Feeding ducks and a picnic

We had a nice break from the hot weather yesterday, so we took advantage of the beautiful overcast morning and had a family picnic by the bell tower on campus. There is an awesome little river complete with a waterfall and ducks! This is one of Minnette's favorite places and she will often ask to see the "quack quacks" (what she calls ducks).

The ducks here are great. They are so excited to be fed and as you can see they will definitely swarm you! They will eat even right out of your hand!

Aurelle had a good time eating our duck food (bread).

And eating dirt!

Enjoying the view

Lately, one of the girls' favorite things to do is to sit on the porch and watch people walking by or the kids that are playing out in the quad. They are such people watchers!

Moving boxes

About 2 and a half months ago we were in the process of moving, and Minnette wanted in on the action! In case you didn't know, Kyle is a totally fun and awesome Dad, and put together this wild ride for Minnette, and she would happily sit in their for at least half an hour at a time while Kyle pushed her around!

Laps around the living room table...

Laps around the kitchen island...

Laps around the pool...

This picture doesn't look like it, but she loved it!

9 months

Aurelle is 9 months old today!

•She is now crawling with great speed

•She pulls herself up on everything

she is definitely a quiet one, but has finally started babbling... literally... she says "ba ba ba ba ba ba" all the time

•She is still wearing size 3 diapers and size 3-6 month clothing. Never knew I would get so much use out of one size of clothes!

•She is no longer nursing (but we got seven and a half months with it), and when she switched to formula, she refused to use a bottle, so she went straight to sippy cups

•She will put anything and everything she finds on the floor right into her mouth, and she LOVES to eat anything paper!

•She sleeps 11-12 hours through the night and has for a month and a half now

•She still takes 3 naps during the day

•Her hair is starting to grow out and has now started sticking out in all directions, especially after naps!

•She has 1/2 a tooth on the bottom, and has for about a month now! No other teeth in sight at the moment!

•She still has LIGHT eyes... they are definitely NOT brown. My guess is that she will have hazel eyes. We'll just have to see!

•She has become so mellow and easy going, and she is such a HAPPY baby! She is always smiling about something!

Here is our little Rellers on the morning of her 9 month birthday:

And here is Minnette, wearing the EXACT SAME onesie that Aurelle is wearing in the picture above... but Minnette is only 2 1/2 months in this picture!

We love you, Aurelle!

Hairs

Minnette's hair has reached the magical length where all hairstyle dreams other than piggy-tails are possible! I've been getting a little creative lately, and needless to say, Minnette has been getting a little impatient lately with the amount of time she now has to sit still in order for Mommy to finish doing her hair!

Here are two different hairstyles that I have experimented on in the last couple of days:

Elastic braids. These work wonders for Minnette's hair considering her hair naturally has 3 distinct layers to it!

And here is the same hairstyle, just with a "twist"...

And... ::sigh:: what nap time will do to a head of hair:

With hair like that... you know it was a good nap! (the over 3 hours kind of good)

And speaking of HAIR:

I guess no words are actually necessary, are they? ;)

Pictures from last month:

If Kyle didn't already love Provo enough, we quickly discovered that there is a Cabela's that is only 15 minutes from our apartment! We took Minnette for a little field trip to see the aquarium and all of the animals.

If you know Minnette, you know that she LOVES animals and she most definitely loves fish... she was so excited to so many HUGE fish up close!
These two are the best of friends these days. Minnette absolutely loves "Row" (how she says Aurelle), and Aurelle just thinks that everything Minnete does is absolutely amazing and hilarious. It is so cute to watch these two as they have begun to interact and play together.
This is how Minnette snuggles with Aurelle:

Aurelle has had a busy month... she is growing like crazy, eating a ton (and feeding herslef finger foods quite proficiently), started crawling and is now STANDING!

Our little stander-babe in her crib:

Minnette just hanging around. The original point of taking this picture was to show her cute hairdo: I am FINALLY able to do a hairstyle besides just plain pigtails... in this picture she had french-braid pigtails!!! But would she cooperate enough to let me get a good picture of her hair? She's two, which equals NO! :)

Poor Aurelle was being tortured with applesauce:

Check out what Kyle caught:

Aurelle is feasting on the words of Christ: haha... get it??