Moab birthday weekend

I'm pretty sure Moab is Jeremy's most favorite place on the planet! 

I've mentioned before one of the main draws to moving to SLC was to be within 4 1/2 hours from Moab. So I booked a motel/hotel whatever you wanna call it for his bday and we loaded up the car (as lightly as possible, to fit what we could) and took off early Saturday morning. Pearce was sooooo excited about the pool. That's pretty much all she thought we were gonna do there this weekend. So that was the first thing we did when we got to hotel, and she was not happy when it was time to get out of pool a couple hours later when we were ready to go hit up one trail before dinner. 

It was a really great trip. I still remember when Jeremy and I went to Moab when I was pregnant with Pearce, and we saw this family with 2 kids in carseats in back of a jeep, and we both said, that'll be so cool one day to do that with 2 kiddos in the back. And here we are! Pretty great to have a little family getaway. 

She loved every second of the pool, and she has gotten so much more brave than last year. It'll be fun to go to Seven Peaks this summer with her.

I can't even put into words how much I love this little baby boy. 

We did one trail this day - Hell's Revenge. Gorgeous views, not tooooo many crazy scary parts, and it's one of my favorites. Stopping at the beginning of trail to let out air in tires. Takes a while, so I figured might as well let the caged animal out to play a bit. Collected rocks, danced and climbed on neighboring trailers, and played in red sand.

I love this pic of Henry and Jeremy. :)

Okay, hitting the trail, and it started off so scary. Like mini-lion's back or something. very extremely narrow and really really steep incline. And a truck was coming at us head on, like ther is no way at all one car can fit on this path, and Jeremy started driving off to the side to let other car go by. I was freaking out, then Pearce got scared (but stayed calm) and said while looking out her window, "daddy, i think we're gonna fall off." Well, somethings never change, and I'm still a big ole scaredy-cat. However, the next scary part that I was freaking out about, Pearce says "mom, it's okay." Hmmm. I'm glad she doesn't take after me in that regard.

Sweet little Henry was fast asleep. But it was funny we could see his hand was clenching onto the side of his carseat has he was bouncing around. He slept most of trails (and most of travel to/from SLC). Except when he'd wake up, he was not happy. At some points, we were like, "uh, why'd we bring a 4 month old baby to moab?!?!" whoops! sorry henry. you'll love it some day. I should also mention that he has been a horrible napper and night sleeper since this (only cat nap in day and wake up multiple times at night.) The darn jeep totally messed him up! His bed is way too calm now. Now I'm tempted to start driving him around in jeep to get him to sleep now. 

 My sweet little angel turned 4 months old this day. 

Near Mickey's Hottub. Both kids sleeping, so we got out a snapped a pic just the two of us. <3 p="">

Potty and snack break. 

Here is an excellent example of of telling Pearce something, and her doing the absolute opposite. "Don't throw the sand, it will get in your eyes." And what does she do? Yup, of course.

My little lone explorer.

Kinda stormy on one side of valley, and blue skies on the other.

She got daddy to go explore with her.

Day 2. Tired? Yes. All of us. Except probably Henry. Pea woke up crying multiple times and when I tried to console she'd kick me, so I'd go back to bed. 

Do you see this sassy attitude?!?! I have the sound bite in my head that goes with this look. 

Alright, just a few more minutes then turn around cuz Henry is going bazonko! 

BEAUTIFUL. Both kids fell asleep on the way out of that canyon/area... so we drove into town and got some burgers at Milt's, then went to a very cute park around the corner from there that had lots and lots of outdoor musical instraments. And it was breezy and shady and wonderfully peaceful. But this is the only picture I got.

Until next time...

happy birthday daddy!

Jeremy, in honor of your birthday yesterday, here is a little video of pearce pretending to call you on her pink phone today. :-) this reminds me, i'm about 2 months behind on making a 3 yr interview video for her.

