The Box, Messes, and Sweeping

Yes, this is The Box!!!! This has now become Andrea's favorite toy.  This is the box from her new car seat and she LOVES it.  One evening she had been crawling in and out for about 15 minutes and Steve had the idea of cutting a window in each side for her so she could see us from inside the box.  So we cut two small windows.  Small enough so she can't put her head through it and get stuck.  This turned into one of the funnest games ever.  I was on one side of the box and Steve was on the other and Andrea would turn to one side and from inside the box she would kiss me through the window.  Then she would turn all the way around and kiss Steve through the other window.  Then she'd turn around and kiss me through the window and so on.  She seriously did this for at least 5 minutes.  It was so cute that eventually I started giggling uncontrollably. By the end we were all laughing so hard including Andrea!

 "Move out of the way Daddy, I'm trying to get out of the box."

 Playing with Daddy inside the box.

 Playing with Mommy, the Bumble Bee, and the Box

 This is what Andrea looks like after eating Chili.  She's quite proud of herself too.

 Yes, my daughter is sitting inside of a drawer all by herself four feet above the ground.  While I was cleaning up from dinner Steve decided to sit her there so she could watch me.  He was standing next to her, but then let her go for a while and she was just fine. It still made me very nervous, so we got one picture and I made him take her down.

Andrea loves to help her Mommy clean the house.  She's actually quite good at most things too. This is a picture of her sweeping.  Soo cute!  One of the ways she loves to clean is by helping me put the white clothes in their hamper.  Every morning after I shower and change I hand her my garments and she walks them all the way to the hamper.  She lifts the lid and still balances on her feet, then sets the clothes on the side of the hamper.  Slowly she grabs a few inches down the garment and lifts it towards the inside of the hamper just a few inches.  Then she reaches down another inch or two and does it again.  She keeps doing that until the garment falls inside the hamper.  It's sooo cute.  She loves it.  She keeps reaching out to me to give her more clothes to put in the hamper and sometimes I just give her random clean clothes to put in there and I go back later and pull them back out.

Fun in the Leaves

 I took Andrea outside with me while I raked the leaves because I thought she might like it.  And she definitely did!  It took twice as long, but it was so worth it.  At first she didn't know exactly what I was doing, but once I had a nice little pile for her it became really fun.  I lightly dropped her into the leaves and she started laughing so hard, she loved it.  Of course I had to grab the camera and do it a million more times. I think the pictures turned out adorable.

 To keep her happy while I was raking more leaves I let her stand in the middle of the leaves and then I'd rake them towards her.  Each little rake tossed a few leaves in her directions.  She laughed every single time.  She thought it was such a fun game.  That's the best part about being a mom.  You have to think creatively so you can turn every chore into a game and something fun and enjoyable!

Oh how I love this little girl.  She's a sleep right now and I get to missing her even after just an hour of not being with her.

Post Birthday Fun

 One of Andrea's favorite toys/stuffed animals is The Sock Monkey.  This monkey was Steve's when he was little.  Grandma Bentz and Great Auntie Nancy fixed it up.  Thank goodness they did because Andrea LOVES it!!!!!  She takes him everywhere.

 She loves him because she can bend him whatever direction she wants and grab onto any limb she wants.

 Partying during the Packer Game.  She was celebrating with Grandpa after they made a touchdown.

 All the boys watching the game.

 On their last day here Grandpa and Grandma took us all out to breakfast.  Andrea was a good girl and ate all of her food without making too much of a mess, so the waitress gave her a sucker.  It was her first time having sucker and she LOVED it!

 Here we are. I'm not in the picture because I'm taking it.  Thank you Grandpa and Grandma for such an awesome time while you were here!

 We went and got Andrea a new car seat because she's a big girl now.  She Loved it!

 Eating Green Beans with Grandma!

This is what Andrea's hair looks like when she wakes up from naps. It not always this bad, but pretty close.  It was so hilarious we had to take a picture.

Andrea's 1st Birthday!!!!

Andrea had a fantastic birthday!  So many people came to see her and celebrate her 1st birthday with her.  We didn't take a ton of pictures, but we took a lot of video.  She opened every single present by herself.  Well, I helped a little, but only to speed things up.  She could have opened all of them.  I was so proud of her.  Don't worry, we got her opening every single present on film, almost an hour of opening presents. :-)  You can definitely tell she is our first child! 

 She pulled the lid off and everything!

 This is the only picture we got of her looking up during the present opening. She was too excited about all the new presents!

