Keith

Yes, I changed the background again. I'm a little nutty sometimes. People that know me know that Fall is my favorite season, but I felt like that previous background was a little too intense for me. It was like a big Fall slap in the face. So we toned it down a bit :). I'm much happier with the outcome.

Anyways...

This last Tuesday, my dad called me around lunch time and asked if I wanted a free ticket to go see Keith Urban with my mom! Ummm...YES!! My dad is good friend's with Keith Urban's personal trainer, Steve. So Steve called the day of the concert with 2 tickets and my dad wasn't able to make it. So I gladly filled his shoes.

We had AMAZING seats and the concert was one of the best ones I've been to. Keith interacted with the audience a lot, pulled people on stage, and walked around the audience performing in various locations. Not only that, but I touched his hand 2 times! Yes, I sound like a high-schooler, and I feel very dorky, but it was pretty exciting! We were sitting right next to this little platform near the stage and he came and sang on it several times. He also walked right by our seats a couple times (enter the hand touch x2). I had a great time with my mom and it was such a fun night!

My mom, Steve, and I

Keith

Here's a video (if it works) of Keith walking right by us...I forgot I had the camera going in the wrong direction and I don't know how to change it. Lame. But if you tilt your head or your computer (if you have a laptop), you will see him walking by us and hear everyone going crazy for him. Fun times :).

Obsessions

Sienna has two new obsessions lately. First, she is totally obsessed with her red wagon she got for her birthday from her Nana. Right after she got it and realized how cool this thing was, she wanted to go for a ride all the time. She'd crawl right over to it, pull herself up, and then point and say, "uh, uh, uh" over and over and over until we gave in (how can we not? She's so darn cute!!). She went on about 3-4 rides a day. Most of them were around the house, some were outside. She's backed off of the wagon a bit lately-so we're down to about 1-2 a day.

Unfortunately, right now the wagon is parked in our back family room because we have a tiny garage that doesn't have much storage space for a big wagon. I don't really want it on the porch outside because I don't want to clean it off all the time (I'm sure I will eventually give in and put it out back). Because of this, Sienna sees it ALL the time, which adds to her obsession. Until we find a better place for it, she will remain the queen of the household and go on rides around the kitchen and family room all day long.

Here she is, loving her wagon:

(Her first wagon ride ever, with her cousin Karson)

going on a walk with her friend Madison. Erin and I had so much fun taking our girls on a nice long walk.

Colby likes it too. Seriously...he goes nuts when he sees us taking the wagon outside.

Here she is trying to climb in it. It's so sweet to watch her try sooo hard to get her little chubby legs in it. She'll try one leg and then the other, back and forth until she gives in and begs us to do it for her.

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Her second obsession is her sunglasses. I've had these sunglasses for a long time now. She didn't like them and would always pull them off when we tried to put them on her. So we found a little home for them on her french bulletin board above her changing table. They were cutely displayed and I thought that's where they'd stay for good.

Well, one day, while I was changing her diaper, she was pointing to them and doing the "uh, uh, uh" thing, so I put them on her. Much to my surprise, she kept them on for like 30 minutes straight! While playing in the house, going on a walk, she didn't want to take them off. Now every time she sees them, she begs to have us put them on her. She will wear them in her car seat when we drive, around the house, outside, anywhere. It's pretty darn cute, if you ask me.

Here she is with her beloved sunglasses:

Playing under the table. She is the perfect height right now to walk underneath without bumping her little noggin. Her days of playing pain-free under the table are getting shorter my friends!

rocking out to her music

Playing in her learning house from grandma (that thing is so fun!)

climbing up the stairs in diaper that momma should've changed before I took the picture (poor saggy diaper!)

And of course the best thing for Sienna is when her two perfect obsessions collide!

Sienna is One

From this:

September 2, 2010

to this:

September 2, 2011

Well ladies and gentlemen, it's official. Sienna Grace is 1. I don't know how it happened so quickly, but it did. She is our precious 1 year old and we have never been so in love ( I know, I know, I sound like a broken record! What can I say? It's true!!). She continues to keep us busy by chasing her around the house. She is crawling everywhere, pulling herself up, and cruising all around. Sienna's not quite a walker yet-but I am fine with that. Once she does that, she'll be all over the place. She loves eating and trying to make us laugh. She loves giving hugs and kisses to Garth and I, as well as all of her toys-even an empty box. She is incredibly loving and sweet.

The morning of Sienna's 1st birthday party was very special to us. Knowing we were going to have all of our family in town, we were able to arrange to have Sienna dedicated at church on that same day. It was a special time for us and it was a beautiful moment, surrounded by our amazing family.

Garth shared with the church why it was important to us to have Sienna dedicated and then he read the verse we picked out for her.

"The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing." -Zephaniah 3:17

After church, we had a small birthday party for Sienna at our house with a lot of family and a few friends. It was a blast!! We had a swim party and the weather was hot and toasty-perfect for swimming! Sienna did perfect. She was still asleep when some of the guests got here and was a trooper the whole time. She wasn't fussy and enjoyed splashing in the pool with daddy.

I made a lot of pennants for her birthday party. This was pennant showed a picture of her from 1 month to 12 months. I think it turned out great :)

The pool area and the other pennants I made

The food area and my amazing nephew who helped me set it up!! He took a break to snack on some chips and salsa.

Momma and the birthday girl- who just woke up from her nap

Sienna wondering why there are a bunch of people in her backyard after she woke up from her nap

How beautiful are these ladies?? Grandma and Nana hanging out by the pool.

Daddy and Sienna blowing bubbles

Sienna's cake-made by mommy

When it came time to eat the cake, Sienna was not too thrilled. I think having everyone staring at her and singing Happy Birthday freaked her out a bit.

Here's when she's looking at me with great concern. Moments after, she was in my arms crying. She wanted nothing to do with the cake at all. We tried having her take bites. Nope. We took a bite, trying to convince her how yummy it was. Nope. She finally saw her cousin eating a cupcake and wanted his. So he generously gave Sienna his cupcake and she ate some of it.

Here she is eating some of Kimu's cupcake. She mainly ate the frosting. We were breaking off pieces of her cake to eat-she didn't do that. As our friend Dena said, "this is probably the only time you'll ever be trying to force her to take a bite of cake!" So true. Come on Sienna, not even funfetti cake??

Here are some of my girlfriends and their kids at the end of a perfect afternoon.

Such a special day to celebrate a VERY special baby girl.

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!