Rick's Mission Reunion

 The week before conference was pretty crazy! Rick had a very busy week preparing for his medical school interview, getting his translations done for conference, meetings for the neuro lab, taking midterms, working at the MTC and the ER, etc... He even was scheduled to do jury duty Friday morning which just added to the stress but he found out Thursday night that the issue had been resolved and he no longer needed to attend. Sweet!  So while he was in class and finishing us everything in preparation for the weekend, we got Kimbri all ready for Rick's mission reunion that Friday night up in Taylorsville. So naturally I had to just take some pictures of the cute, little miss Kimbri!

It was a very fun evening! There were a ton of people at the reunion! And a ton of food! A lot of curry, rice and other spicy things...to spicy for me. Mexican kind of spice I can handle but Asian spice is a whole other story. They did have a lot of fruit so Kimbri and I snacked on that and loved it! Sister Clark, Rick's mission president's wife, brought back little t-shirts for all the "mission grandbabies". Haha:) So Kimbri got a shirt that has that saying on it that goes like, "Someone who loves me very much went to Sarawak, Borneo and got me this shirt". And then Sister Clark also gave Baby Boy a shirt too, for when he is born. It has a little Orangoutang on it and it says Sarawak, Borneo. 

We ate, talked, and had fun! Kimbri was worn out by the end because it was well past her bedtime. Even though she slept on the way to the reunion, she still fell right to sleep on our way home:)  

What a Wonderful Weekend

Saturday was great. So relaxing and fun. Rick, Kimbri, and I got up and ate breakfast. I started a load of Kimbri's laundry. Then I realized it was my last day to use my coupon for a haircut that I'd gotten in my email. It was for $4 off so it made my hair cut only cost $8. Let's just say that I have been wanting a haircut for a loooooooong time. The last time I got it cut was on my birthday last year...so in other words, like over 15 months ago. And the time before that it had been nearly two years since getting my hair cut. 

So, Rick so kindly volunteered to watch Kimbri and I called in for an appointment for that same morning. I hesitated leaving since it was a Saturday morning that we had together as a family but Rick is so supportive and just said something like, "Alina, you have been wanting a hair cut for so long. Go ahead and I'll watch Kimbri." So I hopped in the shower, not washing my hair of course, since they wash it there, and then I was on my way. 

It was so fun! Obviously I don't get my hair cut often enough. It was so relaxing to get my hair washed, dried and cut and just chat with the girl that was cutting my hair. I went to one of those hair school places, cause they are often times the cheapest. But it always worries me because you just never know how your hair is going to turn out. I've tried a few different hair schools and have had some great experiences and some terrible, so it was a shot in the dark...but I was really ready to have a change! I felt like the ends of my hair were starting to get so damaged and dead. So I decided to really cut it! And it turned out being a little shorter than I had originally expected but I like it. I think it will take some getting used to but I love the change. And hair always grows back, right? 

When I got home Rick said that Kimbri played pretty good, as long as he was right there with her, following her around the house, from room to room playing:) I know what he means. He said he just followed her with one of his textbooks and was able to get a little homework reading done while she was playing so that was good!  We spent the afternoon together and Kimbri took a nice little nap. 

Later that afternoon, Rick's cousin, Shelby and and her husband Rue, came to visit. They are from Arizona and it was great to see them! I think it's been since our wedding since I've seen them! I guess Rick saw them when he went to AZ for the Del Sol Ragnar but they hadn't seen Kimbri since she had been born so it was extra fun for them to get to see her! And they are expecting a little boy in December! I'm so excited for them. It will be fun to have little boys so close in age to each other!

After they left my mom showed up at our house so that her and I could leave and go to the Relief Society broadcast together! This was the second time in one day that I left Kimbri home with Rick! I don't know that that's ever happened before. It was kind of a weird feeling for me to be the one leaving and to wave goodbye to Kimbri as I walked out the door. So often it's Kimbri and I waving to Rick as he leaves the house. It was a really great thing, though, to get to go to the broadcast and just sit there and listen. So many good things were said! The talk that President Eyring gave especially hit me because of the story about his daughter that had her baby 15 weeks early. That's exactly the point in pregnancy that I'm at right now, and I can't imagine having a baby that early, so little and fragile. His talk really made me want to go and serve someone! It was a great talk! 

