First Father's Day

The day before Father's Day, an exciting thing happened. Our realtor was on vacation so we were wandering around on our own checking out a couple of the new home builders/neighborhoods that we felt we had narrowed our house search to. We stopped in a brand new neighborhood to get a list of the spec homes and see what the prices were like. We had been looking at both new and existing homes but in the end just weren't finding any existing homes that made us excited and so the search over the last 2 weeks had been more focused on new homes.


While it would be nice to build our own home from scratch, we didn't want to wait that long to get into a house (our lease is up in August). And I don't have issues with spec homes because I'm fine with buying a home where a designer, who designs homes for a living, picked paint, tile, etc. out because we are certainly not the experts! Anyway, we checked out the spec homes in a brand new neighborhood (the models just were finished) and walked through a couple we liked. One of them really interested us because it had 3 bedrooms downstairs (including the master) AND the media room was downstairs. This was the first house we had been in that had the media room downstairs. Typically we had been looking at houses with only the master downstairs and all other bedrooms and media room were upstairs. Since we have Max and someday will have other little children, I just don't like the thought of them being so far away from us when they are little not to mention I'm not interested in trucking it upstairs in the middle of the night if they wake up. :) The house was still in the stud phase so it took some imagination to figure out what went where and what it would look like when it was done. But, we had been in enough homes at this point that I was getting good at seeing the final vision of the house when all that was up was the studs.

It's a bit of a spoiler - but we ended up thinking back about this house quite a bit over the next few days, had our realtor check to see what the builder could do as far as lowering the price, and eventually when the builder came back and said they could lower the price $27,000 from the asking price, we decided this was the house for us! More on that to come but I wanted to remember that the day before Father's Day was the first time we saw the house.

Back to the good stuff - Father's Day! June 17, 2012. Peter's first official Father's Day!

Max was up early so I quickly took him out of the bedroom so Peter could sleep in. We made good use of the time while Peter was sleeping. We made Peter a Father's Day Card.

This was Max's first time using crayons. He only wanted to eat them...

...and wrinkle the card...

...and then throw it on the ground.  :)

We gave Peter a picture frame to put Max's hand and foot print in and take to work. We also gave him work out clothes, headphones, and an armband for his iPhone when he's working out.

To Dada From Max

Best Father's Day Card Yet!

After opening presents we went on a run to test Peter's new clothes. Max was not happy about it (mainly because we made him wear the hat).

Unhappy

REALLY Unhappy

Funny Family Faces

Whew! That was a fun run!

It was great to celebrate Peter. Last year I wrote a short blog about why I was looking forward to Peter being a father. You can read it by clicking here. I went back and read this and Peter is all of that and MORE. He has been a better father than I even imagined. He adores Max. He is so attentive and helpful. He misses Max when he has to go to work and he loves playing with him when he's home. Max LOVES his dad. He's a daddy's boy for sure. Peter can make him smile and laugh like no one else can. I am crazy grateful to have Peter as my partner in parenting.

I love this picture because you can see how much Peter loves Max.

"Daddy's Best Friend"

My two favorite guys - Handsome and Handsome

Other Fun in SLC

The trip to SLC wasn't very long but we sure worked hard to fit in as much as possible.  It stinks to be in SLC and not have enough time to see everyone we want for as long as we want.

After everything was cleaned up from the shower, we headed back to our hotel so our neices and nephews could go swimming.

P-dawg and his Dr. P

The kids had a lot of fun swimming.  The Amos family - Kimberly, Tyler, and Kaitlyn along with the Millars - Alex, Tawny, Payton, Jaxton, and Lola all got to enjoy the pool plus my mom! 

Here's Peter helping Lola swim.

 Tyler!  (I wish I had more pics of everyone but it's hard to get a good picture of people when you are at an indoor pool.)

The big kids hanging out by the pool.  Casen and Shannon came over and hung out for awhile too!

 It was a full, fun Saturday - that's for sure!

 SUNDAY...Happy Father's Day! - We got up and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Blank's for another visit with them, my mom, and the Amos.  Then we went with the Amos's to do a little last minute Father's Day shopping.  After the shopping, I was able to finally able to quench one of my cravings - Old Spaghetti Factory.  It was so yummy!  Here's Peter, Ty, and Kimberly at the restaurant.

 Kaity and Ty outside by the fireplace.  It was chilly and rainy. (A refreshing break from HOT Dallas)

 After lunch we headed over for a visit with Peter's Grandma and Korben.  Then we went back to the hotel and fed the ducks outside with Alex and his family.  I haven't fed ducks forever - it was a lot of fun for all of us - even Peter.  I've got to remember this for a family activity idea...  Peter found the duck that was talented enough to catch the bread mid-air!

 Payton was brave and got up close with this goose and fed him out of his hand.

 Alex with the proof that he can catch a duck if he wants.

 The whole group - Alex, Jaxton, Lola, Payton, Tawny, and Peter

 After the ducks we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Blanks to celebrate Father's Day.  It was great to visit with the aunts/uncles/cousins on that side.

Monday - we didn't have long until we needed to head to the airport but we made the best of it.  We went to breakfast with Alex and his family and then headed to a park for some short fun on a playground.

Peter and Lola at breakfast

 Uncle Peter was a lot of fun at the park - here he is pushing Payton on the swings.

 Jaxton

 It was harder to leave SLC this time than it's been in a long time.  This trip was a reminder of how many people there are in that city that we love and are important parts of our lives.  Now we just need to figure out how to make sure this baby gets to know these special people too even though we live so far away.

Father's Days to come

Next year we will celebrate Peter's first "real" Father's Day.  This year, in anticipation of all the years to come, I figured I'd share 10 of the reasons I am looking forward to Peter being a father.

1. I think it looks so cute to see my big teddy bear of a husband holding a baby.
2. He's talked about things he wants to do with our child since we found out we were pregnant.
3. He loves to play with our neices and nephews and I can't wait to watch him do that with our son.
4. He has been a great "father" already with reading/learning about our growing baby as well as reading about how to raise a healthy, happy baby.
5. He already serenades the baby on his guitar (plus one stellar performance of Journey's "Don't stop believing").
6. He has always wanted us to be parents and never waivered from that even during those years I didn't.
7. He is going to be an involved daddy.
8. Since he is the perfect balance to me as a partner, I KNOW he is going to be the perfect balance to me as a parent.
9. He knows so much that he can pass onto our son.
10. Peter has a huge heart (don't tell him I told you) and can teach our son to be strong AND tender.

My son sure is lucky to be getting Peter as a father!