Luke Singing at 2 1/2 years old

When Luke started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", I quickly grabbed my camera, trying to be inconspicuous because Luke usually stops performing when he sees the camera.  I was delighted when the reverse occurred, and he was very obliging as he proceeded to sing the ABCs!

Lydia's Blessing

Our sweet Lydia was blessed last Sunday.  Her Aunt Susan made her beautiful blessing dress and head piece.  I did a little photo shoot of Lydia the day after the blessing.

Lydia's new thing is to suck her fist even when she's not hungry.  This is a very typical pose.

The Giraffe Dress

It's so fun having a baby girl.  I only have 2 of my baby dresses existing, and so I thought it'd be fun to dress up Lydia in one of them.  Pictured below is me compared to Lydia.  I was a little bit younger than her when I wore this dress, so it's a little small on Lydia.

This is me under 1 month old.  Don't you love the 1970s
couch in the background?

This is Lydia 2 months old.

Here are a couple other angles of Lydia in my dress.

Luke & Lydia

So far, Luke has been a wonderful big brother to baby Lydia.  Pictured below is a rare moment I had to quickly capture before it was over.  Laying side by side Luke reads a book to Lydia. 

I hope Luke and Lydia will grow up to be good friends.

Lydia's Birth Announcement Card

Picture Her Birth Announcement

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View the entire collection of cards.

She's Here!

Lydia Annalyn has arrived!  She was born a little over 2 weeks early on Saturday, November 19th.  We were surprised at her early arrival, but we were so happy she was healthy and well and so cute!  Here are a few photos my good friend, Michelle Sallay, took of our family at the hospital.

Lydia was 6 lbs. 10 oz. and 18 inches long.  That's a pretty decent size for being early!

Our 2 year old didn't know quite what to think at first...

Luke eventually warmed up to his baby sister, and enjoyed looking at her tiny features and 

stroking her soft hair.

Our first family photo together with Lydia!

Eddy's parents visited us.  And my parents 'visited' us via Skype since they are serving a church mission in Spain.  I'm glad both grandparents were able to see her!

Daddy and Lydia

I couldn't resist but whip out the camcorder and document that special day!

Our Summer 2011--Highlights

This summer was a lot of fun and very busy.  That's why we were bad at making posts on our blog during the summer.  So, this will be a whopper of an entry, but we wanted to share the highlights of our summer with everyone.

4th of July

Every year it is a tradition to watch the parade in the small town of Delta, UT.  My grandpa still lives there as well as some other family, so it's a great time to get together.

 Me, Luke, and Eddy waiting for the parade to begin.

Most all of my nieces and nephews made the trip down to Delta.  The parade is not the fanciest, but we all enjoy the small-town feel.  The kids always like the salt water taffy and other goodies that are thrown out at the parade.

 Luke loved watching the parade with cousins.

 Luke awaiting the goodies.

 Luke sure got his fill of candy!

After the parade, we enjoyed visiting with my 96-year-old grandpa who still lives alone in his own home.

 Luke and my dad had some fun tickle-time after we ate our picnic lunch at the park.

We always have a great time with family in Delta.

Our Main Summer Vacation: 

Jackson Hole/Grand Tetons/Yellowstone

 Our first stop was Jackson Hole, where we stayed in a nice lodge for one night.  We enjoyed walking around the town for an afternoon and evening, and then the next morning we headed off to view the Grand Tetons.

I have never seen the Grand Tetons, so I was pretty excited.

I borrowed my friend's fish-eye lens and had so much fun taking pictures with it!

We didn't get to do much hiking, but we enjoyed driving the sight-seeing route and I loved taking pictures along the way.

We did take a few short walks at pretty stops to help Luke endure the trip.

 My favorite thing we did in the Tetons, was take a boat ride across Jenny Lake and climb to this view point.

 Eddy was a trooper to hike the steep, 2 mile hike with Luke in his backpack.

