Making Kiss Cookies for V-Day

Today Cannon and I had some fun in the kitchen. Since Valentine's Day is tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to make Kiss cookies for his cute little friends in the neighborhood, who ALL happen to be girls! Lucky Cannon! Cannon had a lot of fun and was such a good little helper with helping me measure out the ingredients, stir, and place Hershey kisses on the cookies. He is so excited to go out for a wagon ride after his nap today and deliver his cookies to his cute little girlfriends! Happy Valentine's Day!

Baby Cereal and BYU Basketball

Riley tried baby cereal for the first time last night. I know, kind of late, but whatever. We introduced Cannon to baby cereal after he turned 6 months as well. At first Riley wasn't too sure about the cereal. However, she became more and more interested with each bite taken and eventually really liked the cereal. Her eagerness for more bites was super cute!








Also, we are in full swing of college basketball season. More importantly, BYU basketball. Blaine is a little obsessed. It is hard to watch anything else this time of year when a game is on, not to mention NFL and NBA games! So, to get in the spirit of BYU playing Gonzaga tonight, I dressed the kids up in BYU apparel. I think the kids kind of liked it. :)

Riley's 6 Month Photo Shoot

Riley turned 6 months on January 26th and I totally spaced it! I had been thinking about her almost turning half a year old all month, and when the day finally came, it went by without my realization...so sad! Anyway, we took Riley to her 6 month doctor appointment yesterday. She weighed in at 15 lbs 14 oz and measured 25 1/4 in long. Gotta love a cute little chubby baby!

I decided to take 6 month pictures of Riley at home, rather than at a photo studio, for two reasons. 1)Photo studios are too expensive. 2)I wanted to practice taking pictures with my new camera.

Riley's photo shoot took about 10 minutes, which was the perfect amount of time for baby shots. Our little bundle of cuteness...

Blaine and Erin + 2 kids = one sweet minivan

Well, we finally broke down and bought ourselves a minivan last night. We traded in our 2009 Nissan Murano for a more "family friendly" 2008 Honda Odyssey. I joked with Blaine that I never thought I would own a minivan, mostly because they aren't the most attractive means of transportation. Even though I grew up with minivans, I never liked them and swore I would never own one. However, now that I am older and by all means, more mature :), I see the benefits that only a minivan can bring. :) If nothing else, I am really loving the extra cargo space for groceries and strollers! I'm also loving the fact that it came with only 15,000 miles! Do we miss our Murano? Sadly, not really. We miss how smooth it drove, but not much more than that. Dear neighborhood carpools, count us in!

Check out our sweet new ride below (the pictures aren't the best because it was raining outside and I took the pictures from inside the garage)...

Random

It feels like I have been out of the blogging world for awhile. However, just because I haven't been a blog poster, does not mean that I haven't been a blog stalker. Blog stalking is my favorite past time activity. :) Anyway, since I enjoy looking at pictures to see what people have been up to more than reading about it, I've decided to post some random, new camera, practice pictures. Ever heard the phrase, "A picture is worth a thousand words"? Well, I guess we can test that phrase out with the pictures posted below.

Even though I REALLY love my new fancy camera Blaine got me for Christmas, I've only managed to take pictures over a period of two days. Why? Well, let's just say this camera comes with some baggage. It's not like our old camera where you can just whip it out and start shooting. Taking pictures with my new camera requires some prep (i.e. taking off protective coverings and attaching the lens). I know this is not much prep involved, but when you have kids who are being super cute one minute, you might miss your picture capturing moment if you are busy fiddling with your camera. Oh well, I'm sure I will become much quicker at assembling the camera with additional practice and taking the photography lessons Blaine included with the gift. Anyway, until I become a picture taking pro, please enjoy these lower quality shots...


















See if you can guess what's going on here: