My two girls.

Here is a comparison of my girls at 9 months.

I'm surprised how similar they look!

Here's their 9 month stats:

Ellie:  height: 27"     Weight: 19 lbs 14 oz   Head: 18 "

ALexis: height: 27.5 "   weight: 17 lbs 12 oz   Head: 17.8"  

Its fun to compare my girls and see what they are like now and where they will be eventually. 

Alexis at nine months is finally sleeping through the night, eating basically whatever we eat at meals, has been crawling like a champ for 2 months, and standing on her own and cruising along furniture. She is still the happiest baby ever but now is very attached to me and cries if I leave the room. She also LOVES whatever is Ellie's and thinks its so fun to play with all of Ellie's things while Elle is napping or in the other room. She just started clapping this past week and it is the cutest thing! I Love being a mom to these two girls!

Waco and Magnolia Market!

 This was probably my favorite day in Texas besides Christmas. Doug, Laura, Josh, the girls and I went to Waco one day. I've heard Josh talk about Waco alllll the time from his mission and now that I'm obsessed with Fixer Upper and Jo and Chip I couldn't be three-ish hours away from Waco and Not go.

So, one day we got up and headed to Waco. We drove around Baylor Campus, which is so nice! The buildings are huge and beautiful and there is a really nice walking path next to it where Josh said they talked to a lot of people. This is Josh's apartment right next to Baylor. 

 Here is the Waco suspension bridge. Josh lived a couple blocks from it and when we drove to those apartments they were all boarded up and condemned haha So obviously he lived in a really nice place! We drove around all the neighborhoods Josh was a missionary in. It was fun to see the places he's told me about and to see how excited he was to see every place. Most places were run down and it was humbling to see because these people fed him huge dinners and would give him anything when they didn't have much themselves. We tried to knock on a door of one of his favorite families, but no one answered and Josh said they probably moved.

 Next stop was the SILOS! I was excited and Josh was a good sport. Im sure he was really excited too :)

 I didn't take any pictures inside because there were seriously 1000 people INSIDE. and even more outside. If I saw something I liked, I had to pick it up immediately because someone else would grab it before I could make up my mind if I wanted to buy it or not. One thing we bought I followed around a worker who was pushing a cart reloading the shelves and asked her if I could take it off the cart. And honestly, I could buy every single thing in that place! It was so fun to see Joanna's pieces and designs in real life. Sadly, my great friends Chip and Jojo weren't there.. However, I'm pretty sure her mom checked us out. haha

 WE got a lot of ideas for our future house and it made us even more excited to plan out our house and design the inside.

After visiting Magnolia Market, we decided to look around neighborhoods that Josh thought there might be "Fixer upper" houses because he recognized things from the show and we got a few hints from a worker at the market. We saw some houses we thought were on the show and we saw some Magnolia Realty signs on houses, but that was as good as it got.

We did however, see the most Christmasy house ever. The hilarious thing about this is that none of the houses in the whole two blocks around it had a single Christmas decoration. It was like they stole everyones decorations and put them on their house.

 On the way back to San Antonio, we stopped at the WORLDS LARGEST GAS STATION! It has like 120 gas pumps or something. And the gas station was like as big as a walmart. Josh and I went inside and checked it out. You could seriously buy anything in there.

 We also stopped at the Salt Lick on the way home. I guess not on the way home, but 45 minutes out of the way home. ha we got off the freeway and drove on a bunch of random back roads and came to a place with a ton of cars and tons of people. There was like a 2 hour wait so we got our food to go and ate outside under the heat lamps. Here's Josh with the girls by the pit they cooked all the meat on. It was delicious!

The Alamo, the Riverwalk, and Animal World and Snake Farm Zoo

 We were able to go see the Alamo for a little bit one day. I always imagined it as a HUGE fort and out in the middle of no where... but its in downtown surrounded by huge buildings and the walls are only like 8 feet tall! And honestly, I didn't know too much about it besides "remember the alamo!" which I, of course, remember... but that's it. So it was cool to learn more about it and see inside the fort.

