Fourth of July 2009

Happy Independence Day!

Since the Fourth fell on a Saturday this year, Bryon got Friday off, and we made a weekend of it, camping in Midway at Bryon's grandparents' house. It was the first real camping trip for Jacob (we took him backpacking with us when he was an infant, but he was more of an accessory rather than a participant. This time, it was all about him.)

We started by helping to feed Grandpa's cows.

Jacob's look says it all: "Wow! Cows!"

While Leila napped, we hiked to the top of Memorial Hill, across the street from our "campsite."

Jacob walked up by himself pretty much the whole way, holding a sucker most of the time. He's got priorities.

We made it!

Check out that view! Midway is so beautiful.

Jacob taking the easy way down.

We had some downtime in the afternoon, and Grandma introduced Jacob to one of Bryon's favorite childhood games: Uncle Wigglebottom. (Okay, I could be wrong on that name). Anyway, it involved lots of counting, and Jacob loved it.

Later that day we drove down Provo Canyon to Vivian Park and Bridal Veil Falls. Bryon dropped me off at the bottom so I could run the Provo River Parkway with my sister.

In the evening, everyone roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for dinner.

Yeah, I think Jacob liked the marshmallows.

This was our campsite in Bryon's grandparents' yard. A firepit, picnic table, and plenty of shade. It was perfect!

Our 4th of July morning started off not-so-wonderfully when the town shot cannons off at sunrise (around 6 AM). Jacob slept through the first 12 blasts or so, but eventually woke up and then woke Leila up. There was no getting them back to sleep, so we got up and went to the town celebration where we heard singing and listened to a speaker. We sang the national anthem and then had a pancake breakfast. Considering Jacob had been up for two hours by that time, he was pretty hungry. But, I guess you can't really expect to sleep in when you're camping with little kids. It was a fun way to start the day.

After breakfast we went for a family bike ride/run. Jacob got out of the bike trailer to join me for about a block. He was pretty proud of himself for running faster than Mommy.

We went to the Dairy Keen in Heber for lunch. Jacob loved the trains. He was so wiped out, though, that he was practically falling asleep while eating his ice cream cone on the way back to the car. He slept all afternoon.

In the evening we had a big family get together in Midway. Bryon's brother, Adam (second from left) just got back from his mission to the Philippines, so it was fun to have him there.

Leila and Grandpa Clegg. She wouldn't keep her cute 4th of July bow on.

I'm being patriotic, even without the red, white, and blue.

Jacob and Leila in cute flag shirts, courtesy of Grandma Carol.

The Poulter grandkids. Leila wasn't digging this photo session.

Jacob and Ambree. They're just so happy.

Watching fireworks. Jacob was still a little intimidated by the real deal. (Last year he was terrified, so we're making progress.)

The next day, Sunday, we went up to Brigham for a family get-together with the Nyes. My sister, Doreen, made this awesome pinata. Note that Jacob is peeking. He didn't really get the whole pinata concept. Oh well, at least he got the candy.

Everything That Keeps Me From Blogging

So, I've been getting some grief from a few of you faithful readers about my recent neglect of the blog. (Thank you for noticing, by the way.) Every day I put it on my mental to-do list, but somehow it keeps not happening.
But, after coming to the realization that for many of you, true happiness simply cannot be achieved without an update on our various exploits (or, at least, not without pictures of Jacob and Leila) I resolved on Friday morning that nothing was going to get in the way of my writing that long overdue blog post. But guess what? Lots of things did. So, I decided to take you on a little photo journey of my day to document everything that kept me from blogging.

I started the day by running five miles. I'm training for the Park City Marathon on August 22. These are my reeeally old running shoes, by the way, which were happily replaced on Saturday.

After getting ready for the day, I put Jacob to work on a craft. Here he is, painting a wooden birdhouse he picked out at the craft store. He kept referring to it as the temple (if you can't tell, it has a steeple). Then, when he was finished with it, he went out on the deck, held it up in the air and yelled, "Here you go, birds!" Oddly, they were not quick in responding to the invitation.

While Jacob covered the birdhouse, table, and himself with paint, I did the morning chores, then got to work on my own craft. This lovely quilt has been dominating my living room for a week now, and I am desperate to finish it.

It's taking a little while because, as you can see (at the top of the brown block), the stitches are very small, and I have to do lots of them. I guess that's what quilting is. Anyway, I've been using every free minute I have to try to get this done. Unfortunately, Bryon just enlightened me to the fact that I can actually pick up the frame and put it against the wall when I'm not quilting, so it's not in the way. Without the motivation of reclaiming my living room, I'm not sure when I'll ever finish it.

So, I worked on the quilt all morning, thinking I could blog after lunch during "nap time" when there was peace and quiet. That is until...

I went to check on Jacob while he was supposedly napping, and discovered this.

