Ben and Tara

2010-03-18T14:15:00.000-06:00

I have a new blog that is going to replace this one.

To see our blog, go to

laytonfam.com

This blog is going to be deleted, but all the past posts have already been transferred to the new one.

Some posts may be password protected in the future- for the password, email me at

taralie@hotmail.com!

2010-02-06T00:42:00.006-07:00

New Pictures!

I wanted to post a link to our newest family pictures. They were taken in my parent's yard over our Christmas vacation by the very talented Mary Anne Miner! You can see more of her awesome work at Miner Photography! I was lucky enough that she was in Sierra Vista while we were to do our photo shoot. I recently won a photo shoot with her from a raffle in memory of my friend Kameron Haban who recently passed away. So it was extra special because it also helped out my friend's family. The pictures are scaled down, so if you would like a copy of the original let me know!

Here's the link to the photos!

2010-01-11T22:33:00.015-07:00

2009 goes out with a bang, Part 3!

ARIZONA! That's right. I was very happy to get to go to Arizona for the end of the year and see my family....and get a break from the cold! That was a relief!

Harmony had a lot of fun with her cousins, and we had a ton of fun visiting with my parents, my brother and his family, and my cousin! I even got to see a couple friends while I was there!

My brother, Tracey, introduced us to a few new games, and they were super fun, as always! I almost won a game of Small World, but unfortunately lost to my niece Jensen by ONE point! We played a game of Settlers of Catan that broke a record of four hours long! Which, I almost won too (dang it!) but was had by my brother.

We were spoiled by my dad who let us drive around his brand new Honda Ridgeline and his Acura while we were there! Man I miss those trucks! And we were spoiled by my mom for babysitting and making us breakfast every morning!

I was able to have a couple reunions with friends as well! Some of my best buds in high school and I met up in Tucson for lunch. We hadn't all been together basically since we'd graduated!
My friend Alanna met up with us a couple times. One was at Chuck E Cheese along with my cousin, Aimee, three of my nieces, Kelsey, Taylor and Jensen, and of course, Ben and Harmony! I'm pretty sure Harmony had the time of her LIFE there. We're definitely going to have to take her to the one up here.

Tara, Tiffany, Becky, and Stephani! Best buds reunion!

This picture pretty much sums up our lunch at Fuddruckers with my friends.

Alanna and Tara at Chuck E Cheese!

Here is a link to more fun pictures and videos!!

2010-01-11T22:19:00.007-07:00

2009 goes out with a bang, part 2

Just before Christmas, Ben's family joined us up here in Utah. It was really fun to have (almost) everyone together again! We played games like, my favorite, The Great Dalmuti, and "Trains," as Jared called Ticket to Ride. We even got to out to see a movie thanks to some great babysitters! Harmony LOVED how her Aunt Jenn made her laugh, and would toss her to and fro! I got some cute videos of it.

Aunt Jenn making Harmony laugh!

We got to have our friend Amanda Isbell spend part of Christmas day with us, and played Trains and Great Dalmuti too! She was our inspiration to go out and see Sherlock Holmes. Thanks Amanda! Good movie! She also made a very popular dessert for us, Egg Nog cheesecake! Now I am NOT a fan of egg nog, but I must say, it was pretty dang tasty!

Amanda with Harmony

Our brother-in-law Jared "conducting" our Trains game!

Click here to see more videos and pictures!

2010-01-11T22:11:00.013-07:00

2009 goes out with a bang! Part 1

SOooooooo....December was chock full of goings on...ons...on? Anyway. I have a LOT of pictures and videos to post! So I think I'll start slow, just to get something new up and out there in the blogiverse.

First things first. Jon. Ben's little brother, Jonathan, headed out for his church Mission to Spokane, Washington. He will be gone for two years, so we wanted to make sure we got lots of hugs in there! Harmony looooooves her Uncle Jon, so here's a video of them.

Us and Elder Layton

Then- just to be different, again, I cut off a lot of my hair and then dyed it purple. Sadly, it's faded into somewhat of a dull brownish red by now, but I'll probably do it up again soon!

this one is the first day, of just the cut.

Here's the color

And. On a complete sidenote- Last Sunday, Harmony went to her first day of Nursery!! She liked it! Mostly. She especially liked the last part, including snack, songs and bubbles! Here she is popping bubbles and not wanting to leave!

HINT: Harmony's the one in the dress

2009-12-22T09:48:00.016-07:00

temple lights

Last week was a fun week! We got to spend some time with our friends the Abraham's, and we all went up to Salt Lake City to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square! It was beautiful! And, the weather wasn't too freezing :) We went to the Festival of Lights (in Spanish Fork) together too. It was fun! All the cars drive with their lights off, realllllly slowly around a park decorated in animated wire-framed scenes. We let Harmony ride on our laps so she could actually see, and she loved loved it! Hopefully we will squeeeeeze getting a picture with Santa Claus taken tomorrow if we have time!

Here are pics from Temple Square thanks to the Abraham's!

Look what a nice friend I have-
she even bent down so I wouldn't look so short! :)

2009-11-26T09:01:00.028-07:00

les remerciements

Random picture to start of this post. Harmony loves to climb on the kids rides at the mall.

Since I've been meaning to post a new blog for a while, and it just so happens to be Thanksgiving Day...I thought that it would be perfect-because I wanted to write about how thankful I am that my sweet mom came to stay with me for two whole weeks, while I was sick. It helped me get better so much faster! Harmony really loved to play with Grandma all day...and I especially liked having someone around to talk to and an extra pair of hands all day long! I got spoiled :) Thank you so much Mom!

Mom and Harmony playing together.

I also forgot to post a picture from
when my dad was here, just before Halloween.
So here it is.

We've been having fun this week while Ben's sister Becky is here visiting! Harmony just loves getting to go play at Grandma's everyday too. She especially loves the new baby sled that everyone *gets* to take turns pulling her in! I think we know where we'll be getting our exercise this winter! I have a bunch of clips of this new workout routine (via the link).

There are so many little videos I wanted to share. Follow the link at the bottom if you want to view them all. Here is just one from today.

Harmony gets a kick out of the dogs catching food in their mouths.

Here's some cute videos from this month...I apologize for the lower quality of the videos lately. The only camera I have is on my iPhone...

Birth-o-ween

2009-11-01T21:38:00.005-07:00

One year older and WISER too...yes that's right...well, at least the older part. I had a great birthday!! I really wanted to go to the temple for my birthday. Ben's mom watched Harmony for us, and we were able to go to the Provo temple. It was a Thursday, so that means Ben's dad was working there that day. So, we got to have a delicioso temple lunch with Nyle, and meet his temple buddies :) After that, we went out to the mall to spend some birthday money ;) At the end of the night, I even got a SWEET massage at home from my wonderful masseuse friend, Liz!

On Friday night, we went to our ward trunk-o-treat and brought our friend Nicole and her babies Ethan (3) and Shelby (10 mos) with us! Harmony LOVED it. She'd grab the candy out of the bowls and then put it directly into her bag, followed by excessive hand clapping while saying "yaaaaay!" Then, to gear up for more Halloween fun, we watched a scaaaarry movie (The Uninvited) with Nicole and her husband Nathan.

Our friend Nicole and Shelby with me n' Harmony

Our costumes were Agent's Dana Scully and Fox Mulder from the X-Files
( in case you DIDN'T know!)

