"Ooooh!"

Amanda is growing so fast! It is so fun to watch her discover the world! She is so fascinated by the littlest things and makes sure to let you know! She loves to point at things and "oooh" and "aaah" over whatever she sees. This makes going to the store with her extra fun (although she discovered she could reach out and pull clothes off the rack at Kohl’s the other day...sheesh!).


We went to Home Depot about a week ago and you should have seen her when we got to the lighting department! She LOVES lights!!! Another item she gets really excited about is helium balloons! I have started trying to avoid them in Wal-Mart because if she sees them and I don't grab one for her, she gets quite anxious! What a nut!


In the picture above you can see the cheesy smile she has developed, her ability to pull herself to a standing position, and all those teeth! I think her hair and teeth make her look way too grown up... but really cute too!

Click on the link below to see a video of Amanda "ooh-ing" over the bumper pad in her crib!

Standing and Playing in Crib

Adventures in Crawling!

Okay, so our little Amanda has finally figured out the whole crawling thing and now I am wondering why we were ever worried that she wasn't crawling yet! She is so busy! We have had some adventures lately that remind me that she moves fast and needs constant supervision!
1. Crawled right off our bed
    a. yes it was my fault for putting her there in the first place!
    b. I think it scared me more than her!
    c. she still has no fear of edges or heights

2. Runs into things
    a. although she has figured out the crawling, she still has a little problem with depth perception! She's getting better though!

3. Ate a bug!
    a. We have no idea what the bug was, but she sure seemed to be enjoying it!
    b. When I discovered it, my reaction scared her and ruined her fun
    c. Daddy had to be the one to remove the entire bug!

4. Loves the VCR
    a. Amanda crawls right over and immediately tries to shove whatever she can find inside!
    b. She also tries to put DVD cases in the DVD player!
Amanda sure keeps me busy, but she is so much fun! I can't believe that she is almost one! I'm sure we will have many more adventures in the coming year!

Tooth Factory

Amanda is teething like CRAZY!  The first two broke through on the bottom on Thanksgiving, and right now she is working on 4... possibly 6... new teeth!  The other night she was having the hardest time sleeping and I finally checked her mouth at 4am to feel several new teeth popping through.  Thank goodness for orajel!  After the medicine she let out a big sigh and conked out on my shoulder, poor girl!  Teething is such hard work!


Here is the only real shot I have of her little teeth.  It's also a good pic to show how dang cute she was at my brother's wedding!  CUTEST BRIDESMAID EVER!!!

Oh, while I am side-tracked for a bit on the wedding tangent, I made the cake for my brother's wedding this December.   I handn't done one since my own in 2007, so I was excited to do another one.  Here's how it turned out:

Check out their lovely cake toppers!  (My brother has a rubber duckie collection!)

It was definitely fun to do and it really made me want to take an actual cake decorating class!

It's About Time!

Well, I guess it's about time I updated our Blog. I got a little behind, and then it seemed a little overwhelming to catch up that I've just put it off more. Procrastination at it's best! I decided I won't really try to update everything, but I will do a little and try to keep this more up to date.

Christmas was so much fun this year! It was the first time in about five years that my family was able to be completely together! I loved spending the time down in Hurricane with all of them! While we were all there, we were able to get a new family picture. Since our last one, Josh has grown about a foot (or more), Katie has grown up, three of us have gotten married, and Amanda was born. Our family of 7 has turned into a family of 11 and it will just keep growing.

Here is the bunch:

Another highlight of Christmas was, of course, seeing Amanda with her presents. It was so fun having a child at Christmas! Even though she is still pretty young, she got into it. She was spoiled by all her family, but I guess that's what you get when you are so dang cute!

Bill made our end of year slideshow again this year, and it is probably the best way to update our blog. For those of you who don't know, Bill takes pictures from the year and makes a slideshow to a song that was popular that year. We watch it as part of our New Year's Eve celebrations. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Fun in West Valley

Wow! We haven't updated our blog for a while! I'm sure it's been disappointing to all our avid readers (haha!). I guess we'd better give a quick update!

We are now living with Bill's parents in West Valley while he looks for a new job. It has been a crazy couple of months (hence the no blogging), but we are now staring to really settle in. It has been fun being up around Bill's family! We were in Southern Utah for a while and it is great to be up here for all the Grant happenings!

Since being up here, we have had a lot of fun! Instead of boring you with all the details, I'll just post some pictures (in no particular order)!

