First Christmas

Palmer's first Christmas has come and gone; she wasn't too impressed with the whole ordeal, but we sure had fun celebrating her first Christmas with her. I didn't get the best pictures, but she got way too many new toys. She also got some new clothes, pajamas and books.

We had planned to have our party with my dad's side of the family on Friday, the 23rd. Unfortunately the stomach flu decided to start traveling quickly through the whole family on about the 22nd so the rest of the family decided to stay away from us; the party ended up just being my parents and their posterity. It was still a good time with some yummy food. In the end there were very few members of the family that dodged the flu. I got it but Palmer didn't, thank goodness. Taylor has had a bit of an upset stomach off and on since last week but he still hasn't been hit fully by the yucky bug.
The next night we partied with my mom's side of the family. It was fun and crazy as usual. I sure do love all of my family, immediate and extended.
Taylor and I were up before Palmer on Christmas morning so we opened our own stuff and waited for her to wake up. She woke up just in time to "open" her stocking and presents and then we all got ready for church. After church we headed to my parents' house for breakfast with the family and to exchange draw name gifts. I also took some of Palmer's presents to their house to have the kids help open; I thought they'd enjoy it a little more than she would. I was right - they were all very happy to help her open her final presents. We spent Christmas afternoon just resting and enjoying the day. That evening we had my dad's side of the family over for dinner at our place. My grandma always had us all over for dinner on Christmas evening so we thought we should continue the tradition of having everyone eat at her house this year. It went well and it was great to see the Lyman/Black cousins since we'd missed them for the party on Friday night.

This picture isn't the best quality because it was taken with my phone, but I had to include the beautiful baby in her Christmas dress. She is so dang sweet and cute!

My Utah County siblings headed home the next day (boo), but not until Marilyn led her second Zumba class of the weekend. We started that tradition last year, her teaching Zumba at the Stake Center on Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas. I have zero rhythm, but I absolutely love it still. It felt so quiet and boring after everyone went home. I always feel some serious letdown for a couple of weeks after Christmas. I absolutely love the feeling in the air at the holidays and I love planning for Christmas and all the fun, food and festivities; it's just kinda sad when it's over and I realize I have to wait a whole year for another holiday season.

Taylor's parents made the trek down to Blanding on Monday to see us for a quick Christmas visit. They stayed for a day and headed home on Tuesday. It was nice having them visit and they loved spending a little time with Palmer of course.
Here's to everyone having a fantastic 2012!

Cinco de Palmer

Well, I blinked my eyes and my baby girl turned five months old. This little girl is so sweet and so so much fun!

She now rolls from front to back like she owns it. Sometimes she turns and twists while on her back and it is obvious that she could easily roll over onto her belly if she wanted to.
She still has no signs of any teeth coming in, which is just fine with me. She has the cutest gummy smile in the world and she's already made sure that we know that all she'll have to do is flash that smile for the rest of her life and she'll pretty much get whatever she wants from her dad and me. Her hair is definitely starting to come in a little more. She is still pretty bald though...I don't think we'll be using any barrettes anytime soon. Luckily she rocks the bald look. She gets mistaken for a boy all the time, even when she's wearing pink and flowers. It doesn't offend me; I think she's the prettiest little thing that ever existed, but it's not crazy that people wouldn't automatically know she's a girl upon first glance.
Little Palmer girl is really starting to like playing with toys and I LOVE watching her. She's so curious about the world around her and spends her days staring at everything and just taking it all in. She is starting to get pretty good with her hands, grabbing things and getting them into her mouth. She really wants to sit up and does lots of little baby crunches when she's on her back, trying to sit up. She's getting pretty good with her balance and I think she'll be sitting on her own soon.
She still tells the cutest little jabbery stories, but she's quiet more than she's talking. Maybe that will change as she grows but for now she seems content to quietly take in everything around her.
The sleep situation is a dismal one these days. She's gotten more and more needy in the night and at nap time and my level of fatigue has increased right along with her neediness. She's had a few very good nights with long sleep, but overall we're going downhill. We've now started letting her "cry it out" which is KILLING me! We've done it for three days/nights now and while we are making real progress, it is a huge trial for me. I think I've shed as many tears as she has. I can't turn back now because then all her tears would be in vain, but I am having a really hard time with the crying. Other than sleep time though, she is an incredibly happy girl.
As documented in my last post, she went on her first big vacation, to Hawaii with us, last week. I wouldn't have been able to enjoy one minute of the trip if we'd left her home and I'm so glad she was there with us.
She's still a tiny little thing. I don't know her current measurements, but, while she is growing, I think she's just gonna be a little petite cutey. She can still wear a lot of 0-3 month clothes. She wears 3-6 months too, but most of them are still a little big on her.
A few days ago I started trying to ease her into eating rice cereal. She is still a little unsure of it, but she seems to quickly be warming up to it and getting a little more used to it. Before you know it, she'll be eating pizza and ice cream with me!
I am so excited to experience her first Christmas and our first Christmas with a child. I know that she won't understand anything that's going on, but I still think it's going to be so fun. We can't get enough of our little girl; we love her so much and feel so lucky that she's in our family.

