Morgan's 1!

I know, I can't believe it either. Friday, the 22nd was officially her birthday and it started with a fun day at the Doctor getting her 1 year shots. She screamed but really handled them pretty well. Here are her one year stats:

Weight:18lbs 14oz - 15th percentile
Height: 29 inches - 50th percentile
Head circumference: 45cm


Here she is with her presents. She seemed pretty intrigued by her new toy. She even liked it after we got it out of the box.


Here is her lady bug cake. This is my first attempt at cake decorating and I was pleased with the result. I cooked the cake in a glass pyrex bowl and it worked great. I couldn't find black food coloring so I just added blue food coloring to chocolate frosting and it worked pretty well I thought. The reason it's a lady bug is because she was a lady bug for Halloween, we have tons of lady bugs in our yard that land on you and crawl all over you and one of her favorite books is a lady bug counting book. What more reason do you need?




She still wasn't too interested in eating the cake however. The frosting was still sticky and she didn't really like it on her hands. She's such a girl.

I promise she didn't just wear a diaper cover the whole party. That was only for frosting flinging purposes. The day before her little party, I couldn't decide what I wanted Morgan to wear so I went to Hancock Fabric and bought this material. While Brent and I watched a movie, I just cut it to the length and width I wanted, sewed around it and made some straps. I think it turned out pretty cute. I'm so glad I have my own sewing machine and can do fun little projects whenever I want.

Idaho and Utah

My mom grew up in Jerome, ID and showed us around where she used to live. Unfortunately, most of the things she remembers were gone. We did go by the new Twin Falls temple. It was beautiful as they all are.

Then we went to the beautiful Shoshone Falls. I can't believe I lived in Rexburg and never visited them. I was sad Brent had to miss them.


Friday morning at my sister's we were ready to play. We went down to FastKart in Salt Lake and went go kart riding. I had the second fastest lap time but my brother still lapped me like 4 times. And yes, that is my mother in the first picture. This place was serious, you even had to wear hair nets.


After go-karting, we played an awful lot of Rock Band. I know this picture is rather embarrassing but I had to show that I was really getting into it.

Saturday, we loaded up in my brother-in-laws new wake boarding boat. Unfortunately I didn't wake board. It was a little cold in the water and seeing how I'm not very good, I spend a lot of time in the water so I just went tubing instead. Morgan was rather comfy in her life jacket and seemed to like the rock of the boat. Here she is hanging with my little brother's girlfriend.

This is her new suit from Aunt Andrea. She has matching sunglasses too but she wouldn't keep them on so she wore the hat.

Fun time in CA

My mom always tries to do fun things for the kids when they all get together so she made them pudding so they could finger paint. At first Morgan wasn't sure about the pudding, then she just got it all over her mother.


We got to go to Brandon's preschool graduation (Morgan's cousin).

And play with cousin Janne.

My mom also threw a birthday party for the babies since she was going to miss their actual birthdays. Morgan is the oldest of the three, Bode is one day younger (right), and Kasen is 5 weeks younger (middle) but they all enjoyed the party, balloons, and cake.

Aunt Kalli made the block cakes so each baby could have their own.

She was a little confused about what was going on but I think she enjoyed having all the eyes on her.

Morgan wasn't sure about the cake either, she didn't really like the sticky stuff on her hand and kept trying to fling it off and would get frosting on the wall. She was just preparing for her real birthday.


My mom also took the mom's out to eat for Mother's day and shopping to buy a new outfit. It was great to spend time with my mom and sisters especially while eating and shopping. Thanks again mom!

Here's the scoop. (warning kind of long and boring)

So several of you have probably heard that I went to CA for two weeks rather unexpectedly. Here's how it happened. Ever since Brent and I moved here, he has been aching to go to Mammoth Caves in KY, seeing how it's the closest national park. It's come up several times but always got vetoed until now. We had three free days so we decided to head up there on Friday. On Thursday, I called my mom to see what she wanted for Mother's day and she said, "You, on a plane." So I thought, well if we're already going through Nashville, lets see how much it would cost to fly out of there. It was very reasonable so I decided that Morgan and I would leave on Saturday. We went to Mammoth as scheduled on Friday and were not very impressed. If you're passing through I would maybe hit it but don't make an extra trip for it. This is the best picture we got.

Then Morgan and I flew out of Nashville Saturday morning for one of my worst traveling experiences ever. Starting from when we arrived at the Nashville airport to when we pulled into my parents driveway it was 18 hours. It was 5:30am Central time and I didn't have my luggage. It was going to be a surprise to my mom but when my dad had to drive to Reno to come get me at 11pm, we couldn't really keep it a secret anymore. Morgan was such a trooper. I was in a way worse mood then she was but I was so glad when we made it. Here she is in the airport.

Then we had mostly a good week in CA. My sister from UT was there visiting with her three kids too. So we hung out and the kids played (more in the next posting). However, on Saturday morning, my grandmother, who lives with my mother and has for almost 7 years, past away. She was 93 years old and her health has been steadily declining. She wasn't ill at all and just went peacefully in her sleep so even though it's hard to see a loved one go, we're glad she went the way she did. We have great memories of her and we know she is in a much happier place.
The next several days were dedicated to funeral plans and making arrangements to get to Idaho where grandma had a plot and headstone next to her husband. We left Tuesday to head up there and the funeral was Thursday. Everything went beautifully except my grandmother's baby sister (84ish) got lost trying to buy flowers and missed the whole thing. Then we headed back to my sister's house in UT and had good family time (posting to come). We flew back home out of Salt Lake on Sunday and are happy to be back to peace and quiet but mostly glad to be back with Brent.