Lucky 21!

21 baby! Twenty One! Last Thursday marked my 21st birthday! All I've got to say is.. its about time! I know I am young, but turning 21 seemed like a big step for me. I was feeling very good and very grown up until all my wonderful friends let me know that I am still the baby. I guess I just feel older being married with a baby who'll be one soon BUT at least now I will hear no more cracks about not being able to get into bars and clubs or having to be left home cause I'm not old enough. Ha! I'm old enough now! Bring on the booze! :) There's nothing I cant do now! Except maybe get better rates on my car insurance. Stupid system.. apparently you have to be 25 to get the cool discounts. But anyways my birthday was really great this year. It is every year, but this year it was particularly great. My friend Ali decided to throw me a surprise birthday party. She said she was going to take me out to lunch but didn't mention the part that she had invited all our friends. It was so awesome! Crazy Ali... Ha ha thanks so much hun! Thanks to everyone else for coming. :) I was super bummed earlier cause Darren had to go to work and Tray was having a very ornery day so I thought my birthday was a bust. But it really picked up. Later when Darren got home he surprised me with our favorite Chinese food..it was soo good! He told me that he was going to be in charge of dinner and when I got home I asked him what was for dinner cause I didn't see anything.. he said he was heating up some left overs (which really concerned me cause I was pretty sure there was nothing edible in my fridge) so I opened the microwave and found our Chinese food.. the little sneak :) Then he made me a cake and just in time too, right after he took it out of the oven the power went out! We were planning on having friends over for cake and ice cream and I thought the power out would've put a damper on the night but we still had a great time. After stuffing our faces with all sorts of junk we played catch phrase by candle light... very romantic ;) All in all it was a great day. And Tray-Tray even got me a present! The gift of mobility! Ha ha he decided to crawl! Awesome huh?! Now he is just getting better and faster and getting into everything.. I love it! My brother and sister in law came up to visit for the weekend too. We loved having them here, it was so much fun! On Friday we went out to dinner, then got a group together for some mad volleyball, which was so fun! Then Saturday was fight-night! Now that was fun! And right before it was supposed to start the power went out again! (Stupid Rock Springs!) But luckily My friends husband who was hosting the shin-dig had a generator! (nice right?!) So they hooked up the TV and ordered the fight. It was probably the only house in the neighborhood with power it was so awesome. The fights were really cool and the food was super yummy! Thanks for the invite Jen! Then Sunday was my friend Ali's birthday so we went over there for some MORE cake and ice cream. I swear I gained 20 lbs over the weekend. ha ha after eating we got together a giant game of signs which was hilarious! We definitely came home a crashed after all that.. What a great weekend!

Tray Learning to Crawl.. This was the morning after he learned, so he's slow. He's much faster now and getting into everything!

Trays Aunt Christie got to him and did his hair all crazy for fight-night.

Tray With uncle Stu

Tray with Auntie Christie and her super cute baby-belly :)

Me and Christie

This is my birthday present from my mom.. Incredible huh? She's amazing.

Oh George...

For a few months now we have been awaiting Darren's company party. I've been pretty excited for it, but nothing like my cute husband, he couldn't wait! We had the opportunity to go to the George Strait concert in Cheyenne and it was a lot of fun. The weekend started off with us driving all the way to Salt Lake to drop off Tray-Tray at Grandma Young's. He got to spend the whole weekend with her and loved it. (Although I missed him like crazy the minute I left my mom's! First time ever spending the night away from him. Rachel and I were whining the whole weekend about how we missed our babies and ended up getting our phone confiscated by our husbands as punishment for obsessing.) At least Tray had fun though, he can't get enough of my family. Probably because they re all so entertaining.. :) After driving back Friday night, we got a few hours of sleep and were off the next morning to Cheyenne. We car pooled with Devin and Rachel and had quite the time listening to the few C.D.s we thought to bring over and over.. ha ha. We met up with Darren's parents and brother and sister in law at our hotel in Laramie and got settled in. Then we were off to Applesbees for dinner before the concert. It was sooo yummy! Then we got in the car and headed for what we thought was our finally destination. But we actually got corralled into a field to park the car then got on buses that ship us all up the fair grounds. After wasting forever trying to find out where to go we actually found our gate. The actual seats for the show were sold out in the first half hour of going on sale back in October of last year.. so we got tickets to the "Party-zone" which roughly translates into "Stuff-as-many-people-as-we-possibly-can-to-stand-in-front-of-the-stage" We pushed and shoved our way as far in as we possibly could and got about 30 yards from the stage which would have been great if not for the tree of a man who stood right in front of me. Not kidding he was close to seven foot tall! ha ha so it was kind of hard to see the stage, but every now and again the heads would part and I would get a peak if Darren picked me up. Julianne Hough opened for George and she was really great. We liked her a lot. Then finally after waiting for what seemed like forever Mr. Strait himself came on. He was really great! Sounded awesome! (I'm sure he looked awesome to... to those who could see him) Actually they had some giant screens on either side of the stage so I did get to watch... just not HIM. Darren was able to raise his arms up and get some pics of him. He got a video too, but its super shaky. I didn't know that Darren was recording him so I was just tugging on his arms and bumping him like a dork. So the visual quality is not the best, but you can hear him singing! ha ha After the concert we got back on the buses headed back to our car, drove back to the hotel and crashed. It was a long day! Then we drove back to Rock Spring to shower and eat and headed back to Salt Lake to get Tray... Lots of driving! Poor Darren never gets a break! He drives 400+ miles a day for work then get to drive even more on his vacations ha ha I don't know how he does it. He's amazing!