This devastation is particularly impressive considering I made a pointed effort of removing everything from the room that he could get into, before I put him down for his nap. Obviously, my mind does not work like a two year old's. He found some lotion in a drawer and spread it all over his chair, his rug, and of course himself. Oh, and I didn't realize this until after I took the picture, but he also removed his pants and underwear.

So, instead of blogging, I spent the afternoon encouraging Jacob to "help" clean up the mess he made, and cleaning up my own messes in preparation for a babysitter coming that night.

Leila was the only thing in my day that wasn't an excuse to not blog. She just played happily on the floor with her toys. (By the way, every time Jacob got loose and made it to the living room, he tried to put that plastic bucket on Leila's head.) Anyway, all the tummy time she's been getting is paying off. This weekend she got up on her hands and knees, and she's already doing the commando crawl. Looks like baby proofing time again.

So, suddenly it was time to leave on our date, and the blog post had not happened. But, I hope you'll all be forgiving, especially since I'm staying up late tonight to finally get it done. And of course, since it's been so long since I've posted anything, I have a few parting pictures for you of the little ones.

Jacob and Leila had their frist bath together tonight. Leila loved it, and Jacob...

Well, Jacob tried to make her drink bath water. Lovely.

Here are Jacob and Leila in their Easter clothes. We'll get professional pictures done soon, but hopefully this will tide you over until then.

Now that I've used every excuse in the book, I'll try to be more proactive about keeping current on the blog. Feel free to point it out to me again, though, if I don't.

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

A perfect day yesterday for kite flying. We went to the field across the street on the SLCC campus and Jacob loved it. Not only did he love seeing his kite in the air, but he even laughed whenever it crashed into the ground. We had a lot of fun.

Jacob and Daddy reigning in the kite. Jacob got to the point that he could do it on his own.

It took awhile to get the kite ready for flying (we had some string issues) so Jacob played with the tails that were flapping around, and found that very entertaining.

Wrestling with the string. We ended up doing some cutting and tying. Yay for Bryon's knot-tying abilities. I knew being an Eagle scout was good for something.

Yeah, Jacob's not actually flying the kite here. But he's having fun holding the handle while Daddy tied knots.

Love this.

PS- We just got back last week from our trip to Phoenix. I'll post about it soon.

A Lovely Day

Valentine's Day 2009

We had a lovely Valentine's Day (ha ha, get it?) celebrating as a family. For starters, we decorated Valentine's cookies with Aunt Trenda and Aunt April, and cousins Cade and Ambree.
They all thought the cookie cutters were a lot of fun, even if we did end up redoing most of the ones they cut out.
Jacob was most excited about the various candies we had to put on the cookies. He kept asking, "More this one?" and pointing at the conversation hearts. Once I let him get down to play, he would occassionally sneak back and steal a candy heart or two.

Leila contributed to the cookies by chillin' here and letting me work. What a good baby!

Saturday morning we had heart-shaped pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream. By the way, heart-shaped pancakes are harder to make than you'd think.
Jacob eating his strawberries and blueberries. His pancakes were already gone by the time I got the camera out.

We got a bunch of snow that morning, so decided it was the perfect day to go sledding. Jacob got sprayed in the face with snow the first time down, and decided that wasn't any fun. So, we built a snowman and chased each other around in the snow.

He also let me pull him in the sled, but he kept hollering, "Walk SLOW, Mommy!!" What happened to my daring little boy? He did eventually warm up to the idea of sledding (on a very small hill) and enjoyed racing Daddy. Then, as a special Valentine's Day present for us, he fell asleep on the way home from sledding and didn't wake up all night! Sweet! So, Bryon and I were able to enjoy a quiet dinner for two.
Bryon made me some fabulous penne pesto, bruschetta, and bread sticks. My present to him was his favorite chocolate layer cake, which tasted way better than it looked, thus no picture. Bryon also got me an amathyst ring from this site: www.silverjewelryclub.com, which has some great jewelry.

It was a very fun Valentine's Day for all of us!

Leila all ready to go sledding. She slept in her carrier the entire time...but she sure looked cute doing it!

Jacob showing Daddy the snow. He loved having 'snowball fights' which consisted of him running up to you, and setting a pile of snow on you, then running away laughing.

Ambree, Trenda, and Jacob decorating cookies.

April helping Cade. He had very specific instructions for April, and his cookies were masterpieces.

The best picture to come out of cookie decorating. Ambree's enjoying her creation, which has about 8 cookie's worth of frosting on it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yeah, so, the Christmas card thing didn't so much happen this year, and what was going to be a New Year's card once we got family pictures, turned in to a Valentine's card. Hey, at least it wasn't Memorial Day! So, for all of you blog friends who don't get a real card in the mail, just know that we love you because you save us the price of a stamp!

Family Pictures Winter 2009

I've been meaning to post this for awhile now. We had family pictures done, and I'm really happy with the way they turned out, especially considering the subjects the photographer had to work with. Anyway, she was awesome, so if any of you are looking for someone to do family pictures, check out her blog at http://www.candidexpressiontm.blogspot.com/ Enjoy!