Family Packed

Ben doesn't have any school this week or next and his building closes at 5pm, so he can't see any evening clients. He is supposed to be working on his thesis and poster presentation, but he has been spending a lot of time home with us. It has been so much fun. He has been initiating all these fun family activities. On tuesday we all rode our bikes to Autumn's favorite park and played at the park. Then on Wednesday when Ben got home from playing basketball he said we should all go hike the Y, so we went and hiked the Y. Then that evening we went to the Veterans memorial pool and had so much fun, and then last night we all walked up to the Temple together. It has been so much fun for me, it is going to be hard when he has to go back to school.

Autumn was excited to hike the Y, because she associates that with these special fruit leathers that we buy. When we hiked up in January she remembers that when we got to the top we got to sit on the white rocks and eat fruit candies. We hiked to the very top and decided that we wouldn't do that again with kids, because the trail from the middle of the Y to the top is really steep, and coming down with kids on your back or front feels a little scary.

Ben and Autumn at the trailhead ready to go.

Emily and Prairie ready to go.

The whole family at the top of the Y.

Autumn had so much fun at the pool. Ben and I were so pleased. This pool is designed for kids, and she loved it. It has a zero depth entry and the deepest part is like maybe 2 feet. As you can see from the picture it has all these slides and water hoses and things spraying water. Ben and I had so much fun with Autumn. Prairie got pretty cold in the water so we took turns holding her on the side of the pool.Autumn getting ready to get in the pool.

Prairie!

Autmn, mommy and Prairie in the pool.

Ben taking a turn with Prairie.

A big double rainbow appeared un front of the mountains while we were at the pool.
That is Autumn in the foreground.

Autumn!

Mommy and Autumn warming up.

Our girls the end of the evening were cold and tired, but had a good time.

Yesterday when we were walking home from the temple, Autumn wanted some m&m's. So we stopped at the BYU creamery to get a little treat. She picked out her m&m's and then we waited in line. While we were waiting I started pulling out money. That morning I had had some change in the wallet that would make it so I didn't need to use 2 ones, but there was nothing in there. I went, "Autumn where is my money? I thought you said you would keep the red ones and Mommy would have the silver ones?" Then Autumn told me that " the monies are in my bank, just use your paper monies mommy". She is getting too smart for me.

Jennie and Janardan's Wedding

My sister, Jennie, got married on Saturday, August 19th. Here are some pictures from her reception the night before.

Here is the happy couple, Jennie and Janardan Yri, while they are opening up their gifts.



Here is the food table. They had Papa John's pizza, fruit salad, a vegtable tray, mint brownies (that I made from scratch, with three different color of fillings, lavendar, purple and blue for her wedding colors), and of course a sherbet soda punch.


Here is Janardan enjoying some of the pizza.


This is my sister in her wedding dress. She modeled her dress after two of Eowyn's from Lord of the Rings, and my mom made the dress for my sister.


This is their wedding cake. It was modeled after the Provo temple where they were married. It also tasted really good which is somewhat unusual for wedding cake.



We set up chairs on the balcony for people to play card games if they so desired at the reception, and this is Ben finding creative ways to lower the chairs so that we can clean up and go home.



This is Prairie asleep on Grandma Mary Anne's chest. We had a lot of people staying at our home for the wedding, so Grandma Mary Anne and Tom were in Autumn's bedroom. Tonight she told me that she wanted them to come to her bedroom again. She let me know that she was nice to them, "I didn't scream at them, I was nice at them".



This is my Aunt Jackie holding Prairie and Prairie sporting a little bit of a plumber's crack, Jackie found it very amusing and really wanted a picture of it.

Trip to DC

Prairie with her Grandpa Tom for the first time and seeing Grandma Mary Anne again after 3 months.

Ben and I flew with both of the girls out to DC to see my dad and be there for my sister going through the temple and for a wedding reception in Maryland. The girls did a great job flying out to DC. Flying back to Utah was a little different. They both did fine on the first leg, but then Autumn was just so tired and started crying and screaming and would not stop, Prairie slept through the whole thing, but I don't think anyone else on the plane did.