Tray eating a pretzel at Grandma's

Tray and Uncle Stu

Tray and Auntie Christie

Me and Darren in the car on our way to Cheyenne

Devin and Rachel on the Bus

Miss Julianne Hough

George fixing his guitar

George singing...

George singing...

Pic of George on the big screen... What I actually watched.

Remember.. I'm a klutz and its shaky...

Happy Birthday America!

Such and incredible holiday! An incredible chance to marvel on just how blessed we are to live in this wonderful land. And to celebrate our Freedom an Independence. I Love love LOVE the fourth of July. I love the fireworks and carnivals. Our Fourth of July was great! We had a lot of fun. The weekend started with a trip to the lake with Darren's family. I learned to water ski again after 2 years of sitting it out. I actually learned to go OUT of the wake for the first time. oh ya! That was a lot of fun. Darren, of course is a pro on his wake board, and practiced CLEARING the wake. Tray took his first boat ride and fell asleep ha ha. He then got sun screen in his eyes and was miserable the rest of the afternoon until we were able to drive into Darren's parents house and get tray in the shower. We then went to watch fireworks up at Utah State University. We were afraid that Tray would be scared and scream and we would have to leave but he actually loved it! They shot off the fire works the night of the 3rd instead of the 4th because of the Cruise-In the comes into town every year. Its a huge car show that lasts all weekend and then at the end all the cars cruise down main street. All in all it was a great weekend. :)

Darren Wake Boarding

Darren and Tray waiting for fireworks

Me and Tray waiting for fireworks

Me and Darren

Tray and Uncle Devin

Tray and Auntie Rachel

Tray and Emry both entranced by the fireworks :)

Me and Tray at the Car Show

Emry at the Car Show

Tray and Emry with Grandpa Anderson

A few of the hundreds of cars at the show

Almost Mobile!

Life in good ol' baron Wyoming is actually pretty great right now! We really are enjoying it here, despite the constant June rain. Things finally seem to be settling down for out little family and it is sooo nice. We love having a place to call home! Usually we would still be going back and forth to Utah every weekend to visit family but our ward here seems to have a different idea for us. Darren and I were both given callings. Darren was actually given two! They seem very adamant to keep us in town :) We have had the opportunity to make some new friends in our ward and it has been really fun getting to know them. Last Saturday we had a couples night that was so much fun! It has been a long time since we've been able to get out with some friends and relax! Although relax may not be the right word to use.. we played some super silly games that had all ten adults jumping around like giant goofballs. Ha ha Thanks for inviting us Jen!



Our little Tray bug has become quite the wiggly worm! Although he'll definitely sit and play with toys for a good amount of time he REALLY loves moving around. Whether it be jumping, walking, or attempting to crawl. Actually to be honest, he hates the latter. Tray has always hated being on his tummy. So for those of you who know Tray, you know what a HUGE step this is for him. We are so excited for him to learn to crawl! I have a feeling we'll feel differently when he is actually crawling though. Babies are much harder to control once they're mobile! :)



Everyday has been a new adventure for us. Some days are harder than others, but we are really enjoying the ride!

Tray learing to walk! So fun!

Tray in his Jumperoo.. So funny huh!?

Some of Trays first attempts to crawl... It may not look like much, but this really is such a big deal for him!

Baby Tongue!

