Umm...

Sienna hated Santa...

...but loved the candy cane she got from Mrs. Claus.

I'm not surprised.

The First of Many...

I feel like I need to have a preface for this post:
Sienna LOVES her Aunt Rachel! I was blessed to have Rachel watch Sienna when I needed to go back to work. Unfortunately, we don't see her that much now that I nanny for my sister in Rocklin but that hasn't changed Sienna's feelings. If you remember Sienna wanted to sit on her lap to open presents on her birthday! Even Mommy is chopped liver compared to Rachel. Fortunately, Aunt Rachel loves Sienna just as much.

The first of many babies to steal Sienna's thunder is here! (I say this in the best way possible...the girl could use a little of her thunder stolen...) Rachel had her sweet baby girl a couple of days ago and Sienna and I got a chance to go to the hospital and visit.

Sienna did a lot of staring at baby Evelyn and was very interested in her. She asked Aunt Rachel to pick her up about every two seconds but was content with just sitting on the bed next to her. Her favorite part was probably when she was finally able to sit on Aunt Rachel's lap while I held Evelyn though. We are so excited for the Riddle family and thankful that even though they have a beautiful new baby of their own they still love my silly baby just as much.
Congratulations Riddle family!

A tree and some ugly sweaters...

We had a very busy Saturday! The first Saturday in the month of December is set aside every year to head by to Apple Hill for a Christmas tree hunt. Nick and I have a fake tree so we usually just go to hang out with my family, lend our opinions and get a free meal out of the deal (Thanks Dad!) Unfortunately, Nick didn't go up this year so that he could get in plenty of study time before the evenings festivities. We sure did miss him but I'm glad that he was able to get things done so that we could actually hang out as a couple.

Sienna and I had a great time though...well, I had a great time. Sienna hated the trees, hence the reason she was crying in the picture with Aunt Katie. Silly Aunt Katie kept trying to put her in them. All Sienna really wanted to do was crawl and play rocks with Lucas. After everyone found their tree, Sienna and I shared a cake pop on our way over to the train! She LOVED the train! The family then stopped by High Hill for some treats and then to Round Table for lunch. When we got home Nick surprised us by having our tree up and ready.

That evening Nick and I got a chance, thanks to my wonderful Mother in Law, to go to our friend's house for an ugly sweater party. We had a great time hanging out with our friends that we haven't seen in awhile and hanging out with each other. We even got to have fancy mocktails! We didn't win the ugliest sweaters but we did make out pretty well in the white elephant gifts.

Next on the list is sending out cards and finishing the pesky shopping...

Family Pictures

A couple of weeks ago we took some family/ Sienna's one pictures. We were lucky enough to have our really good friend, Erin take them for us. She is amazing! She has kind of become the unofficial family photographer. (She has taken Sam's wedding pictures, Andi's family, Kate's family, Sienna's newborns, Megan and Bubba's engagements and more!) She took our family pictures at a local park and Sienna's one year pictures at the studio in her house.
Here are some of my favorites:

If you are looking for a photographer definitely check her out. Her website is erinnoelphotgraphy.blogspot.com

Sienna's One!

I can and can't believe that my silly baby is already one! It feels like it's gone by so fast but she definitely is getting to be a big girl. My next post will be my favorite pictures from our recent photo shoots and some of the awesome things Miss Sienna can do now. We started off the morning going early to Grandma and Grandpa's house to set up and take a nap for the birthday girl. I decided to try and make cute cupcakes for Sienna and a big thanks to Nick for helping me at 10 o clock at night to make them. I think they turned out pretty cute, however the kids had semi permanent joker faces due to the red frosting...lesson learned for next time.

We started the party but eating Costco pizza and hanging out with all the family and friends that were able to help us celebrate...and we sure did miss the ones that weren't able to be there!

