Sadie's Actual Birth Day

Sadie chose to open her presents from us and her grandparents first thing on her birthday. I didn't care since we already had her party 10 days earlier. She got right to work putting together her 2 new lego sets from Nana and Papa. This was the first time she completed sets by herself and Lou was so proud.

We also made a sign for Daniel since he had been gone for 8 days. 

Everyone was relieved to see him later that afternoon

That night Sadie chose Cafe Rio and Coldstone for her birthday meal. We brought along her friend Jersey, who had been out of town for her party.

 

PS- Pictures from the day before when we went to the elementary school to return the last of the summer reading books. 

Still a Monster

 Camille has graduated from just making messes to climbing and pushing big things around. She thinks she is such a big kid when she climbs the bunk bed ladder. 

 Her new favorite spot is under the entry way table.

She thinks she is a big kid.

She pushed the kitchen chair to the back door and then got stuck when she tried to walk between. Naturally, I took a picture.

She fell down the first half of our stairs and came to a stop by smashing her head into the corner post. Ouch.

 Good thing she is this cute.

A Decade

We have been married for 10 years today. That's pretty cool. 

The coolest part about it, to me, is that I made such a smart choice when I was 20 years old. Yes, we dated for 2 1/2 years so I knew Daniel (the 2005 version of Daniel) well, but we have changed a lot over the past 10 years. Part of that is just natural maturing that happens when you go from age 20 to age 30, but a lot of the change has to do with our marriage. And the change has meant our relationship is better, stronger, and more fulfilling than day 1.

Although, according to Grammie, marriage is a crapshoot, so maybe I just got lucky. 

Some numbers from our first 10 years of marriage:

-3- kids

-11- jobs

(Carly- MOA cafe, BYU history project manager, BYU data center, grad school TA, nonprofit intern, UVU library finance manager, Epic Relays accountant)

(Daniel- BYU women's basketball student film, BYU DOBO, UVU assistant, BYU assistant)

-3- cars

-1- new ACL

-7- BYU intramural championships

-3- degrees earned between the two of us

-1- speeding ticket (Daniel's, of course)

-5- moves (1 house bought)

And proof that we looked like babies when we got married

House Upgrades

It's funny how you have grand plans (or even simple plans) when you move.

We finally got around to a couple things this month.

1- New thermostats. The original thermostats for the house were touch screen (old touch screen technology with a stylus), but the downstairs touch screen didn't respond anymore. We googled and tried lots of different things, but the company that produced it is out of business and we were out of luck to get it fixed. So all the settings were stuck at low temps in the winter and high temps in the summer. My friend Kaylie told me about a $100 rebate on Nest thermostats through our gas company so we bit the bullet and replaced them. We figured even though the upstairs thermostat's touch screen was still working we should probably get a Nest for that too. It's amazing to be comfortable on the first floor of our house! It had been set at 80 degrees, which was just plain hot in the middle of the day. Plus, the Nest is supposed to pay for itself in savings within 3 years or something. I have gotten kind of obsessed with checking how long our A/C systems were running each day. And I can control them from my phone. I am a dork. 

2- Basement window well covers. I was always a little nervous that some kid was going to run into our flower beds and fall into the open window wells. I have been looking into covers for a while and finally went ahead with these custom ones. 

They were about $40 more than standard size ones, but our wells were both weird sizes that didn't fit well with the standard. I like the way these look so I am happy with my choice. We only had to buy 2 since our other basement windows are under the back deck. 

Oh, the super exciting purchases that come with home ownership.

Visitor 5

The Gessell family rounded out our month of visitors in July. Sadie and Elise treat Addy much older than 22 months. That could be because she has the cognitive abilities and is the size of a 2 1/2 year old. I kept reminding them that Camille and Addy are close in age (only 7 months apart).

The Gessells were only here for a couple of days but it was very fun to watch the girls interact. We can't wait to get to the family reunion this week so they can play with all their cousins. 

 We took everyone in their matching suits to the Lindon Pool. We discovered they wouldn't let Sadie go down the big water slide alone so we will probably not be back this summer. Too much work to switch off parents and kids. 

One morning I got out of bed to find these 3 curled up in the big arm chair. 

Now we just need to get to all the fun at the John Family reunion in Wisconsin!

Swimming Lessons Round 2

 The girls completed another 2 week session of swimming lessons, which may have been a little much. Or I should have had a longer break between their sessions. Sadie got some ear infections and couldn't go one day and then second week they both just weren't as excited about going. Once we got to the pool they happily participated, but they weren't as excited as the they were about the first session and the first week of the second session.

Elise can actually swim a little bit! She can't do it using a stroke, but she can swim underwater for a few feet at a time. 

 Sadie did very well, especially since she approached it with a lot of confidence. We are still working on her swimming longer distances by coming up for air without putting her feet on the ground.

See you next year, swim lessons.