I know, I know

So... it's been a while, I know. I wish I were better at remembering to blog, but hey, here I am, 4 months since my last post. I know it was so long ago, but I just had to put a few Christmas pictures up. It probably feels like forever since you were opening presents with your families, but I'll remind you. We had a fun Christmas with a little one running around.
Here is one of the few pictures we got of Jayda on Christmas morning. She loved pulling everything out of her stocking and mostly unwrapping the presents, rather than playing with all of her new stuff. Gotta love one-year-olds.

Clark got a new sweater (I know, such a typical present. I'm boring), but he liked it and got a few other things too. Such a poser, as in he's posing for the picture.

Grammy Tammy gave us lots of fun new things for Christmas and definitely spoiled the grandkids. Jayda was having lots of fun carrying around her new Elmo books.

Jayda's cousin Audrie likes to help Jayda do things and loved helping her open her Christmas presents. Audrie got lots of fun stuff, but still seemed to be a little jealous of Jayda's new toys. This is a typical scene for the two of them. They love each other.

The most recent tradition in our family is to go to Little America on Christmas morning for their breakfast/brunch buffet. It is delicious and I must say that I quite enjoy this newly adopted tradition. My mom, and Alli, usually stay the night so we can go swimming. My cousins came up and we all had a lot of fun swimming together. Here's Clark and Jayda getting ready for the pool. What a cute couple!

We also went to "Zoo Lights" with Clark's family and had a lot of fun. It was freezing, but really neat to see how many lights they have set up. Jayda had the most fun when we were inside and she could actually see the animals up close.

My mom got Jayda the cutest Sesame Street couch for Christmas. It is adorable and Jayda loves it! She currently uses it mostly as a stepping block to climb up onto the couch and play/wrestle around. But she does like to sit in it to watch her favorite shows (Barney and Sesame Street). So cute!

This couch even pulls out to a bed. It has a little sleeping bag and everything. Jayda was loving it and I get to see her in this position at least once a week, usually with a snack in hand.

Moving beyond Christams, Jayda has learned to LOVE coloring. Pen, crayon, marker, pencil, whatever she can get her hands on, she will draw with. I have been trying to teach her to only color on paper, this is after my pantry door and kitchen drawers were found with pen all over. She does pretty well, although I do rub pen and crayon off of my table quite often.

Jayda also loves bath time! She splashes all over and laughs at herself. She has a little toy that squirts water and thinks it's hilarious to spray water out of the bath tub and onto me. Not my favorite game, but funny still.

Jayda is a typical 16-month-old and gets in to EVERYTHING! It drives me crazy most of the time, but this time, I was playing "make-up" with her after church one day. She wants to be just like me, I guess, because she grabbed the brushes and started applying pretend blush to er cheeks. Love this girl!

And today, I put together a new outfit for Jayda. I've had all of these pieces for months and she's just never worn them together. Oh the simple joys of being a mom, and a woman. Here is Jayda right before church looking cute as ever. She is wearing brown little leggings under that dress and it just made the outfit for me. I love having a girl and hope I get another one real soon...

Meaning, I am pregnant. Most of you probably know, but we are expecting baby Bell number 2! Due date is 9/10/11! Life is busy with work for both Clark and I, and Jayda is definitely a handful. She has realized that a few days a week I leave for work when Clark gets home so now, whenever Clark gets home, she gives him a quick hug, then clings to me. Like seriously CLINGS! Won't let go of my leg, crawls through my legs until I pick her up, won't let me put her down once I do pick her up. It is, again, not my favorite game. Jayda is a sweet girl though. She's very social and loves to be around other kids and other people in general. She's very playful and loves dancing on our bed. I have felt a little guilty because I've been pregnant sick and not able to play with her as much as I would have liked, but I'm feeling a little better now so Jayda is enjoying her mommmy again.

Jayda turns 1! And other stuff

So our internet was down for a couple weeks and then the device that transfers our pictures to the computer stopped working so it has taken me a while to get these pictures up.
Way back in October, we went to Wheeler Farm with some people in our ward to do the wagon ride, corn maze and get a pumpkin. All for $7, not bad. We had a lot of fun trying to push the stroller through the straw of the corn maze.

A few young moms in our neighborhood have started a play group and for our first activity we went to a pumpkin patch. Jayda loved being able to walk around everywhere and picked up anything she could.

I can't believe it, but Jayda is already 1 year old! We had a small get together and it was a lot of fun. The invite:

I worked hard to put this table display together, so I just had to put it on here. The banner alone took me probably 3 hours, but it was worth it! Thanks to Rachel for helping me with the invite, banner and cupcake toppers. Thanks to Liz for helping me bake the night before and Rachelle for helping me decorate that morning. I think it turned out pretty cute and everyone had a good time.

I have somehow lost a bunch of our pictures from her birthday party, but here's one of everyone singing "Happy Birthday" and Jayda trying to figure out what's going on.

And, of course, getting a little messy as she digs in to that cute, over-sized cupcake. The whole night was a lot of fun and Jayda loved all the attention.

