Hallowwen

We started off our celebrations by carving pumpkins. Rylee wasn't sure about that but once she got her hands on the guts she was happy. We now try to do fun things but they are a lot harder to do. Keeping knifes away from a grabby baby who has to be right in the middle of things was tough. I think I yelled at everyone to be careful at least 3 times.

Cody carved a goat. He was super proud of himself. He loves goats. They want to own a goat farm someday. I also am looking for a stuffed goat toy for their baby Crue when he is born. If you see any let me know!!

NaElle did Jack from a Nightmare before Christmas (I still have yet to see that movie).

Rylee like hanging with NaElle and sitting in her camping chair.

I was excited to take a picture of her in my pumpkin. The bush behind her is my favorite. It is super bright red for about a month. I love coming home and seeing how pretty it is. Fall up here is so pretty with so many different colors that changing every 2 weeks. I love it!

BJ is the far left. He was so proud that he did a real pumpkin for the first time.

I threw this is to show that Rylee really does love our green cups. She knows what they are and how to drink out of it. BJ gives her a small sip every dinner and now we hand one to her and she tries to drink from it. It's amazing how fast she catches on to things.

The Stinnetts invited us to a party and said to bring a treat. Pinterest is killing with all the great ideas on there. I have always wanted to make a trifle and NaElle had this big trifle bowl so I borrowed it and made a Peanut Butter cup Brownie Trifle. SO YUM! I had a total of 4 bites (I lost 4 pound that week and wasn't about to waste it on one thing!) I just had fun making it!

Rylee was a ball this year. My mom is amazing and makes all her grandkids' costumes. Notice her socks?! They have monster toes on them and they were a huge hit! BJ said if he had a pair he would wear them every single day. Everyone made a comment about them. They don't really have anything to do with being a ball but we had to put them on her. Friday- Monday she had some type of Halloween attire on. I love having a baby to dress up!

We played JUST DANCE 3 and it is my new favorite game. Get ready to dance family because Thanksgiving we are playing this game! It was made for the Lister, Nys, Hebner, Balls clan!!!

The basketball team with their ball!

Cutest ball I've ever seen! I even did my own corn rows since I was a baller!

Daddy pretending to shoot hoops

She loved it!

Our complex did their own Trunk and treat with chilli and hot coco. It was in the low 40's out so my mom's smart costume with pants, long sleeves, and a head cover made Rylee nice and toasty and she enjoyed watching all the kids the whole time.

I am trying very hard to work out and lose all that baby weight and am down 5 pounds. Halloween always gets me off my goal so this year I said no candy! Where we live all the kids are between the ages of in the belly to 8 being the oldest. Average is 2-4. At that age they don't need a ton of candy and the parents get most of it anyways. So we went to the store and got party favors instead. We had a bowl of let the kids pick what toy they wanted. There were glasses with the big nose to whistles, rings, tops, jumping frogs and lots more. The parents all were amazed and were so excited they weren't getting more candy. The kids loved it! I was a little worried but it was all worth it when one kid said, " I get a toy?!! I LOVE toys!!! A top!?! YES!!!" They kids loved it and the parents were grateful. It kept candy out of my house too. I only had 3 pieces of candy this whole Halloween weekend, 1 cup of coco, 1 cupcake, and a few bites of my trifle. With working out each day! Most successfull Halloween I've ever had!

Rylee got to keep one of they toys and that was the highlight of her night! 

5 months old

Rylee is 5 months old... in a few days.

She is so much fun! Someone asked me what my favorite thing is about her. That smile warms my heart!!

She loves to smile. She can be super upset and we will make a funny noise and she can't help but smile at us.

She stares at anyone she doesn't know but she will always give them a smile. That of course makes them stay around longer.

When she wakes up she will start to cry and as soon as she sees me a huge smiles breaks out on her face. I love it so much! She loves to laugh too. We had a few weeks where she would make a weird noise and not laugh but now the giggles are back. 

She is now in the stage where she has to have everything I have. At dinner time she will stare us down unless we give her a spoon. She also loves our green cups and gets her own at dinner time too. She loves food. I haven't given her very much variety but baby oatmeal is always a hit. She will be upset and I'll feed her a bite and she is instant smiles and laughs until she is down eating. I love it. She wont even grab for the spoon until she is finished. She loves graham crackers but they are super messy so I switched over to Rice Rucks which are sticky but she likes them. 

She is now a pro at rolling over. She hates being on her stomach. One night she got so mad at me she rolled over and now that she understand she can get off her tummy she will stay there for about a minute then just roll over.

