The sweetest thing!

Happy 6 month birthday Mia!


You have become such a little girl this past month! Growing up so quickly and trying all kinds of new things. There seems to be no way of slowing you down. You are such a happy little girl--always full of smiles and giggles. Everywhere we go people stop to look at you and always comment that you are the cutest baby they have ever seen! And obviously I agree! :) We love you sooooo much and are so grateful to have you in our family!

6 month check up:
Weight 16 lbs. (46th %)
Height 26 3/4" (80th%)
Head 16 3/4" (44th%)


Here are some of the newest tricks--

Eating baby food

Sitting up like a big girl

Playing with Lily on the 24th of July

Happy 12th Anniversary to us!

Engagement picture

The beginning of our blissful (and very fruitful)
marriage . . .

1st year-- Jack was born 3 days after our 1st anniversary

2 years--five months pregnant with Ryan
3 years

4 Years

5 years--Hadley joined our family 4 mos. before our anniversary

6 years -- seven months pregnant with Morgan

7 Years

8 Years

9 Years

1o years!! Griffin was born 2 days before our anniversary

11 years--3 months pregnant with Mia

12 years!! Wahoo!

We celebrated by going downtown-- getting dinner, shopping, a movie and then spending the night away from the kids at a hotel (except for our little constant buddy--Mia). We went to The Police concert a few nights later to finish off the festivities. The concert was great fun and a little funny--Stewart Copeland looked like he was about to have a heart attack if he didn't get some oxygen and polydent to help hold his dentures in, but Sting looked great and sounded even better!

Griffin is Two!

Happy 2nd Birthday Griffin!!

2 year old checkup:

weight 29 lb. (73rd%)

height 35 1/2" (78th%)

• Griffin LOVES his "hee-hee" (blankie) and carries it all over the house. It is always a challenge to find his blanket when it is time for naps and bed.



• Griffin LOVES milk!! A babysitter once commented that it would be easier to just put a bottle nipple on top of the milk gallon and not even bother with the bottle. He calls all liquids "water"--milk, juice, water, etc. Gavin was very excited to not have to buy whole milk until I reminded him that Mia would need it in just 6 months.
  

  




• He has long curly hair--that WILL be cut soon. I promise he has had it cut but it has been a few months.




• He is polite. He even says "thank you" after his diaper is changed.




• He is one tough dude! He can really take a beating and keep on ticking (after 2 years of having Morgan for his older sis).




• His disposition is full of extremes--either very happy or in the middle of a temper tantrum. It doesn't help that we don't understand very much that comes out of his mouth.




• He refuses to call Jack by his name and will only call him "Ryan". As far as he is concerned he has two brothers named "Ryan".




• He cannot hold up two fingers so when you ask him how old he is, he responds "TWO!" and then holds up 3 fingers.

  

We celebrated by having a swimming party with all his cousins up at my parents. Griffin decided that he was now old enough to swim all over the pool with his swim jacket on and no one helping him. What a big boy!

We FINALLY did it!

We were starting to wonder if we would ever make it out on the water this summer. Gavin bought us a boat this past spring and we finally got to take the whole family out boating this past weekend. We had a family reunion with my mom's family up at East Canyon and spent the night in the condo and went boating most of the day. It wasn't an easy task with Mia being at the awkward stage of not really fitting into the life jacket but having to wear it. Luckily, she slept a lot because she was not a happy baby when she was awake. The kids had fun on the tube but we were surprised how scared Hadley and Ryan were to try anything other than the tube. I love the picture of Ryan on the tube. His first time out was not a good experience for him. He kept asking Gavin to go slower (than the 5 mph Gavin was already going) and then just wanted to get back in the boat after a few minutes of trying it. Can't you see the joy in his face? :) Good Times!!

Giddy up!

We spent an evening horseback riding last week with the Kaelberers. Jessica (our primary president) was so nice to set this all up for our families. She had her dad bring 5 horses and 1 mule to Dimple Dell Park so that the kids (and their parents) could all take turns riding all around. Morgan's response to going on the horse was, "No, thank you!" but she was willing to touch the horse's face and felt satisfied that she had had her own kind of horse experience. My boys were excited to meet Jessica's dad--Jeff Judkins (a retired pro basketball player for the Celtics and Jazz) and have him help them ride his horses. Hadley just wanted to know if she could take horse riding lessons somewhere and if we could buy a horse.

The family shot

We love our Mia!

This little stinker is almost two!

Jack gets ready for his ride and itchy eyes

There goes Ryan

Hadley enjoyed this the most! I think we have a genuine horse lover in the Seal family!

Gavin went on a longer ride with a crazy horse and then took Griffin on a little ride on a much calmer horse. Not too sure if Griffin enjoyed it, though!

SFF!

Remember the BFF thing from high school? Well Tara and I decided to be 'SFF' (Super Friends Forever) in high school since we both already had a BFF. I know, so stupid now but at the time it made perfect sense! Tara and I became great friends in 8th grade. Then a few years after high school, she moved away to Colorado, started her career, and got married, and our friendship turned into the annual Christmas card correspondence. Until a few years ago when we got savvy with emailing. It was quite exciting last year to find out we were both expecting babies (my last and her first) within days of each other. Mia is four days older than Tristan. And they got to meet for the first time last week while Tara was in town for a family reunion. It was so great to see Tara again and definitely a highlight of my week! So fun to go out to lunch with my 'super friend' and feel like no time has passed --except for our hair is not as big and Tara is no longer a blond (and we may be a little older--about 20 years)!

