Merry Christmas

 

Wishing you a joyous Christmas and a wonderful new year from the Schaellings.

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Christmas Lights

On Monday, we made our annual trek to Salt Lake to see the lights. (And can I just say again how much I love Frontrunner. Taking the train downtown is so much easier than dealing with traffic and parking.) It was my mom's birthday, so we met up Nana and Grandpa Len for the adventure.

It actually wasn't too crowded, so I wasn't overly concerned about Lily getting lost. Last year, she refused to hold a hand and was constantly running away. Luckily, she adores Grandpa Len, so she stuck pretty close to his side all night. Timothy was pretty content in the backpack, even with all the bundling. I was so afraid he would freeze (and it was super cold), so he was dressed to the nines. When we piled everything on just before getting off the train, he wasn't too thrilled. He didn't fuss about all the layers, though. It was more of a silent protest with frequent escapes to his happy place. (That's what we call it when he closes his eyes to avoid us.)

But once we got going, he had a pretty good time and probably had a pretty good view of it all. After seeing all there was to see, we stopped for some (very) hot chocolate and headed home. Since Erik misread his watch, we actually left about an hour later than we planned. It made for a late night, but it was worth it. Lily had a great time, and since she's really starting to remember what we do for the holidays, I wouldn't miss this tradition for the world.

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Cookie Time

While I was making what seemed like a million cookies to give to coworkers and friends, Lily did some baking of her own. I gave her some dough and she went to town rolling, flouring, cutting, scraping, rerolling, flouring again, and finally putting them on the pan for baking. You've never seen a kid have so much fun. A couple days later, she frosted them in total Lily fashion. And now they're just waiting for their official moment in the spot light when Santa arrives.

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Gingerbread

It's become a tradition in our house to build a Christmas gingerbread house. This year, I went for a whole miniature village. And it really was miniature. Don't ask me what I thought was in the box that cost the same a one normal-sized gingerbread kit. But for some reason, it wasn't the tiny houses I ended up putting together. But they served their purpose, and Lily had a great time. This year, she realized the frosting was pretty tasty, so the whole project pretty much went like this: Some frosting on the house. Some frosting in my mouth. Some frosting on the house. More frosting in my mouth. (Not that I blame her. It was a Wilton kit, and their premade frosting is pretty tasty.) The candy itself was pretty terrible, so most of it actually ended up on the houses. Last year, my job was to put the frosting where Lily pointed, and then she would add the candy. This year, she did the whole process on her own and even helped with some of my houses.

This has become something I look forward to every year, and I hope she does, too. Next year, though, she can make a house. I'm making this:

(Instructions/template here.)

And I'm hoping that next year, Timothy can help. Instead of just eating gumdrops off rooftops like he did this year. (Sorry...it's kind of dark at the start. I guess I could have turned on a light. :-D)


 

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Nudist Baby

I was thinking the other day how boring our December must have been since I've only blogged twice this month. Then I sat down today to download pictures and remembered some of the fun stuff we've actually done. It's a good thing I have a camera, or apparently, I'd forget most of my life. At any rate, I'm going to post a couple things over the next few days in an effort to document some of this month...

This first one has nothing to do with Christmas or holidays of festivities of any kind. But it will give you some insight into what happens around our house. Timothy has decided that clothes aren't really his thing, and he will jump at any chance to take them off. He spends quite a bit of his time walking around the house Al Bundy style, hand in his pants trying to get the dang things off. One day, he actually managed to get a pair of sweats off. And he brought them to me. Like a present I was supposed to be so grateful to receive. Then he started tugging on his shirt. So I figured, what the heck...and I took that off for him too. So he wandered around the house - in the middle of winter - in nothing but a diaper, free as a bird and happy as could be.

Then he disappeared. And he got quiet. Which is never a good sign. So I went investigating. This is what I found:

Our budding nudist. Erik found the same thing a few days later when he got him out of bed. We've chucked the two-piece jammies...footies all the way. And onsies are once again our best friend.

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SANTA! I know him!