ALOOOOOHA!

WARNING - LONG post!
Well, our Hawaiian getaway sadly has come to an end...all I can do about it now is to do a blog post and try to remember how warm and awesome it was.
My parents had been to Hawaii 26 years ago, but this was the first time to Hawaii for the rest of us. Our flight was out of Vegas so we headed there on Tuesday morning. We drove with my parents and met up with Noelle, Trent and kiddos in Vegas that night. That's not the most awesome drive, especially with a baby who has now decided that she doesn't love being in the car for long drives, so we were nice and tired by the time we got there. We ate a quick dinner at the Luxor buffet (pretty good, not great) and went to bed early.

Palmer, just kickin' it in her carseat at the beginning of the trip...this was before she realized how much traveling we would be doing so she was still happy at this point.

The next morning we headed to the airport to start the long day of flying. The first leg of the flight wasn't the most enjoyable. Palmer and Denver weren't super happy (especially Palmer) so it made me SUPER nervous about the second leg, which would be much longer. Luckily they both did well for the long part (from Seattle to Hawaii). On a side note, I hate layovers in completely out-of-the-way locations; seriously - Vegas to Seattle to Hawaii? Lame! Anyway, we got to Honolulu pretty late and our Utah bodies thought it was even later than the local clocks told us. We went straight to the hotel and to bed.
The next morning we had booked a tour that circled the island and made stops at popular tourist spots. The tour was decent - we saw some things we wanted to see; all the stops were really short. I'll for sure leave some places out but we went to Hanauma Bay, a couple pretty lookouts, Dole Pineapple plantation (yummy ice cream!), North Shore (where big time surf competitions were taking place) and a couple other spots. It ended at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We spent the afternoon checking out some villages at PCC, taking a tram to the temple (beautiful!) and eating a delicious dinner. Right as we got seated for dinner, but before we got our food, a waitress came and asked if we wanted smoothies. Heck yes we did! We had paid a pretty penny for dinner so I thought the smoothies must just be a lovely option with our dinners. Not so much. Turns out they were $10 each or two for $15. We ordered first, then found out the price. We grudgingly paid for the smoothies. Well, as Trent said after the first swig of his smoothie, "Best $10 ever spent!" They were served in a hollowed out pineapple and were huge and D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! Oh. So. Good. By this point in the day the babies were so tired and NOT happy with being drug all around a tropical island. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to enjoy the show to end the evening. Well, the heavens smiled down on us and both babies fell asleep just before the show began and stayed asleep the whole time. The show, "Ha - Breath of Life," was amazing. We were all SO tired at this point so it's a good thing the show was so entertaining and loud. I think all the adults stayed awake for most of the show. We passed out on the ride back to the hotel. I'm sure we all slept like babies that night. Speaking of sleeping like babies, Palmer slept amazingly well in Hawaii! She had her three longest nights of sleep...8.5, 9.5 and 11 hours of sleep! That's right - ELEVEN! Sadly, her new-found sleep habits did not make it back to the mainland, but I'll talk more about that in her five month post (happy five months to her!).

Me, Noelle, and the babes at the PCC. Palmer's hood is on because it was raining and a little chilly.