Just 3 days after Jayda's birthday, my sister had her first baby, Zoey, and I became an aunt for the second time (I'll be an aunt for the third time in just a couple weeks when Clark's sister has her second)! Pretty cute little babe.

Clark and I at the hospital holding new little baby Zoey. She is a great baby and seems to only cry when she's hungry... every 4 hours! My sister doesn't know how lucky she has it!

And then, it was Halloween! We went to a fun party with some friends from our neighborhood to eat delicious food and play games. Thanks Heather!

Jayda in her kitty costume. I tried to do the whiskers, but I should've known better. She would hardly let me draw on her face, let alone leave them on for the whole night. She was a pretty cute little kitty though!

We also went up to Laura's cabin to have a fun high school friends and husbands party. We always get together for Halloween and this year was one to remember. We ate, played games and stayed up late just talking and laughing. I'm really lucky to have such great friends with great husbands!

West Yellowstone

I am a little behind on my blogging, but I wanted to make sure I got these cute pictures from our Labor Day trip on here. Clark's family owns some cabins in West Yellowstone so we got free lodging and had a really fun trip with Clark's extended family. We did some shopping and found a cute moose.

We went in to Yellowstone park and saw the infamous Old Faithful. I'm sure it was the first of many times that Jayda will see it in her life.

We went on a hike to this cool little spring. It's a hot water spring that runs into the cold river so when they mix together it's like a nice warm bath. Some spots are definitely hotter than others, much hotter, but it was fun to hang out in for a little bit.

We saw lots of wild life, which in my opinion, is the best part of being in Yellowstone. There's always a lot of bison, but this time we got to see this elk, all up close and personal (from our car, of course).

Clark's uncle lives in Big Sky, Montana so one night we drove up to have a nice steak dinner. It was getting a little chilly outside, but when dinner was over we walked out to find snow on the ground! Keep in mind this was September 5th! Jayda was wearing Jelly shoes! This picture is to show the snow in the background, not the cars behind us. That made for a cold night in the cabin, but was kinda fun.

This was a fun, relaxing trip. No real agenda, just wake up and do what you want to do. And for all the driving we did, Jayda was a real champ!
Coming soon: Jayda's first birthday!

What happened to Summer?

Seriously, it's already half way through September? What the heck happened to August? I guess we were just so busy going to the pool, going on walks and going on other outdoor adventures that I was too tuckered out to blog. Ha! A lot has happened since July, so I'm gonna split up my posts/pictures so as not to overwhelm myself and all of you devoted readers of the Bell Blog.
I really wanted to make it out to Thanksgiving Point to have lunch outside and walk through the gardens before Summer was over. So with one week left before school started again for my mom and sister, and before dance started up again at Prodigy, we made it down and only paid $2.00 to walk through the beautiful gardens. What a deal!

We saw some fun fishies.

Alli and Jayda played in the fountains.

And I re-enacted one of my bridal pictures. Probably my favorite picture in my wedding dress was right there on that bench. Awe. Many of you have probably seen it in my house. That was a fun day. Very different from an average day now. :)

We were able to do some more swimming with one of my good friends, Sheena, and her little girl, Violet. Sheena and I went to college together, Sheena and Clark went to high school together, Sheena teaches at Prodigy with me, and our little girls are just a week apart. Obviously, we are connected in several ways and it is so fun to get together and watch our girls play!

Look at those cute little bums.

We do Sunday dinner every other week with Clark's family, but one week we decided to mix it up a little and went up Millcreek Canyon to have a picnic. Well, it was pretty crowded that day and there weren't any picnic tables available. So we decided to park by a stream and eat dinner in the back of our car and truck. It was a fun little family outing.

Our friends, the Stringham's, have a family cabin up in Bear Lake and we were lucky to go up there for a day of boating. It was Jayda's first time and she was a little scared at first, but enjoyed the movement so much that she fell asleep pretty quick. I quite enjoyed my cuddling time on the boat too!

I'll update you on the rest of what's been going on in our lives soon, but until then, just know that Jayda has taken her first steps! I seriously can't believe how big she's getting and it's so fun to see all the new things she can do. For those of you interested, here's a quick video of her taking up to 5 steps. It gets a little shaky because I'm holding the camera and Jayda just loves me so much that she wouldn't let go of my arm for a minute. This was right after my sister's shower at my house so that's why there's gifts and extra chairs in the room. You'll also notice how much Jayda enjoys being the center of attention and showing off. Anyway, enjoy in our joy!

July 4th to the 24th!

We celebrated the 4th, the 24th and played a lot in between. We went to the Stadium of Fire with my family and had a lot of fun watching Carrie Underwood and the awesome fireworks. Jayda looks kinda funny in this picture, but hey, it's a family picture.

We hung out with Clark's family and had a great BBQ's! Here's Jayda in her festive outfit from Grammy Tammy.

I recently discovered the "fireworks" setting on my camera. It is awesome. Clark's cousins and I had a lot of fun with some sparklers. It says U of U, if you can't tell. How cool! :)

Jayda is pulling herself up onto everything. She is quick too and loves to be standing! She is getting stronger every day and I'm pretty sure walking is just around the corner for her. She is getting so big, but oh so fun.

