Children's Books Date Night

Ever since Lydia was born, or even since I was pregnant, our date nights have lacked their usual creativity/spontaneity. So I decided I would put forth the effort to plan date night. I got several children storybooks and poems and had an activity that went along with each one. You'll notice that sometimes it's a real stretch to link the activity to the book, but I tried. Anyway, Robert would choose a book randomly not knowing what the activity was that went along with it and that's what we would do. I purposefully picked double the amount of stories/activities we would need so that we'll be able to do the ones we didn't get to another date night.

The evening started out with Robert picking this book about letters...

So we wrote quick letters to my missionary brother Preston

Then Robert picked this poem...

Out of this book...

So we played a game of Settlers. Get it? Like you SETTLE a NEW WORLD. As always, I won :)

Then Robert picked Green Eggs and Ham

So we went and tried a restaurant we'd never been to before, El Azteca.

It was good, not great, but good. Probably the closest to Arizona quality Mexican food we've had since we've been here (which sad to say, isn't saying much. Poor Utah lives too far away from the border), and it was cheap too. We like El Azteca here or there! We like El Azteca ANYWHERE!!

Then Robert picked this poem...

And since it was about a monkey, which is an animal, we went to the Bean Life Science Museum.

Scary Robert!

One of my favorite parts about Provo is the Bell Tower on BYU campus. It's located right across the street from the Bean Museum and when we came out someone was playing it, so I recorded a small blurb...

Then Robert chose this book...

So we returned home to build this puzzle the way Grover is building things throughout the book (I know, this was one of the stretches)
After that we called it a night. We had a lot of fun, and this will be continued on our date night in 2 Fridays! :)

Disclaimer: I did not come up with this idea all on my own. I did this on a double date I went on in high school with Tyson Smith and Ryan H./Kara Schneider. However, for mine and Robert's date I did choose my own books and the corresponding activities (except for Green Eggs and Ham).

Knowledge is Power

I'M GOING BACK TO SCHOOL!!!! I'm so excited about this! I have applied to transfer to BYU in January, but possibly won't make it in because my cumulative college GPA is right on the edge of the fence (3.67 and they like transfer students to be at 3.7) I'll know for sure by Halloween at the latest. If I don't get in for winter, I'll for sure get in for spring because starting spring semester they are changing the way they look at transfer students so that anything above 3.5 will be acceptable. Either way, I'll be able to graduate with Robert in April 2012 with a Bachelors in Family Life with a Family Studies emphasis and a Music Minor. YAY!!!!
I've already started with 2 online Independent Study courses, Biology and American Heritage. I've never been a huge fan of online courses and History has always been my least favorite, but I'm doing my best to just work hard and get it over and done with. I'll let you know how that goes.

Deer in the Headlights

So you know how on some digital cameras before you take a picture there is that little red light that shines to help the camera focus? Well, every time Lydia notices it she gets mesmerized by it and it puts her in a daze for a few seconds. When that happens, you get the following funny yet oh so adorable pictures.



However, if you wait long enough after said red light to actually snap the picture, you will normally get a great one :)

My baby is Beautiful!!!

3rd Annual Hall Reunion

September 18th and 19th we had the 3rd Annual Hall Reunion at Camp Lo Mia in Pine, AZ. Robert and I left Friday at noon, drove to Mesa and got there at about 11, left Mesa at noon on Saturday and drove up to Pine, then left Pine in the afternoon on Sunday and drove back up to Utah. So it was a weekend full of driving, but it was well worth the trip.

Trew loves me! I'm pretty sure I'm his favorite Aunt :)

The winners for making Lydia smile and laugh the most at the reunion are my bro-in-law Shay and my niece Anna. Lydia is looking at Shay in these pictures.

My nephews Ben and Caleb. When did these boys grow up?? They're not babies anymore. They're little boys. All of the kids are getting so big!

The Alder kids (my nieces and nephews through my oldest sister Christi) pulled a prank on Robert for the program. They ask him to be their table and then they order some water, put the cups full of water on his back and then get up and leave. They did this 2 years ago to Preston. It's always so funny!

Nothing like a little Too-Tee-Tah to get a party started.

My little sisters and nieces got Robert to do Little Bunny Froo-Froo - The Adult Version. It was a side of Robert my family had never seen.

The Queen of the Clan - My Grandma Hall. She is an extraordinary woman. Without her our family wouldn't be as strong as it is.

Crazy nieces and nephews and a few other cousins

I stayed up late playing card games with this character :)

Ever wonder why we Wilcken women are "so good with children" or "make such great mothers?" This picture says it all. We have YEARS of grueling hands on training. I think Breanna is the best babysitter/future mom we've turned out yet.
My sisters, Mom, 2 nieces, and I all sang a song together for the Sunday meeting.

Nephews Taevin and Crue. Again I can't believe how big these boys are getting.

My Aunt Terri, Aunt Marsha, Mom, and Aunt Pam. I love Aunt Pam in this picture!!

My nephew, the cute chunker, Case Welchman. He's 9 months and is in size 2T clothes!

Lydia getting loves from her cousin (my niece) Rylie

And of course Lydia, the cutest baby girl there! ;)

Lydia fell right asleep with my dad at the meeting

Loves from Aunt Christi

Nieces Anna and Cami juggling the babies. They haven't quite finished their years of training so they don't look quite as natural at it yet as Breanna does ;) Don't worry a few more years and they might even surpass Breanna.

And one more cute pic of Lydia, just because it's always good to end on a Lydia note. :) I think she looks like the Gerber baby in this picture.

Always a fun time! I can't wait until next year!!

4 Months Old

Lydia is more and more entertaining the more she grows and develops.