Last year, Lily finally got the whole Santa thing about the end of the season. I think it really clicked when she woke up Christmas morning and her mermaid had arrived, along with several other fun things. This year, she needed no reminding, and when Old St. Nick made his stop at Wal-Mart this weekend, I took the chance to take the kids to tell Santa all their hopes for Christmas.(Plus, having some connections, I wouldn't have to deal with ridiculous mall picture prices and less-than-ideal scanned pictures. YAY!!!)

As soon as Lily saw him, she ran right up to him, jumped in his lap, and gave this complete stranger the biggest hug EVER! (Stranger danger? What's that?) Luckily there wasn't a line because I can almost guarantee that would have happened even if there had been 10 kids in front of her. Ok...maybe not. But the girl was thrilled to be there.They chatted for a few minutes and I heard "bike" in there somewhere. So I think we're still ok on that front. Unlike last year when we had no idea she wanted a mermaid until we hit up Santa closer to Christmas. After all our shopping was done, of course. And with few mermaids to be found. But Santa managed to pull that out of his bag of tricks some how.

Once she was done, I went to hand Timothy to Santa. And I hadn't even held him out yet. For all he knew, I was changing hips. But he did know and started crying and promptly hid his head in my shoulder. A little disappointed, I figured we'd forgo his Santa picture this year rather than torture the poor kid. If anything, we would have a story about why there's no picture of Timothy with Santa in 2011. But when Erik could break away from actual work, he decided every kid should have at least one sad Santa picture and this was Timothy's year.

So here they are...both ends of the Santa-loving spectrum...

And yes...even with the sad face, I love this picture. It will be a good reminder of the year Lily really latched onto the magic of Santa. It will also be a reminder of the evil eye Timothy gave Erik when he got back safely to me... :-P

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Changes

Lily has had a couple changes in the last few weeks. The first one was fairly major. After months and months of asking her to not stand on the couch while watching TV and standing super close to TVs other than ours, I decided to take her to the eye doctor. Turns out the kid needs glasses. In fact, she's more nearsighted than I am - which compared to Erik's prescription, isn't hard. But still...the girl's only 4. So I'm sure we'll be getting thicker and thicker lenses for the poor thing until she's old enough to handle contacts.

So after two trips to the eye doctor (once for the exam and once more for dilation), it was official. We looked at a couple pairs of cute frames at in their office, but good heavens! They were so expensive for something that she's probably going to break...even with the warranty, I found it hard to justify spending that much. So we checked out our trusty Wal-mart...much more reasonable. And considering that when we told her to pick one from a few choices and she told us, "But I don't want to wear the same glasses every day," I'm really thinking cheaper is the way to go. We'll probably end up buying at least one more pair so she can change it up when she wants to.

I really do think it's made a difference for her. Of course, she didn't know she couldn't see. But now she can, and I think she's much happier. The first couple hours were a little odd, I think, since she almost tripped several times and she was very fascinated with the floor while she was walking. And apparently, "Everything is so shiny!" But she will now sit on the couch to watch TV (it probably doesn't hurt that we rearranged the living room so standing on the couch wouldn't help anyway) and I know she's seeing (see what I did there???) an improvement because after her gymnastics warm up the other day, she changed her mind and decided she wanted to wear them. She's been really good about remembering to put them on, and other than the small mishap of leaving them on the floor to get stepped on, she's been pretty careful with them. A little tweaking, and they looked good as new. And she looks so darn cute!

The second change, you can see in that picture, too. Lily now rocks bangs. Yesterday, she was walking around with her hair completely in her face. And this isn't an unusual occurrence. Gone are the days that she will sit and let me do something completely cute with her hair. We've reached the point that we're lucky if she lets us brush it every day. Although since we bought a hair bean (highly recommended for anyone with a daughter), we can usually manage a brush-through with little resistance. But since rubberbands is now a bad word, the sides and front just fall in front of her eyes. It would drive me crazy, but she doesn't seem to mind. Which does drive me crazy. So I opted to make the most of the situation. The hair that normally falls in her face is now short enough that she can still see. Problem solved.

