My girly girl

Sienna LOVES getting her nails painted.  We had a "girls day" the other day and she went crazy picking out the perfect polish for her toes and her fingernails. Of course she had to pull out every shade of pink and then picked between the pinks. She a little diva and just loved staring (and pulling faces) at herself in the mirror of the caboodle.  Yes, don't be jealous, that is the real thing (the caboodle, that is--Thank you, Melissa!). Oh, and Sienna is OBSESSED with braids (I think that's because of our cute nanny Ashley!). Lately, it's the only hairdo she wants--piggy tails with braids.  Pretty cute if you ask me, just not much diversity these days! 

So I was chastised tonight by my sister-in-law Debi for not updating my blog or facebook with pics of the kids. She's said she's not sure they're even alive, so here's the proof.  Here are some photos from Christmas at my parents.  Since my in-laws are on their mission, we ended up just staying at my parents for a few days.  It was nice hot running back and forth, but we missed the Jeff Hanson family and all the Dixon clan! 

 This is my little guy 99% of the time.  He's such a happy baby. I'm so lucky. I love that he gives his smiles so freely.  He smiles and makes you feel like you're the only one for him.   LOVE this kid.

 Uncle Rob & Luke just chillin'

 As you can tell, we are still trying to figure out how to get our 3-year-old sit still and actually look at the camera for just one family photo. Soooo frustrating! 

LOVE my kiddos in these cute stripey jammies.

 Sienna lost her favorite puppy Coconut .  By the way, Coconut is a dalmation puppy who she named coconut because of all the "coconuts" he had all over him.  She now gets that they are "polka dots", but the name has stuck!  Anyway, she lost him so she started asking Santa for a puppy for Christmas. I was always grateful when she would clarify that it was not a "real puppy, just a pretend one".  Well, we found Coconut, so I thought we didn't need another puppy.  A few days before Christmas, suddenly she was asking for a puppy again. I was pretty certain (100% certain) that Santa was all done with Sienna's Christmas presents and she may not get a puppy.  Fortunately for Sienna, she has an amazing Grandma who saved the day and hooked the girl up with a pretty cool puppy.  He comes in this cute purse/doctor's bag. You push his paw and he coughs and sneezes and his nose turns bright red, so you get to pull out the "telescope" (stethoscope), a tissue to wipe his nose (which makes the light/nose turn off). He also  nibbles on a bone, sucks from a bottles, gives a sigh of relief when you give him a shot, you can write prescriptions, etc... He is super soft and super cute. Can you tell Sienna is in love?  Oh, and she named him Sonny, after the dog I had growing up.  Oh wait, I've been calling it a "him". She told me she needed to name it a girl name like "Sunny".  Little does she know "Sonny" was a boy!  Oh well!

 Too bad this girl isn't spoiled. She's got three single aunt/uncles and she and Luke are the only Grandkids in Utah, so she gets spoiled rotten.  Check out all her loot! 

It's funny, for being such a non-cuddly baby, this little girl has turned into such a little cuddle bug.  She loves giving hugs and snuggling!

Oh, one more thing I don't want to forget. On Christmas Eve Sienna finally started to get really excited about Santa, so she could not go to sleep quickly enough. She typically she wants us to lay with her and bargains for just "4 more minutes" and "1 more story" or "I'm thirsty" (like all kids do, just trying to delay the inevitable).  Not this night.  Dan tucked her in and she promptly said, "Can you please get out of my room now, so Santa will come?"  Then I went to kiss her goodnight and she said the same thing to me.  This is the first year Sienna has really understood or been excited about Santa, so I had forgotten to set out cookies for Santa, etc... So when I tucked her in, I asked her if I should set out some treats for Santa. She got all excited and said yes, and that I should set out some cookies and milk for Santa. And then she followed it up with "and some ham."  Ham? I was laughing so hard and said, "Ham? We should leave Santa some ham?" And she said, "ya, in case the reindeer get hungry, too."  So, apparently, reindeer just love ham.  After all these years, how could I not have known this?

Sienna at 11-months-old

I love it when she gives the stink eye. So cute.

I thought I'd post a little update on what's new with Sienna.

• Well, my little one is now 11 months old and has yet to crawl. She is so funny. She does the reverse army crawl, but just hasn't figured out how to get into drive. Actually, she seems to know how, she just doesn't want to. She'll crawl forward just a little and then just swing her legs around and sit on her bum. She just can't be bothered. Personally, I think she's just thinking that she's really cute (and gets lots of attention) when she waves, so she'll just stick with the waving, since it's so much easier! I don't really mind that she's not crawling, it sure makes things easier! It'll come soon enough. And she gets plenty of coverage just with scooting, rolling and sliding, so I'm nervous to see how she'll move once she does get going with the crawling & walking. Right now she loves to stand against the coffee table, the sofa, my lap...and her legs are pretty steady.
  