Family photo at the PCC

The next day we decided to take it easy to see if we could lose some of our exhaustion and help the babies to get some rest. We got a slow start to the day and then headed to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling. My parents had snorkeled there in their previous trip and had always remembered the amazing things they'd seen. We looked into the possibility of snorkeling at a couple of other spots but they weren't as easy for our group of 10 to get to, so we stuck with Hanauma. It didn't disappoint. I'd only snorkeled once before in Cabo and I'm not sure if we even saw anything there. This time was much different. There were all kinds of sea-life - big, little, bright, spiky, long, fat etc. Way cool. Maxon and Scout loved playing on the beach and the babies took little naps on their beach towels. After we got back to the hotel we got some dinner and then took a sunset walk to Waikiki beach. Beautiful! I think my parents stayed out on the town for a little while that night (party animals) and I don't know for sure what the DeGroots did, but us Harrisons went back to the hotel and crashed.

The next day was game day...BYU vs. Hawaii - the excuse for our trip :) We spent the morning shopping and spending way too much money, but loving every minute of it. The game started at 2:30 so we headed to the stadium after a little shopping. BYU took care of business and won the game pretty handily. The game was fun, but honestly it was kind of an afterthought to the rest of the trip. The bus ride after the game took FOREVER. All the kids slept the whole ride home. I'm not sure what the other peeps did after they got to the hotel, but we just ordered pizza and hit the hay. We're tired people.

The next day was Sunday, so we wanted to be a little reverent. We had planned to go to church there but we couldn't find a close ward that met at a time that worked for us so we didn't make it. We went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial that day. It was so neat to be there just a couple days before the 70th anniversary of the attack. Luckily my dad is much better at retaining history knowledge than I am so between him filling me in, and my memories of the movie "Pearl Harbor" I was able to understand better what had happened there that awful December day in 1941. After doing the standard USS Arizona film and memorial tour we took a tour of the USS Missouri battleship. Very cool to be on an actual huge battleship. Those things are amazing and crazy. My mind was blown at the magnitude of the whole thing. After that we had to catch our shuttle back to the hotel. That night ended up being date night. My parents went to dinner on their own. Taylor and I kept the DeGroot kids so Noelle and Trent could go to dinner and then after they got back they kept Palmer so we could go out. While they were at dinner Taylor stayed in our room with the babies and I went to the swimming pool with Maxon and Scout. Saying that the pool was freezing and semi-miserable would be a bit of an understatement. Seriously, it was crazy cold. It didn't help that it had become overcast and breezy, but I would never have imagined that it could be so cold to swim in any pool in Hawaii. The kids took awhile to get in the water with me, but once they did they had a lot of fun and I LOVED hanging out with them. They were so dang cute and fun - I honestly thought of stealing them to have for my own. For mine and Taylor's night out, after walking around for a while and not finding much that really appealed to us, we ended up eating dinner at a random little sports bar and grill. Our food was way good and we were not disappointed. Then we walked around and hit up a few shops before returning to pick up our sleepy little Palmer. That's the night she slept 11 hours so I'm still not sure if Noelle drugged her or not.

The next day was our last, as we were catching a red-eye flight back home that night. We spent a few hours at Waikiki beach. The weather was perfect. We swam, we lounged, we ate, the kids built sand castles and buried Trent. It was a perfect way to spend some of our final hours. After showering and changing clothes we went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner (yum) and then shopped around to kill time before catching the shuttle to the airport. I was dreading the red-eye flight home because as annoying as a crying baby is on a normal flight, I figured it would be like 10 times worse on a red-eye where everyone wanted to just sleep. Luckily both babies wanted to sleep as much as everyone else on the flight. Noelle and I decided to use our carriers on the flight because it had been so uncomfortable holding them on the flight out. She had taken her Baby Bjorn; I didn't take one because I didn't have room in my luggage. I just took an over-the-shoulder sling thing and it ended up being a life-saver for me. I used it every day most of the day. There were different positions that Palmer could be in with the sling, depending if she was awake or needed to sleep. It saved my arms and back a lot of aching I think. Anyway, I think it was a great idea for us to use them on the plane. The babies slept like champs...I can't say the same for Noelle and me, but as long as they slept it was ok. And I think we were much less uncomfortable than the flight out. Our flight home was quicker because our layover was in L.A. Before we knew it we were in Vegas and saying goodbye to the DeGroots to start the long drive home. I was kind of in a daze for the whole drive, due to my lack of sleep the previous night during the flight, so the drive didn't seem too long to me. Palmer must have been super tired too because she mostly slept the whole way home.