It was a really busy trip. I thought it would be fun to go to the zoo. I thought Autumn would be old enough to really enjoy it, but I still don't she has a long enough attention span. We got to the national zoo and she said she wanted to see the lions. We stopped to see zebras, giraffes, but her only comment was that she wanted to see the lions, which of course we on the complete opposite side of the zoo. Once we got to the lions, you could hardly see them, but she was sated, and didn't want to see any animals, she just wanted to play in the hut they had built to spy at the lions. She said it was her house, and that was way more interesting than seeing any more animals. My dad stayed and played with her at her new "house" and Ben, Prairie and I went and looked at some other stuff at the zoo.

Prairie in new dress for Jennie's wedding reception.

Prairie enjoying the wedding reception with Baba Russ.

Prairie chilling with Baba Russ.

Autumn and Baba Russ sharing the massaging reclining chair.

No matter where Autumn is she will make new "friends" and line them up. These were her friends at Baba Russ's house.

Reading in Bed

This one is for Autumn's Poopa. This is Autumn reading Calvin and Hobbes in bed, winding down for her nap in fine Oviatt tradition.


Yesterday after Autumn had lunch she climbed up on the table while I was doing dishes. I told her she wasn't suppose to be on the table and she needed to get down. She responded, "But mommy I'm food, eat me."


Our cute little Prairie smiling away in her sister's play stroller. Prairie really likes it when Autumn plays wtih her. Yesterday I was sitting on my bed and pumping, and had Prairie just sitting in her carseat and Autumn bouncing on the bed. Autumn decided that Prairie needed to get out of her carseat, so she went over and picked her up and put her down on the bed, somewhat manhandling Prairie. Prairie didn't seem to mind, then Autumn was playing with her on the bed. After a couple of minutes she decided to put Prairie back in the carseat, she said that Prairie was heavy but ended up picking her up with my assisting hand and then put Prairie back in the carseat, and then Prairie started crying. I think she was sad that she didn't get to play with Autumn anymkore.


This is probably Autumn's favorite thing to do with Prairie. Though soon Prairie is going to be too big to do this, and Autumn will be so sad.

Autumn and Prairie in their seats.

Prairie in her new bumbo seat, where she is able to sit without any assistance.

Autumn talking to Prairie

This was from Friday, this was the first time that I had put real pigtails in Autumn's hair. I thought it looked really cute. The reason I put them in, is because Autumn started yelling at her hair because it was falling in her face.

Prairie woke up crying early this morning. With the fans going and her in the other room, she has to be crying pretty hard for me to hear it. Amazingly enough Prairie and Autumn don’t wake up each other with their crying. When I went in to help Prairie, Autumn was awake. She told me, “Prairie wake me twice” which I don’t know what that really means except that Prairie woke her up. Then she told me that she was trying to help Prairie out, so she had yelled “We love you Prairie” with the idea that Prairie would stop crying. Autumn is such a caring older sister to Prairie, it is really cute.

Then 2 days ago I was doing stuff on the computer and they were both sitting on my lap. Prairie was being a normal 3 month old and moving her arms and legs around. Autumn was getting really frustrated with Prairie touching her. Autumn started raising her voice to Prairie and telling her to stop it. I then tried to explain to her that Prairie was still a baby and couldn’t completely control herself, so I told her that Prairie still poops in her pants. So a minute later, Prairie moves her arms into Autumn again, and Autumn got frustrated and in a raised and irritated voice said “Prairie, you still poop in your pants.”

This is Autumn the first time she bought something with her own money. She knew we were going to the fabric store, and she likes to have candy to keep her enertained while I look around at fabric. I told her that she would have to bring her own money (she had a bank full of change that multiple of people help fill it). She brought her money, and then was very thorough about investigating her options for candy, and then finally decided on this candy bottle. We waited in line, she put her candy on the counter and her money, she got a receipt and a penny back. She was pretty excited about the whole thing.