 Luke was grateful to be out of the backpack and walk around a bit.

 I set up a tripod to get a little family picture with the Tetons as our backdrop.  

We love the Tetons, and want to come back!

Yellowstone

The rest of our trip was spent in Yellowstone.  It was the first time for both of us to be there and we loved it!

We met up with our good friends, the Bennion family, and shared a cabin with them for 3 nights.

Luke loved having a playmate to join us for the rest of the trip.

 We were grateful that Yellowstone was very family friendly, and had some boardwalks we could use strollers on when Eddy was tired of backpacking Luke around.

 Here we are waiting for Old Faithful to erupt.  It took what seemed like forever, especially for a toddler!

Finally it erupted and it was definitely worth the wait!

We mostly drove to each stop, and while Luke slept I jumped out and had fun taking pictures with my photographer friend Amy Bennion.  Eddy was fine with waiting in the car with Luke so he could take a little snooze too.

 I had a blast taking pictures of such beautiful scenery!

 I absolutely loved hiking to these waterfalls (The Lower Falls).  But, it wasn't so fun on our knees as we had to climb what seemed like thousands of stairs!

 Hiking back up the thousands of stairs to the top.  Eddy is a tough guy carrying Luke the whole way!

We enjoyed doing some other small hikes to see some scenic spots.

Luke was pretty exhausted after 2 1/2 days of hiking and sight-seeing.

One of our last stops was seeing "Quake Lake" which was formed by an earthquake that occurred in the 60s.  Eddy's dad happened to be in Yellowstone when it happened!  So, we had to see it.  There are still dead trees standing up in the middle of the lake!

We had an excellent vacation and definitely want to go back!

The Summers Family BBQ

For the 24th of July celebration we got together with the Summers Family and enjoyed playing games, eating, and visiting.

Luke with his Grandma Summers and cousin.

Eddy and I organized  a root beer tasting contest.  We had 8 different brands and Eddy made homemade root beer.  It seemed like everyone voted the homemade root beer as their favorite.

We took a root beer quiz to see if we could recognize which brand was which.  Nobody got it 100% correct, but there were a few close ones.

 We used the rest of the root-beer to make root-beer floats.  Luke was in heaven!

 Luke loved swinging, especially when his two cousins kept falling down, pretending as though he had kicked them down.  Thank goodness for fun, older cousins!

 When it began to be dusk, we pulled out the sparklers for the kids.  We had a great time.

The Church Family BBQ

My family's summertime tradition is to go up in the canyon for a BBQ, games, and s'mores.

Eddy organized a card game for those who wanted to play.

My dad grilled up hot dogs for the kids.

We also cooked some yummy veggies in the fire pit.

We loved eating our dinner while being in the beautiful Millcreek Canyon.

Luke was fascinated with cooking marshmallows.  Of course, he needed a little help.

My sister assembling a s'more.

Daddy and Luke.

Leamarado Days

Each Labor Day since 1946, the small town of Leamington, UT has a celebration in honor of WW2 Veterens.  Everyone first gathers at the town hall to watch a talent show of the locals, and then enjoy a BBQ lunch, games, and an evening rodeo.

My family and I went down just for the day and enjoyed Leamington's talent program, lunch and games.  

Luke was happy to sit on Grandpa's lap for some of the talent show.

But, after awhile, as you can see, he got kind of bored.

The BBQ lunch was great and we were happy that my 96-year-old grandpa met up with us from Delta.

After lunch, Luke's older cousins gave him some fun piggy back rides.

Luke has the best cousins!

Eddy with Luke and our nephew.

Along with some races and fun games for the kids, there was a tractor that carted around kids for a fun ride.

Since we adults were way too big to sit in these, I'm glad my niece volunteered to accompany Luke.  He loved it!

We don't go every year to Leamington, but when we do go, we have a great time!

We had an awesome summer and are now excited to welcome our 2nd child as we enter Winter!