Halloween and Beyond

Renae ate her first fruit yesterday: the banana!
Yummy banana... Shonda was kind enough to share :)

Look what we found while raking the leaves: Renae!

Can you see her?

What about now?

This is Logan Hendricks who lives below us. Are they not the cutest things you have ever seen?

Renae got hungry. So she ate her mom's nose.

They came outside to see me workin'.

Here is a close up.

I was playing with Renae and thought she looked better this way :)

This is us as a Triple Combination for Halloween!

My Baby is Growing Up

I'm posting lots of pictures of my girl.

These first two are from August. We were trying to get a good picture of her smile and we finally got one when her daddy came to distract her from the camera. She sure likes her daddy.

This picture shows our little thumbsucker. She doesn't do it often now, but the first couple days after she discovered her thumb, she thought it was the best thing ever.

Helping mommy crochet (just last week)

As promised--the rolling over pictures:

after
in process

"i can eat my toes and fingers"

We had a cold spell in Rexburg and tried out the winter suit.
She didn't really like it.




But she liked the snow that came the next week. Look at that smile.

The smile is gone, but the lighting is a little better.

Sorry I didn't rotate the next two. And now my camera's second set of batteries are dead so I can't fix it.

She's eating rice cereal!

Some of it made it to her mouth, but most of it is on her face and bib.

Look! Renae can sit all by herself!

She is such a sweet, happy girl. We love having her around :)

Old Pictures

Both of my babies are sleeping so I thought now would be a good time to blog. I say both because we're watching my friend's son this afternoon and both Skyler and Renae are napping at the moment. I was expecting to have a busy afternoon, so this is a bonus. We'll see how much I get done before one of them wakes up.

This is not a picture of right now but she's doing something similar.

This is from a couple months ago, but I thought it was a nice picture of her.

We went to New Mexico to visit Bryce's family back at the end of July. We stopped at Lara's on the way.

Here are some cute cousins holding hands.

Here are some more cute cousins.

And this is my cute husband. He tried out a goatee on the trip.

He probably won't ever do it again (or at least not often) but it was fun to see.

The Roller

Hey Everybody!

Today Renae progressed one more step forward toward becoming a toddler! Today she rolled from her back to her tummy. It was most incredible.
I fed her at about 9 am or so. After she finished I held onto her for about one and a half episodes of Avatar: the last air bender. Thinking that she would be just as happy on the ground I set her down.
I looked over at her occasionally to make sure she was still happy and doing well. She has been rolling side to side for some time now. When I looked at her again, she was all the way over. Only her left arm was still under her.
I helped her remove it from under her. Renae enjoyed some tummy time. When Shonda came home she did not do it for her. Just about 30 minutes ago she did it again. Only this time she got her arm out. She laid on her tummy content as could be.
I am so happy for this day. I will have pictures of her rolling over up soon. I love you all and hope this update reaches you!

Fourth of July

We spent the Fourth of July with Uncle Leonard's family and Amber's family in Idaho Falls. We had a good time and Renae even enjoyed watching the fireworks for the first 10 minutes or so. Here she is in her cute Independence Day outfit including the "firework" flower that Shannon gave to us. Thanks, Shannon. The firework flower spent most of the day in Lydia's hair once we arrived at the park because she loved it.

Renae's blessing day

On June 28, Craig gave Renae a name and a blessing in church. So many of our family were able to join us for the occasion. It was so good to see everyone. And of course Renae was adorable.

Everyone who was there except Steve Thompson who took the pictures. He saved our camera for last so Renae was not happy in our pictures.

Isn't she beautiful? I just love her face in these two pictures.

Our family.
Notice the booties that Nana Hayes made and the dress made by Grandma Petersen.

My first attempt to post pictures

I've never posted pictures before so I don't know how to format or place them where I want them. I just want to share with everyone how great little Renae is doing. She has a lot of happy awake time during the days now. It's so fun. She's smiling and more interested in her surroundings. And she is sleeping really well at night. She usually has some sad time between 9 and 11 or so, but once she gets to sleep, she'll sleep for 4+ hours, wake once for food, and then go right back to sleep when she's done eating. It's so nice to feel a bit more rested when the day begins.

One of my many failed attempts to catch her smile on camera.

This is Renae after her bath yesterday.
Notice her curly wet hair. The look on her face is the transition between crying because she didn't like her bath and "oh, what's that cool shiny thing my mom is holding?"

This is Renae "playing" with her toys. She's interested in them, but she doesn't do much with them yet. She gets them swinging by kicking her legs to make her chair rock. It's not a great video, but it shows how much cuter she is in motion than in the still pictures.

Pictures of Renae

Last week, Renae's Aunt Meggan came up to take pictures of her. She posted some of them on her blog.

