Clar, Kristen, Nena, Hunter & Belle Reynolds

Birthdays

2011-08-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

Hunter turned two years old on June 23rd and on July 9th, Nena turned four. It's always a fun time because it feels like we just party and party for a few weeks straight! Needless to say, it is always a relief when both their birthday's are over because then we can get back to normal life and don't have to worry about any more birthdays for a few months. It was a lot of fun to celebrate these two cuties birthdays though. On Hunter's birthday we went to the Phoenix Zoo and rode the merry-go-round and rode their safari train around to see some of the animals because it was too hot to just walk around. After that, we went to the splash park at Tempe Town Lake! The kids loved it and had a lot of fun! For Nena's birthday she wanted to go back to the Tempe splash park so we went there and then we went to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to get the free birthday doughnuts! We wanted to go to Peter Piper Pizza for dinner that night but we were too tired so we went there a few days later instead! We also held our first real birthday party for any of our kids which was pretty exhausting but it was fun and I think everyone enjoyed it! Nena wanted to have a princess party so we had a princess pinata, princess decorations, and princess games and invited some princess friends and cousins and had a big princess birthday bash! It was a lot of fun celebrating the kids birthdays, we love them lots and are so grateful for them!!

Easter

2011-05-31T22:59:00.000-07:00

Easter was a lot of fun this year!! The kids had a blast and hunted for Easter eggs three different times!! The first one was at a big family Easter party the day before Easter, the second one was at our house on Easter morning and the third was at another big family Easter party later that day!! It was fun to see both Nena and Hunter run around looking for eggs and getting so excited about every egg that they found!!

Finding their Easter baskets that the Easter Bunny left for them

Finding the eggs the Easter bunny hid in our backyard

Finding eggs at the second Easter party

The First big Easter Party

Eating a snow cone

Jumping on the trampoline

Playing on the jumping castle (I guess I didn't get a picture of her actually in it)

Posing with their eggs

Finding eggs

Holidays are definitely a lot more fun when your kids get older and understand things better and get excited about them!! We had a blast!!

Belle's Blessing Day

2011-04-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

Belle's Blessing
April 17th, 2011

The Family
Sweet Baby Belle

Grandma & Grandpa Riding

Grandma & Grandpa Reynolds
Five Generation Picture
Great-Grandma Flake

Great-Great- Grandma Nena LeSueur

Big Brother Hunter

Big Sister Nena

She did not want to get a picture with Belle, she was just too excited to go play with her cousins!

Mom

I guess I never took a picture with just Clar & Belle so I guess we don't have a "Dad" picture

Nena was so excited to play with her cousins that she could not wait for us to change her clothes, we went outside to find her trying to ride her bike in her dress!

It was a good day, a good blessing, good food and good company. Thanks to everyone who came and helped make it a special day, we really appreciated it!!

Belle Mary Reynolds

2011-03-13T18:56:00.000-07:00

Belle Mary Reynolds was born on Friday, March 4th. She weighed 7 lbs 5 oz and was 19 3/4 inches long. She is so cute and we love her so much!! Nena is a great help and always wants to hold Belle and Hunter loves to sit and stare at her and play with her feet!!

2011-01-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

For our ward Christmas party Clar was Santa. It was funny because as soon as he walked out Nena yelled Daddy!! I wondered if she would recognize him and I guess she did! Hunter did not like the beard and was crying and trying to pull it off of Clar the whole time he was on his lap.

We acted out the Nativity with our little family. It was kind of crazy but was fun.

Mary, Joseph & Baby Jesus with the donkey

Nena was supposed to be Mary and then an angel but she would not be anything but Mary so we didn't have an angel. She loved playing Mary.

Hunter was Joseph and then a shephard

The kids on Christmas morning looking at the presents Santa left

The kids got a little 4 wheeler and Hunter rode it all morning

Opening presents

The kids with their presents

Nena got this doll for Christmas and Hunter loves to play with it! It's so cute to watch him hold it and feed it and give it hugs! Hopefully that's how he will be with his new little sister!

We had a great Christmas and are sad that it came and went so quickly. I got a new camera for Christmas so I have been taking a lot more pictures lately so hopefully I will post them soon and will start updating my blog more often.

2010-12-09T21:21:00.000-08:00

Clar's birthday was November 7th. It was on a Sunday and Hunter fell asleep on the way home from church and we left to go to Clar's parent's house for dinner right after he woke up so we didn't get to really celebrate his birthday as a family until we got home so when he did finally get to open his presents everyone was super tired but we had a good time!

My birthday was on December 2nd and when I came downstairs for the day I found a nice surprise waiting for me on the table!

That night was Nena's dance recital and some of my family went to that and afterwards everyone came over and we had some yummy skookies and just hung out for a little while!

Nena did good at her dance recital and loved her costume!! It was fun to watch a bunch of 3 year olds dance, they all had their moments when they were actually doing the dance but I think most of the time they were all just doing their own thing. It was pretty entertaining!

And another happening that is going on in our family is that we are going to have another baby!! We are thrilled to welcome another little girl into our family sometime right at the first of March which we can't believe is less than 3 months away!! Nena is excited to have someone else to dress up besides Hunter and I think Hunter will appreciate not having to wear dress ups either (or maybe Clar will appreciate it more because I think Hunter actually likes it)!! This is our most recent ultrasound but it was taken over a month ago so I guess we don't have a real recent picture of our growing baby.

Halloween

2010-11-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

We had a fun Halloween!! We had our ward party the week before Halloween and then the night before we went to both my parent's and Clar's parent's ward Halloween Trunk or Treats. On Halloween night we put the kids in their costumes and sat on the front porch to pass out candy to those who came trick or treating. Nena was Belle and Hunter was Scooby Doo. The kids loved being able to wear their costumes so much and loved all the fun parties!!

The jack-o-lanterns

Our ward Halloween Party was at our house this year in our backyard. It was nice to just be able to walk outside and to not have to drive anywhere and the activities committe brought everything and set it all up and a ton of people stayed after the party to help clean up so it was nice we didn't really have to do anything! Probably the only reason I remembered my camera and actually took pictures was because it was at our house so I just ran inside and got it. I always forget to bring it whenever I go anywhere so I can never take pictures.

Hunter at one of the booths at our ward Halloween Party. You had to throw a ball through some holes that were cut out from a board that were shaped like pumpkins. This was his favorite place to be he was there throwing the balls around all night!!

At Nena's favorite booth you had to spray water at some candles that were lit and try to get the flame to go out. This was the one she wanted to be at almost the whole night!

Clar and the kids (This is the best picture I got they did not want to cooperate.)

Hunter loves his big sister!!
Sitting on the porch waiting for trick or treaters
Throwing rocks
Princess Belle posing for the camera
This is the best picture we got of Hunter wearing the head part of his costume. He would not leave it on at all!
We had a Happy Halloween and look forward to all the other holidays that are coming up soon!! I cannot believe it is already almost the end of another year!!

