February 29 :D

Yay for the BYU Museum of Art Norman Rockwell exhibition! It was so great to learn more about him, he was a true American, through and through, and I love how his art captures the spirit of America. We went with Mitch's family and enjoyed Bam Bam's Grill before. (I'm REALLY going to miss Bam Bam's!)

We had fun, and Lydia slept for a while, but we got another picture when she woke up (see below--thanks Grandpa Steed!)

Well, I'm glad it's leap year, because I have a few more things I need to put in our 72-hour kit in order for us to qualify for the February challenge we issued to our ward, and I procrastinated visiting teaching! I also put off re-registering my car, because I have to remove my window tinting! :( It's so sad, especially because we have less than 2 months left in Utah and we'll just have to register in Washington anyway...and that doesn't matter according to laws here. So I could have just left my car unregistered for 2 months, but we didn't want to get ticketed, so my lovely dark tinting is being removed as we speak. Luckily I can keep it on my back windows!

Lydia on her throne, aka, Uncle Nathan's graciously donated chair.

So I'm getting more nostalgic by the day. I love Wymount and BYU and Provo, and I'm going to miss it a lot, especially the lovely snow! Since I graduated in 2007, this has been my home, other than my mission. It's almost been 9 years, and it's been great. Growing up, my Dad always took us to visit BYU campus when we visited family in Utah, and it's been wonderful to see the changes here, as well as the things that pretty much always stay the same, like the canyon, the majestic mountains, the Provo River, as well as the ancient buildings on campus that have been here forever (including Wymount:).

These were taken last month...the snow is long since gone, but I took lots of pictures of it.

A student made this by the library and Mitch got a picture on his way to class. :)

Lydia and I on our way to church. Mitch was sick that day! :(

I am incredibly grateful though that we were able to be in Provo when the new Provo City Center Temple was finished! My roommates and I went to stake conference here multiple times when I lived at Liberty Square and Victoria Place back when it was still a tabernacle. It was so neat to be able to tour it and see the changes there, what stayed the same, and what changed. It is beautiful!

So with other happenings, we got new phones. Here is a picture Mitch took with my old phone (as seen in the reflection) of his old iphone next to his new one from Projectfi. I'd had never heard of it, but it's Google's new phone service and it was A LOT cheaper than Verizon (once our phones are paid off, it will cost about $30/month for BOTH of our phones! :D Yay for saving for a downpayment!) It was also really easy to switch our phones. Since they don't have stores, you just do everything online yourself. Your phone comes in the mail, and you can switch your number, contacts, and everything yourself. :)

This is mine! I adore it, of course, (other than the fact that I really miss Facetime) but once I saw the flamingo case Mitch showed me we could buy for the phone, I was in LOVE!

Sméagol, I mean, me and my flamingo phone case. :)

So I can't believe that Lydia is 9 months old! She loves biting our noses and faces with her two new, razor-sharp teeth! :} She keeps us on our toes now taking bites out of the hibiscus plant, like a never-ending salad bar! Good thing it's warm enough now to leave the plants outside so they can get a rest from her constant snackage!

Her hair is long enough to put bows in now, which is super fun, but I rarely do it for practicality's sake, it's just super cute!

I always try to come up with activities we can do together during the day, and this one was building a fort with the couch cushions and lovely Afghan blanket my great-grandma Lovell made. :) It was fun and I put snacks on the floor to lure her into her little house that was much too small for me. :)

No pictures, please.

Here she is wearing the classy "Build a Bear" glasses from my BYU teddy. She was actually trying to take them off, but the pictures of her efforts to do so came out so cute!

So Lydia officially took her first steps on February 17th, at the age of 8 months (three days before she turned 9 months). I was so glad because Mitch started walking at 8 months, and I REALLY wanted her to do the same, haha! She loves standing up and walking while holding things, and will take steps from time to time while walking between mine and Mitch's outstretched arms, but she still prefers crawling as her main mode of self transportation. :)

I LOVE this picture of her grabbing onto the door as if she's headed out of the house!

I'm off to the playground, Mommy!

