One on OneOne-OneOne-OneOne!

Lily had a birthday! She turned 1 on 11-11-11!  Wow, it has been an amazing year since we welcomed our little Lily Joy in our lives.
4:49 am 11/11/10 she arrived:

to her birthday one year later, 11/11/11:

We sure do our love our little Lily.  She has brought so much joy into our life.

We spent the day as a family (Brian gets Veteran's Day off, so he will always have her birthday off).  We would have loved to go to the zoo, but since it was cold we went to the Aerospace Museum.  We hung out alot in the discovery center where the kids got to wear pilot suits and sit in cockpits of planes and even "fly" the airplane.  It was really  fun. 

 Then we came home, had naps and then had birthday dinner and celebration.

We had Lily open her presents first:

She absolutely loves dogs.  Her first real word was "da" for dog.  As you can tell she is pretty happy about this present.

Then on to cake.  See how bad of parents we are:

don't worry she is ok, no marks.  But we sure felt bad.  We tried to do a do-over but she was too scared to do it.

She gobbled up the cake.  She takes after her daddy that way. 

Overall, we think Lily had a great birthday.

Some little tid bits about Lily:

*Has started to stand up from sitting in the middle of room

*Can take 1-2 steps, but very wobbly (it won't be long before she walks!)

*Her first word was "da" for dog

*Absolutely loves dogs of any kind

*Loves to suck her thumb and have her soft blanky

*Does like to play with Avery for the most part

*Loves frozen peas (cooked) but hates frozen carrots.  She will just pick them all out and throw them over the side of her booster chair.

*Loves water.  She tries to drink or put her face in water in the bathtub.

*Has awesome red hair (yes, we just stole her from the nursery at the hospital, we aren't exactly sure where she gets the color from, maybe Brian's mom?)

*loves to dance (she does this little hip moving thing whenever she hears music)

*loves eating food off the floor (we think she purposely throws food on the floor at dinner so she has some for later)

We are a Happy Family!

 We finally were able to get some family pictures done.  Its a little hard doing it with the self timer and getting the kids to look at the camera. Thank goodness for photoshop :-)  

A Big Kid Now!

Avery turned 3 years old on Tuesday!  It was such a fun day.  We woke up early (about 7:30 which is actually pretty late for Avery) and did the traditional look for your presents.  Well what did Avery find in the laundry room?  A big kid bike!   We really had no clue what to get him for his birthday, but he has been talking about riding a big kid bike since he rode on his cousins a few weeks ago.  So we got him a bike, and boy does he love it!  He rode it all morning and then wanted to ride it at night too!

  It was Avery's Grandpa Downs birthday on Tuesday too!  And his cousin Kylers five days earlier.  We decided to all go down to the Aquarium in Sandy.  It was so much fun!  We got to touch a manta-ray and see penguins get fed.  Fish are amazing!  We went to Chuckie Cheese for dinner and all Avery wanted to do was ride the truck ride.

 

  Then we came back to our house for cake & ice cream.  Guess what kind of cake?  He has been talking about this for 2 months now:

A "Pink Tiger Cake."   Where he got that idea we have no idea, but that is what he wanted, so we made it for him.  Its a little girly but he loved it all the same.  (he really likes pink lately, but trust us, he is ALL boy in every other way).
 We can't believe Ave is so big!  He seems so much older already- he is growing up too fast!   We sure do love him though!

Summer of '11'

Here are a few of the things we did over the summer.  (Some of the stuff is repeats and it may be hard to read, but if you click on the picture it will make it bigger)

Just Some Fun Pictures!

Just thought we would post a few pictures...

Little Musicians

What's more fun than a bunch of pots, bowls and kitchen utensils used for playing some sweet music.  Lily was joining in on the fun until she discovered the "drumsticks" tasted better than they sounded.  Its always so much to play with your imagination!

So here are a few of our favorite songs (they are the sweet sesame street versions)

This one (1, 2, 3, 4) is by far Avery's favorite.   he asks us to sing the "penguin one"

Lily Gone Mobile!

Little Swimmers

Here we are enjoying some swimming at Downata Hot Springs.  We love the warm warm water, but most of all, we love visiting with Amanda's family.  Avery is really starting to be a little fish, though he can be timid at times.   We tried to take him down the big hydrotube slides, but he refused to (even though he kept asking to go).   Lily absolutely loves splashing around as you can tell by the look on her face.

A "Lott of Fun": Lott Reunion 2011

Two years have already gone by since we last went to a Lott Reunion (they do it every other year!).  This year it was over Memorial Day weekend in Montana (ofcourse!).  Avery loved that there were motorbikes to ride and always wanted to go to the "Ranch House" because that is where the "motorcycles" were.  It was a bit chilly, but still a blast.  We can't believe how much the Lott side of the family is growing!  

Aerospace Museum

We finally were able to make it to the Hill Aerospace Museum (this was way back in May though!).  We tried once before but ended up going 15 minutes before closing, so we didn't go in.  We were still close to closing the next time but decided to go in and see what we could (since its free!).  We are definitely going to visit there again.  Avery loved it and tried to stay when we were getting ready to leave.  Airplanes are so much fun!  Brian finally was able to see the plane he is working on as his job, the F-16.  Its amazing to us what they have been able to do with airplanes over the years.

Heritage Days!

We like how the community feels here.  There was a fun week full of community events for Heritage Days.  There was a fishing derby, "Clinton Idol," a carnival, a movie in the park, vendor booths, free concert, a parade and great fireworks!  It was really fun to live within walking distance!  We only wish it hadn't been so hot!

Red Rover, Red Rover...

...send Avery right over!  Here are the pictures from Amanda's mom's side of the family reunion. Avery had so much playing in the sun with his cousins (this is back in May when all it did was rain, rain, rain!  It was great to catch up with the rest of the family and to see how much the Owen side has grown!

College Graduates!

Here's a few pictures from the Nursing Pinning Ceremony for Amanda.  It was a couple months after we graduated (since they only do it in the spring and not the winter).

Easter 2011 (its only a couple months late...)

Well here are our adventures for this last Easter.  It was a really good one, filled with a ton of eggs, candy and fun.
We first went to the Easter Egg Hunt here at the park.  That was crazy!  Once the siren blew for it to began, the eggs were cleared out in less than a minute!  We were able to get alot of pictures since it was so crowded on the searching field.
We colored eggs as a family.  Avery thought that was pretty cool, and he only dropped a couple of eggs.  He would use the little "glove" to pick up the eggs but then use the ungloved hand to put the egg into the egg carton, so he got pretty messy.
Easter Morning was fun, but it sure took Avery a long time to pick up all the eggs.  He really enjoyed it though, and as the pictures show, he lined up all his eggs in a row.  Lily was awake but wasn't too interested.
We headed to Amanda's parents house for dinner and another egg hunt.  All Avery wanted to do was play on the trampoline, but we finally convinced him to search for his Easter basket and eggs.  We took family pictures and had a great time.