2010-10-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

Nena started a dance class!! It is a ballet class that is taught by a lady in our ward. She loves it and has so much fun dancing with all the other girls in the class!! She has a recital in December and we are so excited for it!! Hunter and I go to her practices to watch her and he always tries to run away from me and go dance with the girls!! He already loves to dance too it's so fun!!

1st Day of Class

Practicing with the bar. (I took a ton of pictures at the studio but it is so dark in there that none of the pictures turn out. This is the only decent one I've got.)

Showing off at Home

Celebrations!!!

2010-07-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

At the end of June and the beginning of July we had a lot of celebrations!! First, Hunter turned one year old on June 23rd! Second, Clar graduated with his MBA from the University of Phoenix on June 26th! And third, Nena turned three years old on July 9th! We had a graduation party at our house after the ceremony for Clar and his brother who also graduated and decided that since our kids birthdays were both right around the graduation we would just have some cakes for them and celebrate their birthdays that day too since all the family was already there! We had a bunch of fun water things outside for the kids to play with like pools and slip and slides and water balloons and water guns and sprinklers! It was a lot of fun and I wish I would have taken more pictures but I was too busy and only ended up taking pictures of the birthday cakes. The cakes turned out really good though I made Nena a Belle cake because she loves princesses and Clar made Hunter a construction cake full of trucks and dirt!!!

The graduation ceremony

This is the best close up picture that I got during the whole thing.

Our family

Us with Clar's brother and his wife

Clar and his brother

We are so proud of Clar for graduating and for accomplishing this big goal and for sticking with it even though it wasn't always easy!!!

The kids and their cakes

Nena

Hunter

Playing in the pool

We gave Hunter some cake and he got so messy we had to clean him with the hose

Hunter's birthday!!

It looked like so much fun that Nena joined in

And so did daddy

He did pretty well at opening presents but Nena was so excitied that she ended up doing most of the unwrapping

Nena got a bunch of princess things for her birthday!

And we even made another princess cake!

We can't believe how fast the kids are growing up!! It has all gone by way too fast and although it is sad to see them grow, it is also fun to watch as they enter each new stage in life!

DISNEYLAND!!!

2010-06-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we took a trip to Disneyland!! It was so much fun and we are so glad went!! We wanted to go before Nena turns 3 so we wouldn't have to pay for her because we weren't sure what she would be able to do and how she would do there. She was so good and she could ride almost every ride in Disneyland and so could Hunter!! Nena loved seeing all the characters especially the princesses! She saw almost all of them three times and got three different pictures with most of them! We also went to see the Newport Beach Temple and went to the Newport Beach. The Temple was beautiful with so many pretty flowers around it Nena just walked around and smelled them all! She loves flowers so she was in heaven!! It was the first time the kids have been to the beach and they loved it even though the water was cold!! It was a lot of fun and a very nice vacation!!

Camping

2010-06-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

Over Memorial weekend we went camping for the annual Reynolds Reunion. It was a fun weekend spending time with family and just hanging out. I forgot to take pictures the whole weekend except for when we went on our traditional Sunday drive so sorry for the lack of pictures.

Nena had so much fun. We told her a while before the campout that we were going to go camping with her cousins and she was so excited and talked about it all the time!

Skipping rocks with Daddy!

Cute little Hunter. By the way, he is walking around the house pretty good now!!

Nena and her Daddy!!

2010-04-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Holy cow it's been over a month since I last posted! I will try to do better but no promises! In the middle of March we went to New Mexico to visit my sister Kami and her family for a baby blessing. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to see them and see where they live!! Nena and Annie don't get to see eachother too much anymore and they had a blast playing together so much!! One day we went to the park and had a picnic. It was really windy so we flew some kites! It was a lot of fun but it was pretty cold!

Nena and Grandma

Nena actually let me take some cute pictures of her which is very rare

Hunter and Grandma

Nena and Annie

Hunter smiling big. You can see his two bottom teeth really good in this picture. He is getting his sixth one right now!

Family picture outside the restaraunt waiting for our turn to eat

Nena and Annie waiting to eat

We colored Easter Eggs and Nena loved it! I think this is the first year that we have really colored eggs with her!

The second out of three big family Easter egg hunts. This is the only one I took pictures of because I actually didn't forget my camera. (Probably because it was at our house!)

Coming down the stairs Easter morning to see what the Easter Bunny brought

We just hid eggs in our living room because it was almost time for conference to start so we just did the egg hunt real fast. Nena had a lot of fun and loved looking for eggs whenever we did egg hunts!

Update

2010-02-23T19:29:00.000-08:00

We started to feed Hunter some finger foods and he loves them!! It is so nice because I can put him in his high chair and give him some food real quick and then get Nena fed or get something done while he is contained and happy and not everywhere getting into everything. Here he is eating some cheese!

Clar and Hunter in their football gear!!

Hunter is so crazy and is now pulling himself up on things to stand! It is so cute and fun but at the same time it is sad knowing that he is growing up and not a little baby anymore! Nena didn't even start crawling until she was 8 1/2 months and now Hunter started crawling and pulling himself up on everything before he was even 7 months!

Hunter is 8 months old today and is so fun and happy!! We love him!!

Nena is so completely obsessed with princesses and I love it!! She has so many princess dolls and princess toys and loves to watch all the princess movies and sing all the songs and she has princesses all over her room! I always hoped my little girl would love princesses and it makes me so happy that she does!!!

Lining up all her princesses
She also loves to dress up and loves Sundays because she gets to wear one of her pretty dresses!! Whenever she's wearing a dress or a skirt she twirls it around and dances!!

She loves it when I let her try my glasses on

The cute kiddos!!

Lately...

2010-01-15T13:55:00.001-08:00

We've been having lots of fun with these two cuties!!

They are best buddies and do everything together

(Nena stole one of Hunter's pacifiers and wanted to play with him under his toy, Hunter's pacifier is in backwards!)

Hunter is such a good sport to let Nena dress him up...

Dance with him...

Hold him all the time and drag him around...

And even try to feed him!!

My favorite people in the whole world!!!
Smiley Hunter!!

Nena loves to color, she colors about 3 or 4 times a day and has to have all million of her coloring books out whenever she does!!

Clar made a cake for one of his friend's birthdays and Nena was so sad when we gave it away so we let her make some cupcakes and celebrated her half birthday!!

Hunter in his big truck that he got for Christmas!!

Hunter is now 6 1/2 months old and on Tuesday night he started crawling!!! He just does a little army crawl but it is so cute and he is pretty fast at it and goes all over the place!! He is getting so big and is growing up so fast!!

Christmas

2009-12-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

Christmas was so much fun!! It gets better every year because Nena gets older and starts to understand more! This year she knew who Santa was and she actually opened all of her presents and also all of Hunter's! Both of them got so spoiled they got toys, books, coloring books, clothes, Nena got a tricycle and their big present was a swing set! Here are some pictures of the morning.