It was kind of awful to return home to snow and freezing temperatures, but the trip was amazing and I'm so glad we went. I loved spending time with my parents and Noelle's family. I miss the DeGroots like crazy since we've been home and I miss the perfect Hawaii weather, but at least we get to enjoy Christmas time now. All in all, a lovely vacation!

4 Month Addendum!

So a couple of big events have happened in the world of Palmer since my post yesterday so I thought I should put them out into the blogging universe. The first big thing was that she slept 8.5 hours last night! 8.5 people! After multiple 3 and 4 hour sleep nights lately that was such a lovely blessing! I'm not naive enough to believe that it will happen every night from now on but at least now I know it's possible and that we're moving in the right direction.
The next big thing was that Palmer rolled over tonight. I had her down for tummy time and she had been happily playing for a decent amount of time. Then she started to kind of get mad and I told her I was going to leave her for a few minutes to see if she would get mad enough to push herself over. She half-heartedly pushed herself up on her side a couple of times and then just kind of laid her head down and acted like she was resigned to the idea of staying on her belly. Then out of nowhere she pushed herself up and over as if she'd done it 100 times. I started screaming and clapping my hands and I think she didn't know what to think of the whole thing cause she just stared at me with wide curious eyes. Taylor was home so he jumped down on the floor by us and started giving her loves too. Needless to say, it was a very exciting moment in the Harrison household. We love our little Palmer girl!

Fall Happenings

So I'm going to be honest, I don't enjoy blogging. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE reading others' blogs, but I really don't enjoy keeping up on mine. That would explain why I do such a poor job of it. Since Palmer was born I have managed to give monthly updates, but that is really just because I am a horrible scrapbooker, so if I don't document her growth and milestones on the world wide web it will all be forgotten. So that's my long-winded way of apologizing for the fact that every post is just a Palmer update. Hopefully there's some people that like to see her progress but really this blog is mostly for posterity's sake. We are taking a trip to Hawaii at the end of this month so that should give me some good blogging material that's not so Palmer-centric (although she is going with us so there will probably be LOTS of cute Palmer on vacation pics).
Miss Palmer Tay is now four months old as of 11/11/11. She had her four month old check-up today and I was told what I already knew - that she's perfect! She weighs 11 pounds 12 ounces, which is in the 10th percentile. I can't remember what her height was but it was in the 25th percentile. I also can't remember her head circumference but it was in the 75th percentile. She must finally be getting the Lyman noggin; before today's visit she has always measured in the 50th percentile for head. (Her check-up was literally 1.5 hours ago and already I've forgotten her measurements - do you see why I NEED to document her life on blog for anything to be preserved...my memory certainly isn't going to cut it).
Her poor cold has not ever fully gone away. Just when I think she's pretty much better she seems to get some new bug. Her cough seems to be getting better this week but for the two weeks prior to this one she had a very sad croupy cough. It has made sleeping difficult for her and for me, as the cough seems to be worst at night. Like I said though, it's definitely gotten better this week. She got a clean bill of health today though and shouldn't be contagious.
The sleeping situation is pretty grim these days. Her cough has not helped anything in the sleep department. A couple of months ago I thought we were on the cusp of sleeping through the night...it's only gone downhill since then. Her illness seems to have affected her sleep schedule in a really bad way. Lately she tends to sleep only about four hours for her first stint and then sleeps in only two or three hour stints from then on. Usually she still goes back to sleep quickly and easily but every once in awhile she decides to play and jabber for awhile. She's lucky she's so cute because it's impossible for me to be annoyed with her when she looks and sounds as cute and sweet and she does.
She is still not rolling over; she doesn't seem to have much interest in it right now. She is really strong though and can push herself up on her hands and lifts her head very high when on her belly. I can hold her hands and stand her upright and she supports her own weight like a champ. She loves standing and will be happy for as long as I will let her stand.
She has gotten SUPER talkative in the last couple of weeks. We spent a few days with her cousin Denver last week (my sister Noelle's kid) and he loves to jabber and squeal really loudly. Palmer seems to have taken some lessons from him because ever since then she has been telling a lot more loud and squealy stories like he does.
P-Tay had to get one shot this morning (it should have been two but they were out of one of the vaccines so we'll have to go back in a few days for that one - boo!). Last time she did so well with her shots that I wasn't too worried about her "recovery" this time. She did fine with the shot when she got it and then was just fine when we went home. Then a few hours later we were visiting my cousin's CUTE new baby, Heston, and Palmer started crying harder than she ever cries. I figured she was starving because that's really the only time she ever truly cries. I tried feeding her but she wasn't having it and was crying harder and harder. She was inconsolable and I couldn't figure out what could be wrong. But then it hit me that her leg must have been hurting her from the shot. I immediately gave her some Tylenol and then took her home to cuddle. I put a warm rag on the shot spot and cuddled her until she calmed down after about 20 minutes. She got over it about as quickly as the little crying fit had started and she returned to her happy smiley self. I HATE to see my baby in pain!
She was the CUTEST little tiger for Halloween. We didn't do any trick-or-treating but we did make sure to go see Grandma and Grandpa and the cousins.
We sure do love our little sweet Tiger.

