Farewell Summer

Last night we were out in the backyard enjoying one of the last warm summer evenings of the season. Ok, probably we will still have warm weather for another month, but I am already feeling the impending doom of a long, cold winter. Anyway, Weston wanted to play in the hose, but instead of me having to hold the sprayer while he ran through it, we hooked up the little sprinkler attachment. It turned into a cute little impromptu romp in the sprinkler.

Davin really enjoys water much more than Weston did at this age. It's fun. He is pretty brave. He got cold sooner than Weston did, but he had just as much fun.

Drying off and warming back up.

I am so enjoying our backyard. It's so nice to be able to use it. It's by no means beautiful or "done," but it's usable and we really like having that space.

We had a lovely weekend actually. Saturday morning Ian and I went to the temple and did initiatories. It was so nice. I hadn't been back to do them since I went to the temple the first time. I had forgotten so much of it. After we finished at the temple we went out to lunch at Kneaders. Mmm. We finished off our morning date with a quick stop at the Nissan dealership to get a price quote on fixing our temperature gauge.

That evening Ian went into work to put in some time on a rush project that he is doing. I curled up and watched the new Pride and Prejudice. I still prefer the A&E version, but this was shorter and I really enjoyed the more intimate ending. Although nothing really beats a wedding, right?

Sunday we all went to church. We had combined YM/YW and Davin was being a pill, so I took him out. We wandered for a few minutes then I decided to take him into nursery to play. I stayed there with him for about 20 minutes. He had a blast and screamed when I took him back to class. I don't think we will have a problem with his going to nursery in a couple weeks.

This random bath picture gets included in this post too just because it's so stinking cute. I think this was Wednesday night's bath. I just put new foam letters in the bath, and Weston spelled "toy" all by himself. He even underlined it with the "I" so that it would look like the logo of Toy Story. What a funny, smart kid. I am so excited for him to start preschool next week!
Thanks for all the book recommendations too from my last post. I have already put several on my hold list at the library. I look forward to some more good reads. In case you are wondering I am on goodreads.com, but I have a hard time keeping it updated. Finally, this weekend is the BYU football season opener. We are way excited. We will be watching the game at our house. If anyone wants to join us, let me know! Go Cougs!

The World Is New

Yesterday Weston chose Farm Country as our outing. We hadn't been since early summer, so I was excited. It was great. Not too crowded. All the garden plots were growing, so I got to point out strawberries and tomatoes in various stages of ripeness. But the biggest difference was that Davin was walking! It is seriously just a whole new world for him. He loved getting to run around and see all the exhibits inside. He had a very vocal pony ride, which I didn't get to video because I was holding him up. He had a blast petting the baby cow and playing in the jail and dance hall rooms. See Davin . . . life really is more fun when you can walk!

Davin gets very excited when he sees birds, so he enjoyed being able to see eye to eye with the ducklings. He probably scared them to death though with his banging on the window.
Cute baby cow. Cute boys.
I know this one is blurry, but he was just having SUCH a blast running in circles through the little jail. This is the only picture I got that you could see his ecstatic face (he just won't hold still).
Weston on his second pony ride. He wanted the biggest pony. :)
I have also been reading a ton this summer. It has been really fun. I was trying to remember what all I had read in the last 3 months-ish. Here's the list, as far as I can recall.

-The Book Thief (as you know, fabulous)
-The Penderwicks (wonderful, quick youth read)
-Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
-Tales of Beedle the Bard
-Goose Girl
-Enna Burning
-River Secrets (currently reading)
-The Wednesday Letters (just finished last night, it was very sweet)
-Recovering Charles (a book about a man's hunt for his estranged father in New Orleans in the days following Katrina)
-Lemon Tart (a cute little murder mystery)

At some point I would like to re-read the Twilight series before the new movie comes out. If you have any other good book recommendations please let me know. I have a couple more books on my list, but I'm really far back on the hold list at the library for them, so I need something to read in the interim.

Finally, still no word on when we will be getting the puppy. I am going to wait until after the weekend to call again since the current owners are moving this weekend and I'm sure will not have time to drive over and meet up with us. I'll keep y'all posted.

