Birthday Weekend

We started off our birthday weekend (well, on Thursday) with an afternoon at Liberty Park with Amber and Jaxon. It was a beautiful afternoon and the kids just about had the water play area to themselves! I'm so glad we got to go there again this summer, it's such a fun place.

Violet spent a lot of time at the end of the afternoon just kicking her legs in the pool. Cute!

Happy kiddos!

Friday, on my birthday, the girls spent some time with Kissie while I spent a few hours at the outlet mall. It was nice to have some time to relax and shop a bit. Cora has been so worried lately about baby brother not having any shoes! So I got a couple of pairs of baby shoes and a few winter baby outfits-- it's hard to believe we'll need to acquire a whole new baby wardrobe for this little guy. I went through the girls' clothes and found only a few gender neutral pj's.... It was nice, though, to get a couple of bags for the DI out of it, who knows if we'll ever have another girl and use those clothes again?

Cora was delighted to see baby brother's shoes and clothes and we haven't heard about that worry since. She really is so cute about the new baby coming. She gives him a hug after she gives me my goodnight hug, she tells me how big he is, if he liked the cake and icecream for dessert, and how he might cry when he comes out. She's also been really interested in hearing her and Violet's birth stories too.

Kevin had an off-site work service activity Friday, so he joined up with us in Salt Lake, along with Shad and Jen who happened to be in town, and Mom and Dad for an impromptu birthday dinner at Tucanos. Yum. I haven't been there before, and it was delicious! I can't wait to go back.... sometime when I'm really really really hungry! And, the girls liked riding the train there. Cora wasn't in the best mood, but cheered up once we figured out she liked the honey chicken wings, and she had a bunch of them. Violet must have eaten her weight in rice and beans, and finished off Kevin's birthday icecream dessert. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Saturday was Kevin's birthday, and we spent the day boating at Jordanelle. We woke up early and stayed there until dinnertime-- it was quite the long fun-filled day! I think the girls could have even stayed until dusk, they were having so much fun. Cora loved playing with cousin Brinley and enjoyed all the attention from the other teenage cousins around too. Cora and Brinley had fun floating on the tubes and the blow-ups just right off the shore, and Brinley was a superstar riding on the tube behind the boat... which totally scared Cora.

Violet heartily protested the life-jacket, but seemed to like the boat, at least it gave her a much-needed nap. Cora just loved riding in the boat, and was especially thrilled when Pata let her drive it for a little while. Violet's favorite part was the rocky shore-- she kept busy for hours putting rocks in and out of a bucket and throwing rocks in the water.

I had a great time watching the skiing and tubing (the doctor advised against me going out myself). Kevin got bounced around on the tube, and we both had fun playing with the girls in the water, hanging out with family, and enjoying a day in the sun. Unfortunately, although I got sunscreen on the kids, I totally forgot to get some on myself and got really red. I'm so glad we got to go out on Kissie and Pata's boat at least once this summer! We'll have to hope it works out to go more next summer.

I brought some yummy Lofthouse cookies to the beach-- the only color frosting they had at the store was blue! Good thing we weren't at home, all the blue cookie crumbs fell on the rocks and no one really cared that Brinley and Cora had blue mouths... and that the rest of us had blue teeth. Being at the beach was also a good opportunity to eat cheese puffs-- another thing we found out recently that the girls love, but are way too messy for the house. Needless to say, the girls were in heaven with all the unmonitored doses of fun food they had all day!
It was a fun birthday weekend. Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate! We appreciate all the calls, cards, and other remembrances. Birthdays really don't seem to matter much now that we're getting old (uggh) but it was great to have a couple of really fun days!

Birthday Freebies

This week has been the week of icecream for us! Thanks to birthday clubs, I got several freebies by email. It's so easy to sign up, and totally worth it. Bonus-- Kevin and I's birthdays are so close together, we can go out to icecream totally free for the both of us, and the girls don't even need their own yet, just share with us.

I've signed up for some int he past that aren't really free-- more of buy this, get a free something for your birthday. My favorites that have no obligation to them are:

Rubios-- free meal!
Baskin Robbins-- free small cone!
Coldstone-- free 'like it' icecream with one mix-in!
Ben and Jerry's-- free small cone!

Anyone else know of other great places to sign up for birthday coupons?