When the broadcast was over we went to Olive Garden. Sundee invited my mom and I to go with her and the girls, Jessica, Cosette, and Shelby, so we all met there for dinner. It was soooo yummy! And the smoothies were delicious. Having a girls night out was really so fun! It was great to talk and laugh and be together as family and friends!! 

Sunday was fabulous, too. We don't have church until 1pm so we always have all morning to just relax and slowly get ready for the day. But 1pm church has its pros and cons. Yes, you have time in the morning but then church is right during Kimbri's nap time!!! Which makes church extra hard, especially for Rick, because he is the one that has her for the last two hours of church because I'm the primary pianist. So, yesterday she went the whole day with only a very short 20-25 minute nap during priesthood. Wow. she was a tired girl by the time night time hit! 

Right after church we went down to Salem to have dinner with the Stone family since Shelby and Rue were still in town. So we got to visit them again which was way fun! And we'll even get to see them again when we go to Arizona for Rick's medical school interview at A.T. Still in Mesa! So that will be fun too! Sundee made a delicious dinner and I learned that Mitch made the brownies for dessert! Go Mitch! We also went on a ride of Payson Canyon that evening while the Bishops Youth Discussion was going on at their home for about an hour. All the fall colors are soooo beautiful! I can't even believe that it's already October. Oh how the time flies. 

And of course, a picture of Kimbri all happy and ready for church!

Little Miss Kimbri

Kimbri is such a beautiful little girl. Of course I am biased since I am her mother. Her mother. I love the fact that I get to be a mommy. It seems like every moment of every day I catch myself saying things like, "Let mommy put your bib on so mommy can feed you lunch.", or "Come with mommy to get the laundry from downstairs.", or "Kimbri, mommy loves you!".  It seems like no matter what I'm doing, whether it be dishes or laundry, or reading books or playing with Kimbri, I'm always referring to myself as mommy. And I love it. I'm so grateful that I get to be a mommy...Kimbri's mommy. 

I love this little girl so much. She is such a joy in my life. One thing about Kimbri is that she tends to be pretty dramatic. But even though sometimes it's dramatic with tears, she so often is dramatic with her laughs too! When you get her to laugh, it is the most hearty, deep laugh. And I love hearing it! When she gets excited about something, she really gets excited! I can't say it enough, but she really is a bright shining star in my life. I can't imagine living without Little Miss Kimbri! 

Here is a picture of Kimbri with her "new" toys from DI. She couldn't get enough of them. She had to hold the rings from one toy while sitting on the other. We had originall bought a green version of the walker/ride toy that Kimbri is sitting on in the picture below from off Craigslist. It worked great as a walker toy but the handle for when you turn it into a riding toy was missing, so when we saw this one at DI for $4 we bought it and sold the green one for $10 - what we paid for it - on Craigslist. It's perfect because now she's at the age where she'll be able to learn how to use it to ride instead of using it to walk, since she's got the walking thing down!

Her other toy we got from DI for only $1. We wiped down
 good with a Clorox wipe and now it's as good as new!

Here are a couple of Kimbri's favorite pastimes lately...

She LOVES looking at books and having me read to her,
she'll often times go to the book shelf and pull one book
off at a time and look through it, and then on to the next one!

Kimbri LOVES coloring! I think she likes using a pencil
over crayons but uses both.  Look at that grip that
she figured out all by herself! Maybe she'll be an artist:)

And of course, she LOVES helping mommy bake,
or rather, eating!! Here she's licking the batter from when
we made Tuxedo Brownie Cups.

I don't think she could get enough of it!

She loved it! Of course she would. And she cried
like it was the end of the world when it was all gone.

And here is Kimbri in her fun new snuggly fleece pj's that Grandma Haycock gave her. We could just have her wear this for Halloween and be a Zebra. Haha:) 

More of the cute pjs and of course, her new favorite thing, her stuffed animal...a monkey that we bought her for .75 at DI, because she has recently had this obsession with really soft stuffed animals. 

She literally can't hold in her excitement when you hand her a fuzzy stuffed animal. She grabs it and hugs and squeezes the day lights out of it. 

She has become best friends with this monkey.

