[Livin' the good life] All Smiles

Audrey is pretty smiley lately -- it is so cute! I absolutely love babies' gummy smiles and hers is especially heart-warming especially her open-mouth-wrinkle-nose smile.



Hanging out with Daddy:



Silly Seth:



For Father's Day I finally made Chocolate Molten Cakes. They were delicious and way easier than I thought -- but very rich, just a warning. You can find the recipe here.

Seth was definitely a fan:





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Posted By Emily to Livin' the good life at 6/17/2013 10:37:00 AM

[Livin' the good life] Audrey

A whole month has flown by already and our little Audrey* is doing great. Seth is really sweet with her and always has to know where "baby" is if I don't have her in my arms.

We were planning to wait until May or June to bless her, but my parents came to visit at the very end of April and we decided to do it while we had their company.

With the exception of a photo shoot before Church, Audrey pretty much slept through the whole thing. She was given some very special blessings from her Heavenly Father and we can't wait to watch her grow up and develop her sweet personality.

So far she's been a pretty good sleeper, although with a newborn that means 5 hours at a time is a triumph. ;)

*As far as her name is concerned, yes we named her Olivia originally. After about a week and a half, I was starting to feel like maybe it didn't fit her. I brought it up to Luke and after a couple weeks of agonizing, we decided that changing it to Audrey was the right thing to do.

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Posted By Emily to Livin' the good life at 5/19/2013 08:30:00 AM

[Livin' the good life] Overheard

A few days ago, Seth was riding his bike in the drive-way and it started to rain. He looked around and saw all the raindrops and said, "A mess. A MESS. A MESS! A BIG MESS!" I guess he was pretty concerned that the rain was getting everywhere.

Luke and Seth were playing the Wii and Seth saw a picture of Curious George on the Netflix option and he really wanted to watch it. Luke was trying to get to another game, but Seth grabbed the controller and started pressing buttons as fast as he could trying to get "George" to come on. Luke was asking Seth if he needed help, but Seth wouldn't relinquish the controller. All of the sudden "George" started playing and I hear Luke say, "You've got to be kidding me!" Then Seth said, "Nope!"




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Posted By Emily to Livin' the good life at 5/16/2013 04:10:00 PM

[Livin' the good life] Introducing...

Our sweet OLIVIA GRACE

She was born April 8 at 6:46 pm, weighing in at 6 lbs. 13 oz.

We are all so in love with her already! More to come...


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Posted By Emily to Livin' the good life at 4/14/2013 06:55:00 PM

[Livin' the good life] 4/05/2013 09:36:00 AM

Luke and I have been working on a pretty major project for quite a while now. We thought we could show you our mini-project that we've been working on to get ready for our big project:

Stay tuned to see pics our big project...hopefully very, very soon!!!

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Posted By Emily to Livin' the good life at 4/05/2013 09:36:00 AM

[Livin' the good life] Seth's New Room

Seth hit a new milestone this month: His crib days are history! Luke and I have been working on his room for about a month now and we finally got it done last weekend. The room already had some built-in shelves, but whoever built them was decidedly NOT a carpenter. It was a pretty shoddy job. So, a lot of our job consisted of reworking the shelves and re-trimming out the whole thing.

Progress:

Luke was a very good sport to put up with all my ideas (as usual) and help me execute them. Including an accent wall that turned out to be a lot more work that anticipated. (Word to the wise: don't try to do any elaborate accent stripes or walls on a highly textured surface. No matter how well you seal the tape lines, your paint WILL seep. We spent two full nights with tiny little brushes touching up all the paint that bled under the tape.)

Seth's new room:

 Seth has transitioned really well. The first night he woke up at 4:30 am and came in our room, but after a quick diaper change he went back to sleep until 7:30. Since then, he's slept every night until about 7 am, which is an hour later than his usual wake-up time in his crib.

Seth's reaction to his room:

I'd say, overall: favorable.


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Posted By Emily to Livin' the good life at 2/13/2013 09:38:00 AM

[Livin' the good life] Catching Up

I used to be so good at updating this blog, but lately it has fallen through the cracks a little. I realized I hadn't posted since Halloween! -- How sad is that....

We had a busy end of the year doing quite a bit of traveling. In November, Seth and I flew home to help celebrate my Mom's Birthday and my parents' 40th Wedding Anniversary. My siblings and I decided to throw them a surprise party, which turned out great, despite a few panicked phone calls along the way. Who knew it would be so hard to pull off a surprise party! We even had to ask the Temple President to tell a few white lies for us so they could switch up their temple schedule and be able to attend the party! Whew. But, we had such a great time together and were able to share a lot of laughs and memories.

Cutting the cake:

Luke joined us for Thanksgiving, driving all the through the night the day before Thanksgiving, and Seth was a VERY happy camper to see his daddy after missing him for two weeks.
Unfortunately, I have no pictures -- (this year my resolution is to always have my camera with me, and take more pictures!). Amy's family and Neal were able to come and we had a really good time.

CHRISTMAS

Luke has a pretty good chunk of time off during the end of December, so we were able to fly to Portland and be with his whole family for a little over two weeks. We flew in on the 19th -- a super late flight that with several delays didn't get us to the Werretts' house until well after 2 am! All his siblings arrived within a few days of that and we had the whole crew together for the first time in quite a while. It was chaos, but the kind of chaos that is wonderful. We did all the usual traditions leading up to Christmas day: gingerbread houses, chimes, decorating cookies and even added a new one -- a talent show on Christmas Eve.

Decorating gingerbread houses:

Taking a walk and throwing things off the bridge (one of Seth's favorite things!):

Visiting the Zoo to see the lights and ride the train (or the "toot-toot" as Seth calls it.)

All the grandkids modeling their brand new PJs Christmas Eve:

After New Years, Luke and I were able to sneak off for 5 days to Bend, OR for a little getaway, while Grandma Brenda watched Seth. This was the first time we had left him for more than 1 night, so we were curious to see how he would do, but he did awesome. Grandma Brenda kept him busy and he had a blast.  (Thanks again to Luke's parents for letting us do that!)




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Posted By Emily to Livin' the good life at 2/13/2013 08:46:00 AM