Update

Ok, so nothing really exciting has been happening. Just our normal errands, playing, cleaning, eating, kind of stuff. Oh, and obsessively checking the puppy listings on ksl.com. :) We decided to look for a dog that is needing a new home and not be so rigid about breed. I still think the toy Aussies are really really cute, but I also hear that they shed. They have longer fur. I think that would drive me nuts since I'm somewhat of a clean freak.

Anyway, I posted an wanted ad for a puppy on ksl. I got a few responses, but not any that we were really interested in. Then yesterday I saw this really cute puppy, but I assumed it would grow to be too big. I emailed the owners and it turns out that she is already a year old, so she should be full grown!


Isn't it the cutest little dog? She is a springer spaniel mixed with something. They actually don't know what else she is. I don't think she looks much like a springer spaniel either, so who knows. I think she is seriously adorable though. The current owners have only had her for 3 months and are moving this weekend and can't have her in their new place. I am excited to give her a good home. I'm not sure when we will actually be able to meet up with the owners to get her since they are moving this weekend. I hope soon. The only bummer about this puppy is that she is not completely house trained yet. So I will still have to work with her on that. Weston is excited and wants to name her Sam. I will post pics as soon as we have her.

Trees and Temples

This weekend we ended up doing an impromptu yard project. On Friday night while we were getting dinner ready (so almost 7pm) a friend of our across-the-street neighbor's knocked on the door and offered to trim our trees for really cheap since he was in need of some cash. After deciding that this was the best deal on tree trimming we had ever heard, we took him up on it. He even lowered the price a bit since Ian volunteered to help out. They didn't get started until 8pm Friday night. The guy said he would come back at 9 the next morning.

Yeah, so he didn't actually show up until about noon. Ian had called twice. Ugh. When he got there his chain saw wasn't working, so he messed with it for about an hour before deciding he needed to take it to a mechanic. We went to the pool while he took the saw to the mechanic. He didn't end up coming back to finish up until 6pm on Saturday. The saw was fixed though, so he and Ian worked until almost 10pm and finished up. It was a somewhat sketchy and frustrating business venture, but we still think getting those trees all trimmed up was worth the $300 and the full weekend we paid.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Unfortunately the $300 that we paid to get the trees trimmed was my puppy money, so now we will have to wait at least until the next paycheck to get a doggy. I am really trying to be patient, but I'm a little obsessed. I can't stop checking all the dog websites for new listings. I am still pretty set on a toy or mini Aussie though, so I hope there are some still available by next week! :)

Today we didn't have church at all because of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple dedication. We decided to go to the early 9am broadcast so that we would be done and have the rest of the day to relax, but alas, our babysitters kind of forgot, so as soon as they got here we rushed out. As we pulled into the parking lot we saw another couple in our ward jumping out of their car, but by the time we parked and tried a different door it was locked. The entire building was locked at 8:32am. It was pretty frustrating. I mean shouldn't they at least wait to lock the doors until 8:35 simply to allow for differences on watches? Lame. We decided we would just wait and go to the 3pm broadcast.

I am glad we went back. It was a very nice dedication. I hadn't been to a temple dedication since I was a teenager, and I found the whole thing more profound and inspiring than I did back then. I truly felt the spirit and left with a renewed commitment to attend the temple regularly and to make my home a more holy place.

One particular part of President Monson's talk struck me pretty hard. I apologize for my poor summary, but I don't have the actual text. He quoted the scripture about the foxes have holes and the fowls have their nests, but the savior of the world has nowhere to lay his head. Then he said (something along these lines) "in our homes where we have rooms for eating, and rooms for sleeping, and rooms for television, let us make sure we have room for Christ. And in our lives where we have time for golf, and time for movies, let us make sure we have time for Christ." What an applicable analogy. It's like my mom is always saying, if we have time to read People magazine or Real Simple, then we should surely have time to read the Ensign. I think I can make a lot of improvement in making more time for Christ and the gospel in my life and in my home.

Needless to say it was a nice Sunday. Tonight we had family game night. Ian and I whooped Weston at Zingo. In our defense he was being really silly and not paying much attention. :) Also, when we went to the distribution center to get white handkerchiefs for the dedication, the kids each got a picture (Weston's is President Monson and Davin's is Jesus). Weston decided to put Davin's on his door, then felt left out so put his on his own door. Ian commented that it appeared that we had some pretty important guests staying at our house tonight. I think it's cute and kind of funny. My favorite is that they are both the same crooked and the same Weston height.
I am looking forward to a fun playdate this week and maybe a temple trip too, depending on whether or not work calms down a bit for Ian. I'll keep you all posted on the puppy front.