Along with these picture updates, I should also mention that a couple days ago she hit the 14 month old mark! She also has added to her teeth collection. Two top molars broke through and a couple molars on the bottom are starting to come in, which I guess explains all the extra drooling lately:) 

Oh, and another fun thing - we finally bought this girl some shoes! As a newborn she never really needed shoes. And even when she advanced to the crawling stage she didn't really need them. But as she started to walk I thought that we would need to get her some shoes. I put it off for a while but after she got a splinter at the park last week I felt so so bad and we made it a priority to get her some shoes. It was NOT an easy task. Her feet are so fat, the tall way. So every shoe we tried on this girl would seem to be fine length wise but her foot would just not fit! We looked at tons of pairs of shoes at DI and even made a trip up to Orem to look at Ross. I even looked at the little girl shoes in Hobby Lobby but with no success, at any of the stores. Finally we found a pair of black and a pair of white shoes that fit great from Signs and Wonders, a boutique sort of store that also has a children's consignment in the back area. So we got her two pairs of shoes for $6. I thought it was a pretty good deal for some good, used shoes. Anyway, this girl hasn't really ever worn shoes so it was SO funny to see her try and walk in shoes!! It was like she had to learn to walk all over again, being very wobbly and insecure at putting one foot in front of the other. But I think she's got it down pretty good now:)

Well, that's my update for Kimbri right now. We sure love our Little Miss Kimbri!

Visiting Spanish Fork and Salem ~ Cosette's Mission Call

We spent a good chunk of Tuesday and Wednesday at my parents house. Tuesday we went down to help pick up and drop of siblings here and there since my parents were still out of town. On Wednesday Rick dropped us off in Spanish Fork on his way to the hospital in Payson for work. He had to go back to Provo to participate in some stress testing for his stress psycho-biology class so after that he came back to Spanish Fork. We ate some delicious chicken enchiladas that my mom made and some homemade salsa my dad whipped up. 

Here is Kimbri in the little cubby hole underneath the stairs. My mom put batteries in the lights and it's a favorite thing of Kimbri's. She loves to push the white part of the light and it turns on and off. She loves playing with all the toys in there! And Kimbri is just the right height to walk right in and out of it.

After eating dinner we headed over to Salem to be there for when Cosette opened her mission call! It was so exciting!! Since it was way past her bed time, we put Kimbri upstairs in the pack n play in Mike and Sundee's room and she went right to sleep. We helped wash vegetables, cut up the desserts and of course taste tested the delicious salsa that Cosette made:) Some of Cosette's roommates and friends came along with their Grandma and Grandpa Stone and Grandma and Grandpa Clark and of course all the immediate family members. It was a great get together all for Cosette's very special moment in opening her mission call. 

And she got called to go to the Argentina, Resistencia mission! Spanish speaking of course! I'm so so happy for her. What a wonderful opportunity! We love Cosette!!!!

A Weekend With Enoch

Enoch spent this past weekend with us! My dad had to go to New York for a business trip so since it was over the weekend of my parents 24th anniversary my mom went with him! So we had Enoch over for the weekend and we had a blast! My parents dropped him off on their way to the airport on Friday night and he hung out with us until Sunday night. 

Friday night we mostly just got his bed all ready on the couch and went to sleep since it was already pretty late. But the next morning we got up and had french toast for breakfast! While I was getting breakfast ready, Enoch got out all of Kimbri's toys and made what he calls, "Kimbri Land" for when Kimbri woke up. I snapped this picture when later on when Kimbri woke up. She just sat there not really knowing what to do. Haha:) I think it was just because she had just woken up and had to finish waking up before being in the mood to play. But she had a blast in Kimbri Land! 

After breakfast we had a very relaxing morning! Rick got most all of his homework and stuff done Friday so that we could all just hang out together on Saturday. It's always nice to have a day like that once in a while! So Rick and Enoch watched Kung Fu Panda 2 - I kind of dozed in and out during the morning, and Kimbri enjoyed playing with toys and looking at books. It seriously was just relaxing and  enjoyable to just hang out and have a lazy day.

