11 months

Somewhere, between the constant traveling, our little girl turned 11 months old. It's hard to imagine that Sienna will be 1 year old in less than 2 weeks. She continues to amaze us and we continue to fall more and more in love with her. She is so funny and so incredibly loving. We absolutely adore her. She is busy crawling everywhere, pulling herself up onto everything, and cruising around the couch and her toys. Sienna loves her walker and enjoys pushing it around the house. She also loves her baby doll from her daddy. She squeezes her baby, gives her kisses, and pats her back. It's adorable! (I'll have to post a picture sometime soon!)

Sienna is laughing at her daddy

Sienna is becoming a much better eater, she will eat most of the things we give her. She loves putting the food in her mouth by herself and she doesn't want me cutting up her bread or watermelon-she wants to take bites and hold onto the big piece.

Sienna has an obsession for pulling things out of where they belong :) (as I'm sure most babies do!)

Sienna continues to be a very happy girl and we LOVE her little belly laugh and watching her smile. She loves dancing--and watching us do silly dances for her. The Gipson family does a lot of dancing here in the house!

Sienna has also been doing things to scare her mama lately! She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to put things around her neck. She'll take straps (from diaper bag or a purse) and put it around her neck and attempt to crawl with them. Great. Very safe. While I was wrapping a gift, she took the ribbon, put it around her neck and crawled off. She has a toy that is a doggy on a "leash," which is really a string, and you are supposed to pull the dog behind you and it barks and wags it's tail. She doesn't pull it behind her-she puts that string around her neck and drags it. We have to constantly be watching her with these things!

Sienna also discovered how to take out the socket covers for plugs. Awesome. She will pick it out and hand it to me or try to put it back in the socket. She is obsessed with doing this. Scary!

Also, Sienna likes to put things over her head and crawl. She LOVES putting blankets or towels on her head and crawling off. This all started with Peek-A-Boo. She loved the game and would always play any time there was a blanket or a towel nearby. Well, I guess she thought it would be a fun idea to crawl off with it. I attempted to upload a video of her crawling with the towel and I tried unsuccessfully 3 times. I think it might be a bit too long. I'll see if I can edit it or get take another short clip for you sometime. It's hilarious.

*This video isn't the best, it was just taken from my little digital camera, not my video camera.

**Please excuse my annoying voice and my little breathy laughs. Is it just me, or is everyone annoyed when you listen to yourself on video?? Yikes!

Vacation-part 3-San Clemente

To end our traveling adventures, we headed down south 2 days after we got home from SF. Originally, we were planning on going down there on Thursday, but then a meeting came up that Garth needed to be at down in Ontario. So we went down there first.

We had quite the adventure in the Sheraton hotel in Ontario, where we not only were in the room with Sienna, but Colby was with us as well. That made for some fun times the next morning when Garth was at work and I was stuck in a hotel room trying to get Sienna to take a nap without her seeing us, while trying to keep Colby quiet (not easy when there are doors slamming in the hallway and people talking out there!). But, it made for some good memories.

Sienna having breakfast

Colbs, after he's been denied food from Sienna

When Garth was done with his meeting, we headed over to some of our closest friends, Heidi and Randy, to see their new house in Murrietta. We had a great afternoon with their 3 kiddos and we had a great dinner together. We desperately miss being closer to them!

Heidi and I with Luke, Lily,Sienna, and Landon

Future BFF's (they were born two weeks apart!)

They already love hanging out together, just like their mamas

After staying the night with them, we left in the morning to head over to Garth's mom's house. We had such a fun time being with his family over the next few days. Our nephews and niece were there and Sienna LOVED watching them and being near them. She was in love with her little cousin, Klaire, and would crawl over to her bouncer and sit and watch her. We had a great time with the whole family. We love them so much and wish we all lived closer so we could get together more.

Sienna's first time on a swing (yes, hard to believe! But the ones in Visalia are too hot right now to put her little cute legs in!). She was a little unsure at first.

She grew to love it!