Opening stockings

Presents

Nena's tricycle

We got this swingset on craigslist so it's not perfect but it should last us a long time and Nena loves it!! Clar set it up on Christmas Eve during Nena's nap and so she didn't see it all set up until Christmas morning when we took her outside after opening presents!

Playing on the swingset

Hunter & Daddy

This was my big Christmas present and I love it!!

Since I posted last...

2009-12-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

Here is what's been going on since I last posted.

We started giving Hunter real food. He just eats rice cereal and oatmeal for now.

We laid sod in our backyard. It is so nice to have grass now instead of dirt! And it's nice that the weather has cooled off finally, we can actually go outside and enjoy it because we have nice green grass and great weather!! This is a before picture taken when we first bought the house.

After. We are going to plant lots of trees and put a barbeque area and do a few other things back there eventually but it still is so nice to at least have grass!
Our great view of the Estrella mountains from our bedroom window.

We had a great Thanksgiving spent with both families eating two Thanksgiving dinners! This is the only picture I got, they were eating my cousin (on the right's) birthday cake. She turned 3!
It was my birthday on December 2nd and it was a great day just hanging out and eating way too much food!

Here are some random pictures of the family.

Chillin with daddy!

Clar & Hunter
Hunter is officially a thumb sucker! He usually prefers his thumb over his pacifier and always has it in his mouth!

Nena loves to hold Hunter's hand whenever we are driving in the car! It's so cute she just sits there holding his hand and talking to him!

Nena & Hunter love each other so much, it's so fun to see them together! Hunter is always smiling at Nena whenever she is talking to him or playing with him!

Life is good! I can't believe it's almost Christmas, I cannot wait! We are putting our decorations up tomorrow!!

2009-11-12T18:37:00.000-08:00

We had a fun Halloween! We went to our ward's Halloween party and also to our old ward's Trunk or Treat. Nena was Cinderella and Hunter was a lion and they both looked so cute!!

Before the ward Halloween Party

During the day on Halloween, the kids had cute Hallween clothes to wear.

Halloween night we went Trick or Treating for a little bit and then came home and sat on our front porch to pass out candy. Nena loved seeing all the different costumes that came to our door, especially if someone came dressed up as one of the disney princessess. She especially loved to give people candy, when she would see people walking up to us she would grab some candy and walk to the edge of our porch and wait for them to come up to her so she could put the candy in their bag. I took these pictures when we were just hanging out waiting for Trick or Treaters.

Dancing

Playing with pumpkins

Jumping

Smiling

Eating candy

Taking candy out of the mouth and showing it off

Hunter Bunter (Nena's nickname for him)

Sitting on the swing

This last Saturday the 7th was Clar's birthday! It was a Saturday, a perfect day for a birthday except for the fact that we had a gazillion things going on that day so we didn't really get to celebrate his birthday until 9:00 that night. I didn't even have time to make a cake so we just used a dougnut that we had and stuck candles in that for him to blow out. Sorry hon, we will make up for it next year. Thanks for being a great husband and dad, we love you!!

2009-10-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

Nena loves her little brother!! It's so cute to see her playing with Hunter and to see him smiling back at her!!

Whenever Hunter is playing and jumping in his jumperoo, Nena always wants us to put her little trampoline right in front of him and she jumps right along with him!

She loves to sit by him. Right here they are watching a movie together, well Nena's watching it and Hunter's having fun chewing on his fists! Whenever I lay Hunter on the ground, Nena runs over and lays by him! She always has to be by him and when she doesn't see him she always asks where he's at and goes and looks for him!

Nena loves shoes so I found a couple cheap play shoes at the store one day and she loves them. She always trys to put them on Hunter!

She loves to give him hugs and kisses and Hunter is a good sport about always being clobbered by his big sister! It's so fun to see these two together and I'm sure it will get even better!!

A Trip to the Zoo

2009-10-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I went with some people from my ward to the zoo. It was a lot of fun but it was still really hot! I will probably wait on going again untill it cools down a little more. Hopefully that is soon because I think it would be really fun to go sometime and spend a lot of time there and go with Clar so he can help out with the kids. We weren't there for very long and didn't get to see too many animals because after just a little bit we were all ready to go home. It was a lot of fun though and I think Nena really enjoyed it!!

In the stroller ready to go!!

The giant tortoises!

These ducks were all lined up in a row, they even turned the corner still in a line!

The petting zoo. At first she wasn't too sure about it...

But after a little bit she loved it and was even trying to hug the goats!

This goat pooped and peed right in front of us. We felt it hit our legs, it was gross.

2009-09-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went up to Snowflake to watch my grandparents "farewell" because they are going on a mission! Of course, I forgot to take any pictures. It was a fun weekend and it's wierd to think that my grandparents won't be in Snowflake for a while. We will miss them! I do have some random pictures though. Nothing too exciting has happened lately.

I just realized that I probably always post more pictures of Hunter than Nena. It's because I can actually take pictures of Hunter and he doesn't run away like Nena does. She will rarely let me take pictures of her.

Nena eating an ice cream cone. She loves ice cream!!

I love Nena's curly hair, it's so cute. Right after she wakes up though it's crazy and sticks out all over the place! (Can you tell what side she was sleeping on?)

Last week Hunter rolled over for the first time!! He has done it four times so far!! Nena rolled over once when she was really little and then didn't roll over again for a long time after that so hopefully Hunter doesn't do that. I guess we will see. Lately he has started sucking on his fists a lot which is cute but it makes him drool like crazy.

Asleep on the couch.

He likes to hold on really tight to his burp clothes. Sometimes he even puts them in his mouth and sucks on them.

Chillin' in his bumbo.

Hunter will be three months old on Wednesday!! I can't believe he's already going to be three months, it has gone by way to fast! It seems like just yesterday we brought him home from the hospital!!

What we've been up to...

2009-08-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

We blessed Hunter on August 2nd

Played with cousins at Peter Pipper Pizza

Nena took her first pictures all by herself

Sleeping

Being silly

Jumping on the trampoline @ Grandma & Grandpa's

Having fun with these two cuties

Playing in the cupboards

And this big two month old has started smiling!!!

Nena is 2 and other stuff!!

2009-07-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

On July 9th Nena turned two years old!! She is getting so big I can't believe she is already two!! We didn't do much for her birthday we just went to Cabella's and looked at all the animals and then went to dinner. Some of my family came over to see Nena on her birthday and the day after was Clar's dad's birthday and his family was having a party for him so we celebrated her birthday with Clar's family on that day with Nena's grandpa. She will probably always get a party with Clar's family just because their birthdays are a day apart so we can celebrate them together!

Opening Presents & Eating Cake @ Home

Celebrating with Clar's Family

We went to Snowflake for the 24th of July celebration and for the big Flake family reuinion.

Nena & Aunt Jill at the parade. Me & Hunter. Nena at the rodeo.

Hanging out at my grandparent's house. Nena with some of my cousins

With my grandparent's horses

Oh, and this cute little guy as of the 23rd is now a month old!!!