Dinosaurs and such

The girls love playing on the stairs. Here they are 'taking a nap'... Violet even has the pretend snoring down.
We've been trying to squeeze last summer warm-weather activities in before it's too late. We love going to this little reservoir by our house-- about a 5 minute drive away! It has a beach area, and when the water is low, it has a separate wading area walled off from the deep area. It's great!
We also took a trip to the Gateway fountains for shopping, corn dogs, icecream, and fun with Kissie (while Kevin did his live draft fantasy football). Violet didn't like the idea of water spraying in her face, but Cora got braver and braver about getting wet and really liked the mists of water.
The girls and I ventured out to Thanksgiving Point's Two Dollar Tuesdays (just for August) yesterday. I was so happy we got there 20 minutes early, we got a great spot in line while we waited for it to open. We also watched the line wind around the building! It was a little crazy. We rushed through the first part that is mostly for older kids, and actually had a nice visit that wasn't too crowded. The line was still wound around the building when we got out! We really had perfect timing.
Waiting to go in. The girls thought the dinosaur murals on the outside of the building were pretty cool.
Cora loved this excavating activity. I thought she'd like the wet sand activity too that we did before this one, but both she and Violet were upset at getting their hands dirty.
Whose foot is bigger?
It was hard to get pictures of both girls looking at me... and not at the dinosaurs or all the hubbub going on. This is Violet throwing a tantrum while Cora is looking at some other kids. Oh well!
Afterward, I asked Cora what her favorite part was. She did mention the dinosaurs and the sand digging, but she also said her very favorite were the 'puters'! They had a lot of computer stations around with dinosaur activities on them. Go figure!

It's a Boy!

We had the ultrasound yesterday afternoon and found out we're having a boy! For sure, no doubt about it. We're all excited, and Cora is talking all about being so gentle with her baby brother.

The ultrasound tech must have been really excited for us too, because 3 out of the 4 pictures she sent home with us were 'it's a boy' shots, and I don't think the profile shot we got is very clear at all, so not really worth posting. We'll figure out a way to convert our video of the little guy to digital and post it later. We watched it last night at home with the girls and Cora said it was beautiful!

Picture Overload

Well, if you are family member, you already know all about our camping trip last weekend from my mom's and sister-in-law's blogs, but here we go with the documentation for our little family. There were so many great pictures taken, I got a little overwhelmed and took a while to post.

We left Wednesday night after work and stopped for dinner in Kamas... where it began to DOWNPOUR. It was pretty incredible the amount of rain that came down. The guys ran out to put the tarp over all the camp equipment in the back of the truck and came in soaked. Luckily only a few things got wet, all of which dried out pretty quickly. We snagged a campsite at Butterfly Lake along the Mirror Lake Highway, and had some dry weather to set up camp in.

Of course, it also rained Thursday morning. It was one of those record low temperature weekends even in Salt Lake, so being up so high we were cold! We took a trip to Evanston to keep warm and get a couple of things we forgot-- like sneakers and a poncho for Cora, and did lunch and a hike on the way back.... it only rained on us when we got to our destination (Ruth Lake?), so we huddled under some trees and got a chance to really check out the lake. We also did the Mirror Lake trail in the afternoon.

Friday morning we did a trail-less hike of exploration, and Cora did a great job boulder-hopping with Kissie! And we hiked to two of the three Fehr lakes in the afternoon. Saturday we packed up and visited the Provo Falls on the way back.

Despite some weather issues, Violet-not-sleeping issues, and it taking me 2 days to recover afterward, it was a great trip! We had yummy food, Cora hiked for at least half of all our hikes and Violet walked in parts, we saw some beautiful scenery, and we did way more hiking than I thought we'd be able to do with two kids (thanks to a lot of helpful family members). Cora and Violet loved throwing rocks in all the lakes we visited, stashing rocks in their pockets, exploring around our campsite, and playing with Oreo and Butterscotch. It was a hoot to hear Violet's excited squeals when she spotted the waterfalls and each lake while we were hiking and neat to have Cora spot her first deer (and tell Kevin to look at the goats!). The Mirror Lake area is pretty busy, but it sure is handy for family camping! It was really good we got to go this year, I don't think we'll be camping next year with a baby who is crawling and can't walk.

Hiking--Cora was a trooper and loved walking with Kissie, Pata, Shad and Jen. We saw a marmot on our exploration hike. Violet took a couple of naps in the backpack, that backpack was so handy! When Cora needed to ride in the backpack, Violet was in the Snugli on my back, and she really didn't like that much--she's getting too big for that! When we got back, we snagged another backpack on REI super-clearance, so we'll have that for future hiking trips.
Around the fire--We had some pretty cold nights! Lucky for us, Shad took on the role as fire-maker and kept us pretty cozy. We made smores and eclairs- delicious!

