Mount Rushmore and Julie's Wedding

We drove to Canada for Julie and Tony's wedding and on the way we stopped in South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. We had such a fun time. It was windy and cold but we got to take great pictures and visit a museum about the historical site. Gutzon Borglum was the scultor. He had the idea and ran with it in 1927. It took over 400 workers and 14 years to complete. 90% of the sculpting was done with explosives. Borglum chose Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln to represent the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States.

There were columns leading to the mountain that had all the names of the states. Here Lucy and I are in front of Utah (45th state, admitted to the union in 1896).

When we got the farm Lucy warmed up quickly to everyone there. She loved her grandparents and loved wandering around the house.

On Easter we dyed eggs with Mom, Tony, and Julie. We got pretty creative.

Here we are shooting at the farm. I'm still learning but I did pretty well for a novice.

Lucy and I went to chicken coop several times a day to see all the chickens.

Julie's wedding was beautiful and Lucy did so well with such a busy day and no nap. They were married in the Regina, Saskatchewan temple on the 29th. Here Lucy was waiting outside the temple to see Julie and Tony.

All the girls on the Shugart side.

Lucy was an angel for the 19 hour drive there and 20 hour drive back. It took 3 hours longer than it should have on the way home because Lucy got the flu and got sick in the car about 7 times. It was a mess. Also we got stuck in Sidney, Montana because the roads were closed from so much snow. We got stuck and thankfully a man had a shovel and dug us out. I am so grateful Ben is such a good driver and kept us safe despite the fact that we could not see the road and were swerving back and forth for 15 miles. Once we got to Sidney, we called the bishop there and spent some time at the church building cleaning up Lucy, her carseat, and waiting for the roads to open. After that, the roads were perfectly clear and Lucy did not throw up again. She slept the rest of the way home. Heavenly Father was definitely looking out for us.

We had such a great vacation and I'm so glad we got to go and that we could enjoy time with family. I only wish I got a good picture of Lucy with her grandparents. They are so kind and we are so blessed to have them in our lives.

Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Ben's Birthday

I know it's been a while since I've blogged. So I'll try and update starting back in December. Ben, Lucy, and I spent Christmas here in Tooele just the three of us. It was so fun and relaxing. Lucy loved her presents as did all of us. Santa treated us very well this year.

For Valentin's Day I made a cake with my new cake decorating kit I got for Christmas. It was yummy and I actually had fun baking for once! And that shirt Ben is wearing was his Halloween costume I made him.

I started off the New Year with the goal to read more. Starting in February I started to read some books off a Top 100 list I got on the internet. I've really enjoyed the process a lot more than I thought I would. I have read about 10 so far including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, The Chronicles of Narnia (4 of them), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A lot of them I would never read again but it has been fun to gain more knowledge about all the Classics.

Lucy is 10 months old! She is walking now but she still prefers crawling. She dances, snuggles, gives kisses, claps, climbs the stairs and slaps her head (I have no idea where she got it from but it is absolutely hilarious). She went swimming for the first time in her adorable new swimsuit. She loved the water and daddy even took her on the water slide!

I made her a cute dress for Julie's wedding next month and I cannot get enough of her when she's wearing it. She just looks like a ball of sunshine.

Ben's birthday was this week. He turned 26. We spent the evening watching BYU's sweet 16 game and shopping for baseball cleats. He enjoyed his jell-0 cake and some cute cupcakes I made.

Life is going great and we are enjoying it so much. We just got the internet today, after going a year without it, so I will be better about blogging from now on. Here are just some random pics of Lucy.

Lucy is all grown up!

Lucy is just the cutest thing ever. She is such a joy. And she's growing like a weed. She is still in the 90th percentile for height her age and is in the 75th percentile for weight. She babbles all the time. Her favorite thing to say right now is ba-ba but she can also say da-da, na-na, ffffffp, and shhhhhh and she can do some crazy loud rasberries. Can you believe it? She started sitting up about a month before the books said she would and now she's a pro. She tries to take off crawling but just ends up on her face. She rolls herself around the room and scoots on her back. She can even pull herself up on furniture! And our newest milestone was hit on December 10th. HER FIRST TOOTH! She had been fussy at night, and wouldn't eat her dinner and now I know why. I love that girl to death.

Birthday Celebrations!

My birthday was last month and it was so fun. It was a celebration that lasted a few weeks. It started out with a little party at my parents' house during Thanksgiving. Ben took me to Red Robin (they send out free meal coupons for your birthday so go sign up). That night Ben and I set up our Christmas tree and decorated it while listening to Christmas music. Perfect. I love my christmas tree.

Later that week Ben set up a nice surprise. I got to ride a horse! We went to a neighbor's house and rode their horses in the snow! I loved it. Now I want a horse! That night we had a babysitter for the first time. We went to see the Disney movie Tangled (We had free tickets from our winnings at the County Fair this summber). I loved it also.