This is Autumn playing with her friends. Last night her 1 year old cousin came over, and he began to play with her bottles. Autumn was okay with it until he started dropping them on the ground, and then she started getting very frustrated with him and told him that he was going to maked the friends sad, so she took away all the bottles.

Showers

I put on a bridal shower for my sister on Saturday. This is the fruit pizza that I made that is almost complete. Right before the shower started I added in bananas for the temple. It is supposed to be the Provo Temple because that is where she is getting married. The Kiwis are the mountains behind the temple.

The Shower went really well. I spent all day friday baking. I made almost 250 mini muffins, I went a little overboard with the muffins, but we have enjoyed the leftovers of chocolate chip banana muffins and pumpkin struesel muffins.



This is a wall hanging that my mom made for my sister and surprised her by having it done for her shower. This is all out of different shades of blue fabrics and it is tiny squares that makes the picture. This is a picture of my sister and her fiance Janardan.


This is Autumn lounging in a bean bag at the shower. We had the shower at the common room at Jennie's apartment complex. It was a great place to have it.

My sister really likes Pictionary so we played wedding themed pictionary. Autumn really wanted a turn, so this is my sister helping Autumn take a turn at pictionary.


Yesterday afternoon we received some rain showers in Provo. It was a really pretty storm because it was just raining right in the foothills of the moutains, but the rest of the valley was clear skies. It was late in the day so the evening light was shining on the mountains. If you look really carefully you can see a rainbow on the right side of the Y.




This is just at the corner of the street. It looked really pretty during the rain.




Autumn wanted to go out and see the rian, but she didn't want to get wet. She doesn't have a rain jacket that fits right now, so she just wore her winter coat.




Autumn and Prairie wore matching dresses for the first time yesterday. I was trying out a new pattern, because I want to make them special dresses for my sister's wedding, but I wanted to practice on different fabric, because the fabric that I got for the wedding i s more expensive. I also discovered that Autumn's hair is long enough to be in true pigtails -- she looks so cute.



This is Prairie in her cute little dress and her matching hat that goes along with it.

Ben really liked their new dresses, and couldn't wait to show them off at church.


This is just our happy Prairie. She is really happy until she gets hungry and then their is no warning that she is getting hungry. She goes from smiling and cooing, to screaming her guts out in less than a minute. Once she is hungry she is really hungry and there is no waiting for her.

She is sleeping in Autumn's room now. Autumn really likes it, and Ben and I are both sleeping better because we don't hear every little nose she makes. I kind of miss having her in our room, but I really enjoy sleeping well, and it is so cute to have both the girls in the same room.

Empty Bottles

These are the new "friends" lined up on the fireplace

Autumn really keeps us enertained. Her new most favorite toys are empty detergent bottles. She had 3 that she saved from the recycling bin. Then she found a tiny Tide bottle that we used to use when we had to go to a laundramat. When Ben had been doing laundry she would ask if that bottle was all gone yet, keepin her eye on the next bottle that she wanted. Now she has 5 bottles and they have to go everywhere in the house with her. they have to come in the bedroom to watch movies, they have to lay down and take naps. She talks to them. She had put them all in our bedroom closet and then one got stuck under a pair of shorts of Ben's. Well I heard her talking to the other bottles that they would find their daddy, and they could say a prayer to find the daddy. Then she proceeded to fold her arms and say a prayer with the detergent bottles. Once I heard what she was saying, I knew where it was and helped her find the "daddy" (the downy bottle). She seems so anxious to get home when we are somewhere so that she can play with her "friends". On the way home from the doctor's office a couple of days ago she told me that her friends were missing her, and we had to hurry. I don't know what she is going to do when we do actually recycle the bottles, maybe she will go back to the balls. She used to collect all the balls in our house and line them up and talk to them. I am really convinced that kids don't need toys, they will use anything around the house as toys.

This is Ben's cousin Hannah holding Prairie, she came over
to our house today to help Ben complete an assingment for his
play therapy class where he has to play with a child
between the ages of 3 and 8 years old.

Autumn being the big sister and helping feed Prairie.

Autumn displaying her many characteristic facial expressions.