she loves slides

beach details

During our visit to our families we got to spend the weekend at a beach house with my side of the family.  It was a nice little break to just relax a couple of days with family and visit the beach.  The weather was absolutely beautiful.  I was a little cold and windy, but that is to be expected, especially this time of year.  Hallie completely loved the beach.  She explored, enjoyed the sand, and even liked all the wind.  The first day at the beach she couldn’t get enough of the sand, she even crawled in it at one point.  The second day we let her get her feet wet.  She didn’t even seem to mind how cold the water was because she was so intrigued by it.  We all enjoyed watching her as Hallie discovered the beach.

These first pictures are from the first at the beach.  The pictures on the previous beach post are from the second day at the beach stepping in the water.

See pictures from both days by clicking on this album.

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at the beach

Wow I have been a major slacker with the blog.  We went to Portland  a couple of weeks ago for a wedding and to visit our families.  We were very busy but had a blast.  Since we have been home we have been busy busy.  Hopefully I can get some more pics up and talk a bit more about our trip in another post soon.  Hallie is waking up though and I need to go.  For now enjoy seeing Hallie at the beach for the first time.  She loved every bit of it!

easter sunday

This weekend we got to enjoy staying home and listening to conference. It is awesome that this conference landed on Easter weekend, gives us a good opportunity to contemplate the real reason we celebrate. Conference was great.

Hallie has been sick since Tuesday and Berret and I have a little colds too. We are all getting better but since we are on the mend we were pretty low key this weekend. We had fun celebrating Easter with just our little family though. We had a little Easter bag for Hallie and spread plastic eggs all over. We didn’t fill up the eggs, no need for the extra junk for any of us. Hallie just loved tapping the eggs together and gathering them up in her bag. Then Berret and I had fun throwing them at each other. I made cinnamon rolls to snack on and Berret grilled salmon, asparagus, and pearl onions on the new BBQ. It was all really yummy and Berret did an awesome job with dinner. Enjoy Hallie’s Easter pictures!

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click the above picture collage to see the album of more Easter

sliding

happy st. patrick’s day!

On Saturday Warren, Allison, and Dani came over and we celebrated St. Patrick’s day early.  We tried some new recipes and had a very large meal.  It turned into three different courses because the power went out for 3 hours or so that day delaying the corned beef that was cooking in the Crockpot.  Allison’s dishes turned out awesome.  Mine on the other hand were ok I guess, it was really frustrating the corned beef was done soooo late.  We all had fun anyways and Hallie loved seeing Dani after so long.Nalgene should be paying us for having these cute girls drink out of their sippy cups.  The Nalgene sippy cups are amazing though because they won’t leak everywhere when they’re in a bag.

berret had a birthday!

Here is Hallie with one of Berret’s cards.

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Berret’s First or Second Post

This is Berret. I am playing with a new program that makes it really easy to create posts. This is my beautiful girl!

the dog

Hallie just loves this dog from Ikea. It is super soft, cuddly, and fun to wrestle.

playing the keyboard

This is a video from awhile ago that I tried to upload using blogger a couple of times but it never worked. Hallie in this does a face we called the doughnut face. This video is old enough though now that she really doesn't do this face anymore. Enjoy.

utah trip...

what else did we do?

Well we left Thursday night after Berret got off work with Erica and Scott. We stayed the night and all the other nights at Landon and Becky's except for the one night at the hotel. We had a so much fun at their place and they were amazing hosts (THANK YOU). Friday morning Berret took his first CPA test. After Berret's test we got to play all weekend till we came home Monday afternoon. Landon and Becky recently got a dog, Jack, and Hallie just loved chasing him around. Jack on the other hand did not enjoy Hallie so much. Hallie also LOVED all the attention and exploring through out the weekend. We got to go shopping at Ikea, outlet stores in Park City, REI, Costco, and the Gateway Mall. We got some pretty awesome stuff including the baby hiking pack below. Besides shopping we got to have lots of fun hanging out with friends including COLLETTE that came Friday night. We all had soooooo much fun, it was great to get out of Idaho for the weekend!Berret trying out the new hiking pack with Hallie while shopping in Park City. Hallie loved it. We can't wait for summer to use this thing more.

swimming in utah

While we were in Utah we stayed most of the time at our friends house. One of the nights though we stayed at a hotel in Salt Lake with Liz and Grady. It was probably the nicest hotel we ever stayed in. Each room had big sectionals and big flat screen tvs. We were even able to get rooms that were joined by a door. We had lots of fun just hanging out. The hotel also had a pool, Hallie absolutely loved it. Here she is strutting her stuff on the way to the pool (she was laughing and swinging her arms dramatically).

dancing to the twins

This is from our trip to Utah last weekend. We had a ton of fun. There will be more pics to come.

YAY for finding a better way to upload videos to blogger. Using vimeo makes it a better quality video and you can view it in a larger window. I can also upload longer videos. It looks alot better. Right???

two too cute...

little girls.Can you even handle the cuteness of these two?! Hallie really loves her cousin Danielle. A while ago we got to babysit Dani, and Hallie had so much fun playing with her. The next day Warren and Allison babysat for us and the two girls got to play together once again. When we picked up Hallie that night she was doing new signs we have never seen her do. She must of learned them from Dani because they were signs Dani does that we haven't really tried to teach her. These new sign were "more" and "baby". Hallie even signs "more" the same way I've seen Dani do it (finger tips touching an open hand rather than finger tips to finger tips). Thanks Dani for teaching Hallie some new signs!

blogging safety

My friend posted this. It has some important things to consider that I didn't even think about before and I just wanted to pass it on.