The only bee that I'm not afraid of :)

Saturday, Ben planned a little birthday/Halloween get-together for me. We dressed up in our costumes and had a tastey ice cream cake with our friends and family. I was very excited to hand out candy for the first time (Seriously. I'm usually trick or treating!). Harmony thoroughly enjoyed having the doorbell ring and giving the kiddos some candy! Then of course we ended our day with Ben's brothers by watching a hilarious RIFFTRAX of one of the most frightening movies of all time: TITANIC.

The Ice Cream Cake. Inscription: Happy Birth-o-ween. Love it!

AWESOME OCTOBER 2009 :)

Daddy's Days Off

2009-10-10T14:52:00.010-06:00

Ben began working at a new job last Thursday- so since he quit his old one, he had a couple of days off in the middle of the week! SWEET! We took full advantage of this and decided to re-visit the super human-friendly ducks (Now that's SUPER human-friendly. Not, super-human, friendly) at a park in Orem. We had a ton of fun feeding them and fending them off! There were even a bunch of tiny baby ducks this time! Harmony played on the playground and ran around the park, and of course, her favorite, the swings.

Then, we returned to Hogle Zoo in SLC! Harmony's Uncle Jon came up with us too! It was so nice because most of the animals were out and about, and Harmony definitely took notice of them this time.

Here's Jon testing out a hat at the zoo.

The water globe at the zoo. Harmony's favorite.

Ben already has an awesome new office with lots of cool things for him to tinker with . So far, they are treating him exponentially better than his last job did (ah-hem. not hard to do), and he has a new sweet computer with all these bells and whistles, and all the software he needs to show off his mad skills. Maybe he'll even have a name plate on his door before 8 months go by (again, last job).

Ben's in his new office holding very expensive software

Here's the link to the rest of the vids and pics.

And ACTION!

2009-09-25T20:33:00.011-06:00

HI! This month seemed to fly by for me...which is weird, because, for some reason September usually feels quite long! And I am WAY excited for Halloween, so I may have jumped the gun a bit on the new background! :)

Tomorrow is Harmony's Aunt Rebecca's birthday! Honestly, I was getting ready to post a new blog anyhow...BUT we'll say it's a b-day surprise! :)  Happy Birthday, there, Becky!!

Although nothing too significant has happened these last few weeks, other than some hefty movie watching- we took many videos nevertheless!! So here's some pics and a link to some videos of our sweet little lady!

H on the slide with her daddy

The Layton's have been so kind as to watch Harmony several times this month so that Ben and I could go to the temple (THANK YOU!!) and take an institute class. We are very appreciative!!! Gma Layton makes sure that we don't miss the cuteness that goes on with out us tho :)

Giving Charlie some loves

There's MORE in the Picasa web vault!! Click here to go see 'em!

BIRTHDAY ONE

2009-09-05T00:41:00.010-06:00

I am so late at posting this! It takes me forever to finish a post sometimes...but..better late than never!

Harmony had her very first birthday a full two weeks ago!! Yay, Harmony! She is a walkin' machine now. Man, I thought she was active before...whew! She just never stops running in circles and dancing around the place! At least she is entertained right?

So, on her birthday we invited our family and some friends over to our house to share it with us! It was extra special because, my mom and dad came up from Arizona to be here, AND Sam, Jenn, & Cameron were even able be here from Colorado too! How lucky is Harmony?! It was a beautiful day, and we are thankful to have had our families be able to come share it with us.

I reflected all day long (ok more than just THAT day) on how amazing it was to have our baby girl come into the world...and how scary it was for me to bring her home!! It's still scary at times to be a mom, but thankfully, I feel more confident now ;) I still can not believe that a whole year has gone by since then, and STILL think that there's no way she could have been so small every time I look at her first pictures!

So, here are more pictures of the birthday girl and her fun day!

PS- Click here to see Thomas Family Pictures!

Arizona and Stepping Up

2009-08-14T23:22:00.007-06:00

FINALLY! It seemed like forever since we'd been down to Arizona, (for me anyway) but we made the trip last week and had a LOT of fun! :) While we were there we: visited, ate, played a board game (Nuclear War, one of my favorites), played Playstation and Wii, swung some light sabers around, of course went to Jack in the Box and Eegee's, watched movies, had a birthday party, and other low key things. But - we aren't high maintenance people, so we are easily entertained. :) I think Ben's favorite part was getting to drive our rental car.....a Dodge Charger.

We were able to meet our niece, Reilly, for the first time. She is just 4 months old. I can say I have honestly never met a more laid back and smiley little baby!! She is just a patchwork of all my brother's kids rolled into one. I think she looks like each of them here and there! Harmony had so much fun playing with her cousins, even tho she was sick ( and made half their family sick too!! ) and maybe a little overwhelmed. :) She loved all the hugs and kisses and loves from all the family. You can tell she now even recognizes them when I show her their pictures.

Speaking of pictures...we finally got new Thomas family pictures!! I, for one, am excited about this, because we haven't had a recent family photo with all of us since 2002, I believe. Long overdue. Hopefully I'll be able to get those back soon and post them!

So enough typing about that...HERE'S THE PICTURES.

Oh, but first, one more tiny thing...Harmony took her first steps!!! Not quite her main mode of transportation yet, of course, but who knows what could change in a week?

The story is- We were at our friends Nathan and Nicole's house, playing the Wii, while Harmony tossed around a jacket. After about 15 mins of playing with this "magic" jacket, she stood right up, and took about 6 or so steps around the corner to the stairs! Up until now, she's insisted on walking only when holding on to someone's hand. She has excellent balance, and doesn't need to use a hand, but insists on it nevertheless...until she had this jacket. We think that she believed the jacket was helping her walk, (like Dumbo's feather helped him fly) so we call it her 'magic' jacket.

You can see video clips of it HERE.

So, just about a week shy of her 1st birthday- she decides to go it alone and take some steps. What a big girl my baby is getting to be. Who does she think she is???

July Goodness

2009-08-01T23:10:00.005-06:00

So, I thought June was busy-until we had July! Maybe it just seems that way, since I have an excessive amount of videos and pictures that I want to post for July! I think the easiest way to do this would to be to direct you to a link for all the pics- here! I'll change up the font a little for each paragraph, too, so your eyes won't glaze over from all the reading!

First, as I mentioned in the last post, Ben's brother Sam, his wife Jenn, and their adorable son, Cameron, came up from Denver for a visit. Ben's sister Becky (and briefly, her husband Jared!) also came from Houston- With everyone here, we took the opportunity and had some awesome family pics done, again, by the wonderful Miner Photography! You can see more of the pics if you visit the link!

Then, my dad came to visit for about a week! It was wonderful to see him, and Harmony loved her Grandpa Thomas! We took a trip (Harmony's longest so far) up to Preston (and Grace) Idaho for a family reunion - my dad's mother's side. Harmony got to finally meet her super cute cousin, my cousin Elisa's daughter, Aislynn! They had fun playing together, and got along quite well!

