It's Always Fun For Everyone, When Grandma Comes

Grandma Breakall came to visit! She was only here for a weekend, but boy oh boy was I glad to see her!

 When Grandma comes a world of fun opens up! She takes me shopping. And gives me snacks that Mommy won't give me (Frost's gelato, Paradise Bakery's chicken stew, etc).

She reads me books.

 She even let me help scope out the best deals at the best garage sales!

And she went on a few adventures with my family - a 5 mile walk for MS (more on that later).

And my first trip to the zoo. And she let me play in the foyer at church on Sunday.

I'm telling you all, there is no limit to the fun I have when Grandma comes!

And it just gets better every time.

This was especially better than the last time Grandma Breakall came to town. I mean, it started out good and all.

We did the usual shopping and snacks. We had some new adventures too.

We dyed Mommy's hair for the first time in her life. We visited the Mesa temple.

We even painted my room!

But then Mommy ruined everything with a UTI that went from bad to worse. They tell me she had a kidney infection. I don't even know what a kidney is. I don't know what an infection is either.

What I do know is that Mommy was gone for 3 days in some place called a hospital.

Grandma stayed with me while Daddy stayed with Mommy. I had to have a bottle before bed. I don't do bottles. I eat with mommy.

Thank goodness Grandma was patient with me. I was not happy. If I'm going to take a bottle, it's got to be hot. It's got to have juice in it. And it's got to be after you've made it very clear that Mommy is not an option.

But Grandma learned. And I survived.

And now Mommy is healthy again and Grandma's visits are 100% fun - as they should be.

Cute As A Cupcake

Long before Miss Ammely was born, Ammon and I had decided on a costume idea for the whole family. This idea was supposed to motivate Ammon and me to work out like maniacs, eat like rabbits and obtain the super hot bodies we've always dreamed of.

Well, we were only sort of dedicated. 



We do NOT have the super hot bodies we've always dreamed of.

So we ashamedly turned to Plan B. (Which, in fact, had never been put in place and resulted in us once again scrambling about at the last minute). 

However, as fate would have it, I stumbled across this beauty of a baby costume:

  Adorable, yes?

Additionally, my mind flitted back about a year to this scene:

Can you believe it's been just about a year since we found out that "it's a girl!"?! My oh my how the time goes by. So I say to myself "This is PERFECT." Only now is the irony of this costume also occuring to me. Perhaps it was those cupcake moments in our lives that prevented us from executing Plan A. Oh well.

This idea is pretty sweet too. Pun intended.

The question then became - how do we turn this into a family ensemble?

No, we don't all want to be cupcakes.

(Picture Ammon in a cupcake costume. It made you smile, maybe even laugh, didn't it? You're welcome for that).

No, we don't really wanna be bakers.

Maybe we could be ingredients?

Yes. We can be the ingredients.

Afterall, we were the ingredients for our little cupcake in real life.

So we had these shirts whipped up:

Perfect, yes?

And how cute does SHE look?

She's the cutest cupcake that I have ever seen.

So for the family Halloween party we donned our outfits and headed to Boyd and Amber's house. Always a great time. Great company. Great food. Great costumes.

Did I mention great food? Ammely thought I should mention it again. Afterall, Aunt Amber did manage to sneak in a bit of spoiling. Chocolate pudding with oreos? Oh yes, that just happened.

 She doesn't seem too upset by this, does she?

 I know, I know - you're wondering why she doesn't look like a cupcake anymore.

Answer: She's 6 months old. She was hot. She was sick. She was a bit on the cranky side.

I was slightly prepared for just such an occasion. If you will note, she is still in cupcake glory.

Sadly, we did not take any pictures of all three of us in our costumes. In fact, we didn't get a single shot of Ammon or me in our shirts.

However, someone else did. Thank heaven for family.

For that, you will have to check out Belle's amazing blog post about Halloween this year.

Here is to hoping that your Halloween was as sweet as ours!

Semi-related sidenote:

Due to sad school schedules and minor sicknesses, we weren't able to go anywhere ON Halloween day; however, Ammely was still festive in this little number. The coolest part? The skeleton glows in the dark!

She is actually sleeping in this picture. She doesn't always fully close her eyes - she gets that from her daddy. The odd position? She fell asleep on me and didn't move a muscle when I put her down, haha. 

Through the Looking Glass

Ammely has always known that the baby in the mirror is a cutie. Almost always we can get a smile from her if we simply let her look at her reflection.

Now that she's a little older though she doesn't want to just look at that cute kid in the mirror - she wants to play with her too!



Half a Year

It has been half of an entire YEAR since our baby was born. I know everyone says it, but let me just add to the repetitiveness: It goes soooooo fast!

I swear it was only yesterday we were at the hospital trying to figure out her name.

Anyhow, she went to the studio for her six month photo shoot. And our smiley, almost-alway-happy baby only smiled ONCE. Sigh.

Good thing that she's cute anyways.