The day of my birthday I baked a layered cake. It was a disaster. It tasted great but I had to glue it back together with frosting. I took a picture of it because I thought it looked hilarious. I am terrible at baking. Repeat, TERRIBLE.

It was a great birthday. Oh we also got a dining room table during Black Friday! Beautiful I tell ya, absolutely beautiful. And it's great for puzzles.

Lucy's quiet book

I got the idea to make a quiet book from one of my good friends Tiff who made her beautiful baby girl Lyla one. We don't have the internet so I had to remember what I saw on her blog and use my creativity and make up a lot of the pages. I made it as one of Lucy's Christmas presents (shhh, don't tell her). She's going to love it in a couple years. In the mean time she'll chew on it while I tell her "No." haha. Here it is.

Here's the cover
This page you can turn the hands on the clock.

The flowers are buttons that you can remove. The dial on the phone spins and the handle is velcroed to the page so your kids can pick it up and 'talk' on the phone. Preferably they are calling mommy. ;)

The balloons teach colors and they snap on and off. The beads teach counting up to 10.

The shoe can be laced and tied (wish I did the shoe in felt...it looks sloppy in calico). The sports balls are removable and can be matched to their appropriate sport.

This alphabet took me about a week to cut and hand stitch on. Grrr.

Tic-Tac-Toe and the Touch and Feel page. This page is my least favorite. The squares aren't aligned and the pink square is a mess. But I guess it makes it unique, right?

On this page you can match the shapes and they are attachable by velcro. If I were to do it again I would add a crescent. That was the most often mistaken shape when I taught preschool. So moms out there make sure your kids know the crescent shape (and that it's not called moon, although that is a good example of one). The teepee zips open and closed.

My favorite pages! The doll can be dressed in all sorts of clothes. And the barnyard has a dog, cow, chicken, and cat inside that you can play with. I couldn't get the clearest pictures but you get the point.

And a stoplight page. I don't really know the point of this page but it works. I guess they can learn the meanings of the red, green, and yellow lights.

Updates

Ben and I love it here in Tooele. My only complaint is the WIND! It is so windy here all the time. We live in a cute subdivision and we love our place. It is plenty big and there's room for us to grow. I've made friends with some of the moms here and we have play dates at least once a week. I was called as 1st counselor of the YW program and it is so fun. I forgot what it was like to be in YW and it is a blast. And I love being a mom.

Lucy is so cute and fun. She's cooing and smiling a lot now. She reaches and grabs a hold of things. And she can roll over! If we leave her on the floor for a while she'll scoot herself across it. She's in the 90th percentile for height! Lucy loves bath time and splashes around like a crazy person. She also loves to read! Crazy, I know, but her attention span is so advanced compared to my preschoolers last year. She can look and listen to the same Dr. Suess book for 20 minutes or so.

Ben likes his job a lot. He's always working on several different projects at the same time so he never gets bored. He was called as the project manager for some project that is bigger than any project they've done since 2003. Yay Ben! Ben's also a scout leader in the ward so he gets to do all sorts of fun stuff. He plays for a city softball league and loves it. It's nice that he gets a chance to do boyish things. Now that he doesn't have hockey and intramurals to do he gets bored pretty easily. Softball and scouts has eased some of that boredom.

We do miss Provo a lot though. We made so many great friends that we miss. It was such a great place to live and helped my testimony grow to what it is today. And it was so accessible to everything we needed. So we make a trip to Draper once a month to get all of our shopping done and to go to the temple. Its a long drive but I think grandma and grandpa are glad that we do it. :)

June and July

I havent posted anything in a while because ben and I go to the library to use the internet and it wont let us post blogs. Our little Lucy is growing so fast. She is so fun and I enjoy being her mom. She sleeps through the night and entertains herself a lot.

We took her to JcPenney's and got some professional pictures taken. She's such a cutie.

On June 20th Lucy was blessed. It was a great way to spend Ben’s first father’s day as a parent. He did a wonderful job on the blessing. Lucy was absolutely adorable and surprisingly quiet throughout the whole thing. My mom, dad, brother and his wife came out for the event. Afterwards, they came to our house for dinner. It was a good day. Ben is such a good dad.

We took a little trip to the Salt Lake to take some pictures in June.

We went to Provo one weekend because one of my good friend’s, Deise, is moving to Washington D.C. with her husband. So we went bowling to celebrate her birthday and then spent the night. I’m so glad I got to see her one more time before she moves. I’m going to miss her.

We went to Canada for Pioneer Day. The stake comes out to the Shugart’s farm for a pioneer picnic. They have lots of games and food and fun. All of Ben’s siblings and their families came out for the weekend also. It was nice to see everyone and spend a few days with them.