With a new hair cut and new glasses, she's adorable, as always. But she also seems so grown up. She turns 5 in January, and I can't wrap my poor head around that. She's sure fun and is just growing so fast. She's suddenly discovered descriptive words, so everything is beautiful or cool or fantastic. She told me the other day that she wants to be a parent when she grows up...instead of a mail carrier. When I told her she could be both, she was so excited! And when she gives me a hug, she tells me she can hear my heart beeping. I hope I'll always remember this stage when she tries to show all she knows and is so eager to learn more. There's rarely a day when she doesn't make me proud of her in some way. She's definitely my special girl.

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I'm a Mom

I'm not going to lie...having two (or more) kids isn't always easy. There are some women who make it look so easy. Their kids are always well behaved. They are cool, calm, and collected. Their hair is perfect, their makeup's done, and there's not a wrinkle in their clothes.

I am not that woman. I'm not saying having one kid was a complete walk in the park. But for some reason, doubling the number of munchkins in the house tripled the stress. Of course, it might just be the 4-year-old. We've hit a phase where every time we get in the car, we're bombarded with "How much longer?" and "Are we there yet?" This is before we've even pulled out of our neighborhood.  And heaven forbid Timothy even look in her general direction (Stop looking at me!!!!) or babble something cute (Don't talk to me!!!!). We're working constantly on sharing since she doesn't seem to grasp the concept that if she wants to play with all Timothy's fun toys, she needs to share with him occasionally, too.

Don't get me wrong. Timothy is not a complete angel in all these situations. He's figured out how to push her buttons for sure. Stop looking at you? Well I'm going to stare you down and maybe even come sit right next to you to bug you even more. Don't talk to you? I'll make even more noise! He's also a greedy little bugger. You can give him something to eat and then get your own. And it's the EXACT. SAME. THING. But yours is much more appetizing. And if you give in and let him have some of yours even though he still has the same thing on his plate, he won't touch it. He'll eat what you gave him in the first place. It's just some twisted test.

But then there are days they are so fun to watch. They play together and love each other and make you so happy that they have each other. They have the best time playing with Lily's kitchen. Occasionally Timothy ends up with the chef's hat, which is the most adorable thing you've ever seen. He pretends to eat the plastic food she assigns him (with appropriate "smack-smack" and "yum") and will even pass her the food she's assigned herself. Timothy will throw balls down the stairs and Lily will bring them back up for another round. Lily will make a fort in her room so they can jump into the pillows and blankets together. Lily will chase Laddie around just to make Timothy laugh because he thinks it's HILARIOUS to see Laddie bolting around, sliding on the wood floors.

Last night, we'd just finished bath time and I was putting on Timothy's jammies while Lily was putting on hers. Timothy and I finished first, so he toddled into her room. And I guess sat in one of the bins from her toy box. It's not very deep...just a couple inches. Just the right size for him to step in with his blanket and have a seat. So Lily gave him a ride back to his room, which he thought was about the best thing ever. They ended up doing this for about 45 minutes. Back and forth between their rooms. Timothy would hop out for a second at the end of each ride and then get back in to go again. Since I was in his room, he would wave until he couldn't see me anymore as they headed to her room.

I so desperately wanted to go grab the camera, but from past experience I knew that once Lily saw the camera, the fun would be over. So instead, I let them have this fun time together...a little sad that we wouldn't have pictures to remember this cute game. But hopefully in between all the "He's touching me!" and "She won't stop looking at me!" moments, we'll have enough of the ride-in-the-toy-bin moments and the play-with-the-dog moments that eventually, the fun times will be the foundation for a close relationship.

I know that for me, it makes it ok that my hair isn't always perfect, there are some days I don't even touch my make up, and yes...I probably have something from a grubby hand on my clothes. It means I'm a mom to two beautiful, loving, amazing kids.

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Halloween

Halloween was pretty fun this year...as always, really. Since last Halloween, Lily has wanted to be a mermaid, so that's what she was. While crawling the web for the perfect mermaid costume, I also came across an adorable golfer costume for Timothy. I decided on a flapper. And Erik...well...Erik was a pink unicorn. Which I didn't actually get any good pictures of, but there's one later in this post that will at least give the general idea.