Then, we had Pioneer Day (it's a Utah thing) fireworks- which my dad finally was here for this year. We always sit in the Layton's front yard for a primo view of the action, which takes place in the park across the street. Harmony actually did pretty well watching the fireworks. She loved to watch them-but after a few mins, we went inside so as not to deafen her permanently! During that same week, Ben's aunt and cousin (his mom's sister) Kathy and Andrew Dixon were visiting. Harmony sure had fun playing with Andrew, and loved Kathy too! Kathy thinks Harmony was confusing her with her Grandma Layton! ;)

While my dad was here, he was able to take a couple quick fishing trips (his true love really, is fishing) with Ben and the other boys. Harmony and I went along for the 2nd trip at the Spanish Fork Reservoir. My dad actually did catch a pretty good sized fish in there...although sorry, Jared and Becky, no proof with a picture- Cos unfortunately, it broke the line off and stole my dad's hook! DARN! At least we proved that there was (and still is) at least one fish in that reservoir.

This is Harmony's 11th month by the way- we'll be going to AZ this week, and then celebrate her 1st birthday on the 22nd. TIME FLIES!!

4th and Fun

2009-07-11T20:52:00.005-06:00

We had some fun this last week with family coming up to visit. The first clip in the video is of Harmony and her cousin, Cameron playing in Grandma Layton's backyard on the splash pad. It was a hot day, and I think they liked it! Harmony had her first fireworks experience on the fourth at our house, which she apparently tolerated, as you will see in the video. Also, earlier that day, we went to the park with Ben's brother Sam, and his family, and with our friends the Abraham's!

At the park

Sam and Charlie

Jenn with Cameron and Ethan Abraham behind with Todd

Weeeeeee!

Nicole and Nathan Abraham with their kids Shelby and Ethan

Ben and Harmony!

Finally!

2009-07-01T20:39:00.006-06:00

June has been the busiest month we've had in a long time! Aside from Ben's crazy work schedule, we've had a lot of fun things go on around here. Before the month ended, we squeezed in a couple more things :)

Most importantly-

We went swimming!!! :) I've been dying to go swimming, basically, since last summer ended. On Monday, we finally went to the pool, and Harmony got to have her first swimming experience! She really liked it! The pool was neat, because it tapered off like a seashore, so that the really little kids could run around, and Harmony could crawl around and splash in the water. She loved it. She also really loved to be buoyant and bounce up and down. She kept putting her face down in the water tho, but only swallowed a bucket full of water once :)

Here is a video of her in the water with Ben. I couldn't get her to look at me tho. I guess she was too focused on that cool water! We are planning to go again this week, YES!!!
(also I added a cute clip I had of Harmony playing peekaboo in her crib. She loves being in her crib....as long as it's not naptime!)

Also, our good friend, David Goodman, came by for a visit on his way back to WA from Lake Powell. We've been able see Dave once or twice every year since we've lived up here, and look forward to his visits! Each time we see him tho, we are in a different house! He says he loves to watch each chapter of our lives unfold whenever he comes down. We love watching each new chapter of your life unfold too, Dave!

We're looking forward to July, having Ben's brother and sister and their families come visit this week, and for my dad come up for visit for our yearly family reunion!

June june june

2009-06-19T09:56:00.007-06:00

So far this month has actually been pretty eventful so far. We got all moved in to our new house in Springville, thanks to Ben's awesome family for ALL their help!! We actually have got quite a lot unpacked already! Harmony is still getting used to it all. I think she's still wondering "when are we going home?" Although, she really does enjoy having her very own set of stairs to trek up and down -and up...and down....and UP.

After that, Ben and I took a sweet trip up to Lagoon! We met up with my cousin Elisa, and her husband Morgan! It was so cool, because I hadn't see Elisa in a few years, and we haven't actually done anything together (besides hang out at Uncle Rico's Van at the family reunion) since we were little! It was the most fun ever! EXCEPT for the fact that we locked our keys in our car and had to pay a price so obscene I can barley utter it...*whispering* 178 dollars. I KNOW!!! 178 dollars?!?! Yeah. So we got ripped off, and I'm still trying to block it out. Good thing there were lots of fun roller coasters to help us feel, uh...better.

The new WICKED

THEN Ben's brother Sam's wife, Jenn, and their son Cameron came to visit for couple days, and we were really excited to see them! We haven't seen Cameron since he was just a few weeks old, so it was really awesome to see how much he's changed...and how unbelievably CUTE he is!

THEEEENNNN...my MOM came up to visit us!! It's been really nice to have my mom up here...and nice to have her see Harmony in real life, and not just on the blog!

We went to the new Oquirrh temple open house, played at the park, and played with a new toy for Harmony from Grandma. I can't believe that my girl is going to be TEN MONTHS OLD on Monday!!

And yesterday, I FINALLY got my hair cut!! I've been waiting a long time to chop my long hair off, and stop having it get caught in Harmony's little fingers, and in my way all the time!

Well, those are the major things that we've done so far, and they're also the things I actually have pictures of!

What we did...

2009-06-02T23:18:00.003-06:00

last weekend for memorial day...we went to Camp Floyd. It was pretty uneventful, but it was nice to have a drive and (for me at least) to be outside for a bit. After that, we hung out at Ben's family's house and had a BBQ. Harmony had fun playing with the sweet toys at Grandma's. She also loves playing patty cake, as you can see here in the second video clip.

Zoo Day and other fun things...

2009-05-21T23:31:00.003-06:00

Much has happened over the past few weeks. Some of my favorite AZ friends, Rosi (Isbell) Hendrickson, and her husband Stan, came over for a visit and got to meet Harmony! Also, her kids (and one of my very best friends!) Derek, and Amanda came to visit a few days later. Derek hasn't seen Harmony since she was two weeks old. We had a blast playing Mario Kart and watching The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera. Great flick. ;) Amanda had a good time too she said, tho, the contrary seems evident from the picture, hee hee hee.

We finally took Harmony to the zoo!!! Yay! I have been waiting since January for the weather to be nice and for us to have a chance to go. We didn't get too many good pictures, unfortunately. The sun was not cooperating with my eyes, and many of the animals were sleeping out of view :( Although, we did get a video of Harmony's favorite part! The water fountain at the entrance! It was a great day.

Harmony has become more and more mobile. Loves to move and hates to sit and stay. A cute thing she does lately is her "turbo crawl." When she sees someplace she wants to be, she'll start a normal crawl, and then tips her head down and crawls at it doubletime! It's hilarious. She often bumps into things tho, since she's looking straight at the floor and not where she's going!

These clips are just from the other day. She stops and stares at our "fish" which she loves to look and giggle at. Our real fish died (they killed each other) but Ben has a screen saver on his computer with a fish tank on it, and, well, Harmony doesn't know the difference!
She also really loves to talk now. She says more words but it's hard to catch it on video. I'll post one if I am ever lucky enough to get it.

Juggling

2009-04-27T10:40:00.004-06:00

It is pretty unbelievable to us how much Harmony has changed. I wish I had a hidden camera in my face so that I could post every cute little thing she does on this blog! That would be a very huge blog with the rate this girl is goin ;)
However, Harmony does this funny trick lately. I have been excited to post it. Unfortunately, the only shots of it I have are these crappy cell phone videos since my actual camera is very dead. But, you can get the idea.

Part deux

Sunny Day!

2009-04-21T18:59:00.009-06:00

Just a few things I wanted to let everybody know...

All the pictures I've been posting to the top of the blog, were taken by Mary Anne Miner (Miner Photography). She lives here in Provo near us, and she's from my home town, Sierra Vista (some of you know her obviously). She's a wonderful photographer and did a great job with our cranky little Harmony ;)

I will be making this blog private pretty soon, due to the many people in various countries (most of which I've never heard of) who land on this blog thru web searches. It makes me a little nervous. So, I'd be happy to add you if you send me your email address.