Pearce's Tea Party

I still think it's hard to believe that Pearce is potty trained!! It's really incredible. So I was very happy to throw her a little tea party with her friends as her reward. She talked about the tea party non-stop the entire time we were training, so I knew it wasn't something to just skip over. It was a good exercise for me to practice not stressing. Super casual, laid back, make a few sandwiches and spend some time making petit fours - which is something i've wanted to make for at least 10 years. These were some of my absolute favorite treats growing up. Anyone else from New Orleans remember McKenzie's Bakery petit fours?? 

I picked up some mix match tea cups and plates at thrift stores, because I couldn't find a matching set of 6. Now Pearce can use these in her play kitchen.

I'll say it again, I have the best siblings! They are so sweet and supportive of me and my kiddos. They were so proud of Pearce's accomplishment and wanted to celebrate too! Freddie and Laura took the afternoon of work off and came up to help. Laura made a cute sign to put on front door and raspberry lemonade. And Freddie swept my kitchen floors (love you!!! hahaha) and they both took turns holding buddy-boy.

Costco came to the rescue... I found this dill and cucumber greek yogurt dip that was awesome, so I spread that on the bread with English cucumber slices, and bam! sandwiches done!

I'm not surprised they tried to give Henry his 1st lemon.

These petit fours took quite a bit of time to make (mostly the icing part.) But I'd make them again in a heartbeat!!! (if only it didn't require $10 worth of almond paste!! hahaha) They were the bomb.com and my favorite part of the party! I used this recipe and did layers of blended fresh raspberries with some powdered sugar -- not jam like the recipe called for. 

My poor flower garlands! They dried in the HOT sun the day before. I just clipped some branches from the backyard. Turns out we have some pretty snowball bushes, and a lilac bush, too. Now if only our new stuff in the front will grow super fast.

Pearce had more fun filling up her cup and dumping it out --- and starting all over --- then she did drinking the lemonade. 

Pearce is lucky to have a handful of little girls her age in our ward. And she also wanted to invite Braylon, too!! Pretty cute.

The girls barely sat at the table. They were running around, "playing croquet", riding bikes, and we found a tiny little spot of shade under bushes where the moms sat and chatted.

And daddy was able to make it to the end of her party, too.

and here's some video clips of the afternoon...

now if we just had some decent shade in our backyard, i'd wanna do this more often!

mother's day 2013

ya know...what a great day! i don't want to be shy from expressing here that truly it was a wonderful day. sometimes i'm uncomfortable sharing the really really great moments as much as the really really not-so-great moments on the blog. the past month has been a huge mothering challenge. first jeremy was out of town for 2 weeks for work, then both kids got sick, and soon after that jeremy got even sicker! which all lasted another 2 weeks too long. exhausted, drained, frustrated, etc etc etc... i was really at my wit's end. SOOOOO that's what made this mother's day EVEN sweeter, was that Jeremy finally was feeling better, the kids finally didn't have stuffed up noses, and everyone got at least 8 hours of straight sleep the night before. pretty much all of the stars aligned. i couldn't have painted a prettier picture myself!!

So we all woke up bright and early around 6:30 to 2 smiling HAPPY kids!!! woah!!! doesn't get much better than that!

We even went to the park at like 8:30 in the morning to continue this love fest. henry napped a bit, i laid on the blanket next to him, and jeremy played with pearce (and his new gopro bday present) on the swing and by the creek. it was really just such a quiet, peaceful, loving morning. really, one of those moments where you feel so blessed to have this family that you love so much, and happy to see your daughter skipping and smiling and giggling and running and jumping and saying cute little things.

oh yah, and jeremy made my fave breakfast! Breakfast burritos just like Roosters in Costa Mesa, CA. My all-time-fave. yummy yum yum. and for dinner he made Pioneer Woman's crispy chicken strips and tried to copy Red Butte Cafe's house pasta salad.

And the traditional photos before church :) 

and one with the self timer after church when it feels like the longest day ever!! hahaha pearce ate a glitter green crayon, sneakily climbed under 2 pews to see her friend hallie, and jeremy looked like he just ran a marathon when i tried to find him after sacrament meeting (which is last) since he took Pearce out for the last 15 or so minutes. hahahaha