Enjoy the cute pictures of our sweet Palmer! Some of them were taken on my phone, so the quality is less than ideal but she's so dang cute anyway. (Also, I finally made it to the 4-Corners Monument. Taylor's parents came to visit for a few days last month and so we drove on over and now I can officially say I've been there.)

THREE!

My baby girl is three months old as of last week! Where has the time gone? I realize that three months isn't much, but it seems like I had her about a week ago. She is getting to be SO fun! Each day she smiles more than the last and seems so much more responsive to us. I think she knows her mommy cause she seems to smile the most for me :) I love that of course. I can't seem to get a good picture of her smiling - too much of a delay on my camera.
She doesn't seem to be making much progress in the sleeping through the night department. Pretty much she's the same as she was a month ago - five to six hours for the first stretch, then usually around three to four hours for the next stretch. She still eats quickly and goes back to sleep easily so I can't complain too much.
Palmer tells some pretty awesome stories these days. She babbles, coos and squeals all day long and I would just love to be inside her head. She isn't rolling over yet but she seems to be getting pretty close to rolling from front to back. She loves tummy time for about five minutes and then she realizes she's bored and she gets over it very quickly.
One fabulous quality about Palmer is that she does not spit up. I can count on one hand the times that she has spit up in her whole life and two of those times were the morning after she was born.
I mentioned in my last post that she was starting to get into sucking her fingers/hand. Just about a week ago she really started separating her thumb and sucking on it alone. I don't really want her to be a thumb sucker because it can be such a hard habit for kids to break, but it is the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life. She sucks so loudly and intensely and I think she's pretty proud of herself every time she gets her thumb in there. I feel like I have more control over a binky as I can take that away when I'm ready for her to be done with it...I can't take her thumb away. I do like that she can self-soothe with the thumb sucking though. She's started pulling her binky out of her mouth and then trying to put it back in. She is not coordinated enough for that yet, but she gets a little closer every day.
Poor little P-Tay is still a little sick. Over the last few weeks her cold seems to have gotten better, then worse, then better again. She still doesn't seem too bothered by it, but it is really sad when she coughs her cute little cough or her breathing gets all congested. I finally took her to the doctor last week just to be safe and she was given a clean bill of health. Her ears looked fine, her lungs sounded clear and she had no temperature. The doctor said as long as she doesn't seem too miserable or the symptoms don't get worse then she should be fine. One good thing about going to the doctor was that we got to get her three month measurements instead of waiting until her four month check-up. Tiny little girl was only 10 pounds 5 ounces, 22 inches long with a head circumference of 15 inches. The doctor was not concerned with her tininess. She said she's very proportionate and seems to be growing just fine. She's just a little cute thing all around :) I weighed her at home the other day and my scale had her at 11 pounds.
As for how Taylor and I are adjusting to life with a baby, Palmer has made things too easy for us. She is pretty easygoing wherever we go and she usually doesn't mind being passed around. Anybody who knows me knows that I am ALWAYS tired and I need more sleep than the average human. This was something I was extremely worried about with having a baby because new moms are notoriously tired. I am more convinced than ever that Heavenly Father loves me because somehow I have felt just fine. Don't get me wrong, I'm still tired, but I am truly no more tired than I was before having Palmer. That is such a blessing for me! Taylor loves his sweet little girl and she loves him back. They're just as cute together as I always expected. I love my little family.
There's not much else going on in our lives these days. Everything pretty much revolves around our sweet baby. Our townhouse is going on the market soon and while it will probably take a good little while to get it sold, we are hoping and praying that it happens quickly.