For lunch we decided to get pizza from Dominos, thanks to my parents. They sent money with Enoch so we could have an easy meal:) We picked up our pizza and then headed to the park! We ordered a sausage and a chicken alfredo pizza. Yum! We went to the park at the elementary school between Center Street and 200 N in Provo. They have a pretty cool playground and is very baby friendly, which was good for Kimbri cause she was able to climb all around and have tons of fun too! 

We took a big blanket and found some shade on the woodchips and ate.

Kimbri enjoying her food, as always!

Daddy crawling through the tubes with Kimbri on the playground.

Enoch going super fast down the slides
by swinging from the rail above.

All of us inside the pirate ship at the play ground.

Kimbri going down the slide with Daddy....

...and Kimbri's face right after sliding. She loved it!

The pirate ship and our blanket where we ate lunch.

We wore Kimbri out! She fell asleep right when we got home and took a nice nap. While she napped Rick, Enoch and I played some Mario Kart. Enoch brought the Wii and three controllers with him from my parents house so we could all play! 

Again, we just chilled and relaxed the rest of the afternoon. We went to our ward party at 5:30 and took some homemade cookies. They fed us sloppy joes and then everybody else brought either a salad, chips, or a dessert. It turned out really yummy. Enoch had never had a sloppy joe before! And I couldn't even get him to try one!! So since he was still hungry when we left we dropped by Macey's and used some more of the money my parents sent with him to get him some Tony's pizza, Tiki Punch, and two packs of donuts.  Haha! Not the healthiest but he sure loved it! He was convinced that I should cook BOTH of the pizzas and he assured me that he could eat them both. Well, he did pretty good and ate almost one and a half of them! And Rick and I finished off the rest. He was so stuffed that he couldn't fit too many donuts in his tummy so he saved them for Sunday. 

Enoch wanted to watch The Princess Bride later that night after eating his pizza. I think that he wants to watch that same exact movie every time he comes over! He loves it. So he watched it while Rick and I watched a movie in our bedroom. Enoch fell asleep pretty quick, well, maybe halfway through the movie. We don't really know when he fell asleep. So Rick and I went to sleep to since we had to get up early the next morning.

Sunday we got up and headed down to Salem for the Brigham City Temple Dedication around 7:45. Since it was only for those 8 years old and older, we dropped Kimbri off at Rick's parents house and went to the 9am session. Afterward we watched Megan and Cody so that the rest of their family could go to the 12pm session. It worked out perfect! Enoch seriously had a blast at the Stone's house! He's already asked me multiple times when I am taking him back to play with Nicole and Megan:) I guess we'll have to make that happen. They all seemed to play really well together. And I think Enoch is in love with their backyard! 

We had a very delightful rest of the day, visiting and getting dinner ready. Rick's Grandma and Grandpa Clark came to dinner along with his Grandpa Clark's sister and her husband and their Uncle Shawn and his friend. It was a house full of fun and it was great to be able to visit for so long! 

Enoch was worn out by the time we left. It was not even 8pm and he was practically falling asleep on the short drive from Salem to Spanish Fork. We dropped him off in SF with Nolan, Zach, Wyatt and Olivia so they could get him up the next morning for school and then we headed back to Provo. It was a fantastic weekend!!!

Kimbri Update ~ 14 Months

Wow! It has been a very busy morning. But well worth it. I have this love/hate relationship with cleaning. I often don't love doing it but what I do love is having a clean house afterward. 

So Kimbri and I got right to work this morning, her eating strawberries, bananas, and cheerios for breakfast and I eating the off brand of Grapenuts with strawberries on top. It gave us just the jump start we needed...and it was super delicious!

We started off by getting the bread mixed up in the bosch. Then we started cooking a pan of ground beef on the stove. We got some out to save for lunch and then added peppers to the other part. We got out the tortillas from the fridge and made beef with cheese burritos, wrapped them in wax paper and stored them in the freezer. Now we'll have some quick easy meals for when we need them! 

By that point we rolled out the bread dough into the pans and let them start to rise. Meanwhile, Kimbri enjoyed pulling the tupperware out of the middle drawer below our microwave and scattering them all over the kitchen, before putting some of them back in the drawer. Then it was on to the fridge where she likes to play with the magnets. She spent a while looking at books and playing with the toys in her toy drawer that pulls out from underneath the couch and eventually found the crayons. She has discovered drawing and loves it, however, she also loves to just dump the crayons out and then put them all back in her crayon box and then proceeds to dump them out again. :) Ah, the things 1 year olds love to do!