Pictures

2009-07-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of the kids! Nena just loves Hunter and is so nice and gentle with him for the most part so it is nice. She loves to hold him all the time it's cute!!

Hunter is 2 weeks old today!! I can't believe how fast it's gone by and I can already see that he's bigger than he was when he was born.
I love it when they are so small and the pacifiers cover half their face!

This last weekend we went up to Heber for the 4th of July celebration. It was fun but seeing as how we had a newborn, I didn't get around to taking very many pictures. These are from the parade that we went to on Saturday.

Nena with her cousin Wyatt
Clar and Hunter

He's Here!!!

2009-06-29T18:53:00.001-07:00

Hunter Bill Reynolds was born on June 23rd!! He weighed 7 pounds 6.5 ounces and was 19.7 inches long!! He is super cute and is doing really good. We went to the doctor today and he weighed 7 pounds 10 ounces. When we left the hospital he weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces so he has gained almost a pound since then!! I will post more pictures later but for now here is a picture of our little man!!

More House!!

2009-06-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

Well, the work on our house is finally finished!!!! We still have a few little things left but the major stuff is done!! Yay!!!! We had to put in new kitchen cabinets because there weren't any in the house (see pictures of it below) and so we just decided to redo the bathroom ones too so they would match. We also had to put new light fixtures in every room because there weren't any and there were a lot of missing doornobs so we put in new ones of those too. We also redid the carpet and tile so as you can see, pretty much everything in it is brand new!! It all looks really nice and we love it!!! Now we just have to paint but that is not going to happen right now and when it does, it will happen very slowly room by room.

Here is the family room before

After- We put some tile in the main walkway around it, before it was all carpet

The cabinets in the master bathroom before

After- We had them done the same as they were, but they are just newer and better cabinetsThe upstairs hall bathroom before After- New cabinets and tile

The living room before

After- We put in fans and extended the tile to make a walkway into the familyroom and kitchen
The downstairs bathroom before

After- We put in new tile, cabinets, granite countertop and new oil rubbed bronze sink, towel holders and toilet paper holders. (The shower fixtures will eventually be oil rubbed bronze too as well as all the fixtures in the entire house. That is another thing that will happen slowly because they cost a lot.)

Now we just need to get the loan completely finished and closed so we can start to work on getting furniture and stuff to fill up this big empty house!! (Something else that will be done slowly and bit by bit.)

Oh and for some other news, our baby boy is coming on Tuesday the 23rd!! That's only five days away!!! We can't wait!!

Memorial Weekend Campout

2009-06-10T10:36:00.001-07:00

For memorial weekend we went camping in Greer with Clar's family. It was a lot of fun but it rained or hailed every day, multiple times each day so we spent a lot of time sitting under tarps so we wouldn't get wet. It was fun and relaxing to be able to get away for a couple of days especially since we haven't gone out of town in a long time. With me being eight months pregnant at the time camping wasn't exactly what I would have preffered but I was comfortable enough. We were planning to stay in a tent but when we got there someone had brought a camper trailer and it was all set up ready for us to use so that was very nice and that definately made the weekend a lot better I'm sure.

Nena & daddy

Nena with her cousins Heather & Stratford. She loved this stroller and would just ride in it all day long and did not want to get out.

It was my niece London's birthday & she was turning three so we celebrated with a pinata.

Clar and his family

Our family

Nena and her cousins that are all just a year or two older than her. Nena is starting to play with them really good its fun.

The whole gang

Nena & some of her cousins on the hammock

Nena holding her cousin Stratford on her lap. She loves him so much & is so cute with him. Hopefully she acts the same way to her little brother as she does to him!

One of my sister-in-law's mom came for a little bit and she took all these kids on a long walk. They had a lot of fun and it was nice to not have to watch Nena for a bit.

It was a fun weekend and we look forward to going again next year!

Moved!!

2009-05-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for my lack of posting lately, the main reason for that is because we moved!! Last Saturday was the big day and so I have been busy packing and getting everything ready to move, moving and now am slowly unpacking and trying to put everything in place of where I want it to be. We are in the middle of doing some work on the house and are still not quite finished but the main things are done and the house is livable so we moved in and hopefully the rest of the work will be finished soon.

The house

The kitchen before

The kitchen after

This is the only room that is completely finished right now (besides painting) and as more rooms get completed, I will post pictures of them too. We love our new house and all the room we now have!!

Easter!!!

2009-04-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

We had a very fun, busy Easter weekend! This year Nena was old enough to understand the concept of finding eggs. Or maybe she just knew they were all filled with candy and that's why she wanted them! On Saturday morning we had a big Easter breakfast with the LeSueur's. It was a yummy breakfast and was the first of three egg hunts! That afternoon, we went out to Queen Creek for our niece's baptism and right after that we had an Easter lunch and egg hunt with Clar's family and just hung out at a park for a while. It was cold and windy but it was fun to be able to sit and relax, or just chase Nena around the park. On Sunday we went to church and then went to Clar's parent's house to eat dinner and then went to my Grandma Riding's house for another dinner and egg hunt with the Riding's. It was a lot of fun!!Nena and Daddy at the park
Finding eggs on the playground

More eggs

Finding eggs at my Grandma Riding's house

Nena didn't want to put the eggs in the bag, she would get a big handful and then take off running away from me. She also kept opening the eggs and eating the candy right in the middle of the egg hunt.Swinging with Aunt AngelaWhat a cutie! This is her Easter dress.

Shoes, Hats, Cameras and Phones

2009-03-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

These are some of Nena's favorite things. She always gets her shoes from her room and wants me to put them on her and she loves to bring my shoes and try to put them on me and says "side" to go outside. It's cute it reminds me of a dog when they want to go on a walk or something. She loves to put mine and Clar's shoes on and walk around the house in them. Clar has so many hats and Nena loves to put them on and wear them around the house but it seems like whenever I pull my camera out to take a picture, she immediately takes the hat off and won't put it back on. She is always getting into my purse and getting my camera out so I always have to put it up high so she can't get to it and then whenever I go places I forget to grab it so I can never take pictures when I go anywhere. We have a play camera for her that she loves to play with, she will hold it up by her face and point it at someone and say "cheese" and pretend to take a picture! Of course Nena loves phones, what little girl doesn't? She will put one of her play phones up next to her ear and just talk and talk and talk. Sometimes she will have one on each ear!! It's so much fun to see her learning and understanding more and becoming more and more of a little person instead of just a baby!!

Big Jake

2009-03-11T13:55:00.001-07:00

A little while ago, we got Nena a puppy!! Clar named him Big Jake after the John Wayne movie. Right now though he is more "Little Jake" until he grows. We wanted an easy name that Nena could say and she says Jake so cute! We are keeping him at my parent's house for a little while until we move into our house. My parents have a dog named Lucy and her and Jake just play and play all the time. Hopefully he's not too lonely when we take him away to a different backyard all by himself. My parents live just a few miles down the road from us and so it is easy to go there often so Nena can play with her puppy. She is so cute, she pats her knees to try to get Jake to come to her and he chases her around the backyard. She loves him so much!!

