Sarah turned 10 months old last week and I thought that I would do a little update about her. She has three teeth and is getting pretty close to cutting 3 more. She loves to army crawl around and like her brother is very fond of my set of keys. Sarah weighs 21 lbs and 8 oz. She is still very much a daddy's girl. She giggles and laughs when she gets close enough to Daddy. Here are some of my favorite pictures of her at this age. 
Alex loves to help us do practically anything. From unloading the dishwasher, throwing laundry in, sweeping the floor, to making dinner, we are blessed to have an extra pair of little hands around. It only makes sense that he would want to help out his role model, aka Daddy... with a little project around the house. He was so proud of himself for helping out.
We needed an extra shelf for our growing food storage,so off to the store and out with the tools our young man went to work. Here is a photo recap of how it transpired.
I am so proud of both of the men in my life. Thanks for your hard work.
It has been fun tonight and I don't want to forget it. Alex was looking out the back door after dinner and the conversation went like this:
Alex: "Look, I see a moon."
Me: "Oh yes, I see a moon too. You are quite the little astronomer tonight.
Alex: "Oh YES!!! Da doo (Thank you) Mamma!
Me: "What else do you see, Alex?"
Alex: "I see a orange light (light posts). I see a tree."
Me: "I see a cloud. What color is the cloud?"
Alex: "It's blue."
I thought that is was great. Alex has been progressing at his language skills, but our conversations usually consist more of him repeating phrases of what I say to him. It was fun to hear him say what he saw outside and what is important to him.
Alex had his first "official" day at our little preschool group last Thursday. I dropped him off at 10 am and went home to spend some quality time with my little baby girl. We formed this preschool a few months ago and have been meeting all together to get the kids used to each of us and our homes. We are co-teaching, since we all have young babies in tow as well. I am excited for it to start and for our turn to teach. I enjoy planning and getting ready for the lessons. I really miss teaching and this is a wonderful outlet to get the creative juices flowing.
This month's theme is transportation and they got to study about buses last week. Alex loves buses and I was excited to see what he got to do there while I was at home. Alex finger painted, practiced cutting out his bus, and then we got to make a bus to take home. Here are some pictures (courtesy of Ashely and Trisha) of Alex's first official day of preschool. A huge thank you to Ashley and Trisha. Alex loved it!!!!
Alex was so fascinated with his bus that he made at preschool, we lost it and he kept on repeating "Bus, Bus, I want to see bus!" It was a scary few minutes, but we managed to find the missing bus in the pantry. What a close call.... Here is a picture of the happy reunion!
Sarah is finally beginning to babble. She has just stated saying the "b" sound. It is so much fun to hear this going on in our house. I just love my little girl.
Last weekend it was time for us to get away as a family and we went to Galveston to take in the sights. We got down there and already knew that we needed to stop and get some lunch because we could hear Alex in the back just repeating one word constantly. EAT, EAT, EAT!!!! We might just have a mutiny on our hands if we didn't get some food into him quickly.
We stopped at a restaurant that Eric had been to for a work lunch called Fishtales. It has really good food and when we got there they said that the only place that they had room for high chairs for our kids was going to be on the patio upstairs. We trucked upstairs and found a spot overlooking the beach. It was a little warm, but soon after we sat down at the table it began to pour buckets. It was so relaxing waiting for our food and watching the rain come down. We decided to move closer to the building so that we wouldn't get too wet. It was great. Eric just leaned back and was relaxing. It really was a wonderful unexpected surprise.
After lunch we made our way to the Rainforest Pyramid at Moody Gardens. As we entered the building we saw the Paddle Boat pulling away and managed to snap a picture of it. 
Here are some more fun ones that captured our adventure. There weren't too many animals in the pyramid due to Hurricane damage from Hurricane Ike last year. Hopefully it will return to its glory days soon.
Here is what one tired family looks like (minus one tired picture-taking mom). What fun memories! I love being with my family just being together!
I guess that I have an obsession, but I hope that it is a good one. I am obsessed with getting food storage for my family. I might have told some of you that over a year ago. I had reoccurring dreams about getting my food storage taken care of and in order. We had a really good start to having about a year's supply of staples, long term items that would sustain life if needed. That brought us comfort and so it went on the back burner for a while.