After lunch we opened up a lot of presents. Sienna was very well loved and she loves everything she received. She started and ended opening presents with mommy, but in the middle she decided that she needed to have some Aunt Rachel time. I love that she loves Aunt Rachel so much! The others kids were sure to do their best to help open and then play with all Sienna's toys afterwards. :)

Once all the presents were opened we sang Happy Birthday and ate the cupcakes. She was not a fan of the candle and then mommy accidently blew a little wax on to her finger so I had to console her a little before she dug in. I'm thinking the drama before kind of made her hesitant to go crazy but she ended up thinking it was pretty delicious.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl. We love you!

Trunk or Treat.

Apparently our bishop hates halloween so our ward didn't have a party of any kind...sad. Since I'm not taking Sienna trick or treating this year I invited myself to my parent's ward's trunk or treat so that Sienna would have a place to wear her costume. Nick invited some friends from our ward to come with us because they were also bummed about not having a place to show off their little one.

We had fun hanging out and tasting the different chilis and cornbread. Our cornbread went fast because it's delicious and let's be honest practically made by Marie Callender herself. :) We checked out all the trunks but didn't participate in the treats. We have plenty of candy at home since I bought a huge bag before Grandma told me we only get about 20 trick or treaters.

Sienna was a trooper and kept her headband on almost the whole night and didn't seem bothered by her giant spider body. She especially loved seeing Aunt Rachel and even cried when I took her away so that we could go home. She was pretty much the most adorable spider I have ever seen.

Pumpkin Carving.

On Monday we had our friends, The Ricks, come over for some pizza and pumpkin carving. We started with pizza and then got to work on the jack o lanterns. The boys took off there tops and got out all of the guts for us and then Kathryn and I carved out the faces. While we carved out the faces, the boys were nice enough to frost and sprinkle some sugar cookies for us....such good guys.

The finished products and the girls with their jack o lanterns.

All the girls.

We had a great time hanging out and letting the girls play together.

Starting her early...

Nick has been dying to take Sienna to a drum corp show pretty much from the time she was born. He's played music for her on the iPod and I believe she has seen some videos of different shows. A couple of weeks ago we decided to go to Roseville to see a marching band show some different high schools were participating in. It's definitely not the same as drum corp but it was a good way to have a test run to see how she would do.

She liked it. I want to say she loved it but I'm pretty sure the only thing she really loved was the caramel popcorn she tried to steal out of some ladies purse..true story. She did really enjoy the music and sharing mommy's dinner. When the bands where performing she was interested so I'm going to call it a success.

I don't think she's ready for the big time ye,t so Nick will just have to keep finding these little shows for us for a while.

The Hill of Apples.

I LOVE fall. It doesn't quite feel like fall here yet, but it's getting there. I like the idea of snuggling in a blanket, watching a movie with cold air blowing through the window while you eat a bowl of soup. Nothing says fall though like a trip to Apple Hill. The weather was perfect and the apple juice was just as delicious as I remember. We went up with my parents and had a very low key trip. We looked at all the craft booths, fed the fish, ran into some friends and my sister Katie, ate lunch and brought home an apple pie. Sienna even got to try some of Grandpa's apple donut, mommy's sandwich and some berry apple pie! We didn't take a ton of pictures but here are a few of us enjoying our day.

I'm so excited for the rest of this year... all the fall holidays, Nick starting school, the Idahoans coming to visit AND Sienna's first birthday!

Teeth!

Miss Sienna thinks that teeth are funny for some reason. She has five now! Whenever she gets the opportunity she loves to stick her finger in mommy or daddy's mouth and touch our teeth. She is so weird... I haven't figured out if it's actually teeth or the word teeth that makes her giggle. Anyway, for Labor Day we went over to the Langstraat's for some swimming and lunch. While we were there Erin took a couple of pictures that I loved and wanted to share.

Playing with Mommy's teeth.

I just love this picture...it's so Sienna.

Showing off her top teeth with her monster face smile!
I just love this silly girl!

Bed Head.

For someone with so little hair that is some serious bed head.

Fake Coughing....

...and other silly things that I want to remember. I have been pretty good about blogging the big things that happen to our small family but after looking at a friends blog I realized that I was missing all of the everyday stuff that makes me laugh or makes me crazy. This post will be my attempt to journal all the stuff that Sienna is up to and then I hope to blog more about the everyday crazy as well as the bigger stuff.

