One Year!

Happy First Birthday, Ari! I can't believe its already been one year since you came into our family! Its been fun getting to know you; we can already tell that you are a sweet, happy, smart, adventurous, and very determined little girl. We love you and feel so blessed to have you in our lives!

ARI AT AGE ONE

• Already good at walking, climbing, and throwing a ball.
• Says "mama" (her first word!), "dada", "cheese" (which basically means any kind of food), "milk", "uh-oh", "bye", and "no". Can sign milk, eat, drink, sleep, music, more, and done.
• Loves to play with balls, cars, dolls/stuffed animals, and is OBSESSED with phones!
• Fearless! For example, she will crawl up to a slide and go right down face first without bothering to see if a parent is waiting to catch her.
• Loves water, drinking it or swimming in it.
• Has two teeth (front on bottom).
• Very determined and sometimes stubborn. When she wants to do something or wants to get an object there is almost no stopping her.
• Has crazy hair that all grows straight forward into her eyes (but its cute!).
• Loves to eat dirt (and lots of other stuff she finds on the ground, too).
• Likes pretty much any kind of food, but especially cheese, meat, bread, and any kind of fruit.
• Does NOT like riding in the car or sleeping any where other than her bed.
• Thinks her dad and big brother are so cool and hates getting left out when they play together.

Reunion!

What a fabulous weekend! On Thursday we headed down to St. George for the Capel family reunion. Here we are playing in the water at the St. George town square. We camped for two nights at Sand Hollow State Park (near Hurricane). Robbie was so excited to be in the real dessert. Ari had a bit of a rough time her first time sleeping in a tent, but better the second night. I hope we can make a good camper out of her.
Friday we spent all day boating and hanging out on the beach at Sand Hollow Resevoir. Ari was in heaven: water to swim in, mud to play in, and a buffet of nice sand to eat!
Robbie is a little nervous around water, but he went out on the boat twice and had a great time!

I love this picture of my parents.

And this picture is great, too. . . my dad and mom, Aunt Chris and Uncle Don, Aunt Mary and Uncle Rob, Aunt Elaine, and Aunt Cindy. Four of my dad's eight siblings and their families were able to come to the reunion and we all had a great experience.

Birthday Girl

Yesterday we celebrated Ari's first birthday (though her birthday isn't actually until the 29th). We had a double party with Ari's "twin" cousin Ella who is just four days older. Because of the pouring rain we ended up in a church gym, but we had a great time. Ari got lots of nice gifts from grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, and cousins, but I believe her favorite part was eating the cake.

Things started off innocent enough . . .

But before long she was practically frolicking in the cake . . .And then stomping on it. Here's what it looked like to begin with. This was a fun cake to make--my first attempt at fondant frosting. Here's a link to some great instructions for marshmallow fondant if anyone is interested: http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm

Thanks to everyone who celebrated with us!

Fasting for Potty Training

So, just want to share some potty-training advice: have a special fast!

Seriously, we fasted a few weeks ago for help with Robbie's potty training because we really just didn't know what else to do and Wha-La!, it suddenly just clicked! He finally seems to get it and have the desire, too (knock on wood, I hope I'm not speaking too soon).

Its nice to be reminded that Heavenly Father loves Robbie (and us!) enough to care about something as trivial as learning to use the toilet.

Blood Run, First Steps, and a Walk on Mars

Yesterday was an eventful day. Bright and early we headed down to Highland for the Blood Run 5k for Hemophilia. We don't know a single person with Hemophilia, but this was to help motivate us to do some running for the past few weeks to get ready (I did this 5k when Robbie was a baby, too--it's becoming a trying-to-loose-that-baby-weight tradition). Indulge me while I say I'm really proud of us! I beat my best time by two minutes (I won't reveal what that time was since it is by no means impressive) and Nate came in 12th for his age group while pushing two kids in a stroller (and having to stop a few times along the way to dole out cheerios to unhappy children). And get this, we won a night's stay at the Homestead in the raffel drawing. I'd say we got our money's worth in this race. Ari must have been inspired by the race because she took about four steps together just after we got home (she's been taking single steps here and there for a few weeks now). Of course she wouldn't do it again after I broke out the camera, so I have no picture or movie to prove it.

We topped off the day by taking a walk on Mars at the Clark Planetarium.