Christmas Card Time

Hey Everyone! I'm sending out cards and I dont have Jessica, Tray or Kellie's addresses. Can you pass those on along? robynlramsay@hotmail.com. Thanks guys!!!

Alive Again

I feel like it's been so long since I last even got on this thing. We basically disappeared for a month. All of my family came up for Thanksgiving, which was awesome. Robert was with them!!! It was so good to see him. It was even more fun seeing him play with Cassidy. It's good to have him home again. Anyway, we had a huge Thanksgiving dinner party (about 40 adults) which I had the pleasure of being in charge of. It all went really well. I was so excited.

We had a blast being together as a family. We basically just played racquetball and watched the kids play together for two days. It was nice to sit back, talk, catch up and have fun.

Sunday my family took off for the ride back to California. It was sad because my dad started feeling down. He ended up having the stomach flu. Unfortunately it didn't stop there. My sister and her hubby caught it on Monday, I had it monday night, Chris had it Tuesday morning (first time he's had a flu since he went on his mission) and so on. It was like a pyramid flu that hit the whole family the whole next week. Poor cassi couldn't keep solids down for a week after she first caught it. It was horrible. After guaranteeing our house for awhile, it finally went away and we feel human again.

Our fun news is now we're busy looking at houses. We want to get into a house by about March or April of next year, but we're looking now. As soon as we find something, we're going for it. I can't wait to be a home owner! Sad part is it's going to push back the second car for awhile, so Cassi and I are going to be stranded this winter. Cabin fever here I come. Oh well.

Hope everyone is having fun with Christmas prep! Love and miss you all!!!

First Trip To The Zoo

On Saturday we took Cassi to the Zoo for her first real "wildlife" experience. We went with our buds Tracy and Brian and Cassi's friend Dallin. It was a lot of fun to see the kids reactions to all the animals. Cassi's favorite were the monkeys. They were a ton more fun to watch than Tiger, her kitty, usually is! It was fun to hang out with some good friends and let Cassi play.






The weirdest part of the Zoo experience was this thing they called a white Alligator. We saw it when we first came in and then went back right before we left. The dang thing hadn't moved at all and looked like a lump of plastic. We're convinced that the whole thing is a hoax and that it really is just a plastic Alligator! Yup. We should go get our money back... Oh well. At least we got some really good pictures! The freakiest part was the cougar. It almost stalked back and forth looking and Cassi and Dallin with a very hungry I-can-so-fit-those-in-my-mouth look. Good thing for those fences!

Moab

We took advantage of some of the last good weather of this year and went camping with a friend from Chris' work and his family. The boys had a blast on the slick rock trail and the girls took the kids hiking.









It was a lot of fun. Cassi loves to camp. Not only does she get to sleep between mom an dad, but she gets to go hiking and play with all kinds of dirt!












When the boys got back, we did some more hiking around Moab and Cassi even did some rock climbing!!!

More Halloween Fun

For Halloween, Chris, Cassi and I all went with Chris' family and some friends of ours, Christina, Jeff and their little girl Sara, to the Corn Maze that Pat, Chris' little brother, was working at. It was really cute! They had all kinds of things for kids from pig races to slides. Chris and I took Cassi on her first slide ride and she loved it!



After playing for a little while, we decided to try our luck in the corn maze. The boys did pretty good at keeping us from getting totally lost in the maze. Towards the end though, Cassi was cold, hungry and done. We finished the first part of the maze and decided to skip the second. We headed back to our place with Jeff, Christina and Sara and spent the rest of the Halloween night watching the Office. Not really a scary movie but I'm not a horror buff :) All in all, Cassi had a blast on her first Halloween!

Pictures by the Pros

So I finally took Cassi in to do some professional pictures. We just did a Target job because I found a coupon online. It turned out great!!! She was being so funny. She didn't really smile, but she made some really cute faces. I even got her to pose with my wedding bouquet...that was the hardest shot - she kept wanting to eat all the flowers! These are the shots we ended up buying. I was only going to get the free sheet. So much for that. It's what we get for having a cute child!!!

Playing With Cousins

My sister and her kids came down this weekend for a missionary reunion. We thought it would be fun to get the kids all dressed up and take pictures for Grandma and Grandpa. Man, if I thought getting one kid to smile was hard...

We had four adults trying to get three kids to stay on the couch, smile, look in the same direction and to stop pulling on each other. In the end, we settled for everyone kind of smiling, even if it wasn't in the same direction!

Halloween!!!

Cassidy and I played photo shoot the other day and had a blast. She is such a little ham in front of the camera now. It's so much fun! She is Tigger for Halloween. I've had the costume for about a month now. Here are some of our favorite pictures!!!! (I took like 40. Good thing for digital cameras!!!)

The State Fair

A week ago we did the Utah State Fair with Cassidy. It was a blast! We started the day very early. I had to drive Chris to work so we could have the car all day. The fun part is that Chris gets to go to work at 6:00 in the morning because he works with people on the East Coast. Needless to say, Cassi and I drove back home after waking up at 5:00 am and went back to bed. We are both not early morning people (thank you Cassi!!!)