Time Well Spent

So it happened. The heavens smiled upon us here in Arizona and deemed us worthy of a bit of cool, fall weather. Just a bit. Temperatures have gone back up. But for a couple days we had some A-MAZ-ing weather.

And what did I find myself doing on these blessed days? I was inside. Trying to get Ammely to self-entertain so I could do two days' worth of dishes and vacuum and get dinner together and finish some laundry and iron Ammon's work shirts, etc...

Then I had a moment. One of those mommy moments that I'm sure will come in plenty over the next infinity of years. Ammely was fussing and I was feeling frustrated with my ability to get anything done in a day. Then I took a deep breath and allowed some calm and inspiration to flow into my heart. And the realization came to me - right now I am fortunate enough to be a stay-at-home mom. And surely this implies trying to keep a clean house and make things nice and ready for your husband from day to day. However, the emphasis here is mom. I shouldn't spend so much time trying to get Ammely to play with the same toys she's seen a million times so that I can get something else done. I should spend more time WITH her...doing things she wants to be doing. I should get down and play with her. Explain to her that she has toes and fingers. Show her some colors. Read her a book. Let her look out the window. Go for a walk. Take her to the park.

And so we did. We went for a walk. To the park. I hadn't showered or put on makeup. I left the dishwasher wide open right as it was in that moment. I packed up the diaper bag, put everything in the stroller and out we went. And she LOVED it.

She stopped fussing. She watched the big kids get off of the school bus. She felt the wind on her face and watched the leaves rustle around on the tree. She looked at the flowers on the bushes. She listened intently to the birds.

It's easy to forget how new everything is for her. How big and grand. How marvelous. How beautiful. She's experiencing all of the Lord's handiwork for the first time. I need to do better to remember that it is my privilege to share with her in her discovery. To show her the beauty. To explain what it is and where it comes from.

And if I do that - who cares if my dishes are dirty? Or the laundry isn't finished?

But guess what? That got done later too. Amazing.

It was so amazing in fact, that we did it AGAIN the next day. We went for a walk. To a different park.

I was a little more prepared and had blankets and bottles so we could stay a while.

And boy, were we enjoying it...

...until...

Yes, the best laid plans...

I did a pretty impressive job of turning off the camera, grabbing my phone, and hurling myself over Ammely to prevent too much water damage.

I also did an impressive job of timing the sprinklers so that we could leave the park without getting completely drenched.

So it didn't go like I planned. But oh well. We made a memory.

Colorado in July

At the end of July we were fortunate enough to get to fly up to Colorado and spend some time with my family. We had been wanting to take a trip up there to show off Ammely before she was, you know, walking, talking, going off to college -- while she is still our baby.

So somewhat apprehensively we headed to the airport. To get on an airplane. With a 3 month old. I was nervous. Very nervous. I absolutely did NOT want to be that mother with the screaming baby that everyone on the plane has equal amounts of pity and hatred towards.

However, Ammely was a real winner. She gave the security guard a big ol' smile and charmed our way right through the Phoenix airport. She even got her own "ticket." Which she found to be quite delicious.

And as luck would have it our flight to Denver was not full, so they let us have a seat for Ammely - for FREE! Such a blessing. Especially for a first time flying mom. So we got her all settled in...

...then got her all cozied up to Daddy...

...just to find out that the baby gets the window seat. It's required. Lucky duck.

All went well. Really well. She was an angel baby the entire time. She even did great during landing. As evidenced here:

Sidenote: When I say "we're going down" I mean that the plane is heading downward because we are landing. Not that the plane has lost an engine and is dangerously falling towards the ground.

Upon landing we had yet another adventure at DIA.

One of the great happenstances of this trip was the fact that one of my oldest, bestest friends was getting married while we were there. So during the sealing, Ammely got to hang out with Grandma...which she did not mind in the least. She got to go shopping and pick out toys. As featured here:

It was wonderful to get to be there for Serenity's wedding - to see her with her sweetheart. Not so long ago I found an email from back in 2010 where I was talking to her about falling in love with Ammon, and she was talking to me about how she was starting to see this guy Jimmy - and now we're both hitched to those boys for time and all eternity.

And Seren got to see my princess! However, I think it was Ammely that was in awe. I mean, Serenity looks gorgeous - just like a princess.

At the wedding we got to show her off to many friends and old ward members.

The following day, we had lots of family out to the house and got to enjoy much company that way. Ammely met Aunt Beth, Uncle Danny, Cousin Steven, Cousin Kailey, Cousin Tasha, and Grandma and Grandpa Breakall.

Grandma Breakall was happy to pass on a bit of advice as we all enjoyed a cool Colorado evening. Ammely seemed glad to have it.

Ammely, Kailey, Tasha

All in all the trip was fabulous. Ammely got to have bath time with her Grandma Breakall.

Nap time with her Grandpa Breakall.

And chill time with her Uncle Jared.

Heck, we even got to watch the Olympics!

We were sad to go. And nervous once again. However, the angel was once again an angel. She looked like this most of the flight home to Phoenix: