Happy Birthday Emily!

Today is my sister Emily's birthday. She is turning 21. So old! Since she reads this at work everyday, I wanted to say Happy Birthday and I love you! I hope you have a great day!

Isn't this a cute picture of her? She is cute.

The Latest Pictures of Madeline

Madeline has been pretty fussy the past couple of days. I don't know why. I think she might be going through a growth spurt so she wants to eat more often than she usually does. She is starting to get pretty chubby.

She has started holding onto her rags a lot. We have found that if we give her a rag when she is crying she will usually calm down. My little sister Abby used to have a "rag" like a blankie. I don't really want Madeline to have a crutch but I guess a rag is easy because it is small and easily replaceable/interchangable. Here she is holding her rag.

In other news, Madeline is getting a lot better at holding her head and neck up during "tummy time" although she still hates being on her stomach.

Madeline has also started wearing 3-6 month clothes. This is a cute outfit that our family friend Renee bought her.


Here are a few more pictures that I like of Madeline that we have taken recently. Emily made fun of me because she looked through the pictures on my camera and found out that I have a million. We decided first children have the most pictures not only because it is a new thing for the parents to have a kid, but also because the mom gets bored and needs something to do being at home alone all day with a little baby.

Looking at mom.

Watch out! She's not afraid to fight!

When she's crying a lot I try to remember how happy I am when she smiles.

Madeline's Blessing

Madeline was blessed last Sunday, July 5. Ian was able to give the blessing and he did a really nice job. Madeline stayed quiet until the very end she started to fuss just a little. I thought that two things were kind of special. First, my brother Elliott stood in the circle since he was ordained an Elder a couple weeks ago. Second, my mom had saved my blessing dress so Madeline was blessed in the same dress that I wore at my blessing.

We were also blessed to have so much family attend. Ian's whole family came from California on Saturday night. It was a quick trip for all of them since they left Monday. We were really happy that they were willing and able to come, even though we wish they could have stayed longer. My family also came from Washington for just a few days. We also had my Aunt Linda and her daughter, my Uncle Jeff and his family, and my Uncle Greg and his son come. Even my Grandma Moss and Aunt Marie came down for the occasion. After Sacrament meeting, we all went up to a park in Provo Canyon and made sandwiches, took pictures, and visited.

Here are a few pictures of the family and Madeline in her blessing dress. Notice my pretty awesome sunburn on my arms from mini golfing on the fourth.



4th of July

For the 4th of July weekend, our families came up for Madeline's blessing. My family came on July 3rd and stayed at a condo in Park City. Ian and I drove up on Friday night to hang out with them. We had a fun time playing games, specifically a game that my mom and brothers learned while they were in Germany. It is called Ligretto and I thought it was really fun to play. I'm glad they brought it back for us and taught us to play. Saturday was the 4th and Madeline got to wear her new festive outfit from Grandma Payne.

We went up to the Park City resort to play mini golf. This was the view. I thought it was pretty.


We had a pretty fun time putting...


although the course was pretty crappy. Each hole was really tilted so all of our balls would always roll together.


Oliver wasn't having his best game.


Elliott looking studly in his new shirt from London. I told him that he was wearing the wrong side for the 4th of July.

I did pretty bad too, although I did get one hole in one. Notice everyone elses balls all congregated to the corner. Emily told me to hurry and putt so she could get a picture of all our golf balls together. I was pretty excited to mess up that picture.


I don't have any pictures of Emily golfing but I do have a nice picture of her modeling her camera case, or as Elliott called it, her "fanny pack for her wrist."


After we went mini golfing, we were hot so we decided to go swimming. Here we are playing 500 in the pool.


Later that evening, we played croquet. Abby won the first round but after that, Ian started beating us pretty bad.


He was done with the course and we hadn't even started going back.

Since we were losing we just started taking random pictures instead.



Somehow Oliver managed to get hurt.
At the end of the day, we went up on the roof of the condo to watch the fireworks. I'm not going to lie, I was kind of scared climbing up the scaffolding to get to the roof. We had a really nice view. My mom held Madeline during the fireworks and said she slept through the whole thing. She can sleep through anything if she wants to.





Overall, it was a fun 4th of July and I was glad to be able to spend it with my family.