My sweet baby Curls! I love her and her cute personality that is coming out!
sweet...check! cute...check! melts me and Derek's heart...check! Patient...we're still working on that one!

Wowzers!  It has been a really long time since the last time I blogged.  To all those who die to see my cute baby girl growing... I apologize!

Idaho Trip!

Derek's sister got married the beginning of November which meant Derek and I were able to go to Idaho for it!  What a stinkin' fun trip!  It was so nice.  Derek stayed in NM for about a week working and then flew back right before Haylie got married.  I was able to stay with just my mom and Trev for a whole week!  It was so fun. My mom spoiled me big time with good food, rest, good conversation, and everything else a wonderful mom gives.  She spoiled Carly with so much love and attention.  We felt like royalty!  I got to see all of my siblings and spend some good time with them all.  It was a much needed vacation.







Mason the baby man!  What a great cousin! Curls is looking a little tired from the oodles of attention she got from everyone!

Cousin Gibson feeding Curls her bottle.
Funny Story: Curls would not and I tell you WOULD NOT nurse while we were in Idaho.  It was a struggle every 3 hours.  Actually she wouldn't even eat every three hours.  Once she went 12 hours without eating and that was during the day.  I know... I was freaking out.  Anyway, she just didn't want to nurse so I had to keep pumping and give her a bottle.  When we came back to New Mexico she changed her mind and decided she hated bottles and only wanted to nurse. That silly girl! 



Carly loves Trever and Trever loves Carly.  He would pick her up, talk to her, make her smile, etc.
One day I was upstairs talking to my mom and Carly was sleeping downstairs in our room.  All of a sudden I hear Carly crying and her cry is getting closer and closer to me.  I went to see how that was happening and there Trever was bringing her up the stairs!  Ahhh!  He told me she was crying so he went and got her.  Trever doesn't have the best balance especially going up stairs and Carly wasn't very good at holding herself up yet.  It was one of those things that I laughed about because it was over and they both survived without any trouble.  My mom and I just decided that we would have to keep a closer eye on that!  Haha!  Trever is such a stud!

Just cute, plain cute!



Cousin Claire with Carly!  Look at that cute face!





Camping Trip

Derek and I went camping last weekend with our friends the Bisels and Rhett. We had wanted to go camping and we mentioned to the Bisels and they definitely made it happen. Derek and I aren't the best planners so Aimee and Cole stepped in and helped us plan! It was so much FUN!

Derek had Friday off so we started the day off by going to Roswell to the eye doctor. Roswell is about an hour away from Carlsbad. Yes, we could've gone to a doctor in Carlsbad but one lady we talked to said that the doctor here charges about twice as much and it is usually a two month wait to get in. I was blown away. So we went to Roswell and then headed toward Cloud Croft where we would be camping. When we started driving toward Cloud Croft we were driving in land that was BARREN! As far as the eye could see, there was flat, dry, yellow ground with a few tiny sagebrush here and there. I was thinking to myself... this may be a unique camping experience for us! Well slowly the landscape started shifting and by the time we had driven two hours it looked like we were in the middle of Island Park with the fresh mountain air and all. We set up our tent and started a fire (I started the fire :) ). Cole and Aimee made us tinfoil dinners or hobo dinners and they were so, so good! After eating jalepeno fire cheetos, s'mores, and hobo dinners it was getting dark and we decided to go play a game in our tent. Once the sun went down the wind picked up. It was blowing so, so hard. The sides of our tent were caving in on us while we were trying to play our game and the light was waving back and forth and it was really fun but really hard to play a game. With the light waving back a forth it would have been a lot easier to have a disco dance party. We just didn't have the music or the dancing skills! Eventually our tent ripped and came tumbling down pretty much. :( So Derek, Carly, and I slept in our car, Rhett slept in the Bisels truck, and the Bisels slept in their tent that was obviously a little higher quality than ours seeing that it didn't even look like it was touched by the wind! :)

The next day we replayed our game on a flat table in the nice constant daylight and it was a blast. We ate breakfast consisting of apple juice, bagels and cream cheese, and grapes. MMmmm... Then we went for a walk, sat around the fire, ate lunch, and just did what campers do.... Relaxed! It was so nice. We ended the day by driving to the town Cloud Croft which has a West Yellowstone feel. Everything was closed but we did find a pizza shop that we stopped at and ate dinner before hitting the road again to go home!

Group picture of the Derek, Me, Carly, Aimee, little Finn, Cole, and Rhett.

The boys sleeping on our fallen tent :(

Curlzy and Dad... so cute! Carly loves her dad. She stares at him whenever he's around!

A joint happiness to see each other in the morning. Carly slept eight hours straight! Best night sleep yet!

Rhett with Carly

Carly and Finn. Finn is about 3 1/2 months older than Carly. He is such a stud!

Carly and Finn snoozing away for their mid-day nap! I love Carly's hat!

