Back from Vacation

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted. We have been on an almost two week long family vacation with the Perry side and just got back early Wednesday morning and this is the first opportunity I have found to update you all the fun time we had. Our trip started in Montana where the family gathers every year. We were there staying in a cabin for five days enjoying the river and hanging out. We went tubing, boating, and some of us tried wake boarding and water skiing. Savanna had a blast playing in the rocks and hanging out with her only two cousins-Lexi and Kaytlin (John and Kristin's daughters). We tried to take her on the boat but she screamed when we put the life jacket on her so that did not work. We also were able to spend time with some of TC's extended family-his grandma, aunts and uncles, and cousins. After being there for 5 days we headed to Washington to spend some more time with TC's parents, James, Marisha and Grandma Perry also came for a few days. We also enjoyed some time with TC's cousins and aunts and uncles there as well. The most memorable part of this half of the trip was the fire that burned 20 acres of land off the highway which TC's dad started on the way home to Washington from Montana. He and Grandma Perry were in 18the car. They were towing the boat and a wheel on the trailer flew off and the sparks created a fire. Oops-it made breaking news that night! No one was hurt-thank goodness. We had a wonderful time and are grateful to have such wonderful family in our lives. We feel very blessed. Here are a few of the highlight pictures!

7 months!

Well Savanna turned 7 months old yesterday. I meant to post yesterday but didn't get a chance and am now attempting to create a hurried post while Savanna is wrestling to type after waking up early from a nap. Now, I don't plan on celebrating every month Savanna turns older forever but at least until she is a year. She is doing well. She loves sitting up and standing up when we hold her hands. No really signs of wanting to crawl yet but we will keep working with her. She will bend all the way down to reach for a toy but if it is too far out of her reach she will just stop trying. We also thought she was teething a few weeks ago but her teeth don't seem to be bothering her much anymore but she still doesn't have any teeth. She is laughing a lot and so much fun. We are so happy to have her in our lives. She is now a pro at eating her baby food and we have started feeding her two meals a day. We are thinking of maybe starting her on some finger foods soon. Enjoy the pictures of her over this past month.The other little girl in a few of the pictures is our friends, Dave and Wendy's daughter, who came to visit last night. They are moving soon. Stay tuned, we are trying to figure out how to edit our videos of her and then we will post some videos.

Fun Filled Day

Yesterday was a great day! All days are wonderful and we should enjoy each one but you have to admit that the ones that are "out of the normal routine" make life a little more fun! During the day, Savanna and I got to reunite with our dear friends, Grace and Evelyn (Evie) Cox! Evie was born on the same day as Savanna and Grace and Jake were in our ward until they moved to California a couple months ago. We had a great time visiting with them! The day started up with Grace and Evie meeting us at Kiwanis Park for the "Lemonade Ladies" for our ward. Savanna and Evie got to play with Alina Rasband who was born 5 days after them and Spencer Wagstaff. After that we headed back to my house and hung out for a few more hours. I made Grace a wonderful lunch of "Kraft mac and cheese" and we let the girls play on the floor. Another friend of ours, Aubrey, also came over to say hi. After we put Savanna and Evie down for a nap we talked some more and then Grace had to be off to visit more people. It was so great to see both of them. Much more fun than doing the laundry which is usually what I do on Tuesday afternoons! So that wasn't all the fun for the day. Last night TC and I went to "The American Idols Live" concert. We weren't able to convince even our "American Idol" fan friends to pay for tickets. We had a great time though I must admit I liked the way they did the concert last year better. ( I went last year as well.) Last year they did a lot of trios, duets, and group numbers. They had no particular order and it was exciting because you never knew what was going to happen next. This year they just when down the top ten starting with number 10 and they all sang three songs each except for David Archuleta who sang four songs and David Cook who sang five. That was pretty much it. We didn't even see the Davids until after the intermission! I wish they had done it differently. However, we still had a great time. David Archuleta was amazing as usual and David Cook wasn't too bad either. Anyway, my camera wasn't too great at getting close ups so I didn't get very many pictures. Not any that were good enough to put on the blog.I really love concerts. I am glad I convinced TC to go with me. So there it is. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Food for Thought

