four down...one more to go!

Good News! Today I finished the last of my finals for the semester! It feels so great to have made it this far and still be somewhat on top of things. I get one week off and then its on to my last semester of nursing school! I cant wait to be done!

the happenings of kate

Little miss Kate is becoming more and more fun every day! She has started talking all the time! and using full sentences too, its hilarious. Her newest favorite song to sing to me is "winkle winkle (little star)" I have no idea where she even learned this, but its cute!

Last week my sister in law Amber and my niece Avery came down from Arizona to visit and all of the cousins went to the zoo, it was a blast!

Another one of Kates favorite things is dressing up, she loves to wear my earrings... but she wont ever wear the ones I buy for her- go figure.

Here is Kate sporting the chinese dress. How cute!

wedding day!

Abby and Dallin officially got married a week ago today, August 22, 2009 in the Manti temple. The sealing was beautiful! It was such a nice day. I unfortunately did not take alot of picutres, It was quite the busy day. After the sealing they had a very nice luncheon in Provo and then had their reception at the new sculpture garden at the springville art museum. It was amazing, and even better- coldstone catered it. here are some of her pre-wedding pictures and there are more to come :)

dodo

Chad and I have nearly gone insane during the last month, Kate is obsessed with "Dodo" aka-Dora the Explorer. All we hear the entire day is "I want Dodo" to the point of tantrums and screaming until someone gives in and turns on dodo. We have made good use of tivo by recording about four episodes, which I have memorized within a matter of days! Its amazing that she will sit and watch the same episode so many times! But I have to admit, although I sound like a really irresponsible parent it is an amazing babysitter when I need to get my homework done. So this week I just cant stand it one more time so I have informed Kate that dodo is on vacation and she will be out of town for a long long time.... We will see how long I can keep this going for!Besides the babysitting qualities that Dora offers, it is also very funny sometimes. Kate will yell "map" and "backpack" randomly, we haven't quite picked up the spanish yet though. But my favorite is when swiper the fox comes on she instantly yell "Oh Man!" but it comes out "Oh Mean!!!" and she makes little fists while she yells it! So if you run into Kate anytime soon, tell her swiper no swiping and she will yell at you "oh mean!"

july 24th...one month later

Better late than never... here are some pics from our 24th of July celebration. I had the day off school and we got to stay with my family in a little place called Mayfield (it is between Manti and Gunnison). My grandparents have a cute little summer home and alot of the cousins came down to celebrate. Mayfield has a fun little parade with alot of candy! Kate was in heaven!

We were lucky enough to eat at Mom's Cafe twice while we were down there. It is a cute little cafe in Salina Utah but is actually pretty famous, they have been in national geographic and some other magazines featuring them, its almost 100 years old but soo yummy!

On our way to Mayfield we stopped at the cheese factory in Beaver Utah and enjoyed some ice cream. I loved this picture of Kate!

What a cute girl!!! Kate is also officially obsessed with Dora bandaids (note the large bandaid covering her whole forehead. I think it just makes her feel better to be covered in bandaids)

big news!

My little sister Abby is officially all grown up and is getting married! She got engaged about a week ago and we are super excited. She waited so patiently for Dallin to get back from his mission in Taiwan and now its time to get married :) Their date is August 22nd. Its coming up!!

Here is her ring- so pretty!

Saturday was a busy day, we went dress shopping (she hasn't picked a dress yet, but I took a picture of one anyway), and after we went to the La Caille bridal show where they got lots of good ideas, it was really fun!

Now for the sad news... Yesterday Kate had a little accident while I was at school. She fell out of her high chair and had to get stitches :( I was stuck at school and couldn't be there, it was such a sad sad day! She did great though, Chad took good care of her and she slept through the whole procedure! We let her pick Dora the Explorer bandaids, which she calls dodo. So things are pretty good now.

And now some more good news, Kate is officially grown up too. This week she moved over to her big girl bed! It is a trundle bed so she can have sleepovers (or so I can have a place to sleep when she climbs out of bed) But she actually has done great and sleeps the whole night in her own bed!

And last but not least, Chad has learned a new trick that he is quite proud of, this is another reason why Chad can't wait to have Dallin join the family.

4th of July!!!

I have made a goal to keep up on my blog posts (we will see how long it lasts). But we had such a fun weekend i'm sad that its over. The fourth of July is my favorite holiday second only to Christmas. Growing up in Provo is the best, I dont know any other city that has so many festivities for this holiday. We had our Markham family reunion on the third and enjoyed seeing long lost cousins, and eating way too much food! As a Provo tradition, everyone stays up all night long on the night of the third saving places for the parade the next morning. Conveniently my family lives two houses down from center street which is prime parade property. So we did not get much sleep, but it was worth it.

We always have so many of our friends and family join us for the parade, and Kate was lucky enough to have a whole litter of the cutest little puppies sit next to her. She was in heaven!

She was also joined by her cousins, and they all had a blast watching the parade! Afterwards we all went over to my parents house for a yummy lunch!

This is Kates mischevious face. She learned to get the lemonade out of the big drink cooler and so she proceeded to push her wagon under the drink cooler and fill it up, she also filled up her purse with lemonade and then sat in the sticky lemonade wagon and dumped her lemonade purse all down her dress. She was a very sticky mess, luckily this was at the end of lunch so she got a bath and then ran around naked for awhile.

Later that afternoon we met up with all of Chads family at his uncles cabin in Oakley. Grandpa took Kate for a walk, and then she took him to the toy room and they played house. She had alot of fun. We also celebrated with a baby shower for Chads cousin Trina. We are so excited for her (especially since we are neighbors, now I will have a cute little baby to play with!) But it was really fun to see all of the cousins again!

After the cabin we went to Chads parents house and Kate had her first experience with sparklers, and we also got to watch some cool fireworks. She was a little concerned at first and kept covering her eyes, but after a few minutes she began to like the idea of holding the sparklers and she tried to grab them, so that was the end of sparklers.

During church many of the speakers were reflecting on the holiday and how blessed we are to live in this marvelous country. I realized how blessed I am for my freedom, and for everything I have, especially my family! We are so lucky to live where we do and have the opportunity to get an education, and to worship how we choose, and to be able to express our opinions. This holiday is a great time to reflect on everything we have and remind us of how precious our freedom is. I hope everyone had as good of a holiday as we did!