Garth and Nana pushing the kids-Kimu, Sienna, and Karson

Thursday night, we went to a fabulous restaurant in Irvine to celebrate grandma and grandpa's 60th anniversary! . What an amazing couple they are, what an awesome accomplishment to reach!! They have taught us so much and we are so grateful to have their love and support in our lives. We had a wonderful evening in the back room of an Italian restaurant. Garth's whole family was there and it was a blast! The room was beautiful and it had a big long table to fit all of us. It even had it's own deck right off of the room, that opened to a pond where there were ducks, koi fish, and turtles. The kids had a blast out there and probably spent the majority of the night feeding the ducks and the fish pieces of bread (no wonder we were going through so many baskets of bread, ha!). Sienna loved watching the ducks swim over to us and kept pointing to go back outside.

**Thanks Grandpa for letting me steal a couple of your pictures!**

All the kids wore matching Hawaiian outfits that Grandpa and Grandma gave them. They looked sooo cute. Here we are with cousins Sienna and Klaire!

Uncle Jack-sharing memories

Grandma and Sienna

Are my nephews not the most handsome boys you've ever seen? I just LOVE them!!

Karson making Sienna laugh

It was a wonderful night, filled with laughter and love, as we celebrated the marriage of two very important people-grandma and grandpa.

We finished up our vacation, hanging out at Nana's house eating away, with the kids playing and having fun, and basking in the sun outside :).

Sienna LOVES her walker from her Auntie and Uncle!

How precious are these cousins? I can't wait for all the memories they will share together!

We had a wonderful summer, but we are happy to be back home, getting in the groove of the new school year (which begins on Monday). It will be another great year ahead, I'm sure!

Vacation-part 2-San Francisco

Right after leaving Truckee, we headed over to visit my grandma in San Mateo. We had a very nice visit with her. On Friday night, we went and saw my dear friend, Betsy Wolfe, in the show Tales of the City. She was the main lead and was INCREDIBLE!! We love watching Betsy any time we can. Betsy lives in New York and has been performed on Broadway a couple times. We loved the show and then met up with her afterwards.

Nonia and Sienna

Garth and I with Betsy

As we were leaving, Betsy was asked to sign autographs.I made her sign my program. She laughed at me, but I insisted!

On Saturday, Garth, Sienna and I took the BART to San Francisco. Garth had to pick up his bib for the half marathon, which was on Sunday, so we decided to make a short day out of it. We went to Embarcadero and walked around the street fair and had a delicious lunch at Boudin's. Later we headed back to grandma's for dinner.

Sienna and her momma on the BART

Garth, picking up his bib

On Sunday, Garth woke up bright and early to go running. This was his first marathon and he came in at 1:59:34. He loved his experience and is planning on doing another half marathon in the fall.

After the race, we headed back to Visalia for about 2 days before we packed up and headed out again!

Vacation-part 1-Truckee

The Gipson family has been a-traveling! The last two weeks were spent in up north in Truckee (right outside of Tahoe), in San Francisco/the Bay Area and then down south in San Clemente. We had such a great time, but we are glad to be back home! We went to Tahoe with my side of the family. There were 14 of us and we rented a great 6 bedroom house that was located a couple blocks from downtown Truckee. We had the river, literally, in our backyard. We ate meals and spent a lot of time on the patio and enjoyed each other's company! We went shopping while the boys went golfing, we went on a bike ride, listened to a jazz band at the park (see video below of awesome dancing queen who danced the whole night long!--didn't miss a song people!), went to Donner Lake, and even had a crazy night of Minute to Win It (thanks to my dad for putting it together!). We definitely took advantage of staying so close to downtown-we walked there all the time for coffee, food, and even delicious milkshakes!

*Thanks Christy for letting me steal some of these pictures from you!*

the house we stayed in

our backyard-the Truckee River

our view of the house when we're walking downtown

My amazing cousins and I at the Donner Museum

the fam walking to dinner

Garth, who was training for a half marathon, took Sienna on a run (the rental had a jogging stroller, among many other helpful baby things! Yay!)

Sienna loved taking baths in the clawfoot tub!

My cousin Leslie went on a walk with her boyfriend and they came back ENGAGED!! YAY!!! Time for a family wedding!

Sienna loved hanging out at the lake, although she wasn't a fan of crawling in the sand or the very cold water.

Some of my favorite women! Love them!

Minute to Win It Madness

Just a few of the many, many pictures I took!

Bike Ride along the Truckee River

Sienna loved the trailer, we definitely want one of these!

The cutest baby ever found a baby doll in the house and fell in love with it.

This amazing lady had her dancing shoes on and boogied all night long. We couldn't get enough of her, especially her little kicks!

(hopefully this shows up)