• Whenever she is on her back, her feet are straight up in the air and she's playing with her toes, even when she is sleeping. (Note the reason why these are the best pictures I could get of her)
• She has become our little soprano. She squeals all of the time whether she's happy, sad, mad, bored, or excited.
• She can easily roll over now from front to back and back to front.
• Church is becoming more and more... fun? It used to be that as long as she was entertained she was quiet, but now she constantly makes noise even when she's happy. We have to bring at least 3 toys everywhere we go because she will play for each one for a while and then get bored with it so we have to rotate them.
• She likes to spit, not just drool. Spit. Observe...
  
  

• She has already done some scooting around, although she hasn't figured out how to use her arms so she puts her head down, pushes with her legs, and scoots on her face. She did this all of the time for a while, but I think she figured out that that hurts her face because she hasn't been doing it as much any more. I'm crossing my fingers that it will take at least another month or 2 before she starts to full out crawl, because I know once she does there will never be a peaceful moment around our house.
• Her clogged tear duct cleared up so no more gross eye boogers. Horray!
• She is still doing great through the night. For the most part she'll sleep from about 11:00pm to about 8:00am. Occasionally she'll wake up once at 3:00am for an hour then go back to sleep. It's wonderful.
• Shortly after my kidney infection I dried up, so she's on 100% formula now. She's doing fine with it. I wish I could have breastfed for longer, but what can you do.
• She weighs 15 pounds 3 ounces (75th percentile) height is 26 1/4 inches (95th percentile) and her head circumference is 40.5 centimeters (25th percentile). So she's tall and I guess has a small head, but I think she is as cute as can be and doesn't look the least bit disproportional.
• She did so great with her 4 month shots. She cried for maybe a minute then fell asleep and once she woke up she was completely back to normal. She did better than I did!

We love our baby girl!!

Lydia at 3 months

I didn't do an amateur photo shoot for Lydia when she turned 3 months. I'm a slacker. And since I'll be doing a 4 month post in a minute or at the latest tomorrow, I'm not going to describe in detail what Lydia was like at 3 months. I will say that at 3 months Lydia weighed about 13 pounds and was about 24.5 inches long. It was also just a week or so before she hit the 3 month mark that she started laughing. August 4th at 4:30pm to be exact. Here is the first video footage we got of her giggles :)

This ambush of posts will have to continue tomorrow. It's time for bed.

Bee-Phobia

Robert hates bees. One Sunday morning we were running late to get to church and Robert had set Lydia in her carseat on the ground while he opened the car door. Then, he noticed a bee flying around and getting really close to Lydia. He bravely stifled his fear and swatted the bee away with the clipboard he was holding, but then his fear returned so he quickly threw all of his stuff in the car and bent down to get Lydia when... well see for yourself...

He didn't just rip his pants. He exploded out of them. No joke. It even sounded more like an explosion than a rip. We both died laughing. He quickly, with his back to the wall, ran back inside to change so we could head to church. On the way I told him that the rip was so big that we could fit a basketball through it. He said there was no way, so when we got home we tried it. Sure enough, I'm always right :)

Mommy and Daddy came for a visit!!

My Mom and Dad came up to visit for Katie and Mike's daughter, Alena, and my birthdays the last weekend in August. It was so much fun to have them up here. One of the days they were here we went to Temple Square and Dad wanted to be sure to take this picture on the steps of the Salt Lake Temple in the exact pose and on the same step that they took a picture on their wedding day. I thought it was really sweet. I can honestly say that while they were up here it was the most relaxed and happiest I had seen them in a long time. That alone was the best birthday present ever. I hope they come up again soon.

August trip to AZ Part 3 - Misc pictures

There was a classic monsoon season rain storm while we were down, so of course Robert and I played in it :) We ran down to the end of the street, splashed in the puddles, and ran back. We were soaked to the bone within 30 seconds.

We had my Grandma's 87th birthday party. She is such an amazing woman!

These are my sisters Breanna and Aubrie and MY MOM playing Just Dance. Classic!!

Aunt Shauna and Aunt Darla both had babies since the last time we had been down. So we got to meet Madison and Mason (Aunt Shauna had twins) and Kyera for the first time. They were all adorable.

Aunt Shauna and Lydia :)

The twins were just waking up and squirming so they are kind of positioned funny (especially Madison, she makes me laugh in this picture :) but look at how big Lydia looks! The twins are just as big in this pic as Lydia was when she was born. When did she grow up? How did that happen!?!

All ready to swim! I love the little swimsuits I got from my baby shower for her :)

A picture of Robert holding Kylee holding Lydia. Kylee had been begging us since Lydia was born to do this. We finally got it done.

And that was our August trip to AZ :)

August trip to AZ Part 2 - Cade's baptism

We were lucky to be able to hit several birds with one stone when we went down in August. It made for a busy week, but we were so glad to be there for everything.

This is my nephew Cade. He was baptized on August 21st. He is such a great kid. He was so excited to be baptized. I am so proud of him!

August trip to AZ Part 1 - Kaci's Wedding

Ya'll ready for this?? You are about to be AMBUSHED with posts. I hope you survive this wild ride of the past 2 months of our lives.

ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS, KACI CRANDELL, GOT MARRIED!!!!! She married another good friend of mine, Aaron Cardon. Their wedding was BEE-YOU-TEE-FULL! Kaci was GORGEOUS! And I'm so happy for them both. Here are some pictures of the joyous occasion.

This is Cortney Skouson with her new baby, Ty. I love this picture of us and our babies. Cortney, Kaci, and I have been close for quite a while now. Oh the many sleepovers and fun times we've had. I can't believe that now all 3 of us are married and starting families of our own. Life goes by so fast but it's so great!!