Niki Falls and Faces

The first week we were here, what does Niki do but fall down the stairs again. This time I got pictures. I put her in the tub with an orange Popsicle to stop the bleeding. She cheered right up. Her goose ache was SO BIG, I've never seen one that size before. It looked like she had a rubber bouncy ball stuck under her skin. Needless to say, the next day I bought a foam mat at Costco and put it on the tile at the bottom of Grandma's stairs.

She's only had one fall since then and it didn't hurt a bit. She was so surprised that she started screaming and feeling her teeth. As soon as she realized she was fine, she laughed and choked back the tears. Silly girl.

This wasn't as bad or traumatic as her first fall down the hard wood stairs at our friend's house. I heard her fall and came running. Blood gushing from her mouth, I saw that her outside tooth was pointed completely forward instead of up. I went into disaster. Undress kid, rinse with water, call pediatric dentist. By then she had managed to push the tooth back into place with her finger. Put in tub, give Tylenol. The dentist said all I could do was wait for the bleeding to stop and watch. If the tooth went black, bring her in. An hour later, the bleeding finally slowed enough to take her out of the tub and go home. It must have been a bigger shock to me than I thought because I still get goosebumps every time I go to that house.
Niki's 4 bottom teeth were all crooked with bloody gaps in between. We alternated Motrin and Tylenol and fed her smoothies for a day. We even had a dentist friend take a look at her. He said kids under 2, especially under 1 (her birthday was the next week) heal remarkably with very few casualties. Give it 3 weeks he said and things will move back into place on their own. He was right. What a blessing.

And here's some funny faces Niki pulls just for the sake of more pictures:

A Princess Party Birthday Girl

For Lily's 3rd birthday, we celebrated all day long. The day started with a princess party complete with a royal ball, tea set cake and punch, and princess accessory presents to share with everyone. The bubble wands were the biggest hit of course.

For dinner we went to Applebee's. Lily loved the attention when everyone sang to her and didn't want to share her special desert with anyone, but she did anyways. She also had all the pasta she could eat and then some. Where does she put it all?

Presents from the family were so exciting. Every time I ask what her favorite was, she says something different, so I guess she loved them all. We sang Happy Birthday, again. Lily couldn't get enough of singing it. She was thrilled by the fact that we were singing it to her for a change.

The best part by far was the castle cake. Heidi, Diane, Lily, and I spent an entire day decorating it. Red velvet chocolate cake with way too much icing and candy. It turned out so good, I just hope I haven't set myself up for future disappointments.

Family Vacation to the Redwoods

We had SO MUCH FUN!!!

Air Force Museum

I met with a friend from college and we let our kids run around the air force museum. It was a great welcome to Utah and the first day in a long time we didn't spend in the car.

Later that day my Dad was so kind as to remind the girls how much they LOVE ice cream cones. Cherry toppers, yum.

Farewell Dad

Here are a few pictures from Tyler's camera the day he left.

Cell Phone Follies

Since I have been without my camera, I have found a way to get the pictures from off of my cell phone. Here are pictures from this year. Check out the captions to see what they are about.

Loss of Life

Well, it feels that way anyways. My external hard drive that had all of our pictures since we've been married was destroyed 2 weeks ago. It also had all the current files that I use on our computer at home, so it was basically my computer while Tyler is gone. It's been driving me crazy. I can't get any work done because I don't have my files. And I'm quite sick about loosing all of our backups. I have most things on CDs but now I'm going to have to sort through it all and organize it all over again. It's an overwhelming task.
Does anyone have a good recommendation of a large Flash memory drive storage device? I need to purchase something to replace our broken life backup.

Back blog of Birthday and June

I found these pictures from Nancy and I wanted to share them. They are a little old, but still fun.

Lily got a "beautiful jewelery box" that lights up on the sides. She LOVES it! Perfect gift from grandma.


Random pictures at Nancy's house


Lily's actual birthday happened while we were camping at the Redwoods with the Sharps. We also celebrated Ellen's birthday that was the next week. Lily couldn't get enough of everyone singing happy birthday to her. She LOVED the princess stuff and her new chair has been well used.

Aunt Diane and Trip to Utah

We played with Diane before we left. Thanks Diane for the fun stay-cation!








Three days of road trip, oh boy!

Niki Climbs Highchair

Austin Auto Show

This was on Tyler's top 10 before deploying so we did it.

Pizza and Pants

The girls were so tired they both fell asleep eating pizza.

Niki has a new entertainment of going through the clothes hamper and trying to dress herself. What is her clothing of choice? Lily's underpants of course. I guess they are the easiest thing to put on. It sure is entertaining to see the many ways she finds to wear them.

Lily's funny clean story

I was getting Niki a bottle in the kitchen when I notice that the few spilled water drops that Niki and I had just walked through were actually a pool of, you guessed it, pee. After emergency disinfecting I then turned to "so where's the pee-er and what else has she sat in?". the answer?

I found Lily in the tub. Clothes off. Water filled. "Washing and Scrubbing" her clothes. Leave it to Lily to just clean up after herself. I just had to laugh.

Niki's words

Niki has really started to talk this week. She has also found a new form of entertainment: books! She has a few of the basics down great: dad, ma(mom), no, up, grandpa, cookie, duck (specifically poop-duck), cup, clock. Now that she can say a few words, she of course thinks she can talk and rattles off long phrases that kind of sound like something you'd say, but really have no distinguishable meaning. She will also respond to "Can you say ______ " with her best efforts, but she only gets 1 sylable right at a time. For example, apple comes out "abbb" "mmmple" but not "a - ple". Is she really this old already?

Family In Town

YEA!!! Thanks for visiting us. For being sick, we sure had fun. We miss you.