To nap or not to nap?

Owen is transitioning between needing a nap to survive and getting a nap but then not going to bed until late that night. Today he didn't have a nap. While I was fixing dinner, he was having a snack and fell asleep just like that.

Grateful

So, I know I've already posted to much tonight but I had a couple things happen today that I wanted to remember. First, I was sitting outside the pharmacy at the hospital waiting for a prescription for Ava when the man sitting next to me commented about Ava or something so we continued to chit chat while we were waiting. After a few minutes his wife came over wearing dark sunglasses. She was talking to Ava in a cute grandma voice when Ava started to cry and she commented that she knew exactly how she felt as she had earlier that day fallen down the stairs and broke her nose, had two bad black eyes and knocked out like 3 or more of her front teeth. Anyways, she was grateful she was walking around and seemed just as happy talking to a complete stranger without her front teeth and black eyes as anything. Pretty great. It was a good reminder to not let inhibitions get in the way of being kind and interacting with people around us.

The other thing is from a blog that I learned about from a news story. It's a crazy story about a little boy that was just learning to crawl around 7 months old when he got some flu symptoms that turned out to be meningitis. Anyways, he's been in the hospital for 3 months now and is deaf, has brain damage, and is probably blind. So, I've been checking up to see how he's doing and his mom posted about his progress on Sunday. They took him outside for the first time and his mom commented that her favorite part of her day was that as they were basking in the sun that her son's pupils dilated the same as hers did. Anyways, I have so much to be grateful for. That story is especially crazy when I remember when Owen was 1 month old and he had like almost meningitis or something and we spent a few days in the hospital. Life is precious.

Spring

As things have been greening up, I was happy to find that my chives, sage, parsley, and thyme survived from last year. So far for this year, I've planted basil, cilantro, spinach, carrots, a lettuce mix, broccoli, cauliflower, and this morning we planted a two kinds of onions- Candy & Dulce Grande.

We are so happy for the warm weather. Owen loves to play & be outside.

It was so pretty outside today, we decided to have our first picnic in our backyard.

Bowling

So, I don't remember the last time that I went bowling before last weekend. Cathrine had the brilliant idea for our family to go. It was so fun. The scores weren't especially high, I think I got the same score of 69 as Michael & Owen, but it was a lot of fun. While we were there, Ava got hungry and I felt like the best mom when I made her wait to eat so that I a few more turns in and then the whole nursing at the bowling alley thing made me laugh.

Here's Chad-the highest scorer of the night- his quest to throw the bowling ball as hard as he could worked for him, at least when competing with us :).

Nice shoes Dallin Paul.

Snow!

This morning we woke up to snow on the ground and it has been snowing on & off all day today. Crazy weather. Made me glad I haven't packed up Owen's boots yet cause he was pretty excited to get out and play in it this morning.

Ava's Been Tagged!

Here's a little info about our baby girl Ava Elise:

*She just turned 4 months old.
*She is a happy baby.
*She laughed for the first time about a week ago.
*She loves to kick her legs and is starting to roll from her belly to her back and from her belly to her sides.
*She has been intensely studying her hands lately.
*On Tuesday, while we were at the library of all places, Ava started figuring out how to scream and squeal for fun because she's a girl and because she can.
*She is in the 20th % for weight at 12.25 pounds and 40th % for height at 24 inches.
*She has dark hair and we think her eyes are going to be blue.
*She's our pretty little girl.

If they are interested, Ava would like to tag: Willa, Miles, & George

Owen's Been Tagged!

Here's a little info on our Owen Porter:

*He is a happy fellow. He goes with the flow pretty good and enjoys life.
*He loves cars, trucks, diggers, motorcycles, jeeps, dump trucks, buses, 4-wheelers, pretty much anything with wheels.
*Owen loves to play outside.

*His favorite breakfast lately has been waffles.

*He is a great big brother- Ava's first smile was for her big brother Owen.
*He's always glad when his Daddy comes home.
*Owen is a good helper.

(I know this is just a picture of dirt but if you look closely, you can see Owen's footprints
next to mine from helping me rototill the garden.)

