SIX MONTHS OLD June 17, 2019

 This perfect squishy turned six months a few days ago-and she is just perfection! She has two bottom teeth, rolls immediately upon being placed on the ground, is so close to army crawling-rolls to where she wants, smiles and smiles at everyone, is the best traveler, still is only getting up once at night (heavenly!), takes a bottle like a champ when being babysat and is just generally the most enchanting and precious baby we know! We love you little Gracie girl!

 In the time we were in Utah she went from six months to nine months. Learned to army crawl, then crawl, then was pulling herself up onto furniture (within about two weeks of coming back to Florida she was walking around furniture) and I think being away for that time and realizing how fast babyhood is, was kind of hard. Instead of just enjoying it and feeling like life was normal paced it felt like it was flashing by at record speeds. Because we were there for "just three months" but in those three months she completely changed! She went from almost immobile little infant to rocketing around! She went from nursing to being introduced to baby foods to transitioning completely to formula (thanks to me working so much and not producing as much for the pump as I did for her). She got almost four teeth while we were there. She learned to sit up while we were there. Luckily for me, not only did I get to enjoy her, but so did so many family members and for that I really am glad. I think it's so fun to have older cousins and aunts and family members swooning over the baby--because that's what my older sisters said they all did to me, and I feel like every baby should be spoiled by soooo much love! 

WE LOVE YOU GRACIE!!!!

June....I know

 Guess what world? I really am going to catch up from June. I know, it seems ridiculous. But this is my form of journaling, tracking who is in what photo, and providing a timeline of my thousands of photos so my kids know about when it was taken. I stayed up until 2am a few weeks ago transferring my photos from my phone, to my computer, to my hard drive--over and over again because my computer has a smaller memory capacity than my phone so I couldn't do it all in one go. It took about 8 times, I wanna say. As I sift through all these photos though, I love it, and I hate it. WHY IS MY BABY GIRL SO BIG ALREADY? This summer flew and she grew and grew and I am just not ready for it! Also-I worked a ton this summer. And in some respects I'm really sad about what I missed. But the photos are awesome because I see all of the stuff I was there for. Sooooo many family dinners and sooooo much cousin time for my kids and I got to see all of my sisters more times this summer than I have in five years!!! It was the greatest. So we're just going to start here and go for it. Sterling said I could have an hour or so every Sunday, but we only know for sure that he doesn't work Sundays this rotation, which ends next week, so who knows. I'll keep chipping away!

This is the only really good photo of the night, and that is because I had my brother Ethan take it on his really fancy nice phone and send it to me. I can't remember when this was, but it was one of the very first nights we were there in June, when it was still very freezing. 

Ethan's little girl, Chez, wanted "help" roasting her marshmallow. I like how she's helping, haha.

One quick small hike on the one Saturday morning Sterling had before flying out! We couldn't get over how amazing it felt to see all those mountains. Nothing like it.

After Sterling left I had to recruit my nephew Cowen to help me out so I could continue hiking and enjoy the mountains. He is a fabulous helper, and incredible hiker. He did not however, realize that once you free a two year old, the do not want to be re-contained. Thanks for being the greatest Cowen!

This is not the best of the photos, but I couldn't tell which one was from the tiny little icons I was choosing from. Haha. My sister Andrea.

Molly and Clover. You should have heard Molly say "Clover" this summer. I tried and tried and TRIED to imitate it over the phone to Sterling and could not. The closest I could come was something like Clewohber. It was the absolute best.

Will and Oskar are only three weeks apart and they adored each other all summer. Will had his first sleep over at Oskar's house and was pretty sure it was the grandest event of his life. They got along so well!

Back-Eli, Harriet, Miriam, Front-Oskar, Will, Molly, Ruth, Devaney, Russ

 One of the next activities we had was hot dogs at the park and softball. I do not understand why we did not recreate this a hundred more times during the summer. It was probably top five of my favorite things we did throughout the entire time we were in Utah. SUCH A FUN NIGHT!

When you play with all the boy cousins your age and it gets a little rough. 

My mountains. I love Ogden.

Molly and Chezney-they saw each other almost every day this summer. Kourtney had a baby and so my brother Ethan would bring the girls over almost every afternoon for their nap time to give Kourtney a break. And then later in the summer he'd bring them over because my kids wanted to play or his girls wanted to play. I hope they are best cousin friends forever.

This is my little brother carrying his TINY TINY BRAND NEWLY BORN baby in that carrier on his chest. She is literally so new you can barely even tell she's there. It was the cutest thing in my life. 

When I took this picture I couldn't get over how old Ruthie looked. She's the best.

For future posterity, the baby in the background is Devaney Rasmussen's(I don't know her married name) baby, Paisley.

And that was the beginning of our time in Utah this summer!