Well, can't have a post with out some pictures of Harmony, now can we?! We took these today thanks to the warm weather we finally had!! I hope it lasts a loooong time!

AND I'm amending this to add this pic I just got from Gma Layton from Easters. :)
Too cute that little toothy smile.

Easters and Such

2009-04-14T22:32:00.013-06:00

Just a quick post to put up some photos from Easter, the tooth (and lurking 2nd tooth) new crawling adventures, and jumping. Harmony began to really jump last Tuesday, the day her cousin Reilly Peyton Thomas was born. I guess she was jumping for joy :) We can hardly wait to meet her!

Harmony's little Easter basket with all her favorite candies.
The Easter Bunny left her a basket at Grandma Layton's
house that had lots of baby things in it too :)

Seriously.

You may be able to catch a glimpse of her little tooth.
It's partner has been working its way up this past week or so.
Her favorite place is on top of anybody's head.

Here's some footage of her from this week. You may notice she's become slightly more coordinated since she first learned to crawl ;)

A Crawl-it

2009-04-01T10:45:00.004-06:00

Well, Harmony made my mom's bet come true. She learned to crawl by the end of the month! I think all of Aunt Becky's coaching while she was here was what did it. Harmony loves her Aunt Becky so much, she went home and practiced practiced practiced! Now she has it....and I can't keep her in one spot for 10 seconds. Just a couple days before that, she mastered the art of sitting up from laying down/on her tummy. Now nothing is safe from baby hands!

Now if we could get that second front tooth to come up to match the first one...

here's a semi ok video I caught of her moments after crawling for the first time, and a couple other clips.

7 months old?!

2009-03-27T14:04:00.007-06:00

I haven't posted anything for my little mom lately, so, here's a few new things!

She loves to look out the window

Ben calls this her "hand in the cookie jar picture."

Using her favorite toy

On dad's shoulders at another basketball game

This first clip is of one of her favorite past times - kicking. The second clip I took today of her playing with her new found love - pulling things out of things.

B-B-B-Birthday!!

2009-03-13T16:32:00.006-06:00

We celebrated Ben's birthday yesterday! He's now caught up with me, at the HUGE 2-8. Of course, he'd tell you he'll never catch up to me because he's only 10220 days old and I'm 10383...but who's counting? Here's the traditional birthday pics. Oh... and Harmony's not in the group pic because she was taking the picture.....I mean, taking a nap (as was Steve).

Again, Harmony's eating carrots while we're eating cake?! no fair.

On the Move

2009-02-28T21:35:00.002-07:00

So Harmony desperately wants to crawl. and walk. What the heck?! Every minute she is on the floor, she is rolling around, getting up on her knees, reaching, grasping and willing herself toward objects she sees. She's making good progress actually. She's always wanted to stand very much, and it is evident even in her attempts to crawl. Or at least that's what it looks like to us. She will get herself up on her knees, and up onto her toes, then straightens her legs so that she gets herself into a little triangle-headstand position. It's cute to watch...also very exhausting. Perhaps we should get to baby-proofing our place earlier than we'd expected? "/

Here's some footage of her newest feats we've captured.

6 months and 6 years

2009-02-22T21:10:00.006-07:00

Today Harmony turned 6 months old! I can't believe how that time flew by!! We've tried to enjoy and soak in every minute of her babyhood, but we're excited for her growing and learning new things everyday as well! She's a great little vegetable eater. She hasn't tried anything she didn't like yet! Well, I'm not sure if she actually likes it all or not, but at least she eats it. We're so proud of her and love her more than we can explain - Bring on the next 6 months!!

Our favorite dog Charlie, (favorite, tied with Todd, of course!) turned 6 years old! We had a little celebration for Charlie and Harmony at Grandma and Grandpa Layton's house tonight. Here are some pictures from the evening.

Our 6 month old?!!

The remnants of Charlie's birthday cupcake

With Grandma Layton

With Grandpa Layton

Being cute

Also, last Friday, we went with Ben's parents and sister to the Draper temple open house. I had never been to an open house of a new temple before, so it was neat to get to take a tour. It was a beautiful sunny day, and even particularly warm. The temple was so beautiful. Harmony's favorite part was the giant chandelier. The temple sits up high near the top of the mountain, and has a gorgeous view of the valley below. Apart from all the humongous houses competing for attention, the temple still stands out from the freeway below. It's pretty cool, though, because you actually have three temples in view at once when you're there; you've got Draper, Jordan River, and now Oquirrh.

The new Draper temple!

Our Little Valentine

2009-02-15T23:53:00.006-07:00

Harmony is growing so fast. She was the best Valentine's gift we could ever ask for too! She even wore a festive outfit for us. We took some pics and a video to share with you. Enjoy...

She started doing this scrunchy thing with her nose when she smiles all the time now. It reminds me of my niece, Kelsey, who used to do something very similar.

Random Random Random

2009-02-06T19:53:00.006-07:00

Here are just a few pictures from the last month or so that I picked out to post. Our little girl is growing so fast. Seems like she's rapidly going from our little baby to our little toddler in no time! Slow it down! I wish.

Harmony began eating rice cereal a while ago.
Here she is sitting in her temporary high chair,
or her "mini mission control station."

Smiley

Already pushing mommy around.

Practicing her manners with a curtsy.

Just a family one.

Going on a walk to the river.

Giving mommy a kiss....or trying to eat my face, rather.

Taking Grandpa Layton for a ride.

She's sitting up nearly all by herself now. (when you can actually keep her sitting. She usually straightens her legs and lifts her hips to stand up instead.) Here she is with daddy close by just in case.

And last but not least, a video of her favorite past time, "Mission Control."

January 24th. 5 months, 2 days.

2009-01-24T14:36:00.004-07:00

Today is my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom! Last year on her birthday, we sent her a card with a suprise insert to announce that we were pregnant. So, I figured it would be a good day to post some vidoes and see how far she's come since she was that small big headed blob of cells at this time last year. ( Ben says she's STILL a small big headed blob of cells. I guess it's true.) Hope you enjoy the movies, and again mom, have a happy birthday!

Harmony loves to eat her feet; especially in the bathtub! She's loves her baths a lot. The first two videos are of her in the bath, and the second video was mostly for the sound effects. If you get motion sickness, it may be better if you just turn your head for this. I was making her laugh and wanted to show Ben later, so I just threw the camera on the desk while it recorded. Luckily, I actually did catch a shot of her.

This video is of Harmony's ability to get herself stuck. She is a crazy rolling machine, when it comes to rolling from her back to her tummy. But, she doesn't try too hard to roll off her tummy, so she just ends up getting really mad. She only rolls off accidentally so far. As for what I've read about babies, most babies will roll from their tummy to their back first, and then eventually learn the other way, and be able to roll over completely. Well, so what if she wants to do things a little backwards, eh?

Baby Laughs

2009-01-10T21:16:00.002-07:00

There are few things that are cuter than a baby laughing. We've been looking forward to the day when Harmony started to really laugh. She finally did last month, (I think in AZ) and we've been trying to keep her laughing since. I got a really cute video of it on our camcorder, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to figure out a way to post it. So, here are a few short clips I've gathered from my digital camera of her laugh for you to hear.

Harmony also had a little photo shoot with us the other day. Click Here to see the pictures.

Cute videos from vacation...

