Sunglasses

Minnette got these cute, cute sunglasses for Valentine's Day from her Grandma Willman. We have been wanting to get some sunglasses for her to wear for a while, because if we want her to wear any sunglasses or hats during the Arizona summer (and not rip them off as soon as we put them on her-like most 1 year olds...) then we should start now, and get her used to them! So we put her sunglasses on her anytime we go outside, which is pretty often! She wears her sunglasses hwen we go to the zoo, when we go on walks and anytime we go for a ride in the car! We will be spending a few days at a beach cabin in Northern California with Kyle's family, and Minnette is so prepared for her fun in the sun!

On one of our walks.

Baby and Momma are SO stylin!

Elk Hunt! (Kyle's post)

My Dad and I on an Elk hunt up north of Payson. We went at the end of November during the mid-hunt, it was freezing! Our cabin is right down in that valley, about three clicks straight down that hill my Dad is standing on.


It was so beautiful. Too bad we didn't see very many elk.



I got one look at an Elk about 300 yards away walking up the the hill on the other side of the canyon, then it went over the ridge. I should have just shot for the heck of it!





This is the Willman Ranch cabin. My Grandpa, Dad and his brothers built this cabin by hand way back in the day. It is a really nice place. It has so much of my grandfather's character reflected in it, and has been the source of many fond memories.



We stayed here during the hunt.

I was so glad my Dad was able to go , I had an awsome time with him! Next time we talked about going up to Prescott and trying for some Antelope.

Minnoodle!

She is already eating away at Daddy's credit!

Valentine's Day candy for the baby!

Fossil Springs (Kyle's post)

This is a day hike that I went on last summer in Strawberry, Az to Fossil Springs.

This is a cliff you drive by on the way down to get to fossil springs, at the bottom there are about ten car wrecks!

This be my Bee. Brenden came with and we had a blast cliff diving!

When you dive into the pools they are crystal clear, and loaded with tons of fish.

The End

6 MONTHS!!

I can hardly believe that my baby is already half of a year old!! She is getting so big, way too fast! We went to her 6 month well check and the doctor and I agree that she is doing great.

6 month stats:

HEIGHT: 27 1/4 in = 93rd percentile

WEIGHT:19 lbs 12 oz = 97th percentile

HEAD:17 in = 70th percentile

She is definitely growing, growing, growing! She is on track for all the 6 month milestones, and when the doctor felt her gums, she said that we should expect a tooth to just pop through any day now. While we were at the doctor's office today, Minnette recieved a couple of shots and even got her ears pierced! She was a real trooper, but I felt like such a bad Mom when she started wailing right after the nurse pierced her ear! Telling your 6 month old that beauty is pain is probably not the right thing to say.

Here are her last BEFORE shots:

And here are the AFTER shots:

My little baby's ears are pierced! Some people might think that 6 months is too young, but I am so glad I got it over with. She won't even remember it, and I won't have to worry about her messing with her piercings, increasing the chances of them getting infected. Besides, she looks too darn cute!

little bug

These two are so cute when they play together.

Minnette in her first 6 to 9 month outfit, complete with homemade flare and all!!

Minnette has officially mastered tummy-time! She'll lay on the floor for an hour just playing with her toys, attempting to get around or just petting the carpet!!


She is such a sweet and happy baby. It is definitely not difficult to get cute pictures of her like this!

What Minnette thinks is funny...

This is how you can tell that Minnette is tired. She doesn't cry or get fussy, she laughs uncontrollably! Around 9 pm every night I become the funniest person on the planet!

Apparently this is funny.

What can I say? She gets her ama-za-zing sense of humor from me!

random pictures

This was done to keep Minnette entertained while we were eating dinner at Kyle's parents house. Do you think it was enough?

I call this picture "Crazy Hairs" because it is a perfect representation of how Minnette's hair sticks straight up nowadays no matter what I do to try to get it to stay down!


Minnette sitting all by herself!


Hunter and Minnette both fell asleep in the car on the way to a girl's day of shopping. Just too cute to not take a picture.



Cutest thing in the world. I love it when we put her in this jacket- I think it makes her look like a care bear!

This is how Minnette takes her naps. I lay her down, and come back a couple minutes later to check on her, and this is how I always find her.



This was at my birthday night at the Willmans. That giant flame is the result of 22 candles. I think it looks like my arm is on fire!

hiking and playgroup

Kyle was off of work on Thursday, and whenever he does not have work, we try to plan something fun to do either as a family with Minnette, or plan a fun date activity. We've been trying to be a lot more active lately, and we've been gatting into walking, running, riding bikes and hiking together. We usually just hike Squaw Peak (or Piestewa peak or whatever it is now... it will always be Squaw Peak to me!), but yesterday Kyle had asked his mom to watch Minnette for a few hours in the morning so we could go hiking, and planned a fun hike by the Verde River. It was SO beautiful! I just wish we had had more time to walk around and have a picnic there! Maybe next time...

I call this picture "Beautiful Mother Nature." I'm pretty sure those weren't organic beer bottles! It was really sad that we saw messes just like this all over the place. Not to mention the million cagarette butts we saw. I think it goes to show just how classy drinking and smoking can be!

Friday is playgroup day for our ward. I don't usually go, because Minnette doesn't get much out of going to the playground. But my sister reminded me that there are baby swings at the park they go to, and that Minnette is probably big enough to sit in them. When I realized that Minnette definitely was big enough, and that she had never been on a swing at the park before I got really excited to go-and packed up the camera to document!

I think that she actually had a lot of fun her first time in a swing! She was definitely happy, and it was sooo cute!

Kyle's post: my MAK-90

This is my MAK-90! I have it for all those... "Just in case moments" Ain't it pretty?

Minnette-isms

This is something that Minnette has started to do on a some-what regular basis. If I'm feeding her a bottle, or if she's sitting in her car seat, and has nothing better to do, she has started watching her own hand. No, not just watching. Stariung at her hand in very deep interest. This is her watching her hand during her first morning bottle.

This is how Minnette would put herself to sleep when she was only a couple of months old. Cute.

Minnette found her feet! And now she plays with them non-stop! If she's laying on her back, her feet are in her hands.

Minnette's interests include, but are not limited to, eating, sleeping, laughing at Mommy and Daddy, and PETTING things! She does it all the time. She pets her own hair (as seen above), her blanket, the sheets, Mommy's face, her pajamas (when she's wearing soft feeling ones), and now the carpet!

For about a month, whenever Minnette got excited, she would start flapping her arms and kicking her legs like crazy. I think she looks like she's dancing. She is such a happy baby, its seems like she did it all the time. I would get up to get her in the middle of the night to feed her and change her diaper, and sure enough, she would start dancing. She sadly, no longer does this, so I am so glad that I got it on camera!

Minnette is so hilarious, and she doesn't even know it! She does something new and funny every single day, she makes it difficult to keep up on documenting her funny little habits!

CUTE, CUTE VIDEO

I FINALLY figured out how to upload videos to my blog! These are mostly for Mom and Pops, but I'm sure evryone else will enjoy them as well! This video is from when Minnette first started baby talking and we would pretend to carry on an entire conversation with her, which was always hilarious.