Fun in the Sun!!!

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Tempe splash park. It's a pretty fun place for kids to play in the water. There are a lot of little fountains of water that come up out of the ground, some slides, water falls, some toys to play with and ride on, and a lot of other really fun stuff. Nena loved it!!

Snowflake Celebration

This past weekend we went up to Snowflake for the 24th of July celebration. It was a lot of fun as it is every year!! This is something that I always look forward to and I have only missed it once in my whole life that I can remember! (I haven't asked my mom about if we went when I was a baby) On Friday was a reunion for all the Flakes that happens every year consisting of our traditional Flake rodeo and then a potluck lunch afterwards. Since we have been married, every year Clar participates in the ribbon roping part of the rodeo as the mugger for some of my cousins and sisters. For the people who don't know what ribbon roping is, the cow is let out and the roper ropes it and then the mugger has to hold the cow still so the person can pull the ribbon off the cow's tail. As soon as the person pulls the ribbon off the tail, they have to run to one end of the arena where someone is waiting with an orange flag held up and give the ribbon to them and meanwhile the mugger has to get the rope off the cow. As soon as the rope is off the cow and the person with the flag has the ribbon, they put the flag down and the timer stops the clock. The fastest time wins. This year Clar should have gotten 2nd place with one of my cousins but the timers didn't start the time when they were supposed to and so they had to do it again and my uncle, who was roping missed so they got no time. It was so dumb.

Clar and my sister waiting to start

This is a different time but Clar is mugging and if you look closely, you can see my cousin behind the cow getting the ribbon.

Saturday was the town's celebration that started out with footraces first thing in the morning for the kids. We didn't go to that this year but hopefully we will get to it next year because then Nena will be a little older and know what to do. After the races was the parade! Snowflake has the best small town parade that I have seen hands down!! My family found the best spot right under a huge shade tree, it wasn't hot at all!

The town has a rodeo on both Friday and Saturday night. We usually just go one night but this year we decided to go both nights. Right after the Saturday night rodeo, they turn off all the lights and start the fireworks just a little ways away from the rodeo grounds, it's pretty cool to watch but I do have to say that the Heber fireworks are way better.

We went to Sonic and Nena loved it!!

On Sunday the weather was beautiful so we had to hang out outside for a while before we left to come back to the heat!

It was a super fun weekend and I can't wait until next year!!

Party, Party, Party!!!

Here are some pictures from Nena's birthday parties. She is so spoiled and got a ton of presents. Thanks so much to everyone!! Sorry, there are a lot of pictures.

Party #1- This one was at my parent's house with my family and a few friends.

Nena's first birthday cake Nena & Daddy

Nena with her Great-Grandpa & Grandma Riding and her Great-Great Grandma Nena LeSueur who she was named after.
She did pretty good at opening her presents but after a few, she didn't want to open any more and just started walking around.
Some cousins helping her open presentsGrandpa Riding with his two grandkids. How cute!!

Party #2- Just some cake and opening presents at our house

Nena's Second cake. This is the time we let her dig into the cake. She loved it!!

Party #3- This one was held at Clar's parent's house with his family.

Nena's THIRD cake!

Presents!!

Nena & Mommy

Grandpa Reynolds with his 15 grandkids

Nena's 1!!!

Yesterday was Nena's first birthday!! We are in the process of having three different parties for her so this week is busy!! On Monday we had a party with my family and a couple of friends, on Wednesday we had a small party with just our little family, and on Friday we have a party coming up with Clar's family!! Clar's dad's birthday is today and they were having a party for him anyways so we thought why not just do a combined party. That way, there wouldn't be a ton of people all at once so it wouldn't be quite so crazy and we can spread her birthday out and make it last all week! I will post pictures from all the parties later after they have all happened. These are some pictures of Nena throughout the months. I can't believe how little she was and how big she is now!

This picture was taken right after she was born, she was only a couple hours old! I think she is the most beautiful baby ever but I'm not biased or anything!!

One month!! I love her hand in this picture and you can see her cute little round belly! She was so skinny!

Two months!! Her blessing day! I was kind of bummed because after the whole day was over and I was looking at pictures, I realized we didn't really take any pictures of just Nena in her dress that day besides this one. It's cute though, I love her sideways yawn!

Three months!! Isn't that the cutest little smile ever!?! You can see she's starting to get some chunk on her!

Four months!! We got this cute little patriotic shirt from someone and realized it wouldn't fit her on any patriotic day except Veterans day so she wore it then!

Five months!! Her cute Christmas dress!! For one of our family parties we acted out the nativity scene and she got to be baby Jesus!! She did so good, she was so happy and didn't cry at all!!

Six months!! I love this picture, she is smiling so good!

Seven Months!! We took pictures with some of her friends and they turned out so cute!! This is one of the individual ones that were taken of her!

Eight Months!! She was so close to crawling forever but she didn't actually start until she was eight and a half months old!

Nine Months!! This is one of my favorite pictures!! Look at her pretty eyes and her super cute teeth!!

Ten Months!! At this age she started getting into everything! Her favorite was to open the cupboards and take everything out! Because we have glass things in pretty much all of our cupboards, we had to put child locks on them all except for one which she still takes stuff out of!

Eleven Months!! She has grown up so much!! During her tenth month, she started to stand by herself and she even started walking!! Sometimes it makes me sad because she is definately not a little baby anymore but at the same time she is getting to be a lot more fun!

Twelve Months!! Happy Birthday to our little princess!! I can't believe she is already ONE!! Where does the time go?

4th of July

For the Fourth of Juy we went to our ward's breakfast and then later that day we went up to Heber with all of Clar's family. It was cold most of the time and rained at least once every day! It was fun though and it was so nice to be able to get out of town and just hang out and be lazy. On Saturday morning we went to the town parade and then that night we went to the softball fields to watch the fireworks! It was only Nena's 2nd time seeing fireworks and the last time we saw them last July, she was only about 2 weeks old so we weren't sure how she was going to react to them. She just stared at the sky the whole time though, she loved it! On Sunday morning we went to church and then hung out for a little while and left in the afternoon to come home. The traffic was horrible, it took us 2 hours just to get from Heber to Payson and pretty much the whole time it was pouring rain or else hailing! As soon as we got past Payson though, the traffic was a lot better and we made it home from there in about an hour. It was a fun trip!

Nena at the ward breakfast

Nena's cute Fourth of July outfit

Waiting for the parade to start. (We found shirts for $2 at Walmart so we all got one so we could be matching)

Nena & Clar

Riding the horse. She loved this toy!

Nena with some of her cousins waiting for the fireworks to start.