flashbacks of last summer

today i pulled out my waterproof camera to get ready for a rafting trip for wade and found these gems still on the memory card from last summer.  

they made me really excited for warm weather.  

our friends, travis and missy, invited us to go rafting with their family near the end of the summer last year.

oh man!  it was perfect, especially considering i was about 8 months pregnant and that water was the perfect temperature for dangling puffy pregnant ankles in.

whitney kept jumping out of the raft right as we'd come up to the rapids.  apparently they're more fun that way.

see?  i was literally just along for the ride and offered exactly zero help in getting the raft, kayaks and children down the river.

it was pretty sweet.

also, it was nothing short of a miracle that i was able to clip my life vest.

zipping it was out of the question.

gwen ended up asleep.  i guess the rocking and bumping motions were more soothing than the waves of water in her face were shocking.

handsome devil

the favorite mode of raft entry : penguin launch

missy and darling makenna

sup, gurlz?

travis let devan "steer" the raft for a long while.

this is the last we saw of his hat and glasses.

i wonder why.

nik and alexis

seems strange to post anything without elle in any photos.

i guess she technically went rafting with us too ;)

baby elle at 4, 5 & 6 months

 baby elle is getting big. fast.

so i thought i'd better get some more pictures of her up before she's walking ;)

at four months this little gem was as sweet as ever and happy as could be and all the littles above her were still very much in love with her.

how could they not be?

she wasn't doing much other than baby stuff.

LOTS of sleeping, laughing, and being pleasant in general.

and sleeping.

she celebrated 4 months on new year's eve in SLC.

poor little miss got sick with RSV and had a rough couple of weeks, but didn't get nearly as sick as some babies do, thank goodness.  still, i've never had a baby so sick and miserable.

sad.

at five months little dab decided the world was worth waking up to.

she started to be more aware of what was around her,

like her, apparently, very captivating hands and feet.

more sleeping

baby learned to roll from front to back.  more of a tip-over, i'd say.  my babies take forever to do anything since they spend the majority of their first six months asleep, so tipping over is quite exciting.

and this is the face i'm greeted with whenever i enter the room.

she's president of my fan club.

six months brought a few more grams of cheek chubs, may favorite kind,

and some experimenting with baby food.  she's not a fan of the mushy stuff, but prefers things she can chew, so we've kind of skipped baby food altogether and moved right to solids.

i don't blame her.  that gunk is kind of gross, which is exactly what gwen thought too, and made her opinion on the matter all too apparent by gagging and puking on the floor whenever she saw elle being fed baby food.

nice.

she gets going CRAZY in this thing.  it's so so funny.

doing some pretty awesome sitting,

and looking pretty proud of herself.

this has been an official overload of photos.

your welcome.