 This is the cake that I made her with a lot of help from my Mother-in-law!

 One of the best parts of the party was the cousins and Adaliah (who's an adopted cousin :-)) Kaydence would take gifts right after Andrea would open them and try them out for a little while.  One of the funniest presents was this big bag of blocks.  The second the kids saw the blocks they ALL headed over to them as fast as they could.  Even Adaliah was sooo excited to play with them she crawled over as fast as she could.  She wasn't going to miss a thing. It was so cute to see all of them playing together and enjoying every single toy!

 Kaydence is going to be a great big sister!  She wanted to help Andrea with a lot of things.  I don't have it on picture, but Casen was wearing a Utah Utes shirt, so while everyone was so intently watching Andrea open her gifts her grabbed Casen and put one of my Blue BYU shirts on top of his other shirt! It was pretty hilarious.  He came in and everybody yelled, "Casen, what happened to your shirt?" Pretty funny.

 After presents it was finally time for cake!!!  Andrea didn't want to eat with her hands, she wanted a fork. :-)
She got her own beautiful piece of cake!

 She's actually pretty good at feeding herself with a fork and spoon.

 

She did eventually use her hands and started to get nice and messy.

 This is what the cake looked like at the end.

 After the party it was time to play with ALL the toys at the same time! :-) 

 Flying with Uncle Michael (Mooker)

Bellow are pictures of some of the people who came to celebrate with us.  I wish we would taken more pictures, but everyone is on film.

 Grandma and Grandpa Bentz

 Annie (Brandon's wife) Kayla and Tyson

 Uncle Bill

 Matt and Melanie

 Mooker and Tausha

 The proud and excited Mom and Dad!!!

The lovely Uncle Scott!

Thank you everyone for coming to Andrea's party and for all the wonderful presents.  It was so nice to see all of you and to get so many nice things for her.  Thank you! We love you all!

Andrea's 1st Halloween

Technically last year Andrea was a Pumpkin for Halloween and walked through all of Barnett Elementary School in the Halloween parade. Everyone thought it was very clever to dress my lovely big belly as a pumpkin.  It was pretty cute, but this year she was even cuter because people could actually see her.  This year she was a LION!!!!

 The Thursday just before Halloween the Law Partners (A fun group made up of all the law students' spouses) had a big Halloween party, parade, and Trick or Treating around the Carols (Where the law students study.) Andrea and I came to visit Daddy. I didn't get to stay long because I had to run off to teach aerobics, but Andrea stayed with Daddy and Trick or Treated a little bit and then went to class with Daddy.

 She had fun Trick or Treating with Daddy and she would have had a lot of fun at class with him as well, bit Mommy forgot to leave the diaper bag which had the bottle and a clean diaper. Andrea was tired, poopy, and hungry and didn't have any way of fixing those things until I finished teaching aerobics. Sorry Daddy. He did have lots of fun with her though. She was so adorable!

 Steve is serving as the 1st counselor in a Singles Ward Bishopric and I serve on the Activities Committee.  It's a wonderful calling for me. We planned a big Halloween Dance/Party and I was in charge of all the music and running games.  Steve helped a lot with running the games. We had the party in this really big barn in American Fork. People were also able to go on wagon rides as well. It was really run.

 These are two of our favorite people in the ward. Amanda and Bruce. They are both incredible people!

 This the Bishop and his wife. The dressed as Shrek and Fiona. Their costumes were perfect!!! The bishop was turned into a mummy during one of our activities.

 These are two roommates that dressed as each other. They are also some of our good friends from the ward.

 A little bit better picture of Bishop and his wife!

 The 2nd counselor dressed as Waldo. I thought it was so clever that I had to post it on our blog.

 This is Steve running the doughnut eating contest. He is a fantastic leader and has done a great job at this calling.

 Steve and the other counselor competing against each other in the doughnut eating contest! Go honey, stick that tongue out a little further!

 We did actually take Andrea Trick or Treating. We didn't go to very many people, but we had to take her Trick or Treating for her very first Halloween. We taught Andrea how to roar as soon as we bought the costume, which was about a month before Halloween. We wanted her to be able to roar for everyone while she was Trick or Treating. The funny thing is now she roars a lot, including during sacrament meeting and people wonder why in the world my baby is roaring. :-)

This is Andrea Trick or Treating downstairs to Loydel Jones. Also known as Grandma Loydel. This is Andrea's adopted Grandma because she sees her every day. Andrea really likes Loydel.