We Couldn't Be More Thrilled...!!!

Announcing...

365 Days: Week 23

This week four of my seven pictures were of food. Not sure why I was so obsessed... Maybe after our extended separation I was excited to remind Scooter that I can cook? 

Look at that smile! I wish you could hear the adorable laugh that goes with it.

Some nights are just pizza nights. Why is it that some days putting dinner on the table just seems like an insurmountable task?

I made jam. I made the classic strawberry but also tried a new flavor - strawberry/blueberry. Yum!

This kid is growing teeth faster than a shark! We were trying to check and see if his second front tooth had broken through - it had, but Scooter also noticed that the tooth next to his froth tooth had broken through as well. So, we thought he had one more but it is actually two more!

I spent some time at Kinko's today working on an anniversary present for Scooter. 

Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries were all on sale - hallelujah! 

A lemon cheesecake for Father's Day. I was proud because it didn't even crack! I hoped the oven bag would protect the springform pan from leaking, but a tiny bit of water still got in somehow. I guess I should have used foil plus the bag...

365 Days: Week 22

I am still taking pictures every day but just getting really behind on posting them, but I will try to do it when I can find the time.

This week kicked off with Brad, Rachelle, and Avery coming to St. George for my last few days and me going back home to my much-missed husband. My mom and I didn't tell my dad that Rachelle, Avery, and Brad were coming to St. George so it was fun to see the look on his face when they all walked in. 

Rachelle and Brad are such darling parents. Brad is so proud of her and loves to be really involved. She is really a beautiful baby and super alert all the time. It is so fun to have a baby girl in the family now - just look at that bow!

It was too windy to go boating, but I wanted to go to Sand Hollow one last time before I went back to Kansas. I sure love that place. 

Scooter and Lincoln were sure happy to see each other. It had been three weeks! We were kinda testing our limits on this trip and we decided that two weeks was definitely our limit. Scooter is so sweet to let me leave for such long periods of time, but we figure that if we are spending all that money to fly there I may as well stay long enough to make it worth it. Lincoln had gotten much more wiggly since Scooter had last seen him and he was amazed at how impossible difficult it was to diaper and dress him. Lincoln was so happy to see his daddy that he was super hyper which didn't help the situation. 

More Scooter and Lincoln re-connection and bonding time. We did almost nothing after Scooter got home except play together. It's so fun to be together. No one is better at getting Lincoln to laugh than Scooter. 

I decided to paint the back of my bookcases. I tried out three colors. Which one do you think I chose?

Love this kid. 

Lincoln's first real swim. I had been looking forward to this for months. It didn't disappoint. Lincoln didn't love his hat, but at least he didn't get a sunburn!

365 Days: Week 21

This week I spent just relaxing in St. George. Andrea, Adam, their two kids, and Lauren came down for the Memorial Day weekend. Everyone always makes a big deal of me coming to Utah and always goes out of their way to see me as much as possible. I feel so loved!

We liked the park where we had some of the reunion so much that we went the next day after church to let Eli play. I love Andrea and Adam admiring Oliver in this photo. That is one of the fun things about newborns - studying them and admiring them endlessly. 

Memorial Day. This was Lincoln's first time going on the boat. I thought he would be nervous, but he really loved it. It is one of my favorite things to do, so it was fun to be able to share it with him. Going to the lake is becoming more and more complicated with more and more babies in the family. This trip involved three separate cars going to the lake at two different times and three cars coming home all separately. Working around naps is hard, but I think as the kids get older and need less/no naps it will get easy again and really fun. 

My friend Zach and his wife Mariya came over to see Lincoln, who was, as usual, completely charming. 

Lincoln figured out how to give kisses. They are really sloppy and he doesn't have the best aim, but the sweetest kisses in the whole world. (No, I'm not naked. Just in a swimsuit.) 

My mom and I left Lincoln with my dad for a couple hours in the afternoon while we went to see a movie. Who knew that my dad was a babysitting prodigy? Lincoln woke up from his nap very prematurely and my dad didn't panic or just let him wake up. He went in there and soothed him back to sleep! When we got home from the movie we found him out showing Lincoln off to any neighbor that he encountered. Gold stars for grandpa!

We took Lincoln to the Town Center Park again. This time he liked it even more and warmed up to it more quickly. He explores everything with his mouth and didn't think that this waterfall should be an exception. 

We went to Beaver Dam, Arizona to see my dad's band play at the Beaver Dam Jam -  a multi-day music festival. It was hot as Hades! My dad's band sounded really good. I really enjoy watching them. I used to be embarrassed - what high school girl would want to see her dad on lead guitar in a classic rock and roll cover band? - but now I think it is so awesome that he has a hobby that he loves and has fun with. 

365 Days: Week 20

This week was more hanging with the family mixed in the with the mounting stress of my upcoming high school reunion. There were only two of us planning and putting it together, so I was feeling the pressure. 

The last solar eclipse was when I was in fourth grade and I still remember going out on the playground with these special pieces of glass to look through. Needless to say we were really excited about this one and were totally geeking out about it. Since you'll really hurt your eyes if you look directly at it (plus you can't really see it that way anyway - it's too bright) Adam made viewing devices with poster tubes and cereal boxes so we could see the shadow of it projected onto a paper. That wasn't satisfying enough, so we called around his neighborhood until we found someone with a welding mask. We walked up to their house and watched it through the welding mask. It was much more satisfying plus I was able to take these pics through it as well (that's why it looks green). Overall it got sort of dim outside and you could tell that the light was different somehow. 

