Road Trip

We were able to get out of town last week and play with a lot of family and friends. I don't know how to make those great picture collages - so you get a lot of pictures, someone will have tell me how to do that. Anywhoo... Officer's parents were visiting Salt Lake City from California so we we were able to meet up with them and spend a beautiful afternoon at Temple Square. Officer's parents even watched the kids one morning, so that we could go to the Temple while we were there visiting.

This little man is such a flirt already! This sister missionary, and I'd say just about every sister missionary on Temple Square that stopped to smile at him, got this reaction.

We took Miss Peanut to see the Christus in the Visitor's center for the first time. She was very reverent as she walked up to see it and in a whisper said "that's Jesus." I know we all hear "out of the mouth of babes..." We really have so much to learn from these little ones.

Daddy pointing to the Angel Moroni on the Temple Spire to which Miss peanut says, "Oh, No (both hands on cheeks) he has to get down."

Me trying to keep Miss Peanut occupied - she headed straight for the water and I was sure she going to take a quick dip in the fountain.

Miss Peanut with Grandpa

She is hard to keep up with , she ran up all the steps and tried to open the door. Of course these doors don't open, but she was determined.



We also went to the pioneer museum, the "This is the place" monument, and The Lion House. Of course I didn't take pictures - Glad Grandma and Grandpa did!
Friday I got to help my cousin get all dressed up for Prom and then I had the chance to meet up with one of my old roommates from college, Kaffi! We went with her to the Mandarin Restaurant in Bountiful...mmm! I've only been there a handful of times, but it is so yummy. Of course you have a wait, but that was just perfect because we were able to catch up. She was great to help us tackle the kids during dinner and then we visited her cute little apartment. It was so fun to see her and have her oogle over my kids, they just loved her!


Why buy toys? This totally works! She was running around and randomly came back to the living room like this. Hours of fun!

She took this cute picture of me and my baby, it turned out really cute thanks!

It's really hard to believe that it's been nearly 10 years since I roomed with this girl! She is amazing! Love ya!


I had a few other roommate in the area from my first year at Ricks College. I dropped in to see one, who just had a beautiful new baby girl - just darling and then a few of us we were able to get together for breakfast one morning. Oh how I've missed these girls! There is just not enough catching up in just a few hours. We need to do this more often!


Grandma with the little man

We had a big family dinner Saturday night with some of my family from the area at my Aunt's house. This is was that afternoon while we were getting dinner ready.
Reading the paper with daddy - it was a beautiful day and they loved being outside after it had been a rainy chilly couple of days while were there.


Both of the kids did so great with all the running around, missing naps, and late bedtimes, etc. By the end it was a little hairy though! I'm so hilarious! She loved playing on the trampoline.



This trip was the first time that the little man got to meet Grandma-great (that's what Peanut calls her). Of course the only time we got a picture was early the last morning before Grandma had gotten ready for the day -Thank you grandma for letting us get this picture anyway.

We had a wonderful time! We'll have to do it again soon.

Family Fun Day!

Thursday is family day at the zoo so since the weather finally cooperated we packed up the kids and went on a family date (When we had the little man we started making a point to have Daddy/Peanut dates and Mommy/Peanut dates and daddy/mommy dates so that she knows some things are kind of a special, so today was a family date.) The only problem with just packing the kids was that when we got there, we realized we had left our stroller in the garage, at home. Luckily our Zoo is quite small so we did alright without it. It was still such a fun afternoon, it just got a little hot for the little man (it was 48 degrees last week, no joke, when we had a picnic at the park and then today it was 70 degrees). We had to wait in the shade a lot while daddy took Miss Peanut to look at the animals.
Giraffe slide - always a hit:

I think we have a budding botanist on our hands because every limb and leaf we came in close proximity to, he was reaching for it with great concentration. So cute!

Safari Jeep

We finally broke down and bought a hat for the little man because I was worried he might get a little sun burnt. It gave him just enough shade that he fell asleep.

Miss Peanut got take her first ride on a carousel with Daddy. She loved every minute of it!

They played a little game of "musical animals" because Daddy wanted her to be able to be on one that would go up and down. My favorite picture of the day!

Trying to get a picture with mommy - while I was trying to keep us both in the shot, she kept making faces at herself in the screen on the camera.

This next one hast to be my favorite...she just keeps me laughing!

My little monkey jumping on the bed



It's official - he's a big boy now sitting in the high chair and eating real food, as much as baby food can be considered real food.

Sitting up - To the left, to the left....

To the right, to the right...




And thank you Shopko for the ad I received in the mail last week; it kept him entertained for at least 30 minutes.

First haircut

This little man was starting to get just a little bit of a comb-over thing going and I'm having my sister take his 6 months pictures next week, so spontaneously we decided to give him a trim this afternoon. I'm glad my sister was standing by with her camera to take pictures and talk me through it.

I just love that he is such a happy baby. After we got past the colic stage - he has been just so fun. His cousin was singing "Twinkle, Twinkle little star" to him and he loved it.