• Sienna has been such an easy baby so far (Yes, I am aware that I may be in for a real surprise with my next kid. "What?! Babies don't all sleep through the night at 6 weeks?!), but I will tell you that she has definitely got some spunk. We're just beginning to get a taste of her personality. I'm a bit nervous, we have a fiesty little one on our hands! She goes from 0-10 in no time at all. She has always been so easy to lay down, but now she's starting to fuss/scream/fight, she even throws her back into it. It's actually quite entertaining. Luckily she calms down pretty quickly, but I think we might be in for some fun times ahead with this strong little personality. I hate to admit it, but I was not a fun toddler. I was a major tantrum thrower. Payback's a B*#%! My friend Lara has a spunky little girl who has a "very strong personality" and she said that she likes to think positive by telling herself that Heavenly Father needs very strong spirits at this time, so if we just channel it in the right direction, it can be a good thing. I liked that thought.
  


• What else? Well, Sienna is such a friendly baby. She will go to anyone and loves to smile and laugh. There is nothing better than hearing her giggle. LOVE IT!
  



• Sienna is such a water baby. She LOVES water. Bathtime, pools, and Lake Powell are some of her favorite places to be, since splashing is her favorite thing to do!

• Other favorite past times include: clapping, giving high fives, getting thrown around by her dad, her exersaucer, ripping/eating newspapers, magazines/playing with anything she isn't suppose to, unloading the diaper bag, and anything but having her diapers changed.
  



• She loves, loves, loves fruit--especially watermelon. She loves trying new foods and so far will eat just about anything. I'm sure those days are soon coming to an end, but I'll take it while I can get it! (And yes, her diapers now smell horrible now! Now I know what all of you meant when you talked about how "newborn diapers smell so good".)
  


• Sienna adores her cousins. My sister-in-law Liz watches her on Wednesdays and her kids are so great with Sienna. Her face just lights up like a Christmas tree when she sees her cousin Claire (who is 11 and will be/already is a stellar babysitter!). She still gets spoiled rotten by her grandparents and aunts and uncles. My niece Taylor told me today that she thinks the reason Sienna can't crawl is because people are ALWAYS holding her.



• I think the days of 3 naps are over. I know those of you with several kids are envious that she took 3 naps for this long, but when you have just 1 kid you can just make the naps happen more often/frequently since you don't have other rugrats to worry about. She used to be an early riser, waking up around 6ish, but lately she's been sleeping in until after 8:00 a.m. (which is great, but I think is part of why her nap schedule has been a little crazy). I am learning that just as soon as you think you have these kids figured out, they throw you a curve ball.



• I think the days of actually feeling the spirit and learning something at church may also be gone. The past couple of weeks of church have made me realize just how priceless nursury is. I'm already counting down the days...just 196 more days to go...


• Still can't live without her binky, which I have to say I love. (Ask me that in a couple years and I might have a different response)


• Can't get enough of her "lovey". The second it touches her face, her eyes just begin to flutter and roll back. My brother Rob has one Sienna's loveys and is holding it random. I'm a little nervous that our back up lovey is all the way in Sugarhouse. She acts like it's her best friend. She just gets so excited (and kicks those little legs so hard) when it gets near her.
  



• Current nicknames include; sugar, boogers, Sien, Seenenna, nosy bear, lovey, polar bear (Dan came up with the polar bear--kind of a combo of the nosy bear, since she is insanely nosy and has to know/see everything that's going on AND bipolar baby, since she goes from 0-10 in no time!), baby girl and chica chica. I'm sure there's more...



• She should be around 18 pounds or so by now. At her last MD appointment, I think she was in the 20th percentile for weight and the 50th for height. Basically what I'm saying is that she is still a light-weight. We're totally trying to chunk this kid up. She's "long and lean" the doctor says...wish he's say the same thing about her mom! Sigh...If only! I'm just glad that she had cute chubby cheeks and some chub on her thighs. Sienna, enjoy is while you still can, girl!
  


• So, that, my friends is Sienna (at 11 months old) in a nutshell. I can't believe how fast she is growing up. I am so grateful to have such an amazing, beautiful, happy baby girl. She gives me more joy than I could ever imagine. It's amazing to even think of what life was like before she came along. (I think Dan kinda likes her too!) My cup definitely runneth over...
  

How could you not just love this face?

You gotta love the under-the-binkie smile. It's a cell phone pic, so it's not a fabulous, but as my dad would say, she's "still cute!" I've been super busy studying for my LCSW exam and have totally neglected everything else in my life. So, now that it's over, (I took it Thursday and hooray--I passed!) I have lots of catching up to do. I promise I'll do better!