Blog Safety Tips
Whether you are a novice blogger or expert blogger it is always good to have an extra reminder on how to blog safe. There is a large majority of bloggers who simply blog for family and friends and not for exposure. Here is list of ways to blog more safely.

1. Go Private.
2. Change your blog settings. By changing your blog settings you can select your blog to be removed from blog listings and also search engines. By removing your blog from search engines your blog cannot be searched by search engines such as Google. The only way to access your blog is by entering the exact blog address or clicking a link with the exact address. For instruction on how to change your blog settings, click here.
3. Never use your last name anywhere on the blog. This includes your url address, blog title, and throughout your posts. If your last name is in you url (blog) address it is easy to change to a new name. For instructions on how to change your blog (name) address, click here.
4. Never post actual birthdates. Post birthday events a day, week or even a month after the actual event.
5. Disable right-click to prevent your photos from being copied. Please note, if you disable right-click your viewers will not be able to right click on any of your links as well.
6. Add a copyright image or watermark on your pictures. This can be done by using a photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop.
7. Never post pictures of the outside of your house or car. Especially with your house number or license plate visible!
8. Never mention where your kids go to school or any workplace.
9. Do not add countdowns for vacations or other events that would allow people to know when you will be out of your house.
10. Do not post when your spouse is out of town for work or deployment.
11. Moderate the comments made on your blog before they are allowed to be published. This will protect you from random or spam comments posted on your blog. For instruction on how to moderate you comments, click here.
12. Add a web or hit counter to you blog site. Although this will not tell you the names of those viewing your blog it will allow you to view the IP address and where your viewer are located (typically State or Country).
13. Have courtesy for you fellow bloggers. When adding your friends and families blogs to your blog list DO NOT include their last names. Many bloggers do not want to go private and are doing their part to protect themselves. Have courtesy and do the same.
14. Do not post you email address on your blog or when you are commenting on anothers blog. You are allowing others to send you spam. An easy way to allow reader to email you without posting your email address is using a contact form such as Kontactr (it's free).
15. Assume anything you publish on your blog will be permanent. Anyone can copy, print, or save to a computer what you publish whether your blog is private or not private.

big picture

Trying out posting big pictures to the blog. I googled it and found this site. Well it took me a couple of tries to get it to work. I kept missing the part where it said to change the s400 to s800. Yahooooo, I did it! It is more fun seeing a bigger picture of Hallie. Right?

2010 1 year old

Hallie is a year old and I don't know how it happened so fast, I guess that is just the way it goes. It is amazing to see all the growth she has gone through and everything she has learned. It was fun documenting each month with the Stendig calendar. Look back and see how she has grown - newborn * 1 month * 2 months * 3 months *4 months * 5 months * 6 months * 7 months * 8 months * 9 months * 10 months * 11 months * and now 1 year old.

At one year old Hallie weighs 19.4 lbs (23rd percentile) and is 29 inches tall (47th percentile). Here is what she is doing-
-She can walk so fast it might be called running at times.
-Easily stands herself up and can and spring herself back up.
-Loves to copy any movment Berret or I make (example-when I do exercise videos she'll do squats and waves her arms and stuff)
-Has her 6 teeth figured out. She no longer takes everything out of her mouth to see how awesome her teeth work, It is pretty cute when she closes her lips tightly to chew stuff up in the front of her mouth.
-She has been eating awesome lately and is completely against eating baby food.
-Has some great new dance moves.
-She is still signing and using it more but she pretty much uses the same sign for drink and eat.
-We are seeing more and more of her personality and plays little games with us.
-She loves to play with her doll or teddy bears giving them kisses, hugs, and little pats. She smiles when she comes across them and will then carry one everywhere.
-We have had to install safety things on our cabinents and drawers but we left a couple open though that had stuff that was ok to play with. She has learned what cupards these are and will go right to them to play as if it were her toy basket. She enjoys the non-toys like a spatula.
-She likes to be around people and show off especially at church.
-Her hair is long enough to put teeny tiny clips in!

Hallie is a joy and we are so happy to have her.

beautiful face

family pictures

happy birthday hallie!

Hallie is 1 year old. We had a party for her and it was lots of fun. Hallie being the little ham that she is loved all the attention.It was time to open presents but she was busy mooching food off of Becky.We had to coax her into getting started. We asked all the guests not to spend alot of money on Hallie to instead bring simple things that kids actually like. In this bag is an old computer keyboard that Hallie now loves to play with. She rolls all over it to press as many keys as possible. She really loved all the new "toys" she got- old cell phone, hat, books, glow stick, toilet paper tubes, glow in the dark rubber bracelet, wooden spoons, and water squirting fish. Thanks everyone, Hallie loved all of her gifts.We made a contest out of who brought the junk gifts that Hallie liked the most. First place was the books and glowstick from Warren, Allison and Dani. Second place was the wooden spoons and squirting fish from Landon and Becky. Here is Landon getting his prize for second place Twilight trading cards.She is all stripped down and ready for her cake.I'm not a big fan of cake at all but I used this simple chocolate cake recipe. It turned out awesome and was incredible easy. The frosting was even good, and I usually hate frosting. I just used strawberries instead of raspberries.