Cookin' Up Some Fun

Yesterday was a busy, fun day. I started off the day with discovering Davin's new ability.
He can pick up Weston's stool in the bathroom and move it over to the sink, then climb up. He still can't really reach anything, but it does give me one more reason to lock him out of the bathroom. Cute though, right?

We ended up going on a marathon outing yesterday too. I decided to give the Noah's Ark fountain at the Thanksgiving Point Children's Garden one last chance. Success! It was working! The boys really enjoyed it. Davin more so than Weston. You can't see much of the fountain part in the pics, but there were streams of water squirting out of the sides of the boat in the middle and from the elephants on the sculpture. This spot was on the outskirts of the fountain. The water was cold, but felt really good in the heat of the day.
When we were ready for a break from the fountain we went and visited the bear cave and went to the Discovery Station to see what the craft was. Weston made these adorable bug wings! He was so excited about them. He is still wearing them today actually.
(The stick was his wand. Apparently bugs and butterflies have wands.)
After we left we decided to use our Chipotle coupons we got from finishing the library's summer reading program. I hadn't been to Chipotle since we lived in NYC way back when. My carnitas taco was delish. I will have to go back again soon. Right next door to Chipotle is a little bakery called Nothing Bundt Cakes, so we stopped in and got a mini red velvet cake to take to Ian's work and share with him. We went and visited and enjoyed seeing Daddy for a few minutes. We didn't get home until around 2pm. Davin crashed, but Weston decided he didn't need a nap.

As some of you know, Ian has been working crazy hours for weeks, or maybe months, now. He hasn't been home for dinner much this week. I feel very little motivation to cook when Ian isn't home for dinner. I also realized that I had never made pizzas with Weston, so last night we made english muffin pizzas. They were a big hit. Weston loved putting his together himself, eating the cold pepperoni, then watching them bake, AND he actually ate his whole pizza and a couple bites of Davin's! It's a miracle.
***I just used Prego as the sauce. It's OK, but does anyone have any other suggestions for good pizza sauce? Preferably something I can buy at the store?

He liked them so much that he asked to make them again for lunch today. Since we still had all the stuff for them I said yes.

So, yes things have been fairly busy and fun for us. Ian is supposed to be home on time tonight and we are looking forward to the weekend. We don't have church on Sunday because of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple dedication. We will go to the morning broadcast of the dedication and then hopefully have a quiet, calm Sunday.

My other thing right now is that I am slightly obsessed with finding us a family dog. I think Ian has always been ready for a pet, but I've been hesitant. Now that we have decided a smaller dog will work for us, I decided that now is a pretty good time to get a dog. I don't have to worry about potty training Davin for at least another year. We won't have a new baby for at least that long either, and Davin is hardly a baby anymore. I started researching breeds of dogs that are good with children, smart, easily trained, etc. I'm pretty much hooked on getting an Australian Shepherd. They also have mini and toy Aussies. I already talked to the lady who has these toy Aussie puppies and I really want to go check them out. I'm fairly positive though that if we go look, we will come home with one. Seriously, would you be able to resist? I think not.

Picture Perfect

My life is perfect. I'm sure that most of you can barely stand to read my blog because it makes you so jealous of my perfect life.

I have the perfect Mom. She is generous and fun. She spent lots of time with me and my boys this summer. She is learning to quilt and is really good at it. She has made both my boys the cutest quilts.
I have a perfect sleeper. That's right, he will fall asleep almost anywhere and take nice, long naps (when he naps). He also sleeps most nights for 11 hours.
I am an amazing cook. My beets came out perfectly. Well, mostly my mom cooked the beets, but still they were cooked in my kitchen where everything turns out perfectly.
My kids have perfect imaginations and entertain themselves for hours at a time throughout the day. I rarely have to help them find something to do or play endless games of hide and seek with them.
I am perfect at balancing time at home with time out on fun and educational outings. Since it is summer we explored the ability of a one year old to fill his clothes and diaper with wood chips, and the effects of gravity on water.
Did I mention that my kids are perfectly cute? Or that I am dressed, showered, and ready to head out the door by 10am every morning? I am. Also, I have the perfect marriage. Bet you all can't claim that, huh? My husband is handsome, successful, affectionate, and funny. There's nothing he could do any better. My house is always perfectly clean and tidy. I am always pleasant and patient with my children. I never yell.