Here we are at the Days of 47 Rodeo. Amanda was fine until they let off fireworks INSIDE the arena that scared her to death! Poor little cowgirl!

Feeding the ducks at Liberty Park

Hogle Zoo

Tired at Lagoon!

This picture is one of my favorites! I decided this week that I really could do more with Amanda's hair so I tried... this is the result: I just love her pig-tails! Today I actually trimmed her bangs because they were hanging down in her eyes! Trimming a 5 month old baby's hair is quite a task!

Amanda is getting so big and is loving life! She is so observant of everything around her and wants to reach out and grab anything she can... especially hair so WATCH OUT! It's so fun to watch her get more interactive and see more of her personality. We sure have fun with her!

Happy 4th of July!

We had such a fun 4th of July at my parent's house! It was actually just a relaxing day (except for the fact that Amanda REFUSED to take a nap and was quite a tired girl by the end of the day... don't let the above picture fool you!) Nothing really crazy happened... we just took it easy, played some games, and watched fireworks from my parent's backyard. They do the fireworks show in Hurricane right behind our parents house, so it is the perfect place!

Amanda was so cute during the fireworks show! She wasn't scared by the loud bangs and just watched and watched! I'm sure she thought we were putting on the pretty show just for her enjoyment! We would if we could! :)

Here is Amanda watching the fireworks show with her Grandma Bulloch!

And finally... introducing the newest member of our family.... our Golden Retriever pup Sadie! Sadie was a little more scared with the fireworks!!!

The Swine Flu

Well, we have been so busy lately!!! I have been meaning to update our blog for quite some time now, but haven't had time. I have a few minutes now... so here it goes!

We went up to the Ranch for Memorial Day weekend and it was sooo nice! We just took it easy and had a very relaxing weekend! I wasn't quite sure how Little Miss would take to camping, but she showed us that she is a good little camper! We actually slept right by the fire, and Bill did a good job of getting the fire going throughout the night so his girls wouldn't get cold!

Aspen Lake was stocked with fish last year, so we had a good time fishing... especially Bill! He even went out fishing by himself in the rain and caught quite a whopper! Monday morning he was especially lucky and caught 7 fish in a row! I even caught a couple myself!

The following weekend, we headed up to West Valley to go to Josh Reese's birthday party! It was so much fun! This is a very important annual party, which is like a mini High School reunion for Bill. It was fun to be able to visit with his friends, and let them meet Amanda! (sorry... no pictures of the party).

When we got back to Hurricane, the real fun started! Bill came home from work early on Monday because he didn't feel well and had a fever. Well, to make a long story short, he was sick all week long, finally went to the doctor, and found out he had the flu! Hey sent out some tests to see if it was the Swine Flu, but we found out yesterday that they are only testing those that are hospitalized (which Bill was not... thank goodness!). The doctor made is sound as if it really could have been the Swine Flu, but we don't know for sure. Bill was hoping that he would know for sure so he could make a T-Shirt that read: "Swine Flu Survivor" ... maybe he should anyway!

We were planning on blessing Amanda the following weekend. We were a little worried with Bill still getting over his sickness, but decided to go through with our plans anyway. On Friday, we went up to the cabin again with Bill's sister Becky's family to spend the night and play all day Saturday. What a fun time! It was so fun to have them up there. Bill's parents joined us on Saturday morning and had a good time up there as well. I am so lucky to have such fun in-laws! Amanda was great up there again too!
Amanda's blessing on Sunday was so neat! Like I have said, Bill has been very sick, and was worried about his voice during the blessing. He sounded perfectly healthy during the blessing. It was so neat to hear him bless our little Amanda! What a neat experience! We decided that Amanda will be a little singer too because she sang the closing hymn with us! I held her on my lap and sang to her and she made all sorts of cute little noises back! Way fun!!!

My grandma crocheted her beautiful blessing dress! What a special keepsake!

Amanda got passed around from family member to family member quite a lot, but was a pretty good sport about it! She is such a cute little thing, and I can't believe how much I love her sometimes!

The next few weeks will be just as busy! We are heading back up to West Valley this weekend for a baby blessing plus birthday/father's day celebrations! Most of Bill's family will be there and we are looking forward to seeing everyone!

The following Wednesday (only one week from today) by brother Charles gets home from his mission!!!!!! I am so excited to see him and have him meet Amanda! I have really missed that guy!