Again, sorry for all the pics of just Palmer but I take about a million pictures of her each day. I can't get enough. Enjoy!

Baby blessing and more...

I'll apologize in advance for the length and randomness that this post could become. I guess that's what happens when I procrastinate doing a new blog post for so long.
We blessed beautiful Palmer on August 28th. It almost didn't happen as our bishop forgot it was supposed to be on the program that day. But thanks to a brave nephew running up on the stand to remind him, we were able to get it done. Taylor's parents and his sister Brook and her family came down for the blessing. Noelle was also here, as were Kacey, Joe, Nicole and Osiris. It was so nice of them to be here and we love them all! Palmer looked absolutely beautiful in her blessing attire; Taylor's mom made the amazing dress, Brook made the cute cute headband, Kacey gave us the sweet little bracelet and Noelle took the awesome pictures. Palmer is so lucky to have so many people who love her so much already. Taylor did a great job with the blessing and Palmer could not have looked more beautiful! Our bishop commented to us after the blessing that he had never seen a baby so peaceful during a blessing. That's our girl!
Palmer was two months old a couple weeks ago on 9/11. Where has the time gone?!?! I'm already freaking out that she's growing up too fast. But at the same time it is so much fun to see her grow and learn new things. She is such a fun and sweet little girl. Everyone always comments at how mellow she is and it's true - she's just way laid back...most of the time! Every once in a while she gets upset for reasons that I am not sure of and she proves that she does actually have some strong lungs. During these little freakouts she will cry for up to a couple of hours and it just breaks my heart. It doesn't seem like she is in pain. Sometimes I think she must be hungry, but she gets so upset that she won't let herself calm down to eat. Maybe she's just tired and needs to let it out...who knows really? She gets over it as quickly as she starts usually and then she'll seem just fine. Hopefully I'm not jinxing it but she seems to be going longer between these little freakouts as time goes on. She does a great job of sleeping at nights. She still isn't giving me a full night of sleep, but that's ok. She usually sleeps five to six hours for her first stint, sometimes a little longer, sometimes less. She's very quick about getting through her midnight snack and then she does a great job of going back to sleep. From there she usually goes about three hours and then eats and goes right back to sleep again for three more hours. She usually seems to want to be up for the day between 8:00 and 8:30 and I hope she sticks with that schedule. She is still really sporadic with napping during the days. Some days she sleeps more than she's awake and some days she barely sleeps at all. When she's awake she's very alert and very curious, looking around at anything and everything. She has the cutest smile in the world, but is a little stingy with them. She is usually very happy in the mornings right after getting up. I LOVE this time with her! She smiles at the ceiling, lights, fans etc. just as much as she smiles at people. She tells cute little stories and I would so love to know what she thinks she is telling us :) She has recently discovered the joy of sucking on her hands. She tries out different combinations of fingers or sometimes it's the whole fist. Every once in a while she sucks on just her thumb, but more often than not she puts multiple fingers in. I don't necessarily want her to be a thumb sucker but it is the cutest thing I have ever seen when she gets so happy to suck on her fingers. She weighed 9 lbs 8 oz at her two month check-up and was 21 1/2 inches long. She's just a little petite thing and we love her so much. I want to cuddle with her all day long! She got her first cold last week and is still trying to get over it. She hasn't acted like it's bothered her much. She's been congested, sneezing lots and coughing a little and she had a little fever for the first day or so. Like I said, she doesn't seem too bothered by it but I hate it! She also had to get shots at her appointment last week. She cried for a few minutes, but overall she was really tough. We love our sweet little girl!
We had our annual Lyman Labor Day weekend extravaganza at the Colorado cabin a couple of weeks ago. As usual it was AWESOME and crowded and dirty and fun! We ate tons of good food and relaxed and just enjoyed each others' company. The men got some good projects done; the kids played tons and we all watched BYU squeak past Ole Miss. Some of us went bear-watching with Justin and we even saw a bear! We almost missed it and by the time we saw him he was about to walk away and he was pretty far, but at least we saw him. All in all, a fabulous time!
We had a really sad occurrence in our family last week. Deco and Kera were expecting a baby in a month and they found out on the 19th that he had died. I can't imagine the heartbreak they felt. We all had a really hard time understanding why this had to happen to them. It made me hold and cherish Palmer even more than before. Deco and Kera handled the whole thing better than I could ever hope to do. They were so strong and you could just see in them that they had a very strong knowledge that they will see him again one day and be able to raise their perfect little boy. Eli Fred Lyman was born asleep on the 20th and he was absolutely beautiful and perfect. They had a graveside service for him in Blanding on the 22nd and it was a really really nice tribute to a perfect little spirit. We all can't wait to meet Eli one day.
For my birthday a couple of weeks ago Taylor gave me a girls weekend with my sisters and mom. He had reserved a hotel room in Grand Junction and talked to the girls beforehand to make sure it would work. So this past weekend we loaded up and headed to GJ. Unfortunately Marilyn and Kera were not able to come, but we had my mom, me, Palmer, Noelle, Denver, Heather, Livvy, Kristi and Camryn so it was lots of fun! We ate some delicious food while we were there. We went to a pottery painting place and got in touch with our artistic sides. Our painted pieces had to stay there to be cooked so I can't show any pictures of our beautiful finished products but it was really fun. Then we did some shopping and went back to the hotel for some relaxing while Cam and Livvy swam. We were tired and lazy so we went to bed nice and early. We went to breakfast, then Barnes & Noble and headed home the next morning. We had heard about a fall festival that was happening in Fruita so we stopped there on our way home. It was a fun little fair/carnival thing. It was a quick weekend, but really fun for me.
Please forgive me for the amount of pictures in this post. It is really hard for me to narrow down what pictures of Palmer I want to use because I love every picture ever taken of her. Also, please forgive the randomness of the order; it is just too much of a pain to go through and get them all in the right place I would like them to be.

