melissa and Paul for coming over and hanging out with us. It was super fun even though I'm kind of boring!

She did it!!!

2008-11-11T16:44:00.000-08:00

Kairi actually slept a full 8 hours last night!!! I couldn't believe it. She usually sleeps pretty well but gets up once or twice but last night she was out cold all night. I woke up at 7:30 and almost had a heart attack because I was worried something was wrong with her. I ended up waking her up to feed her and change her and she was still pretty groggy. She had to have a bath right away because she had EXPLODED out of her diaper all over my favorite nightgown of hers! It was pretty gross. Luckily, Danny had just gotten home from work so he helped me get her out of her pj's without making too much more of a mess. Here are some of Kairi's sleepy pictures. I love taking pics of her when she's sleeping because her chubby cheeks are always smooshed up!

Update

2008-11-09T21:30:00.000-08:00

Kairi and I went out to stay the night at my parents saturday night. Danny works nights so sometimes it's nice to go out there for the company and the help!

Dad was having a fun time with Reese!

Kairi's first time at church. She did so good and slept right through sacrament.

Kairi in her cute dress that Nana Estes made for her! It's pink and brown, my favorite!

Kairi fell asleep in her swing and when I checked on her she had her binky wedged in her nose! The other day she had her thumb wedged in her nose too, and by the time I got the camera it was out. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it. I have a feeling she might pick her nose a lot when she gets older.

She was doing some funny faces, look at her chubby cheeks!

Looking at her daddy.

Thanks Grammy and Bompa for letting us come out and for helping me out this weekend. I even had Shelby and Sierra helping out it was great. I love you guys!

New hair!

2008-11-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

Today was the first time I've gone anywhere without Kairi, I got to get my hair done. I took off like 4 or 5 inches and went darker. I was so excited to finally change my look!

Finally!

2008-11-02T23:26:00.000-08:00

I finally started a blog! I'll try to update it regularly. The pictures are a little bit out of order.

Kairi Shea in her pumpkin costume from grama Cari.

Three weeks old! It's going by so fast.

It was a long day at the Dr.'s office.

Kairi's other costume a bumble bee. She was drowning in it!

Kairi and her daddy the day she was born. So sweet!

The first time I got to see my sweet girl. I was bawling as soon as I heard her. I was a little emotional!

Her cute smile. Thanks Shelby for taking such amazing pictures of her!

Kairi Shea born Oct. 8th. 7lbs 1oz. 19 1/2"