So this type of post would usually be found in my personal journal but it is something I was thinking about the other day that I thought may be helpful to some of you readers out there. This personal reminder happened to me the other day while shopping at the grocery store. Savanna and I go shopping every Monday and she loves it. Until just the other day she would not sit in the cart because she'd feel wobbly and cry so I would always put her in the baby bjorn which she loves but is quite heavy for me after awhile. Then she loves to "push the grocery cart" though she is really pushing resistance on the cart thus making it harder to push. She also loves to try to grab everything off the shelves while I am shopping. (Thank goodness she'll sit in the cart now right? Lol). Anyway, most days this is very cute but the other day I just wanted to hurry and get done because I had gotten a later start than usual. I looked at a young single girl shopping and I must admit I thought to myself, "She doesn't know how easy she has it now." Then I immediately thought back to about a year and a half ago when TC and I were trying to start a family and it was taking longer than we expected. One day I was shopping at the grocery store and saw several woman with small babies and I just kept thinking to myself, "They are so lucky. I want a baby. When will I ever have a baby?" Anyway, my point of this whole story and what I got out of it is that I should be enjoying every moment of my life and not always trying to rush on to the next chapter. I believe a lot of us have a tendency to do that especially when "things" in our lives aren't happening exactly when we want them to. I hope this doesn't come out wrong, I love being a mother more than ever and would not trade it for the world! However, I realize more now that this life is a journey and each stage of our life is important and we should enjoy it while we are there. I find that once we move on to the next stage in our life we are often a bit nostalgic for what we left behind. So overall, my message is "Live in the moment. Plan for the future." All right, I am done. I'll get off my soapbox now!

What in the World?

Yeah, that is what I thought when I heard of this homeopathic remedy to cleanse the ears. Last night when our friends, Bryan and Aleta, came over they toted along this kit for us to watch Bryan try. He had a large amount of water in his ears from wake boarding that had been in there for over a week. Basically, you light the candle and let it burn and it is supposed to clean out your ears of all the gunk and such. Anyway, I was not brave enough to try but TC was. He said his ears felt much clearer afterwards! However Bryan still said he had a lot of water in his ears. It was just such a random thing to do I thought I would post about it. The funniest thing was that while TC's ear was getting cleared out the air conditioning guy came over to look at our unit because it has been making a strange noise and he looked at us like we were doing some weird voodoo ritual! So if any of you are having ear troubles give it a go, maybe you'll have the same success TC did!

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy Belated 4th of July to you all! We had a fun weekend despite the fact that Savanna came down with a cold on the 4th. She seems just as happy as ever but her nose is running like a faucet! Well this was the first 4th of July we did not spend with any of our extended family. We spent some time with friends but overall it was just our new little family. The day started off with me running the 5k Freedom Run with a couple girls in my ward-Abbie and Bridget. It was great! I was surprised how much I was pushing myself. I want to run a half marathon sometime but realize I have a lot more work. Then I went back and met TC and Savanna. (Savanna wasn't awake until I was finished with the race.) We headed down to the parade for a few minutes and then off to the ward breakfast. Then we went with some friends, Devin and Naomi, down to the flea market/fair on Provo Center Street. We were pretty worn out after this from being in the heat so then we went home, ate, and all three of us took a nap. After Savanna woke up, we went to the Cracker Barrel for dinner, came home, put Savann to bed, did Sparklers on our porch and watched "The Stadium of Fire" fireworks from our parking lot. After that, TC and I watched a movie and didn't get to bed until about 1:00 a.m. It was a busy and a fun day.

We are very grateful to live in this country and for those servicemen that have given us our freedom. My brother, Spenser, has joined the military and we are grateful for his bravery. We hope you all had a great 4th of July! Here are a few pictures I bummed off of my friend, Naomi, because I forgot my camera everywhere we went! I need to keep it in my diaper bag from now on!

Transitioning to Two Naps

Okay, this post is for all those moms out there who could maybe help me out with some advice on the wonderful topic of napping. ( I know, I never thought I could be so obsessed with another human being's sleeping patterns!) So lately Savanna started taking very short naps. She usually takes three naps a day. Anyway, the doctor and everyone else I have talked to say she is probably ready for two naps. So TC and I have started trying to transition her to this but it is not as easy as we thought. Here are the difficulties we are encountering. 1. Savanna usually doesn't stay up long enough to only have two naps a day. She will usually only stay up for about 2.5 hours in between her naps during the day and just can't make it to her bedtime without three naps. She literally will fall asleep and there is no way for us to keep her up longer. 2. Even when she does stay up longer (about three hours in between her nap times) she still doesn't seem to sleep longer which is what the doctor told us would happen. Therefore, she can't stretch her awake time long enough to only have two naps a day. Oh other information is I have been putting Savanna down for almost all her naps in her crib rather than on the go and this doesn't seem to make a difference. Is she really ready for two naps from the sound of it? Do I maybe just have to accept that Savanna is a short napper? Anyway, any advice would be appreciated! Thanks!