SURPRISE!!!

2009-02-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

Well, we went to the doctor today and our little girl is definitely not a little girl like we were originally thinking.

IT'S A BOY!!

So for four weeks we thought our little boy was a little girl and we were wrong. At our last doctor's appointment the baby wasn't moving around a whole lot and the doctor said that he couldn't see any sign that the baby was a boy so he just assumed it was a girl and said he was going to write down that it was a girl ? so that he would be sure to check next time. Good thing he checked because he found the boy parts this time. It was kind of a shock because I had gotten so used to the idea of having another little girl but now will have to get used to the idea of having a boy!! We are so excited and can't wait!!

Behind

2009-02-09T15:33:00.001-08:00

Sorry I am way behind on Blogging. It always seems like I finally get caught up and then all of the sudden I am behind again.

On Thursday the 22nd my dear sweet Grandpa Riding passed away. He would have been 82 next month and him and my Grandma just celebrated their 57th wedding anniversiary in December. They have 8 kids, 50 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. Back in November he fell and broke his leg and his health has pretty much been downhill since then. He was in the hospital and then in a care center and then after he begged and begged for them to let him go home, my family finally brought him home in hopes that being home would help him to get better because he hated being in the care center. It was hard to watch him get worse and worse knowing that there was nothing we could do to make him get better and I was pretty much just waiting for the call from my dad. I knew it was coming but when it happened I still couldn't believe it. It is times like these that I am so thankful for the gospel and for forever families. I am filled with mixed emotions but I know he's in a better place and I know that he is with his parents who both passed away when he was a kid. He lived a good life, was loved by many and has left behind a great legacy. I will miss him a lot and I can't wait until the day when I can see him again!

He was in the navy so they had a little ceremony

giving the flag to my grandma

my immediate family behind the casket

our family

The last picture we took with Grandpa Riding

Last weekend we went up to Heber with the youth in our ward to play in the snow. It was a lot of fun we went to a place that has a lot of slopes to sled down and some of us ended up playing a game of whiffle ball.

Nena and daddy
Nena was wearing a snow suit but she didn't like it at all because it was too small and she couldn't move so we put some jeans on her but she kept sitting in the snow so her bottom was soaking wet and very cold so we had to change her clothes.

Nena loved the snow, she kept picking it up and eating it! It was a fun trip!!

Last week Nena climbed out of her crib all by herself and got on top of her changing table that is right next to her crib and opened her bedroom door. We have been talking about getting her a toddler bed but we were planning on doing that in a few months when we move but because she can now climb out of her crib all by herself, we decided that we should probably not wait on the toddler bed and get one now because we don't want her to fall out of her crib. This is her new bed, she loves it!!

She has been sleeping in it for almost a week now and she has done so good! I was so worried that she would never go to sleep and that it would be so much work to get her to go to sleep but it has not been hard at all. She pretty much lets me know when she is ready for bed by taking me into her room and laying down on her bed and pointing to where we keep her pacifier so I give her her pacifier and put her to bed and she goes to sleep. My baby is growing up way too fast it's a good thing we're going to have another one soon!!

IT'S A...........

2009-02-01T15:14:00.000-08:00

GIRL!!!

The baby was moving around all over the place but would not really open it's legs at all. The doctor said he couldn't really see any sign that the baby is a boy so it is probably a girl and so he said he would just write down girl ? and that we'd look again next time to make sure. So we are probably going to be having another little girl!! I am so excited to have two girls close in age and whenever I see pictures of Nena as a little baby I get so excited that we are having another little girl so she can wear all of Nena's cute clothes again because Nena definately didn't get to wear any of them long enough!!!

Random Updates

2009-01-08T18:23:00.001-08:00

The day after Christmas we went up to Snowflake to visit my grandparents and the rest of my mom's family. It was a lot of fun but it was so cold I could only be outside for a little bit at a time. Once we let Nena go outside the first time, she just wanted to be outside the whole time and whenever I would bring her in the house she would just sit by the backdoor and cry because she wanted to go outside. While we were there though, Nena got to sit on her first live horse.

On New Year's Eve, Clar's brother and his wife came over and they have a little baby boy so we got our swing out so he could sleep in it. Nena loved playing with it so we kept it out for a little while until she started trying to climb in it and then we decided we'd better put it away so she didn't ruin it. While it was out though, she loved to put her dolls in it and swing them. If she walked by and the swing was empty, she would run to her room and grab her dolls and put them in. It was so cute.

We got new carpet about a month ago and when we did, we (or maybe more I) decided to get rid of our huge, ugly bedframe. It was so big and our bedroom is so small and it took up 3/4ths of the room and I have hated it ever since we got it 2 1/2 years ago when we got married. It was free though so it was okay but I just got so sick of it. Anyways, so we just put our boxspring and mattress on the floor until we got something else but we might just end up leaving it on the floor because Nena loves it, it is so fun for her because she can just get up so easily and now she loves to play on our bed. She will run in and jump on it and lay down and pull the covers up. This picture is so cute, she brought her doll in and was laying down with it.

We went to the temple to look at Christmas lights and Nena was all bundled up so cute! She loved looking around at everything there was to see.

Clar and Nena at the temple lights.

Christmas

2009-01-02T12:28:00.000-08:00

We had an early Christmas Eve dinner and program at my parent's house. It was fun, the nativity was pretty funny though because 3 out of the 5 cast members were 2 and under so they were just wandering around.

Eating dinner

The nativity. Nena, her cousin Annie and my sister Melissa were shepards, My cousin Katelyn was an angel and my sister Angela was Mary. I don't think we had a Joseph. Annie didn't really want to be up with the others, I think she's wandering around somewhere.

Baby Jesus was a stuffed bear, Nena loved it!

Nena and Angela

On the real Christmas Eve we were with Clar's family but I didn't take any pictures because Nena was too busy running around the house and didn't want to be part of the nativity. It was a lot of fun though, we got some great presents from our secret pals. Clar got a cool hand drawn picture of Nena, I got a cut little crytal candle holder and Nena got a cute little doll that makes noises when you push her belly button.

Nena's doll.

Our Christmas was great, it is so much more fun when you have a kid old enough to open their own presents and to get excited about them!! With her toys that she got, Nena would open a present just enough to see what is was and then just squeal and touch it until we finally got her to open the rest of it. As soon as it was opened, she would start playing with it and wasn't even interested in opening anything else until we finally had to put it aside and convince her to open another one.

Opening her stocking. She got a little recorder and at first she didn't know what to do but now she has learned that when you blow in it, it makes noise.

Opening her rocking horse. She just opened the head and then sat there laughing and petting its head for a little while before we finally got her to open the whole thing. She loves it and has learned to rock on it. When you squeeze it's ears it sings and makes noise so she will squeeze the ears as hard as she can to make it sing.