Coy is loving his chocolate pudding at the Colorado cabin! Love this boy!

Addison and Livvy love their new baby cousins :)

Palmer and Denver took turns sleeping in the swing at the cabin. Palmer's BYU jersey was way too big on her, but it seemed like the right thing to do to bust it out for the season opener.

The men did lots of projects while we were at the cabin. They worked hard and the ladies kept them well fed so that they could keep up their strength.

Palmer's all ready to watch her first BYU football game.

Elmer loves Colorado. The dogs run all around and get all kinds of dirty.

Scouty was very interested in her movie.

Jeremy J and Jeff made lots of cool paper airplanes for the kids.

One of the best parts of Colorado is the 4-wheelers and my dad's new side-by-side.

This was one of the few minutes that my mom actually sat down. The weekend doesn't end up being very relaxing for her, as she runs around helping everyone with everything. I sure do love my sweet mom.

McKenzie (Nicole & Osiris' little girl) and Palmer can still be best buds even though they cheer for different teams.

This was just a random day when Camryn, Scout and Palmer all happened to be wearing pink and grey striped shirts. Cute cute cousins!

This isn't the best picture but this was taken on Palmer's two month birthday. Such a big girl! (Her jammies are too big cause she grew out of the smaller size recently)

Also a two month old pic with a cute funny face.

Asleep in her carseat on her two month birthday. I love watching this girl sleep - so cute and peaceful!

Ready for another BYU game!

Just a cute picture. Palmer sure loves her daddy and I think he likes her too :)

So. Dang. Cute.

This isn't the best pic, but it shows the full beauty of her blessing day.

Pottery painting - fun for all ages.

This is what Palmer did most of the time we painted our pottery.