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Happy Fall! This has really been a strange yet nice fall thus far. We still have warmer weather and I haven't had to brake out the winter coats yet-yay! I can't believe that Halloween (and thus November) are next week-time seems to fly on the calendar, but we have had a crazy last couple of weeks at our house.

We are trying to buy a new home in Idaho Falls so that a) we have a bigger home with three bedrooms on the main floor b) are closer to Dave's work and c) we are not living on such a busy road etc. This has been what we've wanted to do and were planning on doing, but I didn't think it would happen until next year...and part of it may not. We've looked at houses and put in offers on several-one of which we are waiting to hear back on because it is a short-sale and we've put our house on the renters market which we are nervous and excited about. We think we have found a renter that will stay for a while, but because we are still waiting on the short-sale...we have no where to live-or we won't whenever our renter moves in. Thus our nerves are a little short and I am living with a mild panic 24/7. But, we feel like this is what we should be doing, so hopefully we will find somewhere to live for the foreseeable future that will be a good place for our family and one where we can enjoy the holiday season. So those of you who may ask when we are moving or what we are doing...the short answer is we don't know, but hope to find out soon. : ) Conner D. has officially gone "potty" in the toilet! He is getting to be a really good listener and a good helper. Most of the time he is a good brother, but he is still working on the whole sharing concept and being soft with Janie. At church he loves to sing the hymns-not that he really knows the words, he just likes to sing loudly and happily. He knows all his ABC's, shapes and colors (except orange which he seems to think is yellow) and is working on getting his numbers down. He's still very much into Thomas the train and Lightning McQueen, but his favorite movie right now is finding Nemo. He also likes to be a backseat driver and tells me if I am not turning the right way or if I need to pull out faster. He's a cute little cuss and he keeps us busy running after him. Janie Lu is 9 months old and she scoot/crawls/rolls everywhere. She is my good eater! This girl will eat just about anything and I'm pretty darn sure she eats more than Conner on any given day. She loves to shake her head no, clap her hands and is starting to give fives. Her new favorite word is Mama, which she says all day long and is so cute! She is still pretty little as far as percentages go she is in the 19% or lower, but is as round and chunky as ever. She has such a sweet littler personality and survived two different babysitters this week-which is saying a lot for our sweet girl!

Dave got a promotion at work and is now the assistant manager at his branch. He has been working hard on some big loans and seems to spend more time at the office, but we're proud of him for all his hard work. He also has been playing handy man around the house which I very much appreciate too! I've been busy with piano and I'm sad that I will be losing so many students when we leave-it's been a challenge for me to teach so many and it's been kind of hard on Conner and Janie, but we've all been adapting and now I guess I will start over wherever we go.

We're excited for Halloween and dressing up the kids-Janie will be a penguin and we still don't know what Conner will be yet, but something fun I hope! I will try to twist Dave's arm and get a pumpkin carved this week so that we can officially be ready for Halloween. Hope everyone else is enjoying the festivities of the season!

July is here once again! July has always been one of my favorite months-I love the 4th and the fireworks, my birthday, the 24th of July, and we generally go camping or swimming or have family reunions...or all of the above! We have had a fun month so far and are excited for more fun ahead! This year I turned 25 and I can hardly believe it. I feel like I am still 19 most of the time (the age I was when I got married) and before I know it 30 will be right around the corner! Time Flies! I generally want this month to last forever and ever, but this year it has been so hot that I'm really excited for fall so I can sleep again!

Our little miss Janie is 6+ months old...and does not crawl. She does a great job scooting on her back and sits up really well, but that girl still hates her stomach! When I took her in for her 6 month Dr. visit, the Dr. told me to just keep putting her on her stomach and she will start crawling...not the case so far. She flips onto her back within seconds 99% of the time we put her on her stomach. She loves to stand already and will even walk a few steps while holding our fingers! She is so independent and wants to move by herself and sit and eat when she wants to (no matter what my schedule may be), but she is so fun and adorable-makes the cutest little noises and parrots back sometimes. We love her so!

Mister Conner is becoming a really good brother. Now that Janie sits up on her own, Conner will come sit and play by her and give her toys she can't reach (without tipping over). In the morning the first thing he wants to do is give her hugs and kisses and whenever she cries he is always the first to get to her and says, "Whatsamatter Janie Jane?". He's super cute! He's also a good helper-he helps me vacuum, mop, dust, weed the garden, water the flowers, do laundry and most any other chore he can! He is getting to be such a big boy...now we just need him potty trained! (Any volunteers?) : )



Dave has been busy at the Bank-he's been the traveling officer as of late since everyone has days off due to summer vacations so he has been all over the place recently. I've been doing piano lessons and primary still. We've had a new niece and nephew born and it sounds like more are to come-love these new little ones and are looking forward to meeting them soon!