This present was fun because it wasn't a toy. It was just a jacket and a shirt and when she opened it, she threw the clothes out and was looking in the wrapping paper for her toy! Sorry Nena, no toy!!
This present was a little rooster flashlight. You squeeze it's tail and the mouth opens up with the light in it and it says cockadoodle doo. Nena loves the noise it makes.

This was a wagon with some legos in it. She just started to push it around the house and she loves doing that. We are still trying to get her to use the handle and pull it and she's slowly getting the hang of it.

Riding on her rocking horse with her doll

Modeling her fairy outfit from her aunt Arlissa

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2008-12-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

Well, it finally really feels like Christmas because we finally put up our tree and decorations!! All of December I have known that Christmas is coming up and it has gotten colder and it kind of felt like Christmas but it didn't really because whenever we were home there were no decorations, tree and nothing that reminded me of Christmas. On Saturday we finally got out our few decorations that we have and went to Home Depot to get a Christmas tree and set them all up and now it finally really feels like Christmas!! I am so excited and cannot believe that Christmas is right around the corner!!

Nena "helping" put ornaments on the tree

I turned on some Christmas music and Nena was dancing and dancing to it but in this picture you can't tell she's dancing at all.

Clar putting the star up

Nena admiring the newly decorated tree

The finished product!! It looks really good in real life. In the picture you can't even see the lights. They are so fun, they are the kind that blinks on and off and does patterns!! I love real Christmas trees because they make the whole house smell so good all the time. The thing I don't like is that they are so messy and there are always needles everywhere. The smell makes the mess all worth it though!!! We weren't sure how Nena was going to be with the tree and at first she kept taking the ornaments off and so we put a little hand vaccuum in front of the tree because she is kind of afraid of vaccuums and so far that has done a pretty good job at keeping her from getting too close to the tree.

News

2008-12-07T19:31:00.000-08:00

Well Nena needs to do some more practicing, because she's going to be a big sister!! That's right, we have another one on the way! I am 11 weeks along and am due on June 27th!! This new baby will be born just a couple of weeks before Nena's 2nd birthday! We are so excited to become parents again and Nena is so excited to have a little brother or sister!! We have taught her to say baby and we have also taught her to point to my belly when we ask where the baby is but most of the time when we ask her she just pulls up her shirt and points to her own belly button. It's cute!

The First Ultrasound

Catching Up...

2008-11-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been so long since I have last posted. Things have been crazy and we have been super busy and I have gotten behind on so many things. I will try to do better at posting more often.
First off, for Halloween we went to our ward's trunk or treat. It was fun but Nena just wanted to run around the parking lot. As soon as I put her down, she just took off and it was so hard to keep up with her so we had to borrow a stroller to put her in so we weren't chasing her all over the place.

All ready to go to the party. Nena was Snow White

Nena and Daddy

In the stroller

She got a balloon so we tied it around her wrist so it wouldn't blow away. She loved it and kept playing with it.

Cute cousins

Nena and Annie with another little girl in our ward the same age as them.

Playing

Friday was Clar's birthday and so Nena and I went to visit him at work. One of his brothers also works at the University of Phoenix with Clar and so his wife and kids went with us to eat lunch at a park by their work. We ate and hung out for a little bit, it was fun. Clar was done with work and so we drove to Laveen to look at some houses because we are looking to buy a house (one of the reasons I have been slacking on this blog) and it will most likely be in Laveen because it's close to Clar's work. On our way home we stopped by Miamigo's to eat dinner and then stopped by Clar's parents' house to visit and pick up a gift and by the time we got home, we had about a half an hour to hang out and relax before it was time to go play in our softball game at 8:30 that night. It was a fun game and we won!! My sisters brought some cupcakes for Clar's birthday so afterwards we sang happy birthday and ate them. We also took a team picture with the teammates who were there plus our kids and babysitters.

Our softball team "Riding Home Inspections"

The team is 99% family so it's a lot of fun. It is Clar and I, Kami and Michael, my parents, my sister and brother, my cousin and her husband, my aunt and uncle and another couple.

Nena playing ring around the rosies with her cousin Renae

The muscle men

Nena with her cousin William

For Clar's birthday I got him tickets to the Cardinal's football game because it was a Monday night game so on Monday night we dropped Nena off at my parent's house for my sister's birthday celebration and drove out to the game. It was a great game they were so close to loosing but ended up winning 29 to 24!!

At the game

We got home so late that on the way home Nena just crashed

Nena is a CUTIE!!

2008-10-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

Whenever I put a basket of laundry on the ground and start to fold the clothes, Nena always comes and starts to pull out all of the clothes as fast as she can. She was playing with one of Clar's shirts and was wrapping it around her like a cape so I tied the sleeves together. She started running around and laughing and having so much fun with her cape!! She is such a smiley girl and is so much fun!!

SUPER BABY!!!

A little while ago, Nena started to fold her arms whenever we are saying a prayer. We didn't really even teach her, one day we just pulled her high chair up to the table for dinner and she folded her arms!! I guess that just goes to show that whatever age a kid is, they learn through the parents examples even if the parents think they are too young to understand.

She isn't really folding her arms in this picture but I just thought it was so cute!!

It's so much fun to see her learn and understand new things every day. She truly is such a blessing in our lives and we couldn't love her more!!

Update

2008-10-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

So our computer got a virus and always freezes so for the past little while we have been having to use our laptop. All of our pictures are on that computer exept the ones that were on my camera so I will post some of those and hopefully we get our computer fixed soon and don't loose all of our pictures.
For the past while we have been remodeling our bathrooms and redoing our floors. We put new tile on the floor in the kitchen a while ago and this week we got our master bathroom shower done and it looks really nice!! Clar is doing it himself in his spare time so it is taking a while but the things he has finished look so nice. His brother came over a couple weeks ago to help him tear out our old tile in the shower and that is all I have pictures of so far of the project. I should have taken before and after pictures but I forgot so instead I will post during pictures. I will post some more pictures when the bathroom is all the way done.

Taking out the old floor. There was some older, grosser tile under our old and gross tile.

Clar's brother Houston tearing out the old tile in the shower.

Over the weekend we enjoyed listening to conference. It was so good! There were a lot of amazing talks and we really enjoyed listening to them. This is a picture of Clar and his dad and brothers and nephew after the priesthood session.

During the preisthood session, I went to my parent's house to see my sister who was down from NAU. My two youngest sisters were watching Hannah Montana and Nena kept dancing to the music. It was so funny, her dancing has really changed from before.

On Sunday, we celebrated my Grandma Riding's birthday with a family birthday dinner! It was a lot of fun!! We ate outside and the weather was so nice!! I'm so glad it is finally starting to cool down at least at night and in the mornings!

My baby has curly hair!!

2008-09-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, I put some gell in Nena's hair to see what it would look like because her hair has a lot of curls in the back but they are just crazy. It looked so cute but when she went to sleep and woke up, the gell was out and it was crazy again. I realized that if I'm going to do her hair like that, it has to be after she sleeps.