She not only loves sitting at the piano,

but she loves reaching for it now that she's tall enough. :)

Lydia's little birthmark is starting to disappear, and we didn't even realize it until her 9-month doctor appointment and Dr. Willmore pointed it out to us. Though the picture is fuzzy, you can see it by her eye (it always looked like she scratched herself). It used to be super puffy and much more prominent, but it's shrinking by the day.

Here we are at The Brick Oven (another thing I am REALLY going to miss in Provo) at a Microsoft new employee party. These pictures were actually meant to be a joke, me holding up a slice of pizza and letting Lydia lick it maybe, but as I was taking the picture, she leaned over and snatched the slice with her little chompers and wouldn't let it go until she had eaten it all (except the crust at the end)!

It was the beginning of the end of letting Mommy and Daddy feed her food, because now she will ABSOLUTELY NOT eat anything we try to give her unless she can feed herself! She loves blueberries, but not if Mom or Dad try to give put them in her mouth! Even if we succeed at sneaking one in her mouth, she will spit it out unless she is the one who put it there! :D

We have also discovered that her favorite color is blue! At mealtime, we offer her all the colors of spoons, and no matter where we shuffle the blue one in the mix, she spots it and grabs it. Uncle James and Aunt Heidi sent her these colorful cups, plates, bowls, and utensils, and we get the most use out of the blue ones. (Well, except I always use the pink ones because I like them for me too!)

As mentioned before, we went to the BYU Museum of Art to see the Norman Rockwell art gallery, and we got lots of pictures of this BEAUTIFUL display in the museum foyer. It is all very fine string, super colorful and lovely. It's neat when there's any air movement along it too, because it vibrates like giant harp strings and it makes me wish I could hear it's music, because Mitch pointed out to me that even if it were completely silent in the museum, we likely wouldn't be able to hear the sounds it makes.

We took another picture after Lydia woke up, but she had her, "What...year...is...it?" startled face she makes when she first wakes up from a nap.

So I successfully made the braided Ruben's sandwich recipe that Mitch's mom taught me how to make! It came out super good, and Lydia loved it so much, she even let me feed her a bite!

Here she is wearing her favorite purple pajamas from my mission President and his wife, President and Sister Cordon. :) She got ahold of my acrylic paints, and good thing they were all tightly closed!

We went to the Olive Garden a few weeks ago, and it was Lydia's first time. She LOVED the breadsticks, lasagna, Alfredo, and strawberry from off the top of my frozen raspberry lemonade. :)

The people sitting behind us there smiled at Lydia and said to us, "Just wait, you'll blink, and before you know it, she'll be 17 and you'll be at dinner with her meeting her boyfriend. It goes by quick!" It's so crazy and true! She's already growing up too quick!

Speaking of growing up, now that she is 9 months old, we keep looking at pictures in our family history book of me and of Mitch when we were little, trying to see who she's looking like. She's always looked a lot like Mitch to me, but sometimes I feel like I can see a little bit of me in her. :)

Here are pictures of us growing up, Mitch on the left, me on the right:

Me on a Sunday, crawling on hands and knees in my dress. :)

Mitch in his Superman pjs with their old dog:

Mitch on Christmas day (left) me laying on the floor (right):

Me eating ravioli and meatballs:

Mitch in a hammock!:

So this picture of Mitch in the red chair looks SOOO much like Lydia to me, it's crazy!

Here I am as a pumpkin with my sister, Kay, a queen, on Halloween:

Another Mitch picture that looks SO much like Lydia:

Me, a little older, really looking like my niece, Lynnora:

Mitch on his phone at Christmastime:

Here she is on Daddy's shoulders. :) When it all comes down to it, I love what her Great-Grandpa Robison said about her when we were talking about who she looks like between the two of us. He said, "She looks like Lydia." :)

We took Lydia on our favorite hike in Rock Canyon for the first time. :)

It was a blast going up, but Lydia was crotchety on the way down.

We're excited that it's getting warmer so we can do all of our favorite walks and hikes before we go! Too bad Lydia hates hats! (another of Mitch's characteristics;)