Lake Powell trip May 2009

Lake Powell is definitely one of the Hanson family's favorite vacation spots. We have a timeshare on a houseboat, so we are fortunate enough to be able to go quite often. We went down for Memorial Day weekend with my parents and Rob and some of his friends. Though we didn't have fabulous weather, we still managed to have a good time. We ate amazing food, played fun games, slept in, read good books, did a little sightseeing & a little wakeboarding. It was a very low-key, relaxing weekend. It's funny, Sienna is only 9 months old and this is her 2nd trip to Lake Powell. As you can tell from the pics, she wasn't quite sure about that life jacket, but she quickly warmed up and loved it once we got moving. I really need to do better at taking pictures of people other than just Sienna. If she weren't so dang cute.... I love this face Sienna is pulling. So funny!

Here's my dad as the "boat wrangler". (This is his new trick)

Get this thing off of me...now!!!

You're the meanest dad in the whole world!

Wait a minute...maybe this isn't so bad after all....

Hey, I LOVE boating!!!

Our little "nosy bear". This kid is SOOOOO nosy. Seriously, she gets into anything she can reach. She can't hear a sound across the room without rubbernecking to check out what's happening. She can't get a diaper change or eat or drink a bottle if there is anything else going on or anything within reaching distance. Rob told me about a clinical diagnosis that I think Sienna might have. It's called Fomo...Fear Of Missing Out. Poor little thing. I hope it's treatable.

St George Triathlon

A few weekends ago Dan and I went down to St. George for the St. George Triathlon. We stayed with our good friends Robyn & Bob and their cute family (thanks, guys!) and we loved being able to spend time with Amber & Matt Sim and the boys, who came from California. Unfortunately I wasn't great at taking pictures with (or of) our friends, so Caden and Gwen will have to represent for the whole fam. ;) We had a rough 5 weeks or so prior to the race, so we definitely didn't get to train like we had hoped. The last time I did a triathlon (a few years ago) I was 20 pounds lighter, with no children, so training this time was a whole different ball game for me. I honestly felt like the forces were against me in training. Between me and Sienna being sick, bad weather, insane work weeks, flat tires...it was a rough month or so before the race. My friend Amber and I were both sick during the race, congested and coughing up our lungs. Anyway, we knew that we weren't going to break records, but we knew we would finish and it was a good challenge. The morning of the race was a tad cold and was pretty windy, so they actually ended up canceling the swim. I'll admit that at first I was secretly (actually, it wasn't such a secret!) kind of happy to not have to swim, since that is definitely my weakest sport. I really didn't train much for the swim, but I figured that I would just bust out the breast stroke (or doggy paddle!) and though it wouldn't be pretty, I'd at least finish it. But then there was another part of me that was disappointed not to be able to do the entire triathlon. So, instead of doing the swim, they made us run twice the distance. A 10K might not sound too hard, but it was a tough, hilly trail run on that super fine red sand that sometimes felt like quicksand. What was crazy is that they made us (the Sprint event) do the same distance run as the Olympic athletes (only they trained for a 10K and got to do 2 5K's, which wasn't so bad for them). So, although we didn't do the full triathlon, at least it was still a tri-event. The whole event was pretty disorganized, and though we still had a good time I don't think we'd do that particular race again. I've heard the swim has been canceled for several years. Needless to say, it was definitely a challenge, but we had a good time. It was a fun weekend--hanging with friends, eating good food, enjoying good weather, crashing a couple of pool parties (which Sienna LOVED, by the way!) On our way home, we were able to stop and celebrate Mother's Day with my family, which is always a good time. We gave my mom a Blendtec blender, which I can't wait to try out.

Amber & I trying to stay warm before the race

How amazing is this pool? It was a friend of a friends. This slide was incredible.

My little swimmer. She seriously LOVED the water. She screamed at first, then got used to it and didn't want to get out. We even dunked her a few times and she'd come up smiling!
I love this picture.
Sienna loves to wave these days. Here's an action shot!
Just chillin' on her papa's lap
Little Gwen just lovin' on Sienna. She couldn't get enough of her! Thanks Robyn, Bob and fam for watching Sienna during the race and letting us crash at your place. You're the best!
Happy Mother's Day, Mama Hanson!
(By the way, I have the most amazing mom in the world!)
And yes, that is my brother Rob pounding fists with my 91-year-old grandma Tink. She's pretty hip.

Sienna pics

I finally took a few minutes to organize my photos on the computer, so I thought I'd post some cute ones from the past couple of months. These few are 8-month-old pics.

Happy girl