Excuse us.....

we've got a birthday to celebrate!

Happy 26th to the best dad and husband ever!!

Capitol Reef

This morning we woke up to the sound of rain falling on the tin roof.  Not wanting to follow our original plans   for hiking, we all loaded up in the suburban and struck out on the scenic byway that runs through Capital Reef National Park. Along the way we found we spotted petroglyphs carved in the rock face, a convenient store carved into a mountain, and Willy Wonka's chocolate waterfall.  We played "stump the chump" as we tried to find a plant that my dad couldn't name, and we won for about an hour until he finally recalled the name of a certain shrub.  For dinner we stopped at Slacker's, which surprisingly (because it's in the middle of nowhere) serves up one of the top ten best burgers in Utah.  Tomorrow we head back to civilization and scorching heat, but tonight we're snuggled up in the cabin with the rain falling softly once more.

Lower Bounds

"Roadtrip!!"

We're out on a fishing trip, and the great news is, the fish are biting like crazy! Jeffrey, Sawyer, my parents and I took a three hour drive south to the teeny tiny town of Teasdale to stay in our favorite Pine Shadows cabins while we fish at Lower Bounds and explore Capitol Reef National Park.  Sawyer slept the whole drive and woke up roaring ready to go.  We couldn't keep him off the sand, or the sand out of his mouth, even when we cuffed his sleeves or tried to lure him into the "fun" tent.  The boys fished like crazy to the tune of "it's great to have men around!" while mama and I snacked and chased the babe in between having a go at fishing.

Splash Pad

We knew going into this that Sawyer loves water, we just had no inkling that he would love the splash pad this much.  He ran around so much that the little pads on the bottom of his toes got all scratched up, he sat and splashed in the water until his little body trembled with chill, he screeched and squealed 'til his eyes got droopy, and yet he wanted more.  We had to (almost) literally drag him out of there, but once we got him out and dry and still, exhaustion took over and he dropped sound asleep.

 

Granny Annie's

Up in Kaysville, Utah there is wonderful place for family-style, dinner-ific food. It belongs to my Pappap's niece and whenever my Gram and Pappap come to town, a trip up north for monstrous scones is always in the plans. Sawyer came along for his first tastes of comfort food but never mind that; the big discovery of the day was that he may like my cousin Kyle's fluffy blonde hair better than the the fluffy bug in his favorite touch and feel book. As for us, we discovered Annie's chicken fried steak is the stuff of legends, and that you really can't use too much honey butter on a scone.

{this is a scone, DRENCHED in honey butter}

{Sawyer likes! Fries and Kyle (in the background there)}

All Our Peeps

All of Sawyer's grandparents arrived over the weekend and we are commencing operation family fun overload.  We're brimming with excitement, fun plans, and oh so much love. Stay tuned for adventure updates!

Weekend Mirths

Salt Lake City. Girls' night out.

I missed my Sawyer boy, but our BFF reunion was a classic-we were up to all our old tricks.  You better believe we had us a good time. And really the only thing girls' night out left to be desired was that we all lived closer, oh and maybe dessert. How did we forget about dessert girls?!

7 months

He's about 22 pounds, 28 inches long, still a red-haired, blue-eyed boy, and he's now cutting his first tooth.

He crawls. And climbs.  One day dad decided to show him how to pull himself up on the couch, and now he's pulling up on the couch, on the chair, on the kitchen drawers, on the bathtub, on the bedcovers-you name it, he's probably pulled himself up on it.  He especially loves the up and over trick.  He'll pull up on his tub full of toys, then try to launch himself over it. Or the the other day he pulled up on the tub side, then dove straight into the tub! Luckily he's figuring out how to catch himself with his arms, but we still have a heart-stopping, face-planting moment about once everyday.

He loves to screech and just hold his mouth open and wriggle his tongue all around and make all sorts of guttural noises.  Recently, he figured out how to click his tongue against the roof of his mouth and when he gets really excited, he whistles (on a breath in). When he's excited about playing with something, he takes a quick breath in and squeals with it, then put his head down and motors over to whatever is striking his fancy.

He loves water. He likes feeding himself-don't put the cheerios in his mouth for him or else! He loves to purse his lips and blow raspberries, especially when he wants to communicate dislike (like if you're trying to stuff a cheerio in his mouth for him).  He loves banging his toys on the tile floor and rifling through daddy's basket of knick knacks.

He laughs like crazy and smiles wide.

Beauty and Belief

Summer is flying by and we're trying to catch the last little bits of it before Jeffrey heads back to the grind of school. Our summer has been special and unique, and we're pretty sure we'll never have another one like it for quite some time. Jeff is done with work by 7:30am and he isn't taking any summer classes, so from about 8am on, my boys and I have an open invitation to do whatever we want.

The Museum of Art at BYU has an exhibit that we've been meaning to see since it's opening, it's the Beauty and Belief exhibit featuring over 250 various pieces of Islamic art.  I (wrongfully) snapped a few pictures capturing the feel of the exhibit so we could remember what it was like.  It was amazing.  I think what impressed us both so much was how art was incorporated into nearly everything, little or big, ordinary or ornamentation; it took beauty to a whole new level.  In our mass-produced, cookie-cutter reality, this was a whole new world...(sorry for the Aladdin reference, I just couldn't resist!!)

{even our Sawyer was pretty amazed}