Hop on Pop

Our baby would stand up and then flop peacefully onto his resting daddy. For a while big brother was lying next to him using a bean bag as a pillow. By the time I'd switched to video big brother had joined in and was squeezing out poor baby brother, who as you'll see wasn't too happy about the intrusion.


Even though you don't get to see when baby brother was doing it himself, I love everything about this video :)

My Loves

My view while making dinner last night ♥

Husband

My husband had a birthday! The official celebration was 3 days early at my parents' home, and shared with three others. The cake he picked (from CakeLove) was called Gingerly and was ginger/lime/cinnamon, with a lime-flavored Italian Meringue Buttercream. Yum.  (Not sure why I always have to mention the cake, haha.)

At our toddler's last birthday he was a little too overwhelmed to blow out the candles so his dad helped out, so it was fitting that he blew out his dad's candles for him. Look how sweet.

(He also ate his dad's cake, when he hadn't eaten his own birthday cake.)

He's an amazing man and wonderful father.  He does a lot around here; sometimes I take pics of the homeowner stuff he does but they don't seem to make it to the blog (sorry babe, maybe someday).  Love him.

Fathers and Sons

This past weekend, I got to take our toddler to the Fathers and Sons campout. I was really struck by how independent he has become lately. I spend a lot of the evening working on things, and he had no concerns about wandering away from me to explore all around the campsite. His favorite activity was walking on the 6"x6" beams marking the edge of the gravel camping pad.

We arrived, and while I was getting the tent ready, our toddler was playing with his trucks in the gravel. Our dinner was a pizza baked in a dutch oven. His friend (of the same age) was there, and they loved running around and playing together. (Curious George came, too. He needed a good cleaning by the end!)

After dinner, I started dessert (to be shared with the other guests) going in the dutch oven, and then we went to the tire park. Much of the equipment, and even the mulch, is made from used tires. We didn't get very long before being called back for the fireside lesson.

It was well past his usual bedtime at this point, and he looked pretty tired, so I took our boy to bed. Maybe I should have tried to get him to stay up a little later, so we could both have the dessert I made. There were 4 dutch ovens full of cakes and cobblers, but, unfortunately, mine was empty before we were done with the bedtime routine. I still got some of another dessert, though.

We'd practiced sleeping in the tent in the basement the prior week, and our toddler was very good. Aside from needing a little light on, he was perfect. So, I left a light on in the tent, but he would not sleep! While I was getting dessert and trying to clean up, I could see his shadow moving around in the tent. He kept zipping open the tent door and playing with the gravel. More than a few times, I had to return and put him back in his bed, but it didn't keep until I finally went to bed with him. Maybe it was the excitement. Or the older kids playing very noisily right around all the tents until well past 10. (Seriously?)

Well, eventually we both got to sleep, and it was soon morning. After a pancake breakfast, we headed back to the tire park to play some more. Our toddler's friend and his dad came, too. There was also a nature center with some outdoor activities. There was a turtle in a cage (I should have gotten a picture), which was fun. There was a sandbox with a bird footprint stamp, but they just preferred to play with the trucks in the sand. They also liked the bamboo tunnel and a rock maze.

Later in the morning, there was an organized hike to the river. It was about a mile and a half round trip, over some rather hilly, rocky, and tree-rooty terrain. I spent at least half the time carrying our boy, but he did surprise me with how well he did on some rough spots. At the river, we took some time to skip stones before returning.

Finally, we had a hot dog lunch and visited the park one more time. Our boy really is getting big and independent. I'm glad he had a good time. Even though he was clearly tired at the end, he wanted to stay and play outside some more. I felt bad, but I needed to get him home for his nap. Hopefully he will have plenty more opportunities to go to special places and play outside this summer.

Our Snowy Weekend

Thursday

Husband shoveling out the car. Yes, I'm inside.


Toddler who has decided that if he ignores my talking about going out in the snow, I'll stop. It works.


Friday - Valentines Day!

