Millar Cousin Day

Friday was just as full as Thursday was.  Except today was "Millar" day!  All Millars..all day.  :)

Sweet baby sleeping - he was up like 4 times during the night.  Sheesh. 

He slept best once we finally let him sleep in our bed after like 5 am.  Poor kid was over tired.  He wasn't on his normal schedule and the only naps he typical got were in the car to/from SLC and Layton.  Normally he would never sleep in the car.  That changed on this trip.  He ended up sleeping like a champ during our drives.  Luckily we were on a road quite a bit so while he didn't get his regular naps, he did get some sleep during the day.

Happy to play with the monkey on his car seat. 

Today he was all decked in the red Under Armour outfit Uncle Alex and Aunt Tawny bought him during their trip to Texas.  So, as you can see I had the BYU hat ready to go and combat all that red!

I love those lips.  Max has the most perfect lips!

The man that bought my mom's house owed me some money since technically his first month's utilities came out of my mom's deposit.  So we stopped by his (her) house to get the money.  I was really nervous about how it would be to be at her house.  The man was really nice, he invited me in while he got the money.  I met his daughter, about 4 or 5 years old - very cute.  And they had a cute little dog running around.  I know it would make mom happy to have a young family with a dog living there.  They had painted the house a bright green and their furnishings/room arrangement was much different than mom's.  While that was a little shocking it was also good because it helped cement for me that it wasn't really her house anymore.  But then I looked at the windows and saw they still had her window treatments which also made me happy because it felt like a little part of her was still there.  It went much better than I thought it would.  I still cried when I got back in our car because it was a little bit like reality slapping me in the face.  I can still vividly see her standing on her porch waving goodbye to us as we drove away the last time that I saw her.  I can also feel the tight hug that we shared that trip also on her porch.  It wasn't a usual quick hug but the kind where you deeply embrace someone almost as if you are hugging their soul and sharing your love for them.  I don't know why but that particular hug has stuck with me and is one of the things I think of most frequently when I think of her.  I miss her.

I tried not to think of her too much on the trip but it was still there - the emptiness she left behind.  I felt like it was my duty to go up and visit her grave, so we planned on doing that during this trip.  But I put it off until the last day and then we took too long getting ready so I said that we didn't have enough time to do that AND catch our flight.  In reality, it might have been a little tight on time but we could probably have made it.  Or we could have gone nearly any other day during the trip.  I really just pushed it off because I didn't want to do it (and I think Peter understood that - he was quite considerate of my feelings all week).  Like I said, I felt it was my duty and that people expected me to do it but I didn't want to.  I'm not sure exactly why...  maybe I am in denial...maybe I am connected to her and not the space she is buried...maybe I don't want to deal with any emotions that might be felt going there... I don't know.  All I know is that *I* didn't feel like I needed/wanted to go and that is okay.

Anyway...

We stopped for lunch at Crown Burgers!  Peter was trying to still be healthy during the trip both in his eating and working out daily, so this trip wasn't all about the food we wanted to hit while we were in town (like it usually is).  He ordered a burger without cheese - - where has my husband gone?!  However, going to Crown Burger made me miss my mom.  She loved Crown Burgers and we usually went together when we were in town.

We then headed over to Peter's Grandma's place again in West Valley City.  It was my goal during this trip for everyone to get to see Max a couple times.  It's sometimes hard to catch him at that perfect, happy time.  Usually the window is about 1 1/2 hours and then it's time to eat or time to sleep.  So, I wanted people to have a couple chances to see him.  It's not like if we spent the entire afternoon somewhere that he would be happy/awake/etc that entire time.  Max got to spend time with his cousins who didn't get to meet him the night before at the musical because he was at Tammy's house.

Cousins!  Harleigh, Madison, and Max

Madison and Max

Morgan and Max

Madison, Max, Morgan, and Momma

Rose (Grandma's friend), Gram, Max and Daddy

Because Grandma watches kids during the day she had some fun toys for Max to play with.  He liked this microphone.  She made me laugh because when Max was babbling, she believed he was saying "kitty" and was telling us that he wanted us to get him a "kitty".  I tried explaining to her that he had never been around a kitty, it wasn't a word that we had been saying to him, and that I was sure he wasn't saying "kitty". He was just babbling.

Max and Cousin Mariah

Max really liked interacting with Mariah

Video - Here's Max interacting with Mariah and playing with Peter's iphone

After visiting with the cousins in West Valley City, we headed to Alex's house.  This is what we saw when we drove up and I felt it needed to be documented - Alex doing yard work!

Cousins!  Lola and Max - - she was so excited to see him and wanted to help with him

Aunt Tawny and Max

Payton and Max

Uncle Alex and Max

Jaxton and Max

Max, unhappy about being held by Uncle Alex

Getting kisses from Uncle Alex

Goodnight!  Max had a great day with almost all of his Millar cousins.  (Even Korben had paid a little attention to him.)  He did great at letting some people hold him for a little bit of time.