2009-01-05T21:46:00.008-07:00

Don't forget to check out the pictures from our last blog!

AZ Sun and Fun

2009-01-02T14:06:00.006-07:00

WELL! We are back home in Utah for the first time in 17 days! Are we happy about that? Yes and no. I'm glad to be back in my own home, but I am already sad to leave my family and friends back in Arizona. I know Ben is happy to be home, and he is happy to be nice and COLD. I'm pretty sure Harmony recognizes her home again, but I'm not sure how much fun it will be with it being just her and me most of the time again! And my arms certainly enjoyed all the extra help from other people holding (and entertaining) her these past fews weeks. I'll have to bulk up again to work those muscles back up!

My camera (which I usually use to post all these digital videos) has been dead, pretty much since we got to Arizona, because I forgot the charger. So I'll have the videos off of my camcorder in a few days and I'll try to upload the few digital ones I got asap! Although for now, I have lots of pictures of all our fun in Arizona...I miss you all already!!

Go see the PICTURES

Christmas adventures

2008-12-23T22:35:00.004-07:00

We've been in Arizona for a whole week now. We are having a great time! I wanted to post a blog real quick and get some new pics out there for Grandma Layton :) Hopefully I'll have time to get all of them together eventually.

Harmony did great on her first flight out here. We were on the plane an hour longer than we origionaly should have been (4 hours), but she hung in there and even managed to be smiley and cute! She earned her wings from the pilot too.

Harmony has met so many new people this week. It's so cute when she sees my nieces and my nephew. Sometimes she makes the funniest faces! Her eyes get big and wide, and she mostly just stares around the room. She's been doing wonderful with all the new people and new surroundings.

Sawyer is absolutely adorable around Harmony. He likes to point to her and say BABY, and loves to give her kisses. My nieces are the cutest, and they love to hold Harmony! Especially Taylor, who would hold her non-stop if we didn't pry Harmony out of her arms :) I'll post videos of them with her if I am able to.

Ben's sister Becky and her husband Jared were able to stop by my brother Tracey's house last night. We didn't get any pictures of them though...what the heck?! So we'll definitely have to meet up with them again!

Here is Harmony in her new Sunday dress

Grandma Layton made for her.

My camera is not the best, to say the least.

So, the pics are the best we could get!

Sleeping soundly in her pack and play!

Wearing a Santa Hat that's just her size

At Uncle Tracey's and Aunt Darci's

"No more search engine hits title change"

2008-12-11T14:41:00.008-07:00

Christmas is on it's way! We got into the holiday spirit and put up our Christmas tree last week. We even found the perfect star!

We took a couple more family pictures last weekend, and some of them turned out. I have a bunch of family pics from over Thanksgiving weekend. I'm posting some of the larger Layton family. The only one I'm posting of our small Layton family is the one that turned out the best. Sort of. This was the only pic that our faces all looked decent..but the only pic that turned out blurry for some reason! Who knows. Maybe we're just not meant to have a great family pic.

Harmony is enjoying a new toy a little early for Christmas. We got a good deal on an exersaucer from KSL.com. She's always straightening her legs and wanting things to do. I figured, she may as well have it now, since she is so eager to be standing all the time ( and my arms get tired of holding her up!) and it looks a little too difficult to wrap...or fit under the tree!

We're looking forward to traveling to Arizona next week! I'm really excited to see my family, and have several of my and Ben's family memebers meet Harmony for the first time! Becky, I hope we can meet up with you down there, so give us a call!

Tonight is Ben's company's annual Christmas party in SLC. They give out pretty sweet gifts to the employee's. Supposedly Ben should get an even better one than last year's gift since he's moved up a tier (they put you in gift tiers depending on how long you've been there). So we'll see. He also made the company slide show, and short movie (with the help of his brothers!). So he's quite the man this year. Hopefully we'll have a good time, and it'll be worth leaving my sweet little lady for five hours! And also hopefully we won't get stuck driving home in a huge snow storm like we did last year!

This video was taken yesterday while Harmony was expressing her displeasure for the camera being there. Notice the cute bow on her head. It was one of many adorable bows made by my cousin Elisa. If you want to get some you can check 'em out at her blog here.

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-11-30T16:51:00.007-07:00

We had our Thanksgiving feast at Ben's parents house. The feast was wonderful, and the entertainment even better. Well, the entertianment for Harmony was for sure! She had lots of new people to play with her. Her Aunt Becky was a real sport for carrying her around the house and keeping her occupied! Uncle Sam and Aunt Jenn and their son Cameron were there too! Harmony definitely noticed Cameron, although I'm not quite sure if she knew what to make of him. Did she know that he was a little baby like her? Does she even know she is a baby? Who knows! But we got some pictures of them all the same!

Harmony talked all day and night, especially for Daddy. I fianlly got a pretty decent video of her conversation with Ben. Also, here is a link to the pictures from the weekend.

Click HERE for the pictures!

Family for Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T17:10:00.006-07:00

This past weekend was a fun one! My dad came to visit us for the weekend, and got to see how much Harmony has grown. We had fun relaxing, and spending time together. I'm really glad he had time to stay on his way home from his business trip.

Our sister-in-law Jenn came in from Colorado for an extended visit before Thanksgiving. Her husband (Ben's brother) Sam will be joining us Wednesday. Jenn came by our house and introduced us to her beautiful son, Cameron! He is definately a cutie, and he sure does look like Harmony's cousin! I guess those kids have a lotta Layton in them :) We miss Jenn and Sam, and are so happy to spend time with them!

Ben's sister Becky also came to Utah from Texas. Harmony has really taken well to her! She loves Becky to carry her around and hang out with her. The first nightBecky was here, Harmony fell right to sleep in her arms! I'll post some more pics of her with us as soon as I get them! We're happy she's here!

Harmony has begun "talking" to us more and more lately. She has little conversations with us with her own words. It's so fun to see the expressions on her face, and to be able to connect with her while she tells us about her day. She laughs and giggles so much now. I love her smile, and how her face lights up when she takes notice of you.

This video is of her being silly with her daddy. You can hear a little of her "eagle powers." That's what her aunts and uncle call her squeals (they get that term from Nacho Libre). She loves to laugh and squeal and it is SO CUTE. If I ever succeed at getting a good video of it all, I'll post it!

Just Videos

2008-11-16T20:10:00.015-07:00

We take a lot of videos of Harmony around here. They aren't always exciting or excellent quality, but I think they capture her real cuteness pretty well. I try and post them pretty frequently because I know that my parents (especially my mom) watch them several times a day. I can't blame them of course, since I am lucky enough to be with Harmony all day. So, here's some new material for today. I'm going to try out the media player my friend Ashley uses on her blog, let me know if you like it!

This is Harmony waking up in the morning. She is always very smiley in the morning. The video is not great quality since it's from my cell phone.

This elephant toy is her favorite. She suddenly started talking to it, so we had to get a video.

We played a video on the computer of Harmony for Harmony. We didn't realize how much she would enjoy watching herself. It's pretty dark, but, maybe you'll be able to make it out.

I miss the weekend

2008-11-12T17:02:00.011-07:00

Not too much has happened since Friday- We've had a great time with Harmony. She started drooling and making spit bubbles one day a few weeks ago. Since then, she successfully soaks her shirts pretty good every day! It's looking as though she's started to discover her hands. She's begun to suck on anything that she can lean close enough to...mostly our fingers or her own hands. She's not great with hand-mouth coordination yet, though. She will sometimes put her fist so far into her mouth that she'll start to gag! We also learned that she loves to watch videos of herself. She'll giggle and smile the whole time. I'll try posting the video we have of it if Ben gets some time to lighten it up a little. Here's some pics from this weekend.