As soon as the pumpkins hit the stores, Lily was begging to paint one, which is what we did last year. No knives to worry about. Minimal mess. She loves to paint. It's win-win. But this year, she wanted to carve her pumpkin, too. I think it was mainly to take out the seeds. I actually ended up carving it. With very specific direction, mind you.

Our church had a trunk or treat the Friday before the big day, so we got to make Halloween stretch out a few days. It also meant the kids got to wear their costumes more than once. I'm pretty sure Timothy didn't care a snit about putting on those golfer tights again, but Lily was thrilled to don the tail a few times.

On Halloween proper, Erik brought the kids into my office for some yummy treats and then took them into Walmart. It helps to be a kid of the boss since all the associates handing out candy were sure to load a couple handfuls into Lily's bucket. That night, we headed over to the annual Mullahkhel party where Lily got to do some honest-to-goodness real trick-or-treating. Until now, we've let Walmart suffice. There will be no going back I'm sure.

Between all the candy-begging events, Lily ended up with a huge bowl full of candy. 24 cups worth to be exact. And we've barely made a dent in it. I'm thinking it will slowing start heading into the trash, soon. Unless anyone's interested. You know where you can reach me...

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Lily and Santa

Yesterday, after Timothy was in bed, Lily and I sat at the kitchen table to do some coloring before it was her turn to get tucked in. Since it's November, Christmas is on the brain, and while I'm done shopping for Timothy other than his yearly ornament and some stocking stuffers, I'm having a harder time with ideas for Lily. So I posed the question: What do you want for Christmas?

She answered me in the most adult-sounding, I'm-so-superior-why-don't-you-already-know voice with, "A bike." Only it sounded more like,"A biiiiiike!!!" I reminded her that this was what she was going to ask Santa for, but wasn't there anything else she wanted? "From you guys, you mean?" Yes, I explained. From us. A puzzle was her answer. Which I already knew and have already purchased. But I needed another idea. She decided the only other thing her little heart could desire was a hurricane vase. Like the one I have on our table with miniature citrus in it. For her Tinkerbell table. Which lives in the closet under the stairs when not in use.

I decided I'll figure out something else on my own. But being the pot stirrer that I am, I decided to play a little devil's advocate.

Me: So you're going to ask Santa for a bike?
Lily: Yeeees.
Me: But what if he doesn't bring you a bike? (Even though I know he is since I happen to have an in with the man.)
Lily: If that's what I ask for, that's what he'll bring.
Me: So he has to bring you whatever you ask for?
Lily: Yes.
Me: But what if he decides he wants to bring you something different?
Lily: Well, we'll have to see about that. I'll have to talk to him.

If I were Santa, I'd just do what the girl says so no one gets hurt.

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Fall at the Farm

It seems like fall is flying by. And it seems like we've actually had one this year. It seems like last year, fall came and went way too quickly. There wasn't a long leaf display. There were no piles to be raked and jumped in. The weather went from sweltering to freezing. But this year, I feel like the leaves seemed to be prettier. They seemed to stick around longer. And we actually had some nice fall weather. And another fall means another trip to the American West Heritage Center. Lily loves going to the farm. How could she not with train and pony rides? In the fall, they also have a hay fort, a huge slide, and a corn maze. We opted out of the corn maze this year, but Lily enjoyed every last bit out of the rest of the activities.

Our first stop was the train.

 Lily is in LOVE with this little train. It doesn't go very fast, and its route is just a loop around a sorry little pond. But this train is better than any other ride out there. Just ask her. Timothy got to chill in the back pack on the train since Erik decided it was too much of a pain to take off.

 As a side note, we've hit a phase where any picture taking opportunity elicits the cheesiest, most fake smile you've ever seen from Lily. Most of our pictures now look like this:

Fantastic, right? Hopefully it won't last long.

Our next stop was the big slide. Two years ago when we Erik took Lily down it, her response was, "That was fun, Daddy. Let's not do it again." This year, it was all we could do to get her to move on to the hay fort. Although brave as she is for most things, she was not about to go down by herself. But I think Erik was having just as much fun as she was, so it was ok.

