Labor Day Weekend!!

Well Labor Day weekend was quite and eventful one for us. My parents, brother & his family, and Dave, the kids and I all decided to taked a needed trip to the wonderful cabin in Alpine, AZ. We all arrived at different times on Friday. From Safford it is about a three hour trip so if you leave at the right time the girls will sleep most of the way which makes it nice. We really didn't have much of an agenda other than Dave was going fishing on Saturday morning. We just enjoyed each others company and the nice weather of the mountains. Here are some pictures.

My cousin Trachel and her family were also there so we enjoyed spending time with them. She has four girls. Paige who is nine, Marley who will be six, Ali who will be four, and Preesley who is 6 weeks old. Marley and Ali just love Avery to death, and so they entertained her the whole weekend. It was so nice to have a little break. Ali also loved Emmabelle.

(Trachel, Ali, & Emmabelle)

It is a tradition to take a bath in the sink at the cabin. I have a picture in the sink, Avery has a picture in the sink, and now Emmabelle has a picture. For reasons unknown to me she didn't like this bath. She usually loves to take a bath, but the sink just wasn't her cup of tea I guess, but I just love her face.This is the girls and I before we left for church. That is also a tradition that we have for some reason. We always have to take pictures before we leave for church. Dave ended up not going with us to church. He stayed home to get some much needed sleep since we had some rough nights and also to make lunch. We had to leave to come back to Safford as early as we could after church and lunch so he wanted to have lunch ready when we got home from church.Grandma Mortensen is so good at keeping the humming birds happy at the cabin. It is so much fun to sit out on the back porch and watch them feed. There are always so many of them. I don't know if the pictures do it justice, but there are usually somewhere around 15 or more birds just going crazy around the feeders. They have no problem with people being out there and watching either.

Upstairs is a favorite place for the kids to play and this is one of the reasons why. The just love looking down at the living room from the loft and scaring their parents to death. We had to make sure Avery knew not to stick through the rails. I am very sure she could have slipped right through.

Avery was also able to take her first four wheeler ride. She called it a motorcycle though and in the beginning was afraid it was going to get her, but what isn't she afraid of. She warmed up to it though and really enjoyed taking rides with her daddy.The reason we had to come home on Sunday was that Dave's family was coming to Safford for a visit also. For those of you who aren't hunting buffs, Sept. 1 is the beginning of dove season and a big day in the Hartman household. Dave looks forward to this day all year. It is probably more important to him, no I take that back it is a bigger holiday than Christmas to him. So he got up at about 4 or so in the morning, that is if he really ever did go to sleep, on Monday morning and went out with his Dad, Grandpa, Uncle and two brothers. He was able to shoot his limit for the day, which is 10 birds if you didn't know, unfortunately the rest of the shooters weren't able to do as well. I think only a couple more birds came home. After they are done shooting it is tradition to go to breakfast so they invited the women to join them. Of course there isn't much selection for breakfast in the town of Safford so we went to The Manor House. I will have to say that I much prefered their breakfast over their dinner.

(Tom, John, Grandpa Hartman, Grandma Hartman, Avery, Great Grandpa Hartman, Dave, Me and Emmabelle)

We were also able to get a four generation pictures with the girls. This is the girls, Dave, his dad Clay, and his grandpa Clay.

This is Emmabelle's Great Uncle Kern. He was also there he was just the one behind the cameras, but we wanted to get a picture of him and Emmabelle. This is Grandpa Hartmans brother.

All in all we had a great weekend together with family. It is not every weekend that you get to see both sets of Grandparents and Great grandparents. It was a lot of fun. Avery just gets so excited when she gets to see her Grandma's and Grandpa's. She always says two grandma's mom or two grandpa's mom. It is just so amazing to her that there are two of someone so wonderful.

Thanks to everyone who made the weekend so special and wonderful.

A Great Accomplishment!!

Hooray for Avery. Today was the second week that Avery didn't have a melt down when going to nursery. What a great accomplishment for her. Last week she kind of whined a little bit, but this week she was actually excited about it. She pointed her teachers out in church, when she sees a kid that goes to nursery with her she says that's my friend, when the intermediate song started she asked if it was time to go to nursery and then finally when it was time she was so excited to go and play with her friends. I am so proud of her. We knew the day would come, but I thought is was farther away than that. She still makes sure that I am going to come and get her later, but she is now a happy nursery goer.

