Baby Sadie is here!

We’re so happy to welcome Sadie Joelle to our family!  She was born 11-01-11 (our binary baby!) and was 8lbs 7oz and 20 in, which makes her our smallest baby by 1/2 a pound!  We named her Sadie, after my great-grandma, and Joelle after Jake’s mom, Jody Ellen.

Because she was so “small” she was my fastest and easiest delivery.  That also means it’s been my best recovery!

Dallin and Abbie loved her right from the start, and still love holding her and giving her her binky.  Abbie even likes to help change diapers!  It’s been especially nice to watch Dallin interact with the baby, since he virtually ignored Abbie when she was born.  Dallin LOVES to hold and help take care of Sadie, and said to me today, “I’ll do ANYthing for Sadie!” 

This is one of my favorite pictures.  Dallin was so excited that Sadie was holding his finger!

We had to take Sadie back to the hospital THREE times to have her bilirubin checked before it came down low enough that she didn’t need to be treated. 

It’s amazing how much we love this little person that we’ve known less than two weeks.  Sadie has such a sweet personality, eats and sleeps well, and is pretty content.  I’m so grateful that she’s here, safe and perfect!

Pregnancy Update

(At 8 months 1 week, in my favorite dress.)

My second baby girl will be here in two days!  I thought I’d like to record some of my feelings about this pregnancy before the baby is born, but I’m just too tired.  I’m so excited to be done being pregnant and meet the newest little lady of our family!

My little BFF

Since Dallin started kindergarten, Abbie is my best little buddy. She loves to run errands with me, do “learning time” together, clean with me, and will even let me take a rest in the afternoons. I love this little girly- girl and hope the next one is just like her!

I finally met one of my New Year’s resolutions and took and edited some pictures of Abbie to update the ones hanging in my house. She posed herself

The Kindergartener

I’m too far behind on summer blogging to catch up now, so I’m skipping on to school. Dallin started his first day of Kindergarten today.

Of course, he wasn’t nervous at all, but just lined right up to go inside. He still give me a little hug before we got to the door

I thought I would cry, but only got a little choked up. Dallin seems so grown up and was so ready for school! I’m excited for this next stage in his life!

STAY-cation

A few years ago we decided with our friends Jesse and Emily that we’d vacation together every summer. And we’ve done it TWO years in a row now! Last year we visited them in Missouri, and this year they came to us! Our stay-cation was awesome: Jake took the whole week off work, and we went to Temple Square,

Stevie pushed Abbie all over Temple Square!

We did NOT pose these two- they were hugging each other all on their own! When they get married this is going in the wedding video!

Being statues (Dallin’s idea):

Work it, guys:

Family of Four (for now!)

Love Dallin’s face:

Up the canyon for fresh air, bratts and s’mores,

Swimming twice (too busy and fun to take pictures!)

On a couples date night.

And to the park, where Jake, Jesse and Dallin played horseshoes:

We also enjoyed all the yummy food Utah has to offer: Rubio’s, In-n-Out (twice), Market Street, and of course Café Rio (twice)! We had so much fun and can’t wait till next year!

Dallin Graduated. . .

From preschool! His teacher did the cutest graduation ceremony at the library. Dallin and his class sang “The Star Spangled Banner”, the ABC’s FOUR ways (including backwards!), a vowels song, and some others that I can’t remember now. The kids all wore these awesome graduation hats. We LOVED Dallin’s preschool- it was close enough to walk, he made lots of new friends, and his teacher was phenomenal. Dallin’s reading now!

(He was looking at Jake and would NOT look at me!)

The week before, my brother graduated from the U of U, and the whole family went out to dinner to celebrate. Of course, when Dallin graduated from preschool he thought HE deserved dinner out at a restaurant. We settled for ice cream

We’re proud of Dallin and excited for him to start kindergarten!

Abbie Turned Three!

Shortly after our Disneyland trip, Abbie turned the ripe old age of three! She chose to have her birthday party at Classic Skating, of course, because that’s where Dallin had his. All of Abbie’s cousins came, so there were 16 kids total, plus moms and dads and Grammy and Pops. Abbie got to choose a song to skate to, and chose the Chipette’s version of “All the single ladies.” When the song came on, Abbie immediately began shaking her little tush and singing “I’m a singa yady, I’m a singa yady!”

Abbie’s a sweet, easy-going girl. She’s my shopping buddy and loves to just be going somewhere. She has her sassy moments, but for the most part she does just what I say, or what Dallin says! She sings her own versions to songs, and my favorite is her version of eenie-meenie-mynie-mo: “And my mom IS the very best one and you are it!”

She’s a Daddy’s girl through and through. She still loves to be the mommy to her baby dolls, and takes very tender care of them. She also likes to play house. Since our Disneyland trip she’s been into all things princess.

(I put this scooter together while Jake was working in the yard. The wheels fell off the first time she rode it! Luckily daddy came to the rescue.)

We sure love our pretty princess!

Celebrity Sightings

At Disneyland we saw Abbie’s favorite celebrities:

We stayed for “princess storytime” and Dallin got chosen to dance with Cinderella.  (There are advantages to being the only boy in the group!)  He was pretty embarrassed!

We also saw this guy:  Bond, James Bond!

We didn’t want to ask him to take a picture with us, so Jake posed in front of a garbage can near him!  We thought it was pretty funny!