"We do not remember days, we remember moments."

Here's another accomplishment of my dear little Evelyn!!! She is now sitting up all by herself, unsupported (Well except in these pics she's sitting up with the help of a Boppy pillow but that's because I wasn't sitting right next to her and didn't want her to fall and bonk her head too hard). She's learned how to balance herself so she doesn't fall over right away and can sit there for a good while before she does lean over or fall. She loves to sit up and play now, she'd rather sit than be on her tummy, although she is getting better with that too. She rolls and rolls and rolls now, the other day I found her under the couch. I just can't believe how big she's getting to be though!!! She's learning so many things now and it's so much fun to watch her! She's so freaking cute!!!

(I absolutely LOVE waking up to this smiling face every morning!!! She is the sweetest, happiest thing and I love her soooo much!!!)

Another BIG accomplishment is with her "talking". She is QUITE the babbler and talks and talks and talks. She totally is trying to talk to us for real too, you can tell by the way she talks and the sounds she makes. :) Yesterday though she just up and started "dadadadadadadad"ing away! She's been make the "d" for a bit and is now saying 'dada' :) She even repeats it when I start saying it to her. She's so smart! :) I can't help but brag but she's my baby so I'm gonna do it!

Mark heard her doing it on the phone but is excited to come home and hear it in person. Which he's coming home Saturday morning and I"m SOOO excited!!! It was wonderful to get him back after OCS but then they had to up and take him away again so it'll be wonderful to get him back again! Then next week it's traveling time!!! We're certainly putting our new car to good use!

"Sleep is like the unicorn – it is rumored to exist, but I doubt I will see any."

If I haven't already mentioned....Evelyn is a super wiggly, active child! For this reason we've had to wrap her up pretty much from the get-go...which babies seem to like anyway...but this was pretty much a necessity because she wouldn't sleep if we left her unwrapped and if she did sleep then it wasn't for long cuz she'd wiggle and wake herself up. So wrapping her up guaranteed a little bit longer sleeping time for us and her :)

This got harder as she got older and bigger though and around a month ago she was getting pretty sick of it and started wiggling out of the swaddler and a couple weeks ago she pretty much got fed up with it and refused to sleep in it. So I decided we were done with it too and we tried sleeping without one...which was a bit rough at first but she seems to like it so much better without it! She was waking up a lot when we first started this but she's slowly getting better and I'm sooo glad! Last night she only woke up two times, which is amaaaaazing for her! ;)

She's so cute when she's sleeping now that she's "free" from the swaddler, starting to sprawl out and begin the journey of weird sleeping positions that children do :) She has her blankie (we got these two fuzzy type ones from the baby shower and she loooves them! She pretty much has to have it now when she goes to bed).

BEFORE

(I couldn't find one of her wrapped in the actual swaddler but you get the gist)

AFTER

"Any food not fit to wear is not fit to eat."

Evelyn has been an active explorer in the world of food for quite a while now and is very much enjoying it! She is a pretty messy eater, which can be expected since she's a baby, but I also blame her father...he's pretty messy too :) Anywho...unfortunately she eats mostly baby food, which is pretty gross but luckily she doesn't know much of a difference! She also is starting to want my food though so she's getting a bit of that every once and awhile too. She loves eating though! As well as her cousin Jeremiah (who's almost 9 months and his adoption is being finalized next month which means a big post of pics of him and Evelyn!!! They're so cute together!) He looooves food though!

Anywho...Evelyn has been picking up food all by herself for the past two weeks or so and it's soooo cute! Her fingers are just so long and...well it's hard to explain. Annie refers to her as Eber Scissorhands (Mellisa's kids say Ebelyn instead of Evelyn...)...and she totally moves her hands in that kind of awkward Edward Scissorhands way....it's pretty darn funny! She likes to eat the puffs and things like that, they're easy to pick up and dissolve in her mouth so they're easy to eat, they're so great!!! She picks the puff up and shoves it in her mouth and then chews on it and her fingers at the same time, I can't get her to eat them without having her fingers in her mouth but meh...I guess it's fine, she'll learn :) I have an adorable video of her eating by herself for the first time but unfortunately my computer won't load videos.... :( But here's some pics anyway.

