11 Months, Teddy & Tuacahn

Last week Lexie turned 11 months old! She is growing up so fast and we can't believe her 1st birthday is very soon! At 11 months Lexie makes us laugh all of the time and has the sweetest personality. She is almost walking and can take several steps unassisted; she runs around the house holding onto her litte car, the couch, walls, kitchen chairs, and just about anything else. She loves playing with her toys, reading books, singing songs, and most of all dancing to all kinds of music. Her favorite words to say right now are "all done" (whenever she is done eating, getting a diaper change, or even when feels she is done in the car or with anything else), "Dad" or "Daddy" (of course for her Dad), "Jesus" (as she points to pictures of Him in the house), "Teddy" (you can get that story below), "Baba" for bottle, "RooRoo" (the sound a dog makes), that's all I can think of right now; sadly she isn't into saying "Mom" yet but she does know who I am and I always get lots of hugs from my baby girl which just melts my heart! She's so much fun! We took a few pictures the other day and the only place she would sit still was in her little toy chair and standing next to a chair.

Lexie has really been into stuffed animals lately. The day she turned 11 months we went to St. George and found this cute teddy bear that was on a really good sale. Lexie fell in love with the bear and she calls him "Teddy" and must go to bed with him and have him to ride in the car. This is her first object that she's become attached to.

As you can see in these pictures, Lexie loves Teddy.

The same day we bought Teddy, we went to see "Footloose" at Tuacahn with my mom, 2 of my sisters, and my aunt Sylvia (it was her birthday). Annie watched Lexie and they had tons of fun.

Here we are at Tuacahn.

This is the birthday girl Sylvia with the main actors,

Thayne Jasperson and Kyli Rae.

They did an awesome job! I enjoyed watching Thayne because I love the show "So You Think You Can Dance", and Thayne was on last season so it was fun seeing him in person because he is an awesome dancer and I had no idea he could sing that good. Thanks Annie for the tickets and for tending so we could see the play!

Birthday & 4th of July

July 1st I celebrated my birthday. I was still recovering from being sick so I didn't really feel up to doing much. Bryan and Lexie had been sick a couple of days before me then I picked it up, but luckily it was only a 24-48 hour bug and we all mended quickly. All we ended up doing that evening was getting dinner from Bruno's, eating ice cream, and watching a movie. Bryan bought me some jeans at Old Navy a few weeks before my birthday but he wanted to get a shirt also so we went to Beals and found a good deal on a bright yellow one. He wanted to take a picture of me in my new jeans and shirt so here I am striking a pose. My family made me an awesome birthday dinner with grilled hamburgers, macaroni salad, and watermelon when we went over for the 4th weekend. And it wouldn't be my birthday without a chocolate cake with 7-minute frosting. Here I am with Lexie and my cake...really, if you haven't tried this kind of cake you are missing out!

On the 4th we went to the Kanab festivities with my mom's family which has been tradition for quite a while now. We went to the parade and hung out with all the family at my aunt's house which is just across the street from the city park where all the games and entertainment go on. We enjoyed my uncle's famous dutch-oven chicken and potatoes, and their lawn is a front-row view of the fireworks that night so the setup is perfect. We are proud to be Americans and for our many freedoms! Here are a few pictures from our day.

Lexie enjoying the parade (and her bottle).

Our Family decked out in the Red, White, and Blue!

Lexie loves Great Grandpa Mickelson!

Lexie also loves Great Grandma Mickelson and Jell-o jigglers!

This is Lexie playing with my cousin's daughter Ta'Kara.

Lexie liked to point at the fireworks while she watched them.

Here is a short video clip of the firework show.

Family Vacation to Blanding

In June we decided to take a trip to Blanding to visit Bryan's parents and also just have some vacation time. We headed out on Saturday, June 20th in the morning. By the time we hit Richfield we needed to stop and feed Lexie and my parents just happened to be watching my brother play in a baseball tournament there, so we drove over to the ball fields and watched the game while we fed Lexie and visited with my parents for a little while. As we were getting ready to leave the ball field my friend Ashlee came running over and caught us. I haven't seen Ashlee for quite a while and she lives in Beaver but just happened to be in Richfield watching her son play baseball and was driving by as we were pulling out. She told her husband to stop the car and she came running over to say hi. That was super unexpected but way fun! Most of our trip is in the other three posts below. I did them in order of the days and the bottom post of Arches was Saturday afternoon then above that post was about Sunday and the one right below this one is Monday.