We went back to Salt Lake at about 10:00 so we could stand in line for SHeDAISY tickets! She was such a good sport.



After we picked up the tickets and Chris got off work, we played at the fair. It was a lot of fun. Cassi loved looking at all the lights and people. We even got to take a family picture!!!



As we were walking around the rides, we saw one of those huge sling shot jumping thingies. Chris thought it looked like fun. It was a blast watching him try to do flips in this huge thing and Cassi laugh and smile at her Daddy playing.



When he got off of his toy, we ran over the the concert and met up with Chris' sisters. I was so excited! I love SHeDAISY!



Cassi thought it was fun until she remembered that she was tired. Chris was great and walked her around for awhile to try to get her to sleep. Unfortunately, she is at the stage that she only wants mommy when she's tired. Chris came back with a very upset Cassi. I got up and danced with her on the side - she was so tired that it took her about half a song to fall so asleep that even the screams of the girl right behind us didn't even make her stir. It was perfect. I danced with a very asleep Cassi for the rest of the concert. We love our little girl!!!

As Romantic As We Get

It's sad but true. I went to the Salt Lake farmers market and collected a variety of cheeses, bread, jams, crackers, drinks, etc to have a romantic picnic with my sweetheart. As we were figuring out where we wanted to go, Cassidy fell asleep. Not wanting to wake her up, we set out a blanket on our balcony. It turned out to be a lot of fun :) Isn't it funny how the definition of romantic changes when a kid comes in? All of a sudden it means a dinner by ourselves when mom can actually eat with dad without having to move utensils, food, candlesticks, etc out of the range of toes, fingers, heads...

Real Food!!! sort of anyway...

Cassidy has now entered the realm of baby food. He doctor said she was ready for them and ready she was. She started out with carrots and sweat potatoes. We heard that sweat potatoes were the general favorite. Cassidy however likes to be different and although she ate the potatoes, carrots were much more interesting.

Don't take my word for it though!



Since then, we have tried peaches, pears, prunes, bananas and squash. I refuse to feed her peas as I have no intention of cooking them for her when she gets older and have no desire to clean up baby pea poop. I have now come to the same conclusion with the prunes. I don't know if you have tried feeding your baby prunes, but don't. She didn't even really like them. I don't blame her. It wasn't the sweetest smelling stuff going down. Afterwards is fun too. Prunes do the same thing to babies as they do to adults if you catch my drift. I paid for that feeding for the rest of the day. The prunes have now found their rightful place in the garbage.

We have also experimented with some other probably not really good for baby foods such as snow cones. She now knows what a snow cone is. Every time we make them I have to hide my cup from her. Otherwise, she does everything she can physically and vocally to get that spoon to come to her mouth with just a little bit of that sugary goodness. I think she's figured out that although her baby food is fun to eat, our stuff is definitely better.

Learning How To Crawl

Everyone keeps telling us that we'll regret trying to get her to crawl as she will be into everything, but we can't help it! Cassi wants to crawl so bad! I think it's the cats fault. He tends to walk over and lay just out of reach. Man is he going to regret that decision once she actually does get going. I think the last step is just getting her to hold out her arms. She has this habit of trying to eat both hands...for some reason that is slowing her down a bit. Every time we set her down on her stomach and practice the crawl stance, the hands go in the mouth rather than the floor! Oh well. Some day she'll crawl. I will probably come back to this blog after trying to baby proof my entire apartment and curse myself. In the meantime, it sure is cute watching her learn!

Tribute to my Sexy Girlfriend

Thank you so much Sexy Girlfriend! My sister in laws birthday was this month and Chris and I had no clue what to do for her. Good thing I know how to decorate cakes thanks to the help of my sexy girlfriend Anne who I love even though she ditched me for Arizona (something about not liking Utah...I don't get it? Who doesn't like 10 months of winter and bad drivers?) For Chris' sister's birthday, we made her a Ladybug Ice Cream cake. It turned out really cute. Thanks Anne! You saved the day even from Arizona!!!

First Flu

Well, I knew it would have to happen some time in her life. On the drive back from our lake trip, Allison threw up. We thought it was just car sick - nope. Shelly called me to give me the heads up that she had a fever and more throw up the next day. I hoped that Cassi missed out on the fun but that kid loves to play. She was sick on Wednesday and then Thursday I got introduced to baby flu (and I thought spit up was bad). Moms get all the fun, icky stuff. I felt so bad for her. She thought it was awesome - she got to take a bath at 6:00 in the morning! Silly Mommy though, the one day I leave my cell phone in the car. Lucky for internet! I emailed Chris who was able to schedule a doctor's appointment. Since Cassi and I are carless, he came home to take us over. Good thing he gets in to work so early! I'm happy to report that aside from a nasty diaper rash, a fever and some unusual amounts of spit up and crankiness, the worst seems to be over. Cassi is such a trooper and is doing great!

