In the past couple of months, Amelie has become very attached to her toys. Her favorites? Tigger (that Aunt Bobby gave her for her first birthday–thanks, Aunt Bobby!), the baby doll Grandma Austin gave her for Christmas, and Woody. She went from sleeping with one doll at night to sleeping with an assortment of five plus toys every night (at least in her crib–she does fine without them when we’re away from home). It can get pretty ridiculous in there, but she loves them.

I spy five toys in this picture, but I suspect she might be lying on top of one or two.

In fact, she loves them so much that when she scraped her chin and needed a band-aid, she decided that Tigger and Woody needed band-aids, too. In the same exact spot, of course 🙂

The Three Amigos

Well, it finally happened. Raven graduated with her M.A.! The university commencement ceremony was very nice. Elder Scott spoke and gave some excellent life advice including the charge to smile 🙂 It got pretty hot standing out in the parking lot in a long black robe and a velvet neck wrap in heels and almost 9 months pregnant, but it was worth it. The college convocation was also interesting and short–one of the benefits of graduating in August, as opposed to in April, is that the line of graduates isn’t nearly as long! Here are a couple pictures from the celebrations. And, just for the record, black isn’t my color and, really, who looks good in a graduation cap?

Receiving the diploma cover 😉

With Bryce and Amelie--and some random kid in the background. Oh, and Tigger, of course. And that growth on Amelie's leg is just Bryce's hand...

So, that’s all folks. I am officially done with school!

So, I was feeling bad the other day because I feel like our baby boy is already getting second sibling treatment. With Amelie, we took several pictures of me with my pregnant belly. This pregnancy, it hasn’t happened. Poor kid–it’s already started and he isn’t even born yet 😉 So, I made Bryce take a picture of me the other day just so we would have at least one for this baby’s book.  To compare, here’s me at 30 weeks with Amelie:

And here’s me at 29 weeks with this little one. It’s hard to tell because of the shirt I’m wearing, but I think I’m actually carrying him a bit lower.

Finally, the other day I was in a pie making mood and ended up making an apple pie drizzled with caramel sauce and sprinkled with pecans. I was so happy that it turned out, so I just had to take a picture. Yummy!

Amelie and I have been enjoying crafting together this summer. She loves her finger paints. Probably her favorite thing of all, however, is her apron. Now when she sees me wearing my apron in the kitchen, she has to have hers on, too. So, here is a tribute to our study of the letter Y and the color yellow.

We’ve had a really fun summer so far. In June, we went to the zoo and also attended Strawberry Days, the Pleasant Grove summer festival. The highlight of Strawberry Days was definitely the rodeo–a first for both me and Amelie. Here’s a picture of Amelie and Bryce at the city’s pioneer museum. Please excuse the hat–we couldn’t find one that fit her that morning. She actually got pretty attached to this hat from Bryce’s mission days.

One of Amelie’s favorite things to do right now is try on grown-up shoes. Dress up, here we come!

And on July 4th, we had a great time camping (just a day trip) with the Haymonds. Amelie loved going out fishing in their raft on the lake. And, just in case you were wondering, I’m getting over my fear of fish. I think being stuck in the confined space of the raft with the fish forced me to face my phobia 😉 Here’s a picture of Amelie after a morning of fishing enjoying an apple–another one of her favorite things. This was her first whole apple and she pretty much devoured it.

We have plans to go camping again at the end of this month and are looking forward to it. So far, it’s been a great summer!