24th in Enterprise!

This summer we were lucky enough to see both sides of the family in one trip out to Utah! My mom's family had a family reunion in Northern Utah at the end of July and I wanted to take that opportunity to let Abram and Alivia experience the 24th of July in Enterprise! One advantage to being married into a family that has two daughters-in-law from the same place is that when we both fly in from Texas it isn't hard to convince them that we should all get together while we are closer!

Both of our families made it easy for us by all hanging out together for the 24th. We started off the morning with the 5k that most of the Clays ran or walked in. Then went to the pancake breakfast, watched the parade, and went to the rodeo that night!

The runners before the race

Clay Family after the race (minus Cade and Wyatt)

Abram and Rogan both placed in the top 3 for their age groups.

Waiting for the parade to start! Wyatt was over having pictures taken!

Livi waving to all of the people with Grandma!

The stars of the family! Bryce, Ashla, Lydia, and Sophie!

How many Clay boys does it take to teach Alivia to get her own candy?

Our cute nephew Dylan mostly enjoyed the ice cream wrapper during the parade.

The "kids" had a blast picking up all of the candy!

Papa with Sophie and Dylan

And some proof that Livi has awesome Aunts and Uncles:

Aunt Lynsey with Alivia and Kinsley

Rogan holding all but the baby niece and nephew!

Good thing Aunt Ashla is there to give Alivia a ride on a horse!

Christmas Festivities

The weekend before Christmas we had an ugly sweater Christmas party at a friends house. I sewed up some ugliness onto some cheap Walmart sweatshirts the night before/morning of the party. We ended up winning!!

You can't even see the awesome holiday shape elbow patches on them!

These girls rock!!

My parents and brother were nice enough to come our way for Christmas this year making it a lot easier on us! It was fun to be all together and for them to be able to see Livi. We also got to spend time with 2 of my aunts and their families. It was a lot different then last years Christmas with just the 3 of us in Virginia!

Since I was afraid Alivia would destroy a Christmas tree we opted for our first fake tree. She didn't even try to knock it over. Alivia loved the Christmas Card tree. She would want us to take her over and would point at all of the pictures(mostly of the babies or kids).

She was very interested in presents this year and loved tearing the paper to open them! 

Alivia met Uncle Mike for the first time and loved playing with him immediately! She also loved this present from Uncle Mike and Aunt Wilma and still does!

My parents planned a fun New Years party. We all went to bed way before midnight!

We also went to the Dallas World Aquarium while my parents were here. It was a lot of fun. Alivia was more interested in watching the kids than the animals.

Alivia enjoyed all of the attention while everyone was here and it was good spending time together!

Superhero Dad

Last week Alivia got her first cold. Two days later I got it too. It wasn't too bad until Saturday she started running a high fever. The doctor had us wait a couple days to come in to see if it resolved itself. When we went in on Tuesday he told us she had ear infections. That night was very rough. She wouldn't sleep in her crib at all so we took shifts holding her while she slept. Abram stayed home to help out the next day. I'm so lucky to have a husband that helps out so much at night even though he is the one that works and takes such good care of the two of us. Alivia adores him. He's a superhero in our eyes!

Thanksgiving Festivities!

We started out our Thanksgiving Festivities a couple weeks beforehand when we had "Fakesgiving" with the BYU group of friends. It was fun having a kids free(after babysitter drama) dinner with friends. Of course I didn't take pictures.

We were lucky this year to be able to spend time with family for Thanksgiving. Abram's brother Bryce lives in Houston so we went down to spend the holiday weekend with his family. Ashla(yes Holt for those of you that are from Enterprise) and I worked on planning out the HUGE menu of food. Ashla's brother and his family ended up coming also. Making it a lot easier since they made the turkey! We had a ton of food that all turned out amazing! Once again, of course I didn't take a picture of our Thanksgiving Day food, table or people!

Bryce and Ashla's place is close to a state park where you can spot alligators! We stopped by the visitor center and got to touch baby alligators and then when for a walk around a lake to try to find some alligators. About half way around the lake we finally found some!

None of them were close to us.

Dad showing Alivia where the alligator is(across the lake under a tree) I don't think she found it!

We will say Alivia and Lydia are looking at the alligator. Once again under the tree across the lake)

Love these cute girls!

I told Lydia to say cheese. This was her reaction!

This little girl loves her daddy!

Chowing down on her 5 Guys grilled cheese in style!

Alivia had a blast at the park by their house! It was turf so she could actually crawl around everywhere and had a lot of fun on all of the different toys they had.

We were so lucky to be close enough to family to spend the holiday with them. Alivia loves following Lydia around and playing with her. Lydia seems to love her "baby". We had way too much good food. Played lots of games and relaxed!

Family Pictures 2014

Stephanie also took our first family pictures. It only took us a year! I love the way they turned out and all of the sides of Alivia's personality you see.

Proof that I did put a headband on her! And what happens after 1 picture!

1 year old pictures!

Our friend Stephanie took these super cute pictures of Alivia a week before her birthday! Alivia's attitude cracks me up. She mostly wanted to talk and we were trying to get her to smile singing patty cake, which turned into her just clapping her hands in front of her! We also used Taylor Swift's song Shake It Off and yogurt bites to make her happy.