"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun." --Mary Lou Cook--

So I've been working on a wedding scrapbook album for Amy and Calvin pretty much ever since they got married, which as most of you know was in August....things got a little busy after that with having a baby and moving and all so I was a bit lax in getting it down but I am happy to report that I am FINALLY done!!!

I knew I wouldn't get it done before we left Utah so my goal was to get it done before we left Missouri and went through Utah so that way I could give it to them then. And I did it! Of course I've really had oodles of time to do it these past months with Mark gone and I have been doing a lot of scrapbooking, I've just been working a lot more on Evelyn's pages...they're just so fun! Not that this one wasn't but I found it was a lot harder making an album for somebody else!

I've been branching out and doing a lot more things with my scrapbooking, using new techniques, embellishments, etc. and so this and Evelyn's book are pretty much the best stuff I've done to date so far. It's been fun learning new things (my sisters are all amazing at scrapbooking so I've been learning from them and of course, from the internet!) and especially doing things with my Cricut! That is one huge reason for my scrapbook improvement! I'll be excited this summer when I get to see family members and I get to show my books off! I rarely get to do that so it'll be fun.

Anywho...I'm not going to unveil the whole book cuz I want to show it to Amy and Calvin first but here's one page as a sneak peak that I really liked! Hope you guys like it!!! If not I'm keeping it :)

"If it's not in the scrapbook...it didn't happen!"

With Mark gone again, I'm back to scrapbooking and reading, that is when I can catch time to do them in the brief moments Evelyn is asleep or distracted by something else. Lately she hasn't been wanting to take naps and when she does they are very very short...ugh! Very frustrating when I'm trying to get something done and I can't when she's awake...but anywho...that's what babies do I guess! :) Here's the latest pages I've done though. I've been wanting to do one on her hands and feet and finally found the right pics and layout to use for it. I just love Evie's hands and feet though! They are so long and cute and adorable! Everyone who see's her brings up her long fingers...they're just so dainty and long! I love it! And then she has nice long feet and toes too, which I love as well. She loves to chew and play with her hands and feet so I have lot of pics of them but these three are my fav.

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant."

This saying couldn't be more true, especially after this winter! Spring really is here though and a wonderful thing it is! The grass is a beautiful green, the trees are blooming, and thunderstorms are back! :) Which are one of my all time favorite things and Missouri sure does have the best! Here's some pics from around here, I know Gpa Dan and Gma Rose requested more nature pics so this is what I've got so far!







(This is another reason I love spring, the B2 is out flying more and it flies REAL low right over our house at least a dozen times a week. It's soooo amazing!)

"Happiness is not a destination, it is a journey."

Well my dear Marky Mark has left once again, but THANK GOODNESS it's only for two weeks this time! He left this morning to go down to Alabama to visit his brother, sister-in-law, niece, nephew, and parents! Michael and Jessica are doing a marathon tomorrow and their little girl Isabella, who's almost 5, is doing the first mile with them, which is so cute! So I'm glad he gets to go see them. We haven't seen them since Amy's wedding in August. We're so excited to be closer to them when we finally get to Mississippi!!!

Mark's going down to be "stashed" for a couple weeks, which sucks because he's pretty much doing nothing, but also nice cuz then he can look at housing for us down there. Which I'd rather have somewhere that we've actually looked at in person instead of on the internet! So yeah...that's pretty much all for today! My sister Emily is coming over tonight to "hang out" and do some scrapbooking projects and eat pizza so that should be fun! :) She's using me for my Cricut....but that's ok cuz it's so fun!

Anywho, here's a few pics from this past week. Mark wanted to go fly kites since it was so windy and Annie's boys got in the mix with it all. They sure liked it though!





(Isn't this the prettiest day?!? It was so gorgeous and springy!)

Our family is a circle of love and strength. With every birth and every union, the circle grows.

As I said in my last post, we went to Nauvoo this past weekend and it was WONDERFUL!!! I haven't been back there since we got married, which is coming up on TWO years if you can believe that! It was really so amazing to go back. We went because my cousin Jack (he's a few months older than me) got married so most of his siblings came and since my mom and Emily and Mellisa and their kids were going we decided to go too.