A random, friendly horse that showed up, stayed for a couple minutes, then ran away!

Rhett giving the horse a hug!

Derek hauled in this huge, funny looking log! Looks like a horn!

Camera Craze!

So I decided that since I need to blog a lot because I am in New Mexico and so far away from everybody, I should probably carry my camera around more often. I take it everywhere we go now and I am on a taking picture CRAZE! Of course, I have a very cute model to take pictures of... that definitely helps! Not much is new around here but here are some very cute pictures of Curls and her adventures.

Hats! We are planning a camping trip for this weekend and I want Curls to stay nice and warm. We pulled out her hats to see what would work the best.

A little big I think ....

There's a little peeper!

Great Grandpa Allen made this hat for Carly. It's a little small for her now but very cute!

Carly is big enough to sit up in her stroller instead of riding in her carseat in her stroller. She's so BIG! She obviously loves our walks!

Carly's first time driving a car! I had to move the car on the lawn to wash it so she helped me move it!

Here's my dirty man! I don't know what it is but he looks very good after a hard day of work!
p.s. Derek's job is giving him some mighty fine muscles :)

First time washing a car!

Carly fell asleep on her own arm while helping me do chores! Sleeping on the job...again!

Curly Carly!

Since this posts name is Curly Carly, I would like to start out with these two pictures! Carly's nickname is Curlz or Curly because Carl just doesn't work out very well! These pictures are pretty appropriate for her name though.

Carly has a mullett! The other day I decided to curl it. (Don't worry, I didn't pull out the curling iron, I just curled it with my fingers!) It looked really funny and surprisingly pretty cute! In fact, I would dare to say it's the cutest curly mullett I've ever seen and I have seen a few.

OUR FUN WEEKEND

On Saturday, we went to a recreation center they have here in Carlsbad. It's pretty neat mainly because it is free. They have raquetball courts, basketball courts, ping pong tables, pool tables, etc. We decided to go and try out their racquetball courts.

Here is a little snapshot of the Pecos River in Carlsbad.
People around these here parts aren't in to early rising. The Rec Center didn't open until 1 o'clock. We got there about 12:15 or so. We waited for a while and then decided to go on a little walk to see if the pedal boats were available. The place that rents out pedal boats is closed for the summer. bummer. I guess it's not warm enough to be out on the river in 90 degree weather.
Rhett came with us and he sure makes things more fun! While Rhett and Derek were playing a round of raquetball, I put Derek's work hat on little Curls. Derek works for this company named NORCON and he, like Curls, looks really good in this hat :) We can't wait to go back and play some more.

On Sunday we went on a family bike ride with Rhett included. It took us about an hour to actually get all of our bikes ready. We finally go ready and on the road. I made it about 50 yards and my freshly pumped tire was already flat again. I told the boys to go ahead and that I would change the tube in my tire and meet up with them. Thank goodness Randall was close by and helped me change my tire because it would have taken me a long time, but he just whipped the tire right off, whipped it right back on and we were good to go. Note: You really don't have to read all of this. I am counting this as my journal, so I may go into more detail then the regular public may want to read :)

We love our baby carrier. We just strap Curls on to us and take her with us wherever we go!

Making a Carly footprint. I stuck her foot in the water and she didn't appreciate that, so we tried the sand which went way better.

Carly's first sand footprint, but there will be many more of those to come especially since Derek and I are going to retire at age thirty in Hawaii! :)

Family picture! Notice the yellow thing by Carly's mouth? That is a biking glove that we found in a little pack on the back of Rhett's bike. One thing I have learned about being a parent: You have to be and will be very creative in finding ways to make your baby stop crying. Derek had to stop biking every ten seconds to re-insert Carly's binking in her mouth. She was in one of those moods (tired) where she really wanted her binky but couldn't seem to keep it in. We finally found "the wonder glove" to help hold it in!

Carly's binky fell in the sand and therefore became... useless. This picture is how she felt after that! I posted this picture because she is so cute even when she is a grumpster. She was getting really upset so I became desperate and stuck her thumb in her mouth. She really liked it and it put her right to sleep. I thought I might regret that later but she hasn't been able to find it again, so I think we're okay!

When we came home we watched the BSU game that we had recorded the night before. Derek's mom made us crepes. So we pigged out! So fun!

Sweet Carly fell asleep during the game! She was so happy to be reunited with her binky!

PAST PICTURES

Here are some pictures I found on my camera of Carly's first couple weeks. She was so tiny!

Carly's first blowout!

It may have been the first but definitely not the last!

Lindsay and her kids came to visit us when Carly was about a week. Little Bretty loved holding Carly.

Brett swinging Carly.

Brett wanted to hold Carly and play with his cars! He found a way to do it!

Laying on Grandpa's chest... precious!Just plain cute, nothing else to say!

One of her first baths!Sleeping on Daddy.

Trying to eat her swing.