BIG GIRL BED and DANCE CLASS...

Our little girl is such a BIG girl now...
On the 5th Mike stayed home with a kinda sick little Vienna and when I got home from church he had arranged her room so that her big girl bed would fit in the room with the crib. We let her get use to it and on Valentine's Day night we decided it was time to give it a try. It was absolutely amazing! I really couldn't believe it. She didn't get out once, she fell asleep quickly, she stayed in bed and asleep all night and in the morning she just made noise but didn't get up. I think I am still in shock, even though this is her 4th night. Every night has been the same so far. As far as naps, she hasn't been falling asleep the past 2/3 weeks anyway but I still put her down for quiet time, so I thought that would be a nightmare as she would jump and play in her crib but she did just the same thing in her bed, but didn't get out once! What an amazing little girl we have.
This was the second night, adorable eh!

I have been planning on having Vienna join a dance class for a few months now. A girl in the Euclid ward does it for $2 a class and it's an hour long. This was her first time doing and the report was really good. She doesn't know most of these girls well cause its a different ward, but who are we kidding, she loves everyone and thinks they are all her friends. Her teacher, Ralae, said she did great. I snuck in near the end to take some pics and videos. It was hilarious!
Wow look at those rosey cheeks, those dang 2 year old molars...would you come in already!

So fun!
Oh and just a few other things Vienna's has been saying...
"___________ all the day" (fill in the blank with cereal, dance, sing, play etc.)
"what's this?"

It's always changing day to day.

OUR LITTLE NENNA-BEAN

So our little Nenna-Bean was 22 months on Feb 2nd and boy oh boy is she almost 2 or what?!?!? There is going to be no order to this but I am going to run through all the things I can think of that describe, depict and portray who our little girl is as of right now...
- She loves to listen to her nursery rhyme and preschooler songs in the car and loves to sing along to them. Every night before bed we sing her a few songs and she always asks us for the Elmo song and sings along quite well.
- The little hand activity "Open Shut Them" I find her doing often
- She loves coloring, even in the bathtub and now that she has recently moved into the big girl tub (bye, bye ducky tub) she loves to swim and get on her tummy.
- Going to story time at the library is a huge highlight in her week. Action songs, dancing, stories, touch screen computers, TV's. OH MY!
- She craves interaction with other little people her age. She LOVES nursery, play-dates, when Mommy watches all the kids of Mom's who have OB appointments, she asks for her friends Evie, Milo, Pepper and others almost everyday.
- Skyping her Grandparents and aunts and uncles is apart of her routine and she knows just what to do and shows off really well for them.
- As of late, she doesn't want to fall asleep at nap time, its mostly just quiet playtime, but thats A-OK with Mommy.
- She is getting so good at taking off her clothes and does her very best to put them on.
- Her big girl bed is in her room so she can get use to it and tonight is the inaugural night...
- Vienna loves kissing and hugging baby Brother, but my tummy has to be bare.
- She loves her babies and cuddling her toys.
- At bedtime she usually has her giraffe, Abby, a baby, and her teddy bear.
- She is always wanting to say mealtime prayers and family prayer so they sound something like this..."Heavenly Father. Thank you. Food. Mommy. Daddy. Amen" But that's pretty good.
- Vienna is starting to watch at least 15 mins at a time of Elmo or Mickeys Playhouse. But after that she is off doing something else.
- She always wants to help...with everything.
- Eating still isn't her forte but she is alive and for the most part quite healthy.
- She LOVES our I-phones and always asks to watch video's of herself on them. She figured out how to unlock them so we had to put in unlock codes.
- Reading is something she can't get enough of and I am the worst at not giving in when she says in her sweet little voice, "more."
- Her hair is getting much thicker and longer...YEAH!
- She really enjoys her daily vitamin and of course all the things that kids love...fruit snacks, candy, chocolate etc.
- Let's see...there is not a shy bone in her body, at least not yet. She says hello to everyone, everywhere.
- Pushing the shopping kart at every store we go to is much cooler then being in the kart.
- Currently going in our creepy, unfinished food storage room downstairs is cool and doesn't frighten her at all. Maybe its because she knows there are fruit snacks in there.
- She is noticing when its dark and says, "dark" but it doesn't bother her at all.
- Her feet are size 5
- She is about 25 pounds
- Getting piggy's (pigtails) is ok while she is eating breakfast, she even asks for them, but she normally plays with them during nap time and they are gone after that.
-Her vocabulary is endless and grows by at least 1-2 words/day. Some of the recent words and phrases are "take off" "look" "right here" "I do it" "help me"
- she is great at counting to 10, but sometimes misses a few in there.
-knowing her colors is coming along, sometimes she just says the first one that comes to her mind.
- tantrums are definitely on the rise...maybe she is hitting the 2's early? My worst nightmare... tired and tantrums (Heaven help me)
Apparently I can go on and on and on. That is just some of her, but at least I've got that in writing. I need to do this more often though to stay on top of the little things. All in all we love having her around and are amazed at how quickly she picks up things. Her brain really is a sponge and we need to always strive to fill it with the good stuff. We absolutely love and adore you Vienna and can't wait to see what a great big sister and helper you will be with your baby brother.
Using the touch screen computers at the library. She looks so official...
drawing on the touch screen TV at the library with all the other story time kids.
Reading books on her big girl bed. What a smile and look at those wings...
Playing in the kitchen (sorry its blurry, our camera is old and we need a new one)
It snowed for the first time in forever on Saturday so we went out to play on Sunday and we all had our matching "Cleveland Brown's" hats on that Grandpa Alan made us. It was so cute!