Grandma Nena's 90th Birthday Party!!!

2008-09-15T10:47:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday we had a birthday party for my great grandma Nena LeSueur who turned 90 years old!! She is Nena's great great grandma and is who she got her name from! We ate some yummy dinner and had a program and watched a slideshow. It was a really fun night and a great celebration!!

My beautiful Great-Grandma! (She looks great for 90 don't you think?)

My mom singing a song.

My great uncle and cousins the Dentons singing.

Donna and her husband Bruce playing bluegrass music. Donna is my grandma's youngest sister.

Nena dancing to the music.

Nena and Great-Great-Grandma Nena.

Our family with the birthday girl! She is such a great lady!!

D-Backs Game

2008-09-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday night someone gave us tickets to the Diamondbacks game at about 6:00 and so we finished dinner really fast and left about 15 minutes later to go. It was a lot of fun even though they lost by a lot. Nena didn't really like just sitting so after a while we started walking around the ballpark and she loved just walking around looking at everything so thats how we spent a lot of the game. It was a lot of fun though, we have been wanting to go at least once this season and have never gone so it was fun to be able to go!

Grandpa Flake's 70th Birthday!!

2008-09-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we went up to Snowflake to celebrate my grandpa's 70th birthday! It was a great weekend and it was fun to get away and spend time with family! On Saturday morning we went to the Snowflake Temple to watch my aunt and uncle get sealed to three kids that they have recently adopted. It was a neat and happy experience to be able to watch that little family become sealed together! Later that afternoon, all the adults that could went back to the temple to do sealings as couples. It was fun to be with just family and it was another great experience! That night, we had a surprise party for my grandpa's birthday. It was a lot of fun, we ate some delicious bbq and had a little program! It was a good Labor Day weekend!!

Driving to the party. (She has a huge booger hanging out of her nose)

My Grandpa coming in the door. He was really surprised!

The grandkids singing some songs

Angela and my mom fiddling

Nena dancing to the fiddling! She loved it, she was dancing the whole time!

The birthday boy!!

Blowing out the candles

The whole gang --- almost

Our little family

Nena with Great-Grandpa and Grandma

Over the weekend we painted Nena's toenails for the first time. This is as good as we could get because she kept flinching but they still look cute!

All About Nena

2008-08-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

Last week Nena was getting A LOT of teeth all at once and so it was a long, hard week with lots of fevers and very little sleep. We are glad to now have her back to her normal, happy self that sleeps really good. Good news though, she now has every tooth except her 2nd molars!! One day she was taking a late nap and we didn't want her to sleep too close to bed time so we went in her room to wake her up and she jumped up really fast and was sitting against the crib rail. She looked so cute so I ran and got my camera and just barely got a picture before she stood up.

A couple weeks ago I caught her standing on top of our end table and she kept climbing up on it so I had to take everything off so she wouldn't brake anything. Now I just keep some of her bigger toys on it and she loves to climb up there and play and it's okay with me because there is nothing for her to break and hopefully she doesn't fall off.

I take Nena with me to cub scouts with me on Wednesday's because Clar is still working when I go. We put one of the boy's handkerchiefs around her neck so she could be just like the boys.

Nena is obsessed with my sports bras. Every time I do the laundry, she digs thru the basket and finds them and puts them around her neck and walks around the house with them.

She loves to just sit in her toybox and play. She just sits right on top of her toys and then if there is a toy she wants that she is sitting on, she pulls and pulls on it until she gets it out.

Dancing!!

2008-08-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

Nena loves to dance. Whenever she hears any music, she will just start to dance whether it's just moving her head or moving her whole body. Whenever we're watching tv, she dances to all the commercials and this past week, we went to a reception and she was on the dance floor dancing to all the music! It was so cute I wish I had pictures of it but I didn't bring my camera!

Reunion

2008-08-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had a Flake reunion with just my grandparents on down. We camped at Camp Silver Creek from Friday until Sunday. While we were there, we played a lot of games, did some activities, had a program, ate way too much, played in the creek that was in our campsite, just hung out, talked and a lot more. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to be able to get away and just relax and be with family. Here are some pictures from the reunion.

Nena with Aunt Angela

Nena & her cousin Annie

Nena & Clar walking to the dam to play in the creek

Playing in a canoe

Sitting on the dam with our feet in the water

Playing in the water

Nena got soaked!

She loved to just walk around. Luckily, she didn't fall too much.

Playing with a pinata that we had for my cousin's birthday

Waiting for the program to start

Catching up on some tags...Thanks guys

2008-08-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

3 Joys
* Clar and Nena
* Friends
* Food

3 Fears
* Bugs (any kind). Clar is always nice to kill them for me.
* Driving with lots of traffic. If I can help it I try to just drive when it’s not too bad.
* Heights

Current Obsessions
* Clar
* Nena
* Chocolate

Surprising Facts (I don't know that I have Surprising facts but here are just some facts!)
* I am a twin. (That’s what I always used in school on the first day whenever we had to say something about ourselves to the class because I could never think of anything else.)
* I have never broken a bone.
* My favorite sport to play is softball.

I tag 5 people:
Danielle because she tagged me for the other one and whoever else wants to.

ALPHA TAG
A. Attached or Single - Attatched
B. Best Friend – Clar
C. Cake or Pie – Cake; I’m not really a pie person but I do like banana cream pie.
D. Day – Christmas, Thanksgiving and all the Holidays Clar gets off work!!
E. Essential Item(s) – my diaper bag that is usually jam packed full of stuff, diapers, wipes, munchies, my keys and phone
F. Favorite Color – Yellow
G. Gummy bear or Worms – I really like both; I kept thinking what I like best and would get ready to type one and then think to myself that I actually like the other best and I kept going back and forth and couldn’t decide so I have to say both!!
H. Hometown - Mesa, AZ
I. Indulgences – Chocolate!!
J. January or July – January because it’s the start of a new year and the weather is nice, July because of the celebrations and it’s Nena’s birthday month!!
K. Kids – One beautiful 13 month old daughter named Nena.
L. Life is incomplete without – Clar and Nena, extended family, friends and the gospel.
M. Marriage Date – May 19, 2006
N. Number of siblings – 1 twin sister, 4 younger sisters and 1 younger brother
O. Oranges or Apples – Definitely Apples. I don’t like oranges at all, I can’t even stand the smell of them. I do love orange juice though, I just don’t like the actual orange if that makes sense.
P. Phobias or Fears – Spiders, bugs, anything of that sort and I’m also afraid of heights.
Q. Quote – “To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the whole world.”
R. Reason to Smile – It is Friday and Clar is getting off work early today!!!
S. Season – I love the Fall, the weather getting cooler, everything changing colors, looking forward to the holidays… but I also love the Spring, the great weather, looking forward to summer, and everything getting green again. Sorry, I’m a really indecisive person.
T. Tag – Shawna because she tagged me for the other one and whoever else wants to.
U. Unknown fact about me – I don’t know I can’t think of anything at the moment.
V. Vegan or Oppressor of Animals – I guess I have to say vegan for Clar’s sake. I do like meat- just not quite as much as he does.
W. Worst Habit –Biting my nails. I have tried to quit several times but it always turns into a lost cause.
X. X-rays or Ultrasounds – Ultrasound. I have never had an x-ray but I’m sure that if I had I would still say ultrasounds.
Y. Your favorite food – Mexican
Z. Zodiac Sign - Sagittarius

Fun in the Sun!!!

