Finally Crawling!

Colby is finally crawling! He is 10 1/2 months old. He took his first crawls on Wednesday (1/18) and has been getting better at crawling ever since. He still prefers to roll but he is starting to crawl a lot more. Today I put him on the floor in church and he started crawling away up the aisle. I had to go catch him. He can't go very fast or far yet but he is getting stronger. I set him in the front room and then went to do something in the kitchen and when I when back in the front room, Colby was no where to be found. I found him down the hall in the toy room! He had crawled that far. Well I guess I am in for it now. I going to have to keep a sharper eye on him now that he is completely mobile!

Another fun thing Colby likes to do is ride around on our little Red Clifford dog. He can push himself with his feet and walk all over the house. He loves riding it and petting the nose. Sometimes he falls off though if he leans to far over.

Emily also loved riding Clifford. Here she is at about 7 months sitting on him. She could scoot around on him yet though. Clifford has been a good dog but if you notice, he is in mint condition in Emily's picture but has no eyes or eyebrows in Colby's picture... Yeah Emily tore all of the stickers off of him. Colby doesn't seem to mind though. He just like riding around.

Happy 150th Birthday, St. George

This week marked the 150th anniversary of St. George becoming a city. The city planned a bunch of fun activities to celebrate this event. We didn't want to miss any part of the festivities.

A really amazing chalk artist colored the city sesquicentennial emblem on the sidewalk near the Opera House. She did an awesome job. Another amazing artist made this awesome cake to depict the history of St. George over the past 150 years. The cake was so cool; I wish I could decorate like that. Emily saw the cake and wanted a piece of it.

The celebration actually started back in October when the city put on the Wagon Train from Parawon to St. George. My mom went on the trek all week and then we joined her for the final day. The trek was really fun.

On Saturday (14th), we went to the free Root Beer Float party at the Social Hall:

Root Beer floats are my favorite and as you can see Emily loves them too. After enjoying our Floats in the warm sun, we when on a few tours of the Historical houses in St. George. We started at the St. George Opera House:

The two pictures at the top are of the Opera House. I had never been inside the Opera House before. I learned that the settlers used this house for entertainment and they rigged the floor up with these huge screws so that they could lower the floor near the stage 3 feet. By lowering the floor in front, they created the first stadium seating theater in St. George. The Opera House was also used as a sugar beet factory until it was completely renovated to its original form and function. The floor no longer lowers in the front, however, due to fire codes.

The bottom two pictures are of our next historical site, the Brigham Young home. Brigham Young himself was there and told us all about his life and journey to Salt Lake and St. George. (Okay Brigham Young was actually one of the missionaries dressed up!) Brigham Young used this house as a winter home and conducted quite a bit of church business in this house. I had to take a picture of this huge piano. For as many times as we have moved, I am glad my piano is not this big. (I am sure Russell and my brothers are glad too!) I also snapped a picture of the old cook stove and was glad that I live now with the modern conveniences! I wish we could have gone to more of the historical sites but Russell had an appointment he had to get to.

Tuesday (17th) was the big celebration day. They had a Heritage festival at the Dixie Center so I took the kids to see all of the booths.

It wasn't really what I thought it would be but it was still fun to go. There were some awesome old cars and this old fire truck at the car show. Then we when through all of the booths and Emily gathered candy from everyone she saw. We learned about the history of Snow Canyon, got a lesson from the Visitor Center missionaries, learned about Girl Scouts, saw pictures of the old Dixie College Alumni, and even played with a few toys kids played with 150 years ago.

That night the city had a big celebration at the Burns Arena. First they showed a video of the Wagon Train. I kept watching to see if I could see us or my mom but I couldn't. After the video, Emily and Colby got to attend their first concert:

Brooke White, a finalist from American Idol a few years ago, came and did a free concert for the birthday celebration. I thought the concert was really good. It was funny though because after a few songs, all of the old people started to leave probably because it was too loud. Then Emily said her ears hurt so we left too... Hee hee I guess that means we are old. We waited in the hall of the Burns Arena until the concert was over and then everyone went outside for free birthday cake.

Getting the cake was like a cattle stampede! It was so ridiculous. We were one of the first ones in line because we were already near the doors, so we were just waiting with a few other people. All of a sudden the line doesn't move and we start getting crowded and smashed by all of the other million people wanting cake too. Poor Colby started crying because he was in the stroller and got so completely surrounded by people that he couldn't even see any light. I was trapped because I couldn't move the stroller and I just told Russell not to let go of Emily's hand. Finally after pushing our way through and running over a few people with our stroller, we got our cake and got out of there alive.

We walked to an open spot on the steps and ate our cake. Emily was so tired and busy watching all of the people that she wasn't paying attention and dropped her cake on the ground. We were not attempting the line for the cake again so I just gave her my cake. Then Russell gave me his and ate the cake that fell on the ground. I guess the 10 second rule doesn't apply to cake because now Russell is sick with a cold or something! Serves him right I guess for not at least brushing the dirt off it. HA ha!

After the stampede for cake died down, the city shot off an awesome firework show. What a fun way to celebrate 150 years. Happy Birthday St. George! We love living here.

