Elly is 6 months old!

These pictures are from an impromptu photo shoot that we had with Elly yesterday on the floor of the great room. See more pictures on our web albums page. I realized that I don't have many pictures of her since she turned 6 months old. Wow, I can't believe that Elly Bubbush is 6 months old now. It seems like we were just leaving the hospital with her yesterday. I know everyone says this, but the time truly does fly. She is totally amazing to us and she learns something new everyday. She also gets bigger everyday! At her last doctor's appointment she weighed 17 and a half pounds and was 27 inches long. We always talk about how crazy it is that she's this whole little person. She's a little independent person! She definitely has her own mind. She wants whatever we don't want her to have. If we're eating something and we're feeding her baby food, she wants what we have. She watches me drink out of my water bottle at Stroller Strides everyday and she's learned how to drink from it. So, I bought her a sippy cup and she knows exactly how to use it. Last week, she finally rolled over from her back to her front. But, then she doesn't like being on her tummy...so she cries until I come roll her back over to her back. She smiles and laughs all the time. She loves music. Her favorite song is the Isty Bitsy Spider. Even if she's screaming, when you sing that song, she quiets down immediately and just stares at you. She used to suck on pacifiers that we call "suckies", but then she found her thumb and now she just bites on the suckies and plays with them. She drools like crazy and each day when we put her in her pajamas her shirt is soaking wet. She does a really good job sitting up by herself and only occasionally tips to one side or the other. She eats baby food now. She's liked everything we've given her. She started with rice cereal, then we gave her vegetables: green beans, peas, carrots, squash and sweet potatoes. We're staying away from fruit for now, because we're pretty afraid that she'll have Mommy's sweet tooth. She loves the bath and so far she loves swimming, too. She loves to splash with her hands, but then is surprised when water gets in her face. But, she keeps doing it...I guess the fun is worth the incovenience.

She is truly an angel and we are so blessed to have her in our family. She's changed our lives only for the better. Our favorite thing in the world is when she wakes up talking in her bed and we go in to pick her up and she gives us the biggest smile she can muster. We are so excited to see what she has in store for us next.

Stroller Strides (There had to be a post about it sooner or later)

After I gained one million pounds carrying Elly around for 9 months, I realized that I was kind of huge even after she was born. I also realized that going to the gym isn't really something that I do. I've had a gym membership now for a few years, but it's a painful experience for me, really. Plus, the gym wouldn't take Elly in the child care until she was 6 months old. So...I had to come up with another way to get un-huge.

In all my internet searching, I found Stroller Strides and to my delight, someone had just started a franchise here in Visalia. Stroller Strides is a nation wide company with franchises in tons of cities. It's basically a fitness class for moms to bring their stroller-riding kids to a public park and get an awesome workout taught by a certified fitness instructor. The kids get in the strollers and we do stuff like power walking, jogging, and other cardio bursts. We also use rubber tubing bands for strength training. It's a great workout, believe me. Plus, it's fun because you're with other moms and it never seems like you're just working out. The reason this works for me is because there is a set time you have to be there, and if you're not, you just don't get to workout that day. When I had a gym membership I could "always go later"...but never did. With Stroller Strides, I am accountable to someone to be there. Not to mention that I'm paying for it! So, now thanks to Stroller Strides, I am no longer huge...just a little large.

5 years already!

Brandon and I were married May 10, 2002 in the Salt Lake Temple. That means that a few weeks ago we had our five year anniversary. My sister, Madelyn, was here and she offered to watch the baby while we went out, but I wasn't feeling well, so we just stayed home. Madelyn flew out from Fresno the next day and Brandon took the day off of work so we could spend the day together in Fresno. He had it all planned. We went to Woodward Park and spread out a blanket. We just lay on the grass talking and looking at Elly. Sure, we talked and laughed about the actual wedding day, remembering things like the difference between Brandon's morning and my morning that day. When I woke up at a leisurely 9 am, I went into the kitchen where my family had made me a lovely breakfast. Then, my two sisters did my hair and we talked and had a great time. My parents drove me to the temple to meet Brandon. He woke up at like 6 am and had to drive from his brother's house in Bountiful to Salt Lake to the Boy Scout Headquarters to pick up the queen size mattress and box spring I had bought from them the day before for a whopping $150.00. You see, since the Olympics were in Salt Lake in 2002, lots of furnishings were purchased for various press, athletes, and government people to use during the games. After it was all over, the Olympic Committee donated everything to various charities including the Boy Scouts. Brandon and his dad picked up the bed the morning of the wedding and took it to our house so it would be there when we returned from our honeymoon. Then they drove all the way back to Bountiful so Brandon could get ready and drive back to the temple to meet me. Clearly, the wedding day is all about the bride.

Well, we had a great time in the park, then we went to eat dinner at The Elephant Bar and again headed back to the park where the Japanese Garden was just opening. We strolled through the Garden which was beautiful and not crowded at all. It was a really nice day and I loved spending it with my two favorite people. It's funny because we tried to talk about our wedding and our anniversaries since then, but the conversation kept coming back to The Bubbush and what an amazing blessing she is. We were happy to remember our wedding day and the time when it was just the two of us, but now we can't imagine life without her.


I just had to put this picture in here because look at Elly's face. Doesn't she look like a little thug?

"The Fort"

Madelyn just sent me this awesome picture she found of the two of us with our cousin, Katie Patrick, at the good old Fort Douglas Pool. This picture brought back a lot of memories, some of which I'll share now. For those of you who are familiar with "The Fort", this will be an amusing little post. But, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you'll most likely be bored to death- or just realize how crazy I really am. We pretty much lived at the Fort all summer long growing up. We basically just slept at home. I know I got up earlier in the summer than I did during the school year. I went to swim team workout for a few hours each morning. Then, I got out and ate breakfast at the snack bar which usually consisted of a cinnamon raisin bagel with plain cream cheese. Then I got back in the pool for some sort of lesson- stroke development, usually. Oh and there was diving team practice in there, too. And one summer when I was 13 or 14 I was also on the tennis team, so there was tennis team practice too. (Mad did tennis too and we've since talked about how we did it more to be able to get out of swim team practice early than for a love of tennis.) At the end of all the team workouts and lessons and breakfast, I would go into the locker room for a good play in the shower. And I mean play. There was a big square shower room with like 10 different heads on the outer walls shooting into the middle. We'd go in there and play several games (always in our swimsuits, don't worry). Some of the games I remember include learning the names of all the Cannon children in order and repeating them as fast as we could over and over. I think there are 10 total (I only remember Sarajane, Emily and Jenny right now... sorry). After the shower I would probably go have lunch again at the snack bar. Lunch was a tuna sandwich or a grilled cheese, sometimes if the whole family was coming up to eat together I would put on clothes, and get something fancy like a hamburger. That brings us to the best part about The Fort. It's simple- the number 1240. That was the magic number. All you had to do was tell it to the employee at the snack bar, the pro shop, the dining room and you got whatever you asked for. It was pretty amazing to a little kid. I lied, that wasn't the best part of the Fort. The best part really was when the whole family would come up for an afternoon swim and dinner. This wonderful time was called free swim. We would all get in the pool together and play around. Dad would throw us up into the air and we would try to touch the flags. We would jump off the "high dive" and we'd show Dad our newest technique for diving off the blocks. I really loved spending my summers there. It was a big part of my growing up experience.

Here goes...

Hey Everybody,

Having a blog is not only the "in" thing to do, but it seems to be a really great way to chronicle our lives. The thing is that when you become a parent, time goes by so much faster than it did when you were just a married couple hanging around your house watching tv in your jammies. Everything seems so much more important and if you don't write it down it will be lost forever. I really don't want it to be lost forever. So, I'm now a blogger...I guess.