*Owen loves his Grandma's & Grandpa's

*He is very observant.
*Owen looks up to his Uncle Dallin Paul and thinks he is the funniest coolest guy. Dallin Paul loves the Power Rangers, so of course, Owen too thinks they are really great. Here are some ninja moves from last summer:

Owen wants to tag: Ike, Henry, Michael Jr., Ava & Olivia for someday when she gets a blog :).

Holy Cow Batman!

Because Owen was wearing his protective Batman suit, when I took it off, his clothes wear still clean. To bad I couldn't do the same thing for my kitchen :).

Lucky Me

I like this picture. Sometimes I get frustrated that I don't seem to get much done but I am happy to be a mom.

Baby Animal Days

We love Baby Animal Days. It was so much fun again this year.

This is Owen holding a toad. He wasn't really into the whole slimy toad thing. He did it, but while he was holding it he didn't really look at it and just looked around with a look of disgust on his face. Maybe I wasn't hiding how I felt about holding a slimy toad good enough.

Well, it was fun for Owen to see the animals but I think he had the most fun just running around with his cousin Olivia.

Here is my happy sister JoAnna with her fiance, Chad. He is a great addition to our family. Out of all of us, Owen included, Chad definitely was the most excited about holding some baby animals- just look at that face.


Here's a picture of Owen impersonating what the bunny was doing with his nose. When we asked Owen if he wanted to hold it, he said no because he just wanted us to put it down to watch it go "hop, hop, hop."

But wait, we don't own a dog...

There are many things that we love about our house but one thing that we don't love is being the house on the corner that all the dogs in the neighborhood like to call their own for certain things. This morning I grabbed my shovel (That we bought last year from Smithfield Implement's Crazy Days Sale for super cheap- I love that store) and a big black garbage sack to cleanup from the winter. So, this is kind of lame, but while I shoveled I counted- 58 doggie doo-doo piles later, I hope I haven't missed any that I'll get to scrub out of my carpet later.

So, I'm wondering, does anyone know any tricks I can try to prevent such things? The only one that I've heard of is pepper and I don't know if that would work but I'm seriously thinking about making a trip to Sam's Club for a huge container of it to sprinkle around. If it does I will definitely get my video camera out and video the dogs sneezing as they run away instead of pooing on my lawn and I'll be sure to figure out how to post that on my blog.

Eating Popcorn

This made me laugh the other day- Owen & Matthew were eating popcorn the other day and I wondered, is how you eat popcorn a hereditary thing?

Conference Weekend

So, even though we got to be around a lot of family this conference weekend, I forgot my camera or forgot to take pictures the whole time so I don't have any fun pictures of Owen playing with any of his cousins. So although I don't have photo proof of the fun, it was a great weekend.

It was nice to listen to what I could of conference and be uplifted by the testimonies and talks given. I was even awake for all of the sessions this time which I don't know if that's ever happened. I only wish I could say since I was awake that I listened better. Well, now I'll be more excited for the Ensign to come out right?

It was also wonderful to spend time with family. Owen had so much fun playing with his cousins. I often take for granted how lucky I am to have such great people in both the Phillips & Huff families. I especially admire all the women in our families and learn so much from their good examples.

Happy Birthday Mom!

We got to celebrate my Mom's birthday this weekend too. She is such a strong woman. I admire her in so many ways- her kindness, service, happiness, strength, love, compassion, testimony, and her excitement for life are just a few of her great qualities. I feel lucky to be her daughter and for my kids to have such a wonderful grandma.

Latest Pictures

Cousins are so much fun.

Here's a picture of some cream of asparagus soup we made this week- I don't remember ever eating green soups before, it was kind of fun and really good.

This dessert was just worth taking a picture of, it was so easy to put together and so good and we got to use this cool bowl for the first time that we got for our wedding.

Ava has been growing up more & more, she has definitely moved out of the newborn baby stage. She is becoming more aware of what is going on around her. We are trying to learn how to sneeze quietly, if that's even possible, because she gets startled so easily by noises around her.