So I've obviously been slacking on blog upkeep, but hopefully this post will rectify that a little. First off, our little Janie is 4 months old!! We can hardly believe it-she's sprouting like a weed and is such a beautiful little girl. She rolled over today for the first time...and of course I missed it. That's what happens when you turn your back for ten seconds!! Actually I am slightly amazed that she did roll over-not because she's not a mover, because she is. But mostly because she abhors being on her stomach!! She just hates it so she is almost never on her tummy. I guess that she really won't be now that she's figured out how to flip over. : ) Janie would make a good worm-she slithers on her back all over the floor, bed, or couch (scary!!) to be able to look at whatever she wants instead of just where I put her. She's super alert and loves to have Conner laugh and smile at her. She is also tall-near the 80% in height so maybe she is going to take after her grandpas and tower over her parents.

Conner is getting bigger and becoming a better helper everyday. He loves to help with Janie and is a little copy cat. He loves to ride in "Dadda's car", go outside, and eat apples. He's also a pretty good little song bird with twinkle twinkle little star, abc's, and Jesus wants me for a sunbeam for his favorite songs (not to mention ya ya rolly, and let's go swimming). He's getting to be a pretty good little talker as well which is good and bad. I'm finding out just how often I say "shhh" or "stop it" among other things. Conner is pretty much obsessed with wearing his monkey pj's. If I let him he would literally wear them 24/7. But! The good thing is that he has started to take naps again (hallelujah!) because he wants to wear his jammies during his nap. So I'm pretty happy to wash the same jammies all through the week so he will take naps. : ) Conner also loves to color and especially paint...in his hair and on his face. Good thing he's cute.

We've been talking a lot about going potty in the toilet, but it's pretty much all talk. He has asked to sit on the potty once and got pretty scared and nearly cried when I put him on. He hasn't asked again since,but frequently tells Janie that her poops are yucky and that she needs to go potty in the toilet. : )

We've been really enjoying Spring this year-I mean we're actually experiencing it here in Idaho which is a pretty rare occasion. We planted the garden a couple of weeks ago and we're hoping that everything will grow well even with the few cold nights we've had lately. We were able to see Dave's parents and two sisters last week which was really fun. Conner loved playing with his cousins and it was super fun to see Amy J with Janie. We also got to go and see my sister in Tooele, UT last weekend when they blessed their little girl Elsie Jane and we have a nephew getting baptized this coming weekend...summer's busyness is on the way! We replaced/fixed our mailbox for the fourth time since living in Rigby and quite frankly its getting be somewhat of a joke at our house. We don't know why our mailbox is cursed, but it's been hit by cyclists and looked like someone took a baseball bat to it. The plows of course do a number on it and our poor mail lady keeps threatening to not deliver mail due to the fact that it swings like a pendulum on a pole. : ) Good thing Dave is a good handy man and puts up with it and me. Hope everyone is doing well!

The Holidays came and went fairly quickly at our house, though some days were longer than others! For Thanksgiving we went up to my parents house in Victor and had tons of good food, good company, and good football. Thanksgiving is extra special to me since Dave proposed on Thanksgiving Day 5 years ago, so I love remember that really, really, really cold and wonderful day. : ) After dinner and football we headed back to Rigby since Black Friday was starting at 10:00 p.m. that night. We put Conner to bed and Dave went off to the stores and didn't come back until after 5:00 a.m. Man was I glad I had gone to bed around 1:00 instead of waiting up for him! I decided that I would go around 8 :00 am. to see what the stores had left, but wound up with a flat tire a few miles outside of Rigby and my poor sleep-deprived husband had to wake up and rescue me. So even my car got presents (two actually) that weekend.

December was a busy but fun month for us between parties, family get togethers and wondering when Janie was going to make her appearance. Dave's parents came the third week of December for Abby and Steven's graduation and it was really fun to spend some time with them. My sister-in-laws threw a baby shower for me that same weekend which was great because Dave's mom and sister were able to come as well as those from my family. I even had the opportunity to talk in church that weekend, so it was for sure a busy one! The next weekend was Christmas Eve and we had decided to stay home for the first time since we've been married. It was a little strange not to have family to play games with and watch movies, but we did a pretty good job with just the three of us. Christmas morning was great except that Conner had a mini melt down between wanting to play with everything and lack of sleep, but it could have been much worse. : ) That morning I had a feeling that it would be our last weekend as a family of three, but since I hadn't dilated at all I had my doubts.

The day after Christmas we took down our tree and all our Christmas decorations, put a bed up in Conner's room and cleaned out the closet so that we had a place to put Janie's stuff. I still wasn't dilated and I hate washing clothes and getting too many things ready for a baby who isn't come soon so I put it off and put it off and Thursday night I had contractions that I could not sleep through for a good 5 hours or so. I spent the night praying that I wouldn't go into labor yet since nothing was ready-no bag packed for Conner, or me or her or anything-plus we were getting new insurance on January first which was still three days away. The contractions did slow down but never went away all together. I spent all Friday getting everything ready so we could go to the hospital if needed and Friday night I spent the entire night up with back labor. Saturday we went to my family's New Years Eve party and just prayed that I could make it until midnight to go to the hospital...which we did...at about 12:10 a.m. Sunday morning we checked into the emergency room and they admitted me at 1:30. Almost 12 hours later at 1:27 p.m. Janie was born, 6 lb.'s 15 oz. and 19 inches long. We are so grateful our little girl is here and healthy and that Conner-who was NOT thrilled the first couple of days we brought her home-has decided it's fun to have "baby Janie" around.