On another note I am glad to say that Dave's and my mini seperation is going well. I say that because with our new schedules this fall we don't get to see much of each other. Due to some changes in regulations Dave is now a part time student at EAC. He is taking two night classes which have him gone Mon-Wed. night. Monday he gets home at a decent hour, but Tuesday and Wednesday he doesn't get home until 9:00 or so. Then on Thursday I have my night out which is a scrapbooking class through the college and I am gone until 9:30. I also am taking wellness so I get up around 5:30 to go work out. I guess we are really lucky that Dave works from home and we can see him periodically throughout the day. Otherwise I would pretty much be a single parent. Something I am not too keen at trying. But this week went pretty smoothly, the kids actually seemed to be on their best behavior.

It does help to have Lori around though. I don't know if I have ever mentioned that she is living with us. She is working at Pollock's Western Wear at the moment, but she just had a interview to be a receptionist at a Veterinary Clinic here in town. She hopes to hear more about that on Monday. It will be a nice pay raise, and the hours will be Mon-Fri 8-5, you can't beat that.

Emmabelle is doing well. She is getting stronger by the day and is holding herself up really well. Today I was taking pictures of her and I sat her up on the bed with a pillow behind her and she actually stayed sitting for a fair amount of time. I don't think it will be much longer and she will be sitting on her own. It is her favorite position after all. We did have to take her to the doctor this past week. She was having some digestive problems. She is doing somewhat better, but we are still waiting for her to regulate more. She did weigh in at a nice 12 lbs. 7 oz.

Well I guess I have droned on for long enough. Here are a few more cute pictures of the girls. I just love to take pictures of them and I am determined that Emmabelle have plenty of pictures being the second child and all.

Emmabelle just chillin on the floor.

Avery has to get in on the action too.

Avery likes to wear all my church shoes, I finally got a picture.

Emmabelle 3 1/2 months.

Avery at 3 1/2 months

Avery 6 months.

I just thought you might enjoy seeing the similarities and differences of the girls.

Randomness

A Night at the Rodeo.

Saturday night was quite a night. We all got decked out in our cowboy/girl get up and at about 6:00 headed to the Safford Rodeo. Little did we know we would have to sit there for about an hour and a half before the rodeo itself got started. We were aware that it was also a benefit for the soldiers, but we didn't know that they were going to have this big program before the rodeo started. So needless to say the kids were pretty restless before the events even started. Avery being the little priss she is didn't like the noise. They had a band playing and it was to loud for her. We were able to make it maybe half way through the rodeo though. At about 9:00 we decided to give up. Avery by that time was overly tired and laying in Emmabelle's car seat. And even though Emmabelle was doing pretty good it wasn't going to last much longer.We did enjoy the night out as a family though, and if I do say so myself we all looked pretty dang cute too.

Three Months & a Hair Cut

Well the time has flown and my little baby is three months old. I can hardly believe it. She is getting so big. For some reason it doesn't seem like she was a newborn as long as Avery was. She is just growing like a weed which is something that Avery just never did. She stayed small for such a long time, and lets be honest she is still small.

Emmabelle is doing very well. She is such a strong little thing. She loves to be sitting strait up so she can see everything. She has not yet mastered sitting by herself, but if she is sitting on your lap you better have her up where she can see it all. I finally resorted to getting out the jumper to see if she could sit in it. She does pretty good. She really likes it to. This morning while she was in it she was smiling and even giggling a little bit. She has started to laugh more. She is so ticklish, if you can believe it she is ticklish in the palm of her hand. It is the cutest thing. Here are a few pictures of our cute little Emmabelle.

As for our other precious daughter she is also doing very well. For the past week or so she has been telling me that she wanted to get a hair cut. Her exact words were, "Mom my hair's crazy, I need a hair cut." After her relentlessness I finally gave in and called Joni Ellis to see if she could cut Avery's hair. So Avery has had her first hair cut. She did such an awesome job. I was worried that she would be scared and not want to do it, but she sat so still and it was a success.

Here is the before picture.Getting her hair wet to cut.Cutting her some bangs so her hair stays out of her eyes.The finished product.

It is hard to tell, but some hair did come off. It was mostly just a trim. But she was so proud of it. Oh we also have a new member to our family. Avery has permanently adopted a doll that she does everything with. It is so cute to watch her. The baby goes everywhere Avery goes. We even have to put a chair at the table for baby so that she can eat with us. She goes shopping with us and sleeps with Avery. She does such a good job of taking care of her baby. When she puts her to sleep in the baby's bed she comes to me and tells me to be quite so I don't wake up her baby. She is quite the little mom.

The Latest with Emmabelle

So I really don't know what to say about Emmabelle's newest trick. She really isn't quite old enough for this one, but some how she figured it out and it is now her favorite thing to do when she is laying on the floor, or even the couch which we now are very careful about. At 2 1/2 months she has figured out how to roll over from her back to her front. It is actually really cute. She only rolls one way. She starts on her back and rolls herself from left to right. She still has some troubles getting her arm out from under her, but she gets over enough that she can't get back on her back so we have to help her with her arm. She really loves it though. As soon as you lay her on the floor she starts to ball up and roll. Here are some pictures of the event.

From the Back

To the Side

To the Tummy

Avery's New Bathtub

When Grandpa and Grandma Hartman were down here last time they were nice enough to bring Avery a baby pool. Unfortunatly Avery wanted nothing to do with it. You see I decided that it would be fun for Avery and I to take a Parent/Tot class together at the public pool this year. Initially thinking that it would be some good quality time for us to spend together I was all excited about it. To my dismay it didn't turn out that way at all. Avery hated it completely and it left her pretty tramatized. It was a little more agressive than I expected. We only went for one of the two weeks. We would say the word swimming and Avery would have a complete meltdown (much like the one she throws every Sunday when the closing song begins, I will explain later). Avery hasn't gotten back into a big pool ever since, but I am glad to say that she will get in and has a great time in her bathtub as she calls it. I filled it up for Marcy's birthday party and since Avery wouldn't get her swim suit on she eventually made her way in fully clothed and now I even have her back in a swim suit and sitting in the water.

I often wonder how smart I really was as a child. Avery just amazes me at how smart she really is. Avery has been in nursery now for four months and she knows when it is coming. We literally have to remove her from the chapel before the closing song is over because she knows what is next and has a complete meltdown and that involves screaming at the top of her lungs. The whole congregation is staring in our direction. It has even gotten so bad that last week we had to sit in the foyer because she started screaming as we were walking in. Dave gave her a good talking to this week so she did a little better. We were able to sit in the chapel, but we have to be careful where we sit because if we sit near her nursery leaders she gets very anxious and looks at them saying "no take you" which means don't take me. The crazy thing is once she gets there after a few minutes of crying she is perfectly fine. She loves it and has so much fun playing, and when I get to the door she says "mommy come back". That is also a phrase she says throughout the week when the subject of nursery comes up or playing comes up she gets a smile on her face and says "mommy come back", I reply by saying "yes Avery I did come back I will always come back for you".

Here are a few more pictures of the girls from the past week or so that I thought were cute. Hope you enjoy them as well.

Avery loves to hold her little sister.

She also likes to have Emmabelle sit by her.

Avery found a bandana so Dave put it on her. Poor thing it made her ears stick out even more. But she sure is cute.

Just some good smiles from Emmabelle. She is getting really good at it.

Emmabelle with her favorite rattle. And a halo compliments of her big sister. She is quite the little angel though.

Over the Weekend

Well this last weekend was a fun one for our family. I decided that it was time that I had some new clothing so we went to the valley for a big shopping trip. We left on Friday afternoon. We were able to have dinner with our good friends Scott and Stephanie Jones. They have a little boy that is a few months older than Avery. His name is Orren, but Avery calls him Orange it is rather cute. They are also expecting a new addition to their family any day. We went to the famous Joe's BBQ. It was so good to see and visit with them.

As usual we were able to stay with Dave's brother James and his family. It is so nice to be able to spend time with them. We love that Avery gets to play with her cousins. I am sure that they will grow up to be good friends. Here is a picture of all the Hartman grandkids.

