Baby Blessing

 We went ahead and had the baby blessing on Sunday since my parents were here. PC had to stay after church so I didn't get a picture with all the guys, but I was able to get this one. He gave her a very sweet blessing that said she would be strong and healthy. She would gain a testimony of the restored gospel which she should strengthen through prayer, study of the scriptures and words of the prophets. She was blessed to know her eternal destiny and to understand her purpose and role in this life. She was blessed to be loved in her home (that one is already definitely true!). She was blessed to have the desire to learn; to gain understanding, truth, and wisdom and to make covenants with God. And finally, she was blessed to draw close to Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ, and to apply the Atonement in her life. She is one special little girl.

Newborn Pictures

My friend saw a post of Facebook that a lady here locally was looking for newborns to build her photography portfolio. She is just starting out and needed some subjects to photograph, so I contacted her and she came and took Baby Girl's pictures for free. Here are some of my favorites:

 (I just love the expression on her face in the picture above. She looks like she's thinking, "Don't mess with the tiara.")

Girls Camp

PC and Tink were both able to go to Girls Camp this year. PC asked if they needed more men for the week, so I e-mailed and asked. Of course they needed him! He was really excited to go and help out. I was excited for him to go and see for himself why we love it so much. He had a blast! I think he would go every year from now on if he could. Tink had a great time as well. I don't think I can retell all their stories as well as they can, but I will share some of the highlights at least through pictures. I'm so glad they take so many pictures and then share them with us because I felt like I was able to get a little of girls camp through them. Boy did I miss going this year! But as the week of camp drew closer and closer, I realized how much stress I avoided by not being able to go! It's always worth it, though.
PC went up a little earlier than Tink did because he went with the fourth year girls on their high adventure. They went to Colorado State in Pueblo for a high ropes course. Then they went out on the water in canoes as well. It looks like lots of fun! There was a storm coming and they were told that if there was any lightning they would not be able to go on the water. The storm looked like it was coming straight for them, but then veered off and went around. They all felt like it was a blessing.

Tink had never been able to do the bb guns at camp, so this year she decided she would get up to the range no matter what! She had so much fun and was a good shot too! It's in her blood. I was glad she was able to have good friends there with her as well. She spoke on Sunday in sacrament meeting and did a great job. Her testimony of Jesus Christ and who she is as a daughter of God has really grown. She's growing up so fast, but has a solid foundation. She definitely makes her parents proud!

PC worked hard all week. I heard from a lot of the leaders about how glad they were that he was there. He's just such a great guy. I missed him a lot, but was seriously so glad he got the experience. Now he knows some people in the stake too!

 Here are our wonderful girls. I just love them all so much!

 Both Tink and PC did the sunrise hike. They both loved it.

 There were a few bears that stayed around the perimeter of the camp. Love this photo-shopped picture of all the brethren with the bear!

PC even helped the girls out with their skit. He was Sasquatch. Tink was the winner of American Ninja Warrior, at least for their skit she was. She is moving so fast though, she's just a blur in the picture! They had such a great week.

Love, love, love

Everyone wants to hold this little girl all the time. There is so much love around here!

 And I LOVE little baby hands and even more, little baby feet, especially the toes!

 And here are a few more, just because.

Smiley

I love little baby smiles and I was able to capture a few on camera. This little girl, though, has giggled in her sleep a few times already! It is the most precious thing in the world! What a joy she is!

PC and I downloaded an app on our phones that has a ton of filters, so please forgive me for all the different filters on these pictures. I just keep having fun with them!

Pioneer Day Celebration

Our stake had a fun Pioneer Day celebration. Tink had volunteered to help run our ward's booth, which was butter making. So we arrived a little before it started to help get everything ready. Baby Girl was a week old by this point, and I was feeling pretty good. PC got called away right before we left, so he met us there. It was my first time out with all six kids by myself. They are all such great helpers though. Shortcake was the one I was worried about because she normally doesn't like to hold anyone's hand, but she did great. We had lots of fun too. There was a watermelon seed spitting booth. I beat Minnie and Goofy by spitting my seed completely off the tarp they were measuring the distance on! Then they had fun at the stick pull and sack races.