We traveled back home on Tuesday. Lexie had been such a good traveler and slept from Blanding to Green River and she didn't really get upset until right before Richfield. So we stopped and walked around for a bit then grabbed some Chinese food and headed to the park to eat. Here is Bryan and Lexie with our Chinese meal at the park.

We finally got home Tuesday night and spent the rest of the week trying to recover from the trip. However, on Saturday night Bryan got really sick and Sunday morning Lexie got up way sick too. So we spent until Thursday all taking our turns being sick. Sadly I had to be sick on my birthday, but luckily we were better in time for the 4th weekend...but those are other posts for later. I hope you enjoy all the updates!

Hovenweep & Navajo Tacos

Monday we headed out to see Hovenweep National Monument, which has Pueubloan-era ruins. We didn't take the 2 hour hike around the ruins but we could see most of them from some lookout areas and they were really neat.

At Hovenweep with Mom & Dad Lyman

Bryan & Lexie enjoying the view.

Some of the ruins.

This is the Boulder House.

After we saw Hovenweep, we drove through the reservation and stopped in Bluff where we were treated to authentic Navajo Tacos at the cafe there. So Yummy!

Fathers Day & Fun in Blanding

We were happy to be able to spend Father's Day with Bryan's Dad and Grandpa (we were sad we didn't get any pictures with Grandpa Lyman who turned 93 the day after Father's Day, but we enjoyed visiting with him while we were in Blanding). I am so grateful for what a wonderful Father Bryan is to Lexie and he's such a loving and kind husband to me. Thanks for everything you do for our family! WE LOVE YOU!

Lexie with her Daddy on Father's Day

Lexie with Daddy and Grandpa Lyman. I want to tell Bryan's dad Norman thanks for being such a wonderful father to Bryan and also to me since I joined the family almost 3 years ago. I know Bryan got his amazing qualities from you and I am so glad Lexie has such a fun and loving Grandpa!

I love this picture of Lexie looking at her Grandpa.

Lexie loved Grandpa and Grandma's stuffed animals. She kept tackling and head-butting them. Here she is riding the big giraffe.

She loved exploring Grandma and Grandpa's house. And she now loves to pose for pictures.

Do we have a little prodigy on our hands?

One last fun thing we did on Father's Day was go to visit Bryan's friend Jay, his wife Michelle, and their 4 little boys. It was fun to see them since it has been about 2 years since we last were able to hang out with them. They have such a cute family and we're glad we got to say hi while we were in town!

Arches

Just a warning...this is a long post with A LOT of pictures. Ok, now that you are warned I'll go on. On Saturday we headed out in the morning and met Bryan's parents in Moab in the early afternoon. We went and had some delicious Mexican food, then headed out to Arches National Park. I have always wanted to go see Arches so I was excited to be able to go with Mom & Dad Lyman. I hoped Lexie would survive another 3 - 4 hours in the car after we had already spent 4 hours driving to get there. She was really good and never even cried that day after being in the car almost the whole time for 12 hours by the time we got to Blanding that night. The day was perfect because it rained the first hour or two we were there which cooled things off considerably. We did see a bit of sunshine once we got to the Delicate Arch views, but we had a great weather day for our sightseeing. Here are some pictures we took at Arches.

This is called "Balancing Rock"

Bryan with an arch in the background.

Angie at one of the many views at Arches.

This is called "Double Arch" It's hard to see but there are two arches together that you can hike under.

This is us with "Double Arch" in the background. We are hiking up to the Window Arches.

Here is the Window Arch we hiked to see while Lexie stayed in the car with Grandpa and Grandma Lyman.

Lexie taking a nap in the car.

Happy in the car...she was such a good girl!

Bryan & Lexie ready to hike to the upper view of "Delicate Arch". Don't you love her hat...we got a lot of comments on how cute she was by many people in the park.

Our Family at the upper view of "Delicate Arch"

The famous "Delicate Arch". I would love to do the hike to the arch, but you can't do that with a baby. Maybe another time.

Us with Mom & Dad Lyman at the lower "Delicate Arch" view.