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Another year wiser?

I think I am just another year older this year! Happy Birthday to me! Birthdays aren't really that much fun anymore and even less fun when they fall on a Sunday. But Gavin did his best to make my birthday as fun as possible.

I woke up to this cute homemade cake . . .

We {heart} You

And these cute kids . . .

And of course the gifts . . .

I have a love/hate relationship with this ipod nano. Gavin, Jack and Ryan have all had ipods for several years and I finally decided that if my children had one than I deserved to have one of my own, too. So a few months ago, I went to Sam's Club and very hesitantly purchased myself a cute, blue, ipod nano. It wasn't an easy purchase...I felt really guilty for spending that much money on something so trivial. But the guilt lessened as I started to download my favorite music on it and loved my ipod -- At least for two weeks-- it got lost somewhere between SLC and Puerto Vallarta in May. I couldn't rationalize buying another one. So Gavin got me a replacement for my birthday. And once again I am enjoying my new ipod nano.

Happy 4th of July!

We spent the day with my family, swimming at grandma's and grandpa's, BBQ-ing, and then it was off to the park to watch the fireworks for the big kids and daddy since Griffin and Morgan don't seem to enjoy fireworks and Griffin screams hysterically when he hears them explode. The crying and Morgan's nervousness continued when they were in their beds since they could still hear the loud boom of the fireworks from their bedrooms. Maybe next year we will all be able to go watch fireworks together.

What a beautiful little baby doll!! Happy first 4th of July, Mia!

On a side note-- we forgot to put up any of our 4th of July decorations this year so Hadley and Ryan were frantically putting up some of the decorations today. Hadley brought me one of them and asked why something with Santa Claus on it was in with the 4th of July stuff. I told her that was actually Uncle Sam. She looked at it for awhile and then said, "I guess I don't remember our uncle Sam."

Sun River, Oregon

Wow! I can't believe it is already July--summer is flying and we are finally home for awhile. We just got back from a great week in Sun River, Oregon (central Oregon) with the Rushings (my sister, Heidi and her family). We decided it was worth meeting half way to be all together. Last time we did this they drove 9 hours and met us in Boise for a great camping weekend. So we felt it was only fair that this time we drove 10 hours compared to their 3 hours.


We rented a home in Sun River -- A beautiful resort area full of bike trails, pine trees, golf courses, rivers, etc. We were busy swimming, relaxing, hiking, touring, going to parks, watching movies, etc. We really had such a fun time together!


The kids did a triathlon (a first for my kids) "Splash, Peddle and Dash" . They all really LOVED this even though Jack, and about 3 other racers, got lost on the bike portion and went about 4 miles the wrong way (on a 1 mile course) and finished with the slowest time in the group!



We did lots of bike riding (by 'we', I definitely don't mean 'me'. I was home with Griffin and Mia while everyone else was out seeing beautiful waterfalls and scenery. But I am not bitter!) on the bike trails and even the highway.



We went on a day trip to Crater Lake. Amazing! I promise these pictures are NOT photoshopped on a fake background!

Crazy to think all these cousins are from just two families!

My sister, Heidi, and her family

We went to Lava Lands and drove to the top of the volcano

Jack went river rafting with the Rushings. (Hadley didn't want to go and Ryan couldn't go because he burned his leg on a 4 wheeler on our way to Oregon--whole different story.)


We did some outlet shopping at the Nike store in Bend, Oregon (a big highlight of the trip for my boys!)


Gavin and Scott ran a half marathon with only a few days of training. They did the 8-2 method . . . I'm sure you're all familiar with it! And they did GREAT!! Way to go, Gavin and Scott!

We went to the High Desert Museum and learned more about the Native American history and life in the 1800's. No one learned as much as my nephew, Layton (7), though who carried around a composition journal and wrote down as many facts and pictures that he could. It was really the cutest thing ever! This is Layton with his composition journal taking notes about a teepee.

We even had adventures with the ride home. More than the usual adventure of which child is going to be grounded for the next week because of all the pestering and fighting going on in the car. We finally crossed the state line back into Utah at about midnight and got rear ended by a drunk driver. We pulled over and got out the car just in time to watch him drive on by like nothing had happened. Luckily a police officer was a few cars down and asked if we were having car problems. We told him the story and he pulled him over, spent about 30 minutes having him play some fun games like standing on one foot, walking in a straight line, touching his nose, and breathing into something. Then the next game didn't look as fun. He was handcuffed and put into the police car while his brand new Lexus was towed away. Gavin decided to make a life lesson out of it for our children by saying loud enough for everyone (police and drunkard) to hear as he was being arrested, "Look what happens kids when you're a loser and decide to drink and drive!" We were so lucky that it was a slow traffic/construction area where the accident happened. No one was hurt and the damage to the car was minimal-- our bumper smashed, bike rack pushed in about 6 inches and Jack's front bike tire bent.

Here are some photo highlights from the trip (Thanks Heidi!) :