I have never cut Miss Peanut's hair and was just a little nervous, but after the first trim it was okay - it's just hair - it grows back. And he is just so darn cute! You'll have to wait for the after pictures until she takes pictures next week!

So in love with this girl! We have had our share of 2 year old moments...so far they haven't been horrible. Her favorite thing to say right now is "I can't want to." We have, in the last 3 weeks, done really well with the potty training thing. Now that she is doing so good, though I get busy and forget to ask if it's been a while - so I can't blame her too much when she's had an accident. So proud of her though. I can't believe she is so grown up! She is very polite, most of the time. I love that she says please and thank you. And she has so much personality - she's just so funny and I love watching the gears turn in her head and just waiting for what comes out - most of the time it's hilarious.

Our "couch potato" day. Einsteins and Curious George have been our staples while the kids were sick.

We are still working at this napping/ no napping thing. If she doesn't she's like this at dinner.

If she does - she's up until ten. I tried getting her up earlier and doing an earlier short nap and she seemed to do better today, we'll see if that goes well. I'm just grateful that my kids are finally sleeping better at night again. We've been getting out in the beautiful spring weather more - and just loving it. Miss peanut just plays so hard and by bed time she is just exhausted.

Top o' the Mornin' to ya!

A Sneaky little leprechaun visited our house in the wee hours of the mornin' today. Miss Peanut followed his track around the house and found that he left his hat on her chair with some clues to follow to the end of the rainbow.

Along the way she found some four-leaf clover cookies, green milk in our fridge, green dishes for breakfast, and at the end of the rainbow clues she found a pot of gold and some lucky charms.








Happy St. Patrick's Day!

No place like home.

I knew that I wanted to do something more for officer because he would be turning 30 on his birthday, but wasn't sure that I could pull off a fabulous surprise party. Instead, I had this great idea that I would try to surprise him by taking him home to California to celebrate with his family. This played out pretty well until just a couple weeks before when he had all sorts of court subpoenas scheduled, so the surprise was gone, but we still made the trip! Unfortunately - I am the worst with taking the camera out and snapping lots of pictures so more pictures will come of the birthday party when I gather them from family. Officer loves this time of year out there and he and I haven't been out to CA in the early spring since we were engaged, so it was really great to go when it was so green and beautiful - this was a picture of the property where Officer grew up (a little fuzzy). It is really amazing how you can disappear down a small dirt, canopy covered, road just outside of a busy city and find this. Nothing compares.

Miss peanut was just thrilled with all the orange and lemon trees she saw, as well as turkeys, peacocks, and COWs. She is still taking about gramma and papa's house, and of course all her cousins, and Aunts and Uncles! We had such a great time while we were there, we always wish it wasn't so long in between visits.

Officer and I even got out for a kid free evening thanks to Grandma and Aunt Shannon! As a belated Valentines Officer took me to see Wicked in San Fransisco - it only took a small amount of hinting. We rode BART down into the city which was quiet in the evening time, with only a few exceptions. We walked around near City Hall, observing some of the local flavor then we had gyros at this little Mediterranean place just off Market street near the theater, so yummy! Wicked - I won't spoil anything by discussing it, but the music, costumes, talent was really enjoyable! We both liked it; it's been a while since we've come from a movie or show and could say that we really liked it. We tend to have mediocre shows that pass through home most of the time, so to see a production that had been running in one place for more than a night or two was nice.

We did have a birthday party because there were lots of birthdays to celebrate in Officers family in February! I'll have to post those pictures later. The only other thing that officer really wanted to do while we were out there was to go hiking in valley around their property. It rained so much during the week while we were there so everything was muddy, but we put on our rain boots and took a long hike. We went to what the called as kids "the mossland" where boulders and trees are are just covered in green. There is a creek that runs through the area and we got distracted by trying to redirect the creek. We kind of felt like we were 10 years old again - moving debris that was clogging up the creek and stratigically placing boulders so that it would change the flow of the creek. It was fun! And we got back to the house just minutes before another big rainstorm hit. We really wish we could have hiked back to see the creek after all that rain, but we left to go home the next day. Our kids are troopers - it is such a long drive for them, but they did great!

Playing around

Daddy's already teaching him to tackle.

Found his thumb! I'm debating - I'd almost rather he be a binky baby than a thumb baby because I can get rid of the binky.

Rolling around

Exhausted

New big bed for Miss Peanut - she loves to help daddy with the tools.

Giggles

I didn't catch him laughing quite as hard as he did the other day, but I just had to try to get some giggling down for posterity! I love playing with this little guy, he's getting to have such a fun personality!

So in love with this little guy - he totally big old belly laughed last night for a few minutes! Nothing better!



This is how he deals with the big sister's terrible two's - ears closed.

Miss Peanut has barely made it to dinner before this seems to happen...

No nap is not really working for her, but I'd rather not have her up all hours of the night because she does take a nap, so what do ya do? She has a quiet time, but even when I think she'll crash - she just keeps going and going until about 5:00 - when the meltdowns start. Oh, this too shall pass.