A December Recap

December was such a great month, and I didn't take the opportunity to record much of it. We had a lot of fun with the pre-Christmas activities; zoo lights, Christmas in the pioneer village (This is the Place Park), caroling, and making lots of cookies and fudge.

Here are a couple pictures of Christmas morning. It was a great day spent in pjs and playing with toys. I was especially happy that Paige continues to love her toys and they didn't just get shelved as sometimes they do. My favorite couple quotes from Paige on Christmas morning were, "I can't believe I've been good enough." and "Thank you, and I'll thank you again when I figure out what it is."

My friend Stacey and her family were in the St George visiting her parents for the week, so we took the opportunity to head south and visit too. It was a great visit, though colder than I wanted it to be. The kids wanted to go "mountain climbing." So we took them to this area that had a lot of bike and atv trails. The first one they went up was pretty easy, but they got progressively harder, they ended up on all four crawling up. Paige was the first one up each time. She's a trooper.

Happy Thanksgiving

Paige learned these songs and poems in her preschool. I love them, especially the one that ends with cutting the head of the turkey. Glad I don't have to worry about explaining that to her. Tomorrow she is going to her feast at school as an indian girl. It is so fun having a little one discovering the holidays.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Halloween Through the Years

I love looking back at pictures "through the years." So here is Paige in all her halloween costumes to date. Enjoy the stroll down memory lane.

Baby Jadzia

Yankees Cheerleader

Princess

Dorothy

Ladybug Ballerina

Jack O Lanterns

Tonight we carved 4 pumpkins for family night. Paige was a trooper in cleaning out the pumpkin guts. I let her design the pumpkin faces. I'm grateful that she is into geometric shapes. It made my job easier. Our pumpkins are named Happy, Surprised, Sad, and Cat. Original, I know. The two greenish pumpkins are the ones that grew in our pumpkin patch. The large one is from our neighbor's pumpkin patch that grew on our side of the fence. The small one is the one P got from her field trip.

Pumpkin Patch

I went with Paige's preschool class to the pumpkin patch last week. It was fun to watch her interact with her peers. We had a lot of fun there.

On the hayride. This was her favorite part.

Why go through the maze if you can go over it?
I love the look of terror on her face going down the slide.
But she enjoyed it.
Her chosen pumpkin.

Happy Birthday Cosmo

Cosmo turned 5 years old this month. To celebrate we made Cat Cupcakes. We enjoyed it. Cosmo ignored us.

Our Trip to VA and NC

So we spent the first couple weeks of this month back east with the in-law side of the family. We flew out to Virginia to spend a few days with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her family. The first day we were there we went to Baltimore to go to the National Aquarium. It was awesome. It was Paige's first time seeing Dolphins. They are now her favorite animal.

The next day we went to Luray Caverns in Virginia. My mother-in-law has a love for rocks. She started a rock collection for Paige. It was fun going through the cave and Paige loved rock shopping in the gift shop. This is actually a picture of a lake. You can see the reflection of the top in the water. It was awesome!!!!
Paige and her cousin on the audio tour. They did a great kids audio tour making it into a scavenger hunt. Paige had fun with it.
Then we headed to North Carolina for a week of beach heaven. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law assemble a group of awesome people every year to rent a beach house (mansion). The house was awesome, the people were awesome (we played games every night after the kids were in bed) and the beach was awesome. The first day it rained the whole day, but Paige discovered the hot tubs so it was good. The rest of the week, the temps were in the mid 70s and heaven.

Mermaid Paige
Shell collecting Paige
Sand castle building Paige
Pool building Paige & co.
Exhausted Paige (after 6 hours on the beach that day)
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Paige climbed to the top of the lighthouse by herself.
The girl has no fear of heights. She kept sticking her legs out the railing. She thought it was great.
Of course there was a photo shoot involved. I actually took her out on 2 separate nights in her ballerina outfit. Here are some of my favorites.
I love her expression here.
Doing her ballet leaps.
Her aunt taught her to hold her hands like this when going in circles (I obviously don't know the ballet terminology.)
I call this, "Don't turn your back on the ocean."
The last night a desperately wanted to get a silhouette shot. It took a while to get Paige in the right spot but I LOVE the results.

A Camping We Did Go

Earlier this month we went up to Idaho to go camping with my family. I love camping. I grew up camping. And I recently realized that I've only been camping 2 (now 3 times) in the last 9 years. That is just wrong. This was Paige's first camping trip sleeping in a tent. We camped on the middle fork of the Payette River near Crouch, ID. We had a great campsite with the river close by. It was shallow enough that the kids played in it and could ride tubes down the little current. Paige loved having her cousins at her every command. Paige says her favorite part was sleeping in a tent. I loved it all.

Of course, I had to start the trip with a photo shoot. I told Paige if she let me do pictures when we first got there, when we were done, she could get as dirty as she wanted.

I love this picture of my brother carrying Paige across the river. He was helping her catch a fish. These fish only liked flies, so later he caught a few and let Paige reel them in. Once we got back to Boise she went fishing with Poppa at a pond and caught her first fist by her self. At least that's the story she tells me. I wasn't there, so I don't know.
Paige in her cousin's boat. She would ride down the current and then the kids would drag her back upstream to do it again. Oh, to have everyone do things for you.
My nieces and nephew. Out trip was with my parents, my brother and his family, my sister's daughter, and us. My sister didn't come because she doesn't get along with the outdoors (really bad allergies, dirt, roughing it...)
The first fish Paige reeled in with Uncle Brian.

It was great and far too short. Next year we will have to plan for a longer weekend. To see all the camping pictures, click here.

The Zoo

We have enjoyed going to the zoo this summer. I thought I would share a few of the pictures I've taken.

A baby giraffe was born in the end of July. The giraffes are mine and Paige's favorite, so it was especially fun seeing this new addition. There is also a baby snow leopard, but I haven't been able to get a good shot of him yet.

I noticed that one of the giraffes has a heart patch on his rump. Cute.
My favorite snake. A tree python, I think.
Christie the elephant. Since this picture, she gave birth to a 250 lbs baby girl. They are hoping to have the baby elephant on display mid-September. We can't wait!
It was fun catching this interaction between these bears.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

We've recently started going to the local baseball (pioneer league??) team games. The Orem Owlz. Paige loves them. It is in her Puerto Rican blood to love baseball. Her great-grandfather and dad would be so proud of her. I think we've gone to 4 or so over the past couple weeks.

Enjoying the game..

This is Hoots, the mascot. There is a girl owl mascot too, Holly. Paige loves them! We actually attended the wedding of Hoots and Holly after one of the games.

Enjoying a hotdog.

Perfecting the art of eating sunflower seeds.