Why wouldn't you be envious of all that? I am envious just reading about my perfect life. I forgot to mention one more thing. My child is going to grow up to be a tattoo artist. Perfect.
***Please don't be offended by this post. I have employed quite a lot of sarcasm.

Reviews

MOVIE
Last night Ian took me on a date. It was lots of fun. We had dinner at Cafe Rio, where there was a nice long line, so we got to talk a lot. Then we went and saw Julie & Julia. I loved this movie. It was so down to earth. I identified with it. I love Amy Adams and thought she did a fabulous job. The way Julia Child was portrayed was very sweet. She and her husband appeared to have a very supportive and loving relationship. I need to go look up some actual footage of the real Julia Child just to compare Meryl Streep's performance, but whether it's spot on or not, I fell in love with her. I left the movie realizing that I have never eaten, much less cooked, French food. I should. I also felt inspired, like I could actually do something hard, like cook an entire cookbook in a year. Not that I intend to set that particular goal because of this movie, but it was inspiring nonetheless. Go see it. Now.

BOOK
Like I mentioned in a previous post, I read The Book Thief. It was really amazing. From the very beginning I was sucked into this book with the rich imagery. It really paints pictures for you. Not all of them pleasant. This book follows the story of a pre-teen girl in Nazi Germany. The book is narrated by Death. I found this to be a really fascinating take on World War II. I was riveted by the story and also the way it was told. I generally really enjoy WWII stories anyway, but seriously this book was well written. It used lots of color images and unconventional metaphors. Very interesting and engrossing read. I certainly recommend it.

Before I Was a Mom . . .

-I was organized.
-I could shop and actually try stuff on whenever I wanted to.
-I got dressed every day.
-I had a busy social calendar (heck, I HAD a social calendar).
-my hubby and I went out to dinner when I didn't feel like cooking.
-I slept 9-10 un-interrupted hours every night.
-I got annoyed when there was a screaming child in the waiting area at Applebee's. (Ok, I still get annoyed about that, even when it's my own kid)
-I thought snot, vomit, and poop were personal and disgusting.
-I didn't appreciate my body.
-I took Friday nights for granted.
Now that I am a Mom I try not to take the little freedoms for granted. I also try not to let the sweet moments pass me by. I read stories, give snuggles and kisses, clean, cook, do laundry, tidy (oh the endless tidying!), play blocks and rolly ball, teach, and love. My life is so much different than it was before I was a Mom, but so am I.

This post is part of the August Group Writing Project on mamablogga.com. Go HERE to participate.

Playing and Walking

Last night for FHE we all went to the park together. We have been having such nice, mild weather, so it was a perfect evening. Weston practiced riding his bike all the way to the park. He is getting better. He insisted on wearing his helmet, even when we got to the park and he was just playing. Davin practiced walking. He is doing it pretty much all the time now and getting better every second. On Sunday afternoon he literally was doing laps around the kitchen table. It's so fun having 2 walkers.

SO excited to be riding his bike to the park!
Weston has been too scared to do this ladder all by himself forever. Last night he did it while no one was watching then was so proud of himself. He climbed it several more times.

We went to the aquarium this morning and then met up with Ian for lunch. I managed to keep both kids awake on the drive home by singing songs the whole way. It was worth it though because they both napped for 2+ hours. Now I have a nice clean house today. Go me for not wasting all that beautiful quiet time. I am feeling all good about myself. Not only did I get my house clean, but I went to the gym this morning, I have a roast and veggies simmering away in the crock pot for dinner, and I am halfway through an intellectually stimulating book (The Book Thief by Markus Zusak). I'm sure all kinds of chaos will break loose as soon as Davin finally wakes from his looong nap. Oh well. It's nice while it lasts.

I am thoroughly enjoying getting back into my routine. The only bummer is that Ian is SO swamped at work. It's hard to enjoy the nice summer evenings when Ian is working practically every one of them. I really hope that things settle down for him soon. I mean, having lots to do is great! It means job security, but I think they are getting to the point of needing to hire back a person or two that they laid off a few months ago. This is the first time that I feel like the grind is really getting to him. He has always enjoyed his job. I'm not sure he's a big fan right about now.