10 Months & A New Tooth

Colby is 10 months old and getting to be such a big boy. He is the funniest little kid and so happy. Colby weighs 25 pound and is in 18 month clothes. He is our little big man and so handsome in his new suit and tie:

I had to give him a cracker so he would hold still long enough for me to take a few pictures. Colby has to longest, pointiest tongue ever! He likes to stick it out all the time and say, "La La La." I love his big brown eyes and his toothless grin just makes me melt. I also love his crazy hair. No matter what I do, it just sticks straight up. I have quit trying to comb it down so I just rub a little baby lotion in it and call it good. Every one we see comments on how cute his crazy hair is.

Emily loves playing dress up and Colby gets to be her "Prince" whenever she plays. As you can see, he doesn't really like his prince crown. He would rather pull it off and eat it.

Colby is a little wiggle worm. He loves playing on the ground and rolling around. He is not crawling yet but that does not stop him from getting wherever he wants to go. He can roll, scoot, pivot, and reach. He can crawl backwards using his legs but cannot seem to get his legs to go forward. He did take a few little crawls forward today so it will not be long before he is actually crawling. It is funny to see all of the effort he puts in to getting around. I tell him it is a lot easier to crawl but he doesn't seem to care. One thing is for sure though, he does not stay in one spot for very long anymore.

We just discovered that Colby is getting his first tooth! His gums have been swollen and we could see the tooth coming for quite a while now and it finally broke through a couple days ago. It is fun to hear the clanking noise it makes when I touch it with a spoon. Colby has been really good about teething. I have not noticed a big difference in his behavior. He was sick around New Years which was probably because of this tooth.

With a new tooth, it will be much easier to eat cookies! Not that he needed any help with that:

Ahhh! Oreos the messiest cookies ever made but kids sure love them! He looks like he is growing a goatee. We sure love having you in our family, Colby!

In With the New...Welcome 2012!

Welcome 2012! Isn't the world supposed to end this year? I don't really think so but who really knows! Any way what a great year 2011 was. It was definitely good for us and we welcomed new members into our family, COLBY and Clifford! We also bought our house and Russell achieved a few of his goals. He landscaped our backyard from scratch. He got hired on with Dixie Ambulance and is now working on 911 calls and he also got accepted in to the St. George Fire Academy.

We are looking forward to the new year. We don't really have a lot of major plans for the year so far but I am sure we will think of something to do. Right now, Russell is looking forward to the Fire Academy which will take 4 months to complete. We probably won't be going anywhere during that time but afterward, Russell would like to take a trip up to Oregon. He went on his mission to Oregon and parts of California and has been wanting to go back ever since. We were going to head up there right before Christmas when Russell's Uncle Harold passed away but we just didn't feel right about making the trip in the winter. It is a good thing we didn't go because we found out later that there were some major storms through Idaho right when we would have been coming home. (Blessings!) Any way we are currently saving for that trip which we will probably take in June-ish. We are also planning on doing some redecorating and improvements on the house especially the kids' bedrooms. (Another thing we are currently saving for...) We are also excited for a new niece on the Farnsworth side coming in April. Jen and Rick are having their first little girl! Colby will also celebrate is first birthday which is always exciting. Emily has been helping me plan his party ever since her birthday in September. All in all this next year will be good.

To bring in the New Year, we partied it up! First some of our friends from the ward invited us over for games and snacks. We met up at the White's house and the Stanley's joined us too. We had a really good time and the kids had a blast playing together too. We played Apples to Apples, Catch Phrase, and Balderdash. It was a lot of fun and it is so good to get to know our neighbors better. Since we all have little kids, we called it a night at around 9:30. Yeah I know we are party animals!

After getting Emily and Colby into their pajamas, we headed over to Terral's house to meet up with the rest of my family. When we got there, they were playing a really fun game called Quelf. It is a crazy game with crazy changing rules. I definitely need to buy it for our collection! By the time they were done with their game, it was almost midnight. We found a re-run of the New York New Year's countdown and poured us some Bubbly. As you can see, Russell had a little too much Bubbly:

Terral also got a whole bunch of fortune cookies from the Chinese restaurant so we could all read our fortunes for the New Year. Mine said something like "You are nice to others" I think. My fortune and Tami's was the same! Russell's fortune said something like "You will overcome many trials well." I guess that is a good thing but it can also be a scary thing! Who knows what the year will bring...

Emily had fun blowing the horn when midnight came and kept blowing it all the way home. Poor Colby, on the other hand, was getting so tired. He didn't really care about all the celebration he just wanted to go home to some peace and quiet.

There was no peace and quiet in this house with Tami and Mom singing Christmas songs in the elf microphone:

The video is priceless! The microphone turned their voices into elf voices. It was hilarious!

Finally we went home and Russell went to work for the rest of the night. We were all tired the next day and 9:00 church came way too early! I am excited for 9:00 church this year though. We have had 1:00 church for the past 3 years.

I haven't really thought about what my New Year resolutions will be this year. I seem to have the same ones every year though. They include getting into shape, eating more healthy foods, and staying caught up on the reading assignments for Sunday School and Relief Society. One goal I do have for Colby this year is to get him to go to sleep on his own and sleep through the night! The goal I have for Emily is to get her to learn, recognize, and write the alphabet and her name. Other than that, my goal is to get organized and stay that way. WISH ME LUCK!!!

One of Russell's goals is to get in shape also so we went running yesterday. Running with two kids is harder than with one. The jogging stroller we push weighs 50 lbs because of this cute load:

These two sure love going for a run. I would too if I could ride. I guess a little resistance training is good for us.

Happy New Year 2012!