Relay for Life, Camping and More

We had a busy weekend.

Friday we went down to Blackfoot, Idaho for the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. It's a fund-raising event for cancer research. Different teams get together and set up booths and walk around a track all night. My Aunt was really involved with organizing the event and she got a team together to walk for my Grandpa Smith. It was really neat! I was very surprised, and impressed, with how many people turned out for the night. My parents said they raised over $100,00!

Grandpa Smith on his Survivors Walk

From the Relay for Life, we went and met Brad's family at Heise campground to camp for the night. It was Lainy's first camping trip, and I was a little nervous at how she'd do. I was afraid I'd be up all night trying to keep her quiet. My fears were totally unfounded because she did awesome! She just woke up once in the night (like she always does) and went right back to sleep. Hooray! In the morning I heard her stirring and looked over at her. She opened her eyes, looked around and smiled huge. It was really cute. We had a great time with our family in the beautiful outdoors.

We're reaching milestones with Alaina. Yesterday she crawled a little bit for the first time! (I'm sorry I don't have a video. We weren't at home when it happened). We had to bribe her with Macadamia Nut cookies (a girl after my own heart) but she did it! She crawled four big moves up on her hands and knees, then she fell down and army crawled the rest of the way. She was so funny because once she got her cookie, she'd work herself back to a sitting position then raise her hands like "Ta-da!" and wait for all of us to clap for her. She's really a little show-off sometimes.

Our other milestone is Alaina actually slept through the entire night last night. A whole ten hours (she's been doing about 8 hours before she gets hungry). I was amazed and thankful! Hopefully she keeps it up!

Sweet Sleepy Baby

That's it for us! Hope you have a good week!

A Father's Day Post

I caught a glimpse of what a good father Brad would be before we were even married because of the way he interacted with kids around him. I don't know what it is but little kids are just attracted to him. Fussy babies in front of us at church in our first ward would turn around and look at Brad and suddenly be fine. I'm not kidding! Needless to say, I looked forward to the day when he could use his magical calming powers on our own kids.

He hasn't disappointed. Brad is the best dad! He's so good he helps make me a better mom. Alaina and our other children are so blessed and lucky to have him. And so am I.

Happy Father's Day!

Frustratingly Funny Girl

If there is one thing I've learned about caring for a baby, it's that they always keep you on your toes. Just when you think you've got something figured out with them, something happens and you have to start all over. We've learned this time and time again with sleep schedules. We get Lainy on a good schedule, then the weekend comes and she gets all messed up and we have to start again on Monday. Yesterday we had to teach Lainy how to eat her food again.

She's been doing so well for the past couple of months! She'd take such good, clean bites that we barely had to wipe her face when she was done. That all changed yesterday. This is what she looked like halfway through dinner.For some reason Lainy thought it was hilarious to take a big bite of sweet potatoes, hold her hand up to her face, and spit them out all over the place. There was no telling where they might land. I got splattered on my face. I think Brad had some in his hair. Lainy looked very surprised every time she splattered herself in the face, then she'd grin this little mischievous grin and spit again.

We tried to be stern, we really did. We looked at her solemnly and said, "No". We did well with that part. It was when she looked defiantly back at us and grinned that we had to turn away and laugh. As frustrating as it was, she was just too funny! We might have a little troublemaker on our hands.

I'm a little nervous to feed her today. Maybe I'll get one of those plastic rain ponchos to avoid the mess! Here is her mischievous grin after she'd gotten all cleaned up, then dumped a glass of water on herself.

Checkup

We took Lainy to the Doctor today for her 9-month checkup. She's so funny at the doctor's office. She gets all nervous when the nurses are around, but as soon as the Doctor comes in she's happy and smiley. I think she knows it's the nurses who administer the shots, not the Doctor. Well, today she didn't need any shots, for which I'm very thankful, she just had a checkup. She now weighs 16lbs 7 oz, and she's 29 inches long. Those measurements place her in the 50th percentile for height and just above the 25th for weight. The Doctor said she looks just perfect, and I agree!

Alaina is so close to crawling we can hardly believe it. She gets up on her hands and knees and wiggles around until she falls down. She's going to crawl any day now. We're so excited for her!

Alaina's most recent trick is that she dances to music. We noticed it the most at church yesterday. Whenever the organ would start she'd bob her head and "dance". It's really cute. We tried to get a video of her dancing, but she only did it for a minute. Here it is nevertheless:

Those are our updates this week. Hope you all have a great week!

A Trip to Salt Lake City

Last Saturday we travelled down to Salt Lake City to meet up with the Askeroths (Brad's mission companion and his family). We've been meaning to get together with them for a long time. They had a baby boy a week after we had Alaina, so we were excited to get the babies together too. We had so much fun!

We met at Trolley Square and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, then headed to Hogle Zoo. The zoo was awesome! Not only was it a great price, but it was full of some really cool stuff. We saw a bird show, monkeys, a white alligator, elephants, a baby giraffe. . . just about everything you'd hope to be in a zoo. I think Alaina liked the baby giraffe the best. It came right up to the fence close to her and she just stared and stared. It was so cute!

I was so impressed with both babies. They were so good! I wasn't sure if they would even notice things in the zoo, but they did! It was really cute to see. We spent over three hours in the zoo, during their nap times, and they were troopers. I think they had fun getting to know each other too. Lainy just loves her little boyfriends.

After the zoo we went to This is the Place monument, then to the Lion House for dinner. It was a great end to a fun day. Thanks Askeroths! We had a great time with you!