Christmas Card photo shoot

Pictures from times past

For my sister's for graduation I made her a quilt. It turned out so cute. Here is the finished product. Since I bought my sewing machine I have wanted to try to the stippling settings it has. It took a long time to get it all quilted but I love how it turned out.

Here is a close up of the stippling.

This fall we had a combined Relief Society and Young Women's acitivity with a fairy tale theme. We all dressed up as princesses-even Belle. She was a fairy princess. Tiffany made a onesie with some bling on it. We took some old necklaces from my grandma's junk jewelry and glued them on the onesie. Than we added a cute lace flower. Of course the outfit was not complete without a tutu and wand.

What we have been up to

The moment everyone has been waiting for is here-a blog update.
I put this on Belle's head once and she thought it was funny and kept doing it.

Belle is crawling all over the place and standing up on everything she can get her hands on.

Her hair is finally getting long enough for a ponytail! Here is her first ever ponytail. She looks so big in this picture! At her 9 month checkup she was 18 lbs 11 oz. She is still in the 10% for height (don't remember the measurement) and she has moved up to the 40% for weight (she is a great eater!). She has 2 teeth on the bottom and we are thinking another tooth is going to poke through soon.

We have also been spending a bunch of time with family lately. My dad's younger sister and all her family came from Arizona for Halloween weekend. It was so fun to see all of them and show them life in the country. We also got to participate in the famous Ford Halloween/Cider extravaganza (my father's older sister and her family). They all come to Quincy and have a big cider pressing party followed by a Halloween party-complete with games and a spook alley. Belle didn't even cry in the spook alley-such a brave girl. Just this last weekend all of Jarod's family came to Quincy do enjoy the farm life as well: shooting, apples, pressing cider, and four wheelers of course. We loved having everyone here and hope it becomes an annual thing!

Cute pics

Belle loves her daddy. She can't get enough of Jarod and cries when he puts her down and leaves for work.

She can be so smiley and giggly.

The bunny slippers crack me up.

Halloween!

For Halloween we were a bear family (Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and baby bear). Here is Belle modeling a pair of bear ears I made for Jarod and me.

She did not like the hood of her costume when I first put it on.

She eventually warmed up. She was so cute and cuddly in this little costume.

Hope's 2nd Birthday

It's hard to believe that my little baby would have been 2 years old. I still think about her every second of every day and miss her more and more. She would have been so different now than the baby in our pictures.

The little half green half orange gourd was our favorite.

Grandma sharing cupcakes with Belle (she kind of liked it)

Tiffy this is for you!

Moving and Hunting

So we have moved across the street from my parents into my grandparents old house. It's a 3 bedroom 3 bath house with about 2000 square feet on the main floor and a full unfinished basement. We are loving all the space. Belle finally has her own room which is nice and I have a sewing room. Jarod has a garage for all his tools and motorcycle parts. Its still really crazy with boxes everywhere but it is slowly getting there. There are a good number of things that need to be fixed up and redone but that will take time. One of the first projects to be done is working on the landscaping. Jarod has been working on the sprinklers for several weekends trying to get them in working order-he is almost done. Almost all of the shrubs and plants around the house are going to be ripped out. They have just gotten so over grown and huge that you can't even see the house and we can hardly see out the windows.

A couple of mornings ago Jarod woke up at 6 am to answer the door. He came back to bed and I asked him what he was doing and he said he heard someone knocking. Well about an hour or so later we hear the knocking on the back of the house and come to the conclusion that it must be a woodpecker. Jarod puts on a bathrobe and grabs his shotgun. A few minutes go by and I hear a gunshot followed by a yell of delight. He got the woodpecker on the first shot. (We think it was a pair though so more hunting may be in order). The woodpecker was really colorful and big (we think it was a male and his mate is still hanging around-I heard knocking early yesterday morning...)

Saturday was Farmer-Consumer Awareness Day in Quincy (that is our town festival). Here is Jarod and Belle at the parade. We say a lot of great tractors and farm equipment and there was even a group of Latin Horse riders that make their horses dance to music-they were very entertaining. Belle was so tired for a lot of the parade that she didn't know quite what to think. At the very end were the fire trucks blowing their horns and sirens and Belle got the saddest face. I had to walk away with her to get her to calm down. After the parade we enjoyed the booths, the quilt show, and some yummy BBQ-compliments of my father's Rotary Club. It was perfect weather for the day and we sure had fun.

Cannin' & Jammin'

My parents have 3 peach trees in their backyard and so we have been canning and making jam like crazy.

We made 8 quarts of freezer jam. We froze three gallon bags of peaches.

And canned 27 quarts of peaches. Nothing like a big project to break in your new kitchen.

Little swimmin' Belle

This was taken a while ago but Belle was so cute. Tiffany was in a play and had bright red lipstick on and gave Belle a good smooch on the cheek.

Here are a couple of pictures of Belle at Moses Lake. We went boating as a family a couple of times and Belle was so cute in her little swimsuit. She hated being in her floaty the first time but she warmed up to it pretty quick-maybe because we played on the ground with her in it and not in the water. At our ward pioneer day picnic she loved being in the floaty in the water so it was finally a success.

Baby Shower

A while ago I threw a baby shower for my friend Marlys Downs, she was having twins (Hesston and Iris) and it was such a fun time. She has since had the babies and they are so cute!

Here is everyone gathered around and eating. She got some really fun and cute things.

The theme was "Two Peas in a Pod" and we had cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. (The peas and pods were made out of laffy taffys)

We had some yummy things-California Citrus Salad (thanks for my sister-in-law Kellie!), rolls, meats, cheese, spinach dip, crackers, veggies and dip, fruit, and yummy punch.

We made a ton of invitations (I enlisted the help of my family to help put them together-Thanks everyone!) We made them shaped like baby onesies.

Jarod Got A Job!!!

Jarod started his new job today. We are excited for it. He will be the marketing coordinator at Northland Communications in Moses Lake (so that means we are staying in Quincy!). This is what Jarod has been looking for. He will help direct their marketing efforts, work on market research, and also train and supervise their sales team. He is so excited to finally have a job doing what he wants to do and what his degree is in. He worked so hard and for so long to find a job like this and we can hardly contain our excitement. Jarod has also decided to pursue his MBA. He is working on applying to WSU and studying for his GMAT exam that he is taking next month.

Here is Belle with Jarod on her first 4-wheeler ride. As you can see she isn't that impressed.

More pictures

Belle is getting so big lately. At her 4 month appt. she was 12 lbs 2.5 oz and 23 in long. She is now in the 25 percentile for weight so she is getting bigger! She rolls all over to find toys or whatever else may be nearby. She can laugh and giggle like crazy-she thinks her parents are the funniest people ever. Here she is with Grandpa Carl. They had matching outfits for church so we took some pictures. I made her the little purple dress and flower a couple weeks ago (its really a tank top for summer but it was a little long so she wore it as a dress first). I made a matching flower for me too that I wore on my purple sweater.

Tiffany was the Valedictorian for Quincy this year (there were actually 3 kids that all were Co-Valedictorian). She gave a great speech at graduation. She is off to BYU in Utah this fall and we are so sad she is leaving :(