My mom had her 50th birthday! Being the wonderful daughter that I am, I planned a little surprise birthday lunch, with the help of my sisters. I had to plan where we would eat in advance and then somehow convince my mom that it was her idea to eat at Mimi's Cafe. I thought I did a good job of this, but my mom told her friend the night before that she was a little bugged that she didn't even get to choose where she had her own birthday lunch, but she was pleasantly surprised to find all of her close friends at the restaurant supporting her in her youth. Here's the girls, minus Jayda.

We have been going swimming at least once a week and are loving being outside in the sun. Since my sister lives in Saratoga Springs, we headed down to Lehi Rec Center and it is pretty cool. It's very kid friendly and Jayda loved hanging out in the water swings.

Rachel made it back to Utah for a few weeks so we have been trying to catch up and get our kids to like each other more. I don't know what Gavin thinks of Jayda, but she sure liked to grab at him. It's been so fun to hang out with her and I wish she still lived here.
My dance studio, Prodigy, performed at Raging Waters and they did such a great job! We have such good dancers! Anyway, we made a day of it and Jayda had fun hanging out in the Lazy River. That was about it. She really liked this tray though!
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We had a family reunion, which is somewhat rare in my family, but it was good to catch up with people I haven't seen in a long time and hear about what my mom's family came from. We've been wanting to get a four generations picture since Jayda was born and finally got one. It's blurry, but it's four generations, which I think is pretty cool.

And we made it to the 24th! We went to see the parade floats at South Towne Expo. If you have kids over 2, this is a really fun thing to do. You get to see all the floats without sitting in the sun, they have performers, face painting and clowns making balloon creatures. My mom loves this kind of stuff and was having so much fun walking around every single float. Jayda liked looking at all the fun colors too.

Jayda is now 9 months and is becoming even more of a mover, if that's possible! She weighs 16.1 pounds (8th percentile) and is in the 12th percentile for height. With Clark and my genes our kids are just destined to be small. Jayda says dadadadada and mamamama and waves bye to everyone, even cars that drive by our street. She likes to sit in the grass and eat leaves. Clark's sister found out she's having another girl, which will give Jayda 3 girl cousins and 0 boys! I love it!

Vegas Baby!

This baby went on her first vacation... to Vegas!

Our first stop was a night in St. George. We went to Tuacahn to see "Tarzan." It was a blustery night, but Jayda did great and wasn't too distracting to the people around us (yeah right! I think the old lady next to me wanted to move the second we sat down. Oh well). She loved the flying monkeys and the fun music and lights. What a cute little family we are!

We made it to Vegas and had to unload all our STUFF! Geez, we had a lot of freaking stuff! I had never packed for a baby before and may have over packed, just a little, but I didn't know what to expect. We traveled with our friends, The Stringham's, who had almost as much stuff as we did!

We stayed at Excalibur because they are one of the cheapest and have a great pool! Since we don't gamble, we swim instead and spent a lot of time at the pool. Cute dad and Jayda Bear.

The kids schedules pretty much went down the drain the first night when we were at Tarzan until 11 PM so we ventured out a little later in Vegas and stopped by The Coke Factory. It's just one of those places you go every time you're there. Well, I do anyway.

We, of course, ate out a lot and it was awesome! Us Bells love to go out to eat, even Jayda! Although by the end of the trip she was pretty sick of sitting in her car seat, stroller and random high chairs.

We hit up The Cheesecake Factory and did some good shopping too (I love H & M!). Jayda is a good baby, but a full day of shopping is not exactly her favorite thing to do. When Jayda gets a little whinny, our trick is to put her on Dad's shoulders. She loves it up there and it gets a smile every time. Clark also loves getting his hair pulled out!

One thing I really wanted to do was see the fountain show at Bellagio because I've missed it the last couple time I was there. So we made the trek there, in the 99 degree heat, only to see the last 30 seconds of a show! The next one didn't start for another 25 minutes and with the babes, we weren't about to just sit and wait for it. So we took a picture with just the hotel in the background and went on our way. Dang.

We stayed one more night in St. George. It was nice to break up the drive a little for the little ones. We had such a good time that Jayda apparently wanted to go back. She has been crawling everywhere and has recently discovered climbing. She climbs up my legs, up the stairs, up her crib (which scares the crap out of me) and is now attempting up the wall!

I made it back from Vegas just in time to go to girls camp for two days, which was so much fun. Then made it home from camp just in time to go to the most awesome concert with my sister, Alli. Here we are before the show, getting really excited. What concert was this, you might be wondering...?

That's right: "Backstreet's Back Alright!" This had to have been one of the funnest concerts I've been to! I knew every single song and sang my little heart out. The dancing was awful and I don't think they have changed any of the choreography since 1998, but that's what made it so awesome! Backstreet Boys will always hold a special place in my junior high heart.

"Tell me why (ain't nothin but a heart ache), Tell me why (ain't nothin but a miiistake), Tell me why (I never want to hear you say), that I want it that way!" Yes!