On one of our second hikes of a busy day, Cora got too tired to walk, and Violet was asleep in the backpack already. Shad kindly carried Cora on his shoulders and she fell asleep. Kissie sat with her while Cora slept in a meadow full of flowers and the rest of us went onto the second lake.
We sure saw some pretty lakes! Shad rode his unicycle around Mirror Lake, and Butterscotch loved swimming in the lakes too.
We also saw a lot of gorgeous flowers. It was nice they were still all blooming, even so late in the summer. Must be that rainy June we had.
In the rain--under the 'shade tent' Kissie and Pata brought, and on our hike.

One great thing about taking trips with family members-- lots of family pictures! Thanks to Jen and Kissie for being super-photographers. I didn't realize until we got there that my camera battery was dead. Oh well, my hands were busy with little girls most of the time anyway!
We missed you Keyton, Liz, Emeline and Jarom! We can't wait to see you next summer!

This week

Violet's first finger-painting.... I think next time we should paint with yogurt....
Look at that face when she discovered it doesn't taste good!
Watching the excavator in the lot behind ours... the girls (and their dollies) thought this was fascinating.
Cora started swim lessons and loves it... Poor Violet asks to wear her swimsuit too when we get Cora ready to go. I found a different facility that has Mom and Tot classes the same time as regular classes, we'll have to try that next time. Here is Cora, her classmates, and her teacher. Cora has been talking all week about her teacher's 'hat' and how a boy in her class has something he puts on his eyes to go underwater (goggles). It's cute to watch her learn new things.
We spent an afternoon at Liberty Park.... the girls really love this water play area, and it's nice and shady too. (Just beware, they clean it on Tuesdays and don't open it up until 3:00... or 4:00... or 5:00... nothing you can plan on). We'll definitely be back here a few more times this summer, just not on a Tuesday!
Cora especially loved looking at her friends Nolan's baby brother, Ezra, who is 6 weeks old. She sure is ready for a new baby in the family! She was pretty much always close by to see what the baby was doing. Cora is really interested in babies right now, even more so than in the past. She has a few babies every day, listens to my tummy to try to hear our baby, and has lots of questions about how exactly the doctor is going to get the baby out. Hmm. She points out the babies we see at the store or park and is so excited to see her new sister (her guess) when it snows.
We took a 'field trip' up to Silver Lake by Brighton... it's a great place because it's totally up in the mountains, but the trail is doable for strollers. It's much cooler up there (the girls wanted jackets!) so a good way to beat the heat. We didn't see a moose like Cora hoped (though I've seen them the other times I've been there before though) but we did see lots of birds, plus a family of ducks, and loads of chipmunks. Cora also liked watching the fishermen.
Saturday was a fun day, but pictureless. We stopped by Cabella's for the first time and the girls liked seeing the aquarium and animals. We ate at a yummy burger joint where Violet continued her love affair with fry sauce. She kept dipping the fries in, licking off the sauce, and returning the fry to the bag so she could get a fresh one. That, and dripping fry sauce down her shirt and wiping it on me. Next time Kevin gets to be her seatmate!

Saturday afternoon we met up with friends from Stansbury to attend the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House. Cora was so excited to go and talked about it all week. Saturday morning when she woke up, I told her today was the day to go. She replied "We're going to the temple today? I'm going to get married?". We regularly drive by 4 different temples that are in our area, and she is so good at spotting them and telling us how she'll get married there someday... just not anytime soon!

Unfortuantely, we picked a busy time to go the open house and ended up waiting in the hot sun for a half hour to get in. And once we got in there were loads of people in there. The girls were pretty much spent after waiting in the sun, and it wasn't quite the experience I had hoped, with Violet being cranky and Cora really needing a drink the whole walk through. Cora did enjoy the baptistry and sealing room, but most of all the bottled water at the end. Oh well.... maybe next time! Our family was a little worn out with the kid-wrestling and all, that by the end we just tried to get to the car and missed out on pictures. We'll have to go back some Sunday afternoon to better appreciate this beautiful temple. We are so excited to have one so close to our house-- just 7 fast miles.

After we hydrated, we had a terrific time hanging out with families from our old ward at our house. We sure miss living by our good friends!