Teething

It's official! Cassidy is teething. She will chew hard on anything that we hand to her...spoons, toys, fingers, arms, legs, candlesticks that she nabbed while Mommy wasn't looking...She is getting really good at finding and grabbing things that she shouldn't. The other day while Chris was holding her, she just about ate one of our little plants. He held her just close enough for her to grab it, yank it out of it's holder and get it within inches of her mouth. It was everything Chris could do just to pry it from her fingers. Her grip is getting really, really good. We are in so much trouble!!!

She is the cutest drool machine there is. If Chris and I could find a market for drool, we would be set for life. Let us know if you find something.... Seriously though. I thought the amount she put out before was bad. It's just about doubled. It's really an amazing talent. One of her favorite things to chew on are teething rings cooled in the fridge. She'll go at them like there is no tomorrow. Man she's cute!!

The Great White Hunter

Monday we decided to take the kids to the lake. Shelly and Zerin had come up to join us. We were planning on doing a Salt Lake Museum trip but the moms were out voted by the dads and kids. Oh Well. Chris and Zerin decided to try their luck at spearing some poor, defenseless trout. 30 minutes later, they came out and declared that there were absolutely no fish at all in the lake. They decided to terrorize some crawdads instead.

While the boys were out hunting, Shelly, Me and the kids had fun on the shore. Cassidy and Allison are great friends. Allison is at the stage where all babies are cute and Cassi loves the attention. We had a blast watching them all play. Eli was ecstatic that he was completely surrounded in mud and, better yet, he was allowed to cover himself in it. Rocks to throw and mud to bathe in...how much better can it get for a little boy?

One of the best parts of the trip was watching Zerin and Shelly try to get their kids to swim. Cassidy put up a fight when we first put her in the water because it was much colder than her baths. She eventually resigned herself to the fact that her parents were big fat meanies and sat reluctantly but quietly in her baby tube, glaring at us the whole time. Poor abused child!

Shelly and Zerin, however, were not so lucky. From the screams that both Alli and Eli put out, you would have thought we were killing them. Combined with Cassi's first reaction, I'm surprised that we didn't clear out the whole lake. Those poor fishermen thought they were escaping to a quite, serene lake to do some fishing. Good thing there were no fish to scare away!

Allison is the most adorable three year old I've ever seen and she knows how to play it up. She wailed the whole time but did great! I was so proud of her. The first time she got in, Zerin eased her into the water while she screamed. She told us later it was because she was scared the fish and snakes would bite her. The second time she got in, Shelly basically picked her up and plopped her in the water *Swim Kid!!!* So much for agency (just kidding Shelly!!!)

She is such a great mom! She even got Allison to look down at her feet, reassuring her that there were no fish (as Uncle Chris and Daddy confirmed) and no snakes. Meanwhile Eli, who I have never seen sit so good and quite while his mommy left him, was quite content to sit on the shore and watch his sister have to swim. We had so much fun!!!

All and all, even though she makes her kids swim, Alli can't wait to grow up and be like her Mommy!!!

Piggy Back Rides

Not that Chris is a Piggy hehe Love you Babe. One of Chris and Cassi's favorite games together is Piggy Back Rides. She'll sit on his sholders forever as long as she can have an iron clad grip to his head and hair! She loves to play with her Daddy!

Olympian Jumper

I think one of Cassidy's callings in life is to be an Olympian Jumperoo Jumper. She gets in that thing and goes crazy. Its really funny to watch. I love it. I probably haven't hung enough toys off the side of it though. Maybe some more rings.... Anyway, its one of her favorite activities in life, besides sucking on her toes and trying to find ways to sneak in a thumb....

The Big Girl Backpack

Cassidy finally fits in the baby backpack now - no more snuggly! We broke it in on Saturday. No joke. The poor thing really got broken in. As soon as we got to where we wanted to begin hiking, we busted out the sun-tan lotion. Chris got her into the backpack and I started goobing her up. Everything was fin until I tried to get her upper thigh. I pulled my hand out in disgust, as my fingers were covered in something other than suntan lotion. When Chris realized what it was, he started laughing. Haha. Baby poop. Really funny. After I got my hands all cleaned off, we started to work on Cassidy, who was thrilled to see that her blow out got her the full attention of both parents. Chris held her up as I gave her a baby wipe bath. We cleaned off the backpack as much as possible and set out for our hike, thinking it couldn't get worse.

About 20 minutes into the hike, Cassidy decided that even though she had just eaten not long ago, she was ready for a refill. No problem - we pulled over and fed her. Stomach full and baby happy, we set off to finish out the hike. Not too long after we were back on the trail, Chris felt something warm and wet on his calf. Cassidy had decided to share her meal with Daddy. There was spit-up all over his calf. However, luckily, the baby backpack had shielded him from most of it. Good thing as Chris thinks feeding her rice cereal is gross. After the backpack was cleaned for the second time, we finally were able to enjoy the rest of our hike with nothing but horse poop to watch out for.