Summer Fun

Here are some pictures of our summer vacations.

We went to Bear Lake a few times:

Our little family

My sister and our two cousins with our babies. They're all close to the same age. (when this picture was taken, Brighton and Luke were 9 months, Gator was 11 months, and Micah was 5 months)

My brother, Eric, with Brighty and Micah.

My best friend, Cat, came all the way from Washington
Brighton LOVED being down by the water.
And IN the water!



Then we went on a hike around Tony Grove Lake


We went to California to visit Robert and Linh, and it was so much fun! This is Huntington Beach.

We went to Santa Monica and we walked down the 3rd Street Promenade and watched all the street performers and walked along the famous pier with the carnival on it.
San Diego Zoo was my favorite. I've been wanting to go there for a long time.
On our way home, we drove up to Yosemite National Park. We didn't have time to really appreciate it, but it was a pretty drive through it, and we did go on one little hike to Mirror Lakes....
Which wasn't much of a lake this time of year.

This is just an awesome road sign we saw when we were driving home through Nevada.

Then we stopped to see Lunar Crater. It was pretty neat.
We had a great summer. Brighton had so much fun everywhere we went. She did great in the car...she wasn't fussy at all except for when she was hungry. She just slept a lot and would play by herself, or Sean would sit back there with her. Sometimes she sings in the car when she's just sitting back there alone. It's really cute.

Long time comin...

So it's been forever since I've updated this. Like almost 6 months I think.
Brighton will be 10 months next week. Here are a few things that she's doing now...

She crawls like crazy, everywhere. She just loves to explore.

This is from when she trapped herself underneath a laundry basket by tipping it over on top of her. It was so funny.


She can walk along couches and tables and things. It's weird to think she might be walking soon.

She has lots of tricks...clapping, clicking her tongue(thanks grandma Rae!), waving, growling, pointing...she loves to point at things. She also loves to stick her little pointer finger in my mouth. She thinks it's hilarious. She'll get it in there even when I'm pursing my lips. And she loves when I touch my pointer finger to hers.

Her favorite trick, though, is making a room look like a tornado hit.

She loves playing peek-a-boo


She always has to have her two bunnies in each hand when she sleeps and naps (one from each of her grandmas!)

She falls asleep in the funniest positions.
Her favorite shows are Baby Einstein and Backyardigans. She goes nuts when the opening music starts! She's starting to move to music.

She loves listening to classical music while bathing.

She's getting very possessive with her toys.

Sometimes she'll trick you and act like she's giving you something...usually her binky, and then when you go to grab it, she won't let go and she'll pull it back to herself. She does it to me all the time, and she did it to Zoee the other day.

She holds her bottle all on her own (best thing ever!)

She can grab food and put it in her mouth.


She randomly throws up every once in a while for no apparent reason. And I'm not talking spit up...this is full on exorcist style.

She loves big crowds of people.

She'll be held by anyone, except for old Asian men.

She is 15 lbs 10 oz as of yesterday.

I'm pretty sure her favorite color is green because she always grabs the green bath toys first (one in each hand of course).

She's very good in the car for long road trips.

Her favorite baby food is still anything with sweet potatoes. Or butternut squash with corn.

She also likes any kind of rice, sloppy joes, fruit, and clam chowder (probably got that from my dad...all the seafood I ate while I was preggo)

Her hair is growing slowly but surely. She's still pretty bald.

Her eyes are still kind of a hazel color...hoping they'll stay that way.


Funny story...

So Sean and I started letting Brighton cry it out a little bit at night. Well, the first night we did it, she cried for like 15 minutes, then went completely silent. We were so curious to see if she fell asleep so we crept into her room, and it's really dark. We look into her crib and we can't see her anywhere! Her blankets were right in the middle of the crib and we were like...I guess she could be under them, but we had no idea how she would get herself completely under her blankets. So I'm looking around some more, and as I look at the corner of the crib facing the door, I see her! She's standing up, holding on to the bars starting at the door. Then she slowly turns her head to us and sees us, and starts screaming! It was straight out of a horror movie, she scared us so bad...we were cracking up!
This picture isn't from that night, but it gives you some perspective. She was in the corner behind her.

Brighton's New Trick

4 Months Old

Sean and Brighton love taking naps together, it's the cutest thing ever.



She just found her little piggy toes and loves to play with them on the changing table. The last time I changed her diaper, she was having so much fun with her toes, when I moved them to put her new diaper on, she screamed! haha, so I promptly gave them back to her.


She loves to stand. She'll just lock her little legs up really tight, I swear she'll be standing before she can crawl!


Brighton is now 4 months old and she just keeps getting cuter. Just the other day, she rolled over for the first time!! I'll try to get a video up. She did it about 5 times in a row, and then I think it made her a little sick because she started spitting up a ton. But she loves to roll now. Rolling milestone: check.

She has become extremely more vocal. I don't know if all babies do it, or if it's just her, but she'll just scream and yell. She's not crying at all, just yelling really really loud. Other than needing earplugs, it's actually pretty cute. I think she's going to be a singer, like Mariah Carey style. haha. She also just talks to herself all the time, it's nice to have her play with herself for a little bit so I can get a little bit more done in the day. It's a good day when I can find time to take a shower. She is still sleeping just awesome through the night. That has really helped me sustain my sanity I think.