2008-07-30T12:56:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2008-07-16T12:46:00.001-07:00

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!!!

2008-07-10T07:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

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.

Random Pictures

2008-07-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

The other day I heard a little whine coming from somewhere in the family room. I went in there to look for Nena and I couldn't see her anywhere! I looked around and finally I found her stuck in between the window and some toys! I'm not sure how she ended up like this.

On Sunday we went to my parent's house for dinner and they had some huge boxes filled with tomatoes. Nena kept taking tomatoes out of the box and walking around the house eating them.

Our cute little cook!! We went to my grandparent's house and they have a play kitchen that Nena played and played with!! She loved it and so we wanted to get her one for her birthday that is in a week! We found a cheap one at Wal-Mart and so we bought it and now we just have to find somewhere to put it in our small condo!

Reunion

2008-06-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went to a reunion for the Riding's. We just went up to one of my aunt and uncles cabin's in Forest Lakes but it was nice to be able to get away and out of the heat for a little while. We had a good time just hanging out and spending time with family.

Nena loved swinging in the swing. Whenever we took her out, she started crying.

Playing whiffle ball (I don't know how to spell it)

Sitting on the swing.

Swimming!!

2008-06-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

The other day me & Nena went swimming with my family at one of their neighbor's houses. It was the first time Nena's ever been in a big pool and she loved it! As soon as we got in she splashed and squealed!

All decked out & ready to go! (I don't know why the picture is blurry, I was so sad because it's such a cute picture.)

Nena & Annie at the swimming pool. (It looks like no one is behind watching them but my sister is, she is just right behind them so you can't see her)

Cute Pictures

2008-06-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

Nena always puts her hands in her hair when she eats and gets food all in it. It drives me crazy!

The other day, she was being fussy in the car and we had just gotten some apples from Clar's brother so we gave her one to play with. A while later, I looked back and she was eating the apple!

This picture was taken kind of a while ago but it is one of my favorites! I love how you can see her teeth so good and her eyes look so pretty!

Trying on one of dad's hats.

Nena loves phones and she has learned that you hold them up to your ear and talk on them. We gave her an old beat up cell phone to play with because she always wants to play with ours. She holds it up to her ear and just babbles. She also puts the remote up to her ear and a bunch of her toys, it's cute!

SLEEPING

2008-06-23T08:38:00.001-07:00

I love taking pictures of Nena when she's sleeping! She always rolls and moves around all over her crib and gets in funny positions, it's so cute! This is my favorite when she sticks her bottom up in the air.

We always find her with an arm or leg hanging out of the crib, maybe we should put the bumper back on.

We went camping and it was so cold so we had to try and keep her warm while she slept at night.

She falls asleep on the floor sometimes when she's really tired.

PLAYDATE

2008-06-18T19:21:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I got together with some of my friends and their babies. We went swimming in a little blow up pool and ate pizza! It was fun and we had a great time. The babies are all so cute!

Mirabel, Alexis, Nena and Annie

Hanging out in diapers. (While we were there, Nena fell and hit her head on the corner of the piano bench. That's why she has the big line across her face.)

Fun-Filled Saturday Afternoon

2008-06-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

On Saturday afternoon we went to Clar's work party. It was held at the University of Phoenix stadium on the football field. It was a big carnival with jumping castles and lots of booths, face painting and lots of other things. It was fun, we pretty much just walked around and talked to different people.

Before we got down on the field

Just chillin with Dad

Waving

Next to the jumping castle that had a huge dog head on the side of it.

Just walking around. Nena always sticks her tounge out, it's cute!

After the party, we decided to stop by Cabella's and look around because it's right across the street. There is a lot to look at, it's pretty cool.

Clar and Nena in the wildife museum

Looking at the animals

"What are you doing here?"

Hanging in the shopping cart

Day Camp

2008-06-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

I am the cub scout Bear Leader in our ward. On Thursday and Friday morning we had our yearly Day Camp. It turned out to be really fun and I think the boys had a good time. First off, we made toolboxes for the Dad's for Father's Day. (The boys did everything themselves except cut the wood.)

We also had a "Bug Lady " come and show us some different bugs. That was probably my least favorite part of the whole thing. I hate bugs and to see a bunch of them all right in front of me and to see people holding and touching them is even worse. Yuck! The boys, of course, loved it though and afterwards they were even able to hold a few of them.

This is a kind of praying mantis thing from Africa.

He was kind of freaking out.

It was tickling his ear!

A millipede!!

Scorpions.

When the bugs left I could finally breathe a little better.

The Theme of our camp was Camp Moroni and so we made headbands, armbands, and little pouches so the boys could dress up like they did back in Moroni's time. Captain Moroni even came and taught the boys about the Title of Liberty and then the boys got to make their own Title of Libery's.

The last thing we did was to pretend to act out a battle between the Nephites and the Lamanites. We had buckets of water and spongy balls and had a battle leaders verses boys! Everyone got pretty wet and had a great time.

The Leaders surrender!

Winners!!

The wonderful leaders that I work with! They are all really amazing people! (It was right during the middle of Nena's naptime so she passed out both days.)

Swim Meet

2008-06-13T16:04:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, my sister Melissa had her first swim meet. Since my parents were out of town at girl's camp, the rest of the family went to cheer her on. She got 2nd place in her individual race. Good job Melissa!!

Cute Cousins

2008-06-13T15:14:00.000-07:00

Nena & Annie love to play together. Whenever Nena sees Annie, she starts to squeal and gets really excited. They always follow eachother around and laugh and smile. It's so cute!

CLIMBING

2008-06-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

Lately Nena has become obsessed with climbing. She tries to climb onto everything all the time. Yesterday, I caught her climbing onto our rocking chair. She started out like this...

And then like this...

And this...

And Finally...

She made it!!! That Girl's got quite the determination!!

Oh so CUTE!

2008-06-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, me and Clar went to play in our coed softball game and since the game didn't start until 9:30, we left Nena with my sister's Angela and Melissa. When we came home, Melissa was dead asleep on the couch and Angela was sleeping on the floor with Nena. It was so cute so I had to take a picture!

I finally started a BLOG!

2008-06-11T20:47:00.000-07:00

After a while of looking at other blogs and contemplating whether or not I really wanted to start one, I finally decided to! I pretty much have a really boring life and not much goes on so hopefully I will be able to have enough things to update it with.