When we were finally able to convince her to move on, we headed to the hay fort. There was jumping and hopping and throwing of hay. Oh, and Lily had fun, too.

We went to the farm with a few friends who have kids both Lily's and Timothy's ages. Lily honestly wasn't too interested in playing with boys closer to her age. But she latched on to one of the little boys who's about 4 months older than Timothy (and much more mobile). Sully didn't really seem to mind...

She led him around and he showed her the planes flying overhead. It was pretty adorable, really.

Before two more rides on the train before heading home, we stopped at the pony rides...another favorite must do.

Going to the farm each year just confirms to me how much and how fast Lily is growing. The first time we did the pony rides, the helmet was way too big. Now she rides without any help and takes the helmet off on her own. Doesn't she look so big in this picture? It blows my mind...

And Timothy continued to chill in the back pack.

Next year, he'll be running around with Lily having a great time. (He's walking a little and could all the time if he wasn't such a fast crawler. Why stumble around when he can get anywhere he wants in .02 seconds?) I'm sure we'll have another train and pony lover in our midst. And I'm looking forward to it...

Hope everyone's fall has been as fun as ours!

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Chicago

I don't travel much for work...maybe once a year. And it's usually some place not too exciting like Phoenix or Salt Lake (which I wouldn't really consider traveling). But this year, I had the opportunity to go to Chicago for 5 days. When I first heard I would be expected to be there, I was excited. Then I was less excited when I realized we'd probably be at some airport hotel and I wouldn't have much time to actually see anything. But then I found out we would be right down town...in walking distance of so much great stuff. And I started planning.

When we got in on Tuesday afternoon, I made a quick appearance and the "networking reception" and then headed out to see the city. There was a great river walk and all the buildings were lit up. It was amazing. And I only had one guy call me "baby" and ask for a buck.

Wednesday evening, I headed out the the University of Chicago with a couple colleagues to check out the Oriental Institute and their Egyptian collection. Pretty cool...especially the 16 foot tall King Tut statue. Since the person I went with knows a lot about Egypt already, I didn't really have to read the cards...it was a personal tour.

Luckily, the meetings scheduled for Thursday afternoon didn't really pertain to me, so I was able to take the afternoon off. Of coarse, this was the ONLY day it rained the entire 5 days we were there. When I started out, it was just a little drizzle and nothing my hoodie couldn't handle. Let's just say, it got worse.  There was a chocolate exhibit at the Field Museum (natural history museum), so I headed out after lunch. By the time I arrived, I was pretty wet. My jeans were wet half way up my calf and my hoodie was soaked. But I was actually pretty dry and figured a couple hours in the museum would dry out my clothes. The chocolate exhibit was pretty fun, and I picked up some chocolate that was actually too dark for even Erik to enjoy. (By the way, if anyone's interested in trying it, let me know. We have almost the whole bar sitting here, and neither of us will eat it.) I also spent a huge amount of time in the hall of mammals. It was like Cabella's...only WAY BETTER! I didn't grab any photos, though, since everything was behind glass and nothing turned out without a flash. I checked out a few other exhibits and then head back into the rain.

My next stop was the Sears Tower, which is now Willis Tower. Who knew? Expecting a line, I walked right up to the elevator where I was told visibility at the top was ZERO. Hence...no line. But I headed up anyway, hoping it might clear up while I was up there. There was one person in the elevator with me, and we were the only ones up there for quite a while. At least the rain meant no waiting in line. After the 60-second ride in the second elevator (ear popping and all), this was the view I had:

AMAZING, right? But it DID clear up enough that I was able to walk out on the ledges and get a decent view. When I got back to the street, it was pouring. And I mean POURING. So rather than try anything else, I headed back to the hotel.

The next night, our entire staff headed out for some Chicago deep dish and a good time. The morning we left, I decided to do one more quick venture to see the Millenium Park Bean (which I had decided would be lame in the rain) and Buckingham Fountain. I headed out pretty early, so the sun was still rising and it was so pretty. Unfortunately, the fountain was dry...although I'm told it was running the day before. What timing, right? But it still made for a good picture. 