Conner giving kisses to Kaiya, his little friend Conference weekend.

Conner's "New Chair"

Happy Halloween! October was a full month for us! Dave put insulation in our attic the first weekend after which we watched General Conference which was great. The next Monday we pulled everything out of our garden which was a good thing since our first snowfall was that Wednesday, but we're grateful that it melted and we haven't had our friend snow to visit us again...yet...(knock on wood). We've all taken turns with colds or fevers and unfortunately I think those are cycling back through again, but I guess it's just that time of year! We've had mostly nice weather which has been great since Conner still LOVES to be outside-especially with the kittens. Piper had another litter of kittens, but only three survived. Conner adores these three little kittens: Tiger(who I call fat cat since he's about twice the size of the other two), Patches who is a calico cat like her mom, and C.C. (Conner's Cat as Dave calls him). It's so fun just watch Conner with the kittens and they are surprisingly tolerant of him and all his antics with them. : )Since it's fall Conner and I made sugar cookies and decorated them Halloween style. Conner was the King of the Rolling pin-that boy would NOT allow me to touch the rolling pin without a major fuss! I'm glad he had fun, but it's so much more work to let him help than to just do it myself-of course. : )



Rolling Pin King!

Trying to eat the cookies instead of deliver them.


About a week and a half ago my grandpa past away at the age of 94, exactly seven months after my grandma past away in March. We had his funeral last Saturday up in Victor which was really nice-the weather was beautiful and the funeral and graveside were especially nice. It was a good thing for him to go, but hard for everyone to say goodbye. It was really neat to remember him and the exemplary life he lived. Now I only have one grandparent-my mom's mom and we're really grateful for her and hope she'll be with us for a long time yet!(And Nan too!)





Cutest Spider Ever!

We of course celebrated Halloween on Monday and it was super fun! It's amazing how much more we can do now that Conner is old enough to do a lot of things! We dressed him in his cute Halloween outfit during the day, put his costume on at night (he was a spider), took him to trunk-or-treat, carved our jack-o-lantern, and finished out the night with caramel apples! He was so cute and wanted to help with everything-especially handling the candy! We just really enjoy being parents to our super cute little guy-and are really excited to have our little girl here in about two months. So grateful for so many things and so many wonderful people in our lives! Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and thanks for all you do!

We've had a lot of fun in the last two month and are excited for another month of summer fun in August! Probably most exciting was our trip to Oregon and Washington coast. It was a short trip, but we got some great pictures and had a blast.

We worked our way up Oregon catching water falls right off the road that were gorgeous! It was raining the first two days there, but it didn't really dampen the excitement...I mean, you have to expect a lot a rain for everything to be sooo green!

The only bad part about the rain/clouds was when we went to Mt. St. Helens and couldn't see the peak, but we still had fun walking around and enjoying the visitor's center.

After St. Helens we drove up to Washington (to say Dave's been there) and to go across the four mile bridge. This bridge is scary to go across because there is nothing but water-reminded me of going to Galveston, but longer.

A few miles up the coast line we stopped at a Lewis and Clark fort and further up a lighthouse with a beautiful view out to the ocean.

We headed back towards Oregon that night and stayed at Seaside which is a fun little touristy town, (but our destination was Cannon Beach-we just stayed in Seaside to save $40 for our hotel. : ) got up in the morning and headed to Cannon Beach.

This is the main place Dave wanted to come because he loves the pictures of the sea stacks and there is a great big one called haystack at Cannon Beach. We were thrilled that it didn't rain that day and was plenty warm with a nice breeze coming off the ocean.

We ate some delicious sea food-fish and chips and Conner absolutely LOVED the beach! He loved playing in the sand, eating the sand, and especially enjoyed the waves rolling onto the beach.

He was soaked by the time we left, but it was a blast just watch him. He would also wave to the other people on the beach and was very sociable which was way cute.

On the way home we stopped at the Tillamook cheese factory to watch how the cheese is made and packaged and of course to sample the cheese and ice cream there. Our last day we spend swimming in the hotel (another thing Conner loves) and driving the eight plus hours back home.

That same week was the Sowards Reunion which was a lot of fun! It was great to see everyone and was nice that we didn't have to drive a lot after just getting back from the coast. July just flew by with all of the get togethers, weddings, holidays, work and another reunion coming up this week. Dave was a trooper and helped my family get some hay hauled since one of my brothers injured his knee and couldn't help out, and he's always so much help with Conner. He spoiled me on my birthday and I just love him so much! I'm so lucky to have him and Conner-love my boys!!