Lucky

Today I left Tyson home alone with Susie for a little over an hour.  After three phone calls from him I came home to find him waiting in the driveway, ready to hand her over to me.  It made me laugh a little inside.  I've gotten used to the fact that our little baby needs a lot of attention.  Apparently Tyson hasn't.  If she isn't held 24/7, she's crying and complaining.  She has this "demon voice" she uses that is almost humorous.  I really don't know when our little easy going baby became so needy for attention.  Anyhow, it just seems like recently I have been more focused on how lucky/blessed I am.  Maybe it was the ten year anniversary of 9/11 or how busy and stressed I have been with my church calling, but I feel so blessed for all I have here at my house.  I love these little kiddos more than I ever knew I could and I am so lucky to have them, no matter how whiny and needy they can be (Tyson included).

I love this picture because of Susie's cute little pose.

 Although they may not fully realize it yet, these little girlies are so lucky to have each other.

 Nina is so lucky to have Grandma Beth to spoil the crud out of her.  Here she is with all her Toy Story dolls from Grandma.

 Seriously Tyson, all she needs is constant attention and she's happy as a clam.  Is that too much to ask?

 Tyson feels lucky to have football season back in his life.  Susie is sporting her Hawkeye black and gold.

 It's hard to get Nina to smile for pictures these days.  This is about as good as it gets.

 Lucky...

Six Months!

I really can't believe that my baby is six months old already.  To say that these past few months have flown by would be an understatement.  I feel like this age and stage is my absolute favorite, but I kind of feel that way about every stage.  So the little Susie Q has made it through half a year.  She still has the same sweet, easy going personality and I just love her more and more every day.

Her six month stats:

height: 25 1/4 inches (25th percentile)

weight: 13 pounds 13 ounces (10th percentile)

head: 42.5 cm (25th percentile)

 Here's little Suze in her high chair.  She is loving the solid food stage of her life and will eat anything we give her.  Another sign of her easy going nature.  This picture cracks me up because this is always what she does with her legs.  Any time she's in this position those legs go straight up in the air.  People in the grocery store always laugh at those high kicking legs.  Maybe she'll be a dancer some day.

 Nina has begun to acknowledge Susie's existence more.  Susie has become a regular during dress-up time and is a true little princess in the making.

 This girl is seriously almost always happy and has the biggest smiles to share with anyone who gives her attention.  

This is a shot under her bouncer chair.  She's not quite heavy enough or tall enough to reach the floor.  Good thing we have some big ol' pharmacology books lying around.

 She has a love/hate relationship with this toy.  If she's feeling tired or needy she wants nothing to do with it, otherwise it's where she wants to be.  A side note on the needy thing: this girl is a total momma's girl.  If mom is in the room she does not want to be held by anyone else and will whine and cry until she gets her way.  She also wants to be held...A LOT.  If not, she's not a happy camper.  This limits my ability to get things done, but I'm trying to enjoy it as much as I can as well.

Here Susie is with her best friend of all, Nina.  Her little face lights up with a huge smile whenever she sees Nina.  These girls spend a lot of the day entertaining each other and laughing at each other.  

This little girl loves to talk and babble to herself.  So far the first words were "dada".  Hmm..we need to work on that one.

Lemmon Family Reunion

My awesome Grandma Lemmon set up a family reunion for my mom's side of the family. She got a bunch of beach houses in Morro Bay and we all got to stay there for the week. My family (minus Tom's family and Bridget) all got to stay in one beach house. We had a lot of fun and it was great to see cousins and aunts and uncles I haven't seen in years. The girls had a blast being around their cousins from Iowa.

Here's little Susie enjoying the stroller without the car seat. Must be liberating. She loved all the new sights and the different view.

While the boys were deep-sea fishing the girls took a trip to the zoo in Atascadero. Here are Nina and Tricia as turtles. I'm bummed that we have to photos from the boy's fishing trip.

Thursday night at Farmer's Market in San Luis Obispo. We were sad to find out that our favorite place to get frozen yogurt as kids has gone out of business, but we found another place to get some. Just wasn't the same!

The Embarcadero in Morro Bay

A day at the beach at Spooner's Cove

Every night we had dinner at a different beach house. It was so fun to see everyone. Here is Betsy and my Aunt Leah from Massachusetts.

Who's at your table?

Are they as cute as these two?
Tyson is usually not home in time for dinner at our house, so I feel VERY lucky to have the most wonderful dinner dates to keep me company.

Life's a Beach

Recently we have found ourselves escaping the heat of the desert to enjoy the cool, ocean air that the coast has to offer. If only we lived a bit closer...

Susie and I spend most of the day in the shade of the umbrella.

The beach has a certain way of wearing oneself out. Little Susie is proof of that.

Tyson and Nina enjoyed searching for crabs and playing in the sand.

Tyson showing off his sweet boogie boarding moves.

There's nothing much better than a day at the beach with two beautiful little ladies.

You-Tah

We took the classic trip up the 15 to visit our friends and family in Utah. Tyson had a few days in between his old ICU night job and his new OR day job, so we decided to pull a quick trip to Utah. We are still trying to forget about the drive home and may need some therapy to recover from it, but we had an absolute blast in Utah and will focus on all the great things we got to do there.

What could be greater than hanging out with Aunt Gentlemen (Jennalyn). Nina just loves playing with her and we still miss her and Kevin and wish they could live with us again.

C'mon, is there anything cuter than these two?? We are sad they live so far away now.

Nina loves playing with Billy and all of his awesome toys. I actually think I had more fun playing with all their "Tickle me" toys than anyone else.

We got to spend a little bit of time with our friends, the Bilbao family. They have a new baby girl that was born about a week before Susie. Here are the two guys (friends since elementary school) together with their little girls.

Nina had a blast playing with Cody.

The two baby girls were instant friends.

We got to visit my Grandma Wood and her new, beautiful house in Kaysville. I love this picture of the three of them.

Visited Temple Square and ran into my sister Bridget, who is serving a mission there. We ran into her in the Tabernacle and got a wonderful tour from her about families. It was such a neat experience to see her on her mission and see what a wonderful sister missionary she is.

Lindsey and Brandon were nice enough to entertain us at their apartment in Salt Lake. They took us to an amazing Greek restaurant and treated us to cake balls after. We love those guys!

Grandma Connie (Tyson's grandma) came out from Altamont to visit with us. Here is a picture of Grandma Peggy, Grandma Connie and the girls at our favorite buffet, Chuck-a-rama.

A group shot of all of us. I just love Nina in the bottom corner. This is definitely how she felt by the end of the week.

All in all, the horrible drive home was worth every second we got to spend with our wonderful family and friends and worth all the delicious food we ate at all our favorite restaurants. Oh how we miss you already!

Memorial Day

We were lucky enough to spend Memorial Day with a lot of our family this year. We went down to Eternal Valley in Santa Clarita, where they had a nice Memorial Day program. My dad and brother Kevin sang in the choir and did an amazing job. Afterward we visited my mom's grave and left some flowers. It was so nice to have a day to remember the sacrifices of those fighting for our freedom. We were once again reminded of how lucky and blessed we are to be citizens of the United States.

Kevin and his lovely blonde ladies

The kiddos at the cemetary

Nina was actually willing to show a nice cheesy smile.

It was so great to have our siblings from Utah there. Here is a cute picture of Billy, Tom, and Mayer.

Nina and Grandpa at my mom's grave.