Work trips can be pretty boring for the most part, let's be honest. But I have to say, this one was actually pretty fun. I got in some good sight seeing and the meetings weren't too terribly boring. So Win-Win, right? Rumor is next year is Boston...I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

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September Review

So I'm a horrible blogger, but that's not something we didn't already know, really. Let's just be glad I don't make a living as a full-time blogger.

It's been quite a while since my last post, and I'd love to say it's because we've been super busy and I just haven't had the time. Nope. I'm just lazy. I'd think about blogging some fun activity and then remember that if I did that, I would need to catch up on all the other activities, too. And I didn't want or have the time for all that. I figured I'd wait until I was willing to do it all. And then the next activity would happen...and that whole conversation with myself would start over. And this is why there has been no blog activity since August. And yes...I realize we're now over halfway through October.

So my solution is this: I'm not going to try to recap the entire month of September. Let's just say, September was great. We had fun. The end.

OK...I'll give you a picture collage of highlights.

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Wherein you meet Fluffy and Mittens

First, let me be perfectly clear. I am not a creepy, crawly kind of girl. When I was little, I didn't mind bugs. I can remember gathering potato bugs at my grandma's in a plastic sandwich bag so I could take them home. (For some reason, I never caught on to why they didn't make it too long.) Lady bugs were always fascinating. And I'd even pick up a Daddy Long Legs on occasion. Since then, I've come to the realization that I don't like bugs. As a general rule, I just leave them alone and go on my way. Except for spiders, which I detest. With a passion. I will go out of my way to squish one. (Or have Erik do it depending on the size. It just creeps me out the way their legs shrivel up when they get stomped. *shiver*) With that preface...

About a week ago, I came home from work one day and noticed a HUGE spider web in our patio. It was the epitome of a spider web. I honestly expected it to say Some Pig... I took a look around, trying to find the huge spider that must go with it, but I couldn't see anything. Against my usual instinct, I left it alone so I could show Lily, who thought it was amazing. Then I forgot all about it until I headed out for my nightly stroll with the dog. A car was parked across the park, and its headlights hit the web just right, and I saw the spider that made it. And I was right...it was big! Meet Fluffy:

 

I showed Erik, who was altogether unimpressed although he did admit it was pretty big. I'd never seen a spider like this, and he wasn't in my house, so I left him alone - totally against my character - and took Laddie on his walk. When I got home, I decided I needed to know what kid of spider it was. After looking at pictures of a dozen or so spiders native to Utah, we decided our eight-legged friend is a Cat-faced Spider (hence the name Fluffy :-D). Completely harmless, so I decided he could stay.

I wanted to show Lily, but he kept disappearing during the day, and I was determined to find his hiding spot. Finally, I saw a leg poking out one day. So we got a good daytime view and Lily was sufficiently impressed.

 

A couple days later, I noticed the web was torn up and I figured he must have moved on. After a quick glance around the yard, I saw a web on the other side and figured he'd just changed location. That was until Laddie and I headed for our walk that night and there was Fluffy on his usual side of the fence. Apparently, our yard is very hospitable, because Mittens had also moved in:

So there you have my new pet spiders. Erik thinks I'm a loon. And I probably am. I even chased some kids with a jar out of my yard a few days ago. They can find their own spiders, dang it!! Well...I didn't really chase them. I just opened the door and asked what they were doing in my yard with a jar. They said "nothing" and skedaddled. What I'm really hoping to see is something land in their webs. I might need Lily to catch me a grasshopper (which she does on a regular basis).

For now, they're safe. But hopefully they realize as soon as one hairy foot steps in my house, they're goners...like their cousin here. He ceased to be soon after this picture was taken...

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New Trick

Timothy's been pulling himself up on stuff for a while now...the couch, chairs, the baby gate, my hair. You know...the normal things. But about a week ago, he decided to try standing without any help. This was his attempt:

I'm sure he'll be walking any day now...which blows my mind! Didn't we bring him home yesterday?