So Dave and I decided or learned the hard way I should say that we will never go extensive clothes shopping as a family again. It was definately a long and challenging day. I am very surprised to say that Emmabelle was the good one. Avery was so grouchy and tired that it made things pretty difficult. All she wanted to do was go home and be in her bed. She kept telling us it was time to go home. After a full day of shopping I am sad to say that I only purchased two articles of clothing for myself. I was successful in getting Avery's shopping done, but I was pretty disapointed that I didn't achieve my full goal. Now I am bound for Tucson this next weekend to finish what I started, and Dave is staying home with the kids. But it was still nice to be able to spent some quality time with my family that I love so dearly.

A little insight to Avery.

I have decided to once again try to cut some TV time out of my life. That is one of my biggest weaknesses. I really enjoy the background noise, but I end up sitting on the couch and watching the TV instead of just listening. Anyways I needed something to fill my time so I decided to do some updating on the blog. I thought I would focus on some of the amusing things that happen that you just can't capture on film. So it will mostly consist of the quirky little things that Avery does.

I honestly don't know what we did without Avery in our lives. She is quite the little entertainer. She has more personality and spunk than she knows what to do with really. Our biggest challenge at the moment is watching what we say. It really is amazing to hear her talk. It doesn't matter what we say or how complex it is Avery will mimic it everytime, and then repeats it multiple times for emphasis. Just yesterday she had snuck into her daddy's office to see him and when I realized she was back there I went to get her and as I walked in Dave told me that she was ok. Not a second later Avery piped in I ok, I ok, I ok. She didn't want me to take her away from her dad. Now everytime I find her in there on her daddy's lap she starts saying I ok. One upside to her being a mimic is she is starting to say the blessing on the food. We are still working on it, but there is just something about your child saying the blessing for the first time that just makes you feel good.

Another thing that Avery just loves is singing. She is constantly asking us to "Sing songs me". "Daddy" (I'm so glad when Daddy comes home), "Papa" we just substitute Papa for Daddy in the song, Wheels on The Bus, Popcorn, and The Itsy Bitsy Spider, are just a few of her favorites, but I think we sing at least a dozen or so before she is satisfied. We recently bought a small stereo and put it in her room and she loves to go in there and listen to her songs, while she is jumping on her new big girl bed. That has been another big milestone for her recently. We were able to purchase a daybed and it came with a trundle so we put that in Avery's room. She loves her new bed and does such a good job at sleeping in it. We have yet to move Emmabelle in the room with her, but the crib is unoccupied so the transition should be a little easier when the time comes.

She is also quite the little priss. There isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't come to me and say "Mommy I brokea my nail." So I have to get out the clippers and fix her broken nail. She is also in a nail polish kick. She loves to have her toes painted and just recently added her fingernails to the equation. Most of the time she also has to take a purse with her when we go out to the store or something. It usually just makes it to the car, but she won't leave the house without one.

This evening she did something out of the blue that just cracked me up. We were sitting on the couch and all the sudden she asked "Mommy go store me" I told her that we didn't really need to go to the store and then asked her why she wanted to go to the store? She replied "buy apple juice" The crazy thing is we really were out of apple juice. So we packed up and went to the store to get some apple juice.

Another thing that we have been attempting lately is some mild potty training. I am by no means in full potty training mode, but she is always telling me that she is either poopy or poopy which also mean wet. She hasn't quite got them distinguished in her head, but she does tell me when she is both wet and stinky. We bought a little potty for her and I guess you could say we have some good days, and then just days. I can't call them bad days, because I am not pushing the issue. When she wants to sit on the potty she tells me. Alot of times it is right after she has just gone in her diaper, but we go and sit on the potty and when she is done she gets rewarded accordingly. She is picking up on it though tonight in fact she told Dave she wanted to go to the potty and actually went in the potty. So hopefully in the near future we can be consistant and then I won't have to spend so much money on diapers. Diapers for two kids is out of control.

Well I am sure there are a lot of other quirky little things that I am leaving out, but it is getting rather late and my mind isn't functioning properly, not that it ever functions at 100%. I just hope you got a kick out of the little stories that really make my days brighter. I love Avery so much and am so grateful for her presence in my life. She really makes our home a happier and brighter place.