Toddler agrees to go outside and enjoys it. It's a little warmer so we concede to basically no snow clothes except (boots and) the blue hat, which he agreed to only if he could also wear the hat he wanted to.  He wears the mittens for a little while to play with the balls of snow daddy makes.


We had a wonderful Valentines, it's always fun when daddy gets to stay home with us!

Valentines Day food. Thanks for a delicious breakfast & dessert Hot Cup ♥   And thank you self, for lamb; it had been too long.


Saturday

We went to my parents' and my mother-in-law's. My MIL was the true birthday girl, but at my parents' we actually celebrated my birthday cause it's the first chance we'd gotten to since I turned 31 3 weeks earlier.  I had lots of fun!  Here's a couple pictures others took of me. I love breastfeeding so I love that picture.  And I loved having my sweet toddler help with the candles.

Cookie Stuffed Cookies

Mom: "I see you like the yummy cookies daddy made.  Turn it around so I can see the inside of the cookie."

Mom: "Thanks, now smile!"

Well, he is smiling, haha.

Music Time

Here are my boys, making music!




Smiles from a newborn :)

Independence Day Weekend

Hot Cup had a four day weekend and at one point we thought we'd take the opportunity to have a nice family outing one or two of the days. But we didn't. I've been having sciatic nerve pains and decided to use the long weekend to lay around so it wouldn't hurt and have my poor husband do everything else. While it still hurts often, I really benefited from being able to give the nerve a break for a more extended period and feel that the whole situation with it in general has improved.

On the 4th of July I was still trying to participate in everything. I didn't actually realize it was sciatica until late in the day and didn't talk to a nurse about it until the 5th. So I tried to keep up with my boys but it would just feel worse. Thankfully Hot Cup had already planned to be the chef for the day so I got to eat great and didn't have to worry about cooking.

Anyway, here are some pictures!

In the morning we did sidewalk chalk and then Hot Cup took our boy for a little walk.


After naptime we tried to coax our boy into the pool but he wasn't interested. He figured out ways to play with his daddy quite a bit anyway. Here's one of their games.




In the evening we took a quick trip to the park to see if you could see fireworks from the hill. You couldn't. Our little guy let us know he wanted to go to bed anyway.


For lunch Hot Cup grilled burgers he'd stuffed with cheese and bacon. He also grilled pineapple and chocolate stuffed bananas. For dinner we had more grilled pineapple, in a sandwich with cheese and bacon, and frozen raspberry lemonade. Everything was delicious!


Over the next few days Hot Cup took our toddler on a couple outings, pushed him around the neighborhood in his tricycle a few times, and did lots of other fun things with him. Here's an adorable picture of them watching TV Sunday evening.

Happy 31st!

My wonderful, fun, hard working, and sexy husband turned 31 Monday. Happy birthday babe!

I tried to make it a good day for him but he didn't get his official birthday dinner and cake until today.

Our little guy was pretty excited about the cake, even more so when we added candles and lit it; it was really cute :) He loved eating it too.

Hot Cup made a perfect choice of cake. It was really good, I'm glad it turned out! He picked it out of the cookbook CakeLove. It's a Black Forest Cake, brushed with syrup from the Soured Cherries, and topped with Whipped Cream with Cinnamon and Soured Cherries.

Hot Cup said it tasted like chocolate chip pancakes. He's not wrong.

(The ingredient list and the instructions didn't match each other on amount of sugar. I sort of picked a middle ground and since it was good I'm still not sure how much sugar is supposed to be in it.)

2013 Family Reunion

Preface
My mom's family has a reunion every year. It's usually across the country so I don't get to go very often, but this year my mom was in charge so it was the perfect excuse to make it happen. Since I was going to be 33 weeks pregnant for it, it took a while to decide we'd go for sure. But we went and I'm so glad we did :)

We flew into Salt Lake City the day before the reunion began and stayed with my uncle in Springville before driving down to Pine Valley for the Reunion the next day. We had lots of fun there and our little guy really enjoyed their pets and playing outside. And he got to spend time with a second cousin that's his age.