I kept on having the strongest impression that it wasn't enough. I went to a bread making class that was taught by a woman in my stake at church and she talked about making sure that we had our houses in order as far as making sure that we have enough food for our family. It really hit home for me and I now consider it an obsession. I want to have my family be prepared for the time when we can't always run to the store because we are out of this or that. I don't want to have my children look up at me and tell me that they are starving and need something to eat. I know that there must be balance in you life, but I started looking at where I was and where I needed to be, and I decided to make that commitment to help my family be prepared.
I started clipping coupons, looking more closely at the sales and deciding what was most important to our family at this time. It is hard work, but I look at it like my job. I am CEO of this household during the day and I am for the majority responsible for the nurturing and well-being of my family. It takes work to do this, but when I look back and see the results and feel the security that having a well stocked pantry brings to me and my family. It is all worth the time, effort, and penny-pinching in the end.
We are even having to expand our good sized pantry to accommodate our growing supply. I am so grateful for the counsel that a modern day prophet has given us to use the time of plenty in our land to create a surplus in our home that will provide for our family's well-being. I know that by following his counsel, even if we never have to rely on it solely, we have been blessed by being obedient.
When I was younger, I remember my family having to eat their food storage because my dad lost his job. We relied on that supply to sustain us until we could again provide for ourselves. I am so grateful that my parents listened to a prophet's counsel. I hope one day that my children will have a testimony of this principle of self-reliance.
Here is an update from my shopping trip. I went to the store today armed with coupons and the ads and hit a store that was having a sale on cereal. I was able to get 9 boxes of cereal and a package of nut clusters for under $10. Here is a picture of what I got. As my friend Kristin would say... not too shabby!!!
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Sarah has hit that nine month mark last week. I can hardly believe it. I am heading to the doctor tomorrow for her check up. She is sitting up and is starting to push up and can sometimes get up on all fours for a few seconds. She is still not babbling very much and sometimes on a rare occasion she blows raspberries. She enjoys baths and really liked going to the pool when we were able to go. She is a chow hound. I am constantly amazed that she can eat so much she has one healthy appetite. I have started making her baby food at home, because it was breaking my baby budget trying to buy baby food for her. Sarah also has two teeth and her eyes look like they have lightened up a bit. I am still crossing my fingers for darker thicker eyelashes like her big brother and Daddy. She is such a sweetheart. I am so blessed to have her in our family. Here are a few pictures of her. We love you Sarah. I will update this entry later with her stats.
After visiting the doctor's office here are her stats:
Weight: 19 lbs 4 oz (50%-75%)
Height: 28 1/2 inches (75%-90%)
Head circumference 45 cm (75%)
We have one healthy girl on our hands. 
I have some exciting news to share. My sister had her baby boy yesterday morning around 11 am. He was 7 lbs. and some ounces... not exactly sure the correct poundage. I was too caught up in the excitement to remember. They decided on a name... Zachary Ethan Miller. Mom and baby are doing well. My nephew said when he saw his new baby brother, "They got him out!" Very cute. I am excited to see some pictures when they get some posted. Congrats Karen, Ryan, Brianna, and Brayden.
We love you guys!
Since a lot has been going on here, I am going to do a condensed version of our trip to visit Eric's family in Colorado.
We had a great flight out other than the fact that we had to circle the Denver airport for over an hour due to bad weather. The kids did great on the flight and Alex fell asleep while we were circling. We later learned that there were 7 tornadoes in the area, so I was glad that we were circling.
On Saturday we went up to the top of Pikes Peak with Mom and Dad Stewart, Heidi, Mike, Ryan, and Bayli. We took a cog railway ride up to the top of the mountain. I thought that Alex would have enjoyed it more than he did, but a loud speaker went off right in his ear and scared him and probably hurt his ear. He was sitting/sleeping on Eric's lap for the trip up. It was beautiful to see the mountains and other beauties of nature. I miss that around here.
We had a great time visiting with family. We celebrated the Fourth of July with a BBQ and some good old fashioned time with family.
Here are some extra highlights of the trip:
-We made Thai Chicken Curry and an Iced Italian Creme cake for our family
- Eric and I went on a date and Grandma and Papa Stewart babysat for us! I learned to drive a stick shift. Thanks Mike for letting us borrow your truck!
- Eric got his X-Box fix for the year. Plenty of bonding time with Mike in the "Man Cave"
- Alex enjoying playing outside with his cousins
- Playing board games and chatting with Heidi
- Going to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and feeding a giraffe crackers from our hands.
- Getting some shoe shopping done and using Mom Stewart's Cricut to cut letters for a project
Thank you everyone for a wonderful time! We miss you a ton and are already looking forward to your visit in November for Sarah's first birthday!