Emmabelle's Blessing Day

We have started a tradition in our family to bless the babies at home. We blessed Avery at home also and have just decided that we really like the closeness that comes from being with just our family. So this morning before church our family was able to get together and bless Emmabelle. Those in attendance were: Dave's parents, Dave's brother Tom, my parents, my brother Clint and his family, and my sister Lori. Dave gave the blessing. It was a very nice blessing and the spirit in the room was so strong. I know that many of our ancestors were there with us today, especially her namesake. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

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4th of July fun!!!

This 4th of July for the Hartman family was very eventful. We just partied all weekend long. Both Dave's and my parents were able to come to town for the weekend so we decided we would also bless Emmabelle.

The day of the 4th started out as every 4th should with the Gila Valley 4th of July parade. I am not sure that is its official title, but I know that all the towns are involved in it so that is what I will call it. The Hartman's and the Mortensen's got together to attend the fun event, eventhough it was stifling outside. Avery didn't have much reaction to the parade. I am not sure she really got the concept, but she did enjoy the candy that was thrown to her. After the parade we were able to get together with a few of our friends and family, it was pretty much an Animas reunion almost all of the attendees were from Animas, for a BBQ. Dave of course created a masterpiece with his brisquet. The kids and big kids (the dad's who haven't really grown up) had a nice little water fight. The kids also flew some kites, and we all had a great time visiting. Later that evening we were able to go and cool off in Clint and Nicole's pool which is a wonderful blessing. We were planning on driving out to the fair grounds to watch the fireworks, but as we were loading the car we saw in the distance that they were starting them early. Probably due to the weather. So we just pulled up some chairs outside and watched them from our front lawn. The view was great, and it was nice because they weren't so loud that they would scare the smaller kids, namely Avery. It was an awesome fireworks show. Dave thinks it is one of the best he has seen. All in all it was a great day and we were glad we were able to celebrate the birth of our nation with so many of our friends and family. Hope you enjoy the pictures from the day.

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A Trip to the Duck Ponds

The other evening we were able to take a family trip to the duck ponds. This is one of Avery's favorite outings and since my counter was being overrun by duck food we decided it was time to feed the ducks. They also have a little park there and so we usually swing for a few minutes after we are done feeding the ducks. Here are some pictures of the girls. Emmabelle was even able to swing for the first time. It was lots of fun.

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Emmabelle is 1 Month

It is so hard to believe that Emmabelle has been with us a month already. We are slowly, but surely adjusting to having a new baby in the house. Avery is doing really well with it all, I think I am the one that is having the most trouble adjusting. The lack of sleep is really getting to me and I just can't seem to get back into the swing of things. It will happen though, it will just take time and diligence. I think I was in denial about how hard adding one more child to the equation would be.

Emmabelle is growing like a weed. At her one month appointment she weighed 9lbs 4 1/2oz and is now 21in long. She has also let us know that she is a picky eater. After two weeks of crying non-stop we finally decided to try formula. She was such a different baby on formula, but she still seemed so uncomfortable and still cried a lot, so the doctor gave us a new formula to try for colic babies. We were so glad when it started to make a difference. She is such a different baby on the formula, the only drawback is that it is costing us a pretty penny. I will say it is worth it though. She still has her days of crying, but they are getting farther apart.

We were able to take our first trip as a family this last weekend. My cousin Garrett got married and so we went to Snowflake to celebrate with him. It was a very enjoyable trip. Emmabelle did pretty good, nights were a little rough. Here are some pictures from the weekend. I didn't take any at the wedding, but these are from the cabin.

The first few are of us just enjoying the weather at the cabin. Grandpa Great Mortensen likes to sit outside in the sun to stay warm so we all enjoyed being visiting in teh wonderful mountain weather.

The next few pictures are of the girls with their great grandparents and then the last on is a four generations picture.

This is Avery on our way to Snowflake from Alpine. She fell asleep and I thought it was just the cutest how she was lounging in her chair.

Since it has taken me a couple of weeks to get this post finished it is a little long and I appologize, but I figure I will just say everything in one post instead of making multiple ones.

Emmabelle is now 6 weeks old and she is starting to be more aware of her surroundings. She really likes to have attention when she is awake. Oh great two attention starved kids, what will we do? She really enjoys laying on the floor and having a rattle shaken over her. She is also starting to have more facial expressions. She is trying to smile, not quite there yet, but here is a picture of an attempt to smile.

Well that is all that I can think of to update on for the moment. I will try to do better at posting more frequently.