7 Months Pregnant

This was actually last week when I was 7 months, but we've been busy. I feel bigger this time around and he moves WAY more...or he is bigger so I can feel it more??? I still can't believe it's gone by so quick.


I had to throw these in, I know they are a bit blurry, but how adorable...Vienna and her Daddy :)

Couple Connection Party

There is a couple in our ward named the Loveless' They have a couple connection party each year and last year we weren't able to go because Mike was out of town. This year was a blast and as good as I expected! We had a blast!!!
As our friends in Boise can attest, Mike and I normally suck a newlywed/couples games, despite the fact that we have a happy marriage. We had no hopes of doing well at all...
Everyone brought an appetizer to share and we started out by munching and taking pictures with accessories.

Of course Mike was Batman, but with a mustache to make him extra sexy!


This was everybody!
Then the game began. We were divided into 2 groups and then the couples divided giving the husbands and wives both ask and answer questions. Then the second group did the same thing. The top 2 couple from each group moved on to the LIGHTNING ROUND...





As you can see below, we definitely didn't make it to the next round, in fact we tied for very last with 2 other couples, which ended up being a good thing because there were 3 loser prizes and and 1st and 2nd, so those in the middle got nothin' Our gift was cute, the idea was to help us "connect" better so it was gum, deodorant and shaving cream with a bottle of sparkling cider and it said, "use this" (the gum, deoderant and shaving cream) followed by "then this"


Before we did the final round between the 2 couples we ate dessert, which was made by the hosts. They made homemade cheesecake with strawberry heart swirls on top. IMPRESSIVE and DELICIOUS. It was a sweet night!

The reigning champs from the previous year came with name tags and ended up completely last and 1 of the couples that got last, last year, got first this year.
They also gave a lovebirds CD mix as a party favor. This is something that would be fun to host in the future for sure!
Overall, Mike and I were pleased with our performance. Better than normal anyway...Thanks Loveless' !!!

Mike's Dominican Republic Trip

So Eth thought it would be a good idea for me to write up a little post on all of my adventures in the past few weeks. For anyone that doesn’t know, I have been down in the Dominican Republic for 10 days doing dental work and partying. I don’t even know where to begin; the trip was “all inclusive”, including awesome work, killer karaoke, European resorts, tarantulas and all the rice and beans you can eat.

I went down with 14 other dental students from my school, and we flew into and began our escapade in Santo Domingo. We spent our first three days there and went to different places and worked from 8-5 doing free dentistry. We had a great setup, where we were able to do pedo work, endo operative procedures, oral surgery and hygiene. I had the privilege to stick a whole bunch of folks in the face with needles, and then pull out their teeth, I’m sure they loved us. From there we headed up into the mountains to a place called La Vega. La Vega was a lot more rural, equipped with no hot water, non flushing toilets, tarantulas, and of course, our own private club. What Dominican result out in the woods wouldn’t have a club? The work out there was great as well. The people were very appreciative and many walked long distances to see us. It’s amazing the difference it made in some of these folks lives. We worked for two days up in the hills and then headed back down into the city.

Once we got back, the dental part of our trip was over, and we headed out to Punta Cana, to a resort for a few days of vacation. Little did we know, the resort were staying at was well visited by European vacationers. What does this mean? Weird food for one, when I go to a buffet for breakfast, and there is an entire table of some sort of meat jello spread, I tend to not want breakfast. Second problem, everyone on the beach only wears bikini style bottoms, so speedos for men, and bikini bottoms, no tops for the ladies. Unfortunately, only old European women can afford to vacation in the Dominican. We did have loads of fun though playing a ton of beach volleyball. Now it’s all over and I’m trying to catch up with school work, but the trip was well worth it.

This is a buddy that frequented our abodes in La Vega. This guy walked up to us during dinner, but one of the doctors had three in his house!

This was a typical day as far as people waiting to get in and get some work done from us.

I got to give lots of injections and pull a ton of teeth.

Chris, Riley, Tucker and I enjoying a hard days work

The beach was a nice way to end the trip