On Sunday in her Pooh Bear dress with some pink tights from her cousins!

Daddy can make her smile pretty easily. Her eyes closes because of the flash though.

If you look closely, you can see the shiny drool all over her chin :)

And of course, a video. It's not a great angle. I'm trying to holdthe camera off to the side while looking at her.

Happy Birthday Cameron Layton!!

2008-11-07T18:07:00.030-07:00

Congratulations to Jenn and Sam! Their baby boy was born today! We're excited for them to have their first baby, and that we have another cute little baby to cuddle and spoil! Harmony is happy to have a new cousin! Here she is saying, "Hi Cameron!" ( You might notice, Harmony's ears are starting to pop out a bit like her mom's! I've tried hard to avoid calling her by my brother's nickname for me when I was a baby ... "Yoda." )

I took some videos of her today. Lately I've been having trouble getting videos of her smiling, because she has caught on to the whole camera thing, and must be camera shy, because she stops smiling as soon as she sees it! So if I want some of her happy, I have to be more descrete.

Here is one of her during "tummy time" which she doesn't really like doing.

This is an example of her noticing the camera and giving it a bad look!

Sorry that it's pretty hard to see.

I tacked on this short clip from a few days ago of her

playing with Ben too, just so you can see her laugh.

Halloween weekend

2008-11-02T19:37:00.009-07:00

We had a lot of fun this weekend with Halloween and all. We dressed Harmony as a pumpkin, using black tights, a jack o lantern onsie and a little Pumpkin top hat that Ben's mom made for her. That was pretty much the best thing we could come up with considering she is so small she would drown in a store bought costume! Tara, of course wore her favorite ghost costume, and Ben went as an Internet Pirate.

We haven't got the pictures of us from that night yet, but we have a couple cute ones of Harmony off of our camera.

Also, I'm adding a video of Harmony having a "tantrum" since most of you never see this side of her! Hah. Well, it's not really a meltdown or anything, she's just getting tired. So, since she's even cute when she's crying I guess it's ok to put it up. We think it's cute that she'll actually kind of yell-talk at us when she's angry but not reallycrying . . . just like "hey! this sucks!" So, here ya go...

But now, just so you see she recovers well...a cute little snippet.

More to come later once we have our Halloween pics!

Tara's Birthday

2008-10-30T18:14:00.004-06:00

Yesterday was a great day! It was my 28th birthday (ew I'm never typing that out again), so I wanted to post some pictures from last night. Ben was able to get the day off of work to spend it with me. He had told me that he had to go to a meeting in the afternoon though. However, he later called me during his "meeting" to let me know that he might be a while, because he was getting my car windows re-tinted and it was going to take forever! I was SO surprised! That's exactly what I've been waiting all year for my birthday to do (my car's tint had turned kind of purple a while ago, and it drove me crazy every time I drove!). I had pretty much given up doing that though because I haven't had time to research or plan it since I've been so preoccupied with the baby. BUT my thoughtful husband LIED to me about having a meeting so he could surprise me :)

That evening, we went over to Ben's parent's house so they could babysit Harmony while we went to dinner. Ben took me to one of my favorite places, Red Robin, and I even got a free birthday dessert! After that we went back to the Layton's for MORE really tasty cake that his mom made. Since going to dinner AND a movie is pretty hard to do these days, we decided that watching a movie in the Layton's awesome media room (with a 90 inch projector screen and a soundproof room and comfy recliners!!) would be just as good, if not better! So, that's what we did.

Harmony must have known it was my birthday, because she was on her extra best behavior all day! She was a perfect angel and barely fussed at all! She even slept well thru the night for me. :) Thanks to everyone who called and wished me a happy birthday! It means a lot to be remembered, and of course I love hearing from every one!

So, Here are a couple photos from the evening. . .

Harmony also wore a dress for the festivities!

Size 3 mos is still a little big for her, but she's still cute!

Two Months

2008-10-28T21:28:00.001-06:00

So, we haven't done much in the way of videos this week. However, I did take two this morning. This week Harmony had her two month doctor's appointment, which means, she had to get a few vaccinations. She did pretty good with the shots. She only cried really hard until they were over with, and then settled down once she was held again. ( One of these days I'm going to post a video of her crying, which she does most of the time, so that you can get a feel for it all!) She weighs exactly 10 lbs and is 21 3/4 inches long. She is growing well even though she is on the petite side (who would have guessed?).

The first video... I'll have to try later, since blogger won't seem to upload it. :(

The next video is of her in the swing. It has these little stuffed fish on a mobile that spins above her head. We think it's funny because she will watch one fish until it is practically completely behind her, and then she'll switch to the next one up, and do the same thing...she'll keep doing it over and over and over. So, here ya go!

Smiles

2008-10-18T20:49:00.006-06:00

Harmony has been talking and smiling a lot more lately. Her favorite words are "wow" and "oh." She also likes "I love you." We finally caught a good video of it all. This is from tonight.

Hound Dog

2008-10-14T21:25:00.004-06:00

Ok. So, before you watch this video, you need to know that it was inspired by Harmony's jumpsuit collar. Ben thought that her fashion statement was similar to that of the late Elvis Presley. So knowing that, and knowing of Ben's favorite entertainment with Harmony- we hope you enjoy this as much as we do. Great-Grandma Rose, this one's for you.

A few fun things

2008-10-11T19:52:00.006-06:00

I took some pictures this week to put up for the blog. Fall is here, which means its freezing for me, however, Ben is very excited for the weather change. My favorite thing about the end of the year is the month of October! So, I wanted to show off Harmony's new onsies! Her Grandma Layton got them for her.

She has been using her "words" lately. Here she is in her cradle talking to her bumpers.

She's learning to bat at her toys in her rocker

We sure are enjoying watching how she grows and develops everyday. Her reflux seems to be getting better, and she is starting to sleep better at night now! We are working on starting a new bedtime schedule for her, which has been hard to do due to her reflux. The problem is mostly because it is so difficult to have her lie down with out spitting up constantly. Well, that's all for this week. Off to battle the cold days ahead!

Week 6 activities

2008-10-03T19:38:00.003-06:00

A picture of Harmony taking a nap on daddy. This is the first time

that she actually stayed sleeping while laying on her back like that.

She's actually starting to like it more now.

I love daddy

Daddy helping her show off some sweet dance moves. It's pretty much Ben's favorite thing to do with her :) And yeah, it's pretty funny.
Here's a video of Harmony from today. We think she looks pretty cute when Ben holds her like this...and she seems to love it too.

September news

2008-09-27T19:59:00.012-06:00

Hello again! Our last couple of weeks have been great and not so great. Harmony is doing well and getting bigger everday (and cuter). Still trying to get the smiling down, but she is starting to "talk" just a little bit. Her acid reflux problems have been challenging for her (and me). Other than that, she is just perfect. Here is a video I took of her falling asleep. She usually makes some pretty interesting faces and tends to do this "exorcist" thing-as we call it- with her eyes. It's funny.

She's getting bigger!