While we were there, PC found out they needed more men at Girls Camp the next week, so I told him to go ahead and plan on going. I knew he would have a blast and Tink would love having her dad there with her since I wouldn't be able to go.

Grandma and Grandpa

My parents were able to visit for a few days on their way out to Utah to help watch my sister's children while they go on trek. It was so nice to have them here. We went to the park one day and had a lot of fun.

It was just so nice to be with them and relax. It was fun to see them with their newest grandchild too!

Oh, Baby!

The morning of July 10, we went to the hospital for my induction. I took the above "bumpie" right before we left that morning. My blood pressure had been high for a couple weeks, so he decided to go ahead with the induction on July 10, which was only 10 days before my due date. Everything went really well. The epidural was working, the pitocin was working, but the baby's head wasn't quite in the right position, so they gave me this peanut shaped yoga ball to put between my legs while I lay on my side. I went from 5 cm dilated to delivering in less than 25 minutes! That ball worked wonders. And our little one entered the world as perfect as ever. She weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces and was born on 7/10, so I should be able to remember her birth weight! She was my smallest baby and was only 19 inches long. But she is perfect in every way and we are all madly in love with her. Here are some of her first pictures:

The kids all came to see her and everyone wanted to hold her. Here is our first family picture:

We were all cleared to come home the next day. Thank goodness, because Baby Girl did not sleep much that first night in the hospital. I got an hour of sleep that night. I was worn out! She slept so well once we got home and has been doing great ever since. So far she usually does a nice long 5 hour stretch of sleep first and then a couple 2-3 hour stretches for the rest of the night. What a great baby!

July

 The fields here have been covered with these gorgeous yellow flowers for the past several weeks. We have had so much rain that even those who have lived here for years said they have never seen it like this. It is so pretty!

 Shortcake is still the sweetest little girl. I was folding laundry one afternoon and she was watching YouTube videos on my phone. I realized I hadn't heard anything from where she was in a while so I looked over and she had fallen asleep right next to my bed.

 July 3 is when our neighborhood does their Independence Day celebrations. Around 4:00 pm, we realized a storm was blowing through and we hadn't tied down our trampoline after we had mowed the lawn. So PC ran out in the rain to tie it down because the wind was so strong, it was starting to lift it a little bit. (You can see it had already blown the chair over.) He was our hero getting it tied down, because not only was it extremely windy and rainy, it even hailed on him! He was soaked everywhere his rain jacket didn't cover.

 Shortcake LOVED the fireworks! Tink had told her they were fairy princess fireworks, so she was really looking forward to seeing them. Nana and Johnny came with us and we popped some popcorn to snack on while we watched.

On the 4th, we did just a cookout with Nana and Johnny for lunch. Nana brought soda cans and these two looked so cute drinking their sodas in their matching outfits!

Youth Conference and a Campout

 I was able to go to the second day of Youth Conference this year. They played "Olympic Games" which included Human Foosball. It was a lot of fun to watch. It was a really hot weekend, though. Everyone had a good time. The closing speaker was really good and talked about decision making, which was perfect for that age group (14-18 years old). He shared a cute poem that went like this:
Choices, choices, good and bad.
The good ones make me happy and the bad ones make me sad.
If I make a mistake, I'll fix it, I will.
Cause choices are connected to the way I feel.

 The next week for mutual, we had a camp out at my Laurel Adviser's house. One of the young women planned and executed the whole thing for one of her Personal Progress projects. We did a service project by helping them build a fire pit (see picture below). It went pretty quickly and turned out well. (I want one!) They also played water balloon volleyball and had a good activity about loving yourself and realizing your potential. While we were preparing dinner, we had some huge wind gusts which broke my friend's tent! It bent three poles completely in half and ripped the rain fly! I felt so bad, but luckily they were okay with it. That's just what happens in this crazy place. But because we were down a tent, the girls all ended up sleeping in the basement. PC and the boys still slept outside in the tent, but they forgot to turn the water sprinklers off so they didn't get much sleep that night. I slept with Minnie and Shortcake in the guest bed. :) It was a fun activity. I love my calling and being able to spend time with these amazing girls.