Baby Update: Tray has a new found obsession with his tongue! Its so funny! It just started this last week. He'll just stick his tongue out to the side and let it hang there. Its so cute. Everytime he does it we laugh at him so he now thinks its really funny and loves the attention. He tries sticking it out really far to reach things he decides he wants to lick, which I have to admit is super funny to watch. He has such a fun goofy personality. His other new tricks are grabbing EVERYTHING. Clothes, hair, jewelery, food, etc. Attempting to eat EVERYTHING. Clothes, hair, jewelery, food, books, paper, walls, shoes, etc. Diving after anything that looks interesting and scaring Mommy to death. And farting on peoples laps and looking at them and laughing. :) He's so silly. He is 7 months old today! That just seems so crazy to me. He is growing like crazy. He tries to scoot now when on his belly, and hes learning to stand on his own. He stands against the couch or a chair or the back of the church pew. He'll smile and laugh at just about anyone. He is very friendly. He is eating more solids too. We try new things every week or so. We have learned so far that bananas and peas do not agree with him so much. He does however love apples, carrots, avacados and sweet potatoes. I'm very happy he's such a good eater.. He's super messy! But definitely a good eater. He has also found his ears and finds them quite entertaining. He'd pull on them all day if I would let him. One of these days I'm afraid he'll just pull them right off. :) He is starting to make some new little friends in our new ward. Most of the babies are older than him which he's not used to. He's used to playing with his little cousin, Emry. So when these older babies start grabbing at HIS face and taking HIS toys he's not sure how to respond. Its really fun being in a ward with so many young parents. We're really enjoying it. I was told today about a play group some of the mommies in the ward do every tuesday. I'm very excited. I love having a reason to get out of the house and I am looking forward to making some new friends. All in all things are going pretty well out here. Wyoming is really starting to grow on me :) I love when Darren and I have a chance to get out and get to know the area. The other night we went bowling which was a lot of fun. I kicked his booty! :) And Tray loved all the neon lights. Here in Rock Springs they have lots of stuff the do during the summer. Most every night there is something going on. Barrell races, motocross races, stock car races, rodeos. We're excited to have so many fun things to do.

Eating Solids

Baby Tongue!

Tray Standing On His Own

Happy Mothers Day!!

Happy mothers day to all the wonderful mothers out there! And all the soon to be mommies! I love this holiday! Being a mom is the best! Darren made me breakfast, which was wonderful. Then he helped Tray make me a present. And a little bit later he will be making dinner.. so awesome. I am currently waiting anxiously to talk to Sarah today. I'm so excited! Well we moved again! But this time we will be staying put. We signed a lease and everything. :) We moved to Rock springs, which is about 15 miles East of Green River where we previously were. The FedEx terminal is here is Rock Springs and Darren loves being closer to work. We now live right above our brother and sister Devin and Rachel. Which is lots of fun! We stomp on the floor and they bang on the ceiling. Its great! Tray and Emry get to spend lots and lots of time together which I love. Well its been a very long time since I have posted and a lot of stuff has happened. Along with moving into our own place, which I couldn't be happier about, we've been back and forth to Ut a TON! We went for Devin and Rachels sealing which was wonderful. Darren was asked to be a witness and I got to hold little Emry over the alter. It was incredible! Thanks for letting us be a part of your special day guys! We also went back there to buy a new used car. We bought a rodeo which I thought I would love but its stick and I am not such a fan of stick when there is a baby in the back. It gets complicated. So we'll probably be selling it and getting something else at some point in time. Then Tray and I went down for the week to visit family and to go to his 6 month check up. He is now 15 lbs! Yay! Up to the 12th percentile. It was so good to hear that he is back on track. I don't think he'll ever be one of the fat babies though.. he'll always be tall and skinny like his papa :) He is growing so fast though. He loves jumping in his jumperoo. He will jump for an hour non stop. Its wonderful! It give me a chance to get something done. He also loves watching finding nemo. Its his favorite. He is now eating some solid foods which is a lot of fun. We decided not to do baby cereals just yet. He eats apples, carrots, and now avacados, which I prepare myself (which is a super huge pain in the butt but a whole lot cheaper!). He loves it! He gets really jealous when were eating and don't give him some big boy food. Its so much fun to see how much he is growing and developing. He is sitting up now and rolling over. He's a little late with the rolling thing.. He just never showed any interest in it. But we have been working it a lot and hes doing great! Anyways we were able to go to Quinny and Cassies play which was so much fun! They both did awesome! Then we went and visited my favorite cousin Andi! Tray had alot of fun getting to know his cousins Jared and Derek. They were really cute with him. Especially Jared. He took it upon himself to entertain Tray whenever needed. Then Darren went back down to get our stuff so we could get all moved in. We finally unpacked the last of our junk last night. It feels soo nice to have our own place and all of our own stuff here with us. It finally feels like home! And the ward is awesome.

Tray and Darren making my mothers day present

Tray sitting up

Tray in his Jumperoo

A really cute picture taken by his Aunt Gina after the sealing

Tray looking silly with Aunt Heathers sunglasses on

Tray in his polar bear outfit from Aunt Christie

A really cute picture of little Emry