14 months

Emilia is 14 months old today. She is getting so big. And she is such a joy to have around! Except when she's not--but all kids are that way, right? :) She really is happy almost all the time. She's easy on me. She is still reading up a storm. I probably read at least 25 minutes a day to her and that's only because I get tired of reading the same books over and over and stop her! If I let her, she will go and get every board book off the shelf and bring it to me to read. It's great that she loves reading so much. I just wish we had a magic shelf that rotated my old books out for new ones once a day. She is getting to be a bugger about watching television, too. I'm trying to be good and not let the TV babysit her, but she has two shows that she LOVES and wants to watch them every day. She knows how to push my buttons, too, so that I let her watch them. Oy.

We had a busy Labor Day weekend. On Saturday, Steve and I decided to do a hike in Logan Canyon. I had tried putting Emi in the hiking backpack that we have and she seemed to like it pretty well, but we still had some concerns since she's never done a long hike before. It wasn't actually that long. About 4 miles round trip. It was difficult for us out-of-shape old fogies, though. We did the Wind Caves hike and there is about a 900 foot elevation change in two miles. We huffed and puffed a lot, but we made it. And Emilia did AMAZING. She loved being outdoors and next to Daddy or Mommy the whole time. It was a little hard on us that she wanted to see ahead, so she would lean to one side the WHOLE time in order to see around our heads, and made the backpack lopsided on our shoulders. Other than that, though, she was an angel. We might even do it again before she's too big to carry around on our backs.

Then Sunday, Steve's sister and her family came to visit. We were glad to see them and we were happy that we could give Cindy a place to sleep. She was sick the whole time they were here. I heard she's feeling better now, so that's good. :)

Monday we spent the day with my family down in Kearns. We had a big lunch and played games together. It was a good way to spend a vacation day. :)

This last week, we all took turns getting sick. I think Steve and Emi had it easy compared to me, but we are all feeling better now and ready to face another trip this weekend. Steve and I are celebrating our anniversary this weekend. A little late, but better than never.

Now for the pictures:
I saw my neighbor out mowing the lawn like this the other day and I found it hilarious so I snapped a picture and decided to share.

Emilia was outside giving us a lecture yesterday. She would walk back and forth in front of our door just jabbering away and waving her arms around. It was so funny, and so typically Emilia.




This is the (normally cream-colored) bunny that Emilia took with on the hike. I had taken it out of the wash that morning. Poor thing had to go right back in! :)

Emilia helping her daddy beat aunt Alison at Mario Tennis on Labor Day. The two adults started playing, so Emilia picked up an extra remote and started waving it around like she owned the place. She is so entertaining.

I have more pictures from the hike, but they are currently downloading and may take another half hour or so to finish. And I want to go to bed because I'm tired (I canned 4 quarts and 1 pint--which broke--of tomato soup and two pints of applesauce since Emilia went to bed, did the dishes twice, made dinner, tookEmilia to playgroup, did a quick grocery trip, made plans for our anniversary outing, and more stuff I'm sure I don't remember today), so you'll get them another time.