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Busy July, part 3 (the end)

And now...for the conclusion of our July festivities. I know what you're thinking: Finally!!! Can we move on already? Almost...this won't be long. :)

This year, Walmart made the mistake of putting Erik in charge of the associate summer party. He decided they needed a bounce house. He ordered the bounce castle for the kids and then went ahead and ordered two more. The blow-up jousting/boxing ring and the huge slide. Because the adults would want to participate in the fun, too. Lily thought the castle was great and spent a little time there. And then she spent most of the night at the playground on the swings and monkey bars. Go figure. She did give the slide a try, and looked terrified on the way down the first time. I could just see her little mind thinking, Was that fun? Or just crazy? She must have thought it was ok because she spent probably the last hour of the night going up and down. Erik took a few runs, too, including this one, which resulted in a nice vinyl burn on his elbow.

Lily must have enjoyed the bouncing in general because she was very dramatic when they started deflating. I wish I would have filmed that. The castle was last, and the moan when the turrets fell was fantastic.

A few days later, we hit the Mendon Pioneer Day fireworks and then did some driveway fireworks with the Mullahkhels and their cul-de-sac. Timothy, I think, is rather indifferent to fireworks of any sort. Even in Mendon when you're close enough for fall out, he just sort of glanced to see where the noise came from and then went on with his business. Lily thought the sparklers were pretty fantastic, but her favorite thing of the day was probably the pop-its. She would have been happy as a clam if we'd just given her an entire case of those and let her go to town.

So that wraps up our July. It was super fun, but I'm sort of relieved we're heading into a more low-key August. This summer has definitely flown by, but I think I'm ready for fall...

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Busy July, part 2

We weekend after our 4th of July activities, we headed up to La Platta to do a little camping with Erik's family. Lily had a absolutely awesome time hanging out with Addison. Timothy did a lot better than I expected, honestly, considering he had to be held a good chunk of the time. He got to crawl around a bit in Grandma and Grandpa's trailer and on Patt's porch, but that was about it. There's just not many places for a baby to crawl in the wild. ;)

Laddie had a great time, too. We tied him to a tote bag filled with rocks so he could move around if he had the gumption, but if he got too excited and took off, he'd get tangled fairly quickly and we'd be able to find him. But you should have seen his pathetic little face when he decided he was too exhausted to move that rock. He'd lie down and whine his little heart out until someone had pity on him and picked up the bag so he could find a suitable lap. If a squirrel wandered by, though, you'd think that bag was empty. He also found a certain log to be very interesting.


It wasn't long before we couldn't see him at all.

We did all the things you should do when camping, including smores with HUGE marshmallows, some dutch oven potatoes (that the guys cooked in the down pour that started just as they got them on the coals), some off-roading (in 2-wheel drive...oops!), and getting completely filthy.

That next week was our anniversary, but we didn't actually celebrate until the weekend. We dropped the kids with Nana and Grandpa Len and we headed to Salt Lake for some dinner at the Garden Restaurant. After dinner, Erik was nice enough to indulge my Harry Potter weakness, and we headed to the movie at the IMAX in 3D. It. Was. A. Mazing. Plus, to top it all off, I sat next to Professor Snape of all people. Harry Potter has been a 10-year obsession (although not as much since the final book came out), so it was kind of weird to finally have an end to it. And it was great to have a husband willing to go with me since he's not really into it.

You might have noticed the ankle brace Erik's wearing in that picture. One day that week, he hopped in the bed of his truck to do...something...I don't remember what. But when he hopped out, he twisted his ankle. This is how it looked when he got home that night...

It actually hurt bad enough he went to have it looked at. Not broken, but a nasty sprain. 12 weeks in a brace. Anyway...since we hit the late showing of HP, we stayed the night in Salt Lake before heading to grab the kids (making a pit stop at IKEA, of course) and worked on the 4th (or 5th?) installment of Mission: Fix Allen Sprinklers.

And that wraps up part 2. I think I can close out the rest of the month with one more post that will include a video of Erik tumbling down a big blow up slide. How's that for a teaser?

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