Another trip to the park plus packing up our stuff to move our circus down to St. George for the duration of my trip. 

Our drive to St. George was pretty interesting. We got a later start than we should have, so Lincoln was pretty unhappy to be in his car seat. My mom started singing to him to calm him down. He stopped crying, but would start up again every time she stopped singing. Bless her heart, my mom sang to him for two full hours! She ran out of nursery rhymes pretty quickly, then moved on to Primary songs and hymns, then any other songs she could think of. After about 90 minutes she started coming up with really weird choices. We were laughing so hard. Thankfully, Lincoln finally fell asleep before my mom lost her voice completely, but it was hoarse the next day. 

My mom had been in northern Utah since the end of April so she could be there for the births of the two new babies and so she could help my sisters. My poor dad had been pretty lonely and really missing her. From the looks of things, all the houseplants really missed my mom too!

We took some time out of reunion preparations to take Lincoln to the Town Square Park for his first non-bath water experience. He was pretty wary at first, but warmed up to it after a while. He didn't like to wear his hat, but he loved watching all the other kids playing. That park is really a neat place for kids - we are so glad they put it in. 

The day before my reunion and I was busy, busy, busy! It was hard to plan it when neither I, nor the girl helping me, lived in St. George anymore. We couldn't travel there with pre-prepared things, so we had to make and buy everything once we got there, which didn't leave much time. We felt like we were throwing stuff together at the last minute. I had a craft table set out in my parents garage. As part of the decor I made these vases with everyone's yearbook picture on them. My parents were seriously so supportive and couldn't have been more helpful. My dad even helped me Modge Podge these vases!

The reunion was, in my opinion, a success. There were two events -  a family one at a park during the afternoon and a more formal adults-only one at a hotel later that night. These were some of the people from our class that came and most brought a spouse/guest so we had a pretty good turn out (about 50 out of a class of around 300). It was fun to see my old friends and reminisce. Isn't it funny how girls aren't reluctant to be in photos so they are all in the front and all the boys are in the back. I literally had to push the boys a little bit to get them to stand this close together (!) and they were hiding behind each other (!). I think everyone that came had a good time. I had people tell me that they had been dragged there by a friend and hadn't really wanted to come but were really glad that they did.  Hopefully they will spread the word that it was fun and we will get even more people at the next one. 

I just have to add a HUGE thank you to my family (especially my parents) who were literally saints to help me with all of this. They really went above and beyond. They had nothing invested in the reunion  - no one would have known if they hadn't helped at all, but they were amazing and helped anyway. That's just the kind of people I'm lucky enough to have in my family! They watched Lincoln a ton so I could get things done. Poor Lincoln basically only saw me for nursing sessions for two days. Not only did they watch Lincoln, but they did a bunch of other stuff as well. My parents let me use their cars, make a huge crafting mess in their house (which they even cleaned up afterwards!), helped decorate the space, drove me all over, helped me set up and tear down two events, brought Lincoln to me so I could feed him, helped set up signs on the road during a huge windstorm, ran errands for me that I didn't have time to do, dropped things off during the reunion that I'd forgotten, manned the welcome table, and more.  I couldn't have done it without them. Thanks family!

365 Days: Week 19

I spent this week at my sister Andrea's in Bountiful, Utah. We mostly just hung out and tried to spend as much time with as many of my sisters as possible. I also finally got my family to watch Downton Abbey and they are hooked - even Adam!

As a Mother's Day surprise we bought the grandkids matching outfits. When we pulled into Andi's driveway from picking Lincoln and I up from the airport everyone was waiting outside. It took my mom a minute to figure it out, but it was really sweet. Lincoln was pretty overwhelmed by all of the people fawning over him. He is used to it being pretty quiet around here with just Scooter and I. 

I did a lot of snuggling with this little guy. When I saw my sisters' new babies I was so surprised at how tiny they were. That was only seven months ago for me - it is funny how quickly you forget. I also went down to Provo to spend some more time with my sister, Rachelle, and her new baby Avery. Somehow we didn't take a single picture...

Staying with Andi was pretty crazy sometimes because we had three kids under two. I seriously don't know how people that actually have that situation cope because we thought it was hard and we usually had at least three adults there. We were proud when all the nap schedules aligned so that we could go get Jamba juices and go to the park. Adam met us there on the way home from work. I love this picture for so many reasons - I think it perfectly captures so many things about these family members. 

One funny thing that Eli kept doing was copying whatever Lincoln was doing. Even if it was something that Eli never does. If Lincoln was crawling, Eli would get down and crawl as well. If Lincoln was chewing on his toys, Eli would chew on his toys too. If Lincoln was drinking something, Eli also wanted something to drink. If Lincoln was sucking his fingers, Eli would look over at him then suck his fingers as well. 

We were all really impressed with how Lincoln handled all the changes. He is used to having pretty quiet days at home alone with me, and suddenly he was in this loud house with all these people and toys and a crying newborn and a two-year-old cousin in his face trying to play with him. The only major difference was that he was quieter than usual - maybe he didn't want to compete with everyone else's talking?

Another trip down to Provo. This time to get something huge laminated for my upcoming 10-year high school reunion. BYU was one of the only places around that could accommodate it (and they did it for a fraction of the cost). Getting to see these girls again was a big bonus. I'm just sure that there isn't a campus with a lovelier location anywhere - those mountains are so gorgeous.

More Oliver snuggling and more Downton Abbey watching.