Not only does Meggan create magical pictures, she had the magic touch with Renae. No matter how sad Renae was, she would calm down and fall asleep in Auntie Meggan's arms. (I'd post a picture but I'm not sure where the cord to my camera is.)

My Renae-nae

~~~We Did It! Well, Shonda did most of it but I certainly did my part. She was such a trooper. She did really good at not getting angry or upset. I am so proud of her.
~~~At 3 am thursday morning, Shonda's water broke. We spent the next hour at home before going to the hospital.
~~~We then spent the next 20 hours in labor. After that amount of time and no more progression than a 9, we decided that a cesarian would be best. Shonda went in at about 11 pm that night to get ready.
~~~Renae D"Ann Hayes was born May 1 at 12:01 am. She weighed 8 lbs. 11 oz. She is 20 inches long.
~~~We stayed in the hospital from thursday till sunday. We were released into the wild at 3 pm today. We are so happy to have this little cutie be a part of our family. We hope that all of you enjoy these photo's of our newest member!

Shonda: The 7th Month

Hello Family & Friends! Shonda is getting really big. Two days ago we were at the Hendricks (they live below us) with some of their friends and I was asked how far along we are. I told them 9 weeks left to find out later that I was dead wrong. We have 7 weeks to go. Thanks to Shonda for correcting me. Where would I be without her? (that was a rhetorical question by the way)

Life has been really good up here in Rexburg. School is going well for me and Shonda has been handling busy season reasonably well. She is a good little trooper. This semester has been nice because even though Shonda works alot, I still have time a few days a week to go have lunch with her at work. Next semester will be a doozy but both Shonda and I are looking forward to a new baby and some good challenges.

The snow is melting and hopefully before Renae comes sprummer will come (sprummer is spring/summer together). We dont really get a spring here. Uncle Leonard in his Doctrine and Covenants class shared that here in Idaho, spring is in our hearts.

Christmas: The Good Life

This Christmas we went to the sunny state of California! Where we were entertained by my parents, siblings, and neices and nephew. Everyone could make it except for the Martinson clan who stayed in North Carolina for Christmas. We started our Christmas celebrations on Monday the 22nd during our family home evening. Since we knew that we would be traveling by Bird, we did not want to lug our presents to California and back. So we opened them before we left. The Arringtons gave us a game called Ingenious and a box of fruit leather. I gave Shonda three Veggie Tales movies and Three Josh Turner CD's. Shonda gave me Neo's overshoes, a classic game controller for the Wii, and a how-to-play the piano book. Santa sent a gift to us too, but it came after the Holidays. More to come later on that subject.

The drive down to Salt Lake was a blessing we could not have had any other day. We had a few feet of snow fall over the weekend before Christmas and continued on Monday. Tuesday was a clear and sunny day. We hit very little snow on the way down and we were praising God all the day long. Our flight was uneventful except for the occasional squaking of our Bird. My dad and older brother, Donnie picked Shonda and I up from the Airport. As we drove home, we laughed an incredible amount. I dont think there was a moment wasted with no laughing.

We spent Christmas Eve at Carrie's house playing games and watching Jackson. Most of the family wanted to see the movie, Desperaux but Shonda and I decided against it. Instead we had the opportunity to watch my nephew Jackson and played board games with Meggan. It was loads of fun. After everyone returned from the movie we ate and designed Christmas cookies for Santa. I created an evil Mickey with the body of a snowman. It was awesome! We traveled back to the Grandparents crib and played Harry Potter scene it. Which I did poorly at, because lets face it: who remembers all that stuff anyway?

The best part of our trip down was Christmas morning. We did all the usual things, open stockings, gifts, and eat alot of food. But there were special moments that I want to focus upon that created truly wonderful memories.

The first story begins right after we wake up and get ready to open stockings. In my family it is tradition that we either go oldest to youngest or in this case, youngest to oldest. After all the nieces and nephews lined up Bobby came next and then me. Shonda, who in age would come after all my siblings and their spouses but before my parents was staying behind to be true to tradition(Christie and her family was not present). My mom decided at that moment, that spouses should just stick together. So Shonda got to come to the front with me.

The Second would be when Shonda dumped out her stocking. Our niece, Mandy was so amazed that Santa had given us nuts and asked if she could have one. Of course we said yes and then she aksed "how do I get this open?" (It was a walnut). The next thing that happened could not have been better planned. Jake said "here, I'll open it for you." He then proceeded to place the nut on the carpet and with incredible skill cracked the nut open by smashing it with his fist. Mandy was much excited and I was simply stunned.

Lastly, opening presents with the kids was such a blast. We truly had a wonderful time watching them open their gifts and get so excited for my little ponies and a firetruck and nerf guns galore! *honestly, the married kids had a lot more fun with the nerf guns than the little ones did* After all the presents, the much awaited Christmas dinner came upon us and we enjoyed. Christmas is after all about sharing and eating. And then perhaps... A little more eating!