Adorable Joy

 

 

 

 

Here are some pictures of our sweet baby Joy. BethAnne took some of the pictures. She got a really good one of her smiling, but it was blurry. Joy is truly a joy in our lives, especially on those difficult days (like when you're trying to potty train a strong willed three-year-old). Things here are good though. Have a great New Year! (Make a resolution to post more!)

Love,
Aubrey

More Christmas and Joy!

 

 

 

 

Here are a couple more Christmas morning pictures and some pictures we took of Joy a couple weeks ago.
Love,
Aubrey

Christmas!

 

 

 

 

Hi Everyone! We had so much fun in Boise. We celebrated Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa and then Nana and Papa. Then we came home to Redmond and had a fun Christmas here. It's like a birthday week, but with Christmas! BethAnne's surgery went really well(it was more of a scope than a surgery, no cutting involved). We had been wanting to get in to see Dr. Grady, one of the more senior surgeons, but his office said he was too busy. So we were surprised to find that he was there to see BethAnne's procedure (maybe because things were slow on Christmas Eve). So, he was able to direct things in the operating room to a good resolution and we were able to get established with him to be our new doctor. Then BethAnne recovered really quickly and we were able to go home and enjoy the rest of Christmas Eve. The girls decorated their own stockings and then we ran some errands and went to dinner at Macaroni Grill. Christmas morning was fun, we tried to not go overboard this year on presents and I think we did pretty well. Now the girls are having so much fun playing with their new toys and games. I hope you are all doing well! Merry, merry Christmas!
Love,
Aubrey

One of the Best Days of My Life!

I am still glowing - my pinning day was overwhelmingly wonderful! Thanks to all of my children, my hubby, my dear mother, and my sis for making it so very special. To be pinned by the RN who is my idol - to pass the torch - was so perfect. Here are the pictures -

This was so tender....

We Look pretty good, huh? - Jon's taking the picture

and Joy is somewhere close by sitting happily in her carseat

Sweet Family

Mom's having so much fun! Gracey's not quite sure

More Blessing Day Pictures

 

 

 

 

It was hard to pick my favorite pictures from today, I couldn't do less than eight. Enjoy!

Blessing Day

 

 

 

 

Joy was blessed today and she was so beautiful and sweet. We are so grateful to have her in our family. Here are some pictures of our little princess. Have a great week!
Love,
Aubrey

Happy Holidays!

Can anyone guess what the bags are for? I couldn't figure out how to string them up just right, so I found the highest place in the house that I could still reach. Thanks for the memories, Mom! And then I included a few pics from the weekend. For those of you who didn't hear us go on and on about it...Kathryn is an amazing skeet shooter!

More Grace Comedy

Throughout BethAnne's eye appointment today, Grace asserted that she had bad eyesight and needed glasses too. I tried to tell her we could get her eyes checked at her own appointment another time. Things got crazy towards the end of the appointment with the baby crying and Grace crying over a hurt finger, so we were half-way to the car before I saw that Grace was wearing a large pair of men's glasses she had swiped from the area where you choose your frames. I was so amused that it took me several minutes to give a lecture about not stealing. Swiper, no swiping!

Grace Comedy

Grace's new phrase- "That's funny...weird funny, not 'ha ha' funny."
(she got that from one of her favorite shows). It's more funny in person because of her 3-year-old voice saying it.
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Last night the girls got to have some hot chocolate because they took their cold/cough medication before bed. As they were sipping their hot chocolate, Mark and I were praising them for being brave about taking the yucky medicine and then we talked about the benefits of cold medicine. It went like this-

Me- The medicine will help you not cough so much tonight.
Mark- Plus, it will help you sleep better.
Grace- Plus, the hot chocolate makes your hair pretty.

I guess we should all drink more hot chocolate.
Love you all.
Aubrey

Cool Song from Youtube

Hi Everyone,

I thought this was really cool. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8#watch-main-area

Love,
Aubrey

Bo is the cutest thing ever. He is such a peaceful, happy boy and we loved having him here for a few days. It was good to see Carl, too. We wished we lived closer to our cousins, and we are SOOO excited for Carl and Steph!




I painted Brian and Tyler's room green and it turned out pretty cute I think. I never posted a picture of my summer project - stripping and staining the beds for Adam and Cam's room. It was a bigger project than I had planned, and I don't know if I would do it again, but I learned a lot!

My boys are getting big. Isn't Brian handsome and looking grown up? One of these days I'll take them in for some real portraits (or get a decent camera that actually takes a pic when I push down the button, rather than 3 seconds later!)

A few more pictures

 

 

 

We're hoping Joy starts smiling soon. I've added a picture of Grace too, sorry it's a little blurry but it's still so cute. Grace says- "it's a picture of me being BethAnne". She says the darndest things all day long. She also seems to believe in reincarnation, she often says things like "when I was a mommy..." or "when I was a boy..." or "when I was a soldier...". Then she'll tell us how things were then, it's bizarre but funny. Never a dull moment :)
Love,
Aubrey

Joy is getting so big

 

 

 

 

I'm posting this while I gently tap Joy's swing with my foot to keep it swinging. The motor is broken on it, but we've ordered a replacement. Joy is growing up so fast I wanted to post more pictures. Things here are going pretty well, Joy and I have had a cold, but I think we're getting better. Mark has been busy at work, so I've been getting used to being a real mom again. I'm enjoying it more now than ever. When I was on bedrest and when I was sick after having the baby, I really longed to just be able to be a mom and take care of my family. So now I appreciate it a lot more and I find that I don't mind all the work like I used to. Have a great weekend!
Love,
Aubrey

Family History

I found my first name to take to the temple! (actually it's a guy, so Brian will do it). I stumbled across that family history notebook that Grandpa Baker gave us at a family reunion back in 2001. I was looking up the information he highlighted for me to find, and low and behold one of the guys didn't have his endowment done. The new family search (go to http://new.familysearch.org) site makes it super easy to find people, and then to print off their cards so you can take them to the temple. I hope you guys will dig out your notebooks and give it a go. Grandpa is a great resource, so call him if you have questions (you could call me too, but I'm still learning). I'm excited to do more research in the online library to find the other stuff that's missing from my pages.

Fall fun

Here's the little monkey I promised to post...He was really adorable. And yes, Suzie, it was from Old Navy so it must be the same as Aiden's. My favorite costume ever. Adam really is a monkey. The kid won't sleep through the night. For the last year he's woken up at 4am and come into our room. I finally put my foot down a week or two ago and said no more monkeys in my room at night! He still wakes up at 4am, but since he doesn't know how to put himself back to sleep (I've always spoiled him by laying down with him until he falls asleep), he stays awake until 5, finding every excuse to yell for me to come to his room. We've all had it, but I love him anyway...

Only in Cache Valley could you find another family of boys that likes to shoot guns - and only in Hyde Park can you go 5 minutes away and shoot to your heart's content. This dad had even cooler guns than Brian - I think I know what Brian wants for Christmas now...

Here's a picture I forgot to post last time - Cute Chrissy, Jon, and Brian being good sports for the annual doughnut-on-a-string game. My awesome husband won...but the others put on a good show.