She now likes to lay on her back and play with toys. I love watching her grab things and play with her toes. Her hands are still her favorite thing though.

She loves anything that makes noise. My mom sent me a bunch of stuff so I could make her some taggies. I made one with crinkly ribbon and bells and she loves it. She loves wrappers too. On the way to church I ate a string cheese and put the wrapper in the diaper bag. Her favorite thing is to pull stuff out of the bag and instead of grabbing her toy she grabbed the wrapper and sat and played with it for 5 minutes. 

She gets into everything. If anything is next to her she will grab it. I have to be careful putting her next to things now. She loves cords which are every where so I have to figure out how to hide them. We went over to Uncle Matt's and I was looking at something on their TV and Rylee knocked off their mail. Oops

Oh and my sister in law Camille is PREGNANT! She is due May 20th! =]

She also tries to get out of her bumbo now. She leans back and almost pops out of it. One of these days I'm going to find her next to it!

She is still a great sleeper. She has been going to bed early now which means she wants to get up earlier. Its been a rough few days. I think I have finally found a good time to get her to sleep but she goes to sleep when she wants.

Rylee loves her dad! She was yelling at me right before he called me so I put him on speaker phone and she was searching all around for him. She grabbed the phone and kept looking at me then the phone then me. She can't figure out why she can hear her dad but not see him. I can't wait until she is mobile. Whenever BJ leaves the room she watches him leave then looks at me like "where did dad go?" I can't wait for her to chase him down. 

Rylee loves to talk now. She is always babbling. When she wakes up happy she will just lay there and talk to herself until she gets bored. I love listening to her noises! 

She is pretty much the best baby ever and we love her so much!

When In Idaho

You go pick potatoes!!

Some turn green if in the sun to long 

Some grow weird tumors 

Some are teenie tiny

Some are regular

They all grow in HUGE fields that go on for miles and miles!

It is harvest time up here. The farms have big trucks that drive over the fields and unearth them. Then another on drives over them and shoots them into a truck driving next to it. They then haul them off and store them in big barns. There are tons that don't get picked up and they just leave them out there. Any one is free to go to the fields and pick as many as you want. NaElle and I went out to a farm a mile from us and we found the field they had just finished plowing. It looked like they hadn't even touched the field yet! There were so many potatoes left over. I couldn't believe they had already finished the section. I guess they grew so many that its okay to have so many left over. 

Rylee loved it because she got to be outside. We grabbed a bag full and came home and made twice baked potatoes. They were yummy Idaho potatoes!! The only difference I saw was they were a whole lot easier to clean. They came right from the dirt and didn't sit three years in the barn. Did you know that the ones you buy in the store can be up to 3 years old!! The dirt came off with very little scrubbing. Did you also know that the ones they can't sell in the store like the green ones and sun bleached ones turn into flakes and potato pearls. 

We had a lot of fun picking them! We now feel like real Idahoians! 

Happy Halloween

My mom always decorates for every holiday. That was one of my favorite things growing up. When I got married I told BJ I was going to decorate just like my mom. Well not just like my mom.. she has cute stuff and is 1000 times more creative than I am. Since I'm on a student budget I had to make all my decorations with stuff I had laying around the house.

In the dinning room I put up paper triangles and made some paper ghosts with oranges scarfs. 

I also made a cute haunted house to put in my dinning room.

My mom is amazing and last year she made me this super cute sign for my kitchen.

This year she sent me a very cute witches boot. Maybe by the time Rylee is older she will have made me enough stuff to decorate like her!!

Last year she made a banner with my wedding colors so I thought I would add letters too it. Oh and on the couch is Rylee's halloween costume. She is going to be a basketball and we are going to be basketball players! My mom did a fabulous job!

I did the letters free hand. While Rylee took a nap. I also sewed the edges because some were getting stringy. This is did with Rylee on my lap and she only grabbed for it twice so it went pretty fast. Who knew I could sew with a baby on my lap!

When I was in Phoenix my sister in law Michele had a super saturday so  I went and made this cute sign with her. I have 4 things I can change during the year. I really liked how my pumpkin turned out though so I was excited to put it up!

Snow time

We woke up and it was snowing!!! We bundled Rylee up for her first adventure out into the snow. She didn't seem to mind but I think it had more to do with the graham cracker daddy gave her than being in snow.

It came down pretty good. It snowed for a full day. People even made snowmen out of it.

