La felicidad que se encuentra: Kyle, Jenny, Alexa, Tyler, Tad, Liam, Nathan, and Audrey

I'm excited to announce that we went to the doctor yesterday for another ultrasound and I now have all my privileges reinstated!! Tear is healed and baby looks good, so we are very grateful.  As promised, I took Alexa to the park to celebrate.  We went swinging and ran around looking for flowers (dandelions). She has to stop and touch every flower she finds :). She insisted that her puppy come along. Maybe because she's a lazy bum and wanted to use him as a pillow!! We didn't get any really good ultrasound pictures from the tech (I should have made special requests!), but we saw lots of baby!  This was the ultrasound (20 weeks) where they check every little thing developing - every section of the brain, spine, chambers of the heart, kidneys, diaphragm, fingers, toes, blood flow, placenta, cord, measurements of head and waist (baby is 4 days bigger than the due date), etc. etc.  It's so fascinating to see all of that already developed and so teeny tiny...

I forgot to mention a few August updates in my last post, and have some more Alexa stories (as always)...First, Kyle (with the help of Uncle Paul and Todd--thank you!!) finished the stairs and they look awesome!!  He completely rebuilt them (ripped them down all the way to the drywall). Second, both Kyle and I were supposed to be in this work athletic competition in August, but I had to back out for obvious reasons.  Kyle still did the tennis and basketball tournaments and made me oh so proud.  He even got this funny little basketball trophy for taking third place.  The other tournaments that week included horseshoes, ping pong, foosball, golf, Wii dance, volleyball, and a triathlon. We went to Ikea for breakfast last Saturday (so delicious and cheap!) and bought Alexa a stuffed puppy while we were there.  She now takes it everywhere continuously saying "puppy, puppy, puppy!"  Speaking of the puppy, she even dragged it through toilet water l...

It's been a busy week!  We were excited to have Craig and Mom and Dad Swingle come up last Saturday and stay through Wednesday when Craig went to the MTC.  We watched lots of Disney movies with Craig (he was already set apart and couldn't watch anything else), and ate some of his favorite food before he left (Chubby's, Panda Express, pizza...).  It was great to spend some time with him before he left, and Mom and Dad were soo much help around the house with Alexa, dishes, weeds, etc.  Thanks again!  Here are some pictures of us dropping him off at the MTC 8/22/12.  He'll be there for 9 weeks learning Dutch, and then off to Belgium/Netherlands. Oh, and random side note--we saw the Google Maps car on our street with its giant tripod camera when we were on our way to the MTC.  I feel like we just witnessed one of the seven modern wonders of the world. The Andrews stayed Friday night on their way back from California, and then Jonny came ...

Our rough week in summary: Sunday - Alexa biffs it at church and lands on her face.  Bleeds all over Kyle and looks like she got punched in the mouth.  Poor girl.  Later that day, she was outside playing with her favorite toy at the Family Reunion, Roxy the dog.  Roxy lovingly puts her paw on Alexa's face and ends up scratching her--three perfect claw marks running all the way down the side of her face.  She still wanted to play with Roxy though, and was mad we took her inside to clean her up and take it easy.  Here's a video of her "talking" to the dog (growling) earlier in the week. Monday - Dad is sick starting Sunday and going through Monday.  He is  nauseous , pale, light headed, and spends most of the reunion in bed. Tuesday - Kyle wakes up early and throws up until there's nothing left.  Spends the day tired and miserable. Wednesday - Jenny copies Kyle and throws up 8 times. Thursday - Jenny (12 weeks pregnant) is on her wa...

We've been lucky to be around so much family these past couple weeks.  Aaron and Carrie came to visit Thursday night (a week and a half ago, I'm behind...) and spent the night with us.  It was great to meet Carrie and see Aaron again! Our little Newsie girl Then we went off to the Ludlow Family Reunion in Midway on Friday.  We spent most of the day Saturday at Deer Valley on the beach, boat, and kayaks.  Mom, Dad, Adam & Karen's family, and Ben and Maria came out for it, so it was great to have so much immediate family out in Utah! The Ludlow Clan at the reunion visiting Grandma Sweeny before we went up to Midway Jack and Maria Kyle getting ready to get thrown off the tube! Alexa and Maria at Cascade Springs Grandpa Sweeny with Alexa and Maria Brendan and Whitney drove out to Utah the next week and got to stay with us Friday night.  We had lots of fun playing with their kids and visiting with everyone! p...

I wrote this on July 15th and never posted it.... We have an official WALKER!  We no longer have to bribe Alexa by dangling toys in front of her so that she'll walk.  She does it on her own all the time now!  She's been able to walk across the room for the last month, but will only do it if one of us is on the other side with our arms wide open or like I said before, dangling food or toys.  But, as of last Monday (a week shy of 14 months), she decided to just up and do it on her own.  Yay!  Here's a video to prove it. A couple more stories, mostly about Alexa because we're obsessed.  She has recently discovered that emptying her diaper bin full of soggy, poopy cloth diapers is so much fun and that I respond in a delightful way.  It's amazing what small children can do in the short amount of time you're in another room!  Anyway, we had a nice chat about how disgusting that was, sanitized her entire body, the floor in her room, etc.,...