1. Fake Coughing. The girl is out of control. It started a couple of days ago and she thinks that she is so funny. I think she is just silly.

2. She LOVES music! Sienna is a dancing queen but since she doesn't quite stand on her own yet mostly the dancing consist of "rave hands", furiously waving her arms and a big cheesy smile. She appreciates any music from Beyonce to Brad Paisley to church hymns. She also likes to sing which sounds alot like screaming but she stops when the music stops and to me it just sounds awesome.

3. Speaking of screaming...she also does her fair share of that. Last week Nick took her to Target and almost felt like leaving because she was screaming so loud. I should mention that most of the time the screaming is purely to hear the sound of her voice and is not because she is upset. This also means that we have the noisy baby at church (see #2 as well)

4. Like any other baby she hates her toys. Ok, not really. However, she would rather play with golf balls, the laptop, the remote with batteries in it, shopping bags and the laptop cord. I have no idea how she knows if a remote does or does not have batteries but if it doesn't work, she doesn't want it.

5. Not so awesome...she throws fits. Full on throwing her head back, arching her body, holding her breath until her face is red fits. Someone forgot to tell her that she's supposed to walk before she gets an attitude...seriously. We definitely have our hands full!

Day Trip...

On Saturday we woke up with no plans and ended up headed to San Francisco for the day. We figured that Pier 39 would be good for lunch and my salt water taffy fix, but not necessarily something we could do all day with Sienna. We decided to go to the Zoo since neither one of us had been there and we heard it was a pretty cool zoo. I LOVED it! I loved how many things they had for young kids, that animals that lived together in real life got to be together at the zoo (i.e. zebras and giraffes), random peacocks, and how close you seemed to be able to get to the animals...seriously, it was crazy. They had some awesome animals too! Here are some pictures of our favorites.

We also saw a Bald Eagle, a Hippo, Lions, Bears, Sea Lions, Monkeys and so much more including a HUGE anaconda. I literally stepped back when I saw it. Sienna did great! We stopped a couple of times for snack breaks but for the most part she just soaked up everything and even put up with Daddy putting on some silly animal ears at the souvenir shop.

I told Nick that I definitely want to go again when Sienna is bigger. We then headed to the Pier for lunch, taffy and the traditional picture at the end of the pier. Sienna was pretty much done by that time so none of those pictures are awesome, but good enough. It was such a fun day!

Smoothies...

Recently Nick went and bought us the Magic Bullet with some extra money that we came into at Aunt Sam's wedding. It has been awesome! We especially love making smoothies with it. Sienna especially loves sharing with mommy and since there is nothing in it that she can't have mommy is willing to share a little.

Unfortunately for mommy, strawberry banana smoothie is apparently baby crack and Sienna often tries to steal the whole thing!

The Long Weekend of Awesomeness and Stuff

The craziness started on Wednesday for us this week! Wednesday after work Sienna and I went over to Grandpa and Grandma's house to help make Sam pretty for some pretty wedding pictures and then spent the rest of our night playing with the Gibson kids so that Aunt Katie could go enjoy a night out with her friends, we even got to spend the night! Unfortunately, Aunt Rachel wasn't feeling well the next morning and couldn't watch Sienna. Daddy drove out to Elk Grove and picked up Sienna and the two of them got to spend the whole morning together. Sienna was very excited....

On Thursday night we had the opportuntity to go to the temple to be there with Sam when she went through for the first time. Sienna got to spend that time hanging out with Grandma Hudson and Great Grandma Swanson!

Friday, I left my favorites in bed as I went off to work. Right after work though we celebrated Baby Jett's first birthday. I can't believe that he is actually one already! We celebrated with some swimming, opening presents and pirate cupcakes. We love that little/big guy and were so excited to be able to celebrate with the Esslingers...we sure miss them... Friday night we had a bachelorette party for Sam at Chevy's on the River...sorry no pictures Andi took them all.

Saturday, we started our day back at Grandpa's house helping Aunt Sam get ready for her big day! Sienna decided doing hair isn't that exciting and played with Miss Jenny instead.