We went to a rodeo and thought it was going to be outside. Thankfully Rylee's cousin Forrest gave us his snowsuit. Since its all blue we dressed it up with a flower Aunt Kim made for her.

I love fog. I think it is so cool! Thankfully it has warmed back up and the rain has stopped. One of BJ's teacher said this was a warning snow and we will have 2 more weeks of nice weather then winter will hit full throttle. I'm ok with snow but Rylee already had a hard time staying inside during the first snow fall. I even wrapped her up in a blanket and stood outside for 10 minutes. She just laid her head on my shoulder and sang a song to herself. She just loves being outside. I for see many cold days sitting out on my porch so Rylee can be outside!

Cards

We have been playing tons of cards this last week or so. Rylee has highly enjoyed it because she thinks shuffling cards is amazing! Before this video Uncle Matt was trying to give Rylee her toy and I was shuffling the deck. I tried getting her attention so she could watch but she was more interested in Uncle Matt. I start to shuffle them and she did a double take, dropped her toy, and tried to lunge for the cards. When it stopped she went back to looking at her Uncle and when she heard it again did another double take. It was too cute! We tired getting in on camera but she was getting tired and just wanted her mama. You can still see how intrigued she is in the cards though.

Friends

Remember when we went to the Rodeo? Look in the top right corner and you will see a guy with a cowboy hat and a girl next to him in a blue shirt and shorts. This is the day we found out that Cody and NaElle Stinnett live in Rexburg. Cody was in my ward when I was in primary and then he moved to BJ's ward. NaElle told Cody to go say hi and boy am I glad she did! They are our newest best friends! We see them several times a week. NaElle is 19 weeks pregnant so that gives us reasons to do things like make yummy food when we get together.

They came over to hang out and we wanted a dessert and thanks to Pinterest I had the idea to make a cake I saw on there. It was easy and super cheap!

Double layer chocolate oreo cream cake! It was soooo yummy!!! This was my first layer cake and man was it amazing! NaElle and I made it while the boys watched TV and entertained Rylee. When they left they told us to keep the left overs. I am participating in "The Biggest Winner" (just like the biggest loser but BYU-I does a positive spin on things). The school offers trainers and nutritional people to help us lose weight. We even have team challenges! Since I'm trying to be good and lose all my baby weight before the snow comes I took the left overs to my brother in law. The single boys enjoyed it too!  Recipe Here

We love having friends up here. We went to the nature park and walked around one day. 

Rylee really likes them too. She stares at Cody for the first 15 minutes then she flirts with him the rest of the time. She loves NaElle too. They also offer to watch her so we can go on dates now! NaElle and I attend institute on Tuesday nights and we are starting a weekly temple date too.

Daddy always picks me flowers when he sees them and Rylee attacked mine so he picked one for her too

She was happy about that!

General Conference was AMAZING! I watched with several questions and had many answers. I personally loved the talk about fathers and Rylee just happened to be smiling at her daddy during that talk. 

Some of the things I learned were

1. Its okay to be poor. Its okay to be struggling. We are doing what we should be and the Lord is looking out for us we just need to take our turn pinching pennies. We still are very blessed each and every day even though life seems rough financially.

2. It is okay that I am a stay at home mom. It is okay to want to have more kids later on and not have to wait until after we graduate. 

3. Finding time to attend the temple is important. One way to fill time while at home is to try to do family history then do their work at the temple. 

4. He knows I am trying my best and working on being better. He accepts me and my efforts.

5. I can move to Star Valley Wyoming now!

It seems silly now to think about the weeks and weeks I have been struggling with these things and how heavily laden I was with worry. Conference really brought me peace.

 It makes me wonder how different life would have been for me as a teenager if I had gotten this concept of watching conference with question back then. 

Rylee liked watching conference too!

I have a tradition of making a big breakfast and then fajitas for dinner on Sunday conference but we were too poor to do that this year. Instead we saved our BLT pitas we had planned with the Stinnetts for Sunday. We packed a picnic and fed ducks. Danny joined us too.   

Rylee really wanted to play Frisbee. She thought it was super cool.

Cody thought it was funny that I would freak out when the ducks came to close. Here he is trying to lead a trail of bread to me.

BJ wanted rylee to feed the ducks. She wasn't too impressed with them.

This duck was way bigger then Rylee. I was scared the goose was going to come over and chomp her but it wasn't interested in us! THANKFULLY!

Oh and Rylee traded in her summer clothes for some winter clothes. It has been raining the last few days so I put her in a jumpsuit. I can't get over how stinking cute she is!