She just had her 4 month check up and she now weighs just over 13 lbs. She is getting so heavy! And she officially has grown out of her size 1 diapers.

She's starting to suck on her bottom lip, it's so funny, and she's learning how to spit bubbles.

She is getting so strong! She can get a really good grip on my hair.

So that's how Brighton is doing these days. As for Sean and me, we are just really excited to move back to Utah. Even if it's just for a year or so. We can't wait to see everyone!

Oh! My sister just had her baby this morning!! His name is Micah and he weighed 7 lbs 11 oz. I haven't seen a picture yet, but when I do, I'll post it on here! I bet he's just a stud.

Photo Shoot

So Brighton got her first professional pictures taken...for free! There's a lady in our ward that is trying to put together a baby picture book and needed babies to photograph. So she called me up and asked if she could use Brighton. She gave me a few pictures from the shoot and a free 8x10. I'll probably buy a few more from her because there are some really cute ones.


Sweet little cherub.


This one is hilarious to me. Here she is just chillin' in all of her glorious chubbiness. It reminds me of the old fashioned pictures of a fat lady lounging on a pretty couch. Do you know what I mean?
Here we are stickin our tongues out at eachother. Brenda (the photographer) had me put on one of her shirts so I'd be wearing a solid color for this...not really my style, but oh well. It's still a cute picture.

Here's a picture of her in her blessing dress. It's the same one that I wore when I was blessed. My mom made it. So it's really special to me. There are some really cute ones of these. I'll definitely be getting some more soon.

I think Brenda did a wonderful job with these. You wouldn't be able to tell, because Brighton looks so sweet, but it was a HUGE hassle to get these pictures. I was there for about 5 hours! Brighton was not a very happy camper, I think she just doesn't like being messed with.

Other than this, Brighton is still just growing and growing. She is a drool machine so I always have to keep a bib on her. She always has a hand in her mouth, sometimes both at the same time.

Her bum rash is just about gone. I feel so bad, for 1/3 of her whole life she has had that bum rash. But we just started her on antibiotics and it's practically gone now. She doesn't scream anymore when we change her diaper. So that's good.

We just took her to the cardiologist to listen to her heart, and everything is fine. She still has a heart murmur, but it's nothing to worry about, he said. She'll just grow out of it.

We are all so excited to see grandma and grandpa Harward! We can't wait! I wish we all lived closer together...I want to be around everyone and all the new little babies! My sister is due at the end of March, so hopefully we'll come out to Utah for that.

My Brother, the Sailor

So as most of you know, my little brother, Eric, is in the Navy. In the beginning of this month, he was setting out on a "cruise" from Virginia to California. They were going to make some stops along the way to places in South America like Brazil and Peru and stuff, but shortly after they departed, the earthquake in Haiti happened. So since their ship, the Carl Vincent, was nearby, they were the very first ship to arrive there to help and allow planes to land on the ship for supplies.

So far, Eric hasn't been able to help out much, but pretty soon he will be. So if you ever see any footage of Haiti, and there's a Navy ship in the background, that's him. He also said that the main doctor there (the Hispanic looking one that's always on TV) comes on his ship sometimes because they've brought people on there to treat medically. I think it's so neat. It's going to be a really cool experience for him and it makes me feel like I'm a part of it in a way. It's so tragic what has happened and it's really hard to watch some of the footage, especially while I'm holding Brighton and thinking of all the mothers that have lost their little babies and children, and vise-versa. It's just unbearable.

It's good to hear from Eric, since he can't call, we've actually heard from him more often through e-mails. I think he's really lonely or just bored. Either way, it makes me happy to hear from him. He's not sure if the ship is still planning on going to Brazil and all that, or if they'll just stay in Haiti for the remainder of the cruise. It would be neat for him to see all those places, but he's excited to be able to help out in Haiti. I'm so proud of him. I can't wait for him to meet Brighton.

I Am a Child of God...

This was the first Sunday that we took Brighton to church. The doctors told us to wait 90 days to take her out because of the swine flu and everything, but 3 months seems a little ridiculous. Everyone at church has been asking Sean and my parents about her, and we're feeling comfortable enough now to take her. Church starts at 9:00, so it was a very early morning. But we were only half an hour late. I still need to work on giving myself enough time to get ready plus getting Brighton ready. She likes to take her time going to the bathroom.

She still has a really bad yeast infection on her bum, it hasn't gotten any better even with the medication. So if anyone has any advice...

I've been giving her warm baths and letting her have naked wiggle time, but today she pooped in the tub and then in her towel, so sometimes it's harder than it should be.

On the plus side, she sleeps freaking awesome through the night. If we go to sleep the same time she does at night, we could get a good 5-7 hours in one stretch, and then another 2-3 hours after that.

Here's a little video of Brighton, she just makes us so happy! I don't know why the quality of the video is so weird when I put it on here, but oh well, she's still cute.