While the bread was rising in the pans I started up lunch so that it would be ready to stick in the oven right when the bread came out. We grated more cheese, cut up the pepperoni, cooked the noodles, opened the red sauce and mixed it all in with the meat that I saved out from early that morning. This is another meal that Rick really likes called pizza pasta. In fact, we all love it! And it's pretty easy and quick to make!

Kimbri often goes to the oven and likes to peak in to see what's cookin'. This picture wasn't from today's bread batch but she seriously does this every time. She loves to just stand there and look at it. She probably knows what's coming and just can't wait to get her hands on some more food. Haha :)

My little Kimbri is quite the help when it comes to being in the kitchen...mostly just a big help in eating whatever I cook, because like I've mentioned before, she loves loves loves her food!

She carried around the bag of powdered sugar the other day while I was making banana bread. (We made it for a Neuroscience lab dinner that we were going to go to Monday night, however, we showed up and it was the wrong day! It had got switched to next Monday. Quite embarrassing to show up the wrong day to Rick's professor's house! Haha.) Anyway, I had the powdered sugar out to make the frosting to go on top and she thought it was fun to try and carry it around the house. It was quite the load for her little arms to carry, so it became more of a drag:

What a big helper!

We put the bread in the oven and it got done just in time for the pizza pasta to go in the oven and be done just as Rick got home from class. He had to eat fast so that he could head on down to Payson for work at the hospital. 

After lunch Kimbri followed me around as I vacuumed the front room and the two bedrooms. Now that she's just a walkin' all over the place she's really good at just following me around as I vacuum. We finished up the few loads of laundry together. I folded and put away while Kimbri did what she does best when it comes to laundry...playing in the laundry basket! 

It has been a busy busy day! Rick is still at work and Kimbri is down for a nap, hence, my time to catch up on our family blog/journal:)

Now for a few other random pictures I wanted to include:

Kimbri knows how to point to her belly when we ask, "Where's Kimbri's belly?" It's so funny to me! She's got quite the cute, squishy belly:) When we ask her where her belly is when she has a shirt on she looks down and tries to find her belly, sometimes actually figuring out how to lift up her shirt and touch her bellybutton. It's so cute! My mom also recently taught her "ears" and "hair" so she's getting good at those, too, along with "eyes" and "nose" that she's known for quite a long time. Yet another thing that she does that makes her seem so grown up!

Here's another random picture but I just had to include it. This hole under the couch is where Kimbri's toy drawer slides in and out. This day I pulled the drawer all the way out and threw the ball inside and she of course went after it. She couldn't quite figure out how to get the ball and turn around and get out all at the same time, but it was kind of funny to watch her try:) She just loves to explore and try new things! 

Kimbri fits into 12 month and 18 month clothing, depending on the brand. Some brands seem to run larger but this pink shirt she has on in the next few pictures are from my Mamaw Sadler. When I was pregnant with Kimbri my mom and I went on a trip down to Louisiana and Texas and came home with tons of little baby girl clothes for Kimbri. Let's just say we found so pretty good deals! My Mamaw Sadler bought Kimbri a couple of 18 month shirts and she finally fits into them!! Kimbri definitely is "Mommy's Little Lady"- we get to hang out all day together, everyday! Like today, we did quite a lot of things together. She is my little buddy and I'm so glad she's my little girl! 

She has such a sweet, contagious little smile!

And I love Kimbri's eyes!

I guess I'll finally end this post with a few pictures of the sun setting. It was so much more pretty in real life, plus we were driving so they turned out kind of blurry. I was trying take a decent picture, trying to dodge the power lines and trees but it's always difficult to take a good picture in a moving car. We were on our way home from Spanish Fork and this was a beautiful sunset, I just had to try and get a picture!

Life at the Stone home is great and we are so happy. I'm so grateful for all of Rick's hard work. He is so dedicated and is such a good husband and father. We feel so blessed to have Kimbri in our lives and to have a little baby boy on his way! We can't wait to meet him. I'm getting so so anxious! If January could only come a little faster...