 We also walked down to the Riverwalk and walked all around. It was fun to see such a big river in the middle of the city and watch the boats going through it. We ate dinner there as well.

The next day we went to Animal World and Snake Farm zoo. When we pulled up and I got off the floor (I sat on the floor of Jen's van because we had 5 kids in carseats and Josh and Jen and I in the car hah) and looked at it, I felt like I had been there before. Looking around at all the snakes in the cages felt familiar too... Then we saw a video they had playing there of them on Dirty Jobs and I remembered. Josh and I watched them on dirty Jobs and that's how I knew about it. Anyway, There were tons of snakes and lizards and then outside there were tons of cool animals. 

 We got to watch them feed hyenas, Lions, and cougars. Those are some scary big cats!  There were tons of cool birds, a camel, zebra, monkeys, and even peacocks just wondering around.

 They also had a petting zoo where you could feed the animals. Ellie wasn't very timid and because we've fed the horses around our house here she knew how to hold her hand flat and let them eat off of it. All the kids had fun feeding the goats, but Carder was the most fun to watch. He went inside the enclosure and touched every single goat.

Christmas in Texas

For christmas this year, we headed to San Antonio, Texas. Unfortunately, December was super snowy, so we weren't sure if Josh was going to make it at all. Luckily, from the 26th to the end of the month the snow stopped! So Josh Came the day after Christmas and was able to stay for a week.

The Girls and I flew with Grandma Green on the 23rd to Texas. We saw Josh for about 2 hours in the last two days and he was running on 4 hours of sleep in 48 hours. He came home just in time to get in the car and drive us to the airport and then go home and sleep.

The girls did really well on the plane. Alexis slept almost the whole time and Ellie played on the ipad or talked to the cute girl sitting next to us. Grandma was across the aisle asking every few minutes if she could help us out, but the girls were perfect! We got to San Antonio super late and the girls wouldn't sleep unless they were in bed with me... so we all "Slept" together. (They slept and I laid there all night ha) Luckily they moved to their own beds the next day and had no problems the rest of the time!

Christmas Eve we played at Nano and Papa's house and, of course, made sugar cookies. Ellie had a blast playing with all her cousins and everyone loved holding and playing with Alexis.

 That night, we did a little nativity. Ellie was a shepherd/wiseman and Alexis got to be baby Jesus. And since I was Alexis' mom, I played Mary.

 the grandkids all opened up one present, which was the cutest matching jammies ever!

 Christmas Morning we all got together at Jen and Peter's house and opened presents. The girls were spoiled by their Aunts and cousins.. of course! We ate Doug's famous orange rolls and spent all morning opening presents and playing.

 It was so fun having Grandma Green, or "GG" as the kids call her, there. Its so fun to see her playing with her great grandkids and to see my kids with her.

I'm gonna miss this.

I have a lot of blog posting to catch up with, but I have just felt so blessed and grateful today that those other posts can wait.

Today, Josh got up early and left for work while Ellie and I got to cuddle and watch an episode of Curious George. I am so grateful for a husband who works hard to provide for us so that I can stay home with our babies. Seriously, staying at home with ELlie is the absolute best and Josh is the absolute best for working so hard that I can.

Then Ellie and I made breakfast together- her favorite: scrambled eggs and sausage with some bananas on the side. Before we started to eat she folded her arms to remind me to pray.

We cleaned up Ellie's bedroom and cleaned out her clothes that are too small for her now then she watched me vacuum the living room and bedrooms from the safety of the couch and beds. One day she won't be scared of the vacuum! She helped me unload and load the dishwasher and even started it for me.

While she napped, I finally got dressed for the day and caught up on the laundry. When she woke up, we took the trash down the stairs and loaded it in the car so we could take it to the garbage drop off and then on to the post office to get the mail. Of course, she had to go down the stairs all by herself and run to the car and wait for me to open the door for her.

As we came down the hill to drop off the garbage, Trace Adkins song "You're gonna miss this" came on the radio and as I looked in my rear view mirror at my sweet little girl I just burst into tears. Of course she was looking out the window laughing and then when she saw me said "OH NO!" with a concerned look on her face. That sweet girl is constantly aware of her mommy and if I am happy or sad. She even tries to protect me from the Dr at all my prenatal appointments. haha

I dropped off the trash and as we continued onto the post office I tried to compose myself. We got out at the post office and she ran up the sidewalk with our netflix in her hand and pushed open the door to wait for me. Every single time we get the mail at least 3 people tell me how cute she is and how much fun it looks like we're having. And I always say thanks and still can't get over how blessed I am to be this little girl's mommy.

So, Its true. I am going to miss this. I'm going to miss simple days like today. I'm going to miss cuddling with Ellie in the mornings and having her all to myself all day long. I'm going to miss my little shadow, helper, and sous chef. I'm going to miss going outside to play with her everyday no matter the weather just because she LOVES being outside. While I know she's only 16 months old, time is going by waaaay too fast for me. And in three months we'll have another sweet little babe here. I will have more to do everyday than I can probably handle, and although I'll still be with Ellie all day, its going to be different. Fun and wonderful, but different.

Becoming a mom has made me so sentimental and emotional... I so desperately want to remember each moment and each day, because I am going to miss this. This hard, exhausting, emotional, fun, entertaining, and wonderful time in my life.

Arizona!

We went on a little family trip to Arizona in AUGUST to see 2 of my brothers and their families that live there as well as Kevin from his mission!

Ellie was still in a rear facing car seat and she HATED being alone in the back and not being able to see anything. She was not that great of a traveler, so the first day we didn't drive too far. The next day she was much better and even read some books as we drove along.


We stopped to see the Grand Canyon. Neither of us had seen it before and we were close so we figured why not?

It was amazing! Its crazy to think that something this huge and wonderful was only a couple hours away and we'd never seen it before. While we were there, it felt like we were visiting another country because we couldn't understand anyone! There were tons of different languages being spoken around us and none of those were English.

 

It was so fun to get Kevin back! I missed my big little brother! 

  

 It was fun to introduce him to Ellie too! I Mean, look at this kid! Who wouldn't be excited to meet her?!

We also got in a lot of pool time! Luckily, we stayed with Erik and Dawn who have an amazing pool in their backyard. And Phoenix in August means you NEED to have a pool to cool off in.

 

Since there was so much going on, we decided why not throw a surprise baby shower for Marianne?! Her mom was also in the Phoenix area, so I invited her and she surprised Marianne as well. It was so fun to see her so surprised! 

Of Course, we had to have a Harry Potter baby shower. Her invite came by Owl to Cory's house where she was staying.

Dawn  did an awesome set up with the food. We had broomsticks, hufflePUFFs, chocolate covered frogs, and butter beer. Everything was so delicious!

This was the sign in table for Baby J. Everyone left a fingerprint on the weeping willow. We played pin the lightning scar on the baby, had a wizard dress up photo booth, made a custom ABC book for Baby J, and played baby themed pictionary. It turned out really well!

Kaiya and Ellie became great friends on this trip as well. Ellie LOVES to eat and Kaiya loved feeding her... a match made in heaven.

WE had so much fun in Arizona, it was hard to leave! Especially with the daunting 12 hour drive back home....

Green Cousins!

Jen and the triplets came to Utah to visit in July and we had soo much fun! The Triplets love Ellie and she loved having little people to play with. Every single time Taylor would see me she would yell "Ellie?!" and look for Ellie. Carder and Cruz were a little more forceful with their love, wrestling Ellie to the ground or hugging her so tight. But she loved it all! We went to several parks, went swimming a few times, played outside, fed the duckies, and went exploring Provo River. It was a fun and exhausting two weeks!

 trying to take matchy cousin pictures.

 Playing in the park with the cousins.

 Trying to be big like the cousins.

 Cruz and Carder "Loving" ellie. Cruz would block her and Carder would tackle her. it was hilarious to watch!

Demolition Derby! Josh and I loved it last year so we got tickets for everyone this year! They all loved it too!

 Exploring Provo River.

Hanging out with Bozo, watching a movie!