My cousin Crystal and her family were there and I was really excited to see them. They've been stationed in Italy the past while and will be there another 1 1/2 years so we don't get to see much of them! Then her sister Chanda was there, she got a whole weekend without her kids which she said was very nice :) And then their sister Melanie came with her new little boy, Aker, who is ADORABLE!!!! I rarely see these three so it was quite lovely to see them. Their little sister Chantelle was there too, who I've seen more than the other three, and then their brothers Eli and Philip. So with all them and my fam it was a nice little gathering! :)

So anywho...on Friday night we had Sierra take some family pics of me, Mark, and Evelyn at the temple and we got some very nice pictures from it! We don't have a whole lot of time (or extra $) to pay someone to do it so we did it this way and they came out great! Sierra did an amazing job and I appreciate her doing it! Thanks Si! Here's a few of my favorites....










So yeah....Saturday Mark and I were able to go to the temple and do a session before the actual sealing ceremony for my cousin, so that was absolutely wonderful. We haven't gone together since December before we left Utah and it was especially wonderful that we got to go back to Nauvoo where we got married! I absolutely LOVE the Nauvoo Temple! It is so gorgeous inside and out and I just love it. As always I got some pics of it (outside only of course) to add to my collection. Springtime is my favorite and it's even more wonderful at the temple!

(Momma and her girls! Minus Annie... :(




The sealing ceremony was wonderful, as always, and my cousin Jack looked sooo happy, he and his new wife looked so cute together! They couldn't take their eyes off each other the whole day :) We were all slightly shocked he got married cuz none of us have ever ever seen him with a girl at all! But we're very excited for him and happy for the two of them. I didn't really get to talk to his gal much but she seems to be a nice girl. I didn't get too many pics of them but here's a couple.




The reception was nice, it was a beautiful day for a wedding and the food and cake were very good! I do love a good wedding cake :) My sisters and I got our kids matching outfits and took some pics of all of them at the reception. It was super duper adorable! Of course it's pretty much impossible to get a pic of all these kids without one having a fit or turning away but we got some good ones. Unfortunately I cannot put up a pic of the entire group because of Emily's foster baby. We aren't allowed to put up pics of him on blogs or facebook, etc. until he's adopted, which is going to be finalized in May so I'm gonna have to do a blog after that with pics of him. He is a sweet little thing but very much a high maintenance baby!

(Cute brothers!!!)

(Jerica, Santana, Abrahm, Matteo, and Kady)

(Matching outfits! My cousin Hyrum is in the back with Ephraim and Jack, and then Jerica, Carmen, and Natalia are holding Santana, Evelyn, and Kady)

(What a poser!)

(Monie wanted me to get a pic of her and Kyle, I thought this one was very cute!)

So yeah...that's pretty much the whole weekend. Evelyn traveled pretty good. We had Sierra ride with us so it was an interesting, entertaining ride. :) I do love that girl and will miss her and all my other nieces and nephews and sisters and parents when we leave in a few weeks!!! I can't believe our time here is almost up! But I guess it's really time that we get out into the real world for real real...It'll be an interesting next few months though, I'm sure I'll have lots to blog about, or maybe nothing! :) Anywho...time for me to hit the sack...it's been a long day and I've been a bit stuffy today so I need sleep! Hopefully Evelyn sleeps well tonight.........big wish there but it could happen! Here's some random pics from this weekend if you haven't had enough pics to look at yet :)

(This girl cracks me up!!! She's so crazy....)

(Awwww....she's so cute!)

(What beautiful girls! Chantelle and Sierra)

(The Fredrick Girls and the Hallman Girls...Chantelle, Chanda, Melanie, Emily, Mellisa, Crystal, Me, and Monie)

(Another two cuties!)

(I just LOVE Evelyn's face in this one!!! So funny!)

(This is Abrahm and Matteo "dancing"....more like wrestling!!!)

(Santana loves pushing strollers...kept Evelyn entertained so I could eat!)

(More cuteness!)

(And yet another couple of cute girlies!!!)