The day the reunion ended we drove up to Lehi and stayed with a cousin of mine. My brother & sister & their spouses (who live in Provo) joined us for a bit. Our toddler has two second cousins there, one is his age, and we really enjoyed our time there too.

The next morning we met Hot Cup's brother and his wife for a quick breakfast near the airport before our flight. I'm glad we were able to see them too!

The Reunion
The reunion involved camping for three nights in Pine Valley Utah and 112 of us came for it. I wasn't too sure about camping while being so pregnant so my little family stayed at my grandparents' 45 minutes away in St George. They're 92 and 86 and they camped so I don't know what that says about me; they stayed in my uncle's RV so at least there's that. We left at 8 or 9 each day which unfortunately meant we missed all the evening campfires at the main fire pit. Our toddler napped pretty well in a tent so that was nice. I had to stay in there and lay down too until he fell asleep but I didn't mind.

After Sunday's wonderful Church Service, we prepared for Sunday's Big Family Dinner:
Salmon, Vegetable Skewers, Cubed Fried Potatoes, Salad, and Cobbler. Yum!

Also on Sunday ...

My boys had fun in my brother-in-law's hammock.  I think they could have stayed there forever.  And bonus, it was something relaxing that our boy allowed his daddy to do.


We went down to the river and took the path to the lake.  Switching hats with daddy and playing with rocks were both themes of this trip. 


Finding more rocks at Snow Canyon Overlook:


On the way to my grandparents' to spend the night we stopped at the Snow Canyon Overlook. Beautiful Canyon!



Here are photos of Monday's organized activities.

Thai Massage Instruction with Thai Massage Expert, my oldest sister

Dance Instruction with Dance Expert, my youngest sister
Yes that's my Grandpa in the top right picture :)

Crafts with me and my sister and her husband

The crafts are all owls cause the theme of this year's reunion was wisdom. A booklet was compiled in the lead up to the reunion with advice, wisdom, experiences, etc from members of our family. I keep reading through it, what a neat thing to have!

Bingo MCd by my brother-in-law

Sports with my brother and his wife

Our little guy was quite attached to his daddy. Hot Cup got a little break to play volleyball while I tried to entertain our toddler. Eventually I gave up and sat him down with a bag of chips and Curious George on the iPod so he'd stop asking for his daddy for a little while.


And a couple more pictures of him with his daddy from Monday evening.


Tuesday morning we made a quick trip back to the river.  Our little guy had fun throwing in rocks and playing with bubbles.



And finally, some group pictures.

My mom with her parents and all her siblings.


Me & my siblings.  And me & my siblings and our families.


And here's a couple pictures of my grandparents.  They will celebrate their 69th anniversary this September ♥


Postscript
Every day as we drove to and from the campsite we passed a little pie shop that we couldn't resist, so on the way out on Tuesday we stopped and bought two pies.  Oh yummy!

Counting with daddy on the flight out.

How our little guy did on the flights:

On the way out we woke him up a little after four (ET) so we could get to the airport, so he was tired by the time we arrived in Utah (noon ET).  He did really well considering, but he didn't like not being able to run around.  He played with toys, watched a handful of his shows on the iPod, and asked to be held a lot.  One time I got up to take a little walk down the aisle (per instructions for pregnant ladies on flights) and he wanted to come.  So I said yes and that I was just going on a little walk.  Well, I think calling it a walk confused him cause the rest of the flight he was saying "outside! outside!"

We didn't make the morning flight we'd hoped to on the way back (we were flying standby) but we hadn't waken him up as early for it so that was okay.  We waited around the airport for the evening flight and he had a 2.5 hour nap, which surprised us cause airports aren't exactly his normal napping environment, but we're glad he got the rest!  He asked to watch "1" Curious George and surprisingly didn't ask for a second.  And he didn't watch any shows on the flight.  He did great on the flight home!  It was past bedtime before we landed and he did want to be held the last hour or so but he was very good about it.  While on daddy's lap he enjoyed seeing the city lights from the window.  It wasn't ever dark on our flight out there and he didn't care too much to look out the window then.