After everyone was pretty we went off to the temple for the sealing. After the sealing we took some pictures and then went over to Olive Garden for a luncheon with the two families. We got home with just enough time to get Sienna ready and head over to the church for more pictures and the reception. Some of my favorite pictures of the day for you:

We were definitely tired by the end of our weekend but we are so excited for Aunt Sam and Uncle Jake. We had alot of fun seeing lots of our friends and being able to celebrate this special day. We can't wait for them to get home from their honeymoon so we can hear about how awesome the cruise and Alaska was!

State Fair

My mom was nice enough this year to purchase a bunch of tickets to the State Fair for the family this year. Mom and Dad decided to go on first responders day since they could both get in free and everyone decided that we would go with them. I took the day off and we packed up the baby and off we carpooled to the fair. Mom really wanted to see the Moto Cross show so we definitely hit that up. Sienna hated it...mostly because she was exhausted when we got to the show and partly because it was loud...so I missed most of it. However, Nick took a ton of pictures of all the cool tricks for me.

Dad also took Katie and her kids on the Pirate boats and after coming back laughing and soaking wet persauded Tracy, Chad, Sam and I to go on them as well. It was a lot of fun and thanks to Chad and Tracy's broken cannons Sam and I looked like we had peed our pants but our hair stayed dry and when you have natural curl, that's the important part :)

We also saw all the exhibits, including the Big Bugs, the farm animals, and caught part of a concert. We didn't try any crazy food, but enjoyed the standard of corndogs and fried zucchini. Sienna was such a good girl! She took little naps through out the day and the only time she got upset was trying to take a nap at the Moto Cross show.

It was fun getting the chance to go to the fair with our family. I can't wait until Sienna is a little bigger and can actually enjoy some of the stuff instead of just dealing with it.

Fourth of July Weekend

We had a very big fourth of July weekend. On Saturday we went over to the Langstraat's house for a BBQ and some swimming. This was Sienna's first time going swimming and she was not a fan! She clung to daddy like her life depended on it and her little heart was beating like crazy but I tell you what...she looked so cute in her swimsuit.

She decided that lounging by the pool was more her style...

On Sunday we went to the Bacchus' house for a BBQ and fireworks across the street at the park. Sienna did really well during the fireworks. I don't know that she loved them but she didn't cry and watch very intently. On the actual fourth we went to a pancake breakfast in the morning and then headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house for some more swimming and round two of BBQ and fireworks. Grandma and Grandpa had heard about our swimming fiasco earlier that week and went out and bought a small perfect Sienna sized pool...she LOVED it!

These are some of my favorite pictures from the many, many pictures Daddy took of her. I like that you can see her earrings that she got the weekend after camping and those two silly teeth she has. Afterward we had round two of fireworks...

I don't know if you can tell but she's freaking out a little. I think they were too close, she was too tired and she did NOT want me to cover her ears. Overall, we had a great weekend and loved being able to spend time with our friends and family while celebrating our independence.

Camping Trip

We had a great time on our annual Memorial Day weekend camping trip to Santa Cruz. I was a little nervous to take Sienna since she is still pretty little but she was awesome. She slept through the night and dealt well for not being able to roll around in the dirt. The first day we got there we went straight to the beach. Unfortunately it was really windy and downwind from a stinky boat but she got to put her feet in the sand and kind of liked it. We skipped touching the ocean though since it was so cold. She spent most of the time we were there taking a nap.

The next day we went to the tidepools and saw all the cool stuff living in them. We found star fish, crabs, sea anemones and a ton of mussells just covering the rocks. The kids loved it and Sienna fell asleep.

On Sunday we like to take a hike to see the giant redwood trees and surprise Sienna fell asleep. We had a ton of fun and enjoyed spending time with the family and getting to know future uncle Jake a little bit better.

Next year is going to be crazy with her walking and falling over the place, I can't wait!

Six Months

This post is mildly delayed due to the fact that we moved and have had serious issues trying to successfully set up the internet in our new home. This little monster is officially six months old as of May 19th...