Last week, our car was stolen right out of our parking space at home! It was extremely devestating, especially for me since I've spent a good part of my life caring for that car, and hoping to have it another few years. Luckily the police recovered the car not far from home! However, the JERKS took everything they thought had value to them (including the antenna! and our brand new baby stroller) and it was a very sad sight to see for me since it was pretty torn up. But, it still drove fine So, we have been focusing on getting the car back to its previous state, even though we grimice at the thought of putting down money for things we once owned that were taken from us.
On a lighter note, Ben was able to take his dad out for a day of fun at a BYU football game. Courtesy of StoresOnline, Ben and his dad sat pretty dang close at the game, and, got to enjoy some free catered food! They had a great time and only suffered some minor sunburns :) Oh, and BYU won of course!

Doesn't Ben look like he's enjoying the football game?

Nyle is enjoying himself for sure!

And I can't forget to brag that Ben was the overall employee of the month at StoresOnline! He won a 150 "stobucks" and now has enough saved up to buy a Nintendo Wii! woohoo! He also had his picture on the employee of the month wall, among other office perks.

Do you see Ben's picture in the bottom left?

The other pictures are for the previous months and last year.

Well that's about it for this time, Here are a few extra pictures of Harmony from this month for you to look at!
CLICK HERE to see 'em!

One Month Old

2008-09-22T18:39:00.005-06:00

Happy one month anniversary to Harmony! She is such a big girl! :) Harmony has had a great first month of life...well, in our opinion at least!

Since she was born she has definately filled out her newborn onsies, her eyes have become a lighter blue, her cheeks are as chubby as ever, and now she tracks things better and stares into our eyes! She even hints at wanting to smile now and then. She gives us some big smiles pretty often, but just in her sleep. Oh, and she is even better at keeping her little hands out of her face all the time (we wondered if we would have to start duct taping them to her sides to keep them down!).

Here are some pictures I took today while her daddy was at work!

And, here is another short video for your enjoyment.

Live Action Shots

2008-09-16T20:36:00.005-06:00

Since many of you have never seen Harmony in real life, (or, miss seeing her in real life) I figured I would post a couple cute, (yet not very exciting) videos of her. Hope you enjoy them. We love to sit and watch her, especially when she is awake. She makes the cutest faces. Our favorite face she makes is when she lifts her head and wrinkles her forehead. Her "blue steel" face is a favorite too...(if you've ever seen the movie Zoolander, you may know where we get this name from) big round eyes and pursed round lips. And of course, we're always trying to catch a smile.

Blessing Day

2008-09-15T11:15:00.012-06:00

Last Sunday we had Harmony's baby blessing at our home. Our families and friends came over to be there while Ben gave Harmony a beautiful blessing. Thanks to unlce Steve, who recorded the blessing, we will have it forever to show to her later! Her dress was a beautiful gift from Tara's Aunt Lorraine. Harmony was swimming in it a little bit, but still looked so pretty! Also, we were happy to have Sam and Jenn join us for the blessing from Colorado! Here are a few pictures from the awesome day!

Harmony's Layton uncles and aunts (almost all of them!)

With our Bishop

Her pretty dress!

Grandparents Thomas and Layton

Tara and her parents

Two Weeks Old

2008-09-05T21:41:00.004-06:00

Harmony is two weeks old! The first two weeks have been wonderful. Grandpa Thomas joined us for a visit, and our friend Derek Isbell stopped by during his trip to Utah. Harmony had her two week Doctor's appointment, and she's looking good! She's gained back all but 2 oz of her birth weight, and already grown 2 1/2 inches! She's still very content and peaceful, and we've enjoyed every minute! Bring on the next two weeks!

Here are a few more photos since our last post.

Taking a nap with daddy

With Grandpa and Grandma Thomas

Finally, evidence of Uncle Jon holding her!

Tara, Derek and Harmony

Sharing the love

2008-08-28T16:15:00.007-06:00

Here are a few more pictures of family members with Harmony... and a few more cute ones.

Grandma Thomas

Grandpa Layton

Grandma Layton

Aunt Sarah

Uncle Sam & Aunt Jenn

Uncle Matt & Uncle Steve

Grandpa Thomas will arrive later today! Uncle Jon, we need some pictures with you!!

She made it!!!

2008-08-28T16:03:00.004-06:00

She's finally here!!!! We are so very excited and grateful to announce that our baby girl Harmony Gayle Layton was born August 22, 2008 at 9:08 am! (Notice that her birthday is a palendrome 08/22/08. Ben was very hopeful that she would cooperate and be born on a palendrome. She's already being obedient!)

She's a wonderful baby and has such a calm temperament. We've been amazed at how easy going she has been.

We hope to update the blog as often as possible, but for now here are a few pictures to enjoy! We'll add more soon!

Catching Up!

2008-08-15T11:28:00.010-06:00

I wanted to add some pictures I just got from a few of our activities over the summer. We have some pictures from the baby shower in June, Nyles B-day in July, and Pioneer day on July 24th!

The group from the shower! Missing one friend (Nicole!)
and one mother-in-law who took the picture!

Me holding the outfit from Aunt Becky! "Daddy's little Princess!"

It's Nyle's party, and he can show of his future grandbabies if he wants to!

Our favorite friends (who used to be our neighbors!)
Nathan and Nicole Abraham,
came to the Layton's for the Pioneer day celebrations.

The Abraham's son, Ethan, helping Sarah to walk the dog!

Ben longboarding and walking Todd - the dogs love the fast pace!

The Final Countdown

2008-08-04T23:04:00.004-06:00

Yes indeed, this is the final countdown. Tara is at 37 weeks and counting. Pretty soon we'll have our new daughter joining us in our home...at last! Grandma and Grandpa Layton helped us put the finishing touches on the baby's room by painting some stars on her already blue accented walls, and by bringing over a cradle that was hand made by Ben's dad for Ben when he was born! Teresa put some hard work in to make some adorable bumpers for the cradle and to get the bedding all ready!

Here are a few angles of Tara's continuously growing belly...And a rare glimpse of the camera shy, but proud, father-to-be!

CLICK HERE to see the pics!

35 Weeks

2008-07-21T20:57:00.004-06:00

It's a new blog!!

2008-07-21T20:54:00.001-06:00

It’s been a fun couple of weeks this last month. Tara’s belly grew to gigantic proportions (according to her). The baby has been moving and spinning and jumping around a lot more than before…pretty much all day long. Tara’s been feeling great, with only a couple complaints of discomfort since her 8th month began.

At the end of June, Tara’s mother-in-law and sister’s-in-law threw her a surprise baby shower! They were very sneaky, and Tara was extremely surprised and thrilled! It was held at our friends the Porters’ house. We should be able to post pictures of that shortly.

We recently had Tara’s cousin Aimee come up for a visit! We really enjoyed having her here. We tried to give her some cool Utah experiences, so we took her up to Bridal Veil Falls, Sundance, and of course, Ikea! We had fun watching RIFFTRAX together too.

This last weekend we all went up to Preston, Idaho for the Spackman family reunion. Ben got his first tour of the Blackfoot Potato Museum!

Tara will begin her new work-from-home, online chat support job for StoresOnline this week. Hopefully this will keep the boredom from being home alone (waiting for the baby) at bay.

Enjoy the new pictures of the past week!

CLICK HERE to see the pictures!