High School High

This last weekend we traveled to Oregon for Ian's 10 year high school reunion from Sam Barlow High School, Class of 1999. It was a very quick trip for us. We didn't bring the kidlets though, so it was probably good that it was quick. Poor Davin is getting used to abandonment by now. Weston understood that he was having 2 sleepovers and then I would come get him. The boys were very good for Natalie and Nicole, and I am grateful for that.

So, back to our trip. We were really bad about taking pictures on this one, so not much documentation. We flew out Thursday evening. After grabbing a quick dinner we headed to downtown Portland to visit with Adam, one of Ian's good friends from HS who wasn't going to the reunion. We had a nice time catching up with him. He took us to a little coffeehouse called the Pied Cow for some dessert. It was delicious. The weather was perfect too. Nice and cool. It felt great after the 96 degree weather we had left. We ended up getting home pretty late.

We sort of slept in the next morning and took things really slow. My FIL had recorded the finale of SYTYCD for me, so I watched that. I was happy with the winner. Good stuff. I'm glad that it's not really over since the next season is this Fall instead of next summer. Once we finally got going we went with Denny to the furniture store to see the new stuff they had ordered. It's always fun to browse furniture. After that we went and all got pedicures. It was nice. I haven't gotten one since the last time Denny was here at my house. I got purple toes to match my dress I wore to the reunion that night.

Ian and I ate Subway then headed off to see a movie. We saw 500 Days of Summer. We really enjoyed it. It's always nice to do something fun like that when we don't have the kids and don't have to get a babysitter. By the time our little date was over it was time to go home and get ready for the big reunion!

The reunion was held at the Persimmon Country Club. It was a pretty standard Conference/Event room though. We got there and started visiting. That's really all we did. After the dinner, the committee did a little general questioning to see what everyone was up to. You know, who was married, for how long, how many kids they had, who worked in what fields, etc. There was supposed to be dancing, so the music was really loud after dinner. Only about 5 people were dancing though, so it was mostly just really annoying. The loud music was our main complaint though. Ian had fun catching up with people and I knew a couple people, so I wasn't completely bored. Here's Ian with his friend, Becky. I spent a good part of the evening visiting with her too.
***Addendum: I grabbed a few more reunion photos from Facebook.
We didn't stay too late. Ian finished visiting with everyone he wanted to talk to and then we left around 11pm. I would say we had a good time, but not an $80 a person good time. Oh well. The next morning all of Ian's siblings and their spouses came over for breakfast. It was really fun to get to spend some time with them without the kids running around. We ate and talked and played bananagrams. We also got to hold baby Ivy.


Later that afternoon we met up with Becky again for lunch. After that it was time to pack up and head for the airport. We had an uneventful flight and got to Nicole's house at about 8:45pm. Both the boys were asleep, so we visited for a little bit then got them all bundled into the car and came home. We were all pretty tired yesterday, but Davin only napped for 45 minutes. What a punk. It is nice to be home for good and know I have weeks and weeks before I have to get out any sort of luggage again. Today has been catch up day. We had no food in the house. We had no library books. I have YW at my house tomorrow, so we are plenty busy. Weston and I just finished watching Charlotte's Web together while Davin took a real nap. Time to get a little prep work done for YW tomorrow. Watch me go!

Photo Corner

I am finally posting the fun pictures from Aly and Ryan's reception in Oregon last month! The reception was gorgeous and they had this really fun photo corner set up for all the guests to have their pictures taken. We were there early, of course, so we hammed it up. This was pre Davin's meltdown too, so we even got a cute one of the whole family!
You have no idea how much Weston loved this. We had to pry him away so that other people could get their pictures taken.
With Aunt Mo. Her hubby, Carr, was taking all the pictures.
Weston made friends with this cute little girl, Lucille, at the reception. They ran around holding hands while dancing and getting their picture taken. It was very cute.
We also managed to get one of our whole family with the newly married couple. Never mind that Davin was a hopelessly screaming mess by then.
We are actually headed back to Oregon this week for Ian's 10 year high school reunion. He's so old! :) We are leaving the kids with our very helpful friends. I am feeling a little anxious about the whole thing. I am ready to just be home. This summer has been nuts. I am going to do my best to enjoy it though. I'm sure mid-way through September I will be all bored with my routine and wishing I could get away.