The next day she had her doctor's appointment and got her stats. She is 25 inches long (24%) and 12 pounds 14 ounces (4%). She is wonderfully petite. She is eating like a champ and especially loves sweet potatoes. She wants to eat everything and even has two teeth now! She likes to roll all over the place and has a very strong personality. When she is good she is so good and when she is naughty she is very naughty. She is pretty fantastic...

Racing for a cure...

It's become a tradition for the Busath girls to participate in the Race for the Cure every year. However, this year was a little bit different due to Andi's move to Idaho, Sam thinking she would be at school and Megan's busy schedule. Katie brought a friend and I brought the baby and we walked our legs off.

I love seeing the sprinkling of pink shirts from the survivors and the amount of people affected or just wanted to do something to bring more hope. It's such a great event and we can't wait until next year.

Spring Happenings

We have successfully moved out of our apartment and into Grandma Swanson's house. We have not successfully acquired internet however, hence the delay of the Easter post. Internet or not though Easter did come...which is always good. Sienna got to wear a fancy dress that I got at one of my baby showers and even got her own Easter basket. She was super fascinated by her poofy dress and played with it most of the morning...and I thought I would have to wait until she was three to tell her to keep her dress down :) After church we went over to my parents house for dinner and an egg hunt. It was a wonderfully low key and happy Easter for us.

I love her face in this picture. She makes it all the time now...

Miss Sienna also patiently waited until after we moved to start eating rice cereal. She has been showing me that she is ready for a couple of weeks but I wanted to wait until after the move. She took to it like a champ! No messy face pictures for you because she was sure not to let any go to waste. We have since tried apples, which she didn't like, and sweet potatoes, which she LOVED. She is also starting to chunk up.

At her last doctor's appointment she weighed 11lb 11oz and was 24inches. She was weighed and measured yesterday and has not grown any taller but now weighs 12 lb 12 oz. It's hard to remember sometimes how "big" she is getting because she is still so petite. Stay tuned for pictures of her in the Exersaucer that baby Jett let her have since he was all done.

One Thing I Don't Worry About...

Nick and I are about to enter into another transition period in our lives. We will be moving in with Nick's grandma in order to save us some money when Nick goes back to school full time to become a Respitory Therapist as well as give Grandma piece of mind. (She's not a fan of living alone.) With these changes comes some worries for me. I worry about finances, healthcare, Nick having enough time to do it all, normal complications that come with moving into someone else's house among other things. I know that all of these worries will work themselves out, but it's good to know that with all of this craziness there is one thing that I never worry about....

The thought of going back to work after Sienna made me want to cry and I dreaded the idea that I might have to put her in daycare with someone I didn't know. Lucky for me Sienna gets to hang out with my cousin Rachel while I'm away. I am so thankful that this opportunity was provided for us. I know that Sienna is not only being well taken care of but loved as well. Rachel jokes that Sienna merely "rents a room" at her house with her ridiculously good naps but it gives me serious piece of mind knowing that she's there. Here are some pictures that I stole from Rachel's blog of her silly kids with Sienna.

He is such a good helper.. Sienna loves the Itsy Bitsy Spider and so he sings it to her anytime she's sad...from anywhere in the house :)


They're twins!

Thank you Riddle Family for loving my baby girl. It helps calm this crazy new mom's mind.

Showering Sam

This weekend was my little sister Sam's bridal shower. My three older sisters were the ones who actually put the whole thing together and they did a fantastic job. They went all out for the BBQ theme. There was ribs, drumsticks, assorted salads, macaroni and cheese, freckled lemonade, a home made edible arrangement and the thing that inspired it all...corn on the cob cupcakes. The party gifts were even steak seasoning and BBQ sauce.

Sienna and I came over early to help set up and get things ready for the party. The grandmas were especially helpful taking care of the silly babies while the moms went to work...(as well as the grandpas and dad who helped watch the kids at home.)

There was good food, games and lots of presents. It was a lot of fun and I wasn't even the bride. It was a great day and I'm glad to know that Sam is off to a great start thanks to all the family and friends that came to support her and shower her with gifts.

We can't wait until July 30th for the wedding. Sienna is excited to have another uncle.
Congrats Sam and Jake!