The Pictures

2008-07-03T20:35:00.003-06:00

Here are the 3D photos from the Ultrasound visit. She is partially hiding her face so they are not PERFECT...but you get the idea. You can see her big cheeks are a lot like Tara's were as a baby. We're still looking to see if we can find a hair or two on her head though. She will probably take after us both in that area and be a baldy. We hope you like them! We don't want any angry aunts out there! :)

3D Pictures!!!

2008-07-03T20:25:00.006-06:00

Here you can see her face profile. The next one she is trying to hide back there. Then, you get some good shots of her cute cheeks! The last is Tara as a baby next to the baby, which was made by Ben for comparison purposes.

3D ultrasound

2008-06-28T15:27:00.010-06:00

Here are some video clips from the ultrasound we got on June 14th.

29 Weeks

2008-06-09T17:06:00.004-06:00

Tara's perspective

New News

2008-06-09T16:43:00.005-06:00

Ok, I know it's been a while since our last post so....just to catch up-

May was a great month! We took a trip down to AZ during the middle of the month. Tara went to her friend Misty's wedding, and we were able to spend a good week with Tara's family. We spent our time hanging out with Tara's parents and playing a lot of her dad's Nintendo Wii. Ben got really good at his golf swing while we were there. We also were able to spend some time with Tara's brother, Tracey, and his family. Tara's nephew, Sawyer, was about to turn 1 year (on May 30th) so she was excited to see him and his latest developments, and of course her three favorite nieces! It's always a good time at Tracey and Darci's house, so of course we had a lot of fun! One especially fun activity was finally having a light saber battle in the dark! The only downside to the trip was Tara having to come to terms with the fact that her oldest niece, Kelsey, has overtaken her in height. It was fun while it lasted!
We were even able to spend a little time at Ben's grandma Dixon's on the way back up to Utah.

It was great for Tara to see her family again since the beginning of the year, and the first time for them to see her in person since she's been pregnant! Tara's belly seems to be getting bigger every day! One of our favorite pasttimes is getting to sit and watch the baby kick around each night as she wiggles and shifts. Her motions are getting stronger now, and are very obvious on the outside of Tara's tummy! At the rate it's been going, it would seem that our baby will have her days and nights mixed up when she gets here, since her most active time consistently begins at 12 AM. We plan to have a 3D ultrasound done this weekend just for fun, so we will eventually be posting more pictures of the baby!

We are currently making a move into a new apartment, and are extremely excited to have a bigger place!

Here are some updated pictures of Tara's belly, along with a rare shot of her belly uncovered!

A Little Bit More

2008-05-06T15:16:00.002-06:00

We received a few more pictures from Sam and Jenn's camera, so here they are for you to enjoy. Once other funny thing happened to us while we were at Sea World...we all got nailed with bird poop! I guess we were just walking in one lucky spot, and he really had to go, because he managed to get all four of us in one swoop! It was REALLY disgusting, but we managed to get cleaned up...

Click on the link below to view the pictures (and a side note, there is a picture link on our last blog too. If you missed it, go back and see 'em!).

CLICK HERE to see the pictures

2008-04-29T21:16:00.019-06:00

Hello! Thought we would share our adventurous stories of the past week with everyone. Last week, Ben and I traveled down to San Diego with Ben's brother Sam and our sister-in-law Jenn.

Thanks to Jenn and her parents for sharing their timeshare with us, we were able to stay the week at a really nice Resort in Escondido, CA. While we were there, we went to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park.

It was fun to eat out frequently at In-N-Out burger and really enjoyable for Ben to be reconnected with his beloved Jack in the Box.

We went to several different beaches during our stay (but thankfully we weren't witnesses to the fatal great white shark attack that week!).
After a full day at Sea World we planned to fly a kite at Ocean Beach, which turned out great due to a very, very windy evening!

The next day we went to the Zoo, then over to Coronado Beach. We played in the water, and with all the living sea shells burrowed under the sand, buried Jenn's lower half and turned her into a mermaid, and Ben made a sculpture of phenomenal quality. Unfortunately, Ben got a little over done in the sun, and spent most of that night throwing up! He recovered by the next morning though.

Our visit to the Wild Animal Park was very cool, but pretty short. We were all over cooked by the sun by then, so after a quick tour, we headed back out to the coast. We stopped by the beautiful San Diego Temple, and headed to La Jolla Cove where Ben and Sam braved the rocky and freezing waters to take a swim, while Jenn and I nervously watched.

To finish off our last night, we drove along the shore to Oceanside beach. We'd hoped to grab a bonfire pit before they were all taken to make some s'mores, but we were too late...So we improvised! We used our firewood in a bar-b-que pit and TONS of lighter fluid. We realized after we started that we really weren't supposed to use wood in the grill, but everything turned out ok, and as far as we know, we didn't burn anything down!

On the way home we stopped in Las Vegas and Had lunch with Tara's grandma Rose.

All in all we had a fantastic time and really enjoyed a long vacation.

CLICK HERE to see more pictures (Double-Click a Polaroid to enlarge it).

20 and 21 Weeks

2008-04-16T12:39:00.005-06:00

20 and 21 weeks

2008-04-13T16:45:00.004-06:00

2008-03-29T21:51:00.002-06:00

The baby's profile and neck bones

The view from under it's bottom - looks like a girl!

Another profile. You can see the ear clearly.

Arms crossed - left shoulder, right fingers. Looking up.

More to come on Wednesday!

Current Events

2008-03-25T23:12:00.000-06:00

Hello all!

These last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful...

We started off March with Ben's 27th Birthday! He's finally caught up to Tara!

Then we continued the celebrations over the weekend for our First Anniversary! We had a really great time. It was a modest way to celebrate year number one, but we really enjoyed ourselves. We stayed at the Marriott in Salt Lake City and were treated with free valet parking, room service and even a dish of chocolate covered strawberries and sparkling cider.
We did a few fun activities. We went to the aquarium and also watched some 3D IMAX movies at the planetarium. Those are some of our favorite things to do, so it was a really nice way to spend our anniversary.

Our fun was spoiled momentarily later that week, however, due to Ben's small surgery. He had a bit of surgery done on the back of his head, so he can show off a pretty cool wound, and even some stitches! Tara was not able to leave work that day, but, fortunately, Ben's dad was able to go with him, and now can say that he saw his son's skull! It wasn't really that fun, but he has some neat stories from the experience. He is doing great and healing nicely!

Ben's sister Becky was visiting from Texas over Easter weekend. We dyed Easter eggs and had a fun egg hunt at Ben's parents' house.

Now back to our routines of work and so forth. . . Till next time!

Click Here To See The Pictures

Catching Up

2008-03-17T14:01:00.001-06:00

Just a few things to catch up on since the first of the year. We found out we are having a baby, due August 26, 2008. We are having the first ultrasound on April 2, and hopefully will find out the baby's gender!

Towards the end of January, we had a little visit from our friend, David Goodman. We all went to the planetarium in Salt Lake City, and took a quick trip to Mars and stopped off at the Moon.

Also, here is a picture from our first Valentines Day. We made ourselves a nice dinner at home, Eggplant Parmesan.

Also in February, we celebrated the beginning of Tara's Second Trimester! Here are a couple of pictures of Tara's growing little belly, approximately 15 weeks.

That's about it so far. I'll be back later on to post the news of Ben's birthday and our first Anniversary!

First Post Title Here

2008-03-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

Well, This is it. Our new blog. Hopefully to be filled with many interesting details about our minimally interesting lives. I'll try to keep it updated with plenty of news about the baby on the way. Till next post....

Tara