Allergies, Change, and Growth

Strangely enough, after 2 years of living in Arizona, Dane has developed allergies. We don't know what he's allergic too, but whatever is blooming in September seems to attack his eyes and sinuses. See he cranky eyes below:


Tara has been busy re-inventing things by employing her faithful pack-mule husband to re-arrange the furniture in the house, and by coming up with a new hair-do.


Little Zade is now 6 months old, and has just mastered sitting up by himself, and he's loving it.


He's also big enough now to wear this sweet hat we were given. Check out the grin on his face:


And for our weekly installment of Aria's funny sayings, another kid was over at our place running around like a chicken with its head cut off and Aria scolded him by saying "No running until your feet hit the street! (i.e. no running in the house, only outside)". This is a little phrase she picked up from a book we checked out from the library this week.

Grandma & Grandpa visit

Tara's parents were on their way back from celebrating their 30th anniversary and stayed with us for a few days. We had a fun time bribbing Aria to get her haircut by offering her a new Princess backpack. She has refused the last two times Tara has tried to get it cut, but the Princess backpack and then sitting on Grandma's lap and eating M&M's did the trick. We're glad we only have to wait one more month until we get to see Grandma and Grandpa again.

Kids will be kids

We went on a family picnic to Reid Park since the temperature is now dropping down (yes down) into the 90's. Unfortunately, the bugs are still out in abundance, so we had to defend the delicious home made pizza that Tara made from them.


We also had a family picture taken at church for the ward directory. The kids clearly weren't in the mood, but I still love the picture they took:


Aria also said a few funny things this week:

1) POTTY TRAINING: She already knows the alphabet song, but she's now learning to recognize each of the letters individually. She's also potty training, and this week, after going #2, she looked down and announced "look, the letter C!" We didn't expect synchronized alphabet and potty training.

2) BED TIME: Getting Aria to bed is a lengthly ordeal, that involves many requests, including 2-3 potty trips, glasses of milk, stories, hugs & kisses, multiple teeth brushing, saying prayers, requests for mom and dad to stay by the door until she falls asleep (uggghhh), etc.... Anyway, on this particular night, as Tara had finally settled down by the door to read her book, Aria made another request to have her blanket perfectly straightened across her feet. Tara let out a big inward sigh, and Aria exclaimed in a parental tone "calm down mom."

3) MARRIAGE: She announced that she wants to be married to mommy, and was disappointed to hear that mommy was already taken.

Bike Riding & Solids

Zade is now big enough that we were able to break out the Exersaucer.


Eating solid foods usually starts well...


but doesn't end that way. Zade prefers to nurse. :)


But whenever things start going downhill, all he needs are just some snuggles from mom.


He's such a cutie.


And Aria's getting so coordinated.


She can now ride her bike all by herself:


Aria said the sweetest thing yesterday. Tara had been hauling her around town on errands and said to her: "Aria, I love spending time with you. Do you like spending time with me?". Aria responded in a sweet, confident little way by saying, "That's why I'm here mom!" I still can believe a little 2 year old would say stuff like that, but she's spouting off things like that all the time.